The Nineteenth Byte

Geobits

4:00 PM

Because why not?

feersum

@Runer112 agreed..deleted comments are annoying

Optimizer

@Runer112 because they are obsolete

(everyone! ping him)

Runer112

@Runer112 but then there are hanging comments with no context

feersum

conversations with parts missing are more annoying than a full, irrelevant conversation

Martin Büttner

@feersum it's the fault of the person not deleting their comments though

Runer112

4:00 PM

which seems worse than a bit of extra clutter that actually makes sense

feersum

@MartinBüttner rofl

Geobits

It depends on the question. If it's asking for clarification, and the OP edits the answer into the post, then it's no longer needed. So, to OPs: Edit it into your post instead of replying in comments.

Optimizer

@Runer112 @Optimizer this doesn't even work

Martin Büttner

if there's a lot of debate and all of hit has been addressed in the question, I just tend to flag for a mod to purge all comments

Sp3000

Hmm I think we need a Great Tag Cleanup Spree before the Great Tagging Spree :/

Martin Büttner

4:02 PM

heh

feersum

finding stuff is what google is for

Sp3000

What's the difference between optimization and optimized output anyway?

Optimizer

We need a Great Sandbox Cleanup Spree before all that

@Sp3000 present vs future

Martin Büttner

@Sp3000 I'm not a fan of either tag

Sp3000

Neither :/

Martin Büttner

4:03 PM

they are too generic... any answer that is competing on this site is optimising for something

Optimizer

"z"

Geobits

I optimize for upvotes.

Martin Büttner

@Optimizer no.

Optimizer

@MartinBüttner Yez

Sp3000

Yeah as I was sorting I formed this small list of tags that need renaming/purging

"generation" is another one

Martin Büttner

4:04 PM

yep

Lembik

@Geobits can I ask... would a simpler golf challenge like "linear time median finding" still be uninteresting?

I mean speed-golf :)

I mean, is specifying the complexity in general a bad thing?

Sp3000

$10 says everyone uses the same algorithm again :P

2

Optimizer

no

Geobits

I dunno. I'd say it depends more on the challenge itself than anything.

Lembik

@Sp3000 true.. I suppose I could allow expected linear time then there are at least two ways :)

@Optimizer thanks

Geobits

4:06 PM

I don't know what will strike me day-to-day as interesting, to be honest. I know it when I see it.

Lembik

:)

actually speed golf sorting might even work

Runer112

@Calvin'sHobbies now you've got a hanging comment

Lembik

not using builtin sort :)

Geobits

What is speed golf? Are we making up categories now?

TheBestOne

@MartinBüttner When is your next Random Golf of the Day going to be posted?

feersum

4:07 PM

shortest answer posted within 1 hour?

Martin Büttner

@TheBestOne probably some time after I've actually written it ;)

Lembik

@Geobits yes it is my own term I am trying to push :) It means that the score is length of code plus running time on some given input

Geobits

Random Golf of (some) Day

Optimizer

now ?

Martin Büttner

I'll see if I can come up with something next week

Optimizer

4:08 PM

:P

Lembik

@feersum that would also be nice but would need a regular start time I think... maybe once a week

feersum

/me didn't think it would be nice

Lembik

@feersum oh well :) It is similar to an online coding competition model

the idea behind speed golf is that faster languages tend to more verbose

feersum

those are nice, but not here

Lembik

so there is a balance that you have to find ot win

how would people do sorting in that model for example?

Geobits

4:10 PM

Depends on what you're sorting. If it's limited in scope, a bucket-type sort would work nicely. Short and quick.

Sp3000

CJam probably just uses Java's builtin sort under the hood, I'd assume right?

Lembik

@Geobits what language would you write it in?

Martin Büttner

@Sp3000 I'd assume built-ins aren't allowed

Sp3000

Oh, right

Lembik

built-ins are definitely not allowed

Geobits

4:11 PM

@Lembik I do basically all my golfing in Java. Checkmarks don't concern me. So I'd optimize for speed.

Lembik

@Geobits ok that sounds like a good entry already :)

Martin Büttner

otherwise l~$` would be hard to balance against ;)

Lembik

@MartinBüttner can you actually read input in cjam?

Martin Büttner

sure

that's what the l~ is for

Lembik

ah ok :)

Geobits

4:12 PM

Without knowing the language, the many CJam entries would imply you can.

Hi

...

hi

(sigh)

how would you open a named file in cjam?

Geobits

4:13 PM

@Martin Can I be room owner for a couple days ;)

Lembik

foo.txt for example

Optimizer

@Lembik no FIO

Martin Büttner

@Lembik I'm not sure you can

but "file:///path/to/foo.txt"g might work

Lembik

@Optimizer but I was just told it can read input

Martin Büttner

STDIN

not any input

Lembik

4:13 PM

ok :)

Martin Büttner

ARGV works too

Lembik

so going back to speed-golf sorting without built-ins ... I might make it more interesting and make it string sorting

but I don't want to make it so interesting that no one tries it :)

Martin Büttner

but if you make a challenge that has to read from a file and is not allowed to use STDIN, that's just bullying

Lembik

@MartinBüttner I wouldn't dare :)

Geobits

Well, unless it's a challenge based on file i/o...

Martin Büttner

4:15 PM

sure

Sp3000

@MartinBüttner Unless it's file-system :P

(ninja'd again)

Martin Büttner

but for those I'd usually consider the input to be the file names, not the files.

Lembik

ok so I am thinking of trying a speed-golf challenge for sorting a text file.

but before I do, would anyone be interested?

you can read it from stdin :)

TheBestOne

I

Martin Büttner

I'd probably just try and see what sort of score I could get by focusing on the golfing

Geobits

4:16 PM

I dunno. It depends on the exact spec. I'm not a huge fan of speed vs size, but I might give it a go this weekend.

Lembik

@MartinBüttner is cjam pretty fast?

Optimizer

yeah

Martin Büttner

not particularly

it's alright

Optimizer

the java interpreter

Lembik

@Geobits thanks .. I may not have time to pose it today

Peter Taylor

4:17 PM

@MartinBüttner Any answer on this site is optimising the code, not necessarily the output. Optimisation is about finding minima and maxima of functions.

TheBestOne

Faster than golf-script.

Lembik

same as Java or slower?

Optimizer

java is faster than python/ruby/perl

@Lembik it should almost be same as Java.

not much of processing

Lembik

@Optimizer everything is faster than python :)

Sp3000

"for challenges involving optimizing a certain thing." Seems like we need a better tag wiki then :P

Lembik

4:18 PM

java is plenty fast. Only about 50% the speed of C I think

Optimizer

sigh, still people even think of using python in a production web server

Martin Büttner

@PeterTaylor that's not what the tag wiki says ;)

ninja'd

@Optimizer I'm pretty sure there are more severe bottlenecks than the language being used

Lembik

@Optimizer there is a whole subset of python users who only ever use the static subset of python

@Optimizer they basically need a different language

basic :)

Optimizer

@MartinBüttner not really. every component, including the language contribute majorly

Martin Büttner

[citation needed]

Optimizer

4:21 PM

[experience]

Lembik

we need more PPCG answers in in nimrod, rust, julia and go :)

TheBestOne

"You cannot star your own messages" - I get this every day :(

Lembik

people should get double rep for using those languages :)

Geobits

@Lembik Um. No.

Martin Büttner

@Lembik +1 for Julia

Lembik

4:27 PM

@Geobits I wasn't being entirely serious... but I would like to see more answers in those languages

Martin Büttner

there's a simple solution though

post answers in nimrod, rust, julia and go

Geobits

I figured.

Lembik

be the change you want to see!

Sp3000

There's been quite a few in Go recently, at least

Lembik

maybe answers need to be tagged by language?

so people can search for them

Martin Büttner

4:28 PM

you can't tag answers though

Lembik

I know

Martin Büttner

and you can search for the language

with most language names that works reasonably well

Geobits

"go" probably doesn't work very well, but yea, most do.

Sp3000

Stupid C, J, K, R :P

Lembik

how do I search for answers in Go?

a search gives you the question too it seems

TheBestOne

4:29 PM

@Sp3000 You forgot D :P

Geobits

is:answer

Martin Büttner

should I have made that "most" in italics bold as well?

randomra

@TheBestOne and Q

Geobits

<blink>

Lembik

Go is:answer gives me answers in all sorts of languages

including Haskell

Sp3000

4:30 PM

Missed a lot, apparently

Geobits

Well, yea, is:answer is because you said it was giving questions... I can't fix English enough to remove the other meanings of 'go' ;)

Martin Büttner

@Peter sounds good to me

btw, just out of curiosity, @peter, are pings case sensitive?

@mAr

no

@geo that worked

4:32 PM

@Big Are pings anagram sensitive ?

Lembik

@Geobits :)

ProgramFOX

@MartinBüttner Fortunately they aren't (I would miss lot of pings like @ProgramFox if they were :P)

Martin Büttner

wow, do people really type out your entire name?

ProgramFOX

sometimes

TheBestOne

@PeterTaylor Don't protect the troll :P

Peter Taylor

4:35 PM

@TheBestOne, I would rather delete it, but.

Martin Büttner

he's protecting us from trolls

Geobits

@Lembik Try this out: codegolf.stackexchange.com/…

Lembik

nice!

Martin Büttner

@Geobits could have used -[go] to get rid of the board game ;)

Geobits

Oh I was just playing around with it adding stuff, I forgot about the tag, and didn't bother going back to optimize it after I found one that worked :P

Martin Büttner

4:37 PM

more importantly, what if someone answers a go challenge in Go D:

I think the +package trick is probably the best

Geobits

Then they're a gogo. Obviously.

Martin Büttner

@Peter did you flag the other one for deletion?

Peter Taylor

Yes.

Sp3000

@Lembik Close enough. (Note: I don't SQL)

Lembik

:) !

Geobits

4:39 PM

Golf-Basic? I need to look this up...

Ah, nvm.

Sp3000

Version with links

@PeterTaylor Yeah I wasn't sure where to put CSS, considering the low number of questions and the fact that the top votes does actually use CSS

Martin Büttner

seems fine to me

Brainfuck challenges are occasionally also about brainfuck and don't indicate that answers have to be written in brainfuck (like metagolf challenges)

Optimizer

@MartinBüttner time is close to 20M mark!

Martin Büttner

crazy

Optimizer

damn crazy

I give it 5 more days to 20

Sp3000

4:50 PM

If Peter abolished the malware tag on Trolling the Troll, should we do the same for this new question?

Martin Büttner

@Sp3000 he flagged it for deletion

because that one is actually asking for malware

Sp3000

Should we VTC in the meanwhile then?

Martin Büttner

probably, let me write a custom close reason

Sp3000

(Oops now that I look at it properly it wasn't new - just necro'd)

Martin Büttner

CVed

Martin Büttner

5:37 PM

@Peter the moon challenge got clarified... let me know if you're interested in making use of Mathematica's interval arithmetic

vzn

5:58 PM

@PhiNotPi what is that a graph of?

Martin Büttner

@vzn questions vs followers (each data point being one tag)

vzn

@MartinBüttner ok, but not fully following, whats the motivation for studying that?

Martin Büttner

he wanted to check if number of followers has any significance for the relevance of a tag

vzn

"relevance"?

PhiNotPi

I was summoned?

Geobits

6:04 PM

I believe it shows that code trolling is very "relevant" :D

vzn

wondering the point/ goal of the analysis/ datamining exercise.

Martin Büttner

context

vzn

Phi did you use Stack Exchange Data Explorer?

PhiNotPi

No, Peter generated the list of data.

Martin Büttner

the sandbox disbelievers have caught up:

7

A: Is The Sandbox Effective?

No, I don't think the Sandbox is effective You may comment on this answer listing the numbers of the reasons you think the Sandbox is not effective: My sandbox posts have received little or no feedback, leaving them in an uncertain limbo. I regularly see decent sandbox posts with little or no ...

vzn

6:07 PM

@MartinBüttner nice to see a high rep user interested in new/ adding tags, seems like often its the opposite (as you mention in that post)

Martin Büttner

@Calvin'sHobbies given this result I think it might be time that you asked a follow up question how the people who are not happy with the sandbox think it could be improved

Geobits

I maintain my "vote" that it's sometimes effective and sometimes not. In other words, point #2 for both answers. I don't want to see it go away, but I don't think there's any denying that some challenges get lost in limbo there.

vzn

it seems like looking at votes versus tags is probably most significant basic angle... how else would one measure "relevance"? is # of followers thought to be related to "relevance"?

Martin Büttner

@vzn I feel like the fact that every challenge needs a challenge type tag allows people to be lazy with the normal kinds of tags, because there's no obligation to put some thought into tags

@vzn I don't think votes is relevant either

vzn

what are "challenge type" tags? is that "winning criteria" category as listed by sp3000 in his answer?

VisualMelon

6:13 PM

I value the Sandbox greatly!

vzn

ppls laziness wrt tags is not nec helped by tag organization efforts....

Martin Büttner

@vzn yes

PhiNotPi

I idea was that the usefulness of a tag is determined by whether or not people sort questions by that tag, since that's the reason they exist. A number of followers indicates some people who like to sort by that tag.

vzn

MB you want ppl to use tags more? instead of eg questions with only one tag?

Martin Büttner

are those my initials?

then yes

Optimizer

6:14 PM

I commented and updated the yes answer wrt sanbox

New Sandboxed Posts

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Word Niceness [code-golf] Because I can't concentrate on any task for more than about 5 seconds, I often find myself breaking up words into a sub-strings, each of which is a different length and doesn't contain any repeated characters. For example, the word "pasta" might be broken up in "past" &...

vzn

one approach there is to support retagging efforts. ie ppl hunt down questions & add relevant tags. but alas thats a "good samaritan" type effort because theres no rep for that (timeconsuming) work...

maybe offer bounties for that? an idea

Martin Büttner

bounties can only be awarded to answers though

Runer112

code-golf optimization smallest-code

there, more than 1 tag

Martin Büttner

I'm pretty sure we've got enough users here who are genuinely interested in keeping the site tidy, who would do this without a rep reward. the point of my meta post is partly to raise awareness among those users.

vzn

6:18 PM

its not common but bounties could be used as a payment system to arbitrary users.

Martin Büttner

I mean, especially new users can't possibly guess what sorts of applicable tags we might already have (and they can't create new ones)

vzn

that is related to the bounty item "an answer is exemplary" etc

Martin Büttner

so helping with retagging is necessary anyway, and I really don't mind that

vzn

the way to help new users is to have clear/ well maintained tag definitions/ descriptions.

Geobits

Or both

vzn

6:19 PM

which can also mention related/ "close" tags and the context to use either etc.

one might ask what is the main use of tags by users. eg to find (new) challenges they're interested in, highest voted questions in given tag categories, etc.

PhiNotPi

I think I'm going to create my own tag classification scheme. I don't really know where to post it though.

vzn

it can be helpful to be aware of some theory of "folksonomy". they are (nearly all) inherently a bit disorderly by nature.

Folksonomy

A folksonomy is a system of classification derived from the practice and method of collaboratively creating and translating tags to annotate and categorize content; this practice is also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, and social tagging. Folksonomy, a term coined by Thomas Vander Wal, is a portmanteau of folk and taxonomy. Vander Wal explains some of the characteristics of folksonomies by identifying two types: broad and narrow. A broad folksonomy is the one in which multiple users tag particular content with a variety of terms from a variety of vocabularies...

Geobits

My main use of tags (here) is just to see (roughly) what something is on the front-page before clicking into it. There aren't so many incoming questions that I have to search out new ones often.

I do search by tag every now and then, but not usually to find challenges to answer. Normally it's for data-gathering purposes (meta, iow).

vzn

trying to remember that notorious tag... oh yeah... code-trolling...

PhiNotPi

Is there a way to graph the connections between tags?

vzn

6:26 PM

oh wow! let me dig that up.

Martin Büttner

@Geobits occasionally I use the tags to find questions to answer when I'm trying out esolangs and notice they are particularly suitable to a certain type of manipulation

vzn

theres a very nice tool out now.

Martin Büttner

@vzn the horror

Geobits

@MartinBüttner I have no doubts other people use them in different ways. I do a lot of searching by tag on bigger/faster sites especially. Just throwing my pair of pennies in.

vzn

(hey @randomra converted your intriguing collatz code to ruby, are you gonna fight or submit to the addiction?) ;)

PhiNotPi

6:29 PM

I'm downloading Gephi, to see if it can help.

vzn

ah! found it. note this works for all se sites. very nice tool, many features, useful.

in theory salon, Feb 19 at 16:34, by vzn

35

Q: An interactive graph of Math.SE tags

Some time I created A Graph Map of Math.SE, which met with a warm response from this community. Encouraged by this, I created a new visualization, this time interactive and up-to-date (as long as the SE API lives): TagOverflow. For Math.SE, it is: http://stared.github.io/tagoverflow/?site=math&si...

3

PhiNotPi

That's pretty cool.

Martin Büttner

that is sick

vzn

re tags. suggest someone write up a doc or a meta post on "suggested guidelines for new users wrt tagging". there is already something like that for posting new challenges right? a tagging philoosphy section could be added.

@MartinBüttner :) yeah the tag graph is very impressive just wrt the graphing algorithm, seems to be js based force-balance algorithm! (didnt look closer, anyone know what it is?) which are quite advanced TCS, lots of theory/ papers/ science behind them....

PhiNotPi

There's no math + code-challenge question.

Martin Büttner

6:40 PM

it's interesting if you pull the challenge types into the corners

especially that there are edges between them...

randomra

@PhiNotPi just writing one... (code-challenge sequence math number )

Martin Büttner

22 questions with code-challenge fastest-code, wow

Peter Taylor

@PhiNotPi It should be straightforward to extract edge weights from data.stackexchange.com and then there's software which will draw a graph showing the data. E.g. graphviz, if you write a bit of code to transform the data into a dot file. But with 200 tags, it's likely to be a rather busy image.

PhiNotPi

I think there is a code-challenge + math question, just very few.

Martin Büttner

@Peter we're already a step further ;)

@PhiNotPi 30 actually

vzn

6:43 PM

yeah my only quibble with the visualizer is that it didnt seem to explain the connection weight computation too much anywhere. its really crucial....

Martin Büttner

I think I've got a task for next week or so

looks like @Lembik is one of our number one tag offenders ;) ... only challenge type tags, but then two of them

randomra

@vzn If I will have enough free time I will write out the supporting arguments for my strictly monotonic [e*n,n] conjecture. Or if I will speak with a mathematician about this first he will probably tell me why it is trivial.

Peter Taylor

I think Lembit is probably also to blame for the strong link between optimisation and Python...

randomra

(Trivial as in not stronger than the Collatz conjecture.)

vzn

@randomra the challenge was nearly formulated to be equivalent to the collatz conjecture itself. if you can formalize the algorithm to give a proof it will always work as a monotonic decreasing sequence, youved proved the ~¾ century old conjecture.

anyone who solves the collatz conjecture (if even possible) is likely to become world famous ala zhang, wiles, perelman etc.

randomra

6:59 PM

@vzn that's very clear, I'm not planning on proving it but stating a stronger conjecture

vzn

so do encourage you to work further in formalizing the ideas & will even contribute to that where possible.... just remember (as old primitive maps in the middle ages said on the margins) "here there be dragons"

Rainbolt

7:28 PM

@vzn Next weekend there be dragons.

PhiNotPi

Today I found out that people can still get a "legal" coats of arms.

Rainbolt

@PhiNotPi My office chair is legal, but I have the feeling you mean something totally different.

Martin Büttner

@PhiNotPi were you reading Terry Pratchett's wikipedia page? :P

PhiNotPi

I'm talking about a coat of arms awarded by the UK Government: college-of-arms.gov.uk/services/granting-arms

Rainbolt

Do you mean like, the government officially recognizes your coat of arms in some written document or database?

Geobits

7:37 PM

Rainbolt

Family crest = heater shield?

Geobits

I have no idea what you mean :P

PhiNotPi

While reading the wiki article, one sentence stuck out to me as ripe for a challenge of some sort: "The blazon of armorials follows a rigid formula, designed to eliminate ambiguity of interpretation, to be as concise as possible and to avoid repetition and extraneous punctuation."

Martin Büttner

@Geobits "arm" is a really fun homonym ... I remember once reading the German translation of an English novel where, in the heat of battle, "he threw his arm at the enemy"

(which used the German word for the body part, which simply doesn't mean weapon in German)

Geobits

Standard tactics. When all you've got is an arm, use it. Take one for the team, dammit :D

Martin Büttner

7:42 PM

:D

PhiNotPi

When all else fails, use your severed limbs as projectiles.

Martin Büttner

I think it's the only translation error that I ever recognised without reading the original ^^

Geobits

So you say. I say he really threw his arm.

Martin Büttner

I'm pretty sure he still had his arm afterwards... plus, he didn't have his axe any more afterwards... the evidence is overwhelming :P

(although maybe they translated that part wrong :D)

Geobits

It would be weird to come across that (as is) in most English texts, though. I normally see it used as sidearm, firearm, or arms, but using it in the bare singular is a bit odd. Anyone from the UK care to chime in? Mine's a US perspective.

Martin Büttner

7:46 PM

it might have been two axes/arms... it's been a while

Geobits

What does an axis (or more than one) have to do with this? ;)

Martin Büttner

:/

it was an American author though

Geobits

Then again, it would be really hard to throw two of your own arms... maybe it's a translation error after all.

Martin Büttner

:D

PhiNotPi

You use your teeth.

VisualMelon

7:49 PM

I don't think I've ever seen arm in the singular referring to arms, it's always arms or "my armament"

Rainbolt

Oh, oh, I see! Running away, eh? You yellow bastards! Come back here and take what's coming to you! I'll bite your legs off!

VisualMelon

(or one might be "armed")

Geobits

Maybe it's just old fashioned? Do you remember what book it was?

One other note... was he injured as a result? I've "thrown my arm out" before :P

Martin Büttner

It was from R. A. Salvatore's Cleric Quintet... It might have been the first one, but I'm not entirely sure.

Geobits

Oh, I've got that around here somewhere... haven't read it in a while. Thanks for reminding me about that.

Martin Büttner

7:52 PM

heh

I don't have the German copies here, so I can't check which one it was at the moment

Geobits

And on that note, I'll see myself out. Have a nice Friday, all.

Martin Büttner

I could in two weeks though

@Geobits if you wanna go looking for it... if my memory doesn't betray me it was a scene towards the end of a book, in the basement (probably of the library), and it's one of the dwarf brothers throwing the axe... he might have thrown it at a locked door instead of an enemy

PhiNotPi

8:05 PM

We haven't really worked on the Lego challenge much.

Martin Büttner

true

it looks like we've got consensus now though

Rainbolt

downvotes the consensus

PhiNotPi

As much of a consensus we can hope for.

Rainbolt

Should have done a K'NEX challenge instead of legos.

Martin Büttner

@Rainbolt the beauty of stars

PhiNotPi

8:09 PM

I have an Erector Set somewhere.

Martin Büttner

@Rainbolt did you see the K'NEX adder CH posted?

Rainbolt

Nope

vzn

@Rainbolt whats next wknd?

Rainbolt

Rainbolt Appreciation is probably next. Just a guess

Martin Büttner

K'NEX 4-Bit Binary Adder

►

Rainbolt

8:10 PM

Oh, you mean that comment from way up there. Did you even click on the link?

vzn

(oh oops ok didnt notice link)

Rainbolt

I just know that my brother threw my lego castle across the room and destroyed it completely. He stomped on my K'NEX castle and all I had to do was reconnect it. So K'NEX are better.

We used to erect a cardboard wall between our K'NEX structures and position lego men on various platforms. Then we'd take down the cardboard wall and narrate the battle that would ensue. We had a ruler and we would use the most arbitrary rules to determine who won. Always me, because I'm the older brother. (This is also why my castles were often destroyed by a brotherly fit of rage)

Martin Büttner

@Rainbolt You've got a really lovely brother.

Rainbolt

He attacked me with a real sword once

I defended myself with a pillow. Wasn't a very good sword apparently.

VisualMelon

my brother once put my head through our bannister, broke the support in 2, good times (I'm the younger of the two)

Rainbolt

8:16 PM

It was always the opposite for us. I always had to take the injuries.

Because if I touched him, he broke, and I got in trouble. If I bled, I probably deserved it.

VisualMelon

I had it bother ways, my younger brother weighs more than me, he used to beat me up too

Rainbolt

Mine weighs like 49.8952 kg

I'm 74.8427 kg lol

VisualMelon

we are probably quite similar now, I've put on a good 10.74682475624lb in the past 6months

we had some great moments, where my older brother would insult my younger brother, so my younger brother would hit me, because I wouldn't fight back

Rainbolt

I just wanted to play games all the time. And if my brother didn't wanna play, I provoked and tormented him until I got injured.

Peter Taylor

@MartinBüttner Don't try reading Discworld novels in translation. They lose a lot.

Martin Büttner

8:20 PM

@PeterTaylor Nah, I'm not reading English novels in translation any more (unless they're already lying around on my shelf maybe)... they always lose something (and the funnier they are, the more they lose)

Peter Taylor

I read Carpe Jugulum in Spanish. It was painful.

Martin Büttner

8:31 PM

unfortunately, English is the only other language which I know enough about to dare reading novels in.

VisualMelon

@PeterTaylor would just "scoring" the words work, and then say the nicest thing is that with the lowest score? (referring to my Sandbox post)

Martin Büttner

If I knew Spanish I'd probably read Carlos Ruiz Zafon in Spanish...

Peter Taylor

No worries. I couldn't read novels in German.

@VisualMelon, "score" has slight connotations of "high is good", but it could work,

VisualMelon

@PeterTaylor quite, I was thinking maybe refer to character weightings, and score the segmentations and words, I'll make the changes, and see if it doesn't work out

Martin Büttner

one day I wanna polish my Icelandic enough to be able to read longer texts... apparently the written language essentially hasn't changed during the last millennium... so in theory, if you have some grasp on the language you should be able to read some really old literature in its original form... that sounds quite tempting :)

VisualMelon

8:39 PM

(sorry for needless ping)

PhiNotPi

I read modern English literature in its original form all the time.

Optimizer

I read these missed chat transcripts all the time

Martin Büttner

@PhiNotPi I can't tell if that's a joke or you're not a native English speaker :D

PhiNotPi

I speak American as my native language.

(so yes, it was a joke)

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