English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

12:14 AM

@Arrowfar I had never heard of a miswak before.

Do you just use a manufactured toothbrush

user116848

Yes I prefer toothbrush

user116848

:)

Mitch

seems like just an alternative.

forks vs chopsticks

user116848

Yes it is. It's an old thingie

user116848

Exactly

user116848

12:17 AM

You are right forks are very easy to eat noodles with. I can't never use chopsticks

Mitch

Same here

I think the trick is you use the chopsticks like a shovel; you put the bowl or plate up to your mouth.

I think.

Only try that at home.

user116848

Chinese and other asians are great at using them.

Mitch

Like anything, if you grow up with it it's easy

user116848

One time I tried using them and hit my face with the sticks instead (The pointy ends) :D

Mitch

Ow!

user116848

12:21 AM

So in public place you always use forks while eating Chinese dishes?

Mitch

some americans use forks some chopsticks (with east asian food)

user116848

I see

Cerberus

12:35 AM

Or guns.

Or flags.

user116848

what? :)

Cerberus

They use those things.

Robusto

room topic changed to English Language & Usage: nichts besonders (no tags)

Cerberus

Besser.

Robusto

Immer besser.

user116848

12:38 AM

@Robusto Robusto you can speak both Chinese and Japanese? Or one of them

Robusto

Just heard on the radio that studies are showing that kids who grow up bilingual do better in school than monolinguals. No surprise there, yeah.

user116848

Even German?

Robusto

@Arrowfar ぼくが中国語話せない。

@Arrowfar What do you mean, "even" German?

user116848

@Robusto From the room topic words

Robusto

I speak OK German. Used to be better.

user116848

12:43 AM

@Robusto だから、日本語を話すことができます。私が参照してください。

user116848

:)

user116848

Google translator.

Robusto

@Arrowfar ええ、ま、なんとか。

user116848

I speak Urdu and English BTW

Robusto

Urdu is Pakistani tongue?

user116848

12:45 AM

Yes it is

Robusto

Thought so.

user116848

And very similar sounding to Hindi too

Robusto

Similar meaning as well? Or totally different?

user116848

Similar like it is spoken almost similarly but scripts are different

Robusto

Who speaks Pushtu then? Afghanis?

user116848

12:47 AM

No pustho is spoken by pathans in Pakistan

Robusto

Oh.

Pathans are likely to be soldiers?

user116848

Yeah they are like that :) How did you know?

Robusto

History.

user116848

You in military Robusto?

user116848

:)

user116848

12:49 AM

I see

Robusto

Hmm, it seems Pathan is the Persian term for Afghani. Hill people.

Wait, I have that backwards.

Afghan is the Persian for Pathan. So I was kind of right.

Cerberus

Ohh.

Good to know.

Robusto

I remember it from reading about this guy:

Dost Mohammad Khan

Dost Mohammad Khan (Persian: "دوست محمد خان", (Pashto: دوست محمد خان, December 23, 1793 – June 9, 1863) was the founder of the Barakzai dynasty and one of the prominent rulers of Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan War. With the decline of the Durrani dynasty, he became Emir of Afghanistan from 1826 to 1839 and then from 1845 to 1863. An ethnic Pashtun, he was the 11th son of Sardar Payendah Khan (chief of the Barakzai tribe) who was killed in 1799 by Zaman Shah Durrani. Dost Mohammad's grandfather was Hajji Jamal Khan. == Background and rise to power == Dost Mohammad Khan was born to an...

user116848

@Robusto Are you Japanese American looking or just Japanese?

Robusto

I am American American. Not Japanese at all.

user116848

12:53 AM

I see. Then you learned Japanese. I thought you were Japanese due to your name in japanese

Robusto

Your name is in English, but I did not suppose you were English.

user116848

hah. You are right, I thought wrong :)

Mitch

My name is not in English.

Robusto

Gut genug.

Mitch

Oh. So you can read that?

Dammit.

tries to think of another name

skullpatrol

1:06 AM

skullpatrol is taken :-)

user116848

Hey pal :-)

skullpatrol

Hi pal

How are you?

user116848

Good. You? How are you doing?

skullpatrol

Fine thanks.

Cerberus

2:02 AM

> I am flagging this question because

it is spam This question is effectively an advertisement with no disclosure. It is not useful or relevant, but promotional.

"With no disclosure"? Why should we care about disclosure?

That almost sounds as though Stack Exchange were condoning the practice of advertising.

Mahnax

I've moved into my new place!

chain smokes

drinks heavily

passes out

Cerberus

2:26 AM

@Mahnax Your parents will be proud!!

How do you like it?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

2:58 AM

@Cerberus I don't think that image is canonical

@Mahnax You forgot to mention the rampant fornication

@Cerberus An advertisement for a product could be a useful answer for a question in some circumstances but maybe the answeree is required to disclose whether or not they are promoting the product and if they are employees, etc?

Cerberus

3:13 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I'm pretty sure a scene like that didn't occur in the movies.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't see how an advertisement could possibly be wanted here.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It is a very long scene, the first one.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus If it answers the question, and is also an advertisement?

Cerberus

Unwanted.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

unwanted by you, maybe, and yet not necessarily by people who aren't allergic to capitalism.

Cerberus

3:14 AM

If you are impartial and you recommend a product, that could theoretically be OK.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

What if you are biased, but the product happens to solve the problem anyway?

Cerberus

Do you understand what capitalism is?

I am not allergic to capitalism. I think moderate capitalism is like moderate democracy: the lesser evil that we need.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

If I ask a question "How can I get from Toronto to Ottawa? I have lots of money but no clue how to get there?" and a Ford dealer comes along and says "You could buy a car, and we at Ford would love to sell you one! It has these advantages...", how is that an inappropriate answer to the question?

Mahnax

@Cerberus It's nice.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It is not necessarily the best possible answer, but it is an answer.

Cerberus

3:19 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It is biased and untrustworthy. We want the best answer here, not some biased one that is bound to be worse than the best.

@Mahnax Great!

Mahnax

@Cerberus Yeah! I have two Chinese roomies and one Angolan roomie.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus It is biased. It is as trustworthy as any random answer. And sure, we want the best possible answers, but that is not the criteria for what answers we allow

KitFox

@Mahnax Sweet.

Mahnax

@KitFox Yeah!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I mean, everyone has biases. If we can only answer questions where we have no biases whatsoever, then there will basically be nobody answering anything anywhere.

@Mahnax How big is your room?

Are you renting a house, or something?

Mahnax

3:22 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I am renting part of an apartment owned by the University. There's four bedrooms and two bathrooms.

My room is maybe four meters by eight meters.

KitFox

Oh that's nice for a freshman.

Mahnax

Or five by ten. Hard to say.

I don't have a measuring tape.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mahnax wow, 4 bedrooms?! nice

@Mahnax you're so unprepared

Mahnax

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah. We share the kitchen, and two of us share each shower/bathroom.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 shrugs

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mahnax having your own bedroom is nice.

Mahnax

3:24 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes. I have a little fridge in here that my parents gave me as an early birthday present.

So I can keep some things to myself.

And my espresso machine is in here too, of course.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mahnax Fridge, espresso, computer, bed... what else do you need? Nothing.

Mahnax

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Exactly.

Cerberus

@Mahnax Wow! Exotic. How are their Englishes?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 This is a bias that runs directly counter to providing the best answer. No open mind, no willingness to consider a different answer—in fact, its quality is of no concern whatsoever to the answerer, only that he wants to make money.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Well, the Angolan guy speaks OK English. The other two are a little more difficult to communicate with. We'll get by, though.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus You know that's not necessarily true.

Cerberus

3:29 AM

A good answer presupposes and requires trust: trust that the answerer is honestly doing his best to give you a good answer.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I have met lots of salespeople who are ( gasp! ) actually honest about their product and its pros and cons

Cerberus

@Mahnax That's huge! Especially for a freshman.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Haha, yes. It's spacious.

Cerberus

@Mahnax A year from now, their English will bear a huge mark: "Mahnax Was Here".

Mahnax

@Cerberus Hah.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:31 AM

@Cerberus A good answer presupposes trust. But any answer where the answerer doesn't declare their identity, workplace, religion, biases, etc, etc, etc, has insufficient information to establish trust. Whereas an answer by a declared representative of a company actually gives you lots of information.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It is in their interest to be dishonest, however. Do you not see the problem?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Do you truly believe that people cannot be honest? Even if they work for a big bad business?

Seriously.

Who can you possibly trust in your life?

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 The former may or may not deserve trust: we do not know yet. The latter has been confirmed to deserve no trust at all.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Certainly not me. I work for an employer who pays my wages. I am probably lying to you all the time, trying to make more money for him.

I'm sorry you are so paranoid that the entire world is so dishonest.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 If it is their job to make the product appear better than it is, which I presume is the job of an advertising person, then it is possible, but unlikely, that they should be honest.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Is your job in advertising? Do your wages depend directly on how "well" you create advertisements?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:34 AM

@Cerberus Do you think that only the big bad advertising departments are capable of posting on internet forums? None of their other employees ever frequent the SE sites?

Cerberus

The success of a good company does not depend that much on advertising, so its employees shouldn't be all directly dependent on advertising.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus My job doesn't depend directly on how well I create ads. But my tasks sometimes include finding ways to generate more money.

@Cerberus The success of just about every company depends heavily on advertising.

Or pure luck.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I am not talking about "other employees": we are talking about an advertisement posted as an answer here. It is frankly quite absurd.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Then that is different.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus No, we are talking about answers that could be construed as advertisements.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Nah, not of a good company that makes good products.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:36 AM

Not necessarily pure ads.

Cerberus

I am not.

KitFox

I was hoping I would come in tonight and not to a stupid argument.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus You're rationalizing now. Face it, you cannot trust me, or anyone who works for a company. My paycheque depends on my business succeeding.

Cerberus

My position is: if an answer is really an advertisement, then it is automatically unworthy of our trust and hence worthy of deletion. It may accidentally not be so bad, the chance seems small enough that deletion is warranted. As is already standard practice: you would flag it too.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 See my more specific statements above. Strawman.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus So my Ford example above, you would say does not answer the question?

And that answer should be deleted, solely because a Ford employee posted it?

KitFox

3:38 AM

Instead, here is Cerb contradicting himself again. We should never, ever delete any content whatsoever, except when we should.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

If a Ford employee hadn't posted it, would it even be an ad?

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Can he directly profit from the answer? Would you call it an add? If so, then, yes, it is bad.

A vague, indirect profit is more iffy.

But if it is his job to advertise, and the answer is part of his job as an advertiser, then it needs to be deleted ASAP.

KitFox

We all profit when our answers get upvoted.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus You know what? I don't even care if he CAN directly profit from it. I'm not opposed to people profiting from things. People buy stuff because they get value from it.

Cerberus

@KitFox Your insults are unworthy of a moderatrix. If you do not like our discussion, then go elsewhere.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:40 AM

It's okay, I don't have anything further to add. You wanted to know what the wording meant, I merely suggested a possibility.

KitFox

I'm stating facts, not throwing insults.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Strawman. Directly profiting from an advertisement you have created ≠ profiting from things.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

If that possibility offends you, what can I do about it?

Cerberus

Haha.

Very well, perhaps SE was thinking something along those lines.

KitFox

So if you don't like it, you can go elsewhere.

Cerberus

3:42 AM

But I strongly disagree.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Don't deliberately misunderstand me. I am not opposed to someone saying "I have a problem" and someone else coming along and offering an honest solution that costs money, and then profiting from that solution.

Cerberus

@KitFox Why are you in such a foul mood? Maybe you need to take a deep breath.

KitFox

This topic is probably more appropriate for The Tavern or something. Not here.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

If an answer honestly provides an answer to a question, it should stand. And declaring bias lets one judge the honesty.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Of course.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:43 AM

I'll say no more about this.

Cerberus

If the answerer works for Ford as, say, an engineer, then it may be OK.

kuku

hi all

Cerberus

But if he is just an advertiser?

kuku

I want to have

dinner

but I am poor

Cerberus

OK I'll be right on it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:44 AM

@kuku You should try the cooking site? They have cooking there.

lots of cooking.

kuku

oh, ok

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Some of it is weird tho

KitFox

Rice is good, and also cheap.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Like one guy who wanted to make strawberry spaghetti-like noodles

Cerberus

Jolene proved that lemon juice doesn't work if you want to keep avocados from browning, the other day.

Nor any of the other acidic foodstuffs she had in her kitchen.

In fact, they accelerate browning.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:46 AM

@kuku I'm only joking though, you can hang out here if you want too. But we have a cooking site that might have good advice.

Did you know? David Attenborough, the guy on all the good nature shows, is Richard Attenborough, the late actor,'s younger brother.

Cerberus

I knew.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I didn't know. I was wondering today when my wife told me that Richard died, and I was trying to remember which one he was.

Cerberus

I found out today. But I didn't know who Richard was.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Then I went to wikipedia and saw that someone already updated David's page to say that his brother is late.

Cerberus

One or the other is or was Lord Attenborough...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

3:48 AM

There must be someone out there, or an army of someones, who dive into wikipedia whenever a celeb dies.

updating all the text to say "the late"

Cerberus

Naturally.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

We should get some of them over here to SE to update our answers whenever new information is released.

Cerberus

Someone interested in him might have lots of articles mentioning him in his following list.

KitFox

They should just script it.

Put tags in the markup that you can toggle when a death date is entered.

skullpatrol

Has tchrist left stack exchange @cerberus?

KitFox

3:53 AM

Evening, @skully.

skullpatrol

hi

how are you?

KitFox

I've had better weeks. Yourself?

skullpatrol

fine thanks

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitFox That'd be neat. But you'd need all the authors/editors to remember to use the special markup.

KitFox

I wonder if names are already marked up.

Like semantic web stuff.

Cerberus

3:57 AM

@skullpatrol He is on a training week for his new job.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I bet some are, but enforcing rules like that is hard enough even for people who are trained and paid.

Cerberus

I presume he will return, but we can't be sure.

KitFox

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 True dat.

School starts Wednesday. When's your school year, @Mr.Shiny?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitFox we start Tues after labour day

KitFox

The little one doesn't start until the Monday after Labor Day.

Are you ready? We did school shopping today, I think the last of it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:09 AM

and I just heard that the before-and-after-school daycare for my son may not be available because there are fire-code issues with the building. (Note: the building is the school... so the fire dept has no problem with students being there from 9-3:30... nor with the grade 1-5 students being there before 9 and after 3:30, but the kindergarten students? NO WAY! IT'S A DEATHTRAP

KitFox

No secondary egress from the K classroom?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

No, they have those. The deficiencies are all stupid. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the before-and-after program for kindergarten students.

KitFox

Weird.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And the school is deemed safe for all the other students, at any time of day. But the kindergarten before/after program is new, so it needs certification.

and we can't certify.

KitFox

So the code has changed?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:11 AM

No, nothing like that.

KitFox

So all the rest is grandfathered?

Oh.

That doesn't make sense.

Does the certification have different rules?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The rest might be grandfathered, but there's no logical reason to prevent using the same rooms at different times of day by the same students.

It literally makes no sense.

KitFox

Huh.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And furthermore, it's not the daycare's fault. It's the school board's fault.

It's a long story.

KitFox

It's always the school board's fault.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:12 AM

But the upshot is that the before-and-after care might not start on time.

KitFox

And that's your problem and not the school board's. Bucket of suck.

Or are they arranging an alternative?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It's doubly my problem as I'm on the board of the daycare.

KitFox

I forget you're Canadian and so you are all probably very polite and helpful to each other.

Ouch.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

our president is now directly appealing to the minister of education for the province to try to intervene. Also, to the fire chief.

KitFox

And the ironic solution is that they will then shut the school down.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:15 AM

It just seems silly to prevent the operation of one part of the daycare's business when EVERYONE ELSE gets to use the same rooms at different times of day.

Heh I was thinking that that could happen.

Not bloody likely though, there'd be uproar. The deficiencies are really really dumb.

KitFox

Like what? No sneeze guard on the salad bar?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Like, one of them is "when an alarm goes off in zone 12, the LED on the alarm board for zone 10 also lights up"

KitFox

Someone should probably fix that.

So you know where the fire is.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah, send all the kids home! It's a deathtrap!

KitFox

I think it would be more efficient to fix it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:17 AM

Oh wait. Don't send ALL the kids home. Just those aged 4 or 5 years.

KitFox

On alternate Tuesdays before 9am.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And don't send them home all day, only before 9 or after 3:30. At other times, those same kids are perfectly safe in those same classrooms.

it's so. dumb.

KitFox

Maybe the LED doesn't light up then.

Why don't they fix it?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Who knows? It won't be fixed in time. There's no way.

Anyway some of the deficiencies will take months to fix.

KitFox

I don't think it takes two weeks to remove a jumper.

Well, I was only teasing anyway. That's very annoying. I hope they can find a compromise.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:21 AM

yeah it seems to me that a pretty easy compromise would be to allow the daycare to use the space and to require that the school fix it in a timely manner, the same way the schools fix code deficiencies that arise at any other time.

KitFox

Right. That's reasonable.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But you're right. Meanwhile, the daycare is left looking like chumps, when in fact they can do nothing.

KitFox

Must be something in the water, or the alignment of planets or something.

I have a video of my littlest that I would like to upload and share.

But that will take hours and I don't know when I will have time to do it.

I am not looking forward to tomorrow and it's keeping me awake again.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

ugh.

I hate that.

KitFox

And yet, I still feel like I enjoy my job.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:26 AM

I'm putting in overtime, but I think I'm nearing the end for today.

KitFox

You're working?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah

I'm writing a thing that will pre-load some expensive data on app startup, to lessen the load once the server is put into service.

KitFox

That sounds fun.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah it's not really.

KitFox

I was teaching my son how to code this weekend. I forget how much I miss it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:28 AM

I should do that. my kids never ever use the computers.

KitFox

There's code.org that is a really simple intro to computational thinking.

It's gimmicky, but my eldest solved all twenty puzzles in about thirty minutes, and moved on to app programming.

He had a harder time with that, but he keeps going back to it and fiddling.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

huh. that looks neat.

KitFox

It's fun.

Even if it's teaching javascript.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I wish my IDE was angry birds

KitFox

The block coding thing belongs to MIT. It's used for Scratch as well. A lot of elementary educators were raving about it, and I have to keep biting my tongue and keeping perspective.

It's really good and fun for the basics. And it's not going to teach them anything about safety or versioning or compiling. And nor should it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:35 AM

yeah I'm working through the puzzles

KitFox

I didn't mean to drop you into a rabbit hole.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it's okay I was compiling my other code :)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

4:54 AM

hm, the "artist" puzzle, where it tells you to set your colour and then draw a square, penalized me for setting the colour 4 times. I defy your monochromatic rules!

KitFox

I haven't seen that one.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

after finishing the first 20 puzzles, there is a "learn more" link and there are a bunch of exercises. I skipped the "offline" ones and went straight to stage 5

oh how I wish my connection to the database wasn't so slow. The one drawback of working from home.

KitFox

I should probably sign into my son's account and verify his signup.

Except I can't remember his password.

And the recovery email is my old work address.

Ha. Did it. Now to sign him in on the iPad...

And good night.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

5:18 AM

cya

Jasper Loy

10:23 AM

Why are there so few people in chat today?

GnomeSlice

11:04 AM

Today's Listening | Dubstep / DnB / Breaks (Mixsets day 25)

Robusto

11:28 AM

Hasn't the world moved on from dubstep yet?

skullpatrol

11:58 AM

I seem to have missed that step.

Mitch

12:43 PM

What if a user keeps answering badly and all you want to do is downvote. But they answer so often and (so potentially downvoted often) so that it triggers the serial downvoting prohibition?

Jasper Loy

@Mitch Then let it be triggered and see what happens.

Mitch

Also, what if you find every comment, not exactly rude or offensive, but flaggable for being irrelevant (like 'Me too!" or "+1 I think this answer is great!!")

@JasperLoy How does one (or the system) differentiate between legitimate consistent downvoting and malicious downvoting?

@JasperLoy I'd rather not.

Jasper Loy

@Mitch It can't, lol.

@Mitch You would need a mindreader to do that.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto yes. But it moved from dubstep to Eurodance, so there was a petition to please go back pronto.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Wake me when we move on from both of those.

Jasper Loy

12:50 PM

I am thinking why Bobie is suspended.

RegDwigнt

So the sick fuck who cut off James Foley's head was a Brit.

thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/article1450781.ece

Now we can't even blame it on medieval savages from hell.

skullpatrol

He is still only a suspect.

RegDwigнt

I am not talking about this particular person.

skullpatrol

oh?

RegDwigнt

I am talking about the fact that the executioner was speaking with a London accent.

skullpatrol

1:04 PM

Wasn't it the French who invented the guillotine?

RegDwigнt

Everyone invented something.

We've all used to be medieval savages from hell.

Point is, now we are supposed not to.

@Robusto you can't have your cake and dance it, too.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt If by "used to be" you mean "still are and always will be," then I agree.

skullpatrol

They say that part of the human brain has evolved similarly to that of a reptile.

Mitch

@skullpatrol in order to be more humane (than the alternative which I guess was axeing).

KitFox

It's not a horrible way to die.

Mitch

1:12 PM

Sure, there are worse ways to go.

There are probably better ones too.

KitFox

Better ones too.

Jinx

Mitch

!!jink

!!double jinx

or is it metajinx?

skullpatrol

infinitely many jinxes

Mitch

... plus one.

ha!

skullpatrol

you can't add any real number to infinity

because it's not a number to begin with

Mitch

1:16 PM

1) I didn't (I added an ordinal). 2) you can add a real number to infinity, it's just the same (real) infinity.

KitFox

There are an infinite number of jinxes in an infinite number of worlds.

And in all of them a plane, and a man.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto if by "I agree" we mean "I will invade your country and rape your car", then I agree.

Mitch

@KitFox dangit. If I say that now, it won't be a jinx, just plagiarism.

skullpatrol

there is no such thing as a (real) infinity

Mitch

Sure there is. A well defined object called infinity that one can append to the reals. You can make it so there is just one additional infinity, or two (a pos and negative).

skullpatrol

1:19 PM

append all you want, it is not a number

infinity is not a number

a number must have a value

KitFox

I had some infinity for breakfast.

Mitch

a 'number' is what you say it is. infinity is not considered a member of the named objects the reals, the rationals or the integers. But one can get a consistent system by appending infinity and also some special case rules for it interacting with the other numbers.

@skullpatrol what's the value of 2?

@KitFox I bet you're full.

Jasper Loy

Why are we talking about math in this room?

skullpatrol

Why not?

@Mitch The value of 2 is the number it names.

Jasper Loy

Today I learnt that there is a new distro called Ubuntu Mate, which will become an official derivative of Ubuntu soon. Yay!

skullpatrol

1:25 PM

@JasperLoy here

Jasper Loy

@skullpatrol Hehe. I should give you a link to the math room, lol.

skullpatrol

:D

I was just heading there

KitFox

@Mitch I don't know yet.

Jasper Loy

I changed from phone 1 to phone 2, decided phone 2 was unusable, and changed back to phone 1, having to pay an admin fee for that, damn.

KitFox

Hi @Jasper!

Happy belated birthday.

It was Saturday, right?

Jasper Loy

1:28 PM

@KitFox Oh hello! Thanks. I guessed you suspended Bobie because he was too disruptive. Yes, Sat.

KitFox

He expected it.

@JasperLoy Did you do anything to celebrate?

Jasper Loy

I thought he was a teen until he said something about being 80.

KitFox

He is lying about being 80.

Jasper Loy

@KitFox Nothing, but my aunt bought me some cake and some sashimi.

skullpatrol

hi @JohanLarsson

KitFox

1:29 PM

@JasperLoy That's nice.

RegDwigнt

1:41 PM

0

Q: Proper Term for knowing 4 or more Languages?

If bilingual means you know two languages, and trilingual means you know three languages. What would be the proper term for knowing four, five or even six languages?

If you knew four, five, or even six languages, you'd know the word.

skullpatrol

quadralingual?

Jasper Loy

There need not be a word for everything.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…