English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

12:16 AM

@crl C'est en Espagne, n'est-ce pas?

Jusqu'à Poitiers.

Et puis jusqu'à Grenade.

infinitesimal

12:30 AM

I find this a good quote to come back to.

Just to not lose sight of the forest for the trees :-)

crl

1:10 AM

@Cerberus That was just a French joke (chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/20306278#20306278)

Cerberus

@crl Oh haha.

I get it.

That is, I get the phonetic fun.

crl

2:46 AM

jsbin.com/yafana connect-four

still not working, well, it doesn't stop you when you have 3 consecutive discs for some reason

Cerberus

@crl Cool!

What happened to me was that I could drop a disc in the row I wanted.

I clicked, but nothing happened, so I had to click another row.

Was it perhaps because the column was all filled up except one square?

crl

3:01 AM

hmm

Cerberus

Probably...but it mostly works!

crl

3:21 AM

I've fixed it a bit, harder to defeat now

Robusto

0

A: Is "swop" an acceptable variant of "swap"?

I live in Olde Irelnadia, a land so olde and so ancient, women glow and men thunder, and I've noticed a lot of people in the southeast - the part of Eire first overrun by angry, land-grabbing, foreignerson big horses from Britain, use swop. Like, they were taught to speaken ze English a long time...

Sorry, a word salad is not an answer. Flagged.

Cerberus

4:06 AM

> The police, meanwhile, have concluded that requiring telecoms to store Internet subscriber data has not helped them track criminals, which was the the ostensible purpose of the practice. But the Danish government still wants to postpone an evaluation of the law for another two years.

Someone is using ostensible correctly.

Cerberus

4:29 AM

> In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery in 1850. Over all, there are now more people under "correctional supervision" in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.

Six million? Really?

techdirt.com/articles/20120126/12482817556/…

> ...the immediate causes of the incarceration epidemic: the growth of post-Rockefeller drug laws, which punished minor drug offenses with major prison time; "zero tolerance" policing, which added to the group; mandatory-sentencing laws, which prevented judges from exercising judgement.

> ...the highest percentage of additions to sexual offender registries are teen boys between the ages of 14-16.

> ...the 2005 annual report of the biggest of these private-prison firms, the Corrections Corporation of America. Here the company (which spends millions lobbying legislators) is obliged to caution its investors about the risk that somehow, somewhere, someone might turn off the spigot of convicted men:

Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities. . . . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and senten…

tchrist

5:43 AM

@Cerberus Maybe not all locked up full time, but in halfway houses or on "probation", an expensive and restrictive form of monitoring.

Robusto

12:02 PM

@Cerberus This is why it feels hopeless. The Republicans rail about their hatred for "entitlements" and their desire for small government; but given the chance, none of them would cut the size of government (see G. W. Bush), nor would they consider reducing the bureaucratic entitlements of the military and the apparatus of the police state, including the criminal justice and correctional systems.

Cerberus

4:21 PM

@tchrist Right, I wonder about this probation régime: what does it entail? When we have a "conditional sentence", there is no real monitoring: it just means that the punishment will be executed if you commit another crime.

@Robusto Right, that is a big problem. But at least some progress has been made on drugs: you now have more liberal laws on marijuana than we do.

Our stupid Minister of Justice claims that he can't liberalise anything because of "international treaties".

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector ] Offensive answer detected: "I can only hope to X" by Julliet Mayer on english.stackexchange.com

tchrist

@Cerberus A suspended sentence is different from being on probation. In any event, it’s all an ugly racket designed to fleece people of money outside the bounds of the punishment.

Cerberus

@tchrist Oh...then I guess we do not have that?

It's different from being on parole, I read.

tchrist

I don’t know.

> These fees — which can add up to hundreds or even thousands of dollars — get charged at every step of the system, from the courtroom, to jail, to probation. Defendants and offenders pay for their own arrest warrants, their court-ordered drug and alcohol-abuse treatment and to have their DNA samples collected.
They are billed when courts need to modernize their computers. In Washington state, for example, they even get charged a fee for a jury trial — with a 12-person jury costing $250, twice the fee for a six-person jury.

Cerberus

4:36 PM

Ah, I know about that.

We have talked about it.

tchrist

It is a crime.

Cerberus

Yeah.

I suppose it only changes if people really get up in arms?

Our occupation of the university, whose crimes pale into insignificance compared to that, is beginning to bear fruits.

tchrist

We’ve returned to Dickensian debtor prisons.

Cerberus

It's sad.

tchrist

So Colorado passed a law making it illegal to send people to jail for inability to pay court fees and fines. But the rest of the country attributes this lunacy to their general opinion that our legislature and governor are all high on pot anyway. :)

A Beautiful Mind

4:40 PM

Hi, I feel better today.

Cerberus

Yay!

tchrist

@Cerberus You’re going to let people major in BASIC and APL again? :)

Cerberus

I wonder why Colorado is so progressive, compared to neighbouring states.

@ABeautifulMind That's great!

@tchrist Hah. Everybody's main point of criticism is that it is run like a corporation, instead of a semi-government institution.

Too much bureaucracy, too many managers, too much emphasis on output and measurable nonsense, too little emphasis on content and quality, and, perhaps most importantly: too little power for students and teachers/researchers (the board has all the power).

tchrist

@Cerberus Altitude-induced oxygen deprivation: we’re all high all the time; you can’t get much under a mile in elevation here. But honestly, it hasn’t always been this way.

Cerberus

A university should not have slogans, nor marketing campaigns. And those who actually research and study at the university should determine what happens with the buildings, construction projects, etc.

@tchrist Haha. But really?

What's changed?

tchrist

4:47 PM

It just depends whom you can mobilize to vote. If you can get hyper-educated liberals from Boulder and the mountain towns to vote with the urbanites of Denver, you can get stuff through. But if you don’t do your job and get out that vote, then the ultra-conservative nutjobs from Colorado Springs (chuchy, military) and the undereducated rural counties will pass insane things on you.

I am still very angry over losing Mark Udall in the Senate.

What’s with all the cranky non-answers on this question?

1

Q: "I can only hope to X"

When someone says "I can only hope to X", what does she mean? How is it different from the simpler expression "I hope to X"? Would it be natural to use "I can only hope to" in the following case? I know this is just the beginning of many more successes, and I can only hope to celebrate ...

expressions

> Even google gets lost while trying to find the language of the USA. Pity.

Yet, its very common on the internet to find some US citizens say all sort of shit and insults against the British, and they say these shits using the English language they borrowed for the British. How cruel some people can pay you back with evil for the good you do to them. Cruel world.

''I can only hope to see you being able to point out which is the language of The USA''

That really is not acceptable.

Shit is not a count noun in that context.

Cerberus

5:10 PM

@tchrist Ah, so it is pretty polarised.

From what I heard, Udall did good work.

tchrist

Yes.

Cerberus

And he was perhaps responsible for pressuring the Intelligence Committee (or whatever they're called) into releasing the CIA torture report.

Which he could perhaps only have done because he was about to leave office and had nothing to lose.

Democracy...

tchrist

That’s possible. I haven’t checked into it. I really wonder what he is doing now.

Cerberus

Probably some lucrative job at some company?

Even the good ones play the game.

At least here.

tchrist

Udall’s smoking gun

I wouldn’t expect him to take a job at a for-profit corporation, but at some 501-3c type place (read: legal charity / good works / NGO).

Cerberus

5:18 PM

Yeah, well, that's just what the chairwoman of our university's board did...

tchrist

Heh, I went looking to see what his new job would be and found this. Makes sense; he was Boulder’s rep in the US House before he became a Colorado senator, and his old job at the House was taken up by the "somewhat controversial" Jared Polis.

I don’t think Udall is going to go work for the fracking industry. It runs counter to his genes and family legacy.

Cerberus

Haha, sure, but non-profits are also across the revolving door.

You're posting links too quickly for me to read, with all the other tabs I still need to read...

tchrist

It’ll amuse you.

I did a big blind survey of like a hundred questions, which then correlated with who in Congress voted most like how I did. Udall was #1 and Polis #2.

Polis is the guy upset because he's got a huge hulkin’ fracking operation going on in the field across from his rural home out in the County.

> Udall is married to Maggie Fox, an environmental lawyer who previously served as CEO of The Climate Reality Project.[10] The two met while working at Outward Bound, and were married in 1982.[7][73] They have two children, Jebediah and Tess.[1][6] In 1972, Udall was arrested for misdemeanor marijuana possession. He served a night in jail and paid a $300 fine.[74]

I never realized that.

He’ll try to do something in the Good Works area, I’m quite sure. It just fits with his previous service and that of his wife and his own Udall-family heritage.

The Outward Bound program is quite famous.

Cerberus

> “Colorado had some of the most outside money flooding into the state, flooding our airwaves,” McCoy said.

tchrist

5:34 PM

Yes, it was horrible. I of course was exempt, because I won’t listen to commercial media, but the rural kneejerk conservatives do, and in spades.

Cerberus

Sad.

tchrist

The Colorado Senate race that Udall lost saw $69,459,161 flow into it, more than 90% from out of state.

At least, those are the legally reported figures.

It is staggering. And they call that free speech. Seems rather dear to me.

From here.

What a joke.

Cerberus

Wow.

That is probably many times our national elections.

tchrist

I know. That’s why I pointed it out.

It is not always the case that the win goes to whoever spends to most for their party or against the other one, but it would be a sucker bet to go against that expectation, as it usually pans out.

Cerberus

Looks like it was about 10 million in 2010.

tchrist

5:42 PM

Notice that Colorado was #1 for anti-Democratic spending.

Cerberus

The Socialists (Labour) spent the most, 2.2 million.

@tchrist But also second against Republicans.

tchrist

I believe this is all part of the evil carnage resulting from the disastrous decision by the US Supreme Court regarding Citizens United.

@Cerberus Yes, curious that.

Cerberus

@tchrist That probably made it worse, but it was already pretty bad before that, right?

tchrist

It shows how important a state Colorado is considered by both parties.

@Cerberus Well, I would say so, and so would you. But now it is much worse.

Cerberus

@tchrist Or how much of a swing state.

I'm sure the Democrats don't spend much in New York.

tchrist

5:45 PM

After the ignominy of Amendment Two, we did a big turn-around here in Colorado, and we took back the governorship, both state houses, both US Senate seats, and a majority of the US House positions.

Cerberus

@tchrist Right.

"We took back"?

tchrist

But this last election was really all about Obama-hate.

Cerberus

Democrats?

tchrist

As it were.

Yes.

Cerberus

All right.

tchrist

5:47 PM

As a party, the National Democratic Party is much too far right for my own tastes, but they’re the only choice.

Cerberus

Political parties get most of their campaign money from membership fees and government subsidies here (per seat in parliament, and per some other things).

Only the "Liberals" get a lot of money from corporations.

tchrist

So much for the word liberal.

Cerberus

Yeah.

tchrist

Sucking from the corporate teat.

How much freedom is there in that connection?

Cerberus

O, they are still economically liberal. Very liberal, deregulation.

tchrist

5:49 PM

That’s just oligarchy.

Cerberus

They used to be for individual freedom too.

tchrist

Not liberalism.

Cerberus

But less so now.

tchrist

“Let the oligarchs do as they please” is not the cry of liberty.

It is the cry of evil kleptocracy.

Cerberus

They are of course still for freedom of speech and abortion and gay stuff and such, but they are very much in favour of the war on drugs and harsh punishments and stuff.

Well, giving freedom to corporations is liberal as such.

tchrist

5:50 PM

No.

Cerberus

Free = liber.

It's classical liberalism.

tchrist

Freedom from oversight.

Cerberus

Yes.

tchrist

Freedom from respect for the law, the people, the environment.

Cerberus

As opposed to mercantilism and state monopolies.

@tchrist Yes, that too.

It's liberalism.

tchrist

5:51 PM

Freedom to do anything and everything they can to bring home more bacon, no matter who suffers.

That is not liberalism.

Cerberus

@tchrist Well, yes, but no liberal is ever so extreme.

tchrist

That is some libertarian nightmare.

Cerberus

Nor are Socialists extreme. They don't want communism.

Libertarianism is extreme liberalism, right?

You can be for or against it, but it is what it is.

tchrist

Libertarianism is as much about liberty as truthiness is about truth.

Cerberus

It is about freedom.

Doesn't mean it's good.

tchrist

5:53 PM

No, they just use that as a rallying cry.

Cerberus

Extreme politics are rarely good.

Johan Larsson

politics are rarely extreme

extremely dumb

tchrist

Because freedom is an emotionally charged flash-word that bypasses cognitive assessment.

Johan Larsson

+1

Cerberus

Nah.

Stay rational.

Freedom is just freedom.

@JohanLarsson Haha, right...

Not always.

tchrist

5:54 PM

Frontier lawlessness was about freedom, now wasn’t it?

Cerberus

Absolutely.

Lawlessness is extreme freedom. Anarchy.

But nobody wants freedom so extreme.

tchrist

Only for corporations.

How quaint.

Cerberus

Just as nobody wants freedom of speech as extreme as posting nude pictures of opposing politicians on billboards.

@tchrist Yes, but they are also part of society.

tchrist

Yes, my Prince.

Cerberus

If you set murderers free, you give them freedom.

Again, doesn't mean it's good.

In many societies, nowadays, individual freedom and freedom for corporations are not supported by the same political zones on the spectrum, however.

tchrist

5:57 PM

To pretend that these corporate-states are “part of society” imputes to them a morality that does not and cannot exist in a Machiavellian world.

Cerberus

Mmm not morality.

Corporations don't have a moral right to anything, neither freedom nor anything else.

But those who support corporate freedom claim that it increases economic output and is good for society in the end.

tchrist

Part of society = social engagement

Cerberus

And perhaps they also claim that the individuals who operate in those corporations should have the freedom to do their stuff.

tchrist

I see no social engagement.

Cerberus

Not sure what you mean.

Part of society = a cog in the wheel.

Corporations sell stuff to people. They employ people. They interact with them in many ways, and so are part of society, since society is people.

Doesn't mean they are like people or should be treated the same way.

tchrist

6:01 PM

@Cerberus You just triggered a musical playback in my mind of "Another Brick in the Wall".

Cerberus

I don't know it.

tchrist

I’m having a Proustian moment, sans madeleines.

Cerberus

But you should know that economic liberalism was born in an age of mercantilism, where the government controlled large parts of trade and the economy.

tchrist

Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall (HQ)

►

Cerberus

Would you call someone who was in favour of people's being allowed to start their own factory in Communist Russia a liberal? Only the state was allowed to have factories...

tchrist

6:05 PM

@Cerberus I would call that person a businessman, an entrepreneur, an empresario.

Cerberus

But he wasn't free to start a business.

He wanted that freedom from the state.

I know that, because of the bipartisan system, in your country only people who are about personal freedom call themselves liberals.

tchrist

Best to avoid the f-word.

Cerberus

If you wish.

A Beautiful Mind

Freedom?

user116848

hi peeps

Cerberus

6:12 PM

Hi!

tchrist

-1

A: Divide two into four and Divide two by four

i still dont understand??????? is 2/4= 0.5 if so how did you get it???? helpppppp!!!!!

What a joke ELU is become!

And it will only get worse, I guarantee you.

user116848

@tchrist Yeah a nice song.

user116848

I heard it a long time ago.

user116848

Not long long though.

user116848

@ABeautifulMind Hi Jasper. How is life treating you?

A Beautiful Mind

6:24 PM

@arrowfar Hmm, I don't know what the future holds.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Did you get all of them ^?

I did.

I'm actually extremely surprised at how easy this is, considering that at first I didn't even get that there was anything to see besides a couple of "arty Lego bricks".

Apparently general size and colour are enough.

But the colour has to be exactly right, I think.

Which they did.

But, knowing you, you have probably already seen this many years, many tabs ago.

user116848

Cerb I didn't know you liked legos.

user116848

Congrats on getting 'em.

Cerberus

6:40 PM

Oh, no, get in the sense "see/understand".

@arrowfar Look at the Lego constructs. Do you recognise anything?

user116848

looks

user116848

They look like people?

Cerberus

Yes...

Which people?

user116848

Hmm

Cerberus

Of course, if you have never seen the originals, you won't know.

user116848

6:42 PM

Let me think.

user116848

Football players?

Cerberus

Nope.

user116848

Army?

Cerberus

I wouldn't know either of those groups.

user116848

Haha. Well, I don't know :)

Cerberus

6:44 PM

Does that help at all?

user116848

Ah yes, of course!

Cerberus

Yay!

I've only seen it a few times.

@arrowfar But please delete this line, for future guessers.

Thanks.

user116848

Welcome!

Cerberus

I'm not very familiar with some of the others either.

But I still got them.

user116848

Yeah looks like a good guess game.

Cerberus

6:53 PM

Good.

crl

Oh got it for the legos.. except 6th

Stack Exchange

7:10 PM

Limerick Machine: There was a sneeze that was catching It travelled from thatching to thatching It got in your...

posted on March 01, 2015 by sgdi

There was a sneeze that was catching It travelled from thatching to thatching It got in your head While you were in bed If forty winks you were snatching

tchrist

7:56 PM

From The Economist article Telecoms and society: The truly personal computer

@Robusto So, you beat me by ten inches in February, 64 to 54 by official tallies.

Cerberus

@tchrist Haha.

You should get one. Without a mobile plan, if you like.

A cheap smartphone of $100.

tchrist

Does it come with . . . such a lovely garden? :)

Cerberus

It does if you go to chat.stackexchange.com on it.

tchrist

> Some psychologists warn of the danger of slipping past habit to addiction. They are warning not just of gambling apps, but of the more general way in which checking a phone, like gambling, is a search for an elusive reward in which every disappointment reinforces the desire to try again. David Greenfield, a psychologist and founder of the Centre for Internet and Technology Addiction, calls them “the world’s smallest slot machines”.