English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

KitFox

4:00 PM

@Robusto Maybe kitteh pics would help? Or rainbows?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Robusto Now we're gonna pick on the USSR. How original.

2

JSBᾶngs

also, this may be the only chat room in the world where you can troll with a misplaced umlaut

KitFox

Or a giant robot?

Robusto

@aediaλ A giant pink robot?

KitFox

@Robusto With pissflaps!

Robusto

4:00 PM

►

Where is Yoshimi now that we really need her?

aedia λ

JSBᾶngs

@Robusto she was killed. by the blue robots. (everyone has a weakness.)

Robusto

> I kind of always thought this was about beast cancer bc it says the robots r pink and that she is taking lots of vitamins. U know like a metaphor she is fighting breast cancer. U go yoshimi!

Is there anything dumber than YouTube comments?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Robusto replies to YouTube comments.

KitFox

Damn beast cancer. Making people all blue and fuzzy and intelligent.

Robusto

4:03 PM

First of all, there is no cure for "beast cancer" because nobody is looking for one.

KitFox

Hmm. That's an idea.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Right. All the scientists are looking for longer erections and more hair.

aedia λ

But how are we to fix the werewolves?

KitFox

Silver.

Which, interestingly, would take care of a lot of cancer.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Well while y'all take care of a lot of cancer, I'll go commute.

Robusto

4:05 PM

@RegDwightѬſ道 "People who speak in metaphors can shampoo my crotch." -- Jack Nicholson, As Good as It Gets

CU

KitFox

So what makes you feel happy, @Rob?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Robusto "Smacker smacker smacker smacker". — Helen Hunt, As Good as It Gets

Over and out.

Cerberus

Bye!

Robusto

@KitFox I dunno. Being on a beach in Maui with nothing to do but decide whether to get another drink or go in the water.

Cerberus

Plagued by worries?

KitFox

4:07 PM

That's pretty complicated. Anything simpler? Like maybe pressing all the buttons on the elevator?

Robusto

No, not plagued. Just disillusioned.

Cerberus

Hmm with anything in particular?

Robusto

It took me a long, long time to get disillusioned, but it finally happened. It's the politics, mainly. I don't even know if I'll vote this year, for the first time ever.

Cerberus

Hmm.

KitFox

Sounds like it is time for you to run for office.

JSBᾶngs

4:09 PM

i made a principled decision to stop voting shortly after obama was elected

Robusto

Hey, if I didn't run for ELU mod, why do you think I'd run for a real position in government?

Cerberus

Well, if you look at it from the broad perspective of history, it is only a temporary bump. On the whole, he world is doing very well.

JSBᾶngs

(i voted for him, but soon realized my mistake)

Cerberus

Mistake?

McCain would have been better?

JSBᾶngs

the mistake was to think that it made any difference

Cerberus

4:10 PM

Ah OK.

Robusto

@Cerberus That is cold comfort. The broad perspective of history doesn't have much benefit to individuals, unless they make their living as historians.

Cerberus

Well, it may might have been (even) worse with McCain.

@Robusto So it is something that disillusioned you on a personal level?

aedia λ

I go through phases of disillusionment but I always seem to settle somewhere around cynicism with a relentlessly cheerful streak

JSBᾶngs

are we really even hitting a temporary bump? we're certainly in the decline phase of the American empire, but i find it too hard to care about that

Robusto

@Cerberus Yes, of course. And when the chips are down, I'll probably hold my nose and vote. But it will be an empty gesture.

JSBᾶngs

4:11 PM

@aediaλ me too!

KitFox

You can't win if you don't play.

Anonymous

Hello

JSBᾶngs

@KitFox you also can't win if you do play

KitFox

So I hope that you will stop complaining if you don't participate at all.

@JSBᾶngs Not everyone wins.

Anonymous

American people here? :)

Cerberus

4:12 PM

@JSBᾶngs Yeah, is that decline so bad? Besides, it is only relative: in absolute terms, there is no decline, only growth (except for the recession, but that was temporary).

JSBᾶngs

hey, Robusto's the one complaining, not me

Robusto

@Cerberus No. Personally, things are great. I'm well-liked and well-rewarded at my job, my kids turned out great, and I am married to the best woman in the world. What's not to like?

aedia λ

@Anonymous DC area reporting!

KitFox

@Robusto You're feeling old?

Cerberus

@Robusto So then perhaps America is not a failure after all. Those are the things that matter, and western democracies are doing a fantastic job at that.

KitFox

4:14 PM

@Anonymous Northeast here.

Robusto

@KitFox "The tragedy of age is not that one is old, but that one is young." — Oscar Wilde

Anonymous

I want to know does this person speak generic American accent :)

►

KitFox

@Anonymous I replied to that earlier.

Robusto

And I'm not that old, truth to tell. Older than most people here, but not old old.

KitFox

No, you're not old old. But I was suggesting you might feel that way.

Anonymous

4:15 PM

@KitFox Sorry, I didn't see that.

KitFox

You are still attractive and virile-looking.

Robusto

@Anonymous It's a little bit dramatic, but definitely American. She is making a dramatic reading, so the emphasis is somewhat stagey.

Anonymous

OK, Thank you. :)

KitFox

4 hours ago, by KitFox

@Anonymous It's pretty typical American English, but the woman is reading in a kind of condescending, poetic fashion that makes me want to punch her. She also has a minor speech impediment.

Anonymous

She is my teacher and something she taught me is different from other teacher from Arizona. The way to pronounce some words are different.

Robusto

4:18 PM

She might be a Latina who has lived in the U.S. for a long, long time.

Cerberus

Ah I thought I recognized her voice!

aedia λ

@Anonymous It's pretty normal-sounding for me. Slow, the way someone would read a story to a child. The endings on "-ing" words are not the way I usually say them, but it is a common pronunciation. Certain spots are a little lispy or something especially h and s (around :33, "that human's" is unclear, for example).

KitFox

4 hours ago, by KitFox

I would call it the NPR dialect of English (<—joke).

Reminds me of Terry Gross.

Anonymous

What does NPR dialect mean. Do you mean she speaks like NPR radio?

Robusto

National Public Radio. Kind of the American version of BBC English. Although the BBC has Irish and Scots newsreaders now as well.

KitFox

4:20 PM

@Anonymous Yeah, like they talk on NPR.

Anonymous

Ahh.

Cerberus

So a generalized upper-(middle-)class accent?

Anonymous

@Cerberus Do you know her?

KitFox

No. A patronizing liberal accent.

Robusto

Basically.

Cerberus

4:21 PM

@Anonymous From your sound file.

@KitFox Hmm what's the difference?

KitFox

Liberals are not upper class.

Anonymous

@Cerberus I see :)

Cerberus

@KitFox Oh?

Anonymous

I learned pronunciation for nearly three months but I still have problem with long A sound. When I say mane, base one of my teacher told me I said men and bese.

Robusto

What is your native language?

Anonymous

4:24 PM

My native language is Thai.

My problems are long a, l and r. (As far as I know)

Robusto

Sorry, I don't have any good advice for Thai speakers on pronunciation.

KitFox

L and R always seemed reversed to me for Chinese speakers. I don't know Thai though.

Anonymous

We don't have long a sound in our language.

Robusto

But the Japanese also have trouble with words like base and mane.

"Baseball" is pronounced besoboru — or just yakyuu, IIRC.

aedia λ

For l/r some of the same advice you would give Japanese speakers probably applies...

Japanese speakers learning r and l

Japanese possesses one liquid consonant, a flap that varies between lateral and central . English has two: an alveolar lateral approximant and rhotic consonant of varying phonetic properties centered around . Japanese speakers who learn English as a second language later than childhood often have difficulty in hearing and producing and accurately. Phonetic differences The Japanese liquid is most often realized as an alveolar tap , though there is some variation depending on phonetic context. of American English (the dialect Japanese speakers are typically exposed to) is most commonly ...

There's a set of minimal pairs here

Anonymous

4:27 PM

We have l and r sound but I (and almost all Thai people) don't care about l and r sound so we use it with ignorance.

JSBᾶngs

Anonymous, do you speak a dialect of Thai that doesn't distinguish r/l?

sorry, you just said that :)

Anonymous

Yes :)

Robusto

They can't hear the difference. They don't use a rhotic /r/ so /l/ and rhotic /r/ are hard to distinguish.

JSBᾶngs

it may be easier for you to start by learning to distinguing r/l in Thai, since you can do that by listening to people in your own country

then just copy the /r/ to English. it's not exactly the same, but it'll be a good start

Anonymous

Thank you for your suggestion @JSBngs

I also learned that speak fast don't mean I speak better. My teacher told me that I should speak in normal speed but keep my sound clear.

JSBᾶngs

4:30 PM

by "long a" do you mean the sound in "cake"?

Anonymous

Yes.

Cake, bake, mane, vase, base.

Wait, Waived, acquaint

Jon Purdy

@Anonymous Long A is like เ-ะ moving into -ิ

JSBᾶngs

@Anonymous pronounce it as เอย

Anonymous

Just "ai" and "_a_e" no problem with "_ay", "_ey"

JSBᾶngs

but it's the same sound

the only difference there is whether a consonant follows it

Jon Purdy

4:33 PM

@JSBᾶngs The problem is with final consonants.

JSBᾶngs

@JonPurdy that's what i gathered

but that's a problem regardless of the vowel

Anonymous

For word like mane for me (Thai pronunciation) sound like main.

My teacher told me to to speak like may-n

JSBᾶngs

@Anonymous those are the same vowel

"mane" and "main" sound exactly the same in English

Anonymous

Ahh.

I thought that until my teacher told me they are different sound. May be I should ask about opinion of my other teachers too. :)

JSBᾶngs

@Anonymous "mane" and "main" are the same. they are different from "man" and "men"

Anonymous

4:37 PM

Yes

When you say mane slowly does it sound like may-n, may and then n sound at the end?

JSBᾶngs

@Anonymous pretty much, yep

KitFox

Maybe she meant "many"?

Anonymous

@KitFox No, not many. She means mane - she sent two files to me.

KitFox

Huh.

So she's crazy?

Anonymous

I am not sure but I think she is right. I just tried to say "mane" slowly it sound more like when I say "men" slowly. I don't say may-n.

aedia λ

4:41 PM

@Anonymous Yep, the slower you say it the more "ayy" sound there is. If you want to hear the sound said slowly and then in a word, this chart has it in the word "face" at the top, with general American and British pronunciation.

Anonymous

She told me to put by tongue behind my lower teeth while I say may and then move my tongue up and add n sound.

Robusto

You could also try exaggerating the diphthong: meh-een

Anonymous

@aedia Thank you for your link.

I should train my tongue more :)

Thank you all of your for kindly help. I am off to bed.

Have a good weekend!

aedia λ

@Anonymous You too!

user19161

5:07 PM

0

A: What's the difference between 'therapy' and 'treatment'?

Pengobatan adalah suatu material(obat) yang diberikan pada saat perawatan. Sedangkan Terapi adalah suatu perilaku (seperti tekhnik relaksasi dan tekhnik distraksi) yang diberikan pada saat perawatan yang tujuannya mengembalikan fungsi tubuh pada keadaan normal. by_izze n illa....AKPER PANDAN HAR...

user19161

Can it get any better than this, or worse than this?

aedia λ

It could get better. There might not be so many Hershey's Kisses wrappers stuck down in my keyboard in future.

gives up in defeat

Okay, they can stay in there.

Jon Purdy

This SO question uses willn’t. :D

KitFox

Ah, the standardization of language.

Also, luggage.

Jon Purdy

Isn’t won’t just a straightforward alteration of willn’t? Etymonline says it’s from wynnot or wonnot.

But phonetically it would make sense to go willn’t → weon’t → won’t or something like that.

KitFox

5:18 PM

I have no idea.

Robusto

Now America and the USSR are gonna pick on each other. How original.

2

KitFox

You know more about it that I do.

Jon Purdy

But sense doesn’t usually matter when it comes to language. :/

I dunno, I’m just talking because I’m bored and killing time before a meeting.

user19161

-6

Q: human thesaurus time: what are some *novel* synonymous words & phrases for e.g. a radar "link-up"?

just as i say - what are some novel synonyms, along the lines of old Cold War terms, or space fiction, or James Bond films, that are similar to a "(radar) link-up"? i am naming a human-computer interface, but "human-computer interface" is almost COMPUTER language haha. so is "human readable" for ...

word-choice

KitFox

Stupid type checking. grumbles

user19161

5:20 PM

Also read the first comment to the question above.

Jon Purdy

> (don't worry, this is for an invention, not a product)

We get such characters on EL&U sometimes.

user19161

I think this is clearly a nutcase.

KitFox

Yes. We were discussing this earlier.

Jon Purdy

Like Ron Maimon.

user19161

@JonPurdy Actually I like him.

KitFox

5:22 PM

@Matt wanted to get him into writer's chat, except he's not got the reps anyway.

Jon Purdy

@WillHunting I didn’t say I don’t like him. I don’t like him, but I didn’t say that.

I just don’t take too kindly to people who ask questions that are hard to answer, not because they’re hard questions, but because they’re badly posed or misguided.

user19161

Of course Ron is a nutcase but another kind. There are a few varieties of nuts on ELU.

Jon Purdy

[Mixed nuts joke.]

user19161

Hazelnuts, walnuts, peanuts.

Jon Purdy

Peanuts are beans, really. And they’re delicious boiled instead of roasted.

KitFox

5:33 PM

Legumes, anyway.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus make sure your windows patches are up to date. technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms12-020

user19161

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Well, he would not need to worry about it if he applied automatic updates which may not be the case!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

He doesn't, which is why I'm pointing this out to him now.

user19161

5:49 PM

It would be good if Firefox has a deb and rpm repository so that Linux users can get the latest automatically. On many distros one has to stick to the same version until the next distro upgrade.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@WillHunting on Debian, you mean

user19161

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Hehe, I am using the repository at mozilla.debian.net so I get the latest automatically, albeit a bit delayed!

KitFox

I'll be damned. I did it! I got my code to check each column automagically!

Ish.

user19161

-2

Q: Fill in the blank

______the brothers of Jyoti are architects; one in the US and three in the UK. (options: All, Several of, Both)

untagged

user19161

NARQ.

Jon Purdy

5:56 PM

I always found “not a real question” to be rather harsh wording. :/

user19161

Also whether "several of" or "all" is used to fill in the blank, I would not write the sentence that way. That semicolon looks suspicious.

aedia λ

@KitFox Yay!

KitFox

Well, maybe not yet.

But thanks!

user19161

@KitFox You must hide your strategy from the columns or they will counterattack!

Mitch

@WillHunting That answer could be crazy gibberish, but it turns out it is a serious answer, unfortunately given in Malay.

user19161

6:06 PM

@Mitch I suspected it was in Malay but did not bother to do a google translate. :-)

user19161

0

Q: Where does "use it in anger" come from?

Several years ago, a British friend of mine introduced me to the phrase "use it in anger." Until that time, I had never encountered the phrase in my limited travels in the United States. My understanding from his usage is that it means to really use something, or try something out completely, o...

etymology phrases

user19161

duplicate

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@WillHunting Well, Fedora 16 has Firefox 10 in its updates, and it shipped with FF 7.

Only distros that are still shipping FF 3.6 have any option of staying on the old versions

user19161

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I was about to ask you since I did not take note of Fedora. Good to know! Ubuntu now automatically updates it too as a security update.

user19161

This is the case on all supported versions, in particular the LTSes.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

6:17 PM

Considering that Mozilla provides zero support for versions 4-10 (now that 11 is out), anyone who uses firefox has little choice but to upgrade.

user19161

If I did not use mozilla.debian.net I would be on FF3.5 supported by Debian itself.

user19161

And yes I am on 11 now too!

Robusto

5

Q: Using Safari 5.1.4, code blocks are empty on Stack Overflow

Code blocks on Stack Overflow (lines beginning with 4 whitespaces) with Safari v5.1.4 are empty/blank (even with the inspector, indicating it's populated via javascript). If I use another browser (i.e. Chrome), they have content. Using the same browser (Safari v5.1.4) on another Stack Exchange ...

bug syntax-highlighting code-block safari

This was a weird one. I never realized I was using Safari in 32-bit mode. Harrumph.

user19161

I wonder when the 128-bit chips will come out!

Robusto

@WillHunting They're here.

Very long instruction word

Very long instruction word or VLIW refers to a processor architecture designed to take advantage of instruction level parallelism (ILP). Whereas conventional processors mostly only allow programs that specify instructions to be executed one after another, a VLIW processor allows programs that can explicitly specify instructions to be executed at the same time (i.e. in parallel). This type of processor architecture is intended to allow higher performance without the inherent complexity of some other approaches. Traditional approaches to improving performance in processor architectures inclu...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

6:23 PM

@Robusto Does Flash work in 64-bit mode?

user19161

The fast food outlets should start selling their chips in packets of 32 and 64 too!

Robusto

128-bit

There are currently no mainstream general-purpose processors built to operate on 128-bit integers or addresses, though a number of processors do operate on 128-bit data. The IBM System/370 could be considered the first rudimentary 128-bit computer as it used 128-bit floating point registers. Most modern CPUs feature SIMD instruction sets (SSE, AltiVec etc.) where 128-bit vector registers are used to store several smaller numbers, such as four 32-bit floating-point numbers, and a single instruction can operate on all these values in parallel. However, these processors do not operate on ind...

Mitch

@WillHunting excatly. google allows us to appear smart.

Robusto

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yup. Faster, too.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto Nice. So those annoying ads can annoy you faster.

user19161

6:24 PM

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I am not sure what you mean but I tried Flash 64-bits on 64-bit Debian before and it worked fine.

Robusto

@MrShinyandNew安宇 But they're also gone faster too.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@WillHunting No, I mean on Mac

64-bit linux Flash has been around forever, it was the first platform to get it.

which reminds me, I need to update mine.

user19161

But note that Adobe Reader 9 linux only has 32-bit version which may run on 64-bit linux if you install the necessary libraries.

user19161

On Debian this is ia32-libs-gtk.

Robusto

Who has FF 11? I am on the beta path and I'm still on 10.

user19161

6:27 PM

@Robusto I do! By using mozilla.debian.net on Debian.

Robusto

Ah, well ... Debian.

user19161

It was pulled in just two days after the release of FF11.

Robusto

Debian => in a bed

user19161

@Robusto Maybe that is the problem, you are on the wrong path, the beta path and not the upgrade path.

Robusto

I believe I specified "bleeding-edge" in my path choice. If there is an 11 and mine only goes to 10, well, it's one less, innit?

user19161

6:29 PM

Note that FF now has release, beta and aurora.

Robusto

►

user19161

mozilla.debian.net lets you choose which you want.

aedia λ

Aurora?!?

What kind of release channel is that!

user19161

A term FF uses, maybe for alpha.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

0

Q: Short answers to questions

If you ask something like "Do you...?" or "Will you...?", do the answers "Yes" or "No, I think not" sound informal or do they sound normal?

questions

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

6:32 PM

I just restarted FF and now I have 11.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

What's going on here? Somehow the dupe pointed out by FumbleFingers doesn't do it for me.

aedia λ

sulks I still am not out of the 3.6x branch at w(%k.

Robusto

Where's that Javascript speed test we were mucking with a few weeks ago? Can't remember the link ...

aedia λ

Oh, no, sorry, that's the Firefox update creature that's nagging me.

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 Yeah I don't really think of yes or no as sentence fragments.

Robusto

6:36 PM

Oh yeah, Sunspider.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@aediaλ That is disconcerting.

aedia λ

@RegDwightѬſ道 I no rite? It wants to give me Auroras even though I'm not allowed them. Or something.

user19161

I was looking at the user stats and it seems chrome is rising and ff is falling.

Robusto

Yes, is true.

But at least Safari beats FF now in the Sunspider test on my 4-year-old Mac.

user19161

I made an interesting observation. Jay left a comment on this question and ALL its answers, that's all.

user19161

6:41 PM

4

Q: What is a single word meaning "authoritative source of knowledge"?

I'm looking for a word that means authoritative source of knowledge. The word would preferably be a noun and could refer to a group of people or a collection of knowledge. Additionally it'd be strongly preferred if the word would not be a derivative of encyclopedia.

single-word-requests

Robusto

@WillHunting Easy. Vitaly!

user19161

@Robusto Jay said FumbleFingers!

Robusto

@WillHunting Fumble is more voluble, but I'll put my money on Vitaly.

aedia λ

6:54 PM

@Robusto Do you use Safari frequently? I honestly use Chrome most of the time, or Camino, for browsing on my laptop (a 4ish yr old airbook), if I'm not developing/using plugins in Firefox.

Robusto

@aediaλ I do use Safari mostly. I dunno why. But I develop using Firefox, and I don't like to do other things in my dev browser, since I have to clear the cache a lot and so forth.

aedia λ

I know what you mean there.

Maybe I never got used to Safari because I switch between Mac and Windows so often. FF is at least pretty consistent.

Mahnax

@WillHunting Good!

Robusto

I use Chrome for browsing in Windows, FF for dev.

Mahnax

Hello.

Robusto

7:01 PM

hola

Mahnax

kennelupdogs.com

That's the site we need to analyze for Comm Tech.

I strongly dislike it.

aedia λ

Oh, I remember. I had an underpowered dying little Mac Mini and Safari would pizza wheel on me all the time, so I went Camino there.

@Mahnax Hiya!

Mahnax

@aediaλ Halloo.

Robusto

@aediaλ Yeah, Mac Mini ...

aedia λ

Poor lil thing.

I even spatula'd it open to give it more RAM.

Mahnax

7:09 PM

Aww.

You must have loved it so.

aedia λ

It was a used one we got from a friend who was upgrading, but it was the first thing we could afford for like, a little "media center" type thing to power the tv, shortly after I was out of college. It served admirably.

Robusto

7:28 PM

54

Q: Simplest/Cleanest way to implement singleton in JavaScript?

What is the simplest/cleanest way to implement singleton pattern in JavaScript?

javascript function design-patterns singleton

What's wrong with SO?

Honestly, get a million geeks together and the big purists eat the little purists.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mahnax yikes, it's pretty awful. What's with the :hover effect that makes the whole page green/underline?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

7:43 PM

@Mahnax are you supposed to say what's wrong with that site? Or what

Cuz what a long list that'd be

@Robusto I don't get it. what's wrong with that question?

Robusto

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Nothing wrong with the question at all. It's just amusing that so many people have such dogmatic arguments about whether singletons are appropriate in a weakly typed language, etc.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto I'm not sure if there even can be such a thing as a singleton in Javascript, unless some code is inspecting the prototype chain, perhaps? I admit that my use of Javascript for classes and inheritance has been limited.

Robusto

Well, there are different ways to go about it, but none of them are really singletons in the sense that you would think of them in classical OOP. You can get close, but not all browsers will support certain things.

For example, in this solution Safari (also based on webkit, like Chrome), doesn't recognize the Foo method as a function.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto But it really depends on why the person wants a singleton in the first place. And since Javascript has a global namespace, just create a global object. Anyone who wants to imitate your object probably can anyway.

Robusto

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Of course.

I mean, the accepted answer in that thread is so obvious. But people can't accept simplicity sometimes.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

7:56 PM

@Robusto That's what I found funny about the answers. People spewing forth an example of something that resembles a singleton without even investigating further.

Robusto

What, you mean var SingletonInstance = {}? Nothing is that simple!

Except Javascript.

If someone wants to overwrite your SingletonInstance, it will get overwritten. Sorry.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto The thing is, that is both simple, and also wrong, for several features of singletons.

Robusto

As I said, "none of them are really singletons in the sense that you would think of them in classical OOP" ...

The point is, rather than spending all this time trying to simulate this or that feature of this or that language, just do what Javascript does well its own way.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto which is a great point, and not addressed anywhere in the answers.

user19161

To me a singleton is just a set with exactly one element.

aedia λ

8:04 PM

Singletons are probably lonely. I bet they just want friends

Robusto

@aediaλ No. If they acquire friends, they become Doubletons. And nobody wants that.

user19161

@Robusto It also depends on what kind of friends. Some kinds make it become a tripleton.

Robusto

@WillHunting You mean like Helen of Menage à Troy?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Robusto now you just sound like all those folks insisting that you can't parse HTML with regular expressions. Doesn't prevent an army of Senior Web Architects from asking for just that each and every day.

user19161

@Robusto No, I mean it becomes a tripleton in nine months.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

8:08 PM

If you don't build it, they will come!

Robusto

@RegDwightѬſ道 I parse HTML with regular expressions on a regular basis. As in "each and every day."

RegDwight Ѭſ道

That's why you are a Senior Web Architect!

Robusto

Hey, thanks! I feel all shiny now!

user19161

@Robusto Because you are reflecting the light from Mr Shiny.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Waste no time to enjoy. It wears off quickly. Mostly due to the Senior part.

aedia λ

8:10 PM

@WillHunting Nah, now you're thinking of Silda Twinton.

Robusto

No. He is the shiny one. I merely bask in his reflected, uh, reflections.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Feb 8 at 12:55, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

~ Swinton?

Robusto

@RegDwightѬſ道 ¡Creí que había dicho el Señor Arquitecto Web!

aedia λ

I can't even metastasize right today.

Robusto

@aediaλ Don't do that. You will be sorry.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Stop macron fun of people with funny names.

aedia λ

8:14 PM

@Robusto Not as sorry as I would be if I lived in Texas!

Robusto

Mar 16 '11 at 3:52, by Robusto

"Just move to Texas." Listen to yourself, man! General Sheridan ("Little Phil"), who was active in the latter half of the 19th century, famously said, "If I owned Hell and Texas, I would live in Hell and rent out Texas."

And since it looks like Texas will be losing all its women eventually, I guess Hell would seem like paradise by comparison.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Robusto pfft, you're once again overstating things. All the uneducated, subservient, and fundamentalist-Christian women will stay.

Robusto

But how you gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've had their vaginas probed with shame wands?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Damn it, Asylum has caught up.

Mar 5 at 22:03, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

Ma-ma-ma-ma, ma-ma-macron one, ma-ma-ma-ma, ma-ma-macron one.

Robusto

Ass-sylum?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

8:19 PM

Yeah. The worst part is, I suck against them.

Keep losing six in a row before giving up. Rinse repeat.

Robusto

I ain't doing any better.

I had to abandon Gorelesup totally against them.

Obligatory XKCD reference.

@RegDwightѬſ道 I'm taking chances and getting hammered every time.

Tesla Tanks, Rhinos, Wasteland Skimmers — What'm I s'posed to do about that kind of crap?

Robusto

9:23 PM

@Reg: I'm spent. Hope we have snipers.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Robusto I am spending.

Done. Whatever the outcome, my last bar was way better than my first. 8/2 if I have counted correctly. The first one was exactly the other way round.

Robusto

There are some nasty def decks in there.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

They are above us. -1 is the worst thing that can happen.

Robusto

I think we might squeak by.

Holy Cripes! Vit is 47/5. I didn't know you could use nukes in this game.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Very good. He took a break over the last couple days and it showed.

We lost quite a few wars by a margin of a measly 1.5k. With him onboard, we'd have won. )))

Robusto

9:33 PM

Well, we got this one.

Vitaly

@Robusto Fight. I gave up on using Surge.

Robusto

+5

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Vitaly I was on the brink of doing that.

@Robusto sadly also -3.

Robusto

@Vitaly Actually, that's kind of a relief. I was thinking I had lost all my mojo.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Life is a bitch, and then you die.

Robusto

9:35 PM

So I've heard.

317 from level. No doubt that will be wasted

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I'll get us some easy war. In an hour or so.

Vitaly

@RegDwightѬſ道 Well, at least I don't lose much on Fight. I haven't lost once in this war, my 5 losses are passive.

So it's better than a delta of 400 on Surge with all the losses.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Vitaly Wow. What are they using on attack, I wonder.

Anyhow. Back on topic. Which question sucks balls right now?

Robusto

I got a delta of 565 on surge. But I lost more than I won.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Huh, I'm at some 900. I could have spent good money on betting that it was like 100.

Seriously, I must make a note not to attack them again.

Do not attack Asylae's.

There.

I should pin it for two weeks.

Robusto

9:45 PM

I bet we'll be hearing from them sooner than that. They probably want payback after the humiliation of being beaten by upstarts like us.

Gotta run. Laterz.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

CU.

And I'm not afraid. They targeted us before, when they were below us. Next time we'll only lose one point. With a good active war going, we'll more than make up for it.

Vitaly

@Reg, well, we've had a discussion in the now-frozen room about passive opponent assignment, and IIRC the stats have told us that everyone gets targeted with the same probability if you control for how long you've been playing and so on

so the discrepancy if you only take one particular war is a statistical fluke

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I hope so.

Vitaly

10:02 PM

Haha, and now they declared war on us.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

10:38 PM

Suits me fine.

user19161

I have entered the gaming room again...

user19161