The Frying Pan

Cya hon

6:11 AM

@ElendilTheTall So, I heard a rumour the BBC is going to reboot Doctor Who.

7:21 AM

I'm back (sort of). I am running Dragon's accuracy optimization tool. Total system hog. Just chatting is straining my poor tired 'puter. I've donned reading glasses, and have started Master and Commander on my phone.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory left me vaguely unsatisfied. I may read the sequel someday.

Heh. Everything of Dahl's that I ever read left me specifically unsatisfied.

7:36 AM

I wasn't sure as I read it whether or not I had read it as a kid or had only seen the movie. The very end clinched it. I read it as a kid and was startled by the ending. They kidnapped the mother and remaining grandparents. They never consented to travel.

Plus, the Oompa Lommpas seemed a lot to me like slaves.

7:48 AM

Mmm. I'm all for a bit of the macabre in my childrens' lit, but Dahl's works struck me as pushing further into the misanthropic and sadistic than I was ever comfortable with. Revenge fantasies and whatnot.

Interestingly, with the $7 purchase of Master and Commander for the Kindle, I also got Treasure Island and Pride and Prejudice. I'm sure both of those titles are free for the Kindle (public domain and all that) but interesting none the less.

Huh. That is interesting.

"People who like Master and Commander also like..."

Especially since just yesterday, Tall referred to Master and Commander as Austenian.

Speaking of which, The Eyre Affair is a good read if you haven't yet.

In an alternate universe where literature is the big pop culture fad, a villain uses mad science to steal Jane Eyre straight out of her own book--making it immediately go blank because it's told in the first person--and holds her ransom.

Hmm, interesting concept.

7:59 AM

It's a lot bigger than that, with a lot of great worldbuilding, but those are the broad strokes. Also there's a scene where Richard III is performed RHPS style.

Pretty well reviewed. I often don't agree with reviews, but they're a good place to start.

Ha!

@BESW there are few things I care less about than Doctor Who

@Jolenealaska CYE, if your steam-powered calculating engine will handle it

Dick gone wild - Best condom ads

8:17 AM

►

These are awesome! :D

I'll just file that away for after work...

yes :)

The first one me laughing all the way through the second.

I had to restart the video.

Speaking of, Dragon has finished its work...now I will restart with new and improved (hopefully) VtoT.

sweet

Okay, I am now Dragon equipped.

sweet

how could you test it i wonder

8:31 AM

At some point I think I should reread to it the excerpt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with all of the expression I would use if I were reading it to a kid. The biggest problem I am facing right now is that Dragon chokes if I use other than a very monotone, very steady voice.

It doesn't like expression.

However, I haven't edited yet, and it seems to be faster than it was before the recent optimization.

i suppose it is mainly geared towards business dictation

Unfortunately, I don't write like that. Dictating a book like the one I'm trying to write is very different from dictating a business letter.

Calculon - Dramatic... PAUSE!

I can imagine

►

I wonder if I actually said "than" instead of "from" in the last line, so far, that is my first edit of what Dragon has typed.

Hi rumi!

8:39 AM

@Jay So, a real fan, then.

Ha!

That one is great.

I am just waiting for the perfect opportunity to use this:

the two slices of bread in my bag are going a little moldy though

:D unfortunately, I can never be that blunt.

pfff

Even if I'm calling somebody on being an idiot, I sugarcoat it in euphemisms and "IMOs".

8:46 AM

I'm that blunt on a daily basis

nut up or shut up

I remember one time when I was in charge of training new veterinary assistants who came into the job with no experience.

The clinic would put newbies on the the midnight shift for a week or two, under my tutelage.

One new employee was (IMO) hopeless.

Instead of an IMO, preface your statement with "Because I respect you so much, I'm not going to sugar coat this: you are a fucking moron." (for example)

I'm great to work for.

I was trying to show her how to do the very simplest of dosage calculations.

Often, we are told to give a drug with the instructions X milligrams per kilogram.

So, if the instructions read "15 mg per kg sq", and the dog weighs 55 pounds, how much Benadryl (at 50 mg/ml) do you administer.

Simple.

Any idiot who can convert pounds to kilos should be able to answer that.

375mg?

Certainly any high school graduate, which was a bare minimum qualification for the job.

8:54 AM

oh, ml

7.5?

Oh no. The dreaded Animated Gif disease makes its appearance.

or does kg sq mean kg²

@FaheemMitha keep talking, it'll disappear upwards

55#= 25 kilos...

Just the weight of the dog.

25 x 15 = dose in mgs

25 kilos x 15 mg (dosage) = 375

divided by 50 milligrams per milliliter

= 7.5 mls of benadryl in the syringe.

I'm not familar with the term "kg sq".

yay, I was right

first time for everything

9:00 AM

This is day one of veterinary assistant training.

Certainly, it will be a long time before we would trust a new employee to actually administer what she pulled up without checking it first, but she shouldn't be baffled by the very concept.

It's one thing to not know how to convert pounds to kilos.

It's another thing entirely to not be able to do it after your told how.

But that wasn't even the big problem here.

Somehow, this girl graduated from high school not knowing the principle of cross-multiplication.

It's not just that she didn't know what to call it, she didn't understand what I was doing when I showed her.

A little later we needed to do a percentage calculation.

There came a point that I realized she didn't know what percent meant.

I asked her, "If I say that 20% of Alaskans have blue eyes, that's 20 out of how many?"

She said (direct quote) "30?"

>.<

time to bring out the sliced white

At this point I told the doctor (in front of her) that there is no way I can train this person to ever be competent.

@ElendilTheTall sliced white?

At best, she can be taught to clean shit out of kennels.

But there was more to my bluntness than just not being particularly nice.

I was driven by a duty to the patients.

We occasionally would have on duty substitute doctors.

A substitute doctor would have no way of knowing that this person is an idiot and can't be trusted to perform even the simplest dosage calculation.

Ever.

You cannot take somebody who did not learn how to cross-multiply or even the definition of percent in 13 years of school and ever hand her a vial of morphine and point to a patient.

I was called to the carpet that day for saying that in front of the idiot new employee, but to this day I'd do it again.

@rumtscho see the above Gordon Ramsay gif

@Jolenealaska some kind of forehead brand or tattoo perhaps...

9:13 AM

@ElendilTheTall ah, I see

That is the only way that person could ever work in a veterinary clinic that occasionally used substitute doctors. She was a menace.

Eventually she did get demoted to shit scooper, but it took a while.

oh...btw sq is short for subcutaneous.

aaah

the penny droppeth

you use sq for subcutaneous?

we use s.c.

As opposed to IM (intramuscular) or IV (intravenous) or, oddly, po (orally). po is short for per os.

if that's common practice in the US and not a typo, I have a UX problem in my tumor database!

9:19 AM

Never. s.c. would cause me to ask the doctor what exactly he meant.

There are a few things though that are unique to veterinary medicine that you would never see in human medicine.

do you know if this is veterinary specific or also used in hmane medicine?

If there is a difference, I wonder what the practice will be in animal experiments done for human medicine!

I have seen it in human medicine, but I'm not sure if it's the norm.

medilexicon.com/medicaldictionary.php?t=84179

One that I know of that is different in veterinary versus human medicine is q.d.

'quietly dirty'

9:22 AM

In veterinary medicine that means once per day. I forget what is typically written on prescriptions for humans, but it's not that.

> SC, subc, subcut, subq, SQ subcutaneous "SC" can be mistaken for "SL," meaning sublingual; "SQ" can be mistaken for "5Q" meaning five every dose

This is what the allknowing Wiki tells us

Now if I saw 5q, I would ask q what, since q means "every". Twice a day might be abbreviated BID, or q12.

Three times a day is TID or q8.

q8?

This doesn't make sense even in Latin...

ah wait

it could be a quotient such that there is one dose every 8 hours

That would be read every eight hours.

The "hours" would be assumed. TID is actually more commonly seen.

The thing I would always stress to newbies is to always ask if there is any question at all.

We would get to know how each doctor wrote orders, and I can't think of a single time that there was a miscommunication that led to a mis-administration.

I did some research @rumtscho, there are different types of halva.
- Flour based
- Fruit based
- vegetable based
and Legume based halva

(Hi)

9:29 AM

@Gigili this doesn't cover nut based ones

Hi @Gigili.

Yeah, and nut based

or turrone, which is egg white based and also called halva in some places

Turrón

Turrón (Spanish: [tuˈron]), torró (Catalan: [tuˈro], [toˈro]), torrone (Italian: [torˈrone], Brazilian Portuguese: [toˈʁoni]), turrone (Sardinian: [turˈrone]), torrão (European Portuguese: [tuˈʁɐ̃w]), turon (Tagalog: [tuˈɾon]) or nougat is a confection, typically made of honey, sugar, and egg white, with toasted almonds or other nuts, and usually shaped into either a rectangular tablet or a round cake. It is frequently consumed as a traditional Christmas dessert in Spain as well as countries formerly under the Spanish empire, particularly in Latin America, Italy and the Philippines. == Re...

It is frequently studded with nuts, but the main mass is egg white based

@rumtscho US high schools are dodgy. Then again, so are most high schools in most places.

@Gigili so your usual halva is flour based?

9:31 AM

I taught kids at UIC and UNC for a while. They were terrible. And these were people that had managed to make it into a university.

@rumtscho weird, I had this just yesterday. they're selling it in Lidl at the moment

@FaheemMitha better a dodgy high school than no high school at all

@rumtscho Interesting, missed that one

@rumtscho I was about to say that

I think if you have a diploma and can't define "percent", the diploma is worthless.

@Gigili not everybody calls it halva, it's a regional name.

9:32 AM

@rumtscho True

And high school was just a waste of time.

Time better spent cleaning kennels.

Well, maybe the lady in question had hidden talents.

I sure as hell hope so.

That lady was Sarah Palin, right?

:D

The whole thing with poor Sarah is that she really was a great governor for Alaska until the VP thing.

9:38 AM

consultar su correo, jolenita

You really don't have to be brilliant to be a governor of a state with 700,000 people.

@Jolenealaska Actually, that sounds like a lot of people to me. By US standards, anyway.

Religulous - You don't need to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate

►

I remember an interview with Ms. Palin where she was unable to come up with the name of any periodicals she read regularly.

It's always good to know the running of government is in such capable hands.

I don't read periodicals either

9:41 AM

Though India has the US beat. The Lok Sabha supposedly has 1/3 convicted criminals in it. I don't have a good source for this, but I've heard it from different places, including newspapers.

And she probably has more demands on her time than I do

@rumtscho Presumably you read the net, though. And part of being a politician would be looking at papers, I imagine. Even if someone has gone through and snipped out the interesting bits for you.

I think in the interview she mentioned reading papers, and then was unable to come up with the names of any. Of course, she could have just got flustered.

yes, normally they'd have a press team or at least an advisor who would clip out relevant stuff and compile it for them

@ElendilTheTall That would still count as reading the newspaper, imo.

@ElendilTheTall I don't know how it is done. Maybe the press team predigests it to the point where there are no original newspaper articles left to read.

9:44 AM

@rumtscho If that is the case, that sounds like a bad idea.

Again, just imo.

@Gigili most important in that halva conversation, did you make your cake?

Another thing about Palin is that she surrounded herself with smart people, so she could just be cute. We kind of liked that about her! She has a reputation for being very conservative (which she has milked), but she really isn't. She was very populist as Governor. Again, not hard with a constituency of 700,000.

65% of whom are blind drunk at any given moment

True 'nuff that.

I have never seen anything elsewhere like the Community Service Patrol in Anchorage.

@ElendilTheTall there is no breathalyzer in the voting cabin

9:51 AM

@Jolenealaska Alaska has a very small population for a state that size. But I guess it doesn't have the most hospitable climate.

Kind of like Canada.

Hospitable is in the eye of the beholder.

@Jolenealaska What is the Community Service Patrol?

I was about to explain!

@Jolenealaska As in, not -30C.

@Jolenealaska what is a Community Service Patrol? Sounds like a bunch of people who decided to watch their neighbours and wave a finger on them if they do some despicable crime like throwing a wrapper towards the thrash can and missing.

9:52 AM

Or whatever. I just made up a number.

@FaheemMitha you live in a place where +30C is seen as cooling off...

CSP goes around town in white vans picking up drunks. They respond to calls (if you run a bar and you need to get rid of a drunk, you don't call the cops, you call CSP)

@rumtscho We could do with some of that here.

and it happens to have a large population density

As far as I know, they keep no records.

9:53 AM

@rumtscho I never claimed that where I live has an hospitable climate.

They just keep the drunk in the van until he sobers up.

And then they let them go close to where they picked him up.

@Jolenealaska I was going to ask how they dispose of the picked up drunk. "Keep him in the van" is more humane than my wild imagination

But at least you wouldn't die out here if you spent the night outdoors.

Not that I would recommend it, regardless.

Unfortunately, there have been a number of reports of sexual assaults in those vans.

@Jolenealaska by CPS or by outsiders getting into the van?

or by drunks on CPS?

9:56 AM

@rumtscho Neither. One drunk in the van allegedly assaulted another. Such incidents have been reported a few times in recent years.

@rumtscho I have visions of a little snow-bound log cabin with Democratic Elves skipping about and free gingerbread when you vote...

I think they changed the policy. One CSP officer always stays in the van now.

@Jolenealaska Ah, I didn't even think of a "multiple drunks per van" situation. Although in hindsight, it's obvious that they won't operate a van per drunk person.

@Jolenealaska what a job :(

Lunch time here, see you all in a while

@rumtscho bye

CYA rumi!

There is no question anymore, Dragon is less of a system hog after it has had some training.

10:01 AM

that's good

I have got to figure out though how to surf without it trying to activate on every page I open.

There is a very annoying lag until it asks whether it needs to be active.

I want it to default to "no" until such time as I activate it.

Once I say no on a certain page, it will go to that page again without asking.

But I follow most of the links that come up in chat, and that lag gets really annoying.

hmm

when you say active, do you mean the mic listening?

No, turning the mic off (or telling it to sleep) is three syllables or one click of the mouse.

Easy, it has become automatic.

is there not a setting that says 'be inactive unless I say otherwise'?

But even with the mic off, it asks every time I open a new page whether it needs to come along for the ride.

You would think, but as of yet I haven't found it.

Typically, I might want it in chat, Word and Outlook.

Other than that, I want the computer to behave as if it isn't even installed.

10:12 AM

hmmm

check the settings for the dragon extension in Firefox

also, CYE

10:30 AM

Hmmm, the add-on is there, but I don't see any way to change the settings other than to always, never or always ask to activate the add-on itself.

oh web extension?

yeah

in Firefox

the only options I see are to disable it or not.

ah, ok

often you will find a settings button there that will take you to... the settings

but Nuance apparently hasn't seen fit to bestow one upon thee

there is probably a numbingly easy solution

I just haven't found it yet.

looking at the manual, it doesn't look like it

10:35 AM

It seems like such a no-brainer.

Why on earth would I want I want Dragon on YouTube?

I can only imagine that for a quadriplegic or something.

what an utterly bizarre new question

It really is only an issue in chat, but since I am in chat so much, it has gotten on my nerves.

"Why do restaurants cook food the way I don't like it?"

@Jolenealaska buy yourself some more RAM

it's about $20

I have 4 GB

How much should I buy?

@ElendilTheTall I see nothing bizzare in the question, actually

When a human being is involved in an argument, it's typical behavior to reach out to somebody (preferrably somebody considered an expert) and say "Tell him I'm right!"

We get this type of question very frequently

@Jolenealaska before you buy more, you have to make sure that your computer can use more

10:41 AM

@rumtscho it's windows 7, so the OS can use more

How can I tell?

there is an upper limit to how much fits in the mainboard, that can be found in the mainboard documentation

the more pertinent factor at the moment is determining how many DIMM slots are occupied on the board

if you don't have the documentation, it can be found by looking up the model number printed on the board

any modern board in a system running Win 7 should be able to handle at least 32gb

10:42 AM

also, if your OS is 32 bit, you can't use more than 4 GB (3.5, actually)

@ElendilTheTall is her board modern?

my OS is 64 bit.

Nowadays, computers, especially desktops, stay usable performance-wise for 6-7 years at least

@rumtscho it's a win7 computer, it's modern enough

The 'puter itself is about 4 years old.

@ElendilTheTall If it was bought with win 7, yes

10:43 AM

It was.

@Jolenealaska that's good

you'll still need to open it, to see the type of RAM needed, and count the free slots

@Jolenealaska press your windows key, then type (or say) system information

hmmm

actually, belay that

Windows doesn't report the physical slots like OSX does

yes, you will need to open it

@ElendilTheTall ah, is it findable somewhere in Windows? I don't know about that, I've always looked directly

jinx

@rumtscho no, I was mistaken. OSX gives much better hardware info in-OS

10:47 AM

"Available physical memory 1 GB" doesn't sound bad at all

I just vacuumed its innards (what a mess!), so the cover isn't even screwed on.

although I'm not sure about the optimizations it does. Maybe the OS is keeping some memory free for emergency situations

@Jolenealaska Oh! Don't do that!

It has to be brushed out

The problem is that vacuum cleaners will frequently get loaded with static electricity at the sucking part

so basically, jojo, you will have probably 2 or 3 slots on the main board. The RAM chips are held at 90° to the mainboard. They are about an inch high and 5 inches long

too late! I was a static-free vacuum nozzle, especially for the task.

I'll look

one or more of those slots will be occupied

10:49 AM

@Jolenealaska Ah OK, I didn't know that these existed

I've personally seen a standard nozzle sparking and killing a disk controller

@rumtscho I think she may very well be pulling your leg there rumi, my old china

luckily it was my dad who initiated and did the vacuuming, so there were no consequences for anybody

if I'd done it, as a teenager, my dad would have flipped out

I have 4 slots, two empty.

so you have 2 2gb DIMMS

do either of them have a label on them, like the picture?

so it would appear

I can't see any label

10:55 AM

ok

do all of the chips have to be the same?

the same type, not necessarily the same size

Can I add 4s to my 2s?

yes

After I shut down for the night, any harm in pulling one to get a better look?

10:58 AM

no, but there's no need

hold on to your butt

amazon.com/Kingston-HyperX-FURY-2x4GB-1866MHz/dp/B00J8E8YSY/…

yeah, that's no good for you :)

you need 1333mhz DDR3

Since I have never been a gamer, I have never experienced the "I want more power" thing. I have always had more computer than I needed for whatever software I had.

amazon.co.uk/Kingston-Technology-KVR1333D3N9-8G-1333MHz/dp/…

amazon.com/Kingston-HyperX-FURY-2x4GB-1333MHz/dp/B00J8E91K4/…

11:01 AM

sorry, that's uk

you don't need hyperfury mega super duper stuff

amazon.com/Kingston-ValueRAM-2x4GB-1333MHz-DDR3/dp/B00BD7QKT4/…

good grief, Amazon's listings are a mess

crucial.com/usa/en/ct102464ba160b

bam

actually, no, that's 1600

jeez

trust you to have a computer with RAM they made once in a small artisanal memory-smith's in 2011 before blinding the guy who made it

case in point:

Hey Jude!

HIIII

Good Evening everyone!

how should i say even though i'm the youngest i'm good in my work ?

@Jolenealaska ^

"Even though I'm the youngest, I'm good at my job"

but it's an odd thing to say

11:11 AM

@ElendilTheTall @i need a nice way than it

yep..I was about to say...at, not in :)

I may be young, but I know my stuff.

i mean mixed with rich english

@CrazyNinja what is "rich english"?

"I may be young, but I know my stuff" would be a very typical American way to say it.

@Jolenealaska I like this ^_^ thanks

@rumtscho i was looking for something that Jonlenea has just told

OMG. Someone younger than me is here!!!! He is 20 and i"m 21

11:17 AM

To say that would be quite cocky, so don't say it if you can't back it up.

but he is just an intern -_-

@rumtscho Not yet, will update you with the picture soon, maybe tonight

@ElendilTheTall so would this work? On Amazon I get free shipping.

(Sorry I was away from keyboard)

amazon.com/Kingston-ValueRAM-2x4GB-1333MHz-DDR3/dp/…

11:18 AM

@ElendilTheTall That's ... amazing

can I add that to the RAM I already have? Should I replace the chips I have?

Time to go! Good Bye

Bye CN

Come back when you can stay a while!

@jolenealaska That should be fine. You can just add it. You don't need to replace it. 12gb is better than 8gb!

So just plug it in and restart?

11:26 AM

Yup

Well, turn the pc off first ;)

Would this be a reasonable "next" upgrade?

amazon.com/…

The performance boost would be negligible

You'd be better off switching to an SSD

can you show me?

Basically it's like a giant USB stick, which replaces your 'traditional' hard drive

You know how apps open more or less instantly on your phone or tablet? That's because they're stored in Solid State memory. It's much faster than traditional hard disks

Ah

11:30 AM

Well, you can replace your drive with a solid state one and get similar performance in your pc

The caveat is you would need to do a fresh windows install

But you'd still have your old hard disk if for any reason you had trouble, of course.