Reely? You post that?

Cover my action and go me one more.

@tchrist What browser do you use?

@cornbreadninja Steely Dan was a dildo.

@Robusto indeed.

Jerry was a race car driver.

> [William S. Burroughs'] novel "Naked Lunch" provided the name for the famous rock group Steely Dan. "Steely Dan III From Yokohama" was the name of a rubber phallus used in the book.

@Robusto Well that killed the room. A rubber phallus will do that, you know.

Rubber phalluses don't kill rooms. People kill rooms.

@Robusto Poseur. ftfy

@Robusto I have always hated that argument.

Despite being a proud phallus owner.

@Robusto It was I.

@RegDwightАΑA please go all the way

@cornbreadninja No flirting in this chat.

Okay, I have postponed my departure until tomorrow, because I am not feeling well now (nothing serious btw.).

@Cerberus where are you going, and why aren't you excited?

@cornbreadninja Going to a country house with mostly family, so not extremely exciting. Though it will be nice once I get there.

You going anywhere this summer?

@Cerberus nice.

@Cerberus actually, just decided to go to St. Louis with Tim.

@Mahnax You asked for examples yesterday, remember? Here's one: english.stackexchange.com/q/78036/15389 — I see that there's one "delete" vote on it. Any idea why? What's wrong with the question?

@cornbreadninja Oh, who's Tim?

@Mahnax (Yes, I see the reason for closing it, but why delete?)

I don't know: perhaps people find that it is too easy to look it up in a dictionary?

dictionary.reference.com/browse/backpack

@Cerberus my boyfriend :D

I think some users feel that the gen ref questions should all be removed, since they don't provide signposts to dupes or anything else that is useful.

Ahh!

@cornbreadninja Cool.

Is that Work Tim? Did you seduce him with cornbread?

@KitFox Perhaps, yes.

Work Tim?

Is he a user here?

No, silly.

@Cerberus Oh, but I did look up the dictionary before asking. I wasn't sure about the meaning—thinking the contextual meaning would be different.

@KitFox lawd, no. Work Tim is married and 25ish years my senior. This is why I made the distinction.

@Cerberus Didn't you read cornbread's origin story?

@cornbreadninja I see. That makes sense.

@KitFox you feelin' better?

A tad. Really tired.

But my sinuses are clear.

@KitFox oh good.

@KitFox nice.

Hey I finished the first draft of that story I was writing, if you want to read it.

foxfirekitty.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/spider

@its_me I don't mind the question personally. Out of curiosity, when you read "to go on a hike, using a backpack: We went backpacking in the Adirondacks.", why wasn't this clear to you?

@KitFox No?

@Cerberus Well, that explains that.

Now I need to migrate a site. I suppose I will be back in a while.

@Cerberus It kind of was, but I wasn't sure. I am not a native English speaker, and my analysis is often wrong. :P

Although really I will probably sit here and talk the whole time.

@its_me Hmm OK. Perhaps you should trust your intuition more!

:D maybe...

@KitFox that's the spirit!

+1

@its_me You can always ask in chat.

Even gen ref is OK here.

@KitFox Oh, okay. Thanks!

@KitFox When I am doubtful I can ask it here, and when I absolutely have no clue, I'd better ask it on the main site- right?

Maybe...you can ask here first and make sure, if you want.

Ah... that would be better I think

thanks again

Sure thing.

Who still wants a deputy badge?

Are you going to clutter up my flag queue all day?

:-P

Moi? :)

I think I only flagged one of his. Spread the love, you know?

Apparently people are grouchy today.

Why do you say that?

Teasing.

And why are you leaving comments in Latin?

Because "Thus passeth the glory of the cherry trees" doesn't sound as funny.

Hurm.

Oh wait.

Wrong president.

How could I have been thinking of Washington for Lincoln?

shakes head in self-disgust

You wanted to be clever in Latin?

No, I wanted to reference the demise of the cherry tree associate with Lincoln.

But it isn't.

No, it isn't.

I will have to remove it for being stupid.

And sentence myself to a singalong.

I blame it all on inflation. The fiver in my pocket doesn't buy what a buck did.

@tchrist What browser do you generally use for chat?

Safari chez Mac.

Safari support user style sheets?

If you pay them $100 developer fee.

@tchrist Eeew.

I may be wrong.

Do you mean per-site CSS overrides?

Or some overall thing?

I think the per-site requires the developer registration fee.

Which is disgusting.

Huh?

That’s our Beerboy, at it again.

Hmm. Per-site would be nice. But chat is kind enough to define a class at the top level that is useful for limiting the global user style sheet to the site.

I wish I could word-salad a comment.

@Robusto You don’t have the deputado badge yet. Go for it!

That’s what they call the guy who lost his cathouse, you know.

@tchrist I am not knowing that badge for my memory, in some — awww, the hell with it. Writing like a pineapple is too hard.

It means you spun flags at 80 raves.

I don't go to raves. Still less do I spin flags at them.

No putas for you, then.

Shut up. An antipus is the opposite of an octopus, btw.

Nope.

Unclepus.

and a yesyespus is the opposite of a nonopus

Pampered moose.

This material leaves me nonplussed. In fact, I am minused. Or misused. Or both.

starts handing out ❖s, the very best of the minussissies.

For ’tis a black diamond MINUS an x.

"Damn you Seinfeld. You're a useless pustule."

@tchrist I don't ski anymore, so you can keep your black diamonds.

⨺

E2SMALL

That's what she said.

🜔

No woes.

@its_me Why would we not delete it?

A closed GR question isn't really that helpful IMO.

@tchrist False!

I paid them $0 and I can do it.

They don't like me.

@ΜετάEd Yes, you just need a license, which is free.

@Mahnax And an open one is?

@tchrist I never said that.

hmms

Did you say something?

If neither closed nor open is it really that helpful, then . . .

Fix by unlink?

Or what are you saying?

I was responding to @its_me.

He wants to know why they are trying to delete his Q.

Oh, I see.

Sorry.

"fix by unlink" is Unixese for delete.

Kinda.

It’s the polite way.

fix by clri is the serious one.

> The other explanation [for the origin of calcium-based skeletons, which made fossil preservation during the Cambrian explosion so much more common] focuses on the need for that armor. The rising prevalence of predators could have set off an evolutionary arms race. In this view, easily fossilizable hard parts were simply a matter of “keeping up with the Joneses”—because the Joneses were trying to eat you. This study provides further evidence for this version of events.

Can people without delete privs see delete votes before they zap?

arstechnica.com/science/2012/08/…

@tchrist No idea.

I wondered why its_me said that about people trying to delete his closed question. I did not know they could see that.

By the way, when would do you generally use ang<l>ed br<ac>kets?

There are different conventions.

@Cerberus I use asterisks except when the parser doesn't handle them right.

I believe they indicate letters that really ought to have been there but were omitted in error by the scribe, at least in my field, and I'm not even completely sure.

Misread your question.

@ΜετάEd Asterisks, for what exactly?

Ah.

Angled brackets would be used when italicizing the title of something, in the case when the title contains angled brackets.

Ah, I see.

I sometimes you different kinds of asterisks to avoid having them be thought magical.

@ΜετάEd Is this in a certain computer language?

This one works best: ∗ 2217 ASTERISK OPERATOR

No, markdown.

@tchrist Interesting.

@tchrist Looks better than the ordinary one.

*

@Mahnax It’s because Unix has no syscall to delete a file. You can only unlink it.

@tchrist Huh, didn't know that.

And unlink decrements its link count by one.

Disk blocks are only recovered once the link count has gone to 0 and there are no open file descriptors attached to that inode.

Files can be unlink while open.

They become unreachable through the filesystem, but fully accessible through open file descriptors.

@Cerberus Lots more where that one came from.

I am sure.

⁂

✽✼✻✺❋❉❊⁎a͙a⃰

 ܍  070D        SYRIAC HARKLEAN ASTERISCUS
 ⁂  2042        ASTERISM
 ⁎  204E        LOW ASTERISK
 ⁑  2051        TWO ASTERISKS ALIGNED VERTICALLY
 ⊛  229B        CIRCLED ASTERISK OPERATOR
 ✢  2722        FOUR TEARDROP-SPOKED ASTERISK
 ✣  2723        FOUR BALLOON-SPOKED ASTERISK
 ✤  2724        HEAVY FOUR BALLOON-SPOKED ASTERISK
 ✥  2725        FOUR CLUB-SPOKED ASTERISK
 ✱  2731        HEAVY ASTERISK
 ✲  2732        OPEN CENTRE ASTERISK
 ✳  2733        EIGHT SPOKED ASTERISK
 ✺  273A        SIXTEEN POINTED ASTERISK

𒋬

Oh oops, the Syriac one is RTL. swercs pu syalpdis

Ayup.

🎢 1F3A2 ROLLER COASTER

There’s an ASTER in that one, too.

@Mahnax Do you know why that is heretical?

@Mahnax The codepoint is U+122EC.

@tchrist Nope.

Gotta run, bye.

@Mahnax The double-U thing is just UTF-16 brain damage, and should be utterly ignored. Down that road lies CESU-8 and other heresies.

 ≛  225B        STAR EQUALS
 ⋆  22C6        STAR OPERATOR
 ⍟  235F        APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL CIRCLE STAR
 ⍣  2363        APL FUNCTIONAL SYMBOL STAR DIAERESIS
 ␁  2401        SYMBOL FOR START OF HEADING
 ␂  2402        SYMBOL FOR START OF TEXT
 ★  2605        BLACK STAR
 ☆  2606        WHITE STAR
 ☪  262A        STAR AND CRESCENT
 ⚝  269D        OUTLINED WHITE STAR
 ✡  2721        STAR OF DAVID
 ✦  2726        BLACK FOUR POINTED STAR
 ✧  2727        WHITE FOUR POINTED STAR
 ✩  2729        STRESS OUTLINED WHITE STAR

@tchrist !Symbola? I can finally see most of those.

Don't you have the triple asterisk?

Um, I am not sure what you mean by "!Symbola?". Did you perhaps mean "¡Symbola?" or "¿Symbola!" ??

not-Symbola

⁂ 2042 ASTERISM

Ah, yes.

Ok, so I was right the first time. Not Symbola. So now I don't know what you mean.

Oh, it was in your first one.

@tchrist Is that or is it not Symbola, senator?

Have you no decency, @cornbread?

Have I stopped beating my husband, you mean?

@tchrist exactly.

There are more than one problem with your question.

So I do not know how to answer.

mu’s

I don’t send things with font info.

I send only codepoints.

It is up to your system to pick a font.

Work computer never let me have Symbola. Home computer let me have, but I still have to paste it into Word and then convert to Symbola.

So asking about Symbola confuses me.

Sheesh.

I have no idea whether they are in Symbola.

Okay, sorry. Here, have some Russian dressing.

I’m a play-it-by-the-numbers guy.

From where did you paste those, or did you painstakingly type all of it?

Everything else is mere UI.

I pasted it from my mouse.

OIC.

I’m a programmer, not a painstakingly-typista.

Please, take the dressing. They gave me too much. They always do when you get it on the side.

(haven't had any in so long, I didn't know they moved it!)

unix_shell_prompt$ uninames ASTERISM
 ⁂  2042        ASTERISM

Apply mouse. Shake and stir.

Do not transmit font info.

Transmit codepoints alone.

Straight, no serif.

I hereby end this chapter.

⁂

Just the numbers, maam.

Now look what you've done.

Started the next chapter already!

I make no claims to their orientation.

Or was it only a subchapter?

 *     *     *     *     *

Nor their angelic state.

I keep telling you: JUST CODEPOINTS

Codepoints are divine numbers. All else is the work of man.

grits teeth and remains polite with the money

cowers in fear

spends afternoon researching codepoints

⁂

I don't even know what codepoints are.

Wow, the Egyptian army controls about 40 % of the economy.

I expected them to control much, but not this much.

The same problem exists in Pakistan and Iran.

I can't believe this stupid run-around I'm getting from this annoying person.

breathes fire in the general direction of annoying person

@cornbreadninja It is not up to me to withhold from you the gay ones 👬 👭, the divine 😇 👼, nor even the dæmonic 😈. Mine is the world of abstract numbers, pure as only Plato and Eratosthenes could depict them.

@KitFox A codepoint is an abstract nonnegative integer, used to store the numeric code of a character in computer memory. So for example, 65 for "A".

A’s codepoint is 65.

fails to retain useless information

@tchrist Ò_Ó

@tchrist I can't look at those until I get home. :(

@tchrist like its char value

@cornbreadninja Not even like. Just is.

@tchrist aaaaaaaaaah.

adds word to brain and tags with java

@cornbreadninja Java has nothing ni menos to do with it, actually.

Java screws you up with codepoints. This is the heresy I referred to some distance above.

And now you can see them.

A java char variable cannot hold an arbitrary codepoint. It is too small.

Because they are idiots.

You have to use an int.

@tchrist cheers

@Mahnax I ♥ the asterism.

A Java char can only hold codepoints up to U+00_FFFF, but Unicode supports code points up to U+10_FFFF, so 17 times as many.

Wish there were a clever trick to center one.

@KitFox yay! Useless information is best not kept

@tchrist jeezum crow

@ΜετάEd <center></center>, duh

<center>⁂</center>

Yeah, no.

@MattЭллен Hi. Did you read my story? (she asked hopefully)

@ΜετάEd Use mousey to barf out a ⁂.

Mousey?

@KitFox oh! sorry, not since you finished the 1st draft...

@KitFox I enjoyed it muchly.

Murine snarf-n-barf.

I think it must be bad because no one wants to comment on it.

@cornbreadninja Oh. Thanks.

@ΜετάEd Grab with mouse. Punch it in to other winder.

@KitFox please can you link again?

@MattЭллен But I thought you weren't here when I finished the draft?

@KitFox yeah, I saw the link a bit ago

foxfirekitty.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/spider

maybe I read the transcript

@ΜετάEd Or use <OPTION> + 2042 if you have Unicode kbd-input enabled.

thanks!

Oh that. Yes. blush

I guess I'm just being crazy.

Oh wait. checks calendar

shudders

s/Fox/Vixen/

Huh. Well, that's not it. Must be the virus making me wonky.

@tchrist ??

@Cerberus The U.S. Defense budget controls only about 5% of our GDP. Still, it's too much.

of course, because 5% of the US gdp is like OVER 9000 billion dollars

@Robusto But this is different: I don't believe the Pentagon has a very large income from other sources than the government?

@tchrist do you know the origin?

@tchrist On the PC I have Unicode input enabled (Alt +XXXX), but tend to use CP1252 more often.

And of course in Vim I use the RFC1345 digraphs.

If Obama should pull the plug, he can probably reduce defence spending by at least 90 %.

@ΜετάEd mmmmm digraphs

There is no such plug to pull in the aforementioned countries: their armies have their own companies that generate tons of income—40 % of the Egyptian economy.

@JSBձոգչ I could wish for more n-graphs.

which is an interesting predicament

I am of course talking about the Revolutionary Guard in Iran, not the regular army.

@KitFox Fuchsen are less likely to need to check their calendars for such things than are vixen.

I see.

@cornbreadninja The origin is at (0,0).

@ΜετάEd Don’t do that. It doesn’t use Unicode codepoints.

@tchrist Don't do what?

@ΜετάEd Proprietary Unicode-incompatible Microsoft encodings.

@tchrist Tell me what characters I used to “enclose this phrase in quotation marks”.

Codepages are inherently evil, antequated, and wrong.

 “  201C        LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK
 ”  201D        RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK

@Cerberus I know it's different.

You have asked the wrong question.

@tchrist Yes. And I entered them in the window using the Windows CP1252 input method.

If you send bogus CP1252, then you will be knocked upside the head.

Send Unicode.

@tchrist I am sending Unicode. You are confusing the input method with the code type generated.

As for your local control-meta-coke-bottle Twister, I have nary the foggiest.

You asked me for characters.

Thus I gave you their values.

@tchrist Right, I assume you actually checked the characters I sent?

If you wanted to play Twister, then you should have said so.

I think you asked the wrong question.

I asked you to confirm that you received properly coded double quotation marks.

The CP1252 input method is just a quick way on Windows to compose a character.

Tell me what characters I used to \N{LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK}enclose this phrase in quotation marks\N{RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK}.

Does anyone know what Xavier is saying in his comments? english.stackexchange.com/questions/78169/…

I answered your question.

Perhaps you had another one in mind.

@tchrist Yes. What I did there was demonstrate that there's nothing evil about the Windows CP1252 input method. It creates properly encoded characters.

It's just an input method, a composition method.

@rsegal as far as we can tell he's got some sort of programme that spews out nonsense and puts it in comments

Why the hell do you call it CP1252 if it sends Unicode?

The problem with the CP1252 input method is just that it's limited to Unicode codepoints which have a mapping to CP1252.

@rsegal He’s just messing with your head.

abandons hope, and the field

@tchrist It's an input method. I enter Alt 0147 and get a left double quotation mark. Internally, 0147 is taken as an octal code, found on the 1252 codepage, mapped to the Unicode codepoint, and from there on it's all Unicode.

@tchrist not The Origin, the origin of 'murine snarf-and-barf'. Please correct my single quotes as you see fit.

@KitFox it a strange mixture of touching and creepy. I like it. Are you thinking of doing more?

@MattЭллен Um, well, it, you know, ends. I do plan to edit it once the idea crystallizes some more.

Want to talk over in The Overlook?