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Kit
12:19 AM
Anyone who is east of Greenwich, England may now wish me a happy birthday.
 
 
6 hours later…
6:36 AM
see Kit I am not from east of Greenwich, England .. but happy birthday in advance
 
 
3 hours later…
9:10 AM
@Kit Happy birthday! I have bought you a new house.
In unrelated news,
0
A: English tools for non-English-speaking people

Paul MaglioneWe recently launched a new website, www.english-attack.com, which helps people around the world improve their English via online entertainment. Multimedia exercises wrapped around movie and TV clips, news reports, visual dictionaries and games are combined with a videogame-like points and reward ...

 
@Robusto Are you there?
check this
0
Q: One of friends or one of my friend

Muhammed Rauf KWhich is correct:- Yesterday, I met one of my friends? OR Yesterday, I met one of my friend?

It sounds so basic
see ya
 
 
4 hours later…
12:56 PM
@Alenanno — Looks like @RegDwight's on the job. No need for me to step in.
Weird. I just got like 60 passive rep in five minutes. I wonder if that will be interpreted as sock puppetry.
 
Dude, I got like 10 passive rep this month. At this rate, it's going to take me only 77 years to hit the 10,000 mark.
That prospect scares the hell out of me. Maybe I should consider converting everything of mine to CW or something.
 
1:17 PM
@Vitaly — You're so self-effacing. A spider wouldn't hang back like that. A spider would go out and get stuff.
The Sydney funnel-web spider, Atrax robustus, is an Australian funnel-web spider usually found within a 100 km (62 mi) radius of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Description Sydney funnel-webs are medium-to-large in size, with a body length ranging from 2 cm to 7 cm (0.9" to 3"). They are glossy and darkly coloured, ranging from blue-black to black to brown or dark-plum coloured. The carapace covering the cephalothorax is almost hairless and so appears smooth and glossy. The shorter lived males are smaller than females but longer legged. It is one of three specie...
Hey, back off, buddy!
Note that they say "cephalothorax" ... unlike some purists I could name.
 
1:39 PM
@Vitaly: And notice that this possibly-most-dangerous-of-spiders is called Atrax robustus in its Latin designation? I'm not saying it and I are related, but if I were you I would be careful around fierce creatures that can inflict painful wounds.
@RegDwight: So did your wife do a Z-Punc retrospective last night?
 
@Vitaly 10 passive rep with only four answers? And you complain???
@Robusto Nah, we didn't have the time. Sadly.
But it's on our list now.
 
Hehe, I visit every couple of months and geek out on the new listings.
 
Anyhow, back to that Russian complainer.
 
Haha. Wait, isn't that a redundancy?
 
Robusto gets what, like 35 passive reps?
And he has like what, 1000+ answers?
@Robusto No, it's a litotes.
 
1:47 PM
Ah. More toilets humor.
 
Humor?
 
Humus?
 
Humus is an anagram of Hmsuu.
 
Anyway, back off. The link between me and Atrax robustus may not be proven, but prudent people would exercise caution anyway.
 
You misspelled anthrax.
But the friendly NSA guys will help you correct that in a minute.
 
1:50 PM
Hey, anthrax is just nature's way of killing things. You're so judgmental.
 
Me?
 
Now, polonium on the other hand ...
 
Who goes around accusing people of spending just a little of their hard-earned monies on polonium?
Oh damn.
 
Remember? The "man-behind-the-man" thing?
 
Well, yeah. I posted it.
 
1:52 PM
Then enough said.
 
Which is not to say that I wouldn't remember it if someone else had posted it.
 
No. You see all, know all, and — more the point — have like 2*10^23 tabs open in your browser at all times.
 
May 2 at 12:34, by Cerberus
True, true.
 
See?
 
Apr 16 at 20:52, by kiamlaluno
"She sells sea shells by the sea shore."
 
1:54 PM
Mar 21 at 16:16, by Robusto
@JSBangs — He sees every sparrow that falls.
 
Apr 17 at 13:26, by kiamlaluno
I also went to Canada, once, at Niagara Falls.
 
yesterday, by Robusto
@RegDwight — Aardvark and misogynist are used interchangeably. Also Weetabix.
 
Apr 24 at 12:15, by RegDwight
Unlikely.
 
Apr 1 at 17:20, by Robusto
user image
 
This is so much fun as it is little.
 
1:56 PM
@RegDwight — 5 and 5, for questions.
 
@Vitaly Whoaaaaa so you got passive reps on two, countem, TWO posts, and you complain?
 
@Vitaly: You can always pretend you're this Vitaly:
 
Ha.
 
@Robusto Is the syntax in the following poem correct? "EY CINE THERE WILL DEFInITELY BE BLOOD MAYBE".
 
AYE KEN MAYHAP CORRECTLY
See? The e is silent.
 
1:58 PM
KTHXBYE
Ah, in that case KTHXBY
 
Actually, the e is dark. Which is a tip-off that it's silent. Or maybe heard but not seen. IDK.
 
The E is noire.
 
That's neither here noire there.
@Vitaly: You haven't responded to my spider bait. Yet.
 
@Robusto I think you misspelled Moiré.
 
@RegDwight — I have that effect on people.
 
2:01 PM
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's a Moiré.
 
Or else you just had Lasik surgery.
 
Lazy surgery?
 
If people who don't want to wear glasses may be deemed lazy, then yeah.
 
Hey, I don't want to wear glasses, and I am lazy! QED.
 
That's why we go over ...
Whoa, @Vitaly is up to 775 now. In about two years he is going to crack 1K.
 
2:05 PM
@Robusto Right on cue? See the first comment.
 
I seriously don't know what to make of that guy.
Now he's giving out ultimatums.
 
x.x
 
@RegDwight: I just flagged that comment, btw. It is at least combative, if not downright rude. Or else it demonstrates a very poor grasp of English.
Also, @caleb, I proactively upticked in advance of his pending censure. I hadn't seen your answer before anyway.
Whenever I ask a question, I uptick all the answers that are helpful or at least earnest and well-meaning.
 
Hey, funny ultimatum is funny. Caleb has been through worse in this chat. :P
2
 
@Robusto I don't either. I left him some pretty ... shall we say blatent comments about how not to behave on some of his recent answer snafus and a few of them he tried to rectify -- Along with cleaning up all the self-answers after his accounts got merged.
 
2:11 PM
I wasn't aware he had accounts merged.
Which accounts?
 
All of them!
 
How many are we talking?
 
In Soviet Russia, Third Idiot gets merged with you!
 
@Robusto At least 2. RG and another that we couldn't remember the name for ... about a half dozen recent questions were asked and answered by him under different names.
 
@RegDwight — No, please, not that! I'll do anything you want, just don't do that to me!
 
2:12 PM
Yesterday after the merge he went through and unaccepted/deleted his own answers and marked somebody elses as accepted.
 
@Caleb — Seems that would be grounds for outright banning.
 
@Robusto For a nearly 10k rep user it seems significant breach of trust to me, but I'm not exactly a mod here.
I charted his rep before and after the smurf report / account merge and it looks like it only affected the last couple weeks. I think the 10k mark started to cloud his judgement. If...
 
You have to have judgment before it can be clouded.
______
0
Q: Why some fictions are written in past tense and some are written in present tense ?

Sarawut PositwinyuI have picked some fictions to read lately, i found that some of them use past tense while the orthers use present tense. What are the different.

Writers?
 
I dunno.
Any site?
They will kill me for migrating a poor question.
 
Perfect. Send it to AnySite.SE.
 
2:17 PM
Lemme see if it's in the list...
 
@RegDwight — In Soviet Russia, you kill writers!
I like how he calls them "fictions" ...
 
Can't we just close it as a dupe of your "feeling tense" question? That would be funny.
 
Yes, that would be funny.
@RegDwight: Why doesn't that question show up in my list of questions?
 
I eated it.
Was I wrong in doing so?
 
Why didded you did that?
 
2:23 PM
17
Q: How do the tenses in English correspond temporally to one another?

RobustoNon-native speakers often get confused about what the tenses in English mean. With input from some of the folk here I've put together a diagram that I hope will provide some clarity on the matter. I offer it as the first answer to this question. Consider it a living document. Input is welcome, ...

 
Aha, I was searching "feeling tense" ... and it's in a graphic. D'oh!
 
Ach ja, der lustige Robusto...
Gar lustig ist der, ich sag's Ihnen!
 
Danke.
 
Bitte. Kostet fuffzig Mark.
 
Wieviel? Das ist zu teur.
 
2:25 PM
Hey, you're one lucky guy, you still remember the deutschmark. Good times.
 
Und wie heißt fuffzig auf Englisch? Mehr als 10^23?
 
Ich weiß nicht. Sind denn 50 mehr als 10^23? Hab in der Schule nicht aufgepaßt...
 
Doch, das glaub' Ich nicht.
BTW, did any of you like my "Pedant-O-Meter" neologism?
Well, I was kind of proud of it. [pouts]
I don't think @Vitaly is feeling well. I kept feeding him spider bait and he is strangely silent on the subject.
 
Когда я ем, я глух и нем.
 
And when you don't eat you're only dumb?
 
2:38 PM
Should I ask if that is a rhetorical question?
 
Wow, not even a thwack?
 
ФВАК!
 
спасибо!
Although somehow FVAK is less satisfying than THWACK. I think something gets lost in the translation.
 
Be my guest, be my guest, made from real gorilla chest.
 
Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest (born February 5, 1948), better known as Christopher Guest, is an American screenwriter, composer, musician, director, actor and comedian. He is most widely known in Hollywood for having written, directed and starred in several improvisational "mockumentary" films that feature a repertory-like ensemble cast, such as This is Spinal Tap. In the United Kingdom, he holds a peerage, and has publicly expressed a desire to see the House of Lords reformed as a democratically-elected chamber. Despite initial activity in the Lords, his career there ...
 
2:41 PM
Huhuh, he holds a peerage, huhuh.
 
I know, right?
 
The peerage he's holding in the photo sure looks funny.
 
Scepters ain't what they used to be.
 
Scepter sisters?
ta-DA!
 
[Golf thwack]
 
2:45 PM
Nice approach!
 
And Scepter is, of course, an anagram of SPECTRE, which, according to Ian Fleming, is an acronym for Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Revenge, and Extortion. The original Evil Empire (well, except of course for Soviet Union).
SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) is a fictional global terrorist organisation featured in the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, the films based on those novels, and James Bond video games. Led by evil genius and supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the organisation first formally appeared in the novel Thunderball (1961) and in the movie Dr. No (1962). SPECTRE is not aligned to any nation or political ideology, enabling the later Bond books and Bond films to be regarded as apolitical. SPECTRE began in the novels as a small group of cri...
Blofeld is loosely based on Mini-Me.
 
Wait what, did you just call the Soviet Union original for once?
 
Well, in the Evil Empire sense.
It took an American (Ronald Reagan, no less) to name it correctly.
I'm sure the CCCP didn't think to call itself that.
@RegDwight — And thanks. I'm working on my short game.
 
@Robusto Yeah, those US actors sure are the brightest people around.
 
@RegDwight — Hey, Bedtime for Bonzo was a deep psychological study.
Bedtime for Bonzo is a 1951 comedy film directed by Fred de Cordova, starring future U.S. President Ronald Reagan. It revolves around the attempts of the central character, Professor Peter Boyd (Ronald Reagan), to teach human morals to a chimpanzee, hoping to solve the "nature versus nurture" question. He hires a woman (Diana Lynn) to pose as the chimp's mother while he plays father to it, and uses 1950s-era child rearing techniques. This movie is one of the most remembered of Reagan's acting career, although it was Reagan's least favorite; he never even saw the film. The film was later...
 
2:50 PM
@Robusto I must admit you do sound less handicapped each day. Well, except between Fridays and Mondays.
 
See? He played a professor. He must have been a genius.
 
Wow, I didn't even know that and I already loved him!
You had me at bedtime!
 
This is a seminal work in sociology that's gone unappreciated for too long.
 
Bonzo is a beautiful name for a sputnik.
 
Also for a beatnik.
 
2:52 PM
Bonzo. Bonzo. Bon-zo. Bon-ZO! Bonzo? BBBbbbbbonzo breaker!
 
万歳!
 
Hold on a sec, is Wikipedia in the future prediction business now? "Starring future U.S. President Ronald Reagan".
When will that happen? I'm holding my breath!
 
It's in Wikipedia, so it must be true.
But the smart money is shorting Ronald Reagan futures on the commodities market just now.
 
Short selling is illegal where I am right now.
Also, this:
May 7 at 13:37, by RegDwight
 
0
Q: Would one call this situation ironic, sarcastic or ... ?

PaulSay I buy myself a CD of the album "Scratch" and the actual CD has got a scratch on it (possibly by mistake). Would I call this situation "ironic" or "sarcastic" or is there another word for it?

Dupe?
 
2:58 PM
I'm tring to find that other question. Not the one you posted.
 
@RegDwight — The funniest thing about this is all the political-correctness hoo-hah that orbited around this song when it came out.
 
@Robusto Seriously? Did they also object to Political Science?
Now it's the stupid Y that is broken on my keyboard.
 
They object to everything. Nobody, it seems, can take a joke even when its intent is actually to support them.
 
20
A: What word means what many people think 'ironic' means?

J. M.I'd say something about the matter, but I think I'll let George Carlin say it instead because he's more eloquent: Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence. If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is n...

 
People Who Don't Get It: This represents a majority in most societies.
Speaking of irony:
 
3:02 PM
Wait what, he loves LA? I thought it was money that he loved!
 
I mean, who doesn't love cars and hot chicks?
 
@Robusto Money can get you both.
 
Lots of people think so:
Of course, they were no strangers to cognitive dissonance:
I mean, who do you believe? Lennon or McCartney?
 
Can't buy me glove!
 
How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All is the second comedy album recorded by The Firesign Theatre. It was originally released in 1969 by Columbia Records. Track listing Side one #"How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You're Not Anywhere at All" – 28:27: ##"Drink to Me Only with Thine Fox" (Mr. Catherwood and Ensemble) [CD retitle: "The Ralph Spoilsport Mantrum"] – 4:21 ##"The Policemen's Brawl" (Officers Bradshaw and Henderson) [CD retitle: "Zeno's Evil"] – 4:34 ##"Yankee Doodle Came to Terms" (All Fecal People's Chorus) [CD retitle: "The Land of th...
 
3:06 PM
@Robusto I would believe Sir MacC, if only he weren't dead and replaced by a professional lipsyncer.
 
@RegDwight — Yes, those rumors of Paul being dead turned out to be disturbingly accurate.
 
@Robusto Heisenbergsche Unschärferelation?
K now dig this. My wife just bought me Blob2 and insists that I go buy some beer before I play it.
So, what's a poor boy to do?
 
@Robusto — I am just enjoying Pushkin's poetry.
 
I'd say she's a keeper.
 
Das ist wirklich unscharf!
 
3:09 PM
Wie?
 
Or do you mean that Pinkman is hot?
I don't know him.
But anyway!!!
Apr 30 at 16:35, by RegDwight
@PaulCalcraft yeah, sorry, stupid beer just won't buy and carry itself.
That's over and out 4u.
 
Breaking Bad is an American television drama series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The series is broadcast in the United States and Canada on the cable channel AMC, and is a production of Sony Pictures Television. It premiered on January 20, 2008. To date, three seasons comprising 33 episodes have aired. The series has been renewed for a fourth season, scheduled to premiere July 17, 2011. Set and produced in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Breaking Bad is the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with advanced lung cancer at ...
Best TV show evah.
So have fun, and laterz.
 
Is that a wordplay on breaking bread?
 
Hint: Walter White's drug nickname is "Heisenberg" ...
 
I'll read the answer when I come back.
 
3:13 PM
CYA
I'm out too. Moving my loafing venue to the couch.
 
@Robusto Continueing with @RegDwight's bread theme are we? I'm off to bake in the sun...
 
3:40 PM
Avete.
 
Avete :)
 
Hey that's plural!
 
Is it so?I'd searched in Google,I even didn't know the meaning of Avete
I think you have good vocabulary?
 
It isn't English, it's Latin!
Ave = singular greeting, avete = plural.
 
Oh! then Ave :)
 
3:45 PM
Thanks.
We aren't called the Incomprehensible Room for nothing!
 
My English is not as Good as your's :)
It was my dream to go Amsterdam :)
 
Oh? You should come, it is a nice city.
Though you look a bit young to travel alone.
 
Yo @Cerberus!
 
Yo!
 
No,she is my nephew :)
 
3:49 PM
I will be back in 5 minutes, have to buy bread before the baker's closes.
 
Jez
afternoon.
 
Yo Jez.
How's it going with Fowler's, @Cerberus?
 
Jez
any ELU activity?
 
Yo!
@Vitaly Turns out it's scanned images after all, if I may believe the various pdf-to-html programs I've tried.
My PDF reader, PDF X-Change Viewer (free), just happens to OCR on the fly.
That made me think it was working from real text.
 
Wow, the other room is frozen.
 
4:04 PM
@Jez My preferred term would be "ELU laziness"...
Oh?
 
What edition is the one you are interested in?
 
All!
Can you get it?
 
There are too many.
 
There are three...
 
I am looking for a PDF to try out.
 
4:05 PM
I have all, both in paper and digitally. Just not digitally searchable.
Oh.
 
New Fowler's Modern English Usage, 3rd Ed?
 
Well, the 3rd edition (Burchfield ed.) is the only one clear enough to be OCRd by my viewer.
@Vitaly That's the one.
 
It seems to have been OCRed but I don't know how well.
> mechanicaV (OED). Cf. L liber 'free*.
Not very well. So it can only be converted if you actually proof-read the whole book. I don't suppose you are going to do that. Are you?
 
Oh? The OCR data are included in the PDF?
 
Yup.
 
4:09 PM
@Vitaly Right, too much work. I might find a way to isolate titles automatically, but I doubt it.
Actually the 1st and 2nd editions include OCR data as well.
But same problems.
@Vit: By the way, it seems Word is quite good with regex.
 
/me shrugs
 
I can easily replace all [sub] strings in titles in Pokorny with {[sub]} in it.
 
4:33 PM
I got the first edition exported to HTML but I don't see how the headwords could be possibly isolated.
 
Oh!
@Vitaly Html, how did you do that?
 
@Cerberus — I dunno. You can take a look at it, though, and see if you can figure out any way to isolate the headwords.
 
Thanks! I will...
Yikes, yeah that looks too messy.
 
@Cerberus — Well, some people spend months proofreading every single dic they convert; cannot say I am a fan of that, though.
 
It would produce the best quality... but the amount of time it takes!
By the way, I wonder why someone replaced half of the German words in Pokorny with English words, very bad idea.
 
5:07 PM
@Cerberus: Forget libraries, I know what I want. I want to witness you going to some creationist/Christian chatroom and successfully convincing at least one genuine young Earth creationist that evolutionary biology gives a suitably correct description of why we see life on Earth in its current form. :P
 
@Vitaly Ahh... are you sure there isn't a book you need from some library on the moon?
 
Haha!
 
I have tried to direct people unto the path of truth, but it seldom worked.
 
It worked?
 
Well, not that I can remember... you'd need to take them out of their social environment.
It is nearly impossible to dissuade people from political or religious beliefs that they hold strongly.
 
5:14 PM
Well, since you claim that it worked (their social environments aside), there is a new task for you: successfully convincing William Lane Craig that there was no deity involved in the appearance of various species. It shouldn't be difficult, because he's already leaning towards progressive creationism, or so the Wiki article says.
 
But I will keep you in mind when I next see any such people!
@Vitaly "Seldom" might be a euphemism for "never", just as "hardly" is for "not at all"...
 
Excuses, excuses!
 
Well, how would you go about converting people?
Or diverting, however you call it.
And who is this Lane Craig?
 
Dude, even ex-preachers keep posting in the comments section on Pharyngula that they were deconverted by PZ Myers' posts. Just do something!
 
Haha, really?
Passive conversion may be possible, but active...
You are aware of the fact that the numbers of atheists and unbelievers are generally rising steadily?
 
5:18 PM
Sort of.
in Hub of Reason, Jan 25 at 19:32, by Borror0
@Vitaly A good example of that would be William Lane Craig. He said that, even if he was to be transported back in time to witness the resurrection of Jesus and saw it not happen, he would still believe it did.
 
I am not surprised.
@Vitaly What drives your quest for the extermination of religion?
This Craig is a professor?
Odd.
 
@Cerberus — It's a hobby. Can't I have hobbies?
 
I see.
What an ugly tie he has.
And he is wearing his double-breasted jacket unbuttoned. Abominable.
His mathematical argument is bullocks.
"What is infinity minus infinity? This leads to contradiction and absurdity. Therefore the history of the universe must be finite." Not quite.
I do agree that there is absolutely no "proof" that there is no god.
(Religion in England.)
 
5:35 PM
The BBC are doing a good job, yes.
 
I believe the trend is universal in the Western world...
And also generally applies to the entire world.
 
Schools are doing a good job, yes.
in Hub of Reason, Dec 24 '10 at 23:13, by Vitaly
Awwww! http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/congratulations_great_britain.php
in Hub of Reason, Dec 24 '10 at 23:16, by Vitaly
I gotta move to the UK, find a British mathematician girl, and live in a personal paradise.
in Hub of Reason, Dec 24 '10 at 23:20, by Vitaly
OH! And talk to Richard Dawkins and David Attenborough, every day.
 
Exactly.
 
Jez
@Cerberus source of that graph?
also, women here are impossible to get. the nice ones, anyway.
 
@Jez — I have a couple first editions of Bourbaki monographs. That makes it easy for me to get a mathematician girl. Any other girl is by definition not nice.
 
5:50 PM
@Jez Wikipedia!
 
Jez
^ if you think the British are 'unreligious'
 
Besides, if you look at the percentage of believers weighted by economic power, you will see how fast it is decreasing.
 
@Jez — 2010 BSA report, I believe.
 
Jez
a bunch of people voted for him
> the aspect of Faith that is about creating a basis of moral guidance for life, is very much still with us. Moreover, people do not see that basis as coming from humanity alone, but reflecting the will of a Higher Being.
 
Well, Blair is not known for his accurate assessments or his valid predictions.
Look at the distribution of power in the world.
Power correlates quite strongly with irreligion.
 
Jez
5:55 PM
Blair didn't have power?
or doesn't?
or the Pope?
or the tea party?
 
Some. But not that much.
Economic and cultural/social power matter more.
Multiply individual power by the number of individuals.
 
Jez
they can coexist with religious power
they don't get rid of it
 
Sure.
But it is an indicator of where things are going.
And China has never been really religious at all.
 
Q1139 [Religion] (NOT ON SCREEN) N=3421
Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion? % IF YES: Which?
50.7 No religion
9.3 Christian - no denomination
8.6 Roman Catholic
20.0 Church of England/Anglican
0.5 Baptist
1.3 Methodist
2.2 Presbyterian/Church of Scotland
0.4 Other Christian
0.9 Hindu
0.4 Jewish
2.4 Islam/Muslim
0.8 Sikh
0.2 Buddhist
0.3 Other non-Christian
0.0 Free Presbyterian
0.0 Brethren
0.2 United Reform Church (URC)/Congregational
1.2 Other Protestant
0.1 (Don't know)
 
Jez
how do you mean it's an indicator of where things are going?
 
5:57 PM
If the top stops believing, I expect this to trickle down into the rest eventually.
 
In Holland, religion is absolutely and utterly dead among the elite.
@Vitaly Who are those people who answered that survey/report?
(And everyone wants to belong to the elite, so that its mores will eventually convert the rest. But it takes time.)
 

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