DEV Community

The Stack Overflow Podcast

Stack Overflow Podcast #91 – Can You Stump Nick Craver?

Welcome to The Stack Overflow Podcast #91, recorded Tuesday, October 11 at Stack Overflow headquarters in NYC. Today's episode is brought to you by Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles. (חג סוכות שמח) Sukkot is the Jewish holiday where you have to eat and sleep in a temporary hut that you build in your backyard. "Oooh" - David Fullerton

In this episode you can learn way too much about the New York Transit Museum, the word "Stack" at Microsoft, and the etymology of Channel 9, where Joel was interviewed last week with the help of gender neutral robot cameras.

We have two new segments debuting this week:

  • Introducing Stump Nick Craver! Here's how it works, we call Nick Craver (@Nick_Craver) and he will have 60 seconds to answer 5 questions about servers. If he answers all correctly, he will win a 6 month supply of Clorox Toilet Wands. As it turns out, a 6-month supply is exactly one wand.

  • Developer Stories! Where we talk to developers who have cool or interesting stories to tell about how they got into computers and what they build with them. Our very first guest to tell us her developer story is the brilliant Dr. Omoju Miller (@OmojuMiller), a data scientist who is interested in data-driven, machine learning approaches to solving business problems. In discussing one of her blog posts that Jay was particularly struck by, she says:

"I am the kind of person that had a very different, non-stereotypical upbringing. I had toys that were not gender specific. I had planes that I could fly down the street... I had robotic little rats… I had Legos, I had Barbies, I had Easy-Bake Oven… In our house when we were playing it was like we were building worlds. So you had to do the engineering to figure out how to build your building, you had to figure out what was going to be your power generation supply. After you built the house, you had to figure out what you were going to eat, what you were going to wear... It was a very holistic thing. Maybe because of that kind upbringing I have the ability to imagine worlds that don’t exist and just invent them. However, for a lot of people they’re bound in their imagination by what they’ve seen. And a lot of the ways in which we consume knowledge about who we can be is actually true media. If you keep on seeing images that don’t reflect a certain gamut of who you can be, then you have a very narrow view of what you think you can actually do in the world, especially when it comes to technical professions.”

For this week’s installment of building Stack Overflow’s Constitution, our hosts ask the controversial question, “Are you allowed to stand over the IT person while you wait for them to reset your password?”

Listen as our hosts talk it over and then tweet to us using #StackOverflowPodcast: PRO if you think that you should be able to stand over them and wait, or CON if you think that you should go back to your desk and wait for them to notify you. The best explanation, whether you are on the winning or losing side, will be read next week on air as well as win a fabulous Stack Overflow sticker and no Clorox Toilet Brushes.

Last week's winner for the question, "When you are at the supermarket, should you be able to eat an item BEFORE you get to the cash register?" is:

"Pro, the only problem is fitting on the scales after snacking by the bulk bins. #StackOverflowPodcast" - Jonathan Lisic, @jlisic

Congrats Jonathan, you win a thing!

See you next week!

Notable Links:

Episode source