English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Yes it happened. We call it Belgium. We sparred a bit with them to give them the idea that they had won.

Actually, that wasn't money, but Surinam??? Right?

Better than money :)

@GlenTheUdderboat Well, it kind of depends on your definition of "give away voluntarily", but you could say Chroetsjov gave away the Crimea to Ukraine.

9:05 PM

Ah well, but Putin is fixing that as we speak :X

@Cerberus What a coincidence!

@GlenTheUdderboat Actually, we had lost the war against the English, and they forced us to cede Nieuw Amsterdam, more or less, but we managed to get Suriname in return.

@oerkelens Umm they did win. But OK!

@GlenTheUdderboat Not quite!

Lost the war, lost the war, a minor setback.

That is part of the reason why Russia is busy getting it back.

We made them believe they had a war on, and we made them believe they won. Otherwise they might have refused to take it of our hands (the Belgians that is).

9:07 PM

@oerkelens I wouldn't have been surprised if we should have been force to cede NA later anyway.

If you were some other country, and you were offered Crimea, would you take it?

@oerkelens Haha. Interesting theory.

@GlenTheUdderboat Why not?

I love simplifying history

keeps things clear

Why not take Crimea? Because there are too many armed Russians around that may want to take your gift away?

@Cerberus Because many people will become citizens. And they have rights and influence.

Hell, best reason to have it is to annoy Russia. And that is a hobby for big boys.

9:10 PM

So, this Black Sea Fleet, do they sail through Istanbul every time they want to actually do something?

Jasper Loy

►

Nice German movie.

@GlenTheUdderboat The usual strategy is to just don't give them any rights.

@GlenTheUdderboat No, they probably just remain in the Black Sea. I'm not sure.

I don't think they can sail by river either.

It's a bit like a big boat in a bath tub, isn't it?

@Cerberus But is there anything to do in the Black Sea?? (Except surround Crimea.)

Apart from controlling a bunch of former Soviet republics and the Balkans, and proving control over the northern access to the Middle East? No, it's pretty useless :)

9:15 PM

I mean, are there other naval forces in the Black Sea?

Sure.

Lots.

@Cerberus Really? Who?

Maybe the Russians are allowed to leave through the Bosporus, it is possible.

@GlenTheUdderboat Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria...

@Cerberus They all have navies?

Sure!

All countries do.

9:18 PM

Switzerland doesn't. Right?

I bet even Switzerland has a couple of ships in its lakes.

Perhaps not Mali...

An aircraft carrier, I hope!

That seems less likely.

I doubt Nepal has a navy

Military of Switzerland

The Swiss Armed Forces operate on land and in the air, and also along international waters. They comprise the well-known militia element and a small professional element, or regular army. Under the country's militia system, professional soldiers constitute about 5 percent of military personnel; the rest are male citizen conscripts 19 to 34 (in some cases up to 50) years old. Because of the long history of neutrality, the army does not take part in armed conflicts in other countries, but does take part in peacekeeping missions around the world. The structure of the Swiss militia system...

@oerkelens Probably not...

Perhaps they have some boats in rivers?

9:21 PM

@Cerberus Nice!

I feel comforted to be in the 'popular belief' category. :)

Hehe.

I am glad you feel that way.

So, any chance that a US aircraft carrier will make its way into the Black Sea?

I mean physically, not geo-politically.

@GlenTheUdderboat The US already has ships in the area, positioned there since before the Olympics

Maybe not an aircraft carrier though

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Really? Which ones?

@GlenTheUdderboat I dunno but they reportedly had some naval vessels standing by in case they needed to evacuate Americans from Sochi

This map reports that there is a carrier in the Mediterranean, or there was, last Oct.

9:30 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Not quite in the Black Sea.

@GlenTheUdderboat It could easily get there, why?

@GlenTheUdderboat close enough

@Cerberus Maybe the passing is too small?

Oh, no.

The Bosporus is quite large.

Or deep enough.

@Cerberus Also, there are bridges.

9:34 PM

hm, the ship reported in the Mediterranean on that map may not be there after all. Damn random Google Maps!

Also, did you know? US Naval ships have their own facebook pages.

@GlenTheUdderboat Yeah I've been there!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 By the way, what do you think of Ara now?

@Cerberus Me too. :)

@Cerberus Ara?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 androidpolice.com/2014/02/28/…

The video is quite interesting.

oh that Ara

9:37 PM

They seem to be on track and very serious about it.

They seem to be serious, sure. Whether or not they succeed.... who knows.

@GlenTheUdderboat Yay! It appears Turkey has signed a treaty to let all ships through.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You said, "it can never be done!!".

And yet Google thinks it can be done and will do it.

The chassis will cost ca. € 10.

@Cerberus Not "never". It's just going to be a nightmare. Or else a mere token attempt.

@Cerberus So, how high are the bridges?

Just listen to them.

9:39 PM

I get "This video is private"

They already have a semi-working prototype.

Huh, that's weird!

I admit that I didn't anticipate their strategy of building low-cost non-phones and letting people add phone tech later.

@GlenTheUdderboat I don't know, but presumably high enough for warships to pass through.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But that was the idea!

An ecosystem for phone parts.

@Cerberus I never claimed it would be impossible to build a modular device. I claimed that the logistics of getting that to be a useful thing in the market will be too hard.

People already have a hard time installing drivers on their computers.

And it is great, breaking down vertical integration is very good, nay, necessary for a true free market.

9:40 PM

Imagine when they need to install drivers on their phones.

@Cerberus You've got to be kidding. How high is a war ship, you think?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 They won't.

@Cerberus are you serious? The cyanogenmod people spend like 90% of their time on driver issues.

The chassis will come with drivers and/or the components will come with drivers in such a way as to be plug and play.

Why do you think there are so many different versions of cyanogenmod?

because drivers.

9:42 PM

@GlenTheUdderboat If you take down the antennae...I don't know, they come in many sizes! Perhaps you need to temporarily remove some rigging.

@Cerberus Sadly, Linux is not designed for that.

shrugs

Google says they can do it and they have a working prototype.

Some things will be possible. like, cameras that use a unified interface and don't require special drivers, sure.

They are talking about high-end camera modules.

I imagine the drivers will be integrated into the module.

Everything has to be certified.

"integrated into the module" is relatively meaningless.

Yes, certification is another problem. Esp. the FCC, etc, are anal about that.

There are SO MANY hurdles in place.

Admittedly if they only achieve a 2x increase in modularity over what we have now that'd still be nice.

But early adopters are going to be screwed on this, for sure.

I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

9:45 PM

You're always such a pessimist.

In this case I'm pessimistic due to my decades of experience in computers.

They mention a certain quantity of overhead in the video.

It is all accounted for.

Look, I'm sure they know the obstacles better than just about anyone. But the thing is that they need to not only demonstrate a working prototype, but also bring it to market in a robust way that lowers cost (over the lifetime of all the components) and is actually usable by the market. Because sure, "build your own electronics" things are "popular" (e.g. Raspberry Pi) but they do not revolutionize the commodity markets.

There's some discussion on warships into the Black Sea here: zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-02/…

They don't have to lower the cost of a standard phone.

And they don't need to sell a lot of chassis.

And cheap modules will appear from China.

9:51 PM

@Cerberus They have to lower the cost of the phone ownership over the lifetime of the entire build. Or else provide some extra value for the money.

@Cerberus Good luck making those work.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 The latter.

If you can hot-swap a battery...

Buy a better camera...

Switch to 6G...

You may still be spending more on the whole, but you will have the advantage of choice.

And you can swap everything.

Bring your large camera module on vacation, remove the speakers.

The idea is supposed to be that you save money, at least by re-using the old parts you already have. Otherwise if a new camera and 6G module costs as much as a new integrated phone, or even close, then nobody will bother.

Use the front camera only when you happen to want to Skype.

As I am saying, the total doesn't even need to be cheaper than what the average person spends on a phone in 2 years, because there are other advantages.

Also it will be a nightmare for app developers. It will used to be the case that you could count on a phone having a front-facing camera. Not anymore. Or having certain sensors. Or at least any phone running a certain version of android has at least a certain capability.

A marketplace of modules seems like a great way to encourage innovation in order to bring down costs.

The phone will have the latest version of Android.

9:55 PM

@Cerberus what? why would it?

And counting on sensors is absolutely not important, I'm sorry.

I'm always blocking sensors for all apps, and camera, too, except for the one or two apps that I need to use the camera.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Google will make sure it does.

@Cerberus yeah, right. Like how they made sure the Nexus S, Nexus S 4G, GN, Verizon GN, etc, all have the latest Android.

Even the N4 waited some time before getting the latest.

Some Moto phone had Kitkat before me.

This is just one system that needs Android.

@Cerberus No, it's infinite systems.

And Kitkat was easily ported to the Galaxy Nexus, and soon.

9:58 PM

@Cerberus Not by Google.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No, that is the beauty of it: all of that is abstracted away.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That doesn't matter.

@Cerberus lol.

@Cerberus It does matter.

If they only way you will get your older chassis+cpu to work is to use CM, the product will fail.

Phone vendors already hate supporting old phones.

Even Google does a shitty job of supporting the Nexus, and they're the best of ALL the android vendors, by FAR.

The ONLY vendor in the marketplace that has good support for old phones is Apple, and they often fuck up the old phones either on purpose or by accident. (conspiracy theory: they make them slow to force you to upgrade)

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That will not happen. Google will update it.

Okay, this discussion is pointless.

@Cerberus There is no evidence that they will do that. They haven't so far.

They only support Nexus phones for 18 months.

You will never believe it until you have it in your hands, and probably not even then.

10:02 PM

Look, a prototype phone where you can hot-swap some specially-made parts is really neat. I admit it. I would love to have a device that was really modular. But look at the phone industry's track record. It stinks so much.

I don't understand why this new thing is going to revolutionize everything.

And I do know a little bit about getting hardware working in Linux, and it's not always easy unless you're a kernel dev.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Great!

Keep in mind that Google is explicitly not the phone industry...

The latter kind of sucks.

Ara is explicitly not the phone industry.

Google is part of the phone industry.

Android is great and all, but Google has failed to meet many of my expectations.

Like their 18month support period for nexus devices. That STINKS.

Their failure to deliver updates to OS components in a way that can be installed by regular users. That STINKS. (example: Android prior to 4.2 has a major security flaw in the WebView... the vendors need to ship full-OS updates to fix that. Guess how many will? Google didn't even update the Nexus S).

The non-Google Android vendors have been TERRIBLE at shipping updates.

Also, there has been a decided lack of teamwork in making it possible to attach things to phones. There's USB-OTG but, eg, the N4 doesn't support it. (WTF?) There's MHL, but, eg, the Galaxy S3 has its own incompatible implementation. Etc, etc.

And this is where the vendors have good control over what they're shipping and selling.

Sure, Google should have been more forthcoming with Android updates.

The rest I think is more the fault of the manufacturers.

Phone carriers stink too. They screw with devices, locking them, installing crap, delay updates, etc.

In short, every major player in this industry has a terrible track record when it comes to customer freedom and post-sales satisfaction.

Phone carriers are largely irrelevant.

10:14 PM

Not in north america.

Sure, in some parts of the world.

But not in most of the world.

Anyway, I have to go.

Adieu!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Watch the video and dream of those lovely lego pieces that you can slide into your chassis: you can even slide out the screen!!

Suffice to say, I remain unconvinced that Ara will be a huge success, except maybe in cases where you want to first buy half a phone and save money, and then later add in the piece you were missing. Even that will be problematic though... Just look at Asus and their Transformer series. I bought a TF101, but if I wanted the keyboard addon now I wouldn't be able to get it.

@Cerberus well, the video don't work.

anyway, ttyl

How is that possible? Videos are supposed to not work here.

Bye!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I'm not saying it will be a huge success. I'm just saying it is not a crazy project and that something like it can be done. How it fares we shall have to see.

cyril

10:21 PM

@skullpatrol I guess you're more in UK and cerberus in US then :)

give yield is more used in UK I've seen

priorité à droite	US	yield to the right
 	UK	give way to the right

anyways

!!urban brothel

KitSox

@cyril brothel A wretch; a depraved person; a lewd man or woman.

@cyril brothel house of prostitution

Mitch

@Cerberus I heard that Google is going to stop supporting Android because it is too intertwined with Google Wave.

@cyril I said give way...

@Mitch Google Wave is becoming so huge, it is getting out of hand, Google is losing control.

Mitch

@Cerberus I've installed Facebook as my operating system and am running Ubuntu as a VM on top of that.

10:37 PM

Oh, that's nice.

The VM is a Facebook game?

Is it like Varm Mill?

Mitch

@Cerberus ha ha, I don't know. I'm not that technical.