English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2016-02-14

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3:34 AM

@Cerberus: Do you agree with Rathony's post here? I think he's right:

1

Q: Difference between "verb-agreement" and "subject-verb-agreement" tag

It seems that we have two tags, subject-verb-agreement and verb-agreement for similar questions. I briefly read some questions under them and I don't see much difference. Am I missing something? How about combining the two? Today, a tag named superfluity was created and is it necessary to have i...

discussion tags

If you agree, you have the necessary tag score to vote for synonymizing "subject-verb-agreement" with "verb-agreement."

4:31 AM

@sumelic Done!

@Cerberus: Thanks! Now we just need three more people.

@tchrist: What do you think?

4:47 AM

@sumelic To be honest, I think the tag voting mechanism is a bit...ineffectual.

There are so few people who care about tags.

5:04 AM

@Cerberus Certainly, it's extremely ineffectual. That's why I have to actively seek out candidates for voting in this case. Nonetheless, I think Mari-Lou A had some success here:

2

A: Obvious tag synonyms that I don't have enough tag rep to suggest

Please give your approval for the following synonyms, thank you. progressive should be the synonym of progressive-aspect passive should be the synonym of passive-voice

And I know tchrist cares at least a little about tags since he once made a post outlining which synonyms he recommends:

22

Q: The Great ELU Tag Clean-up Proposal of 2014

EDIT: So, none of this got done in 2014. Does this mean that we should just give up on tags? Doing almost any of these by hand will annoy people since they would all bump those questions to the top of the active list, so this requires assistance. I’ve just looked through all 856 of our tags...

discussion support tag-synonyms retagging

5:38 AM

@sumelic They are rare animals!

Do you use tags on SE?

I don't think I do...

6 hours later…

11:26 AM

talking about animals, did you know the plural of mongoose (without looking it up)?

user116848

yep mongeese.

11:43 AM

Is this ELU question? english.stackexchange.com/questions/306268/…

@sumelic ok voted

@tchrist Hi, how about this one?

12:06 PM

@Rathony Already voted.

@tchrist I see. Thanks.

12:22 PM

@Cerberus You earlier asked about an Android app to do stuff conditionally. Have you seen play.google.com/store/apps/…?

2 hours later…

2:16 PM

@crl monagasque

2 hours later…

4:15 PM

monégasque?

1 hour later…

5:43 PM

@Cerberus Oh, and you could also check out llama.

Tasker and llama are similar.

6:03 PM

@crl almost, Mancunian.

@FaheemMitha Hello!

Hi @Cerberus

I was just thinking about you the other day.

@Cerberus That's nice.

I've used Tasker since 2012 or so.

Very happy with it.

Llama is more limited, from what I hear.

6:14 PM

@Cerberus Oh. Then I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

@Cerberus Probably yes.

But you have to pay for Tasker, right?

@FaheemMitha Indeed not. Not even in this line hehe.

Yes.

It is €5 or so.

Hmm, I'm cheap.

Tasker is well worth it.

Is it a one-time payment? Do you get updates?

If I could buy only one programme, it would be Tasker.

Yes and yes.

6:15 PM

Ok.

@Cerberus Ah, didn't realise you were a fan.

And you get to convert your Tasker profiles in stand-alone apps.

And people can install your apps without having to install Tasker.

So you can use it to create free apps, if you want.

I just recalled you asking something that I thought one could do with Tasker/Llama. I guess not. Since you're obviously much more advanced than I am...

@Cerberus Interesting.

It seems unlikely that I should ask such a thing, yes.

@Cerberus Hmm. I probably misunderstood. Or it was someone else. Though the latter seems unlikely.

I know Mr Shiny uses Tasker too.

6:18 PM

@Cerberus Ah.

Well, I just got Llama to do what I wanted, with surprising difficulty. So I'll stick with that for the moment.

Phones are such fiddly things. Ugh.

As usual, I'm off topic. This would be on topic on Android SE though.

Hmm, I could eat some chocolate right about now.

Supposedly Lollipop (5.0) breaks Llama. Bummer.

Jul 17 '12 at 12:58, by Cerberus

By the way, @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇, do you use Tasker?

@FaheemMitha Well done! What was it you wanted?

@Cerberus Just make my phone go silent at night.

Are you sure Llama doesn't work on Lollipop? I thought it was regularly maintained.

@FaheemMitha Between specific hours?

That's easy in Tasker.

Or, more precisely, when I'm sleeping, which I shall hereby define to be Night.

@Cerberus Correct.

And how does the phone know that you're sleeping?

6:22 PM

@Cerberus It's easy to Llama too, probably. I'm probably just dumb.

I wanted something similar, and I remember discussing this with you a while ago.

@Cerberus Well, I just pick a broad range. :-)

So that's probably what you thought of me.

@Cerberus Well, I was using Nightkeeper till today. Then I got woken up in the morning by my phone, and discovered it didn't do a 7 days a week thing. Which is just perverted.

Some idiot called me up Sunday morning.

@FaheemMitha I have Tasker set up so that it silences my phone if I have an alarm set within 10 hours of the current time. And it unsilences the phone when the alarm goes off.

6:24 PM

@Cerberus Ah, yes. I recall you asking for something like that. Though if you already had Tasker I'm confused as to why.

Because it isn't easy to set up.

BTW, it's like a ghost town in here. Did everyone leave?

Yes, more or less.

@Cerberus Ah, so you were in the process of figuring it out, then?

There was a big invasion of people who wanted to censor old chat lines and suspend our regular users.

6:25 PM

@Cerberus Yes, I remember you telling me. Though tchrist is still here, it looks like.

Then Kitfox came back after a year of absence and disowned two regular users.

@Cerberus How nice.

Then our two most enthusiastic and oldest chatters left the room forever.

Robusto?

Yes, and RegDwight.

6:26 PM

Right.

Then many others lost enthusiasm.

Well, maybe you'll get some fresh blood.

@Cerberus Oh. Why?

The room is now often dead for ours on end.

@FaheemMitha Because those two users are direly missed. And the atmosphere was ruined.

@Cerberus Oh. I didn't think they were so important. Well, at least you are still here.

@FaheemMitha It's been months. Deadish rooms don't attract that much fresh blood. It takes a lot of factors to build up a lively room, and it's easy to destroy.

@FaheemMitha I don't chat here that often any more either, also because most of the time there is no interesting conversation here any more, or any at all.

6:28 PM

I wish I had magical powers. Then I could summon a bar of chocolate. Preferably Swiss. Or maybe Italian. Or German. I'm quite partial to European chocolate.

@Cerberus A microcosm of life. :-)

@Cerberus I see. That's too bad.

Yeah.

So, how is Dutch chocolate?

It's what censorship and punishment do to a community.

@Cerberus Demoralizing.

Didn't we have this discussion on chocolate recently?

@FaheemMitha Very much so.

6:30 PM

Random uninteresting anecdote: I visited Germany for a week or two. I was on a railway platform, and wanted a chocolate bar for a vending machine. And I didn't have any money. I asked someone for change, but he bought the bar for me instead! That was pretty nice.

@Cerberus I don't recall. But it's always a good time to talk about chocolate.

Jan 17 at 20:10, by Cerberus

I've just found out that the Swiss brand is actually Dutch!

You weren't there, it seems.

Though no doubt some would disagree.

@Cerberus Weren't where?

@FaheemMitha That's nice! Must be rare.

Where the discussion was.

@Cerberus Almost unprecedented, I'd say. He seemed like a nice man.

@Cerberus I used to pop in and out of here occasionally.

I didn't usually stick around.

@Cerberus I'd say you have the material for a good blog post right there. Or even a proper essay.

So you asked him to give you some coins? Or did you ask him to exchange your bank note for coins?

6:33 PM

I used to spend more time in the Frying Pan, but recently I haven't felt as welcome there.

I saw a rather nasty starred comment.

People jumped on you.

But I think it wasn't meant the way it looked.

I'm sure they miss you...

@Cerberus Heh. You know, I don't really remember. I think maybe he couldn't make change for me, but had enough change for a bar. So he gave a present to a stranger.

Ah, that would seem most likely.

Anyway, it was a nice thing to do. And this happened in 1996 or so, but I still remember it.

People don't do nice things for me that often. So I remember them.

I don't even remember which railway platform that was.

Though I remember I was super impressed by the German rail.

Oh, yeah?

6:36 PM

I'm one of those weird people who likes trains. Though probably not as much as Sheldon Cooper.

At least it's better than British rails...

@Cerberus Um, yes. Is that weird for you? :-)

What's weird about liking trains? I like trains.

@Cerberus Yes, British Rail is sucky.

@Cerberus Dunno. I think some would consider it weird.

I don't really know: to me, German rail is not much different from ours.

We only look up to Swiss trains.

6:38 PM

@Cerberus Well, maybe yours is pretty good too. You realise I'm comparing these to Indian trains, right?

@FaheemMitha Why weird?

Oh, OK.

That's not a hard bar to cross.

But you have lived in many Western countries, haven't you?

Or at least visited.

@Cerberus Well, people have different ideas of what is cool...

@Cerberus No, just the UK and the USA.

And how often do you find people talking about trains, anyway?

Ah, OK.

I suppose those aren't as good as northern-Continental trains.

6:39 PM

I visited other places briefly. I'd quite like to live on continental Europe. If I could survive it.

@Cerberus The Indian ones? No. They aren't bad for what they are, I suppose. And surprisingly reliable. At least the Bombay ones are.

I don't find trains cool: they're simply the most convenient means of transportation over medium distances (10–1500 km).

They carry an incredible number of passengers, so they'd have to be, I suppose.

0 – 200 m: walking is the best way.

200 m – 2 km: cycling.
2 km – 10 km: metro.
10 km – 1500 km: train.
1500 km – 20,000 km: aeroplane.
> 20,000 km: spaceship.

@Cerberus Well, I like them. I actually grew up to the sound of trains - the local ones. The Western Railways runs on the other side of the road just outside. In fact, I can hear it right now.

The Super User chat room is quite active. Ever been there? It seems a bit formless. Lots of people talking past each other. But they are quite helpful. I've occasionally popped in with random questions.

SU has a pretty wide mandate.

@FaheemMitha Cool.

6:43 PM

@Cerberus There isn't a spaceship passenger service yet.

@FaheemMitha Hmm that sounds good! Perhaps I should visit that room sometime.

@FaheemMitha Hence it is unwise to travel farther than 20,000 km.

@Cerberus Not especially. They're rather noisy. But I still like trains.

@Cerberus I doubt they're your kind of crowd. Unless you happen to like lots of random tech chatter interspersed with xkcd cartoons.

I live about 5–10 minutes from the central station.

@Cerberus Amsterdam?

I can be in Paris in 3 hours and a bit just walking and training.

Yes.

6:46 PM

@Cerberus So, do you go to Paris often? :-)

Not often.

I wonder what kind of deals Airbnb offers in Paris.

It helps if you know people.

The return ticket is still at least €70.

Hmm, the prices don't seem that bad, actually.

I'm sure there are tons of AirBNBs in Paris.

6:47 PM

Though it would be expensive to get there.

Last year I stayed with a friend.

@Cerberus I'm sure there are. Have you ever used Airbnb?

Nope.

I don't know if you remember, but I'm trying to start up a rental room. It's been a surprising amount of work.

Even though much of the actual work is done by other people.

It makes me think of things Eric and Barbara Ehrenreich have written, about how much work ordinary things can be.

I remember the pictures.

So why "trying"? You haven't succeeded yet?

6:50 PM

Yes, those.

@Cerberus Still putting the finishing touches...

Getting things done in this place is a massive pain. And I don't have much help.

And I have other things to do.

Oh, and about Llama and Lollipop. I don't have any direct experience, but I'm going by the reviews on Google Play. And it seems the app is not very actively maintained.

Then again, the author does not charge.

Hmm too bad.

Anyway, I'm fairly close to pulling the switch on the rental thing. I hope.

@Cerberus Which part?

I still recommend Tasker.

@FaheemMitha Both.

Last update of Llama was October/November 2014.

Ouch.

Tasker: 4 February 2016.

6:54 PM

And the code does not appear to be public.

@Cerberus Quite.

People really should make their code public.

Yes.

But this phone runs Kitkat, so I'm ok for now.

It's funny how some rooms just naturally seem to stay on-topic. That's particularly true of the more tech rooms.

U&L is almost always on topic, even though there is zero enforcement. TeX ditto.

I'm on Kitkat too.

@FaheemMitha It also depends on how many new people come in every day to ask questions.

@Cerberus Yes, there's that too.

So, what's your favorite chocolate? If you don't mind me asking.

Also have you read en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed? Or its distant relative, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_Paris_and_London?

Hey, I'm almost on topic! Just a few more feet...

<Faheem stretches out a arm longingly, like in the Hollywood movies.>

If we talk about Orwell's language usage, we'd be bang on topic.

Oh, that dreadful Scalia person just died. Missed that.

7:09 PM

@FaheemMitha I have not, why?

@Cerberus No reason.

OK.

Orwell's language is great.

I won't miss Scalia.

Sometimes I feel like talking about books.

@Cerberus He was horrid.

He made it even easier for big companies to pour money onto politicians.

He was appointed by Reagan. Enough said.

user116848

7:19 PM

Hi @FaheemMitha @Cerberus.

@Arrowfar Hey. How are you doing?

Surviving Karachi?

user116848

@FaheemMitha I'm doing okay. You?

user116848

@FaheemMitha Haha

@Arrowfar I'm Ok, I guess.

@Arrowfar Is that a yes?

user116848

Yep :) Still surviving.

7:24 PM

@Cerberus you forgot to tell me your favorite brand of chocolate.

@Arrowfar Feel free to chime in too.

user116848

Sure!

@Arrowfar Do you come in here often? The joint isn't exactly hopping.

user116848

Yep often. Yeah it is not active here.

user116848

For me it around 6 pm to 10 pm when this chat is most active during the weekdays I mean.

Ah. Ok.

Still Boring in Pakistan, then?

user116848

7:28 PM

lol!

user116848

You? Still boring in Bombay?

@Arrowfar Yes, pretty much.

Though fairly busy.

user116848

I see. Good.

Sometimes I think I should hire a person with a whip to keep me focused.

user116848

:)

user116848

7:31 PM

I'm the opposite. Politeness works on me perfectly fine.

user116848

But I'm kinda bad at focusing too.

@Arrowfar I don't follow. Politeness?

user116848

@FaheemMitha I mean instead of a whip or scold polite attitude quite often works on me (on keeping me focused for instance.)

user116848

Just kidding around as well.

@FaheemMitha Hmm I don't know. Probably Lindt.

Yours?

7:41 PM

@Cerberus Yes, Lindt is good.

It is on discount at the moment, in my supermarket.

@Cerberus I don't thinK I really have one. There is some Italian chocolate (I think) I was quite fond of. But now I can't remember what it was called.

@Arrowfar Well, politeness might work on me too. If there was anyone around to exercise it.

user116848

ah I see :)

@Cerberus Current topic in "Root Access" - SSDs.

Nice.

7:47 PM

@Cerberus You think so? :-) Well, maybe you'd like it there, then.

user116848

8:24 PM

@Cerberus You around?

9:09 PM

@Arrowfar How do you mean, what happened to this room?

@Arrowfar You know, an even better response would be to just laugh.

We can't change Jez.

user116848

9:20 PM

@Cerberus I'm sorry man, I really am. But you shouldn't blame Kit.

user116848

I was the flagger.

user116848

And check out my ELU profile. I have to go now.

user116848

Will talk tomorrow if I'm still not suspended.

user116848

Again I'm very sorry.

9:44 PM

@Arrowfar The flagger of what?

Of one of the the comments that trigger the latest invasion?

Well, that was just one factor.

And there are other people who flagged things around here. The problem is the flagging system and how it lets users be suspended over old lines, not any individual user.

10:12 PM

@Arrowfar If it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one who found RegDwight offensive. Though I don't think I've ever flagged anyone ever. I don't believe in that sort of thing. A spam bot, yes.

@Arrowfar And friendly suggestion: be less emotional about a group of random strangers you've never met. Just saying.

@FaheemMitha That is the best advice.

Besides, Reg has done more for this website that any other user.

5

And he is still doing it.

Even though he is no longer chatting.

No other moderator has done so much work to improve answers/questions/atmosphere/etc.

From the beginning of the site.

@Cerberus He was a mod?!!

From the beginning.

The most highly respected moderator on this site, always has been.

Always helpful, always active.

10:37 PM

Huh.

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