I love thunderstorms, but my best friend hates them. And then there's my cat, who just meows through the whole thing if it's not his turn to be out of his room.

@crayzeedude lol

@Kev testing....

@Ashley I figured

Aha!

@RPi yes that works

That's slightly confusing...

It just takes it a second to decide who to ping...I think you have to be active in the room for it to work.

@AshleyNunn Awwwh :P

My internet hath farted out

@RPiAwesomeness yeah, active in the last N days I believe, you also get notices if you're not currently in the room (they're different though)

and it's back

Dangit: 5-3570k $149 Fry's - Price Match at Staples

It's LGA 1155 and Ivy Bridge :(

@StrixVaria wat. I can look up on what track a train will be in any station in Belgium months in advance. It's not neccesarily right, but changes are nearly always properly displayed on some display in the station itself.

And the number of sales on the GTX 780 is insane.

@KevinvanderVelden 24 hours since you last were in the room IIRC.

@AshleyNunn Sounds like you made it right

@Arperum The infrastructure here is less than stellar, so we can't predict with any accuracy which tracks will be operable more than 0 minutes in advance.

@AshleyNunn Does your spoon stand up straight in it?

That's garfield's test

And autocomplete for 12 hours after you left the room.

Not looking forward to another winter of commuting, now that I think of it.

Delays constantly.

@StrixVaria Ugh.

@StrixVaria 3DS! Or books.

Books! All the books!

Also, I am halfway through book 3 of Empress

@StrixVaria We have these too. Rain =>delay because weather. snow =>delay because weather, sun=>delay because weather.

I've had all three situations before.

@FAE I've been reading since I got back from paternity leave.

Just finished book 2 of the Lightbringer by Brent Weeks this morning.

Hmmm, I don't think I can finish Metroid Prime 3 tonight, so I guess I'm not starting Pandora's Tower until Friday night. At soonest.

Having to wait for more then an hour in the freezing cold is no fun. Escpecially if tyou can't go inside because they always increase the delay time with five minutes at a time...

@StrixVaria Get it in now. In a year, you'll be reading Hop on Pop for the 4,394,233rd time.

@AshleyNunn Did you read Night Angel by him?

@StrixVaria I know of his Night Angel stuff but haven't read it yet

@JasonBerkan I won't be reading Hop on Pop to myself on the train.

@FAE Read Night Angel first, because so far IMO it's better than this one. But if you like it, Lightbringer is also good and worth reading.

BBL ladies and gents.

@StrixVaria You can't get it out of your head.

@AshleyNunn It's worth reading if you liked it.

@JasonBerkan My friends who have a 5-year-old recited an entire bedtime book by memory last week.

I'm going to reread Night Angel soon-ish.

I read it way too fast the first time.

Also! People here should read "Please don't tell my parents I'm a supervillain" by richard roberts

@StrixVaria My father-in-law as Dr. Seuss ABCs memorized. He holds the book open with his grandkid on his lap and recites it while he watches the baseball or football or curling game.

It is awesome

@AshleyNunn I see the trilogy in this nice little box set in bookstores often and it tempts me.

@KevinvanderVelden I think I might go up to Indigo early on Friday and Jochem will come up after work. Do you want to exchange numbers so we can try to find each other?

@AshleyNunn aaaaahhhhhhh

@FAE sure, sounds good :)

Can you chat from the steam web interface?

btw rhyming in English is bullshit

@KevinvanderVelden I don't think I have you on Steam but I think I found you in the Arqade group based off of knowing your Minecraft name.

@FAE yup, that's me

I read the Night Angel trilogy immediately after my first reading of The Name of the Wind. For reference, The Name of the Wind was immediately my favorite when I read it. And despite coming off that high point, it was still really amazing.

@badp Rhyming is about how it sounds, not how it's written.

@StrixVaria Oh wow.

@StrixVaria I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT "FOUR" AND "WAR" SOUND ANYTHING LIKE EACH OTHER

@badp it's the best! Here's a test. Can you rhyme thyme and time? Would put a video on vine?

@badp Aside from the initial consonant, they are identical. How in the world do you pronounce them?

@StrixVaria wat

just. wat

@badp They sound the same.

This is slightly less mind blowing than "marry" "merry" and "Mary"

"Four" and "war" both rhyme with "door".

@badp They do rhyme, indeed. "four" rhymes with "for", not "flour"

@StrixVaria what the actual fuck

@badp I'm really really interested in how you thought they were pronounced.

and whore and chore and pore and cor!

Isn't there actually a "u" sound in four?

@badp No.

Nevermind the ambiguity of "u" sound in engish

of course there's through that rhymes with two.

There's an "aw" vowel sound.

@StrixVaria which is nowhere in "door"

Forgive my lack of IPA precision.

So, I hear the new Steam store works better in IE11 than it does Steam's version of Chromium built into the Steam browser.

IS IT "AW" OR IS IT "OH"

Which is just downright sad.

WNPOIRWHAPOTUHBQIUPTHWQIOPTHWQPOIUHBWIUQRHBOPWQIHR

headsplodes

@badp Different dialects may say the sound differently, but they'll all rhyme "war" and "four".

for, four, fore: /fɔː/

@badp AW

@StrixVaria headsploding intensifies

@AshleyNunn This is a very Canadian way to say it.

flour, hour, our, tower

@Powerlord I don't pronounce "our" to rhyme with those other words.

@Powerlord I'm okay with those.

@Powerlord I'd pronounce those all slightly differently

and two then rhymes with new and hue

But then I'm a posh tit

@Powerlord Unless tower means someone who tows.

@StrixVaria Well, yeah, our can be pronounced differently.

@JasonBerkan Isn't English great?

@Powerlord I pronounce hour and our identically.

He's not the only one who does that

@badp I can't even imagine what a "u" sound in "four" would sound like.

@JasonBerkan I emphasize the "h" on occasion because it's hilarious.

I say "our" like "hour", but some say it closer to "are"

I'd say 'ow-er' for hour and 'Ah' for our

@fredley this sentence made me lol for some reason

@MBraedley "our" and "are" are identical in my local dialect.

'How-er'.

@FAE 'Tit' is a very funny word. For example... "titmouse".

@FAE It's an entirely factual statement

@MBraedley I do this

If you want to sound really titish, pronounce 'Shower' to rhyme with 'Tar', as in 'Shar'

Actually the more I think about it, I say our like hour when I am speaking more formally, and our like are otherwise.

@StrixVaria Except if I say "ours", then it rhymes more with "hour"

Actually, why is w exempt from the "double the consonant" rule in English? If you don't know what I'm talking about, consider that run becomes runner, but row becomes rower.

"I'm going for a shar"

(and tow becomes tower)

Or is it just ow that's exempt?

It's not uncommon for me to hear "What is our position" or some similar sentence with "our" pronounced as "are" though, and depending on the company I'm holding, I might say it like that.

Okay, I tried saying them out loud and I'm sorry for your headcanons. Still, all of "war" "four" "door" and "for" sound all different to me, although it's not as different as it was in my head.

@Powerlord you could ask at EL&U

@MattЭллен Don't feel like registering a new account.

@FAE "ars"

@Powerlord because it's english and any rule that doesn't have a dozen exceptions is looked at like a third class citizen

→ 1 bajillion messages moved to English Language & Usage

@badp this is an amusing sentence

→ bacon moved to Mouth.

@badp Also I am immune to headcanon breakage, mwahahaha!

@FAE You've just had it broken a few years ago :P

@badp true

@badp Just because you speak a language where everything rhymes by default

@badp I can't listen to .wma files here :(

I am going to go eat food then figure out how to listen to this .wma file.

this is adorbs

@StrixVaria dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1164414/temp/wtf.ogg

@MattЭллен Yay, canceled and cancelled are even mentioned there.

@FAE not on friday you won't be! =p

vlc ftw

On friday, many a headcanon will be broken

@KevinvanderVelden I've heard you on Mumble!

@FAE true!

@Powerlord I tend to alternate between British and American spellings for this for some reason

my accent isn't completely regional to where I grew up anymore either though, because of living here

Is it bad that I see this question and wonder why it's not "How can I get my people to have more sex?" or something like that?

Given our predilection for crazy titles.

@Powerlord I don't know how it works in tropico, but that was definitely a thing in black and white

Morning, Bridge

No longer sick

@FAE I hope this has an RSS feed

@Batophobia well it is on wordpress

This is way too cute:

Apparently there's a tumbler feed

@KevinvanderVelden b'aawwww

I still haven't seen that sequel yet

Lets post cute versions of big things

@Powerlord It's probably because that would imply a partial answer to the question (it implies that population in a game is increased by reproduction)

Oh no?

@AshleyNunn It's close enough to lunch now, just go eat.

@AshleyNunn Oh no?

@AshleyNunn That sounds really good.

I like pasta-type stuff.

thanks

@Unionhawk You're welcome.

also damn that image is small

@AshleyNunn This is the worst thing

Prepare for lift off

:D

@AshleyNunn \o/

party

@AshleyNunn Yay!

@Powerlord Isn't that one because of the fact that the long consonant sound is to be preserved and so you keep it one consonant away from the "e"?

@AshleyNunn Drink more coffee

@AshleyNunn Quite!

Though I suppose if you instead went with an example like "brew -> brewing" that'd illustrate it better.

And otherwise remind people that there's no actual rules in our language. Simply constructs.

Yeah, was going to say, English is kind of inconsistent because it's inconsistent.

@AshleyNunn They probably saw your resume and were like "oh snap! It's that @AshleyNunn person. I've heard she's super rad."

It's consistent, really. People just try to apply arbitrary logic where it doesn't exist in complete parallel to the actual consistency.

@AshleyNunn Add hot water.

So, it's just around 1000 years or more until Half-Life 3!

@AshleyNunn More choices for jobs means you have more leverage, as well, thereby allowing you to boost your quality of life.

It's like, "gh" is silent in certain circumstances. Like weigh, highway, through. Or it's an F-ish sound like in trough. Or it's a hard sound like ghetto. Rather than think about arbitrary rules that work with certain exceptions, it's easier to just accept that much like "A" sounds like whatever it wants to in whatever situations, "GH" is basically a "letter" that has certain sounds. Kinda like how "LL" is a letter in Spanish.

@AshleyNunn Those are the best jobs.

I like guaranteed weekends off.

@AshleyNunn change is the worst.

Except for on-call, but that comes with IT work. Not much you can do about that.

> Coke is to Pepsi like Toblerone is to Taco Bell-fueled diarrhea.

I see the weirdest things on TheDailyWTF boards

@AshleyNunn Because you're awesome.

If one accepts this reality, and the extension reality that "Any word's pronunciation is due to the word itself and no other factors", then English becomes a lot easier to make heads and tails of.

It's not even the only language with this kind of style to it, either.

@GraceNote But it's not just that. You can often guess how a word is pronounced because of roots and stuff

Yeah, there are similarities and derivatives. Loanwords are a pretty solid example, they use their originating manner.

@AshleyNunn That last is a benefit I don't have.

And that sounds like a good benefit to have.

That you even categorize it as a "guess" is all the more point to the fact of the reality of the language. It's not a bad reality, it's just futile to assume otherwise.

@AshleyNunn I have never heard of that as a job benefit.

@AshleyNunn Oh, they're actually taking deductions off your paycheck?

You mean your current job isn't?

@AshleyNunn How annoying.

@AshleyNunn It also lets them be lazy and not have to do payroll taxes and stuff like that.