Not The intended Use by JTony Loves Brains
June 21st, 2008 3:18 PM / Location: 37.785728,-122.4056As many of you know, I started my new job this week.
It is part of my new job training that I am required to spend time "participating" in many hour+ long conference calls as a silent observer (if one can observe audially). This means sitting on the phone listening, but absolutely quietly.
Our phones are perfectly fine phones. Lots of buttons and functions, fairly comfortable handset, etc.
However, our phones lack one very important function.
There is no mute button, nor is there a key function allowing for mute.
The handset is fine, but holding a hand over the mouthpiece for more than an hour is simply a painful proposition. Even 20 minutes proved to be too uncomfortable to continue. I used cello tape and kleenex as a muffle, but I could not trust it to be adequate enough a silencer.
Next to my computer, right next to the phone, sits these lovely headphones. Normally I'm not all that interested in the big, over the ear headphones, but this is what they gave me, so I'm not complaining. They do a great job of blocking out the noise of the office as I'm working.
Hey, the earpiece is the perfect size to cover my ear,
and the earpiece of the handset of the phone is the perfect size to fit over my ear,
and the mouthpiece of the handset is the same size as the earpiece of the handset. Would it fit snugly enough into the earpiece of the headphones to create a proper "cone of silence?"
Yes, it fits, and perfectly. Almost too perfectly, like they were made to be used this way. What an idea of putting headphones and telephones together... maybe there's something to that idea....
I clamped the other earpiece of the headphones to the back part of the handset (and actually used cello-tape to hole them together, though it is not shown here) and listened into the conference calls for 3 days (about 8 hours worth, total) in relative comfort. Well, if only the handset were more comfortable and it didn't irritate the ear. But at least office sounds, my breathing and coughing and grunting and howling doesn't irritate the ears of the other conference participants.
And tomorrow I get real comfort!
My new telephone headset came in, and it has a mute button! Funny... they put the headphones and handset together, but in an altogether different way than what I was working with. Maybe that idea needs some more thought....
My Phone
Lots of buttons!
So many buttons...
... but none of use! There is no MUTE!!!
Not built for comfort...
A simple, utilitarian handset. Holding my hand over the mouthpiece gives very limited muting success.
Big Headphones!
They block out everything, letting keeping you focused on your work!
Look Here!
Perfect for covering an ear and blocking out the outside noise! Could it cover something else?
Hmmm...
The size looks right!
Yay!
It fits perfectly.
Clamped
I actually used cello-tape to clamp these together.
Finally!
A final solution... a headset with a mute button!
11 vote(s)
Flea
5
Ink Tea
5
Darkaardvark
5
Rachel's Reflection
5
Optical Dave
5
Rainy
5
JJason Recognition
5
Not Here No More
5
KristinawithaK
5
teh Lolbrarian
5
Xena
Terms
(none yet)38 comment(s)
That is a wonderful reinterpretation. It's a crazy feedback loop of a sentence - headphones nominally intended for better audio output used on an input to muffle your audio output so you can sit and receive other people's input.
For a minute there, I thought you might be starting to use a telecon for purposes it was not intended.
HMMm. That's interesting. I've never gotten the red x before. And for a task I obviously completed to the letter.
Will those who flagged be kind (and brave) enough to say why you flagged so I may properly adjust and perhaps rid myself of this X? Thanks.
...welcome to the Red-X Club?
Yeah I don't get it either. It's a nice completion; in fact I think I'll go vote for it.
Also, whatever happened to the SF0 Demon posting about every red x?
interestingly, when i look at this task in the praxis view, it isn't listed as having any flags.
i'm thinking this may be a bug.
Interesting. I'm seeing that also - and yes, this is odd.
Out of curiosity, how many flags is it supposed to take for a praxis to get the X? Does it vary with the level of the task?
I believe the number of flags required varies with the number of votes it's recieved, which makes sense. I don't know exactly how.
Well, I suspected Shenanigans from the start, but I didn't want to go pointing fingers at anyone.
I think the lack of any flags (or posts by the daemon) means a bug is way more likely than a shenanigan.
I am noticing that, in spite of this proof not showing any flags in the praxis list, that several of my other tasks have recently been flagged numerous times. These were tasks that were uncontroversial for the most part (and certainly not controversial enough to receive that kind of flaggage).
I am coming to believe that someone has it out for me... someone with a lot of sock puppets. If this is true, it saddens me, because if such a person were to just come forward and air their grievances with me I'm sure we could work something out, instead of this. I am in fear of some of my favorite completions being red-x'ed because someone is mad at me, and that would hurt very much. If this is not a bug then I ask whoever is doing this to please stop doing it and talk to me instead. Please.
I have sent a message to SS&I about this bug, including an exhaustive list of those tasks which received the X without an sf0 Daemon post that are completely unflagged. There are presently five of them. There's also at least three tasks, and possibly more, which have been flagged and have gotten the x without the Daemon posting, and may or may not be victims of the same bug.
I am not aware of any pattern to the affected tasks.
These two tasks were both posted on the 13th of the month.
at some point there was a pre-tired task that called for players to do the opposite of whatever they would normally do. someone decided to start flagging every task he/she deemed to be a good task. i could be wrong but i think the automatic big red X was temporarily turned off and then changed. maybe that had something to do with it? i dunno
The other victims of the red X that don't have any flags - and can thus be regarded as known cases of this bug - were posted on the 29th of April, the 27th of January, and the 26th of April, so I'm pretty sure the date thing is a coincidence.
I sent a note in to SSI as well, though not specifically looking at this task as possibly having a bug.
My note to them was a more general request for further understanding about how the X works (how many flags = an x... since in the various texts it says 5 and then 6 and then there's the question of the votes, etc.) and to request a "revoke flag" option, since flags are often used to try to spur folks on to better task completions and once they'd bettered their completion it would be nice to take back the flag you'd given them.
Now I'm wondering if I should be asking about a revoke-negative-comment-vote option to pass on to the dear "friend' who has been hounding me of late.
hey kittens, don't forget sfzero has included many seemingly arbitrary X's in the past, way before the flagging system was introduced...
we not only need to please one another, we also must please the random, imperfect sfzero bureaucracy.
So, what's with the consistent comment neg-voting for JTony? Click on his text page and you'll see it's consistent -3/-4 across the board, with different scores coming because people have voted the comments back. Is someone trying to stir up shit? Because they're dumb.
Perhaps Mr Unit was right. Maybe comment voting/flagging isn't something we need now.
One thing I will say in defense of comment flagging (since comment voting is obviously not an issue) is that it is better than a public spat. Sometimes people feel very strongly about an issue and they might make a strong statement. there's not much of a way to discuss it without someone becoming (unintentionally) combative. I think this clock task is an OK example of that.
But this does seem to be going a little far. Maybe everyone would be happier without the comment flagging.
I'm just finding it kind of surprising. Comments that are obviously innocuous or even just bland are getting flagged, and multiple times (which means a group of folks is mad at me or it is someone with lots of sock puppets). I thought I knew who it was and that it would stop once I'd made peace with them, which I thought I'd done. But the negative reviews keep coming in. Bleh.
It's really weird. Did the flagging start as soon as comment votes/flags became available?
:: puzzled ::
Pretty much. That first post I did on the clock task that Lowteck mentions above is where it started.
Does it affect the game enough to warrant this sort of attention?
I negative comment voted on two of JTony's comments because everyone else was doing it, and I thought it was just "one of those things" that people do, i.e. "Hey! Let's all change our player photos and names!" or "Hey! Let's start war on The Soho Project!", but in this case, it was "Hey! Let's all negative comment vote JTony!
So, JTony, I apologise for any inconvenience I may have caused, and, as further clarification, have +5 points on your Player Photograph.
No foul, really, Ben. It was just annoying when it kept happening just to me and on comments that no one could find offensive. Disheartening, actually, because I felt unwanted and unliked.
Still sad this task has the x, but I guess that just means I have to find some way to resubmit it.
I still hold out hope that there is a bug the admins have yet to identify.
Because I don't believe anyone flagged this completion, whether or not they dislike you enough to flag your comments all the time.
Hehehe, I can just see some random database crossover between comment flags and task flags. It would be really amusing, and actually explain quite a bit. For example, the Daemon could only check the number of flags to see if it should post about the big red X when the flag button is clicked, but the number of flags for actually displaying the X could be checked when loading the page.
...or something.
Given that what we call "comment flags" are actually entirely different from flags in how the database handles them (I believe), I don't think that's the issue. Also of the above-mentioned other confirmed victims, this one had no comments on it at all, and several others had no negatively-rated comments unless those comments generated enough positive ratings to hide this fact from us.
Interesting hypothesis, though.
I'd suggest resubmitting it to see if it clears the flag...
This proof was un-submitted - any comments before this one are from before the un-submit.
Well, we'll see what happens now.
Hey JTony,
I dunno what's up with the inexplicable flagging, but I personally can't figure out why anyone would have a reason to single you out for some hating. You're a great contributor to the SF0 community, with both thoughtful comments and thought-provoking praxis. Keep on tasking!
Part of your audience and fan club,
Rongo
Thanks you Rongo and KwaK both for your kind words. So far it seems to have worked.
Yay for physical audio hacks.