English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

.sortMe
{
text-decoration: none;
text-align: left;
background-image: url(bg.gif);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: right;
padding-right: 18px;
color: #F9F9F9;
}

@MattЭллен Can I change that?

I mean, can I qualify my class somehow? I don't really understand css very well.

Matt Эллен

6:13 PM

I don't know

I will do a quick fiddle to see if I'm right

Mahnax

So you want the colour #333333 to be used?

KitFox

No, #F9F9F9.

Mahnax

Oh, yes, sorry. I misread.

Matt Эллен

@KitFox if you do a:link.sortMe then it works

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Okay, after Kit said I should be nicer, I gave it another try.

The issue is not that it could not be answered. The issue is precisely that it could because it was rhetorical right from the onset. Rhetorical questions get closed. But this is not the place to discuss that. Again, if you want a particular question to be reevaluated, open a meta post about it. If you are concerned about too many questions getting closed in general, there is a meta post on that already, go add your insight there. This is not what we ask of you; this is what we ask of everyone. If you can't live with that, follow your own advice and find a site that suits you better. — RegDwight ΒВBẞ8 27 secs ago

KitFox

6:17 PM

@MattЭллен Oh, I had tried it the other way around. That works great, thanks!

Matt Эллен

@KitFox no trouble :)

KitFox

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Did I say that?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well you (rightfully) implied that.

I do think that this younger comment would be better in the older one's stead.

KitFox

You have the power to change history, but unfortunately it won't undo his mood.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well how should I put it. I'm too old to care about the mood of every single person on the internet, especially not of those who don't care about mine.

5

Matt Эллен

6:22 PM

> [wikipedia] has an entry on platform 9 3/4 from the Harry Potter TV show

- Joel Spolsky

I lol'ed

KitFox

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Wha—? Next you will tell me that there are things that are wrong on the internets.

Mahnax

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

No, next I will tell you that things are wrong everywhere and I'm not in the business of cross-checking that "everywhere" includes the Internet.

Matt Эллен

@Mahnax awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

KitFox

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 mind asplodes

@Mahnax Hey! No pictures of me here!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

6:25 PM

I no rite, tis is teh mindassplode room.

@KitFox Eh?

It's a fennec.

Uh. Nothing.

Oh, so it is.

And as you may recall, I am a pfennig foxen, cute and small and bright-eyed.

And extremely harmless.

Matt Эллен

6:26 PM

hmmmm. Harmless?

Extremely.

I'm mostly harmless

lol

What is that thing?

6:28 PM

This is not a fennec, but I forgot what it's called.

It's some polar wolf thingy.

KitFox

yikes

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

The picture's been sitting on my hard drive for too long for me to remember.

Vitaly

Bat-eared fox

The bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis) is a canid of the African savanna, named for its large ears. Fossil records show this canid to first appear during the middle Pleistocene, about 800,000 years ago. The bat-eared fox (Otocyon megalotis), also refered to as big-eared fox, black-eared fox, cape fox, and Delalande’s fox has tawny fur with black ears, legs and parts of the pointed face. It averages 55 cm in length (head and body), with ears 13 cm long. It is the only species in the genus Otocyon. Distribution and Habitat Two distinct populations of bat-eared foxes occur in Afri...

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Oh I have a pic of Cerberus on a bad hair day.

KitFox

Funny, I typed in "polar wolf thingy" and got this image:

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

6:30 PM

@Vitaly yeah or that. Polar wolf, desert fox, dame sifference.

KitFox

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Can you spell conspiracy?

KitFox

Looks like you @Reg!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

That's begging my question.

KitFox

Please may I have it? Please?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

6:32 PM

What? The dummy it?

Robusto

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 c-o-n-s-p-i-r-a-c-y. Cool, what did I win?

KitFox

savages dummy it with terrible, sharp fangs of justice

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto seven more royal teas.

Robusto

Tea he.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Yeah. Ur buddies, mud, face down, so you could still have some royal tea.

Cerberus

6:35 PM

Did I hear royal? And tea?

Robusto

But no orange, alas.

KitFox

Holla, @Cerb.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

See, posting a picture of him summons him.

Matt Эллен

Bonjour le @Cerb

Cerberus

Hi peoples.

Oh! I see me.

Nice.

You like my new hair?

Robusto

6:37 PM

Shouldn't the pronoun be plural in the case of three-headed dogs?

"We see us."

Cerberus

Yes.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

We see myselves.

Cerberus

But I was trying to descend to your level.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

You mean rise?

Cerberus

No.

Sorry.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

6:38 PM

Well I have a picture of hell right here and it's right above the turtles, not in the sky.

Cerberus

Oh. I meant as in the poetical sense.

But I have to go buy a present.

Shop closes in 20 minutes.

KitFox

I have another style question.

Cerberus

I will considered stuffed owls and foxes.

Oh? Let's hear it.

Robusto

What about stuffed dreams?

@Cerberus She doesn't mean that kind of style.

Cerberus

Perhaps a stuffed personality...

Hehe.

KitFox

6:40 PM

I don't mean that kind of style. Sorry. I meant CSS.

Cerberus

Ah yes.

Then it's a good time to leave.

Robusto

0

Q: A word for storing pre calculated-constructed data

I precalculate data and store it in a static table and call this process 'caching' but that doesn't seem correct based on a quick dictionary search (hiding, concealing) I'm just saving the data statically to avoid the process time to make the calculation. Is there a more appropriate term/word?

Later!

CU

Precalculus data?

6:42 PM

I was thinking "off topic." We don't answer no questions about what you should call programming constructs.

KitFox

Anyway, if I have nested divs, and I want a certain style applied to the inner div depending on the outer div, how do I structure that? I don't want to duplicate the whole style for this menu block, but I do want to change the color.

Robusto

@KitFox You use a combinator selector.

Oh wait, you just need a single selector.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

.class1 .class2 .class3

Or div#bla div#blubb.class

Robusto

.outer {
  background-color: #000;
  color: #FFF;
}
.outer .inner {
  background-color: #FFF;
  color: #000;
}

KitFox

Hmm. I thought I did that, but maybe I got something wrong. Let me try again.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

6:47 PM

Just make sure that you follow that Star Wars formula so it actually gets overwritten.

KitFox

@Robusto Oh, yeah. That's got it. I don't know what I did that made it not work before. Thanks!

Robusto

You should even be able to do .outer div { ... }

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

KitFox

Wow, that's as easy as pie.

Robusto

Bear in mind that the absolute trump card in css is that which is embedded in an element's style attribute.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

6:51 PM

Hm. Not sure there's one with pies.

But there is one for poker players. Except without pictures.

Robusto

Poker? I hardly even knew 'er.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto yeah, style is George Lucas.

(I'd've never thought I'd end up saying that.)

Robusto

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 But according to the Law of Identity, that means George Lucas is style.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Which is my point. That I didn't want to say that.

Robusto

And yet you did.

What a crazy world.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

6:53 PM

It boggles the mind how much the world boggles the mind.

KitFox

Shit. I hate this stuff. I am trying how to make this look nice without using Make My Logo Bigger cream. Aside from hiring a graphic designer, do you know a place where I can look at some styles?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

CSS Zen Garden?

There are tons of sites like that. I'm pretty sure SO has questions on that.

I personally answered some, back in the day.

KitFox

OK. Thanks.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Haha.

Sorry, but that's all I have right now.

I know there's color lovers and shit. But there were actually sites for CSS as well.

KitFox

Oh, I meant the thanks. I have no idea how to even research this stuff.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

6:57 PM

Huh, I'm almost at 4k reps with SO, when did that happen?

Lots of moneys for tasty jam.

KitFox

Damn. I would like to look at those all day, but it's not basic enough. I find it so annoying that I am expected to do these things.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

colourlovers.com

KitFox

There are professionals who get paid big monies to do a much better job.

It's not even palettes, so much as it is the layout.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well that's what Zen Garden used to be for.

Robusto

Just remember these concepts: 1. Less is more. 2. Two fonts to a page, max. 3. White space. 4. No animated GIFs, especially in page backgrounds. 5. No page background images anyway. 6. Find out how to use a color wheel. 7. Resist the urge to use transitions. 8. See #4. 9. See #5. 10. See #2.

KitFox

7:00 PM

I put my time tabs (Current, Former, All) into a menu to make them look more consistent, but now the Title looks stupid, since it is in a white stripe between the content and the master.

@Robusto I am copying this and pasting in somewhere useful.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Oh, soup time! Sorry I have to leave you for tastier pastures.

KitFox

Although I don't do 4 or 5 or 7 anyway.

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I hope you enjoy it!

Robusto

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 What kind of soup do they have in the pastures? Cow-chip soup?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

... or not. Damn. "You have been mentioned in Teachers' Lounge, a room you're not currently in". Sigh.

Mahnax

Teachers' Lounge is a mod-only chat, yes?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

7:06 PM

Yeah.

KitFox

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Are you in trouble?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Since Literature is getting shut down, we keep getting requests for migration.

@KitFox Me? Never. Pffft.

KitFox

Oops. I should have participated more, I guess.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Oh right. The soup! BRB

8

Q: In old books, why is the first word of the next page printed at the bottom of this page?

In old books from the 16th to 18th centuries, the first word from the next page is often printed right justified on its own, at the end of the current page. It's not in every book of this period, but those that have them tend to show them on every page. This practice seems to have ended in the la...

untagged

Here we go.

Might be off-topicish in its current form (or not), but I argued that if the going gets tough we can just turn the why into a what-is-it-called and then it can live on as a single-word request.

I must add that I was not familiar with this printing practice. TIL

KitFox

Interesting.

Mahnax

7:11 PM

I never knew that either.

Cool.

Cerberus

It's called a custos.

KitFox

We've got that one about name redactions in Victorian novels.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Yeah. They do seem to have some nice stuff on Literature.

KitFox

That was interesting too.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Too bad so much of it is about culture rather than language.

KitFox

7:12 PM

I should have paid more attention.

feels wistful

Mahnax

Bah, these nephrons have too much stuff in them.

Cerberus

Hmm I think we have actually discussed custodes in this room.

KitFox

@Mahnax Well, you better hurry to the bathroom then!

Cerberus

Yes, Vitaly came up with it in one of his riddles.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Cerberus if you have another answer to add, go do so. Make this question ours.

Mahnax

7:13 PM

@KitFox Ha! Not what I meant, but I can see where you're coming from.

KitFox

> I am the owner of an IT recruiting firm and have been in Maine helping people like find good opportunities since 1996. Please contact me if you would like to discuss your skills and interests, and how I may be able to help you.

Wahoo!

Cerberus

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Hmm no, that answer is fine.

Mahnax

@KitFox Sent to you? Congrats!

@KitFox Oh? Cool!

7:14 PM

> …helping people like find

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Cerberus you can leave a comment, too. I really don't know shit about the subject at hand so you be the judge.

JSBᾶngs

@KitFox smells like spam to me... but hopefully i'm wrong and then you can celebrate

Cerberus

> like [you]?

KitFox

@JSBᾶngs It's totally spam.

JSBᾶngs

@KitFox good, then! my spam-smelling skills are up to snuff

Mahnax

7:15 PM

I kind of realized that too once I noticed the missing "you".

JSBᾶngs

i got very little sleep last night, so i may be a little slow

Cerberus

@KitFox Ohh bummer. I thought it was from someone you knew.

Robusto

@KitFox No Barry Manilow in chat.

KitFox

@JSBᾶngs Aww. Sick baby?

JSBᾶngs

the 4-yr old woke up at 4:30 and didn't want to go back to sleep

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

7:16 PM

8

Q: What are the historical roots of rap battling and slam poetry?

I'm curious if the formalized poetic duels of the 1980s rap battles or current Slam competitions have their roots in history? If not, where did they come from? I'm currently imagining Lord Byron and Keats breaking it down in front of a crowd of uptight top-hats and monocles, and thinking that's p...

poetry

Cerberus

Another reason not to make babies.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

This would be one question I rejected.

Cerberus

Sorry.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

You can still sell it to me before it ends up in a zipped dump.

Cerberus

Zipped?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

7:17 PM

Well sites that get killed get zipped and offered for download.

Nobody does that, of course.

Cerberus

Ohhh file zipped.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

At least not for finding an answer to a question.

Cerberus

I was thinking of a garbage dump in some kind of metaphor.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well it is.

Cerberus

A more lively metaphor, then.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

7:19 PM

Using data from http://data.stackexchange.com/ , find 10 words which, in titles, are most likely to cause a question to be closed as Not Constructive

Tweeted by spolsky on April 27, 2012 at 7:15 PM

Mahnax

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 "Why?"

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Aren't they filtering a whole bunch of them out already?

Cerberus

I wonder why they didn't call Twitter "Cackle".

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Like, "best", "good" etc.

There's a post on MSO, by JA.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Sounds like a witches' coven.

aedia λ

7:21 PM

@KitFox I'm a bit late to your CSS party, but I recommend stuff by Eric Meyer, you know, in all your free time. He's the creator of a reset stylesheet that many sites (and frameworks) use or start with, for one, and he usually explains things really well... I have a beat-up CSS1 Pocket Guide by him that I don't know what I would've done without a few years ago.

Cerberus

@Mahnax Or a chicken coop.

Mahnax

@Cerberus That too.

KitFox

@aediaλ Thank you!

Cerberus

I like your prepositions.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Whose?

Cerberus

7:24 PM

Aediae.

Vitaly

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 You should read the chat transcript more:

Feb 5 at 14:52, by Vitaly

@Cerberus catchword! kustos! кустода! custos?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

What is this transcript?

Cerberus

@Vitaly I remembered! Aren't you proud?

I was able to tell Reg that it was in one of your riddles.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Whoa whoa whoa. You never told me that.

Vitaly

Oh.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

7:26 PM

13 mins ago, by Cerberus

Hmm I think we have actually discussed custodes in this room.

Cerberus

13 mins ago, by Cerberus

Yes, Vitaly came up with it in one of his riddles.

Robusto

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Wow, I'm in the top 0.0148108156746299 percentile on SO and I haven't posted regularly for two years. I can only assume this is due to fresh waves of immigrants.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Cerberus Mine is better. It illustrates my point. Yours only illustrates yours.

Well I have to blame the soup.

Cerberus

Heh I don't know how to tackle that argumentation.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Except I won't. The soup is excellent.

KitFox

7:28 PM

I am going to leave now and see if anyone will notice.

aedia λ

@KitFox You're welcome! I don't see the stuff from the pocket guide exactly online but if you search Meyer's site for "selectors", for example, there are comparable explanations from posts over the years.

Robusto

@KitFox Hey. You're leaving!

KitFox

Damn it! shh

aedia λ

@KitFox There is also a CSS discuss list where I think you can search archives. A lot of stuff that's now formalized in standards, known browser issues and hacks to fix 'em, etc. used to be discussed there but I haven't followed in some time. It used to be full of people who actually worked on/cared about the specs so it was worth looking there.

@KitFox I c u! You can't escape!

Bai :)

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Robusto yeah, I am on page 190 out of 27300 in the Users tab. And I have not posted in two years at all, and when I still did the highest I ever got was like page 120 I think.

Robusto

7:31 PM

I was on page 25 when I stopped.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

So let me guess, you're on 40 now.

KitFox

@aediaλ Oh fine! I just went and asked permission.

Later, peeps!

Bye!

CU

CU @Kit!

7:32 PM

49. Well, not that far off.

Matt Эллен

I am 1 page ahead of you, @Reg

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Indeed you are.

Well I'll go downvote you a couple times, then.

Matt Эллен

:O

Cerberus

►

Horse walks over car.

Matt Эллен

lol. even the freeze frame is funny

Cerberus

7:35 PM

No serious injuries.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Yeah that one is famous.

Cerberus

Oh.

Do you know every video on Youtube?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

No. Only the ones you post.

Cerberus

I bet you don't know this one.

Matt Эллен

why? why did I click that?

Cerberus

7:37 PM

OMG I'm a funny dog.

Mahnax

Ack.

Matt Эллен

:D

Cerberus

And you're all easy prey.

Mahnax

Luckily, I love that song.

Matt Эллен

I forgot, for one moment, that you're devious

Cerberus

7:37 PM

Yeah I actually listen to the whole video most of the times I get linked to it.

Matt Эллен

it's too earwormy for my tastes

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Cerberus I know that URL by heart.

Also, it's now blocked in my country.

They figured we've been rickrolled enough.

Cerberus

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Then why did you click it?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

I didn't?

Cerberus

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 I guess the music industry defends your right not to be rickrolled.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

7:39 PM

It would appear so.

Cerberus

Like the paragons of charity that they are.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Also not to be linkinparked or systemofadowned

For which I am grateful.

Cerberus

Also not to be Youtubed.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

That's the plan.

Mahnax

Last weekend it was 19˚C. Now it's snowing. What is up with this place?

Maybe I should move to Europe.

Cerberus

7:40 PM

If I were Google, I would split YT into a separate company and move it to a people-friendly country.

@Mahnax Snow!?

That's sick.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Ayup.

Cerberus

It is 19ish here.

I might not wear a jacket when I go out tonight.

(0_0)

I wouldn't.

it's 10ish here

7:41 PM

Really?

Mahnax

19˚C is friggin' beautiful.

Matt Эллен

maybe 12 even

Cerberus

You silly insulars.

@Mahnax Don't move to Amsterdam this weekend, though:

Matt Эллен

my phone says 10C

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@Cerberus YT is a separate company.

Mahnax

7:42 PM

@Cerberus What is that?

Matt Эллен

Koninginnedag

Cerberus

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 Then move it.

@Mahnax The Queen's birthday.

The whole city is like that.

Matt Эллен

ace!

Cerberus

A million people visit the city.

Matt Эллен

I wonder if it'll be like that in London

Mahnax

7:43 PM

Well, wow.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Well done!

Matt Эллен

on Liz's birthday

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Is it a national holiday?

It is our main party holiday.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus no. but we're having her 60th jubilee off

Cerberus

Ah OK.

What's your biggest holiday in terms of people visiting the capital?

Matt Эллен

7:45 PM

Christmas Eve? not a holiday as such, just when everyone is there

Cerberus

Though Koninginnedag is also huge in other cities; it's just biggest in the capital.

@MattЭллен Hmm really? Here, most people go visit their families.

Matt Эллен

they are consumerist sluts

Cerberus

Yes.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus oh, yeah, they do that right after the last minute present buying :D

aedia λ

@Cerberus Lucky! It was 8 C at lunch and I had to dig out a jacket to go outside. Now it says it's 6, supposed to be -2 overnight.

Cerberus

7:47 PM

@MattЭллен Ah OK, so lots of shoppers.

Any idea how many?

We have that too, but not nearly as many people in town as on Koninginnedag, at all.

You literally can't walk on the street.

A ten-minute walk to the station takes an hour or more.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus no idea. Although this year we've got the Olympics, so I'm guessng London will be hell those two weeks

Cerberus

@aediaλ Wowie, freezing in near-May?

@MattЭллен That should be huge, yes.

Robusto

@MattЭллен You're forgetting all the lead-up to the Olympics. Count on at least a month of that. Also, IIRC, the Olympics go on for three weeks.

aedia λ

@Cerberus Yep. Plenty of the tulips already bloomed since it's been so warm (our heat wave was up to like 25 already) and are at risk of frost before it's even time for the festivals.

Matt Эллен

@Robusto oh, could be. I thought it was twelve days, but I'm not interested, so I'm probably wrong

Cerberus

7:50 PM

@Robusto I was rather thinking of the peak number, probably at the opening ceremony.

@MattЭллен High five!

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus high five!

Mahnax

My Olympic enthusiasm: "Go Canada. Can we change the channel please?"

Matt Эллен

it runs from 27th July to 12th August

Cerberus

Luckily, people here are protesting against the government's spending billions on an Olympica campaign (whose sole purpose is to get lucrative sponsorship contracts for Dutch companies).