So in the case of the taxi ride data, you could randomly change the endpoints of the trips.

Or randomly change the fares paid.

if you say "n people took taxis from within one mile of here between 9am and 1am" that's an aggregation

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 so you make the data unreliable. great, so what was the point of releasing it?

@MattЭллен Because on average it is still useful.

It's just that you can't use it to drill down to specific data points with great certainty.

But if you want to analyze traffic flow, you don't need to know the details.

If you want to determine if, say, red lights are causing a problem for taxis, you don't need 100% accurate trip details. Obv, the more accurate your details, the more accurate your results, but less accurate doesn't mean wrong.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I mean, I get that noise can be smoothed, but then why release the individual point in the first place?

@MattЭллен Because you have a database and either you are forced to release it, or you want to see what useful information can be gleaned from it, but you don't want to reveal too much about the people in the db.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 but that doesn't make sense. if you want people to understand the real data you have to release the real data. if you don't, then you have to aggregate it. adding noise is a waste of time

@MattЭллен Not necessarily. Different analyses are possible depending on the data set.

but just this taxi one. I'm not trying to generalise.

Well, it really depends on what you want the taxi information for.

Are you trying to figure out whether certain areas are well-served by taxis? Are you trying to determine if taxi drivers are making a lot or a little money? Estimating how much people are tipping?

correlating taxi traffic with real traffic?

etc.

"I wasn't anything but surprised to hear the news." does this mean I was never surprised?

it means you were only surprised

it means I was surpised?

only surprised

what "Only?

why?

I was not anything. But I was surprised. When I heard the news.

anything but -> all except

I wasn't anything except surprised.

I was nothing except surpised

I was nothing but surprised

I was only surprised

I had a bag for nothing but apples. I had a bag only for apples

I have the feeling that it should be "Sounds interesting?". Is my feeling correct?

no

oh okay

They've ellipted "does it"

ah

"Sounds interesting" would be a statement, not a question.

Yea, I came across "sounds interesting" as a statement but wasn't sure what it had to be when it was a question so I asked here.

That sounds interesting :-)

@ProgramFOX so, sound is a verb. In questions that use do support, the infinitive is used.

:S Stuck yet again...

Askaway

I'd like to know the difference between "come to" and "come for"

I'll come to you VS I'll come for you

It seems that the second one is more like a threat?

@TimTimmy to is location, for is purpose

Come to my house. Come for dinner.

@TimTimmy the second one could be a threat the first could not

Where? my house. Why? dinner.

@TimTimmy Anything can be a threat.

She tends to use long, Victorian-like sentences in her novel.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Exactly

@TimTimmy "whistle and I'll come to you" doesn't seem threatening to me, but I don't have any other context. it sounds like a promise, like with jimmeny cricket.

@TimTimmy Context is really important. whether it's a threat or not is not guaranteed by the word 'to' or 'for' but more the situation.

@TimTimmy So it's not necessarily the preposition choice that matters.

@tchrist I can't read that, and worse still I don't know why I'm even trying.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 jink...s!

only one jink?

after thought...OK more than one.

jinkies!

jinkses for everyone! hands out one each

:(

mmm... fresh!

aw you were too late Ice Boy. Here, I brought extra.

@MattЭллен @Mitch @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well said...

Thank you for all of your help

no probs

Why aren't the bold and italics working?

multiline messages don't get formatting

Ok then... Let's try again

So to conclude, it does not matter whether "to" and "for" is used as a threat, but they are different prepositions: to is the location for is the purpose

@TimTimmy It doesn't totally not matter. 'come for' does have more of a sense of a threat than 'come to'. Also, under certain contexts 'come to' means to 'awaken' or 'regain consciousness'

I see

Context is king

God save the king...

Yeah, "I will come to you" is not usually used as a threat.

I felt that too

as a phrasal verb. "After the lightning struck the apparatus the monster slowly came to."

@TimTimmy the fascist regime?

lol

@Mitch long live the noble King.

@Mitch I felt a cringe when I read that sentence, am I wrong?

"the apparatus" seems out of place

The kings English differs from the queens English how? @Matt

@TimTimmy The moster felt even more.

I just don't get it now

@IceBoy deeper voice

:D

@TimTimmy The implicit context is a mad scientist's laboratory with lots of machines all over the place and test tubes boiling and vats of body parts.

Yes, yes

@TimTimmy "After lightning struck the apparatus[,] the monster slowly came to." better?

Yes!

I was slightly confused there

And the scientist has a lot of electrical machinery attached to the monster's corpse. I think it is a reasonable use of vocabulary to call the machinery attached to the monster to be called 'the apparatus'.

Came to consciousness.

@Mitch So you're interested in genetic engineering?

Or just 'came to'.

I think that that's a dangerous place...

Cheerio

If by genetic engineering you mean using the appropriate word in the appropriate place then yes. I'm interested in genetic engineering being done, but I don't do it very well.

@TimTimmy The mad scientist might be. Or maybe he just wants to help mankind by building golems.

@Mitch what is your avatar the image of?

@IceBoy it's the analytic continuation of a famous combinatorial function.

exercise for the reader ;)

Singularity and plurality are a very simple concepts.

@RegDwigнt return ($age < 20) ? "Foreign translators love easy words and hate to see thorny words to translate like muciferous" : "wtf, over?";

@Mitch I can't find an exact match :(

@Cerberus That has yet to be a problem for me for any Android update since 2.3. I'll keep you posted though. And I'm surprised you haven't been gloating over the FTDI driver update that was delivered over Windows Update, which bricks devices.

I have gf's old Samsung now. Battery life is ~20 minutes.

ordered a new battery

I repurposed my Nexus S as a media player and video camera.

I repurposed my iPad as a shim to level a table in a cheap diner.

that's a good use for a new ipad, even.

@IceBoy How many combinatorial functions on two variables do you know? (or rather, look for some on MathWorld )

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 For some reason I expected you to be an Apple guy :)

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 needless to say, pun intended.

@JohanLarsson Why, because I disagree with Cerb on everything? His Anti-Apple stance rivals mine.

yep

Disagreeing with Cerb is an enjoyable sport.

I rarely disagree with Cerb, dunno what it says about me.

I enjoy reading when people do.

Gotta run. cya

I'm in an extremely remote place this week. We heat the house with a fire. <- dunno how to translate elda med ved.

There's no use wrestling with a pig in the mud. You get all messy and the pig enjoys it.

What if you can learn to enjoy it?

There's no use teaching a pig to sing. You'll spend forever getting no results and it annoys the pig.

Tomorrow we are going to try to bake something in the wood powered oven. It can be > 100 years old.

You can put lipstick on a pig....

OK, then what? It needs a punchline.

and make it sing?

@JohanLarsson What are you thinking of baking? Cake?

@JohanLarsson I think lipstick is enough to make the point. But the point...what is it? It's not that you've wasted lipstick. "...but it's still a pig is too literal.

@Mitch Maybe tunnbröd

or perhaps just scones or something really easy

@JohanLarsson mmm sounds good.

I bet you could also make good pizza.

pizza for the meal then tunnbrod for dessert?

ah, nice idea

I think the opposite order, start simple and if it works do pizza

@Mitch maybe something like ...but you will notice it is a pig when you kiss it?

think it is 60 km drive to the nearest shop. Potential pizza-stopper.

I tried to make ... something over an open fire, some pan cooked thing (some contraption to hold the pan over the fire). I had it all setup with the food ready to put in, then I put a little oil on the pan just to see if the heat had transferred at all. The oil immediately started to smoke and with two second had burst into flame, a very small flame that comsumed itself within about 10 seconds. Because the rest neeed much more oil, I decided it was imprudent to try to cook over that fire.

@JohanLarsson Oh, yeah. keep trying too.

@JohanLarsson I think you'll notice just by looking. I don't think the shade of lipstick will matter much.

A pig like that you don't eat all at once.

That's the punchline...figure out what the joke must be.

It's Pig Saying Thursday

Similar to that one

Oh wow...that's so civilized looking. Do you have the wood all ready?

yep, we heat the house with wood

there is electricity but we are doing things the right way this week

cheating with internet

I don't think it has a device to measure temperature

And we have no exp with using it for cooking.

test with drops of water or butter first before putting food on it. you know, just in case.

ooh nomitive case. If I understood German language forms I don't think I'd be thinking nom nom nom right now.

Oops, I made a mistake. I approved an edit to this english.stackexchange.com/a/204200/4915 I meant to reject it. I don't know how to undo.

roll it back

It hasn't been accepted yet.

oh

no worries, I've rejected it!

I forget that I have super powers!

so my approvals are binding

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What! What! That sounds wonderful!

gloats extensively just in case

@mitch It's not enjoyable, you're wrong!

@MattЭллен Thank you!

@MattЭллен Yeah, yeah, yeah...

no worries

But a star, why the hell not.

I'm not drunk.

@Cerberus Sounds enjoyable to me ;O)

@Cerberus yay!

@EllieKesselman Are you sure? In what way?

Mm you replied to my reply to Mitch...

@EllieKesselman Only because you replied to me!

No need.

good night!

@MattЭллен Goodnight!

@EllieKesselman It's not a problem!

I was just clarifying stuff.

Didn't mean to chase you off, we all reply to the wrong message now and then.

@Cerberus Oh please. It's not the best thing ever, but it is entertaining. 1 point Mitch

Talking about sport, I'm losing this...

I don't have the strength to say that the real reason was that I wanted it all to stop, but I only realize now that that was absolutely not the way to do it (by closing).

@Mitch Not clicking that!

@Mitch This is a person who will demand an answer to every single close vote, every single down vote.

Furthermore. he will always respond to every single thing ever said to him, and not kindly either.

What he doesn’t realize is that the close reason is less important than that 5 members of the community adjudged his question unfit.

There is actual official precedent for that wording of the situation, but I'm don't recall where I read it. It may have been something Shoggoth pronounced on MSE, or some other CM.

So @Mitch, you did a totally normal thing.

Anyway, that question changed so many times that anything anyone ever said or did at one point is necessary invalid at some other point.

Sometimes people just click whatever close reason is handy.

It may not be optimal, but it is hardly uncommon.

And I do not accuse you. Go in peace.

It will be a cold day in hell before I give that dwerp a single letter of mine to pounce upon.

So he will just have to figure this all out on his own.

Now he has gone and imprecated moderatorial intervention.

He should be careful of what he wishes for.

He just might get it.

Divine succour is notorious for being other than what the postulant most earnestly desires.

He’s an idiot if he thinks anybody is every going to answer him, especially in meta, after his history of attacking all answerers. I bet it isn’t just me, either.

@terdon What’s this about your house of a dozen τσιγγάνοι again?

And forgive me for using nominative there.

@tchrist I know! But I can't stop trying to explain!