English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

12:10 AM

@Robusto Downton is turning into a soap even more in the 3rd season, and I've only watched the first 11 minutes.

They have already introduced yet another Potentially Disastrous Problem.

And a very cliché one at that.

Robusto

And this is surprising why, exactly?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Here is an article about car electronics security. Apparently just about every single electronic component in modern cars is a vector for total compromise of the vehicle's control systems.

Cerberus

@Robusto Because...hey, look, a bird!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Compromise as in failure, or hacking/stealing?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus compromise as in executing arbitrary code on the various parts of the car. Remote unlocking doors, displaying false information on the dashboard (i.e. a lying speedometer), turning off the dashboard display, disabling brakes, etc.

David Wallace

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It seems to me that the notion that a machine can drive better than a human is predicated on the former's not being infected with any sort of malware.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

12:21 AM

@DavidWallace yes, that is certainly true.

David Wallace

So all of google's tests that show how much safer their unmanned cars are could be irrelevant to the real world.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But I would say that any assumption that a computer can perform any task at all usually rests on the assumption that it is working properly in the first place.

David Wallace

So, do I want to get into a car that will be piloted by a machine? Not today.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace Not necessarily. They just need to prevent remote take-over of the car.

@DavidWallace I dunno. I've gotten into taxis before. How much worse could a robot do?

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Haha, oh, that.

I think that was on the news a few months ago.

It was remarked that real-world problems were still not that bad, manageable, or something.

David Wallace

12:24 AM

So all I need to do now is write a computer virus that is passed from one car to another by honking. And I will take over the world.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus If you laugh, it's because you haven't read the list of things they were able to achieve.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You forgot that I laugh in the face of anything.

David Wallace

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 A robot will at least know where to go.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Sounds like a plan.

David Wallace

evil laughter ensues

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

12:26 AM

The real world problems are probably worse, because they only tested two cars and there are actually lots more cars out there with a greater variety of exploits.

The only mitigating factor is that right now relatively few people know of these exploits, and finding new exploits in embedded systems like this is costly, and the variety of systems means that your payoff is limited.

Cerberus

So this is about new cars?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

they were 2010 models I believe.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

did you read the article I linked?

Cerberus

Then the article I read was about the same cars, and the hyped risks were down-played a bit. But what do I know?

Nope.

I was too busy watching Downton.

David Wallace

12:28 AM

Never watched it myself.

Cerberus

It's so funny how they have "excuse" gays, feminists, Americans, Irishmen, single moms...just no Asians or blacks.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> The short-range wireless attack involved attacking the head unit's Bluetooth functionality. The team found that a compromised Android device could be loaded with a trojan horse application designed to upload malicious code to the car whenever it paired. A second option was even more troubling; the team discovered that the car's Bluetooth stack would respond to pairing requests initiated without user intervention.

> Successfully pairing a covert Bluetooth device still required correctly guessing the four-digit authorization PIN, but since the pairing bypassed the user interface, the attacker could make repeated attempts without those attempts being logged — and, once successful, the paired device does not show up in the head unit's interface, so it cannot be removed.

Mitch

what's an 'excuse' gay?

Cerberus

Is that even a term in English, an excuse [person from discriminated group]?

Too bad it isn't, then.

David Wallace

I think we say "token".

If I

ve understood you correctly!

Cerberus

12:30 AM

Yes, token would be close.

David Wallace

Damn! Who put the enter key so close to my apostrophe?

Cerberus

Hehe.

I always have that too.

user19161

@DavidWallace You need to do finger gymnastics then.

David Wallace

I do not need to finger gymnasts!

user19161

Also one needs to adjust his fingers according to different keyboards.

user19161

12:31 AM

For example, my desktop and laptop spacings are different.

David Wallace

Mr S&N - you live in Toronto, right?

Cerberus

I know what he's going to ask...

David Wallace

I bet you don't!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇?

user19161

He is asking precisely that.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace yes

David Wallace

12:33 AM

Does Toronto still have those crazy streets in the inner city that go alternately one way then the next, so that if you're looking for a particular number, and you don't know what block it's in, you've got to go in and out of the street over and over, till you guess the right block?

I bet taxi drivers just love them.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 So...you could make this bluetooth car-kit do evil stuff just by pairing to it? And can it in turn affect the central control system of the car?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yes

@DavidWallace There are some neighbourhoods like that.

user19161

Want to hear a silly joke about bluetooth?

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Wow, you made up a new question very quickly! I am impressed.

David Wallace

IALT

Cerberus

12:34 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's sick. So this must be recent research.

Stop using incomprehensible acronyms!

Mitch

@MετάEd hm...yeah, I'm not asking how to convert the labelled or actual dimensions of the standard named 2x4 of american lumber into metric. I'm asking for what is the corresponding dimensions of the closest thing commonly used in metric countries. is it a 5x10 (cm) or 4x11 or are they all square, or do they only ever use concrete or what?

David Wallace

@Cerberus You and Jasper both understood me. Mitch and Mr S&N may not have.

user19161

@DavidWallace Institute of Advanced Learning and Teaching?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus On re-reading the link I sent you, there are actually two papers discussed: a 2010 one that relied on local access, and a 2011 one that relied on remote access.

user19161

1 min ago, by Jasper Loy

Want to hear a silly joke about bluetooth?

Cerberus

12:36 AM

@DavidWallace I did not.

David Wallace

Oh come on, guys, it's a well known Gigilism.

user19161

Ah OK, I won't tell my silly joke then...

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hmm then my article must have had as much information as yours.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@JasperLoy just tell it without asking

Mitch

@Cerberus yeah it's 'token' in English.

Cerberus

12:36 AM

And reached different conclusions.

@Mitch Yes, well, "excuse" is a bit more than that.

user19161

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, I just wanted to say something stupid. Once someone told me about bluetooth and I said "What is blue tooth? I only have yellow teeth!" End of silliness.

David Wallace

Jul 10 at 11:39, by Jasper Loy

@Gigili I just figured out the meaning of IALT without googling or anything.

user19161

@DavidWallace I just figured what you mean when you mentioned Gigili.

David Wallace

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Why? It seemed dumb to me.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace Primarily to discourage traffic.

David Wallace

12:42 AM

There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with butter.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

sure, but if you've got lots of butter around, why not use it.

David Wallace

OK. I guess if I lived in a larger city, I would understand better.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

1:01 AM

They have narrow streets and they are typically 100% residential. So the idea is that nobody should be driving through there except the local traffic; through-traffic should use main streets. Therefore, they make the streets uninviting to discourage speeding and traffic and noise.

David Wallace

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 We generally make do with speed bumps. (Also known in NZ as "judder bars" or just "humps").

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@DavidWallace We often have those too. But I wanted to get some installed on my street and the city said no.

and speed bumps don't fully discourage people from going through, in my experience. They just do so by driving really fast, braking hard, bumping, then speeding up again, repeat until they leave the speed bump zone.

BTW the rest of that amazing Batcave is here

Cerberus

1:54 AM

> I'm so happy, I feel my chest will explode.

Is that something you would expect an earl to say in 1920, expressing his feelings about his daughter's wedding?

I would not.

There are more seeming anachronisms in Downton Abbey.

MετάEd

2:42 AM

@DavidWallace This is one of the worst street modifications to curb speeding. More effective changes are narrowing and meandering.

I am very impressed by my local roads department which has been removing speed bumps and installing devices such as small roundabouts to control speed.

David Wallace

Meandering?

MετάEd

@DavidWallace adding turns.

Even slight turns are very effective. Such as planting a tree between lanes and directing traffic to curve around it.

And I love the use of roundabouts instead of stopsigns at residential street intersections. It is not only effective, it saves energy.

David Wallace

We have roundabouts everywhere. They're a bit dangerous for cyclists.

MετάEd

David Wallace

At least, Lower Hutt has roundabouts everywhere. Wellington, not so many.

MετάEd

2:49 AM

These roundabouts are cyclist friendly: fortworthology.com/2011/10/05/…

We're not talking main arteries here, but narrow residential streets.

After this photo was taken, these were bricked and planted with flowers and shrubs.

fwweekly.com/2012/02/01/a-new-curve

I had a great talk once with a Santa Barbara streets architect about how great these are. The statistics are great: fewer accidents and less gas needed to navigate the streets.

And all they really wanted was to slow people down (which it also does), without angering them or damaging their cars (which speed bumps do).

The three islands in this project are apparently also going to be bases for some public art projects.

Cerberus

@MετάEd How do speed bumps damage your car?

They should be just steep enough to slow you down, but they shouldn't damage anything!

MετάEd

@Cerberus They are easy to overlook. If you hit them too hard they can ruin your suspension.

Cerberus

Well, how often does that happen?

MετάEd

Your thought may be, they should not cause damage. But in fact they do.

Cerberus

3:04 AM

I am inclined to say that, since they only damage cars that are speeding...

MετάEd

According to the civil architects it's enough to justify tearing them out. I'm not a civil architect; I just have to go by what I read.

Cerberus

I thought speed bumps were generally praised.

Roundabouts are annoying for everyone, at any speed.

MετάEd

@Cerberus That's a recipe for creating accidents that interfere with the flow of traffic. If you want to slow people down, why not pick the method that also doesn't cause other problems. I understand some people have a vindictive nature and may prefer cars to be damaged; I just consider speeding to be a public health problem and want the least disruptive solution.

Cerberus

The beauty of speed bumps is that they are not very annoying if you're driving at the right speed.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Speak for yourself. I have driven this street weekly for two years and I greatly prefer the roundabouts to the speedbumps and stopsigns.

Cerberus

3:06 AM

It does depend on the kind of speed bumps.

Some are too high/steep.

As a cyclist, I find some kinds too steep as well.

MετάEd

@Cerberus The ones on Elizabeth Ave were big but not too steep. I never grounded out, but the solution had me constantly braking to get to the other end of the street.

Now I hardly brake at all.

Cerberus

Why didn't you just drive more slowly along the entire street?

Safer and less pollution.

MετάEd

@Cerberus If you want people to drive more slowly along an entire street, the best solution is to narrow the street.

But if all you want is to prevent people from driving at dangerous speeds, you wouldn't go that far.

Cerberus

Yeah...but the cure is almost as bad as the disease!

It also seems dangerous.

Putting high objects on the road.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Did you look at the articles? The actual, factual experience is that roundabouts reduce accidents.

Ah, you mean speed bumps.

Cerberus

3:10 AM

I meant narrowing the street.

With poles or something, I thought.

MετάEd

Oh. No, you have to take into account the psychology of the driver. People simply drive slower.

Cerberus

I remember seeing some of those things damaged.

Someone must have run into them.

MετάEd

You narrow a street by moving the curbs towards the middle, or by opening parking on the street. People naturally drive slower. They prefer to drive like idiots on a wider street, so they go somewhere else.

See I think that's the best approach: work with people's psychology.

Cerberus

So then you would need to have separate biker lanes?

MετάEd

On Elizabeth Avenue the traffic is quiet and there is no conflict with bicycle traffic. On a busy metro street I would think bike lanes would be necessary.

Cerberus

3:13 AM

And how about a two-way street?

If it make it narrower, cars will still speed when traffic is quiet, which is when they normally do so anyway.

MετάEd

All they wanted to do on Elizabeth Avenue was deter the occasional crazy driver, and for that the islands are better than the speed bumps and stopsigns.

Elizabeth Avenue is a two-way street. I don't know what you are asking.

@Cerberus That might be your intuition, but in practice it is wrong. People slow down on narrower streets.

Cerberus

I mean, how can you make a two-way street narrow enough to discourage quiet speeding?

@MετάEd If they have two narrow lanes, it won't be narrow!

MετάEd

@Cerberus Have you ever driven residential streets in Chicago, Illinois?

Cerberus

Daily.

MετάEd

Then you know the back streets are often lined on both sides with parked cars, and the drivable portion is really quite narrow.

tchrist

3:16 AM

Just enforce a 15mph residential speed limit. It’s a lot safer, and bike-friendly.

MετάEd

There is room for two-way traffic to pass, but without a lot of room.

@tchrist It's easy to say, but it is much less expensive to engineer the streets so that the speed limit enforces itself.

Cerberus

@MετάEd Well, if there is enough room for two-way traffic, then how will it slow down a car if it is all alone on that road?

tchrist

I live on a 15mph street. I know entire towns where that is all they have.

MετάEd

Look into it. There's what people's intuition tells them, and there's what works. And what works is not always what intuition tells you works.

Cerberus

@MετάEd Well, streets around here are normally quite narrow. And yet cars speed all the time between speed bumps.

MετάEd

3:18 AM

@Cerberus People slow themselves down. People have great imaginations. A narrow road slows people down because it seems more risky to drive so fast.

Cerberus

That is, you would have to drive fairly slowly if cars were coming from the other direction.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Yes. Speed bumps are the worst. They work against psychology. They actually make people mad. And that is why you get the speeding. When you put in meanders instead, people calm down.

This isn't a hypothesis; it's been found to work.

My answer to any idea you have about what can and can't work is: show me the data.

No data? Okay, nice idea. Come back when you have data.

Cerberus

@MετάEd Okay, then compare two streets. Street A is a one-way street. It is fairly narrow, say 3m? Street B is a two way street. It is extremely narrow, barely broad enough for two cars from opposite directions to pass. Now if both streets are empty, where do you think cars will speed more?

MετάEd

@Cerberus What point are you trying to make? You narrow a street to the point where people slow down enough to reduce accidents and make the street safe. It isn't a matter of how fast a one-way street compares to the speed of a two-way street.

Cerberus

I am trying to suggest that a two-way street can never be very narrow. And people still speed on narrow one-way streets, so why wouldn't they speed on an empty, narrow two-way street?

We also have lots of fairly narrow one-way streets. People still speed all the time. I mean they are so narrow no two bikes could pass a single car, and one bike can usually not pass a car either. You can't make it any narrower.

MετάEd

3:23 AM

I mean, sure, if what you want is for people to drive 2 to 3 mph, you put in curbs just outside tire width and make it a one way street. That would be overkill except in very strange circumstances. You see curbs like that at toll booths.

@Cerberus I am not going to go down that road. The fact is that you can better control traffic by taking out speed bumps and using other methods; it seems to be a matter of psychology, at least in part; beyond that I don't care why, I care that it works.

@Cerberus There I suppose what you need, if the buildings permit, is more than just narrowing; a combination of narrowing and meandering might be better.

Cerberus

I think perhaps you are thinking of streets that are wider to begin with, and where people drive much faster than I have in mind. 50 km/h is already quite dangerous on most roads here, and the roads are already very narrow. People would speed even more without speed bumps, I see it happen all the time wherever there are none.

MετάEd

Meanders don't seem like speed bumps to people; but, in fact, they are (if you are careless enough to hit a curb because you are speeding).

@Cerberus I am sure there are people who would try to speed on a slalom course, too. You can't control everyone. What you try to do is reduce accidents and injuries.

Basically, you try to reduce cost.

Cerberus

I have heard that Americans are more relaxed drivers.

But so many people speed here wherever they can, you wouldn't believe it.

MετάEd

@Cerberus That varies greatly by locale. Boston is rather extreme. I see a difference here even from county to county: Dallas drivers are less relaxed than Fort Worth drivers.

Cerberus

I guess artificial curves could be as effective as speed bumps, but then you have lots of lost space, right?

We already lack space.

MετάEd

3:28 AM

@Cerberus Lost space?

It depends on what you value.

Cerberus

Space that you can't add to biker lanes or pavements.

Streets here were never built for cars.

Some were made wider, but many were not.

So in broad streets, I would not be against meandering or narrowing.

MετάEd

It depends on the situation. In a place with a lot of foot traffic it has actually been helpful sometimes to eliminate curbs completely and mix foot traffic with auto traffic. Again, psychology. People's urge to speed peters out when they are basically guaranteed to kill somebody doing it.

Let me find a picture of that.

Cerberus

I know sometimes roads become safer if you don't paint biker lanes on the asphalt.

Because people are forced to pay more attention.

But it's complicated.

MετάEd

Living street

A living street is a street designed primarily with the interests of pedestrians and cyclists in mind and as a social space where people can meet and where children may also be able to play legally and safely. These roads are still available for use by vehicles, however their design aims to reduce both the speed and dominance of motorised transport. This is often achieved using the shared space approach, with greatly reduced demarcations between vehicle traffic and pedestrians. Vehicle parking may also be restricted to designated bays. Country-specific living street implementations in...

@Cerberus That's exactly it. The psychology of it.

Cerberus

Yeah.

But it doesn't always work that way.

MετάEd

3:32 AM

You can't just bowl right through. You have to pay attention.

@Cerberus One is never trying for always. One is trying for reduction in statistics such as fatalities, injuries, and damage to vehicles.

Cerberus

If you put trees on the street at arbitrary spots, people will slow down, but there will still be more accidents.

@MετάEd Yes, of course.

A fourth thing to consider in convenience, and for whom.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Generally speaking, no. If you have a good engineer, there will be both slower traffic and fewer accidents. And the accidents which do occur will be less serious. You can't just plant a tree. It takes engineering expertise.

Cerberus

That's what I'm saying, it's complicated.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Accidents are inconvenient for everyone, not just the victims. They cause traffic to pile up and they cost public money.

Cerberus

Yes. But there are other things that cause inconvenience as well.

All considerations need to be weighed.

And I don't believe there is s study that says "narrowing streets always helps more than speed bumps".

It probably depends on the street.

maps.google.com/…

Take this street, for example.

@MετάEd What would you replace the speed bumps with?

As you can see, the street is narrow already.

It is already very inconvenient: I can only pass a car on my bike if the car is nice and pays attention to move to the right side, which is never.

MετάEd

3:40 AM

@Cerberus Ask a professional. If it was me, and the objective was to slow the traffic down all along the street, I would say meander. You would not need to narrow the street further and you would still have room for walking and parking.

But that's an opinion of a software engineer, not a civil engineer. Much as I like to think I know everything, I know I don't.

Cerberus

All right, a bit of meandering could work.

But narrowing?

And would meandering work as well as the speedbumps do now?

MετάEd

Or close the street to motorized traffic if the level of injuries is just too high and nothing else will do.

@Cerberus Everything I've read says meandering works better because it does not irritate people like speedbumps. So people don't resent it as much and don't accelerate as much between changes.

I personally enjoy a little slalom course. I just have to slow down to navigate it.

Cerberus

The level is not so high, partly thanks to the speed bumps. And so many streets are like this, we would have to close off the entire city centre...

MετάEd

But I hate speedbumps.

Cerberus

@MετάEd I guess that effect makes sense...but meandering would seem horrible for bikes: I imagine cars would drive close to the curb where the curb would curve their way. As a biker, you would have to slalom along, meanwhile trusting the car to leave you enough space in every curve. I trust cars more when they go in a straight line: then they are predictable.

Just as I trust pedestrians more when they are moving in a straight line.

How wide would a single curve of such a meander be?

MετάEd

3:49 AM

@Cerberus That street is plainly too narrow for cars to be passing bicycles in any case. Surely the law there, as here, is that a bicycle can take the entire lane and if so the car behind has to wait its turn.

As a bicyclist I think I would be out of the street and on the sidewalk, what I think you are calling the pavement?

But another approach would be to make it a "walking street area" or "living street" with no curbs at all and the expectation that people, bicycles, and cars all share the space.

Again it's really not going to solve anything to ask me what to do. Ask an expert.

Better yet, ask an expert who doesn't still think a digital watch (or a speed bump) is a good idea.

Technology in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The fictional universe of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams is a galaxy-spanning society of interacting extraterrestrial cultures, so the technological level in the series is highly advanced, though often unreliable. Many technologies in the series are used to poke fun at modern life. Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Most of the technology mentioned in the series are products of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, a decidedly inept company responsible for the design and creation of a wide range of robots and labour-saving devices, such as lifts, automatic doors, v...

Cerberus

@MετάEd Bikes are not never on the sidewalk/pavement/curb. I do it only when I really can't get around a car that isn't moving. As to cars and bicycles, it is usually the bikes that have to wait for the cars to move, because it's usually a busy street. Only when it is fairly quiet is speeding an issue.

MετάEd

@Cerberus In that case a "living street" might be nice for bicycles.

Cerberus

@MετάEd A digital watch? Are digital watches bad news? I never quite understood their usefulness, but...

@MετάEd I am trying to think of a street with no pedestrian lane, if I may call it that. I actually think no such streets exist here. I can literally think of zero such streets, not even mediaeval streets with cobble stones.

It makes me think of India or something.

How does it work? Won't it be utter chaos and honking and speeding and tourists run over by bikes?

MετάEd

@Cerberus I suspect the "living street" approach works best only when the space is very commonly used by foot and cycle traffic, as for example in a shopping area.

@Cerberus Ask an expert. Check out that Wikipedia article.

Woonerf

A woonerf (Dutch plural: woonerven) is a living street where pedestrians and cyclists have legal priority over motorists as implement in the Netherlands and in Flanders. Techniques include shared space, traffic calming, and low speed limits. Under Article 44 of the Dutch traffic code, motorised traffic in a woonerf or "recreation area" is restricted to walking pace.[http://www.verkeerenwaterstaat.nl/Images/RVV_UK-versie_tcm195-163061.pdf Road Traffic Signs and Regulations in the Netherlands] Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat, June 2006 Accessed (Accessed 07/02/2007) In the UK these ar...

Cerberus

My street is such an area: most traffic is pedestrians, but also a fair number of bikes and cars. There are sidewalks, but pedestrians usually also block at least half the street. It's terrible for bikes and cars alike, and I must say I see and hear accidents in front of my house fairly often, although they are rarely very serious. But it is chaos.

@MετάEd Hmm I see sidewalks?

MετάEd

4:01 AM

@Cerberus woonerfgoed.nl/int/Welcome.html

Cerberus

But turning half the city into a woonerf will result in even more massive and eternal traffic jams than we already have.

I am not against using other means to slow down cars than speed bumps.

As long as it works.

But you need to use pretty radical means to get the same effect, I would say.

And it should be noted that woonerven normally have speed bumps every other metre.

> PETA is now coming out against Pokemon, claiming that the game franchise teaches children to see real world animals as objects that should fight one another for our amusement.

forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2012/10/08/…

This has got to be a joke.

It is as funny the Onion's parody.

Mahnax

4:16 AM

@Cerberus features.peta.org/pokemon-black-and-white-parody

Not a joke.

It's rather misguided, and I find it stupid, personally.

Cerberus

Sweet baby Jesus!

Those people have way too much time on their hands.

Hilarious.

What is to come of cartoonists if organisations write their own parodies??

Mahnax

As a Pokémon fan, I find it a bit appalling that they'd take something so pure and friendly and turn it into that.

Cerberus

Don't you find it hilarious and entertaining?

Mahnax

Not really.

It's kind of sad.

Cerberus

It makes me sad and happy at the same time.

Mahnax

4:26 AM

Well, Mr. Shiny has earned himself a gold badge just now.

100

A: Is “the girls are want to gossip” correct?

It should be "are wont", which means "likely" or "inclined".

Cerberus

Haha.

Sweet baby Jesus on a stick—as Vitaly would say—, that was an interesting effort–result ratio.

What should perhaps be closed as a General Reference gets more votes than I have ever seen on our entire website.

Mahnax

It was just "Jesus Christ on a stick", I think.

But yeah, I really hate the collider.

Cerberus

english.stackexchange.com/posts/3022/revisions

Now this is worth its points.

@Mahnax Yeah, I guess.

But I like the baby Jesus.

And I like it sweet.

Mahnax

Haha.

Cerberus

Misopaedist.

Mahnax

4:34 AM

Child hater?

Cerberus

Yes.

Mahnax

Ah. I did that using only the roots, I'll have you know.

Not that it's hard, or anything.

Cerberus

Good, good.

Greek is easy!

Mahnax

Except when you mix it with maths.

Actually, that's easy too, thus far.

Cerberus

@DavidWallace Hmm your country got mixed publicity today. Key is not exactly praised.

techdirt.com/articles/20121008/16280220647/…

@Mahnax Like how?

Symbols?

Or terms, like "mathematics"?

Mahnax

4:38 AM

@Cerberus Well, using theta to symbolize an angle, or sigma for sums, etc.

Cerberus

Ok so symbols.

Mahnax

Rho for resistivity in Physics, that sort of thing.

Cerberus

Shouldn't be much harder to remember than Latin symbols?

Mahnax

ρ, ρ, ρ your boat, gently down the stream…

MετάEd

@Cerberus Apparently it's a pop culture reference and the stated intent of the OP was to plug a movie or something?

Mahnax

4:39 AM

@Cerberus Well, sigma for sum actually involves doing things.

Cerberus

Resistivity? I know rho as density and ehm something about heat capacity...?

MετάEd

@Mahnax ρ is the sign for "propel"?

Cerberus

@MετάEd Oh, really? Pop culture always beats me.

@Mahnax Yeah, ok. But is the symbol for an integral easier?

Mahnax

Resistivity is a property of a material; it's a measurement for how strongly a material resists curent.

@Cerberus I don't think I've done those.

Cerberus

How is it different from electrical resistance, R?

Mahnax

4:41 AM

@MετάEd ρ = rho

Row, row, row your boat?

Cerberus

Or is it per kg?

Mahnax

R = ρ ∙ L / A

Cerberus

So it is ohm * metre.

Mahnax

L = length, A = cross-sectional area

Cerberus

Ah.

Odd.

We used l for length and A for area!

Small l, big A.

Mahnax

4:43 AM

Oops.

Small a is acceleration.

Cerberus

Ah OK.

And the capital L?

I've never seen that before...

Length, apparently.

Not small l?

Helliona.

Borb.

4:45 AM

It is usually small, in my experience.

I just dug up the formula, which I haven't used in eight months, from some website.

Gigili

Umm, ρ=m/v is what we learned.

Mahnax

@MετάEd It might interest you to know that we never deal with jerk or jounce in high school Physics here.

@Gigili v being what?

Gigili

Don't dig up formulas, it's not good for your health.

Mahnax

Velocity?

Gigili

Density = mass/volume

Mahnax

4:46 AM

Oh, no, I'm not talking about density.

I'm talking about resistivity.

And we use V for volume here.

Cerberus

International System of Units

[[Image:SI Brochure Cover.jpg|frame|right|Cover of brochure [http://www.bipm.org/en/publications/brochure/ The International System of Units]]] The International System of Units (abbreviated SI from ) is the modern form of the metric system. It comprises a system of units of measurement devised around seven base units and the convenience of the number ten. The SI was established in 1960, based on the metre-kilogram-second system, rather than the centimetre-gram-second system, which, in turn, had several variants. The SI has been declared to be an evolving system; thus prefixes and units a...

Wiki only mentions small l.

Gigili

@Mahnax Oh, I should have read the context.

Mahnax

2 mins ago, by Mahnax

I just dug up the formula, which I haven't used in eight months, from some website.

Cerberus

I guess litre is also l, but that is not an SI unit, I believe.

OK.

Mahnax

I agree that it's l and not L.

Gigili

4:48 AM

@Cerberus Yes, m^3 is.

Yeah.

No, m^3 isn't a L.

But I hate physics.

@Mahnax Oh, the sweet taste of victory!

A minuscule victory, but a victory nonetheless. Better than a capital defeat!

Gigili

@Mahnax m^3 is an SI unit, IIRC.

Mahnax

4:49 AM

@Gigili m is, but m^3 != 1L.

dm^3 = 1L.

Cerberus

(Hmm I believe both l and L are used for litre? Haven't we talked about this before?)

Gigili

What?

Mahnax

@Cerberus We have, but in the context of ml vs. mL for millilitre.

Cerberus

Ah OK.

Mahnax

@Gigili You said that one metre cubed equalled one litre, no?

Cerberus

4:51 AM

@Gigili So has you SIM card arrived yet?

@Mahnax I don't think she said that.

Gigili

@Mahnax No?

Cerberus

She just said l/L was not an SI unit but m(³) was.

Mahnax

Oh, I'm sorry.

Cerberus

I'm sure she wasn't terribly insulted.

Gigili

@Cerberus It'll arrive on Sunday!

Cerberus

4:52 AM

Otherwise, perhaps try an olive branch.

Mahnax

It looked to me like she was saying that m^3 was a litre, but now I see that that is not the case. Hmm.

Cerberus

@Gigili At last! Is that a working day for you btw?

Mahnax

Sorry, @Gigi.

Cerberus

@Mahnax I understand.

Gigili

@Mahnax It's OK.

Cerberus

4:53 AM

If it does not work, try an olive barrage.

Gigili

What about olive oil?

Cerberus

news.discovery.com/earth/condo-clouds-explained-120208.html

> Created by moisture-laden air moving inland from over the Gulf, the clouds form as the air rolls over the buildings, rising just high enough to cool and condense the moisture into visible water droplets.

@Gigili splashes you with a litre of olive oil

It it doesn't work, I will try a m³.

Gigili

@Cerberus Umm, not for me. It's not a working day in schools and universities.

Mahnax

> The one exception is the litre, whose original symbol "l" is unsuitably similar to the numeral "1" or the uppercase letter "i" (depending on the typeface used), at least in many English-speaking countries. The American National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends that "L" be used instead, a usage common in the US, Canada, and Australia (but not elsewhere).

Interesting, just stumbled upon that on your SI units page.

Cerberus

@Gigili Oh, OK. I'm just surprised that the mail is delivered on Sunday. Is it delivered on Fridays? Saturdays?

Right. I would say, just use a decent font!

Arial is not it.

Mahnax

4:59 AM

Oh dear.

Gigili

@Cerberus Our weekend is Thursday–Friday, not Saturday–Sunday.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…