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12:47 AM
1.234 <- 234 are digits | decimals | ??
@Robusto strong is strong.
 
1:37 AM
234 are the digits of the decimal fraction.
 
 
1 hour later…
2:57 AM
@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Might not happen now. They're giving him shit about transferring the tickets to us after he bought them. Scalping and all. Stay tuned. :(
How retarded can you get that you won't transfer tickets from a son to his parents?
Wow, and their printout ticket page is all 1995 tag-soup HTML 4.
 
 
2 hours later…
4:45 AM
@skullpatrol I think they should remove the second part of the sentence.
 
5:16 AM
@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 You have been very quiet.
 
 
6 hours later…
10:57 AM
@skullpatrol If I expose a property that controls how many of them to show would the correct name for the property be digits | decimals | ??
 
crl
decimal_digits
 
Why didn't I think of that one :)
ty ty'
 
 
2 hours later…
1:09 PM
I strained a back muscle sneezing :(
 
1:33 PM
Sounds like you're doing it wrong. Try reading the manual.
 
Is there one?
 
You didn't get one with your purchase? Tsk-tsk.
 
what do I need to buy?
 
If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
 
i think it's my body telling me i need to lose some weight
 
2:07 PM
Are you very much overweight?
 
Then I think it may be your body telling you to read the owner's manual.
 
i can't find it on the web...
 
Did you look behind the refrigerator? Sometimes things fall back there.
 
shoulders back, look up...is all i could find
 
2:11 PM
This kid's manual may be newer than yours.
 
thanks for your concern
this one is cute
 
2:45 PM
> Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true. —Bertrand Russell
 
Anonymous
3:03 PM
@skullpatrol As far as I'm aware, it's still opt-in rather than opt-out
 
@snailboat Did you get Jon Ericson's email?
 
Anonymous
@AndrewLeach It says: "As moderators in our network, you represent the communities that you watch over. No one knows your communities better than you do. As such, you all get to decide if your site will opt in or not."
 
Anonymous
Oh!
 
Anonymous
There's an extra bit at the end
 
Anonymous
"Sites that haven’t responded by then will be considered to have opted in to the event."
 
3:09 PM
> N.B: Last year the default was was opt out. This year you need to contact us if you don’t want to be involved.
 
Anonymous
That's a rather strange way to use the term "opt in"!
 
Anonymous
I took the term at face value instead of looking at the context to see how they used it
 
Anonymous
Now I see!
 
Well, it makes opting in easier. Opt in, and you don't have to do anything. It is rather like having a pre-ticked box for "I want all your marketing bumf twice a day" though.
 
Anonymous
@AndrewLeach Yippee!
 
3:12 PM
@snailboat Sounds like the perfect definition of "opt out" to me.
 
Anonymous
@Robusto Yes.
 
!opt in = opt out
 
Anonymous
Well, no,
 
!opt out = opt in
 
Anonymous
Neither of those is the case.
 
3:13 PM
I was being facetious.
 
Anonymous
I was confused. :-)
 
Anonymous
Japanese.SE is participating in Winter Bash 2014!
 
Anonymous
I suppose almost every site is.
 
ELU currently has a net score of +28 for the proposal (and 4 votes for an individual opt-out, which could count to make it +32).
 
Anonymous
But they can always I Hate Hats.
 
Anonymous
3:16 PM
So they don't count.
 
Anonymous
(Snail Logic™)
 
Anonymous
@AndrewLeach Our meta post on Japanese.SE is up to 6 upvotes! We're a lot littler, though.
 
@snailboat Exactly. It's a "Yes, but I'll opt out", not a "No, don't participate site-wide".
 
Anonymous
Hey, J.R. started the meta thread on ELL!
 
Anonymous
I'll upvote . . .
 
3:43 PM
I should start counting down to the new year.
 
Anonymous
@JasperLoy I think I'd lose count if it were me.
 
Anonymous
Counting is hard.
 
Anonymous
I mean, I'm good at counting, but eventually I start to wonder if I skipped a number or I stop paying attention, and suddenly 70 turns into 80, and then my brain turns into a puddle of uncountingness
 
Anonymous
So maybe I'm not so good at counting. :-(
 
Anonymous
I've never tried counting for an entire month.
 
Anonymous
3:45 PM
But I probably couldn't do it. I'd fall asleep, I bet.
 
Anonymous
3428065!
 
Anonymous
3428064!
 
Anonymous
Oh, I've fallen behind already! This is no good.
 
Anonymous
I'll just have to content myself for being surprised by the new year again.
 
If you just want to count down, start at zero.
0
-1
-2
 
Anonymous
3:46 PM
But I don't have negative fingers! Is my pinky the sign bit?
 
I have tentatively decided to use this to study German.
 
@snailboat You mean you have 3.4m fingers?! :-O
 
Anonymous
@AndrewLeach Well, I have ten, so if I use one for a sign bit, and 4 for an exponent and 5 for a significand…
 
Anonymous
Then I'll be very, very confused once about half a minute has elapsed!
 
The Assimil basic series is available in 11 languages for English speakers, and many more for French speakers.
 
Anonymous
3:54 PM
I've heard of it!
 
There are three books for each of Chinese and Japanese: Vol 1, Vol 2, and a separate character writing book.
 
Anonymous
4:10 PM
Let me know what you think of it!
 
5:18 PM
Who here has tasted of the literary œuvre of Guy Gavriel Kay?
 
Moi.
 
Long past I had read a couple of his works. Of late I have read more. I have two thoughts.
The first is that he tells a fine tale.
 
That he can.
The second?
 
The second is that the sadness I hold for the tale he was not permitted to tell is an ache that will never go away.
 
@tchrist What tale is that?
 
5:25 PM
That of Beleriand.
Kay in his youth assisted CJRT in assembling the published Silmarillion. It was clear that the materials left to Christopher were not all of the same cloth woven, and that much of the tapestry would be either lost or remade. But the two gentleman disagreed here, for CJRT wanted the book to be entirely his father’s words. But even that was not to be, and Chris wrote the last chapter himself.
CJRT, gracious as always, credits GGK for his kind assistance, but they did not part amicably, and much could have been done.
For Kay wished to use the sketches to make of them tales fully fleshed.
And that, Tolkien fils would not permit him.
 
Oh! Wow. That is a loss. I think I will file that right next to my feelings about the album that Miles Davis and Jimmy Hendrix were apparently planning.
 
In the end, the chapter entitled “The Fall of Doriath”, which tells of Thingol’s fall by the perfidious Naugrim and his realm’s ruin, was written by CJRT using his father’s old sketches and notes. CJRT has confessed to overstepping his rôle as editor in this, and wishes he had not.
But without it, there would have been no ending.
And much there was which CJRT left out.
Kay wished to write out in full the tales previously only sketched.
Chris would have none of that.
We see now glimpses of what might have been, after three decades working on Kay working on his own, constructing tales of wonder and delight.
CJRT will never license his father’s ideas to another, never entrust them to another’s hand.
 
A position I don't necessarily disagree with but Kay is one of the few I'd trust for something like that.
 
But Tolkien père himself wrote once of how he hopes others would pick up where he had left off, expanding and enriching his Legendarium.
@terdon Yes, exactly.
 
In a way, that has happened. Though not Middle Earth cannon, essentially the whole genre of Fantasy is a continuation of his Legendarium.
 
5:35 PM
It is not the same.
s/nn/n/
I for many years resisted reading his Lions, because I feared it would sit not well with me, knowing what I did of that time, that place.
I was wrong.
 
Lions?
For Al-Rasan or something along those lines right?
 
Yes.
The Lions of al-Rassan.
 
I read that one many years ago. Which pseudo-epoch was it set in?
Caliphate?
It was the Sarantium ones I enjoyed the most.
 
Of its ending, of the resulting Taifa lands; a retelling of El Cantar de Mio Çid.
 
Damn, I should read it again. It must have been 15 years ago.
 
5:42 PM
I did not wish to read it because I feared he would fail to treat it with the proper respect, the mixing of the three peoples of the Book, the richness that came of that mélange. I dreaded reading of Diego’s death, and much more.
But Kay twisted the tale in the retelling, and Diego lived.
I wept.
 
Speaking of mixing peoples, have you read this gem?
Sea of Poppies
 
Is the Sarantine diptych the best of his writings? I do not know, for I have not read everything Kay has ever written. It is very nice, which is a damning phrase I should know better than to use, but fancier words escape me just now.
 
@tchrist It's probably the one I enjoyed the most but then I have a soft spot for the Byzantine era so I'm not entirely impartial.
 
@terdon On that note, do you know Call Me Conrad?
 
No.
I don't think I've read anything of Zelazny's. OK, that's on the list.
 
5:50 PM
The story of Conrad Nomikos has come to be published under another title.
Resist reviews.
 
This Immortal, serialized as ...And Call Me Conrad, is a science fiction novel by American author Roger Zelazny. In its original publication, it was abridged by the editor and published in two parts in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in October and November 1965. It tied with Frank Herbert's Dune for the 1966 Hugo Award for Best Novel. == Publication history == Most, but not all of the cuts made for the serialized version were restored for the first paperback publication by Ace Books and the title was changed by the publisher to This Immortal. Zelazny stated in interviews that...
Right?
 
Thanks, I'm finishing a mediocre (!) Gaiman book and need something good.
 
His Creatures of Light and Darkness is also one of the greats.
I am not always as thrilled with Gaiman as I wish I were, or as others are, but some things he has written are ones that I would call excellent.
Given your bias and background, have you read Wolfe’s Soldier series?
It is a short work, but all the better for it, as not a jot nor tittle is wasted.
There are memes from Creatures that have become catchphrases in our subculture.
There is one book that I would recommend which I cannot figure out how to do without spoiling it. You must read nothing, NOTHING, that is written about it, no summaries, nothing.
It must be handed to you unannounced, and you must discover it as you go.
 
posted on November 22, 2014 by sgdi

I’ll see what’s going on outside Oh! I think there’s been homicide The blood and police The body and piece Makes me think I should stay inside

 
6:00 PM
@terdon Which medium-grade Gaiman would that be?
 
The Interworld series. YA stuff but surprisingly uninteresting. Relatively well written, it is Gaiman after all, but nowhere near as good as his novels tend to be.
 
I enjoyed Neverwhere.
I also enjoyed the novella Gaiman recently published in that underverse.
I forget whether I am supposed to italicize novellas, but I am referring to “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back”.
 
Neverwhere was fine, as is American Gods and pretty much anything else the man has written as far as I can tell. Not so Interworld. I will finish it but I find myself skimming.
@tchrist Haven't read that one. I've been a Gaiman fan since I first read the Sandman in my teens though.
 
I have not read Interworld.
 
Don't.
 
6:04 PM
Good to know.
 
Adolescent boy fantasy and not very well done.
 
Smells like bad porn.
 
Reads like it too. Actually, sex scenes would have been an improvement. We have "She's not my girlfriend!" and blushing instead.
 
Sex scenes done well in books are rare.
@MattЭллен Find me something to upvote, and I shall do so.
 
you want to upvote something?
 
Anonymous
6:12 PM
Right now I'm reading Vortex. Spin was one of my favorite books of 2005, so I was disappointed when Axis came out and it wasn't nearly as good―I'm only now getting around to reading the third
 
@MattЭллен Yes.
Sometimes I like China Miéville, sometimes I do not. Iron Council was good.
Charlie Stross is always good.
Apropos....
 
0
Q: What figure(s) of speech or expression are in play here?

Jim MackI recently heard a somewhat poetic song lyric that I couldn't pin down. The writer says of a failed relationship, "We broke a diamond with our bitter words". I get diamond as a metonym for marriage, or at least for commitment, but the writer stretches it by 'breaking' a diamond, which seems more ...

 
Anonymous
Accelerando was my other favorite of 2005.
 
Anonymous
(I always have a hard time picking just one favorite.)
 
Very recently, I am able to buy books in America that have not been Americanized from their originals. This has quite surprised me.
 
6:15 PM
@tchrist rings a bell what did she write?
 
China Tom Miéville’s parents had weird naming conventions.
He also wrote Perdido Street Station.
 
I started reading city & city
 
@MattЭллен Thank you.
 
forgot about it
 
@tchrist you're welcome!
 
6:18 PM
@tchrist I feel exactly the same way. About both of them.
 
Embassytown was interesting for its treatment of language.
I rather hated Kraken.
Anyway, (some) authors from the greater Anglosphere are only now at last being printed in the US without Americanization.
I suspect we owe this blessing not to good sense but to economics, but whatever its cause, it’s about fucking time.
Almost all genre works get redubbed, so to speak. Tolkien alone was inviolate, but everybody else has been historically rewritten in a painfully provincial fashion for American readers.
This causes extreme cognitive dissonance at times to those of us who are sensitive to this.
They swap out not just spellings but vocabulary and idiom. It really annoys me.
Under Heaven they did not do this to.
Nor Kraken, little though I cared for it.
Then again, Kay is Canadian so his spellings always seem “normal” to me.
This is a new phenomenon, not Americanizing un-American English-language books.
It saves me from having to pay overseas shipping rates.
I have grown disillusioned with Dan Simmons in recent years, much though I enjoy almost everything from the start of his career.
 
@tchrist Was that the one where they are travelling by train?
I didn't like the ending.
I didn't like the ending of the moth one either.
 
@Cerberus Yes. And not surprised.
 
The ending of the rubbish one, on the roofs of Perdido Station, was better.
I think the ending of the ship one was the best.
 
Yes, that was good.
 
6:31 PM
@tchrist Not surprised about what?
 
@Cerberus That the frozen-in-time ending bothered you.
 
I have watched the last episode of House of Cards today, it was good. Urquhart's ending was glorious!
 
The ship one was The Scar.
 
@tchrist Oh, yes. The thing is, it wasn't an ending, it was just...he cut off the story and came up with some dreary bits of eppy loag.
@tchrist I liked it, but I would have liked for him to elaborate on various phenomena, such as the scarring.
Why did they do it? What was the effect?
 
I do sometimes find myself wonder whether Miéville isn’t intentionally looking for not just le mot juste, but for le mot le plus recherché qu’on peut imaginer.
 
6:34 PM
Oh, he is certainly doing that, beyond doubt.
 
@Cerberus Argh! Please don't tell me!
 
Have you met Miéville?
 
@tchrist (In older French, qu'on ne peut s'imaginer, I think.)
@terdon I shan't!
 
@Cerberus Yes, that’s quite right.
 
@terdon Let's say Elizabeth had a hand in it, and we're not sure to what extent he agreed with her.
@tchrist Met? No?
 
6:37 PM
I was resisting the reflexive because I’m always sticking it in in my French where it doesn’t go, despite the identical term being reflexive in Iberian tongues.
 
Oh, you didn't use se. I didn't even notice.
 
@Cerberus I just wondered whether he might have come to Amsterdam for a book reading/tour/signing.
@Cerberus It’s mandatory in Spanish or Portuguese there.
 
@tchrist Oh, it is possible, but even then chances of my meeting him would be slim.
@tchrist Probably also in French. I used it.
In Dutch, many people get it wrong too.
Beseffen, but zich realiseren and zich voorstellen.
Realiseren without zich means something else.
Beseffen cannot be used with zich.
 
China Tom’s sister is named Jemima.
 
Tom?
Another weird hippie name?
 
6:41 PM
Miéville’s middle name.
 
Ah.
How is China pronounced?
/'ʃi.na/?
As in Dutch?
 
tjina
 
> My parents were hippies, and the story is that they went through a dictionary looking for a beautiful word to name me. They nearly called me Banyan, but flipped a few pages on and reached “China,” thankfully. The other reason they liked it is that “china” is Cockney rhyming slang for “mate.” People say “my old china,” meaning “my old mate,” because “china plate” rhymes with “mate.”
@Cerberus /ai/
 
@JohanLarsson Is that how you pronounce it in Swedish, or...?
 
yes, no need for unicode
 
6:46 PM
@tchrist So weird!
@JohanLarsson OK.
 
Yeah.
 
That tj is interesting.
I didn't know Scandinavian had that.
@Robusto I am fine with people having bad opinions. I am against any state prosecution of opinions. But, as a company, I can understand why you wouldn't want your highest representative to be a bigot. If he hadn't had a representative function, nobody would have cared, probably.
 
I assume his first name is pronounced as we pronounce the country China in English.
/'tʃaɪnə/
 
@tchrist Apparently...
Okay, what shall I do? I could go out for a run, or...I could eat unhealthy stuff.
I'm tired, and it's cold and dark outside.
 
short run?
 
6:50 PM
Small snack?
Why are those your only two options?
 
Haha.
Because...well, aren't those good options?
What else would you have me do?
@terdon So you are planning to watch House of Cards?
 
If I had to choose between going for a run in the cold and dark or eating a snack, I'd read a nice book and snack and maybe have a glass of something.
 
Haha.
You're not a good influence!
 
@Cerberus Yes, I've seen a few episodes but am missing many. So I don't want to know about the end!
 
Missing?
 
6:53 PM
@Cerberus Hah! If it were me I'd also be smoking. Note that I did not suggest that.
 
Don't worry I wouldn't spoil the ending for you.
 
@Cerberus I stopped a few episodes back so I am missing (haven't seen) many of the more recent ones.
 
Recent?
I am talking about the English version.
Which is pretty old.
Is the protagonist also called Urquhart in the American version?
 
@Cerberus Ah, that's one of the reasons I stopped watching the (very good) American one. I wanted to see the UK one first.
Oh hey, @Cerberus did you see this? I think you'll enjoy it:
 
If the bulk of the 19th century was the Victorian era or period, why shouldn’t the latter half of the 20th (and then some) become known as the Elizabethan one?
 
7:01 PM
 
@terdon That's cool.
But a little black dress? That is a thing?
@terdon Ah, well, you should!
We watched it on Netflix, but you can no doubt find it elsewhere too.
@tchrist Because there was an Elizabethan period before it, and no two periods can bear the same name.
 
Then neither should monarchs be permitted to repeat names, eh? :)
 
Well, one just has to invent a different nomenclature.
Or number them, Louis Quinze...
 
The second Elizabethan period, perhaps.
 
@JohanLarsson Haha.
@tchrist Perhaps.
 
7:09 PM
@Cerberus Apparently. I'd never heard of it either.
 
Hmm.
Then who has?
 
A little black dress is an evening or cocktail dress, cut simply and often quite short. Fashion historians ascribe the origins of the little black dress to the 1920s designs of Coco Chanel and Jean Patou intended to be long-lasting, versatile, affordable, accessible to the widest market possible and in a neutral colour. Its ubiquity is such that it is often simply referred to as the "LBD". The "little black dress" is considered essential to a complete wardrobe by many women and fashion observers, who believe it a "rule of fashion" that every woman should own a simple, elegant black dress that can...
Many, apparently.
 
Perhaps it is something Transatlantic or Antipodean.
 
@terdon Which Gaiman? I missed which. Was it The Ocean at the End of the Lane?
 
@tchrist The one I am unimpressed by?
InterWorld
 
7:19 PM
Oh right.
 
Have you read Sea of Poppies? The one I posted before. That one is absolutely brilliant. Not Gaiman, Amitav Ghosh.
 
No, I haven't. Perhaps I shall.
 
It is a fascinating read. Beautiful prose and great characters spanning many different nations. It's set at the beginning of the Opium wars and has characters from pretty much all possible sides. Each speaks their own idiosyncratic dialect of English or Patois. Great book.
 
Thanks for the recommendation.
 
7:54 PM
Considering that the male of the species rarely get pregnant, I would remove the "o" after "embarazada". — Centaurus 43 mins ago
There is a slash and an o on Wikipedia that I do not think belong there. So let's start a discussion about Spanish grammar in comments on ELU!
 
funny
normally they put the letter(s) within parentheses
/o looks too much like division by zero :-)
 
@oerkelens Oddly enough, the Spanish dictionary also has embarazado. Despite defining it only in terms of women.
I've never heard it used as such but perhaps it can take a figurative meaning. Like a pregnant silence. Un silencio embarasado just sounds weird though.
Searching google images brings things like
 
Well, I would certainly not claim to know enough about Spanish to assume embarazada can only be used for female animals. Whether embarazado exists or not, what is that whole discussion doing in comments under an unrelated answer, on English language and usage...
 
So I guess it can indeed be used.
 
8:04 PM
Even if it can not be used, that comment-thread is nonsense
 
@terdon that is nasty!
 
@oerkelens Adjectives have grammatical agreement with grammatical gender. Actual sex is irrelevant.
 
Really, people? There is a Spanish stackexchange, no? — oerkelens 12 mins ago
Poor guy, he gets all the notifications for this :)
 
@tchrist I know, I am aware of that., Why is everybody trying to teach me Spanish and simple grammar today?
 
inserts pregnant pause
 
8:06 PM
In different news, I earned 100 points and a badge today... in Linguists! Well, just because question and answer were migrated, but still :D
@tchrist Yeah, I used that pause in one of my (now deleted) comments too :)
 
And that Chinapersonita is delusional and peevinacita.
 
we're just trying to help pal
 
Her language has no inflections, so she hates inflections.
BFD
Stoopidita preguntita.
 
Yeah, down with grammar!
 
down grammar with yeah
 
8:08 PM
:)
 
Love the statement that nobody has to change anything, but grammar should be simplified.
 
@terdon weight-lifters call that phenomena a "power belly"
 
alphabetically always sort words your
 
So in other words, everybody has to talk differently so she can understand :P
Hi @IceGirl :)
 
@oerkelens Hi :D
 
8:10 PM
about be be grammar have more no once sort there to word worry you your
non
 
@tchrist easier well see you can get it obvious better everybody for
 
@oerkelens ¿better can easier everybody for get it obvious see well you?
 
The more I think about it, the better it seems, actually.
Oh, no, wait.
 
You @tchrist may find this interesting :-)
 
@skullpatrol ugh...
 
8:19 PM
Hardly appetescing.
Por mucho que me encuentre en pleno medio de todo ello.
 
@terdon It is a common body type for power-lifters.
 
@tchrist Bueno, no es que te encontraste por pura casualidad todo mono y inocente. You did help the conversation along.
@skullpatrol What's a power lifter? Some kind of crane?
 
@terdon people who lift the maximum possible in the benchpress etc.
Powerlifting is a strength sport that consists of three attempts at maximal weight on three lifts: squat, bench press, and deadlift. As in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, it involves lifting weights in three attempts. Powerlifting evolved from a sport known as "odd lifts", which followed the same three-attempt format but used a wider variety of events, akin to strongman competition. Eventually odd lifts became standardized to the current three. In competition, lifts may be performed equipped or un-equipped (typically referred to as 'raw' lifting or 'classic' in the IPF specifically). Equipment...
 
@skullpatrol Oh. Well, I guess it takes all sorts.
 
:-)
 
8:30 PM
@skullpatrol Hi. Ice Boy :)
 
Haha.
Funny Frigidarians.
 
@IceGirl Hello.
@Cerberus do any of your heads speak dog latin
 
Sometimes...
 
9:20 PM
Cogito ergo woof
 
@Cerberus Well put.
 
10:22 PM
The apostrophe is in there for the exact same reason the h is in there: because no reason. We have to spell the word somehow. So you spell it "doh", I spell it "d'oh", and someone else spells it "d;eaux", and then some spellings catch on and others don't. And that's all there's to it. Any other explanation — every other explanation — is justification in hindsight. Smoke and mirrors. And coincidentally, that is how the spelling of every single word of every single language in every single writing system gets figured out. So there is really nothing at all peculiar about this particular word. — RegDwigнt ♦ 1 min ago
 
0
Q: Change the text in a TextBox so it is undoable

Johan LarssonI have a custom control that is a TextBox and a Button. When I click the button it changes the text in the TextBox. I want it to look like if the user typed in the new text. ClipBoard and textBox.Paste() is too ugly. Link to code

 

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