The Overlook Hotel - 2015-08-28

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9:07 AM

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Q: Is this too much of a coincidence?

Is it too much of a coincidence? Before the book my main character worked in a place where they wiped peoples memories to stop them for rebelling and she ends up in a confrontation with one of the people she's trying to keep a hold on for the process. When the books starts it's after an accident ...

4 hours later…

12:39 PM

0

Q: How do I get rid of the tic of paired adjectives, predicates, etc.?

In technical writing, I have a tic of writing in pairs. Some examples from a recent piece: "When you speak, be sure to be clear and concise." "Face to face conversation is personal and private." "Great communicators know how to provide the right degree of guidance and structure. I'd like to g...

technical-writing editing

12:57 PM

0

Q: SOS. How can I start to write again?

I wonder if anyone has any words of inspiration for me? I am newly graduated and after 4 years of studying Art I realised not only was I the only person to actually enjoy writing their dissertation, I also greatly missed writing. I have never been a creative writer (that may be to come...) but I ...

academic-writing non-fiction essay beginner inspiration

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:22 PM

@bilbo_pingouin I am extremely skeptical of such tools.

For one thing, it purports to detect the passive voice, yet the passive voice is possibly one of the most misunderstood things in English. Most people seem to equate it with being vague about agency, and even Strunk and White didn't get the passive voice right in their examples in a book trying to explain about what kind of writing to avoid.

The "reading level" test probably (if it's one of the typical tests) measures mainly sentence length, which means total gibberish is readable if your write short sentences.

The advice about "long sentences" is mainly an arbitrary cutoff. How does one determine if a sentence is too long?

The advice against adverb use is also fairly bogus. Lots of times you can combine an adverb and a verb into a more descriptive verb, such as he sprinted instead of he ran quickly, but often you can't.

> Adverbs are helpfully shown in blue

helpfully is highlighted there. Sure, you could remove it, but that changes the nuance of the sentence.

In short, blindly following this tool's advice is unlikely to make for better writing, IMO.

Also I just tested it on some of my past writing exercises and found that it misidentifies parts of speech.

> “It’s clearly Infused,” said the Senior Initiate of Artifact Research.

> Replace "Initiate" with "Start"

um. no.

Also, the tool thinks my sentences are so long that they are "very hard to read".

To which I retort, "stop overusing adverbs"

That tool uses this to calculate "grade level":

Automated readability index

The automated readability index (ARI) is a readability test designed to gauge the understandability of a text. Like the Flesch–Kincaid grade level, Gunning fog index, SMOG index, Fry readability formula, and Coleman–Liau index, it produces an approximate representation of the US grade level needed to comprehend the text. The formula for calculating the automated readability index is given below: where characters is the number of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, words is the number of spaces, and sentences is the number of sentences. Sentences were counted by hand as each text was typed...

$user image$

That seems totally arbitrary to me.

Matt E. Эллен

2:39 PM

aye

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2:58 PM

A readability test should factor in a table of word frequency as well as cultural considerations of how old a person is likely to be when they learn it.

Also it should factor in metaphors, allusions, allegories, etc, that is, all references to external works, history, etc, and how accessible THOSE are.

and those factors should be weighted based on how important they are to the work in question.

"You're a Judas" is a very short, readable sentence, and totally opaque to people who don't know who Judas is.

lol. That tool highlights this sentence as having too many adverbs:

> Really?

huh, while investigating what its "don't use these big words when simpler words will do" list, I found a bug in their program.

rather, in their list

They have a space in the list of words, so "in some instances" doesn't actually trigger their replacement, because they have "in some instances "

Matt E. Эллен

3:25 PM

it hasn't spotted my adverb

> porridge is thought about quite a lot

don't know why it hasn't seen it

I don't get it.

> Porridge is almost thought about often.

doesn't mark that as passive

or note the adverb

> The cat the dog the mouse carried chased ran up a tree.

doesn't trigger "hard to read sentence"

so what does?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

length

Matt E. Эллен

pah

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:41 PM

yeah. especially since it doesn't factor in punctuation

Matt E. Эллен

yeah

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The sample sentence in red when you start that app is perfectly easy to read, but it uses a semi-colon to link two potentially-independent senteces.

Matt E. Эллен

user image

it's an interesting idea, but falls short of useful, for me

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah the rules are too simplistic.

anyway I emailed them a bug report.

Matt E. Эллен

yay!

1 hour later…

5:02 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 haha. I work hard to remove extraneous adverbs from my professional writing.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitZ.Fox Sure, they can be overused, but so can anything.

preaching to the choir

And hello.

How is today?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

5:22 PM

Hard to find motivation

I'd rather be playing with Lego

5:41 PM

I hear you.

Any new fun Lego projects lately?

0

Q: Constructed Language - how to spell words that will be mispronounced in English

I wasn't sure how to phrase the title, so it may be a bit confusing. Feel free to edit it if you can phrase it better. This question may be better suited for Worldbuilding SE. However, it is about how to specifically write a constructed language in English, so I put it here. Question: I have ...

fiction constructed-language

@JSBձոգչ Should take a look at that question ^.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

6:06 PM

@KitZ.Fox I got a new lego table. it's height-adjustable

Matt E. Эллен

just add more bricks!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Aside from that, I'm trying to build a motorized locomotive, which I've never done before, and I'm also still working on my "castle"

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 oooh

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

in English Language & Usage, 2 days ago, by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

user image

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Is that based on the one you made for the competition?

Oh, I don't think I've seen the castle.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

6:11 PM

@KitZ.Fox No. I motorized that one fairly easily by using a regular train motor bogey. The one I'm building now is a steam engine, and it uses a regular motor, which makes it considerably more difficult, and I'm a total noob at both motorized things and steam engines.

@KitZ.Fox I haven't posted many pics of it, it's in a very "early draft" state, but it has been for months, so...

you can see, in that pic, my son is holding the crank that raises/lowers the table. it can go from very low to very high, it's great. Got it at ikea.

Interesting. My eldest has started showing an interest in Technic, mostly because he can make it do stuff.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitZ.Fox yeah, technic. That's what I'm using. I have what I think is a working design for the motor itself, now I need to conceal it inside the locomotive and also build a locomotive. I'm not very good at locomotives. It's a slow process.

fun though. well, satisfying. well, rewarding. Um. Eventually.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

One reason the castle is taking so long is that it is modular (each floor is removable), it opens up like a dollhouse (makes certain kinds of internal structures complicated), and it's really tall. And I'm not sure exactly what kind of castle I want it to be.

So I've rebuilt each story a couple times now

it is all supposed to sit up on top of that mountainous base you see next to it.

That sounds really cool.

I am entering my time and just realized I screwed myself this week because I forgot I worked on Saturday.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

6:16 PM

It will be, I hope. The kids love it already, despite being unfinished, because they can just fill it up with crap. Like, one time, I came downstairs to find the castle covered in printed slope pieces, like the cash register or computer pieces.

@KitZ.Fox d'oh

Hahaha. That sounds awesome!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I like the things I build to have play features.

I wish I were a more skilled builder. My sons make really crazy, awesome stuff.

My things never work the way I intend.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it takes practice

I'm not a very skilled builder

It would help if I had more time/motivation.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

6:19 PM

but as Matt says, SGDI

Same as everything else, I suppose.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah

Yes! It's very inspiring.

SGDI.

I want to lose 20 pounds. I think that's my next big focus.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

my dr wants me to lose 20 pounds

he's probably right

I'm annoyed that whenever I think about my weight, it goes up instead of down.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

6:21 PM

at one point I promised myself that I'd walk from here to Toys R Us every day, and buy something once a week

Whenever I work out and try to be in better shape, it goes up instead of down.

I guess I'm not doing it right.

Wow, walking to Toys R Us ought to be a good motivator.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

my mom is using an app where she puts in her calorie intake and her exercise (she walks a lot now that she's retired) and the app tells her how many calories plus/minus she is from her target

@KitZ.Fox you'd think so but I only did it a couple times

mainly because I am bored out of my skull going for long walks alone.

yeah, I always feel like I'm increasing the burn and decreasing the intake, but that must not be what's actually happening.

I can't do tracking though. It feels way too obsessive.

I thought I might try the Zombies, Run! app though.

Make it a game.

Mostly, right now I hate that I can feel my stomach all the time.

It was one thing when I was pregnant. This is just ridiculous.

Matt E. Эллен

yeah. I'm getting a chubby belly. it's not fun.

I need to start exercising more

and eating less

And the disappointing lunch date made me even more self-conscious.

Matt E. Эллен

6:30 PM

:(

why was it disappointing?

She was much larger than her picture suggested, she smelled a bit, and she was really only interested in telling me how to do design? but better? because she heard from lots of customers? and she could be really helpful? for future testing?

Matt E. Эллен

could she? oh that's great? you'll keep her in mind?

are you looking for a designer?

probably not one from customer service.

But I told her I would put her on the list for UAT resources, because we are always looking for volunteers.

Especially knowledgeable ones.

Matt E. Эллен

true

And because I'm nice.

Matt E. Эллен

6:37 PM

Yes, you are

There. Download and installed and registered and verified with Zombies, Run!

Now I'm excited to try it out.

I need a new pair of running shorts.

Matt E. Эллен

google play should be a social network for app developers

haha, yes!

Her boss also intercepted me to ask me to please keep it short with her because she would otherwise talk all day.

Matt E. Эллен

:D

nice

I did a fine job of that. I assured him I was a pro at that sort of thing.

crud, OK, I'm headed home. I can feel my back fat. How is this even possible?

Catch up later!

Matt E. Эллен

6:42 PM

CU

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

ugh, I'm awful, while talking about losing weight I went upstairs and got a snack

Matt E. Эллен

snacks are the worst. luckily I'm too scroogey to buy them in bulk

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I work from home

Matt E. Эллен

me too

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

that's what's caused me to put on 20 lbs in 3 years

there's too much snacking possibility

Matt E. Эллен

6:50 PM

yeah. I have stopped cycling 18 miles per day

it's terrible

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

wow, yeah that's a big drop

Matt E. Эллен

I still eat the same amount

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

you need a stationary bike, to power your computer

Matt E. Эллен

that would be good!

I don't think I can pedal that fast :D

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

a friend of mine has a rack he puts his regular bike on, which lets him use it as a stationary bike during the winter

Matt E. Эллен

6:52 PM

I suppose I could start cycling 9 miles before I start work, just in a circle

then 9 miles miles at the end of the day

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Just bike half-way to your old workplace and back

Matt E. Эллен

or maybe just 9 miles at lunch

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yeah

9 miles is quite far

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

so is that your gf whose photos you keep getting tagged in on fb?

Matt E. Эллен

yes :D

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's hard to tell from what little I've seen but she seems nice.

Matt E. Эллен

6:54 PM

Yes, she is low profile on FB

she mostly uses it for sharing photos of birds with other bird photographers

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah that's perfectly reasonable

Matt E. Эллен

She is very nice :D

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

cool!

Matt E. Эллен

(sorry Hemmingway)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

heh

Matt E. Эллен

6:56 PM

she's a vet nurse in a near by town

we met on Tinder

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

huh, wow! so, it works!

everyone I know of who uses Tinder says it's just for hookups

Matt E. Эллен

I know! I wasn't expecting it to

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

btw I misread what you wrote as "wet nurse"

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yeah, that's what I heard

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 lol

but I don't think I'm a hookup type, even if I'd have matched someone like that.

the low bar to entry is good, though. just an FB profile and 3 parameters (age, gender, distance)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah me neither... well, who knows? I was never brazen enough to try back when I was single. Now it just seems faintly ridiculous.

@MattE.Эллен I tried creating a Tinder profile (for competitive analysis) and they wouldn't let me because they couldn't verify my phone using SMS

Matt E. Эллен

7:00 PM

oh! I don't remember if that was a thing I had to do

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The dating world sure has changed since I was single. There was no Facebook then. No Tinder. No Ashley Madison. You wanted to date, you had to meet in meatspace first.

Matt E. Эллен

:-o my previous girlfriend I met on MySpace.

but you have been with your wife for quite some time

wow, that was 9 years ago

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Yeah I got married in 2001

Matt E. Эллен

was that at the cusp of web 2.0?

I would have been in my 2nd year of uni

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it was in the midst of the dot.com crash

Matt E. Эллен

7:13 PM

ah. fun times :-s

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah. I was on a work placement from 2000-2001, and my company was stable at that time, so I was protected from the worst of it. Then I went back to school and completed my degree 2001-2002, and when I graduated much of the fallout was past.

I had a lot of friends whose co-op placements fell through part-way through though

Matt E. Эллен

that must suck

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

but it was okay, we were students, we had lots of time to turn things around

it'd be much worse for me now

if the tech sector totally collapsed

my career as a writer hasn't taken off yet

Matt E. Эллен

yeah.

lol :D soon, though!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I think it's sort of safe at the moment, in that everyone wants more apps for phones

when apps cease being saleable, then we're in trouble

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah but when I hear of things like snapchat being worth "10 Billion" I have to wonder what the fuck is wrong with our economy.

Matt E. Эллен

7:18 PM

true

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I have no idea how that $10B figure is calculated.

Matt E. Эллен

I guess it's the potiential off all the user information, or something

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

$10B valuation would imply that the company has revenue and profits, I'd say... except they don't.

Matt E. Эллен

There's only so many ways you can form a social network of media sharing, surely?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

my old company was sold for $100M and we were a long-running business that sold software to insurance companies

Matt E. Эллен

7:24 PM

I guess ad revenue is the big money spinner

FB Twitter and Tumblr all use ads

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah but the numbers still don't add up for me.

how much revenue are these companies making on ads to be worth $10B in stock?! I just don't get it.

Matt E. Эллен

it is quite fantastical. I can't understand it either

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 and @MattE.Эллен, thanks for your extensive answers on the tool.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

things like that worry me. Then I see almost the entire smartphone market racing to the bottom in unprofitablitiy: not even Lenovo/Motorola knows how to make money in the smartphone market, because smaller Android vendors are selling phones at a loss with no plan for sustainable buisnesses. Then I see the people making money (in the short term) from that market buying property in Toronto such that the average house price is out of reach of most of the population.

@bilbo_pingouin np

So I am concerned that the tech market, both software and hardware, could crash, and that would simultaneously crash the property market where I live

Matt E. Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I'm not sure the effect it would have here. there are a lot of tech firms here, but also a large tourist industry, universities, science parks, retail. So it would be bad for me and people like me, but we'd just make way for some other group

@bilbo_pingouin no probs

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

7:38 PM

yeah it might not be all that bad here, overall... there's a relatively large tech sector but it's not everything. But if the inflated property values are in any way connected to the tech sector, and they drop even a bit at the same time as a tech crash, I could be screwed.

Matt E. Эллен

aye. I don't think the inflated house prices in Oxford are related to the tech industry. I think they're related to the very wealthy students and other wealthy folks that live around here.

of course, I rent, so it would be good for me if the prices fell...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

All you need to do is invent a popular app, con some people into investing in infrastructure and advertising, then sell for billions of dollars.

Matt E. Эллен

simple!

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