The Frying Pan

oh, you want to copy and paste something with bullet points? Well, I'm going to indent each one more than the last one, so you have to use 20 more clicks to fix it!

Stephie

Get an intern...

That’s how I tend to approach tasks like that.

ElendilTheTall

ha

i'm the bottom of the heap, I have no hiring power

Stephie

You don’t need it. Just explain how your superior abilities could be put to better use.

ElendilTheTall

8:52 AM

they couldn't, without a second computer :)

Stephie

Grasshopper 2...

ElendilTheTall

nom nom nom

i can't remember the last time I saw a grasshopper

how are you catching them?

hello @LSchoon o/

how's quantum physics these days?

LSchoon

o/

Still doing its thing

ElendilTheTall

any chance of the universe fundamentally unravelling and consigning us all to instantaneous, blissful oblivion?

LSchoon

I realised I hadn't had time off since January so I'm letting quantum be quantum for a week

@ElendilTheTall Yes. Although vanishingly small

ElendilTheTall

8:56 AM

@LSchoon i hear it does its best work when unobserved, so probably a good plan

Stephie

@ElendilTheTall It’s just like with toddlers - you need to catch the moment when they are awake, hungry yet not ravenous. In all other cases, grab the bottle. Or syringe.

LSchoon

@ElendilTheTall Which does pose a problem for people like me! ;-)

ElendilTheTall

have you tried kinda sneaking up on it? :D

<whistles nonchalantly>.... AH HAH!

LSchoon

@ElendilTheTall Are you talking to me or to @Stephie here? ;-)

ElendilTheTall

both

LSchoon

8:58 AM

Oh, muons. That's me.

ElendilTheTall

"I wasn't doing anything until you observed me!" <closes laptop hurriedly>

LSchoon

I mean, there is a line of research in quantum physics where people kinda-sorta-almost don't look at things to see them better

ElendilTheTall

and there was me thinking i'd invented a whole new field

there is nothing new under the Sun

LSchoon

Above it, on the other hand...

ElendilTheTall

There is a subreddit called NoStupidQuestions which I like to answer questions on

there was a grown adult on there yesterday who A) thought the sun revolved around the earth and B) thought the seasons were down to distance from the sun

not like a loopy flat-earther

just flat out ignorant and had never been taught otherwise

LSchoon

9:02 AM

A scathing indictment of the education system wherever this person lives

ElendilTheTall

I suggested he get a torch and a ball and point it at different angles

and watch a video

he was amazed

oh, the level of ignorance is astounding

people don't know anything, and moreover they don't care that they don't know anything

LSchoon

@ElendilTheTall I do like to follow "There are no stupid questions..." up with "...only stupid people", so I should probably not spend too much time there

ElendilTheTall

there's a books subreddit of course too

the number of "I just read my first book at 27!" posts is incredible

LSchoon

That hurts me

ElendilTheTall

schools turn kids off reading with bloody Shakespeare and allegory-stuffed 'classics'

i fkn hate allegory and symbolism

I read fiction for escapism

if they read The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter at school I suspect things would be different

Stephie

9:05 AM

Ha. Minor 2’s teachers chose “valuable” books. Urgh.

LSchoon

@ElendilTheTall I think there is a place for them but a story should work nonetheless

@ElendilTheTall No symbolism at all in LoTR, of course

ElendilTheTall

haha

Stephie

Minor 1 was lucky so far. Most of the time.

ElendilTheTall

well, not that has any bearing

symbolism isn't the point

JRRT specifically said he disliked allegory in any form

I read mainly because my mother bought me books

despite school

LSchoon

Was there such a thing as 'reading levels' in school when you were younger?

I distinctly remember reading tons of books that were supposedly well beyond my age, and being forced to go back to a lower level "because I'd otherwise finish the school library by the time I'd get out"

7-year-old me was not amused

ElendilTheTall

9:09 AM

probably, I don't even remember

i was always good at reading, and terrible at maths

something that continues to this day

my code is thus a great read and mostly dysfunctional

LSchoon

Hahaha at least it's a good read

Can't be said for most

ElendilTheTall

const aVariableRepresentingTheFundamentalYearningInTheHumanSoul = 1

a very common variable in web dev

LSchoon

Facebook famously got rich by setting it to 0, no?

ElendilTheTall

indeed

so, what are you doing with your week off?

waxing some cheese? carving some shoes? other stereotypically Dutch things?

LSchoon

I can only imagine what other stereotypes you had in mind, but no. Spending some time at my SO's pad in London, exploring the city and sending out job applications

ElendilTheTall

9:17 AM

um

well, my grandmother was Dutch

trying to think back what she did

made sandwiches with those little chocolate sprinkles in

I hesitate to try and spell the word

LSchoon

Those are fantastic with peanut butter

@ElendilTheTall What, hagelslag?

ElendilTheTall

ok, I'll go phonetic

LSchoon

Saying it's worse than writing it

ElendilTheTall

moush-ers

LSchoon

Ohhh muisjes

ElendilTheTall

9:18 AM

m-ow-shers

that's it

LSchoon

Those aren't chocolate

They're aniseed

ElendilTheTall

hmm, well, the ones we had were chocolate

blue box with a cubist harlequin on it

LSchoon

Definitely hagelslag, I may even remember the brand

To Google!

ElendilTheTall

i'm sure you're right

maybe Grandma colloquialised it

i clearly remember the box to this day

tall, oblong, royal blue, with a metal spout you pulled out to help pouring

LSchoon

Metal! That must have been a while ago

It's cardboard now

ElendilTheTall

9:21 AM

yeah, 80s 90s

we would get those and big blocks of Verkarde chocolate

usually more hazelnut than chocolate

so yes, it was that, and a deep dislike of the Japanese - she was from the Dutch East Indies and spent the war in a camp, lost 5 siblings and her father

refused to have anything Japanese in the house

lots of Philips electronics

LSchoon

@ElendilTheTall Oof. Some complicated history there

ElendilTheTall

oh, you don't know the half of it

she was my grandma on my mum's side, but I have no Dutch blood.

She met my grandad when he liberated her camp

they came over here

20 years later adopted my mother

who was from Hungary, but grew up in Austria in Displaced Persons camps

spirited out of Hungary to get away from the Russians

never knew her real father, mother died when she was 12

it's a mix!

LSchoon

Wow

ElendilTheTall

by contrast my Dad's side is just English all the way down

LSchoon

By the way (and sorry for interrupting): these boxes? i.pinimg.com/originals/43/53/d8/…

ElendilTheTall

9:27 AM

but now I live in Scotland and see myself as a New Scot anyway :D

@LSchoon YES!

wow, that's a blast from the past

LSchoon

I remember those, not with a metal spout though.

ElendilTheTall

a folded metal stainless steel spout with a couple of holes in, and i think serrations on the pouring edge

LSchoon

Wild

That got optimised out before I could walk, I guess

ElendilTheTall

don't make 'em like they used to

they say if you haven't tasted metal-poured Hagelslag, you haven't begun to live

LSchoon

Who's this "they" and why are they spouting (pun intended) nonsense

ElendilTheTall

9:30 AM

in fact, most of the world's current problems are probably rooted in the lack of metal-poured hagelslag

LSchoon

"Metal-poured hagelslag. Everything 5G isn't."

ElendilTheTall

Very probably the cure for COVID-19

You can probably write a paper on how the quantum doodads in the cocoa butter interact with collapsing wave functions of the carbon in the stainless steel to produce an anti-viral of world-changing potency

but not this week

LSchoon

I could. But I still hold the perhaps unreasonable hope that my papers contain a grain of truth

ElendilTheTall

ha, that's a mug's game!

have you never heard of blinding with science?

what's more scientific than quantum doodads?

you can split the Nobel prize money with me

LSchoon

The physics prize, the peace prize, or both?

ElendilTheTall

9:41 AM

if your paper is good enough, literature too

and medicine of course

we're going for the quadruple here

go big or go home

LSchoon

I'll crank up (again, pun intended) the old nonsense generator

This all reminds me of a recent paper demonstrating room temperature superconductivity: arxiv.org/pdf/2003.14321.pdf

Ground-breaking stuff

ElendilTheTall

> If one examines dialectic desituationism, one is faced with a choice: either
reject neocapitalist cultural theory or conclude that the task of the observer
is social comment, given that culture is distinct from truth. The subject is
interpolated into a predeconstructive discourse that includes art as a paradox.
But Lacan uses the term ‘dialectic desituationism’ to denote not theory, but
posttheory.

elsewhere.org/pomo

ah, Celebrations. A cornerstone of good science for many years now

at least until they got rid of the Galaxy Truffles

i hope heads rolled for that travesty

LSchoon

Never had one of those

ElendilTheTall

I pity you

another hole in an otherwise complete life

don't get me started on metal poured Galaxy Truffle celebrations

ho-lee fuck

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