Well. I had to live up to

@RegDwighт Your accent is undetectable.

Thank you! So much praise! Thanks all around!

How come the grey critter with the beige background has a green tail?

Makes me feel like posting that picture of you with balloons.

The one the guy on the mail who twists balloons for kids made?

Anyway. Right now my ratio is 24.8, which is surprisingly solid. Especially given how I mostly promote on Reddit which is all lookylooky and never any clickyclicky.

@tchrist You mean the burro? That's a cactus.

@KitFox Ah.

Cactus not included.

I will submit it separately.

Oh yeah.

That's not it.

But close.

I notice it’s high in megafauna.

Right. That's where I posted the link, too.

On my Wiki page.

Basically I posted it all over the internet last night.

A turtle would be cute.

Well, could.

I am working on one as we speak.

Or a tortoise.

Terrapins are of more limited appeal.

What color?

In fact I saw one on LEGO's official site earlier today, and that threw me back quite a bit because it was in my scale and now I must make sure not to make a too similar one.

@RegDwighт Which? I got confused there while I was looking through expired images.

A painted tortoise has great colors.

@KitFox I posted the CUUSOO link on my wiki page. The wiki page is where the photo is from.

The balloon photo?

But a Galápagos tortoise or a leatherback turtle is more megafaunally charismatic.

@tchrist I was flirting with the idea of using the new masonry-profile bricks for the shell, which would leave me with exactly four color choices. But I think it's not feasible after all.

The real one, or the Rasputin one?

The real one of course.

The Rasputin one was tailored to the local requirements of this room.

Not of course. There's no "of course" there.

Not enough color choices you mean?

@KitFox Little do you know. My Wiki page is all of courses and nothing else.

It literally goes "Of course of course of course" for five screens.

squints

@tchrist rebrickable.com/parts/98283

You post some weird pics. Some of them even made me laugh out loud at the memories.

Kinda drab.

@RegDwighт There are some dome pieces that might be appropriate.

Why am I saying that? You know that. You know more than me.

Oooh ask me ask me ask me I know what you’re missing.

A kraken!

Weren't you looking for this?

@KitFox Not only do I know them, I also own all of them, in all colors imaginable, several times over.

But I hate huge-ass parts.

I'm not making a turtle out of three parts.

Jesus gods.

@KitFox now that is mine. Quit touching my stuff.

@RegDwighт Well, you're going to make the limbs retractable, right?

@RegDwighт No. I'm nosing through your imgurs until I find the one I want.

@KitFox aedia brought up the idea of a retractable head earlier this week.

Retractable limbs would be infeasible.

At this scale.

Hm, ostrich?

This was interesting:

Ostrich is on my list, just like three dozen others who are pretty much impossible at this scale.

Meerkat?

Skwurl?

@KitFox come on, too tiny.

Moby Dick?

@tchrist come on, you're using the Dvorak layout by mistake.

Are they? I've no idea.

You do know how they compare to a hippo.

I forgot this one.

Which in my case is 9 times 4 studs.

So a meerkat would be like one stud.

Tops.

@KitFox yes and everybody kept calling him a turd, the poor thing.

@RegDwighт No.

@RegDwighт But now I do.

Hey, your typing tests.

Two pictures, over two thousand words.

Wow, they really are little tiny critters, aren't they?

Those are the adults.

Now that is tiny.

I thought they were closer to fox size.

They look more like little cat size.

@KitFox well what do you think "meerkat" means?

Sea cat.

Yeah?

Dutch.

Right.

> "Meerkat" is a loanword from Afrikaans. The name has a Dutch origin, but by misidentification. Dutch meerkat refers to the "guenon", a monkey of the Cercopithecus genus. The word "meerkat" is Dutch for "lake cat", but the suricata is not in the cat family, and neither suricatas nor guenons are attracted to lakes; the word possibly started as a Dutch adaptation of a derivative of Sanskrit markaţa मर्कट = "monkey", perhaps in Africa via an Indian sailor on board a Dutch East India Company ship.

Should I infer size from that somehow?

German has Meerkatze, referring to said monkey.

@KitFox no, you already inferred size. Now you should infer the name from the size. Or something.

I'm just making conversation copypasta.

Oh. Oh. I understand now.

Should I have beer or rum or scotch tonight?

So anyway, to finish the sentence.

Meerkatzen are, according to my geography teacher in school, where humans got HIV from.

So not the suricates, but those monkeys.

Your geography teacher.

I see.

Are meerkatzen green monkeys?

@KitFox that word you are using, "or". I don't think it means what you think it means.

@KitFox more like the complementary color.

Then no.

HIV came from green monkeys.

Oh look you're a fox again.

@KitFox SIV

SUV.

@RegDwighт That is very appealing.

@tchrist That's what it is in monkeys, yes.

@RegDwighт Yes. I was reminded of the fennec you gave me for my birthday, and I thought it would be nice to wear it again.

Hmm. Seems I have gotten the species wrong. Chimps and the sooty mangabey.

Funny that. Memory ain't what it used to be.

I find Seinfield to be the boringest stupidestest show ever.

Well you don't watch TV.

You have never seen the actual boringest stupidestest shows.

In fact now that I think about it there are embarrassingly few sitcoms that are ever once funny at all.

And the ones that are are no longer sitcoms, actually.

Your last sentence lost me. And vice versa.

Doesn't matter.

I Love Lucy had some funny moments.

That is one I never saw.

Are you saying the dumbest shows today aren’t the ones that try and fail to be funny?

I had just enough time to crack a beer and think that the codeine was working when the eldest started coughing again.

Perhaps you should take more codeine.

I find reality TV and people wanting their 15 minutes of fame type shows to be stupider.

Oh.

@tchrist I am saying that we have TV drama all figured out by now, but comedy is still embarrassingly lacking.

> Muttersprache

giggles, drinks more beer

Or perhaps not still, but rather forever. All funny stuff's long been taken, everyone keeps cracking the same jokes over and over again.

This isn’t the best, but it is surprising how it makes you burst out with chuckles:

@KitFox you reading my wiki page or what?

Yep.

Well, nope.

I wish I could read Russian.

My German was never very good either.

Uh. There's still Russian there? Which version are you reading?

The Russian version featuring you as Link.

The German one is in German. The English one in English. I don't even know I still have a Russian one somewhere.

Which is very charming.

Oh that. Wiktionary.

I thought you were on Wikipedia.

Oh is it? I didn't even look, just clicked links.

Does the Link link still work? It was an ugly hack at the time.

The wiki engine wouldn't normally allow to link from images to external sites like that.

Yes, it does.

stops stalking Reg, jumps down other rabbit holes

Here, this looks like Russian to me:

Or at least kermit writing.

15 minutes!

I Love Lucy's sight-gags are the best.

Doesn’t even need Russian subtitles.

Well that was quite entertaining. Though the humor is dated in places.

But now I must be off. Got no sleep last night, better get some tonight.

Arrivederci.

Later.

@RegDwighт See, I told you Lucy has funny bits. Good night.

Hello.

Hiya.

Yay; you're no longer transparent.

strips off shirt

puts on jammies

sits back

Want a beer?

Blech.

I mean no, thanks.

I decided I felt like a beer tonight.

You don't look like a beer.

And the summer ale is from last season, so it really needed drinking.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 har har har

So, in between sitting with my mother at the hospital and my gramma going to the hospital, I went to Free College Day.

Goodness.

Both are fine, and back home.

How are you feeling?

Tired. Um . . . like I'm not ready to take care of my mother.

What happened?

Her house is scary and crumbling.

She had discs removed and vertebrae fused.

Yowser.

Are you close with her?

That was Friday.

I guess, yeah.

Maybe you need to have a talk with her about stuff.

I mean, we have lunch once a week and email every work day, and once a month we spend saturday together.

I asked when she might retire. She doesn't know.

She was really wobbly and her hands are numb all the time.

Anyway.

Was the fusion unexpected? Those things are planned usually, I thought.

No, she finally saw her back surgeon about the numbness and such.

It was planned.

And your gramma?

Gramma had tummy issues this morning, both ends.

at 4PM, she decided she needed to see a doctor.

Oh, that bug that's been going around?

All tests were clear.

No idear.

Probably just worry and being 65 + 17 years old.

I went to the ER once in the middle of the night because I couldn't stop...you know. Those things.

Eating Pringles?

Sickest I've ever been. Much more dangerous when you're old.

:S

Gramma is in much better shape than mom.

I thought I was going to pass out. My husband carried me to the car.

Greatest Generation and all that.

What did they do for you?

I thought they were the Silent Generation.

That sounds about right.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Gave me an IV so they could keep an antiemetic in me, and pushed two liters of fluids.

e_e

Apparently going to the ER was the right thing to do.

I was a lot sicker than I thought.

The feeling like I was going to pass out was because I was severely dehydrated.

Your body!

Did you have childrens at the time?

No.

Phew.

We'd moved into the house, but I can't remember if we were married yet or not.

Probably we were. I think it was winter.

So anyway, that's just to say your gramma was being smart.

I'm tired of hospitals.

I'm ready for the DMV, which I need to do.

s/frying pan/fire

ouch ouch ouch

That's funnier?

It will be ok. I just need to take MO license, passport, and utility bill.

Have to get a KS plate, too.

I've been there.

KS/MO.

Oh! My husband is home!!!

Bye!

Bye!

KS/MO welcomes you.

Well, boys and girls, did everyone celebrate 4/20 peacefully? gives Colorado a look

@KitFox Beer? On today of all days?

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 KS/MO ... ?

I'm looking at you, Colorado. You legalize pot and then have to involve firearms in the whole thing.

@Robusto What the...

@Robusto Burgablaghh bloopoop.

I wasn’t there. Thank God.

I’d had no idea this had happened. I was doing other things.

So, what — nobody knows who did what?

> In the minutes after the shooting, three individuals were shot by an unknown assailant.

That doesn’t even scan.

It was warm today. The snow was mostly gone.

Weird.

Why shoot a few people, then nothing?

Insane.

More details here.

Real ones, unlike the national press.

I honestly can’t believe how fucked up that is.

Much better than the other article, yes.

Two people randomly shooting three other people, then stopping?

This has never happened before, and we’ve had these for a long time here.

Looks like a random, improvised action.

I think the third person was an accident.

Yes.

I really hate it when your own neighborhood makes national news. Yeah, this was a ways away from me, but still.

An accident?

So why were those other two people targeted?

Good question.

I hate that the two suspects are black. I imagine the victims are all white.

Since the past 9000 random shootings have been by white people, I think black people can cope with this one.

But can white people?

It’s really hard to trace things in a crowd this size. And there are no surveillance videos.

That’s from here.

Why no video recordings?

What do you mean?

Of the shootings?

Yes.

Perhaps some will turn up.

Doesn’t there have to be a video camera shooting when the guns are shooting?

Exactly. There will always be someone recording.

Really?

At mass gatherings?

But that doesn’t mean they were anywhere close to it, which means it won’t do any good.

You can still see a lot from 100 m.

They’d have to be on stage pointing that way.

Unless the shooting happened away from the crowds?

Otherwise they’d be lost in the crowd.

I don’t know where it happened.

People often hold their phones up high, exactly for that reason.

Haven’t seen a map.

The back of the person in front of you is less interesting.

I have never in my life taken a video with my phone.

The thought would never occur to me.

Nor pictures.

Uhh...

Supposedly it does those things.

People record videos during mass events all the time.

But I have a real camera for when I want to take pictures.

Actually, I have many cameras

And the phone does not count.

You’ve seen my pictures. I couldn’t’ve taken those with a phone.

But that’s ok.

My camera can’t make phone calls, either.

This is relevant because...

I would never have thought of pointing a phone at things to take videos.

@Robusto yes

@Robusto I wish.

howdy @Wendi

So I would not imagine there would have to be people doing that.

Where did you think all those Youtube videos came from?

Look, now they hold up tablets too.

Of course it will have been less extreme during the pot thing.

So perhaps, if it wasn't near the centre, nobody was filming in that direction.

Oh, hello! Stupid browser.

Let's just stop congregating altogether.

Hello, browser user.

up early!

Haha.

Animals sure like scratching!

Now it's bed time.

G'bye!

oh up late, bye

Fun standards fact of the day: IEEE 754 has over 9 quadrillion distinct values for "not a number" values.

Javascript compresses them all into NaN

Someone here, who has access to the Oxford English Dictionary?

Yes, @Em1, what's up?

Hey. I am looking for the oldest entry on "to count on so/sth". But I don't have access to that dictionary. @MattЭллен

I'll take a look

Respectively its origin.

The earliest thing they cite is:

> 1642 T. Fuller Holy State iii. xxiii. 218 There is lesse honesty, wisdome, and money in men then is counted on.

it comes from the verb count

count on or count upon means "To make the basis of one's calculations or plans; to look for or expect with assurance; to depend or rely on (in reference to a possible contingency)."

Thanks. @MattЭллен

no probs :)

I am watching this. If you look at the current situation in countries like Australia, do you think they should continue the free trade or go against and do the protectionism? I think free trade is going to lead them to sell less natural resources to countries like China or India, on the other hand, protectionism is going to keep many jobs going outsourced =D

Am I right?

So I think Aussies must go for the protectionism!

Huzzah.

Yes?

Incorrect. The correct answer to "Huzzah" is not "Yes?"

Well, they haven’t found the shooter(s?) from yesterday’s pot rally here. I guess there’s video now, but I haven’t watched it. They’ve cancelled the remainder of the event that was scheduled for today. Meanwhile, 5 snowboarders perished yesterday in an avalanche here.

That’s the most to die all at once in more than 50 years.

Next of kin have not been notified, so there is no info released yet about names, ages, sexes. My guess is that it will be 5 boys in their teens or twenties.

@tchrist Yeah, I heard about that.

Skiing...

Snowboarding.

Pretty dangerous for a sport.

How else you gonna get that adrenaline rush?

I think snowboarding is only slightly more dangerous.

Exactly.

@Cerberus hello, doggy.

woof

Oop, son's here, gotta go.

Bai.

@Robusto jumping off a mountain dressed as a flying squirrel

If you had nothing to do today: superhexagon.com

Ever wanted to play Pong on an office building?

They did it. This is real.

Wow. Pong was my very first “video” game. We thought it was the cat’s pajamas.

It still is.

@Cerberus kids, eh? I wonder how the people switching the lights knew

@MattЭллен I wonder whether this would be one of those pastimes that actually benefits from certain forms of um, medication.

It seems very stoner-y.

hehe

@MattЭллен They followed the smoke signals.

I could not play that stoned

requires concentration!

Because of reflexes / response time?

yeah

@Cerberus ah, of course.

Well, there are other kinds of medication. I just had my second 12-oz mug of strong coffee, and I feel like I have extra neurons firing.

no doubt the buildings are on ancient Native American burial grounds

@tchrist good point.

We had the 1975 version of Pong, the one in the picture on the wikipedia page.

A scyscraper is basically a large totem pole.

So I was like 12ish, possibly an optimal age for such things.

We all know what they stand for.

You know, you should really go to the Great Northwet [sic] to see totem poles. They are very interesting.