English Language Learners

11:00 AM

I haven't!

Anonymous

I don't have any reason to expect that it's less demanding in terms of resources than Flash, but hey, it could be. Worth trying, maybe?

Damkerng T.

I'd like to, but don't know how. Maybe it's because I haven't upgraded my browser.

Oh, can I just click "Request the HTML5 player"?

Anonymous

Dunno!

Damkerng T.

Right now, the only one browser that works has this message from YouTube: You're using an older version of Mozilla Firefox that we'll soon stop supporting. Please update your browser to the latest version.

Jim Reynolds

Is that essentially a DRM protection move? Seems I read that somewhere.

Damkerng T.

11:02 AM

Apparently, they've already stopped supporting the older version I have.

Anonymous

Ah, yeah, they want everyone on the update treadmill.

MARamezani

Hello world!

Anonymous

return EXIT_SUCCESS;

Jim Reynolds

Dam plays Pong on an Atari machine with his cat.

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani Hello, earthling!

@JimReynolds LOL

Anonymous

11:04 AM

We have a user on Japanese.SE named Earthling. 'Cept he changed his name to Earthliŋ.

MARamezani

Your cat. So how old is it?

Damkerng T.

@JimReynolds And lost.

Jim Reynolds

Chomps on @MAR 's leg!

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani About 5yo.

Anonymous

(For those not in the know, ŋ is the IPA symbol for a velar nasal, the sound represented by ‹ng› in earthling)

MARamezani

11:05 AM

@JimReynolds Huh? Why isn't my laptop falling yet?

Jim Reynolds

lol

Damkerng T.

Gonna take a break. See you soon.

Jim Reynolds

Because, as you know, I am almost toothless.

Anonymous

Later, Damkerng!

Jim Reynolds

Bye.

MARamezani

11:06 AM

@snailboat Is it common in Japanese?

TTYL Dam!

Anonymous

@MARamezani Depends on the speaker. It's more common in English.

Jim Reynolds

I'm an English teacher and never found it necessary to learn IPA.

Anonymous

[ŋ] is an allophone of /g/ for some speakers in Japanese

MARamezani

@snailboat Dialect difference?

Anonymous

@MARamezani Not dialect, accent

MARamezani

11:08 AM

Nods

Anonymous

But the nasal allophone of /g/ is disappearing in Japan. You hear it on TV and radio because it's felt to be a beautiful sound

MARamezani

/g/

Anonymous

And many speakers around the country never use it

MARamezani

Yeah its beautiful.

...But I don't get its beauty.

Anonymous

[ŋ] tricked me as a learner! I expected people to pronounce /g/ as [g]. And people do. But sometimes it's [ŋ] instead :-)

Anonymous

11:10 AM

So when I heard okagesama deshita with this allophone, I thought I heard okanesama deshita!

Anonymous

But eventually it wasn't a big deal :-)

Anonymous

@JimReynolds IPA is just a tool.

Anonymous

You don't have to use it.

Anonymous

But if you want to, you know where it is!

Anonymous

It's useful for discussing pronunciation in writing. Without the IPA or something similar, it's much more difficult.

Anonymous

11:12 AM

But we do have some other useful tools, like lexical sets!

Anonymous

→ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Anonymous

So we can talk about the FLEECE vowel or the DRESS vowel, and so on.

MARamezani

Wow we do lack some reviewers in chemistry!

Anonymous

And we don't need IPA to do that.

Anonymous

And of course, you don't need IPA to actually say something to someone.

MARamezani

11:14 AM

Okay I think @Jim gave up!

Anonymous

I don't think we were arguing

MARamezani

Still he gave up!

Oh, so this year's April fool joke is Stackegg.

Anonymous

Tamagoverflow.

MARamezani

@DamkerngT. What do you mean? What should we avoid? I can't see your message as a reply to one of mine.

Damkerng T.

11:37 AM

It's about using relative pronoun superfluously, e.g. instead of saying I think it's true, a relative-pronoun version might be What I think is that it's true.

MARamezani

Aaah! That discussion!

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani It's not ungrammatical, but it should be avoided, at least in writing.

Yeah!

Umm... StackEgg reminds me of Lost!

Someone must click something every 108 minutes!

MARamezani

in The Periodic Table, 13 mins ago, by MARamezani

I wanna close Stackeggs as a homework question. It's just asking for help so much!

Anonymous

I liked season two of LOST.

Anonymous

The button-pressing season.

Damkerng T.

11:43 AM

Ah, you must like our StackEgg, then!

Anonymous

As I recall, being stuck pressing a button every 108 minutes was a form of purgatory.

Damkerng T.

Oh, I thought it was a new idea!

Come to think of it, it was indeed like the purgatory.

MARamezani

Purgatory

Purgatory, according to Catholic Church doctrine, is an intermediate state after physical death in which those destined for heaven "undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven". Only those who die in the state of grace but have not in life reached a sufficient level of holiness can be in Purgatory, and therefore no one in Purgatory will remain forever in that state or go to hell. This theological notion has ancient roots and is well-attested in early Christian literature, but the poetic conception of Purgatory as a geographically existing place is largely...

Huh?

Anonymous

> Oh dear! You have neglected your Site so much that it is on the verge of being shut down. Only flagging for moderator attention can help it now.

Anonymous

> Oh no! Your Site was doing so badly that there was no choice but to shut it down entirely. Bummer. But don't be discouraged, just try again!

Damkerng T.

11:45 AM

Hah!

Oh, I can upvote/downvote now!

Anonymous

I killed Tamagoverflow!

MARamezani

Site is in public beta.

Damkerng T.

> Help! Your Site's users and quality stats are dangerously low. Something needs to be done about that!

MARamezani

@snailboat watch:

Damkerng T.

Oh, I wonder if clicking on Downvote will increase Quality!

MARamezani

11:47 AM

@DamkerngT. It will.

But it'll reduce user love

Anonymous

@MARamezani Well, that's both graphic and interesting.

Damkerng T.

Reminds me of Parazyte!

I guess it will take about an hour.

MARamezani

Dam are you messing with stackegg?

Damkerng T.

Yes!

MARamezani

Oh then I'm the second guy.

Damkerng T.

11:50 AM

Second?

Anonymous

Are you trying to tell us that the multiplayer thing isn't a Big Lie?

MARamezani

2 users have voted

Damkerng T.

Oh, I didn't even notice that! I just click in advance!

Anonymous

Wins of the internet is silly.

MARamezani

What isn't?

Damkerng T.

11:53 AM

:D

0

A: What does 'reflect' mean in this sentence?

Here reflect means "be consonant with" or "in keeping with". The plants will be arranged along a gradient, perhaps, from those needing the least water to those needing the most, with the water entering the soil so that it reaches the thirstiest plants first.

It sounds like he found the whole article.

> 42 days have elapsed – your Site is in public beta.

Yay! I like 42!

Anonymous

You should be able to change your vote.

Damkerng T.

2

Q: What does "solipsistic universals" mean?

I want to know what is the meaning of "solipsistic universals" in the following paragraph: To say this will be a personal book does not mean that it is purely subjective, a mere sharing of anecdotes and fantasies, or a self-indulgent "confessional" filled with solipsistic universals. I gues...

> Original: To say this will be a personal book does not mean that it is purely subjective, a mere sharing of anecdotes and fantasies, or a self-indulgent "confessional" filled with solipsistic universals.

> Robo-translate: Please don't take this book as it's entirely from my view, or just a sharing of my personal stories and fantasies, or a place that allows me to do however I want whatever I think.

Anonymous

StackEgg is too hard.

MARamezani

Yeah. And too stupid.

Damkerng T.

I think it's designed for people with an extremely short span of interest.

MARamezani

12:00 PM

Or for bored people.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

People with a short attention span? "Twenty seconds? That's way too long to wait!"

Damkerng T.

Compared to Unicoins, I think I like Unicoins better.

Anonymous

That's me right now.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I emulate myself to be one. Click! Switch to read ELL for 15 seconds. Switch back! Click!

MARamezani

12:03 PM

I'm Stackegging in chemistry. 55 days.

Anonymous

I apparently killed ours on Japanese by clicking 'nothing' over and over

Damkerng T.

:D

Anonymous

So we ended up back at 0 days :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh, no!

MARamezani

Good for you.

You did the right thing.

Damkerng T.

12:04 PM

I wonder how many days it is.

Anonymous

Probably depends on whether you kill it.

Damkerng T.

Judging form the progress bar, I guess it's around 130 days.

Hehe!

Anonymous

I like that you can only use moderator flags when the site is in desperate need.

Damkerng T.

I found myself clicking on Downvote more often than in real life!

Are they trying to hint me something?

MARamezani

Me too.

Anonymous

12:08 PM

Probably "give me a hint"

Damkerng T.

That's interesting! I've never thought that hint someone something would sound odd, but it seems like it does!

MARamezani

Apparently someone else is bored too in chemistry.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. ELL could probably use more downvotes.

MARamezani

13

Q: StackEgg - what is this thing called "fun"?

Is there an aim to this game? To play, click the side bar image --> Is this to educate people or just be "fun"1? Also, is it multi player? 1 Great use of dev time! :P

discussion april-fools stackegg

Damkerng T.

I think it's safe to say that it's usually either hints at or hints that. Thanks @snailboat!

Anonymous

12:16 PM

@DamkerngT. Yeah, with hint as a verb. In this particular case, the light verb construction give somebody a hint might be more natural, though

Damkerng T.

A possible alternative in plain English: Please don't think of this book that it's entirely from my view, or just a sharing of my personal stories and fantasies, or a place that allows me to confess whatever I think however I want. — Damkerng T. 10 secs ago

I think the main site's responsiveness is lower a bit. Don't know if it's because of StackEggs.

MARamezani

Hehe!

Anonymous

I noticed that, too.

Damkerng T.

Oh, hey! 90 days have elapsed – your Site is in public beta.

Maybe the scale is non-linear.

MARamezani

107 days here!

Damkerng T.

12:21 PM

Yay!

MARamezani

I got four stars in all of them!

Anonymous

Did your site graduate?

MARamezani

For the 2nd time.

@snailboat Not yet.

Anonymous

If you work quickly, then, you may still be able to kill it.

Damkerng T.

Hey, it's graduated!

MARamezani

12:24 PM

It's hard to beat 16 stars!

Anonymous

Congratulations, Damkerng!

Damkerng T.

I don't know if I should feel happy. All I see is another long progress bar!

Anonymous

Haha!

Anonymous

So the game doesn't end?

Damkerng T.

No, the bar changed to "Progress towards winning the internet"

But now I can vote to close!

Anonymous

12:26 PM

Aww.

Anonymous

I hoped the egg would have a snail in it.

MARamezani

They know how to pull legs. I should learn a thing or two from them.

Anonymous

Snail eggs!

Damkerng T.

Eh? What's the red stuff?

Anonymous

12:27 PM

Substrate. Coir.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

I'd've called it brown, but there's a reddish tinge to part of it

Damkerng T.

The eggs remind me of some kind of food. Hee!

MARamezani

They remind me of grapes.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Strangely enough, people do eat those.

MARamezani

12:30 PM

Yakh!

Anonymous

I agree.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat You mean the real eggs!?

Anonymous

Yep.

Anonymous

They call it "snail caviar".

Damkerng T.

Eww!

Anonymous

12:31 PM

I mean, I wouldn't eat caviar caviar either.

Damkerng T.

I tried once (or twice?). Didn't like it.

Anonymous

I wonder how many languages use reduplication like that. Caviar caviar.

Damkerng T.

Thai loves this kind of duplication.

Is it real? [real] [real].

I guess many languages have it.

(Oh, and don't ask me when we would use [real] and when we would use [real] [real]!)

3

Q: Time phrases problem

There are four questions I'd like to pose. I know the difference between "last year" and "in the last year" - the first meaning the year before this year, and the second meaning roughly "from 365 days ago until now". I also know that we use the perfect tense only with the second clause. But doe...