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3:00 PM
@MετάEd that link does nothing for me.
 
I named my tape drive "John". Did that somehow make a sentence grammatical which wasn't before? (Grammar is independent of sense.) — MετάEd 3 mins ago
@RegDwighт Don't know why that failed the first time.
 
Wrong clipboard.
 
Plus I already answered his other question.
Not a high score on reading comprehension here.
 
@MετάEd I named my bathroom "Tape Drive" — perfectly grammatically, I might add.
 
@RegDwighт Oh: this is really ugly. If you are on a review page, the permalinks to comments which are exposed by the page are wrong.
 
3:04 PM
smacks self in the head. so that's why my code isn't working
note to the wary: iterator blocks in C# are really cool, but they'll bite you in the ass when you least expect it
 
http://english.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts/12114#comment180650_90344 vs. http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/90344/used-to-or-used-for#comment180650_90344
 
Justified text on web pages should be outlawed, especially in narrow column widths.
There is no justification for it.
 
@JSBձոգչ what caught you?
@Robusto ascii art
oh, wait, I'm confusing monospaced and justified
carry on
 
@MattЭллен Must be close to tea time where you are. Maybe ease up on the gin this time.
 
tea without gin... a novel idea.
 
3:12 PM
@MattЭллен if you don't actually iterate over the returned enumeration, the function effectively never gets called.
i was calling an iterator function just for its side-effects, and throwing away the return value
but that meant that the iterator never actually ran
 
@JSBձոգչ So that's what it is. And here I thought there was a spring working its way through the fabric in my chair.
 
@JSBձոգչ it can make you think your code is really quick
 
@MattЭллен that is always a welcome side effect
 
:D but, alas it is an illusion!
3 yearling badges on SO and still under 5K reps
 
3:20 PM
0
Q: How do you tell the difference between parts of speech?

Dan the ManI find it hard to tell the difference between Prepositional, Participial, Gerund, and Infinitive phrases. How do you distinguish these? Is there a short-cut to find them?

This would make a nice ELL question.
 
@RegDwighт Do you think this is a bug worth reporting?
 
@KitFox I was just thinking that
 
How's the writing going?
 
I got to 7500 last night. I hope to hit 8500 tonight
How's it with you?
 
Oh envy.
 
3:22 PM
I have a buddy who feels ill, but has still managed over 9000 already
 
I'm behind. I don't think I can catch up. I wasn't really planning to do it anyway, but I got excited when I met the goal the first two or three days.
 
I am so envious
 
@KitFox You're being slandered here: english.stackexchange.com/questions/90356/…
 
Over 9000!
 
exactly!
 
3:23 PM
@MετάEd Haha. Thanks.
 
@KitFox Or possibly defamed. But not vilified, or calumniated.
 
@MετάEd every bug is worth reporting.
It's a two-minute fix, too.
 
@KitFox You can still do it! don't give up.
 
Rule of thumb: never calumniate people if you can simply punch them in the mouth.
 
of thumb, not of fist?
 
3:31 PM
punches Matt in the mouth
 
calumny!
 
There's a lotion for that.
 
I keep confusing calumny and contumely. How embarrassing.
 
Interesting that we punch people in the nose or mouth or stomach, but we punch them on the arm.
 
kicks Robusto in the gerund
smacks Robusto on the preposition
 
3:34 PM
applies calumny lotion
 
I see what you mean.
 
How can someone with 2.2k reps on SO not know that closed questions can be edited?
Seriously, people.
 
Yeah. We should all share RegDwight's outrage. If only he were the sharing kind ...
 
That was inward raging. We're looking for outrage. Next!
 
3:37 PM
I have no mouth and I must scream
 
You also can't eat ice cream with no mouth.
 
I feel like society is against me
 
Username or User name?
Or login ID?
 
luser name
 
giggles
 
3:38 PM
@KitFox use the one with the space. less confusing.
 
@MattЭллен I have no ice and I must cream.
 
@KitFox is it different from their name? If so I agree with JSB, otherwise just name
 
@KitFox Credentials. "What is your security clearance, Citizen?
 
@MattЭллен Yes, different than their name.
@MετάEd I usually refer to them as creds, just to confuse my project lead.
He is so square.
 
IDENTIFY YOURSELF!
 
3:40 PM
@MετάEd then I hope you have tissues to hand
 
I am userName. I can be anything you want me to be.
 
@MετάEd Alpha One Red Elite.
 
I am not the droids you are looking for.
 
You are not the steroids you are looking for, either.
 
3:42 PM
stupid IT
 
@MattЭллен ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
 
indeed!
sigh
 
snargerflugle
 
@MattЭллен I can access it, and I'm at school.
 
@Mahnax Your school is giving you access to dangerous content! Will noöne think of the children?
 
3:44 PM
@MattЭллен Don't worry, we can't get on TPB or facebook!
 
i won't! i won't think of the children!
 
@Mahnax phew! You're safe then :D
 
What's TPB?
 
@MattЭллен Yep! Except if I use TOR, then I can get on anything.
@KitFox The Pirate Bay.
 
Oh.
What's TOR?
 
3:45 PM
@Mahnax Oh, right, they don't block TOR. Because that's far less dangerous - allowing access to any site whatsoever
 
The Onion Router.
 
@KitFox You have the lowest security clearance, Citizen. Please go about your business. Trust the Computer. The Computer is Your Friend.
 
Hey, I have a question about security.
 
It's a scary place with many bad things.
 
@KitFox it's a magical doodle which allows you to see websites that are hidden from the normal internet
 
3:46 PM
@KitFox The answer is strictly on a need-to-know basis.
 
@Mahnax Router is right
 
@MattЭллен Oh good.
 
I don't really know anything about how authentication works. It is a magic box for me.
 
But I have a user table in my automagic database that stores the hashed passwords and the salts of the users.
It is my understanding that I cannot decrypt the passwords even though I have these things, because it is a one-way hash.
 
3:47 PM
@MattЭллен They do block it, I think, but there are bridges.
 
@KitFox That's right.
 
But how are users authenticated then?
 
@KitFox By repeating the process. Taking their proffered password, encrypting it, and comparing the result with the saved result.
 
Hash function(password + salt) = hash
but there is no way back
 
@KitFox the server takes the user's submitted password, adds the "salt", and then hashes it. if the hash matches the stored hash, then the password was correct
 
3:48 PM
Oh, I see. That makes a lot of sense.
 
@MattЭллен no, the school teaches him to hack. Which is the whole point of schools.
 
Wait. Why are we all in agreement here.
 
I am not!
 
Somebody needs to dissent.
@tchrist you are needed.
 
@RegDwighт oh. It wasn't when I was little. I feel left out.
 
3:49 PM
@MετάEd No you!
 
@RegDwighт I know you are, but what am I?
 
You're a poopie!
 
@RegDwighт You're a double-plus poopie!
 
OVER 9000 and then some.
 
I'm off for lunch.
Later.
 
3:50 PM
No I!
 
puts on mother costume Do I need to wash out your mouths with soap? That is not a nice word.
 
@KitFox bye.
@Mahnax That is a perfectly nice word. This, on the other hand, is an excrable word. And don't get me started on which.
 
@Mahnax if soap is not a nice word, why are you using it, person in mother's costume?
 
@RegDwighт Don't argue with me! I am powerful!
 
You're so powerless you can't even stop me from arguing with you.
 
3:52 PM
Stop arguing with me!
 
I never started!
 
See! you're doing it again!
 
@KitFox MOM, Reg and Matt are arguing!
 
No, I'm not.
 
3:52 PM
takes off mother costume So what'd I miss?
 
MOM, Matt argued and then ran away!
 
I threw some arguments after him.
 
MOM, Reg hit me back!
 
| rev2 = Chicago Tribune | rev2score = (mixed) | rev3 = Los Angeles Times | rev3score = | rev4 = The New York Times | rev4score = (not favourable) | rev5 = Rolling Stone | rev5score = }} Reg Strikes Back is the 21st studio album by British singer-songwriter Elton John, released in 1988. It was his self-proclaimed comeback album, and his own way of fighting back against bad press. The "Reg" in Reg Strikes Back refers to John's birth name, Reginald Kenneth Dwight. This was the last album that bassist Dee Murray appeared on prior to his death in 1992. The tracks "I Don't Wanna Go on wit...
 
3:59 PM
There, let him suck on that pop for a while.
ETA beaucoup:
2
A: "Be them" or "be they"?

tchristNeither of your two questions makes sense as written, and I do not know what the intent is. For one thing, I don’t understand why they are questions; they do not look like such to me. For another, the formulaic “be they X or Y ”, using present subjunctive and inversion as it does, is of a som...

 
Never more time has been wasted on getting 20 points on an Internet site, and never will be.
4
 
I think we have a new record. Someone please give @tchrist some paying work, please. And soon!
 
Oh I'm plenty sure he was in at least two paid-for telcons at the time he threw that shit together.
 
Bingo.
 
See, he's also playing bingo.
And winning.
He's rich.
 
4:08 PM
And he still finds time to make a great cup of coffee. Is there anything he can't do?
 
@RegDwighт You forget Farmville.
 
@RegDwighт Perhaps you meant "playing a bingo" ... du bist Deutscher, nicht wahr?
 
@RegDwighт What, you want that I should close-vote it per its merits, and thereby launch on Meta another flame-cum-peeve–question about my niggardly close-votes against GR lusers?
 
Cum is not launched on Meta. At least not on my watch.
 
s/cum/qua/ if it please you.
 
4:11 PM
@Robusto zwei Bingos.
 
Haha, @tchrist misspelled loosers!
 
Oh ye of little letters!
 
I think his spelling has a history in this chat. I wasn't paying attention in the last two hours.
 
@tchrist s/cum/qua/t/ is a type of fruit. An awful type, but still a type.
 
Sine qua cum.
 
4:12 PM
SVensson's ITS on KLH-10      Welcome to SV! SV ITS.1648. PWORD.2660. TTY 11 2. Lusers, Fair Share = 2% * Classical use of "luser" at the ITS login screen In Internet slang, a luser (sometimes expanded to local user; also luzer or luzzer) is a painfully annoying, stupid, or irritating computer user. It is a portmanteau of "loser" and "user". In hackish, the word luser takes on a broad meaning, referring to any normal user (in other words "not a guru"), with the implication the person is also a loser. The term is interchangeable with the hackish term la...
 
Yeah yeah sudo -MEnglish luser
 
@tchrist Yes, yes, of course. But did you forget where we are? We're on THE INTERNETZ. And that means looser is how the denizens normally spell anything that sounds like loser. QED.
Perhaps my joke was too meta for you.
 
MEnglish? As you like it.
> A. 1340 Hampole Psalter Cant. 512, ― I sall be glad in god··my saueoure, noght in þe warld my losere.
Man those Britties use a lotta extra letttters.
 
Bunch of scumquats.
 
Those grow in bunches? I'm not an ornithologist.
> I have a doubt on the uses of the word lyrics.
 
4:16 PM
How would proactively be close to that concept? — Robusto 22 secs ago
 
Yeah no idea what he meant.
 
trigesimates
 
@RegDwighт That’s just Terrible.
 
That's an actual TV spot they haven't changed in decades.
@tchrist I would have guessed him to be Indian, but the name suggests Russian.
 
4:20 PM
@RegDwighт My point.
 
The doubt about language English are spreading.
 
trigesimal mating > trigesimate
 
@Robusto Ah, yes. The archery term.
 
My English teacher says "langridge" instead of "language".
 
Careful, lest his langridge steals your Christmas.
 
4:22 PM
I already gave him what for.
Yestermorn.
 
Did you give him what for up for lent?
 
@RegDwighт grabs Reg’s spurious s and rips it from its mangled mode
 
Sorry, I meant teals, not steals.
hit happen.
 
And such lovely birds they are!
 
Yeah, especially the ones in navy.
 
4:25 PM
Schlock troops.
Review queues are creeping upwards.
Are list questions off topic or not constructive?
 
Not Constructive.
 
Done.
 
My review queues are empty all the time.
Have to check back a zillion times a day to get a single review point.
 
I had 6 closers today.
 
Ah those. Those I seldom touch.
Mostly when I'm looking for a specific question I know belongs closed.
 
4:30 PM
And a reopen for the one you just closed.
Which seems pointless.
It is always asking me whether I wish to reopen things I myself closed. I think not.
 
@RegDwighт Never has anyone worked so hard for a single review point on a web site.
 
That’s even less likely than asking whether I want something closed I have myself answered.
 
@tchrist Amazon always wants to know if I want to buy MP3 albums I have already bought from them.
@tchrist You misspelled cloosers, looser.
 
@Robusto you misspelled "not worked".
 
@RegDwighт Nah, I was just lazy. I knew you'd do that for me.
 
4:33 PM
@Robusto They think you have mislaid them without a backup, like any common dolt. Repeat purchasing of infinitely repeatable digital artifacts is the leading scam of the new millennium.
 
And by the way: "Put ... that ... coffee ... down! Coffee is for cloosers."
 
Hiya.
 
Happing Gobsmacking Day.
 
Right. Has @Rob found a partner for his bet? Cuz otherwise wave bye-bye to Barack.
 
Who's trolling?
 
4:43 PM
I think Obama is.
Just look at Guantánamo.
 
@RegDwighт No. My betting on Romney would guarantee an Obama win. The converse is not necessarily true.
 
Anyway,
Oct 25 at 14:59, by Robusto
Speaking of which, someone please bet me an amount of money that Obama will win the election. If I bet money on Romney, it ought to ensure his defeat.
 
Just look at Ireland.
 
20 secs ago, by Robusto
@RegDwighт No. My betting on Romney would guarantee an Obama win. The converse is not necessarily true.
 
I don't want to think about it.
 
4:44 PM
@Robusto we're all programmers here. We can sort chronologically without your help.
 
Well, the opposite of chronologically. But you get the idea. We can do that, too.
 
@RegDwighт But if you sort that one chronologically you could end up in the past. Be careful.
 
Anachronistically?
 
Logically.
Will Rob request a jinx for that?
I'm holding off.
But he used to claim worse jinxae's in the past.
 
4:45 PM
@RegDwighт Since when have you ever applied logic to anything?
 
@Robusto since the commercials made me aware of my forehead.
 
@RegDwighт Did you put a plastic forehead on your real head?
 
You mean the other way round would be preferrable?
 
Prosthetic forehead...
 
Antistatic forehead.
 
4:46 PM
Why does that sound familiar?
 
It was in a song by Jewel.
 
Oh, the lurch when you said that.
 
Come on, prove me wrong, I'll wait.
You got nothing to do tonight anyway.
 
@KitFox Just because. We want a rock.
 
I assume if you said Jewel, it must be TMBG.
 
4:48 PM
That's a fair assumption to make, though a wrong one.
 
@KitFox Yes. But a plastic forehead is a prosthesis. QED.
 
> With all due respect, one can't unfairly judge a piece of music in my opinion. One either likes it, or they don't.
 
All sorts are temporal, if not chronological.
 
Nice switch of pronouns.
@Cerberus won't be amused.
 
Nice switch of the pronouns.
Nice, the switch of pronouns.
Nice: switch the of. Pronouns!
Mahlzeit.
 
4:52 PM
Writer's Chat in The Overlook is starting now. Today we provide support and encouragement to National Novel Writing Month participants. All are welcome, especially the curious.
 
@Robusto That's not an anagram.
 
@RegDwighт No, but I is.
 
@KitFox You can count on me in four years, I want to write about Mitt Romney's second term as the best President of the greatest country on Earth.
 
That's an anagram of shatt.
 
4:54 PM
Didn’t know they did Horror Fiction there.
 
Reality. You can't make that shit up.
 
@RegDwighт Now who's trolling.
:-D
 
@MετάEd Still Obama.
 
I voted last week for more Obamanation.
 
Seriously, OVER 9000 billion down the drain to have him at 50/50 on the election night? He started off at 70/30.
 
4:55 PM
 
@RegDwighт The country is 50/50.
 
My littlest son looked me in the eye yesterday and said "I will vote for Mitt Romney."
 
do your part for america, people! don't vote! let your voice be heard!
 
You know how many healthcares all that money could have bought? Real fancy ones, too. Brain surgeries. On Republicans.
 
@KitFox hohohahahaha
 
4:56 PM
 
I don't know how not voting will help.
 
By not making even less difference, that's how.
 
@JSBձոգչ That's what he said next.
 
@KitFox it won't not help, which is what voting will do
 
Voting will not help?
Whose confusing who'm?
 
4:57 PM
voting will not help. not voting won't not help.
 
I will participate in the system. Not participating doesn't change the system.
 
@JSBձոգչ I am wont to believe you.
 
participating in the system gives it legitimacy. i refuse to give it legitimacy.
 
parity errors
 
I will go mute some commies. I will dedicate them to Matt Romney.
USA! USA!
 
4:59 PM
@JSBձոգչ Well, maybe you should try to change it if you feel it is illegitimate.
If you succeed, I will participate in that system too.
Or move to Canada.
 
i am trying to change it. i'm starting by refusing to participate in the existing system.
 
How does that change it?
You're making a statement that no one can hear and no one will notice.
 
it denies its pretensions to representation, which is what democracies do to legitimize themselves. in the meantime, i work (locally, mostly) for good things
i want national politics to go away, mostly, and participating in it does not help it go away
 
Not participating does not help it to go away either.
It seems like not participating just makes you feel better.
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
 
@KitFox this is largely also what voting does
anyway, i'm thinking of going just to vote on the two state amendments, and ignoring everything else
 
5:04 PM
That is an interesting stance.
 
what would you recommend if my end goal was to minimize the importance of national politics and encourage localism?
 
@KitFox This.
@JSBձոգչ I would raise money or run for office.
 
@MετάEd Or introduce legislation.
 
@KitFox Sí.
 
Doing nothing won't do anything.
I am glad to hear you participate locally though. That's important. Also pretty basically Republican.
 
5:07 PM
republican?!
 
@JSBձոգչ Yes.
 
Not Tea Party, but Republicans generally support small federal government and advocate for pushing power to states and local governments.
 
if only i could actually believe that the republicans wanted that
 
The Republican party basically wants to weaken the national government and give more control to states.
 
The theory being that the people who are using the services should be the ones to administer the programs.
It makes a lot of sense to me.
If only they weren't so socially backwards.
I'm really rather in between Democrat and Republican that way.
 
5:10 PM
republican support for localism is about like democratic support for peacefulness: it's always there on paper, but basically never borne out in practice
 
Well, not everybody always gets their way.
A lot of the difficulty, I think, is that Democrats support government regulation of programs which rather naturally leads to centralization for bureaucratic purposes.
I support regulation, but I also think states should do it.
 
@KitFox i would cautiously endorse that statement
although even most states are kind of big, to be honest
 
Well, we all know what a blessing and a curse distributed systems can be.
 
one of the problems with politics is that political opponents are encountered as faceless, statistical opponents rather than neighbors
 
With national politics.
I know my state senators and legislators personally.
 
5:14 PM
happens with most state politics, too
though not quite as badly
 
And I know most of the opponents as well.
 
that's pretty unusual
i can't say i ever knew any of my state reps, ever, in any state i lived in
 
Well, my civic duties are important to me.
Um, I think that maybe came out wrong.
 
The classical dilemma between local and national government.
 
anyway, i'm off to lunch
 
5:16 PM
It has been a priority for me in the last ten years to make sure that I participated fully, so I have made a point of getting to know the legislators.
@JSBձոգչ Bai!
 
National government is generally more competent technically, and less susceptible to local corruption, but then they tend to over-regulate, and they are out of touch with the local situation.
So everyone wants some sort of compromise.
 
I found this online.
"Quoth the server, 404" is my new favorite line.
 
Lovely.
So do people think Obama will win?
 
Probably. But what do I know?
 
Well, I haven't heard their opinion yet.
 
5:25 PM
Right.
I read he was somewhat ahead in most swing states.
 
5:37 PM
Haha.
 
@Cerberus InTrade gives Obama 72% chance of reelection: intrade.com/v4/markets/contract/?contractId=743474
 
Ah OK.
That seems reasonable? A bit lower than what I would have expected.
 
Oh, this summary page is better: intrade.com/v4/markets/?eventId=84326
 
Oh! Bachmann's shares are low, I must buy her.
She still has a .1 % chance!
That's a thousand+ times better than I expected.
 
It's showing all "toss up" states leaning slightly Obama.
He forecasts Obama.
 
5:55 PM
sides with the Houyhnhnms on this one
 
Hmm.
By the way, aren't the Republicans normally blue?
Or am I mistaken.
 
You are.
Red = Bloody Republicans
Blue = Ditzy Democrats
 
Green = ??
 
Purple = Orientationally Confused
 
Funny.
 

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