The Whiteboard

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12:01 AM

@Jae Argh you did some minor edits on very old answers... no need to bump an old post when you've only fixed a word... Anyways, no, when you reach 2000 you can go edit crazy ;)

Jae

@YannisRizos No Yannis... not again.... but it's so tempting :-)

@WorldEngineer Thanks! I didn't know that. Guess I'm kinda biased toward the language. Like to think everybody speaks it outside America (no offense @Yannis :P )

user20683

@jae Native speaker of al-arabiya?

Jae

@WorldEngineer Yup. See my bio. And follow.

The proposal is dead...

user20683

12:16 AM

The rough analog to 'ain is the " ou" in "ought"

user20683

I took Arabic when you were about 5

user20683

semester of my freshman year of high school

user20683

*college

Jae

@WorldEngineer Cool...

user20683

interesting language though I wound up being lazy and taking spanish

user20683

12:19 AM

probably relearn German and tackle Russian soonish

Jae

@WorldEngineer Still trying to read fluently. Coming from an english speaking family...

user20683

@Jae it's a hard language

user20683

well I mean every language is hard

user20683

but from English -> Arabic is particularly rough

Jae

@WorldEngineer Yeah, but there are just so many details compared to english... and there is no "P" haha... I have fun with that

user20683

12:25 AM

Bizza Hot is a chain in Iraq

user20683

my favorite quirk is non-human plural is feminine singular

user20683

so a pack of dogs is "she"

user20683

it's also one of the few languages to retain a dual tense

user20683

so you've got singular, dual and plural (3+)

Jae

@WorldEngineer And you have to congigate verbs... that's in a lot of languages, but arabic is just crazy

user20683

12:31 AM

Russian is worse

user20683

and Navajo has everything else beat (mostly)

user20683

one of the interesting things that Ostler mentions in that book is that Arabic tends to spread as the language of Islam but doesn't root in the every day unless the language is Semitic

user20683

so it replaced Aramaic wholesale

user20683

but not Persian

Yannis Rizos

1:37 AM

I need a guinea pig... any volunteers? It won't hurt... much...

Yannis Rizos

2:27 AM

@Jae When the books thing on Meta ends (Thursday, at 20:00 UTC), flag it and ask for it to be closed (too localized applies) and remove the featured tag...

8 hours later…

Jae

10:13 AM

Q: "View Vote totals" without 1000 rep

Screenshot / Code Snippet About The vote counts are a great tool to determine whether an answer is disputed or not. Unfortunately, not many of us have enough time to join all Stack Exchange websites and get 1000 reputation. This script unlocks the "View Vote counts" feature, without 1k ...

Pretty cool script...

6 hours later…

Yannis Rizos

4:02 PM

user20683

4:46 PM

@YannisRizos I think I posted that a while back

user20683

in Programmers Blog, 2 days ago, by World Engineer

https://p.twimg.com/AeuClYxCMAIxMdV.jpg:large

user20683

apparently in the wrong room

user20683

thus proving that changing the name to Whiteboard is probably a good idea

user2334

7:11 PM

I like how this question is quickly becoming a backdoor "What's your favorite programming book?" question

user2334

I think only one or two of those books actually meet the price criteria

user2334

Or the answers assume it's on sale

user2334

Ah nevermind, the $30 limit has been lifted. Carry on!

maple_shaft

7:40 PM

@MarkTrapp Maybe meta will be the new backdoor for all NC questions and shopping lists?

user2334

It's been tried before on other sites, sometimes with hilarious results

user2334

Trying to remember which site had a monolithic poll meta question, where each answer was a new question, and you answered/voted on comments

user2334

English maybe?

maple_shaft

@MarkTrapp lol users will not be happy until we throw up a php BB board

Forget Q&A man, I want to post meaningless drivel in a 4k page forum topic talking about Ayn Rand

user2334

Indeed. Then they'll want migration paths set up from SE real

user2334

7:44 PM

@maple_shaft Relevant xkcd

maple_shaft

eww

@MarkTrapp THATS EXACTLY what I was referring to ;)

XKCD = Meaningful Content

XKCD Forums = Meaningless Drivel

user2334

Need xkcd.stackexchange.com

user2334

Where any answer must be in the form of a link to a comic

maple_shaft

there could only be about 1050 possible answers

additional answers will get community flagged as dupes

user2334

No see my answer includes the alt text it's totally different

maple_shaft

7:47 PM

@MarkTrapp Speaking of great answers... I spent hours reading your answers alone on SciFi

user2334

I'm so, so sorry :P

maple_shaft

I was going to reread LOTR but I don't feel I need to now

you pretty much explained it to me and saved me the time

hmmm

user2334

LotR is a once-a-decade kind of read for me. Hard to re-read it too many times and preserve the author's intent

maple_shaft

In the LotR map, up and down correspond LOOSELY to northwest and southeast respectively.

also relevant

BTW it seems xkcd site has been REALLY slow since he posted the Ayn Rand comic. I imagine a couple of libertarian script kiddies got their panties in a bunch and decided to DDOS

user2334

heh

Jae

8:02 PM

@MarkTrapp Yup. We made new progress on the contest. It's more of a "pick your prize" kind of thing. But it has to be under $50 (including shipping). And on-topic with the site.

Yannis Rizos

@Jae That "on-topic with the site" requirement is going to generate soooooooo much drama...

user2334

"I'd like my prize to be a boat."

Jae

8:40 PM

@YannisRizos In what ways (I can think of a few)? I was thinking the prize can be somewhat SO lenient e.g. a book on jQuery or C++...

Yannis Rizos

29 mins ago, by Mark Trapp

"I'd like my prize to be a boat."