English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

I would prefer a more calm environment.

I'm not much of one for parties.

What are you doing in this chat then?! Makes no sense.

12:09 AM

@Mahnax I know!

@z7sgѪ Not even if there's puff pastry?

"Isn't this a forum for questions related to english?" Dear Buddha, no it is not. This forum is only — only! — for questions related to English.

@Cerberus I'd never considered the pastry dimension.

@Cerberus Good. Now, do any of you know much about electrical physics?

@RegDwightѬſ道 Isn't that a logical fallacy?

@RegDwightѬſ道 Hmm no, thanks.

The question is too primitive.

12:11 AM

Then just close it here please.

OK.

@z7sgѪ no.

That was easy. You got more questions like that?

You're contradicting yourself now.

You misspelled always.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Done.

12:12 AM

Here, have a Leckerli.

@z7sgѪ It's a creamy scene.

@Mahnax Hmm what do you need to know?

It never was my favourite area of physics...

I've never had it!

Nice Leckerlis.

Lekker!

Prachtig!

12:15 AM

@Cerberus If I have recorded amperage and voltage for a circuit with an adjustable resistor, and recorded amps and volts for different positions on the resistor, which variable is responding and which is manipulated?

maybe that could be my baking project for this month

@Mahnax Ehh I'm afraid I don't even understand the question, sorry.

Is the resistance of the resistor a variable?

If you can adjust it, that sounds like manipulated?

@Cerberus Nope.

That's what I'm confused about.

but you just said it was adjustable!

Yeah, but it's not what we're measuring/using.

Oh, wait!

12:17 AM

Have you looked up the exact definitions of "responding" and "manipulated" in your textbook?

I have it now.

Ah.

What is it?

Wenn Du wissen willst Ampere, teile einfach U durch R.
Если хочешь знать ампер, раздели ты U на R.

We're just testing to see if changing the current by changing the resistance impacts the potential difference.

So, current is manipulated.

But you're also recording it?

12:19 AM

so does it impact it?

Yeah, it does.

They appear to be inversely related.

@Cerberus Which?

The current?

Yes.

So then it is both?

We record current and potential difference.

@Cerberus Sort of.

12:20 AM

how can you account for the change in pd with your model?

OK.

Heh.

It's kind of silly.

@z7sgѪ Oh, let's see.

Since amperage is coulombs per second, and voltage is measured in Joules over Coulombs, when you increase the coulombs, you decrease the pd, and vice versa.

what is the voltage source? isn't it fixed?

It's fixed.

The source of all voltage is God. Think about it.

12:25 AM

But we're changing the current by adjusting the rheostat.

I figured out that rheostat is what we call the adjustable resistor.

You are changing the resistance and the voltage is fixed, so only the current will change. V=IR. However, in the experiment, perhaps the voltage does change a little bit.

Maybe it isn't fixed then, I don't know.

I've never done this stuff before.

I'm sure it will all become clear.

How do I determine if the source of the voltage is fixed?

What the hell is this?

Why is some anonymous telling me how to transcribe Greek?

And how can I tell it to back off?

12:30 AM

@Mahnax Say if it is a battery, you model it as a voltage source, a fixed voltage.

@Cerberus Bark at it.

@z7sgѪ What do you think I am doing now?

@Cerberus Bring more heads into play?

@Reg: What is this "Community" editing my stuffs?

@z7sgѪ They all started yapping immediately.

One user suggesting, another approving.

God is the source of all edits.

12:32 AM

Actually scrap that. That's one user suggesting, another improving on his edit.

Simply approving would credit the suggester.

It sounds awfully like a conspiracy to me.

I say we stay on our guard against this sort of thing.

Conspiracies that sound aren't.

@z7sgѪ Yeah, it's a battery.

I don't understand why our voltage changed then.

@RegDwightѬſ道 But can I see who it was?

english.stackexchange.com/posts/59160/revisions

@Cerberus Alain Pannetier approved it.

I used one of these things.

12:41 AM

@Mahnax Ohh I can click on the "suggested" bit!

@Cerberus Yessir!

Thanks.

Anytime.

Oh, hold on.

I was measuring voltage across the rheostat. Does that make a difference?

Ehhh maybe.

I forgot everything about electricity.

Oops Mahnax beats me to it.

Well then you don't need me and I can finally go to bed.

Night all!

12:45 AM

Night!

KitFox

Evening.

G'day.

@Mahnax When you connect the battery at each end of the rheostat, the voltage measured at the divider will be between Vin and 0.

@z7sgѪ Vin?

The potential difference across the rheostat is the potential difference between the battery terminals = V(in)

12:56 AM

Huh.

V(out) is the voltage you measure at the divider (the bar across the top)

I will have to ask my Physics teacher then.

Sure ;)

I don't quite remember how I had the cords connected, either.

12:57 AM

I have the diagram, I'll upload after dinner. Later!

later fammo

1:31 AM

Wherefore callest I fammo?

Gotta run, picking up an Apple Product.

2:08 AM

^ How to tell if you're a slut, according to the Republican party

2:45 AM

@Cerberus hello, shouldn't you be sleeping? I thought you were switching to local timezone instead of GMT-5, which seems to be your wont

Hi!

I'm trying.

The key is to get up at the same time every day, and try to go to bed at the same time

But I went out clubbing last weekend, and now my sleep cycle is gone again.

heheh

It's just not possible!

2:47 AM

baby seals will do that to you every time

Hehehe.

They are irresistible.

Must. Switch. To. Polar Bears.

hm, those are nearing extinction. Better go for walrus. They're bigger.

you know what's annoying? besides the usual. Frickin' cables. Like, I have so many gods-damned cables around the house; they all do the same thing, only they have differently-shaped ends.

USB A to USB B. Mini-USB. now Micro USB. I don't know how many frickin' Mini USB I have, but they're all obsolete. Plus I have a couple sony-proprietary-mini-usb-knock-offs. Same cable, same data, differently-shaped mini-end.

Now I have an HDTV. So, HDMI, right? WRONG

HDMI, Mini HDMI, Micro HDMI

GAH

by the time I buy enough of these cables so that I am never inconvenienced, i.e. there is always one at hand when I need it, the powers that be will decree that all my cables are obsolete and I should be using the new ABCD cables, which helpfully come in full-size, mini-, and micro-, and because the ABCD doodad supports doodads talking to doodads, I'll need cables with every possible combination of ends.

It'll be like the good ol' days of SCSI, only, sans-terminators.

/rant

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I like how USB plugs are cleverly designed so that whichever way you try to insert the plug into the port you get it wrong the first time.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Ahh yes, hate 'em! Don't forget USB Mini-A, and Mini-B (I think those exist).

2:54 AM

Tru dat.

@Robusto Protip: normally the seam goes down or right.

Or was it left?

Hmmm I'm certain about the down.

@Cerberus If the seam goes down or right then the port goes up and left.

Ehh...

Just let's agree that whichever way you try first fails.

Just make sure the seam on the USB thingie you're holding in your hand points to the centre of the earth.

No, my success rate has increased dramatically since I discovered that.

2:57 AM

Just try it.

@Cerberus I don't see anything that looks like a seam, sorry. And I'm not going to poke my nose into the USB plug like a pig sniffing for truffles. I'm just not.

Seam goes down.

Remember that.

What about when the ports are horizontal?

So the picture is wrong.

@Robusto You mean vertical; then I believe they go left, but I'd have to look that up.

2:59 AM

I have USB ports that are in almost every possible orientation

@Cerberus Stop being a contrarian.

And whether there's a rhyme or reason to it doesn't matter as much as the fact that some of them (my Dell monitor's USB ports in particular) are really hard to insert even when you have it right.

@Robusto Yes, they left in vertical ports.

I'm ok with 50% wrong. What I hate is when it's wrong even when it's right.

I'm not contrary: I'm correct.

3:01 AM

The point is, a good User Interface Design for a plug/port combo would make it frickin' OBVIOUS which way the frickin PLUG should go in the frickin' PORT.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 The point is that you will need to make the same effort several times if you're not sure which side goes up.

Like Firewire or HDMI.

@Robusto D'oh. USB connectors are the stupidest things in the universe. But don't you think it's handy to remember down-left?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Haha exactly.

@Cerberus No, the point is that even when I have a sense of how it should go, I still have to try because that port in particular is badly made; even when I'm right it takes several tries. I almost never get my home PC's USB ports wrong.

3:03 AM

But, if you know it's facing the right way, you will at least not have to turn it.

@Cerberus No, I can't know it's facing the right way until it goes in.

You can be pretty sure with left-down.

Even then maybe a gz'hur has tricked me into thinking it went in

It has yet to fail me.

Oh, you boys are irrational and intractable. But it's OK. I will ignore it.

the monitor in question has, I think, the seam going "back", because the USB port is vertical on the side of the monitor.

But it might be "front", or actually, it's whatever axis is the 4th dimension

That's what way it faces

At least the mini and micro USB ones are not rectangular, so you can easily eyeball the cable-end.

Oh, and it bugged me for years that AGP made my VGA adapter upside-down. Thankfully, AGP was replaced by PCI-E and all was well in the universe.

3:07 AM

@z7sgѪ Awwh awesome!

'evening, @aedia

Hiya! Are we complaining about how the cables never plug into the things?

yes!

and how there are too many kinds of cables

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I don't know what you're talking about.

'Cause I got a new work phone and I swear its plug is the same as my personal phone except the other way round and I am going to break it one of these days

3:09 AM

@aediaλ You know that the seam on USB plugs goes down or left?

I keep trying to shove it in the wrong mini trapezoidy direction

Yeah I do that too.

The trapezium is barely an advantage.

@Cerberus Imagine you are looking at an LCD panel. Down the left side of the panel are USB ports. They are placed such that if you were to plug in a cable, it would stick out to the side, like an errant whisker. And thus the "seam" either faces you or faces away from you. The long axis of the USB port is vertical.

brb

I see your seam picture but I never knew that, because I swear mine don't make any sense at all and half my computers have sideways ports. I just look at the cables front on and try to decide how it's actually going to fit... that's the only thing that works for me

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Err no, you must be looking straight into the opening with your head vertical.

@aediaλ Vertical ports take the seam on the left.

Horizontal ports take the seam at the down side.

3:12 AM

@Cerberus You are becoming a seam bore.

@Robusto Thanks for recognizing my point. Very nice.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I have a box labeled "every cable ever"

but then it got full so now it's overflowing in a drawer

I have cables from the first computer I ever owned. And they don't work on anything anymore, but I still can't bring myself to throw them away. I wish there was a therapy for people like me.

Also, I put 'em in ziplock baggies to keep the same kinds together, but it seems to cause them to breed or something.

@Robusto Oh god me too.

@aediaλ You too? Damn, I thought I was the only one.

3:14 AM

We should found an asylum!

And how about zip ties? Do you ever get all your computer cables all trim and neat and then bundle them with zip ties — only to find, the very next day (or hour) that you miswired something and have to change it, which means cutting the zip tie?

Are you all trying to pull some April's Fool on me, or are you really unaware of how incredibly useful it is to know about the seam's direction?

Everybody ignore @Cerberus when he starts talking about seams. Oh, you already have!

Okay, I'm outta here. Bye.

Awww, don't go away mad.

@Cerberus Yes, of course it is useful — incredibly useful — to know about seams. I may take some courses in seamology.

3:18 AM

It seams this is really important to you, @Cerb.

This whole time I've been looking at the squiggly connecty line picture on top of the cables and it seams I've been mistaken.

^ I think they generally have this icon on the side opposite the seam but I usually just look at the front bit and decide if it's a good idea to shove it in the port that way

@aediaλ "Seams? Nay, madam, I know not seams." — Hamlet

giggles

And yes, cable ties and I have had many a fight when I was wiring my boxen.

Although I won't touch our oldest one because I am traumatized by how dusty it is and how it's a nasty cable jungle in there.

I have a bankers box full of cables. But I must admit I've thrown out most of the PC/electronics cables that I can't use anymore. Granted: that only happened because we lived in a 2 bdrm condo and we were about to have a baby which needed its own room.

It's always a nasty cable jungle down there. And don't you love it when you find, in your cable bundle, one or two cables that aren't even connected to anything anymore? But you still leave them because they "might be needed for something"?

I don't use zip-ties, I buy twist-ties by the mile in a little thingy with a cutter.

@Robusto does it count if they're still connected to the hub at one end? or the power bar?

3:25 AM

My better half and I do not share the same views on organizing things, and it would be all piles if it were his job, and none of the things would have cable ties at all, and we might... okay we probably wouldn't have thrown away the cables either, but not because I organized them away, but because they'd be at the bottom of a pile.

@aediaλ sounds like YOU'RE the better half in THIS exchange

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Hahaha every time I look at my computers I notice one that's like that. There's always one that didn't reach some front speaker panel or something

let me guess, @aedia: you would store your lego in tackle boxes and clear plastic drawers, etc, while he would just pour all the parts into one big-ass bin

Exactly.

having a baby while living in a condo was a really good exercise in de-cluttering. But that was 4 years ago and now the clutter is starting to accumulate again. I even bought a house to house it.

3:27 AM

My son had garment containers full of LEGO parts. Literally thousands of dollars worth. God.

and the company across the hall from my office is leaving stray computers out in the hall. I have to restrain myself or else they'd all come home.

@Robusto how big is a garment container?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Even worse, actually: he mixed his with his brothers' in tons of bins, so we will only maaaybe inherit it. Mine is in my parents' attic and I can assure you the minifigs' weapons are probably still even separated by forestmen and their opponents...

@aediaλ awesome. My minifigs underwent a re-organization a while back while I was trying to see how many of what kinds I had. My focus is on castle-y things (including harry potter and pirate) and I ended up putting all the swords in one ziplock bag, all the shields in another, spears in a third, etc.

I have, I think, maybe 40 "hogwarts student" minifigs, of varying natures. Mostly Harry and Ron.

I had mostly castle and town, and some of the last sets I got in middle/high school were probably around when castle started to have some ok stuff again like dragons, but before too many of the movie-themed things

Have you heard about the LoTR lego coming this summer?

3:34 AM

Ooh really?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Like about 2'x3'x12"

I haven't been following news because, since I don't have anywhere to put it, I'm not letting myself buy any more yet

Though it's really tempting to think that well, I could get some small sets that would fit in those giant-minifig heads my mother-in-law bought me...

@aediaλ better not look at this then.

No... just think "I won't open the boxes, I won't open the boxes... well, just one box, but not the rest...."

OMG OMG OMG drool

@Robusto that's a pretty decent size.

3:37 AM

I have a new iPod.

@Mahnax Blasphemer!

How dare you give money to the great devil, Apple?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Holy crud that's cool. I had a bunch of the old horses and the set (a Paradisa one?) that had a foal, but that is the sweetest LEGO horse ever.

@aediaλ I know, er? finally, poseable horse legs

It's going to be an expensive summer, for me, I think.

So on another topic, does anyone here have an Android tablet?

No, just an Android phone that's got kind of a big screen.

@aediaλ Galaxy S2? Galaxy Nexus? no wait... You have a Motorola, right?

3:43 AM

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Haha I guess I should have said. HTC Evo.

huh, guess I was wrong... I could have sworn we've talked about your phone before.

I'm thinking of getting a tablet. But I want the shiniest and best only I can't justify paying that much, yet I recoil at buying anything but the best. This, of course, leaves me with no choices whatsoever.

How can I cure myself of this irrationality?

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Mine's not new, coming up on 2y now I think. We probably did talk about it but someone else probably has something else like any of the ones you're thinking of :)

Haha I don't know. I haven't bought myself a tablet for those kinds of reasons, and we made compromises when we chose them for our parents

Do you really need a tablet? Will it fill a niche that is actually not filled by other devices in your life?

@aediaλ The tablet niche, of course

I would love one to play with but I've decided so far that I'm basically constantly connected already and I don't need to replace an existing device. Hell, I can be on the phone, emailing on my laptop, while watching tv on another computer, if I want (at home anyway). So I can't imagine why I actually think I need a tablet

Night all.

3:49 AM

The final motivating factor in this purchase, beyond "wow, shiny", is that I think a tablet is just the right amount of computing power to put in the living room, where there's no TV and the only music is a CD player. I want access to my MP3s and occasionally my other media. We spend most of our time in that room but it's the least connected.

@Robusto 'night

@Robusto Night night! Sleep tight! Don't let the cable ties bite!

We don't have a (working) notebook anymore, or else I'd use that, but it was really large anyway.

Ah.

I might feel differently if I didn't live in one (not really so giant) room

So while discussing this problem with Matt I thought I could solve my music connectivity by hooking an FM broadcaster up to my media HTPC that's in the basement. However, that is actually kinda pricey, and so then I was thinking "tablet!" because there are some really cheap tablets. but once I've made up my mind to actually buy a tablet I feel like nothing but the best will do.

I suppose I could try to take my own advice that I always give to PC buyers: buy cheap, buy often.

but the tablet market seems to be advancing way faster than the pc market ever did.

Yes, buy something you think will work

3:54 AM

I mean, the cheapest thing that could possibly work would be $any_android_device. But then it wouldn't be awesome.

decisions decisions.

So don't buy the super cheapest, buy one that has some other aspect you like, like you think it won't get broken when it falls off the coffee table

The problem is that I am not really sure how to judge all the various tablets. Virtually all of the cheap ones are unknown quantities in terms of their reliability, etc.

But: I should probably just wait and put this off for now. Knowing the market, there will be a new tablet announced tomorrow that makes today's models look like crap.

Say, do you ever read Dinosaur Comics?

I happen to be using an old iphone sans sim card for a remote to control itunes when I want to listen to podcasts in the evening or in the kitchen, and if there's one thing I can say for it, that thing can take a beating. It must be like 5 years old now, survived a zillion falls off the bed and tables, cooking residue, etc. and it still even has okish battery life.

I'm not sure that's useful advice, other than that you might end up not using the thing how you intend, and hardware matters, which you probably also were thinking about already

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yes I do!

@aediaλ yeah. That's so.... practical though. And not very shiny. sigh woe is me.

I don't read Dinosaur Comics all the time anymore though, I'm a bit behind

3:59 AM

The Dinosaur comics guy is reviewing the novelization of Back to the Future. btothef.tumblr.com/tagged/bttf/chrono

Oh my god I'm so glad they didn't use a freezer as a time machine

heheh

dude that must have been a thick book to fit a Walkman... as I remember my Walkman I don't think it would have even fit in a hollowed out Gone With the Wind

well, that should keep you busy for a little while. i'm off! cya tomorrow.

@aediaλ yeah, seriously. Maybe a dictionary. Or the phone book.

The NY,NY phone book.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Night! See you... in the future :)

4:07 AM

@aediaλ dun dun dun!

4:29 AM

@MrsHiny Oh, pah!

David Wallace

5:44 AM

@Robusto It amuses me that your defence of your viewpoint was an attack on the export industry of the country that I choose to call home, followed by an attack on my command of the English language. The "precedent" that I spoke of, in what according to the OED is a perfectly correct use of the word, was the one established by Obama;

@Robusto that is, the idea that the leader of a powerful nation has the right to decide who lives and dies on the world stage. I thought that much was obvious from my message, but as this was not the case, I'll endeavour to use smaller words in my future communications with you.

@Robusto I wonder who is next on Obama's hit list. Perhaps the president of Syria, or the new ruler of Iran? How about the president of North Korea? Or maybe Putin. Now that the precedent has been established that it's OK for world leaders to commission assassinations, it's pretty much open slather.

@Robusto Arguably more dangerous would be if the president of a nation such as China were to decide that he deserves the same rights as Obama, and assemble his own hit list. I imagine that his list of "bad guys" would not concur quite so nicely with your world view. That is why Obama's actions were so dangerous a precedent.

@Robusto Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić are responsible for the murders of far more people than bin Laden, but they were both arrested, not assassinated; and will stand trial in an international court. That is the appropriate way to deal with war criminals and other mass murderers. The only difference that I see is that their victims were (mostly) not American.

@Robusto So, no, I do not weep for bin Laden the man; but I cried a river when I learnt that he had been murdered. The world became a much darker place that day.

brilliant

8:29 AM

@DavidWallace Did you read that link that I sent to Robusto? “Eric Holder: U.S. can kill American citizens overseas in terror fight” Here is the link: q13fox.com/news/…

Now, not only the precedent has been established, but it has been full justified in their own eyes, which means that they gave themselves the official right to assassinate people in other sovereign nations.

brilliant

8:44 AM

Well, I am not really terrified by that news - they have been doing it anyway. What puzzles me, however, is how quick they are to accuse Russia of doing "such terrible things" when they themselves are doing them.

One thing I just can't get here is whether hey really that naive or just pretending. Probably the latter is true.

David Wallace

8:57 AM

@brilliant Thanks, I just read it now.

But I feel I may have let things get a bit personal between me and Robusto.

11:11 AM

@DavidWallace No fear. They will be quite impersonal from now on.

And, for the record, setting a precedent refers to an action that comes before other similar actions and sets a standard. Putin's murder of Litvinenko happened in 2006; Obama's termination of bin Laden in 2010. For the record, John F. Kennedy is reported to have tried to have Fidel Castro assassinated in 1961. Stalin had Trotsky assassinated in 1940. There are your precedents.

Now, as I do not wish to continue this unseemly debate in ELU chat, I have put the both of you on ignore. Have a nice life.

I am pretty sure someone tried to kill Julius Caesar way before that...

And Jesus! Think of the Jesus!

@RegDwightѬſ道 It is sufficient to prove a prior event. I don't have to go back to australopithecus.

Your not having to shall present no hindrance to my doing so.

@RegDwightѬſ道 OK, which australopithecus tribal chief had someone clubbed to death in another tribe. Quick, we need facts now!

I think his name was Seven.

11:21 AM

@RegDwightѬſ道 I thought it was Eight.

It would be pronounced Eight in contemporary English though.

Jinx.

Slow jinx.

I'm not in a curry.

Anyway, it wasn't Seven. In that film it's Gwyneth Paltrow who was killed. Read about it here:

Seven (film)

Seven (sometimes stylized as Se7en) is a 1995 American thriller film, with horror and neo-noir elements, written by Andrew Kevin Walker, directed by David Fincher, and distributed by New Line Cinema. It stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, R. Lee Ermey and Kevin Spacey. David Mills (Pitt) and William Somerset (Freeman) are police homicide detectives working in a crime-ridden big city. The newly-transferred Mills and the about-to-retire Somerset become deeply involved in the case of a sadistic serial killer. Each meticulously-planned murder corresponds to one of the seven ...

Meh. I don't care about reading. They should make a movie about it.

11:24 AM

@RegDwightѬſ道 No, not yet. But if some Indian potentate decides to have you offed, you very well could wind up in a curry.

I am good friends with Maharaja.

That's what they all say. Then they wind up in the curry.

►

@RegDwightѬſ道 Hmmph. I didn't see any curry.

It's represented by gold.

Let me grab a screenshot and make it stand out more.

11:31 AM

@RegDwightѬſ道 That is so Russian. Try to pass off gold as curry. I am not fooled, sir! Take your worthless gold and give me my curry!

See screenshot above.

I dunno who that is. Or what the screenshot proves.

Tim Curry

Timothy James "Tim" Curry (born 9 April 1946) is a British actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. Curry first became known to film audiences with his breakthrough role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the 1975 cult movie The Rocky Horror Picture Show, reprising the role he played in the 1973 London and 1974 Los Angeles stage productions of The Rocky Horror Show, then later for his supporting roles as Rooster in the film adaption of Annie (1982), Lord of Darkness in the film Legend (1985), Wadsworth in the movie...

That is Tim Curry? The one above? Gah!

I bet his drag act isn't bringing in the ~~gold~~ curry these days.

Well, this is such fun, but I have to get breakfast. Mahlzeit.

Guten.

KitFox

12:42 PM

Good morning.