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Jez
1:00 PM
3 hours ago, by Jez
TryParseAs<int>.fnName("123");
darnit, now i remember why i wanted the class name to begin TryParse
so that when i typed it in, i got intellisense for it!
if i call the thing TypeHelper i don't. grr.
i think i'm just gonna call the thing TryParseHelper
 
Help, I’m trapped inside of @Cerberus and there is no ␛!
My goodness, that’s small!
‭ ␀  2400       SYMBOL FOR NULL
‭ ␁  2401       SYMBOL FOR START OF HEADING
‭ ␂  2402       SYMBOL FOR START OF TEXT
‭ ␃  2403       SYMBOL FOR END OF TEXT
‭ ␄  2404       SYMBOL FOR END OF TRANSMISSION
‭ ␅  2405       SYMBOL FOR ENQUIRY
‭ ␆  2406       SYMBOL FOR ACKNOWLEDGE
‭ ␇  2407       SYMBOL FOR BELL
‭ ␈  2408       SYMBOL FOR BACKSPACE
‭ ␉  2409       SYMBOL FOR HORIZONTAL TABULATION
‭ ␊  240A       SYMBOL FOR LINE FEED
‭ ␋  240B       SYMBOL FOR VERTICAL TABULATION
‭ ␌  240C       SYMBOL FOR FORM FEED
Uselessnesses.
I would rather write ᴀᴄᴋ than ␆ any day of the week. I wonder why they needed those, what old charset used them.
Although now that I look at it, does look half-familiar.
No excuse.
The X-Men are at it again:
@FumbleFingers Well, the sour-faced women would have to be tacendae (or perhaps even the tacentes). I was playing with the transitivity of the Latin verb there: tacendī could be either “those who must be silenced” or, mutatis mutandis, “those who need to STFU”. ;-) — Janus Bahs Jacquet 15 hours ago
I’ll wager he has my sour+slimy word at hand.
 
@tchrist Most of it, I think.
 
If sweet+sour gives agridulce or some such, then maybe sour+slimy gets acer/muci/something.
 
@tchrist I suspect, reading from this pdf on unicode.org that these codes are meant to allow for visually displaying that a file has one of the real control codes in a particular position.
 
acrimucilaginous
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 k
Maybe even acerrimucilaginosísimo in the double-superlative. :)
superduperlative?
SUperduPERlative.
 
1:15 PM
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 can I say, "please indulge with me for a sec..." to mean " bear with me for a sec?"
 
@username901345 you should say "indulge me" not "indulge with me"
 
@terdon I see U&L has been having shellshock lotsaness. Actually, the whole SE network is full of related questions, all on different SE sites. Harrumph.
 
I know, people are going crazy over this.
It is a pretty neat bug though.
 
Well, can you remember anything this bad before?
 
but i have heard dave letterman say it
 
1:17 PM
Not me, no. But I'm not a security guy.
 
The last one this bad which I remember was back when I was still in school.
The Morris worm or Internet worm of November 2, 1988 was one of the first computer worms distributed via the Internet. It is considered the first worm and was certainly the first to gain significant mainstream media attention. It also resulted in the first conviction in the US under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. It was written by a student at Cornell University, Robert Tappan Morris, and launched on November 2, 1988 from MIT. == Architecture of the worm == According to its creator, the Morris worm was not written to cause damage, but to gauge the size of the Internet. The worm w...
Or maybe not.
Ok, I’d just ducked out of grad school with my masters and said to hell with the PhD by then.
Thing is, it was huge then.
 
Just wait until they find a similar bug in busybox. Then every single home router on the internet will be vulnerable and unlikely to be updateable.
 
@tchrist Ouch! And I can't help but get an image of huge worms [dancing around](en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_dance) and hitting each other on the head. Still, that was a worm, not a vulnerability.
 
much better than New Yorker cartoons.
 
Worms as Morris dancers, oh my!
 
1:28 PM
That's an image to conjure with now ain't it?
 
1:48 PM
Is it very hard to learn Russian because of the alphabet?
 
@WillHunting No. That is not the issue.
That’s like saying that Greek is hard because of the alphabet.
It isn’t.
Greek is hard because of the grammar.
 
Does Russian have grammar?
 
OK. Just seeing the Russian alphabet frightens me.
 
I don’t mean to be insulting, but it is super-naïve to think that an alternate alphabet is going to make the difference you think it is.
Yes, Greek and Russian are hard, but NOT BECAUSE OF THEIR ALPHABETS.
Cases. Tenses. Moods.
Much more.
There is also the phonology, which at least with Russian, can be subtle to an Anglophonic ear.
Now, if you go to a system that doesn’t use an alphabet at all, that is something else again.
But the Greek and Cyrillic scripts are just as much alphabets as the Latin script is.
Therefore, they are not a problem.
Those who know more than me will correct me if I’m wrong.
Those who know less than me will correct me if I’m right.
goto $job;
@WillHunting Jasper, given your gender, I probably should have said super-naïf. Sorry! I was not trying to impute anything untoward.
 
@tchrist No problem, you can say anything you want.
 
2:04 PM
@tchrist Having studied only French and Chinese, I concur with your assessment. Having an alphabet vs none is what makes the difference. Learning Hangul vs Hiragana vs Arabic vs Cyrillic vs Greek is just a matter of some basic memorization up front. After that you get to the meat of the language, where its multitude of rules make it harder.
 
2:54 PM
-1
Q: Is there any "swearword" in English not associated with excrements, the genitals, sexual activity or religion?

user463240 SWEARWORD - A popular term for a word or phrase that is obscene, abusive, and socially offensive. For some reason, all of them seem to be associated with excrements, sex and religion. Can you identify any that doesn't follow the rule and tell when and where it originated? I don't mean mil...

Multicollider jackpot!
Forget ELL, we need a stupidenglish.se.com site.
 
My teacher absolutely insists that wallets cannot be considered as 'equipment'. What should I tell her?
 
why tell her anything?
 
She has taken some points out of my test just because she insists that wallets are not equipment.
 
@mathh Ask her if she doesn't equip herself with a wallet before going shopping.
 
@mathh and you consider a wallet "a necessary item for a particular purpose"?
like a rope for climbing a mountain
I would say most people don't consider a wallet "equipment"
you could overgeneralise the meaning of equipment, but then you might as well call a banana equipment
the word becomes meaningless
 
3:13 PM
Why would they have decided to destroy a town in far-east legion that nobody cares?
 
I'm thinking if it'd be reasonable to show her this website called 'OverLand Equipment', which sells wallets.
 
That is a fascinating "large wallet" that everyone wants in my opinion.
 
Yes, I wouldn't call a wallet equipment but the word can stretch to include wallets.
@MattЭллен Like a wallet for going shopping?
 
@terdon I wouldn't say so. a wallet is not for going shopping. a wallet is for carrying things that you might use while shopping
maybe if you limit the context, but not in general
 
@MattЭллен I know, and no, I wouldn't call a wallet equipment in normal conversation. However, something like "I checked that I had all necessary equipment when I left: testicles, spectacles, wallet and watch" would be OK.
 
3:24 PM
yeah, sure. but I don't think that's something you should teach in school :p
 
I think equipment is normally used in restricted circumstances, and day-to-day life doesn't normally require any equipment, and thus a wallet wouldn't be considered equipment. But in circumstances where the assumption is that you start with nothing, and then must equip yourself with all the equipment you need for a task, then of course a wallet would be equipment.
Example: going camping: bring camping equipment.
going shopping: bring your wallet.
But if you were, say, in the army and didn't have any personal possessions, you might have to equip yourself with a wallet to hold money in while you were shopping.
 
yes, and of course equip a banana when you need to eat something and equip sugar when you need to sweeten coffee, and equip air when you need to breathe
 
Or if you were from a foreign country where nobody ever wears clothes with pockets, and you carry all your money in a bag. But you are visiting the UK and want to blend in, so you equip yourself with trousers and a wallet.
@MattЭллен Only in situations where you normally don't breathe air.
But scubadivers equip themselves with air all the time.
 
but camping is a situation you normally need a tent. so that doesn't make sense
 
@MattЭллен But camping is a deviation from your normal non-camping situation.
So basically what I'm saying is that anything can be equipment, but isn't usually. My cell phone isn't equipment because it's extremely common to carry a cell phone and they're ubiquitous. In the 80s a cell phone could have been equipment that you would use on an occasional basis.
commonality and ubiquity change it from "equipment" to non-.
For an English test I'd argue that a wallet is not considered equipment.
 
3:33 PM
you need to be alive, so equip your body
 
Assuming that there is a state in which you can take actions before you have a body, sure. equip it. I read a sci-fi story where people were transmitted from planet to planet as a digital signal and when they arrived they were downloaded into whatever body was available.
There have been lots of video games and sci fi stories where people can be equipped with new bodies. That's even exactly how some of them describe it.
 
when a body comes along you must equip it
 
@MattЭллен Depends on the banana. No one ever asks them. cries for the plight of bananas everywhere
 
skin 'em alive, I say!
 
the horror, the horror
 
3:42 PM
I would think a wallet falls under items of apparel. It is a type of equipment, but that is an imprecise term that almost nobody would use and which would sound strange if it were spoken with that reference.
 
Equip your mind with good thoughts. Then you can go camping with no worries.
@Robusto I wear my wallet proud!
 
At best, a wallet is an accoutrement or an accessory.
 
It's in the accessories department, with belts, purses, and scarves. First floor behind the perfume section.
 
Second floor: ladies' lingerie.
 
Hi @cornbreadninja
 
3:50 PM
Sorry about your Raiders. :(
 
Np
Big game for you tonight.
NE is favored by 3
 
I don't expect we will win against NE no matter the pressure level.
 
@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I think the Chiefs might surprise the Patriots tonight.
 
By playing in French maid outfits?
 
The patriot dynasty is crumbling.
 
@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 No. They're saving that for Breast Cancer Awareness month.
 
@Robusto Oh. Right. I'm such a boob.
 
@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 That goes double for you. I hope.
 
When the wall comes crumbling down...
 
3:55 PM
Come on, I had Glamour Profession in my head.
 
@IceBoy Compared to the Raiders, where there is no wall at all.
@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I had a song in my head that I was going to link to you earlier this morning, but I can't remember it now. It was about heartbreak, rejection and loss. I know, that should have narrowed it down, but . . .
It wasn't this one:
 
No team in Superbowl contention history has crumbled so fast down to a 2-14 season in only 4 years.
 
*contention
 
My current earworm, for some reason.
 
4:04 PM
@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 did you see the Doom lego I posted earlier
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 no!
 
3 hours ago, by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Awesome!
 
Hi @IceBoy—just wanted to let you know that I do not dislike you. I think we just don't share many interests.
Also, you tend to ping me once I've left… :)
 
4:22 PM
Thanks @Mahnax for considering my point of view :-)
 
My pleasure!
I'd like to think I'm on good terms with most people here.
 
Yes, it makes for a much more pleasant environment.
 
Absolutely. Sometimes there are people that you can't get along with, so the ignore button is a handy way to keep them out of sight and out of mind. But I've only ever used that once, and not for very long.
 
Old fashioned manual ignore has never let me down :-)
 
Whatever works! :)
 
4:30 PM
Emotions don't really work in here the way they work in the real world.
Too much missing information.
 
Mhm. The inability to properly express tone is a constant problem for some people on the internet.
 
It is an acquired skill of a fine art.
 
Truly. I'm heading out now—TTYL!
 
Later pal :-)
 
@Mahnax The "ignore" button doesn't work well. It makes the chat incomprehensible unless EVERYONE ignores the same person. It punishes whoever uses it more than whomever is ignored.
 
4:44 PM
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, presumably the one you ignore only sprouts crap anyway. In any case, this chat is pretty incomprehensible with no added complications :)
 
@terdon Well, no. For example, some users have difficult personalities at times and can rub people the wrong way. But at other times they are perfectly fine. I once got into one argument too many with one such person and decided to ignore him. But since the rest of the room was fine with him, I basically couldn't visit the room when he was here or else nothing made sense.
 
Surely not here! Each and every one of the regulars is a mild, calm person. Why, there's not an opinionated hair on any of our heads!
 
That's your opinion :D
 
One problem is that the ignore button works too well: you can't even see that the ignoree has spoken, so when someone else replies to them (without clicking the link) you have no indication at all that they are speaking to an invisible person
 
I know, I've had that problem. It was still worth it for not dealing with the crap that particular user spewed.
Not here though.
 
4:49 PM
@tchrist That quotation about re- from the OED is quite good. The only thing they did not mention is that re- can also acquire a subsense of "where it belongs, in its proper state", from "back to the starting point". Cf. reficio "to restore to good health", restituo "to compensate".
 
It could work if I wanted to ignore some of the irregulars or the users I don't interact with much. But imagine trying to ignore @Cerberus in this room, for example. (it wasn't him)
 
@tchrist Stuck inside of me, I beg your pardon? Is this about the icons?
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I am most certainly not okay with "chai tea"! Profoundly illiterate.
Once you find out that chai means simply "tea", you have to stop using chai tea if you want to keep a sane mind.
 
user116848
I am nice. I hope no one ignores me :)
 
user116848
And hi all
 
@Cerberus Oh come on, they just meant to say Tai Chi and got confused.
 
4:53 PM
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You know you could never pull it off.
 
Who said hi? I can't see anyone!
 
@terdon Pah, I'm not buying that.
 
user116848
Nooooo!
 
And BOO!
@terdon Who do you mean? I don't get it.
 
:)
 
4:54 PM
There isn't anyone here talking.
 
@Cerberus lol. Sounds like a challenge.
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 One that you know you could never win.
 
who said that?
 
I don't know.
Oudeis.
 
@Cerberus Did you mean oodles? What strange language is that?
 
4:56 PM
@terdon Are you talking to me?
 
It is the cradle of our civilisation!
 
Cuz there's nobody here
but you and me
 
Yeah.
 
and arrowfar
 
@terdon The antonym of oodles is noodles. Just thought you'd like to know.
 
4:56 PM
I ignored this silly user Cerebers.
 
user116848
So who is ignoring who? :)
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And us chickens, don't forget the chickens.
@Robusto So oodles of noodles is an oxymoron?
 
@terdon Yeah I should have said "ain't" but I'm too grammatically correct
 
No you ain't.
 
He ain too!
 
4:57 PM
@terdon Well, yes and no.
 
Hmm I see nobody is talking any more. Did I put everyone on ignore?
They probably had it coming.
 
So I've been using a left-side touchpad instead of a right-side mouse, to help with RSI. And I've discovered that I can't copy/paste anymore, because the shortcut keys for that are on the left.
 
Eek!
So you have your hand on the pad all the time?
 
user116848
@Cerberus hi Cerbs
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But surely you don't have your hand on the keyboard all the time when you're mousing?
 
user116848
4:59 PM
Just checking
 
@Arrowfar What? Who said that! A ghost?
 
user116848
haha :D
 
@Cerberus My left hand stays on the keyboard, normally.
 
Really! Mine is never.
It's either keyboard or mouse for me.
 
That way I can point at stuff with one hand and operate the shortcut keys with the other.
 
5:01 PM
By the way, have you tried one of those mouse pads with a gel pack?
Or gel bulb, what is it?
 
No. Not in years. But when I said "RSI" I was being imprecise.
 
I do things like control-c with two hands.
 
my problem is my shoulder gets sore.
 
Oh, that.
 
so this way my right arm gets a break.
 
5:02 PM
Have you tried running?
 
lol. as if I have time for that.
 
Running helps with my back and shoulders.
Two half-hours a week might be enough...
 
Can you stand and work?
 
No. I've considered that too. But the trackpad helps a lot, actually.
 
That may also work.
Okay, good.
 
5:04 PM
it's just that it's slower to do certain things
like, I can't middle-click with it.
 
user116848
I like running
 
and copy/paste is all "right-click, hover to copy, tap"
 
Or do mouse gestures.
 
it has built-in gestures.
 
Not the same thing.
 
5:05 PM
oh, you mean, giggle the mouse cursor kind of gestures.
 
A gesture up is copy, down is paste.
 
not sure how well those would work with using the mouse to copy
 
Very well.
But if you never used those anyway...
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Get a timer and go for a short walk every 45'
 
Another good idea.
But he's happy enough with his pad.
 
5:06 PM
@JohanLarsson yeah I do go for walks.
 
He's just slow in answering because of the pad, but that's all right.
 
not every 45 feet though.
 
Not after 45 feet of code?
 
I think ' is correct for minutes
 
Probably.
 
5:07 PM
at least in degrees, minutes, seconds
 
How do you do seconds again?
 
Degrees are "?
 
alt+248
 
**?
 
5:08 PM
no numpad here
@Cerberus I derped meant ''
 
Oh, you mean °, of course.
D'oh.
Derped meant?
 
I verbed derp
Think derp is from South Park but I have only seen it in chats
 
too tired to inquire further
 
@JohanLarsson It is, I think, but it's also used in feet and inches: 5'10"
 
yeah
you can walk after every 45' of code
vertical or horizontal depending on how fast you are
 
5:13 PM
I might spend hours tweaking just a few lines of code.
 
yeah
I read somewhere that the average is six lines per day that makes it into production
Also the best code is written with the delete key.
 
user116848
Can we use "duh" after saying something stupid ourselves or it is only for someone else's foolishness?
 
both
 
user116848
I see, thanks
 
guys, i just read the following two lines of code
if (iskernelclass)
{
    if (iskernelclass == TRUE+TRUE)
    {
this feels like the moment in one of those horror movies where i could just turn around and go home
or i could look closer into what in GOD'S NAME IS UP WITH iskernelclass and then doom myself to madness
 
5:17 PM
thanks to quantum physics we now know you do both and neither!
 
if (iskernelclass == TRUE+TRUE)
i mean, just keep looking at that
what kind of mind could come up with such a thing?
 
TRUE > 0?
 
That's commonly known as very true.
@JSBձոգչ Where did you find it?
 
We have a guy who write:
return a == null ? true : false;
 
@JohanLarsson Looks like he's coercing to an explicit boolean. I've done stuff like that before.
 
5:24 PM
same thing as return a == null;
just obfuscated
 
Notes from the back end: "Rob, please integrate the backend service I sent you before and let us all know how far it worked."
 
@JohanLarsson that's inefficient but not heinous
 
@JSBձոգչ pretty pure dumb imo, at least in C#
same as:
 
@JohanLarsson Well, true. And I didn't write it quite like that.
 
if(a)
{
   return true;
}
else
{
    return false;
}
 
5:26 PM
@JohanLarsson yes, but that requires 8 vertical lines, while the other is only one
return a == null; is best in any case
 
In JavaScript I've written return a ? true: false;
 
@JSBձոգչ What language is it?
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 c++
 
@JSBձոգչ ugh. what is TRUE defined as?
 
5:27 PM
0.5?
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 ah, that's the question, innit?
i don't know
 
rename it to MAYBE?
 
or undefined
 
Windows defines FALSE and TRUE as 0 and 1
 
but in practice true is > 0? Or !=0?
 
5:31 PM
@JohanLarsson depends on the language.
you're not really supposed to care, nor do math on TRUE
@JSBձոգչ's code there is a good candidate for the daily wtf
Personally I'd go down the rabbithole and try to figure out what that code is doing.
Then I'd rewrite it.
Then I'd submit it to thedailywtf.com
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 rewriting is way out of scope for the change i'm making
this is a 30-year-old piece of enterprise software
 
i'm not crazy enough to try to modify is seriously
 
In that case ignore it.
Unless you suspect it's causing you a problem.
 
and the core really isn't that bad, it just has some "surprising" odds and ends
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 not causing me a problem, which is why i'm going to ignore it
 
5:35 PM
it will remain one of life's mysteries.
 
label it as "undefined" and move on
 
By the way, how do you feel about the fine Apple is looking at?
It could be billions, for illegal subsidies from the Irish government.
And Google &co are also queued up.
 
they can afford it
 
I think it is a good way to deal with tax avoidance (≠ evasion).
They can afford it, but they will finally be paying taxes.
 
I'm in favour of companies paying the taxes they owe
But the problem needs to be addressed across the board.
 
5:48 PM
I'm sure they will find other tax shelters.
Tax the poor and shelter the rich.
 
These tax shelters are the result of international treaties.
They didn't arise by accident.
They can be dismantled if there's enough political will.
 
:-Oh what a surprise: rich people from different countries making "tax shelter treaties"
The dismantling will take time, during which other "tax shelter treaties" will be built.
 
No, you misunderstand. The tax shelter treaties are already in place, for every pair of countries.
Otherwise, if a business had revenue in both countries they'd be taxed twice.
If there is enough political will to see corporations pay taxes on stuff they've legally moved to a different country for tax purposes, all that's required is for a country to change their local tax laws.
That would nullify the tax loophole.
Of course, Google could actually try to move all their business to Ireland
but I doubt that would happen
so @Cerberus I caved and installed AHK
 
6:10 PM
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 nooooooooooo
 
@JSBձոգչ Do you have any experience with using Teach Yourself or Living Languages for learning languages?
 
@WillHunting nope
wwell, i think i used a Teach Yourself Romanian at one point
and a Teach Yourself Hindi
the Hindi one was good but i didn't have time to really follow through on it
 
OK, because they seem equally good and I can't decide which to get.
 
@JSBձոգչ Cerb will love the reason too: I'm using it to address a deficiency in an Apple product
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 hahahahaha
what, specifically?
 
6:18 PM
I have a Magic Trackpad and the windows driver doesn't support middle click
So I'm using AHK to turn double-right-click into middle-click
it's imperfect but better than not having it.
 
6:44 PM
It seems that drinking too much coffee leads to reflux.
 
I've never had "too much" coffee.
 
I have not touched tea for a long time.
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You did NOT!!!
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yay!!!
Is the double-right-click-to-middle-click script working well?
 
Well, it's hard to actually do the double-right-click properly. And some apps trap the first right-click and handle it as a single-right-click and disallow the second click.
But yeah it works.
 
6:58 PM
@JSBձոգչ You have not spoken in this chat for a long time.
 
nope. i've been elsewhere.
 
@JSBձոգչ any more of that short story about a mathematical dictatorship? I quite enjoyed that.
 
@terdon which one was that?
 

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