English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Wow.

You were saying about its not being a problem...?

the new N4 has little tiny rubber nubs on the edge so that presumably wouldn't happen anymore

@Cerberus well, aside from the cable. the phone itself is fine and the glass back looks really really nice. and it feels nice. It is more slippery than the GN though.

I guess I have to be more careful. But not problematically so. I wouldn't consider a glass back to be a drawback.

You were just lucky!

12:53 AM

some people really dislike the notion of a glass back. I am fine with it.

I'll hear your curses when you drop it!

I dislike it somewhat less than the glass front.

But the latter is necessary.

If I drop it so hard that the glass breaks, who's to say it wouldn't be the front glass? anyway I've had 3 smartphones and even dropped one on the road and never broke the glass.

though when I was in new york I saw an incredible number of people using cracked smartphones.

I never see that here.

I also saw an incredible number of liquid nitrogen tanks on street-corners.

Huh what?

Liquid nitrogen, why?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 A 50 % chance.

like that. all over midtown manhatten.

And it sure sucks to get daily glass cuts from a broken back...

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What on earth is that for?

12:58 AM

@Cerberus my point is that any impact sufficient to break the glass back is sufficient to break the glass front. and I am careful about not breaking the front. That same care protects the back.

Yes, but your care is not 100 %.

@Cerberus apparently the phone companies use it to freeze-dry underground cables that are below the water-table.

@Cerberus so far, so good.

Freeze them permanently?

no, just dry them off

or something

gothamist.com/2008/01/31/nitrogen_tanks.php

Odd.

> In 2006 there was a huge settlement upstate which was the result of a liquid nitrogen tank rupturing, causing the man to lose an arm and both legs. In that case he was delivering the tank, but just imagine if a car or truck crashed into one of these on the sidewalk! Whoever is manning the tanks, it seems a bit dangerous to have them lining the busy streets of New York (a city that doesn't exactly attract the best drivers).

1:01 AM

It'd be the perfect cover for a terrorist bomb. Just leave a big-ass nitrogen tank lying around, with a frost-damaged sticker "identifying" the tank owner

hell, leave them all over the city

people have been conditioned to expect it

I was thinking the same thing...and yet, there are so many objects that could be a perfect cover, like...a parked car.

maybe. but cars get towed. and there are lots of streets with no parking. but every single corner is fair game for those cannisters, which are typically on the sidewalk where they can cause a lot of damage to pedestrians.

manhatten was a funny place. so many congested 1-way streets. so many pedestrians walking in front of traffic whenever they want. so many people honking horns, futilely.

Why should they get towed? And why not pick a street with parking spaces, then?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Is that different from Toronto?

in order to drive there you need either really good patience or else a sense of entitlement and immortality that rivals the mayor of toronto.

Sounds like every city I have ever been to...

1:10 AM

@Cerberus oh yeah.

toronto traffic is positively tame in comparison.

Hmm.

here, people wait for lights to change before crossing even if there are no cars.

I bet Rome is worse than NY, and Bangalore worse still!

in new york, people step out in front of accelerating cars.

So do we.

1:11 AM

oh... well, yeah. rome, bangalore, all of russia, sure. there are worse places to drive. but I'm used to civilization.

@Cerberus doesn't that seem dangerous to you?

It depends. You have to know the street.

well, new york has lots of streets.

If the car is driving slowly, it can still break and stop in time.

Cities have lots of streets, this is true.

it's a funny city. it feels like it's a fictional place. like it's not really a city, but actually a theme park, or just the world's longest continually-inhabited movie prop.

No, I mean manhatten has super-high street density compared to some other cities I've been. Maybe you don't know what I mean because you're in Europe, and the cities are all super-denser there too.

Far, far denser than Manhattan.

1:15 AM

manhatten is pretty damn dense

We have bicycle traffic jams, that dense.

Why is it like a theme park?

(Not that I've ever been in one.)

well, I didn't see too many bicycles in manhatten.

@Cerberus I dunno. I think because so many places I saw were famous places I've seen in movies or on TV or heard about, but now they were here in front of me! and some guy selling hot dogs and pretzels and t-shirts! it's like visiting Middle Earth or something.

I see.

But I'm sure Toronto is the same for other people!

They see it on television all the time and stuff.

Like any capital city...

Well, Toronto is nowhere near as famous as NY.

There are TV shows set in NY. There are basically none set in Toronto. Lots are SHOT in Toronto, as a stand-in for NY, but that isn't the same.

I mean, here's an example: I got to walk past the building where half the Ghostbusters movie takes place.

They're shooting a film right next to my house now, it's really annoying.

1:19 AM

That's kinda neat. I mean, it's just a condo. But it also isn't just a condo. It's Spook Central, a fictional building from one of my childhood movies!

Right!

@Cerberus yes, the filming process is annoying.

I think it's also because it's so far away from your home, and yet you see familiar places.

I don't think I would recognise many places in NY, besides the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State and a few others.

NY is full of places like that. real places that were used for fictional stories. How many romantic comedies have a scene where the couple skates at rockefeller square? or something like that? Well, I was there, right at that square, right where all those fictional stories took place.

I wouldn't know, but sure.

1:21 AM

@Cerberus We didn't end up going into the empire state building, because it costs $25, or $50 if you want to skip the lines.

I see.

Is there much to see inside anyway?

I dunno. didn't go :)

You can see it from far away, so why enter it!

it's actually kinda mundane, it's an office tower. it used to be the tallest, but that was a long time ago.

I went to a bunch of stores that I'd heard about in movies: saks fifth avenue, bloomingdales, macy's on 34th street (where the miracle happened). turns out they just sell clothes. boooooooooooooooooooooring

I went to FAO Schwarz, where they have the big piano that Tom Hanks jumped on in the movie "big"

A miracle happened?

It seems you have imbibed your fair share of pop culture!

1:24 AM

Miracle on 34th Street

Miracle on 34th Street (in the United Kingdom first released as The Big Heart) is a 1947 Christmas film written and directed by George Seaton and based on a story by Valentine Davies. It stars Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn. The story takes place between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day in New York City, and focuses on the impact of a department store Santa Claus who claims to be the real Santa. The film has become a perennial Christmas favorite. The film won Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Edmund Gwenn), Best Writing, Original Story (Val...

Never heard of it...

well, anyway, there it is.

I was there. sadly, the rival department store from that movie, "Gimbel's", is closed, has been for years, and is now relegated to fiction.

You should visit Rome someday, where you will have the same experience, except that those buildings will have stood there for centuries or millennia!

Almost none of my TV/movie culture has been set in rome though.

so I won't have the same reaction to seeing those things, because I won't recognize them the same way.

Non-pop culture...

You have an enhanced experience with things related to pop culture?

By the way, how do you feel about taking pictures?

1:27 AM

Well, I wouldn't say "things related to pop culture". But stuff that I've seen on TV or in movies, a lot, is more recognizable than stuff that I've just read about, or seen some photos.

You haven't seen Rome on television?

So when I see Central Park, it's immediately familiar even though I've never been, because every friggin episode of Law and Order has a crime scene there.

@Cerberus Not as much. Almost no movies and TV shows are set in Rome. compared to NY.

at least, not that I've seen.

Right, that must be an odd feeling: the things you see are themselves insignificant (like a bench on a street corner, or a random building), and yet they are familiar. That's different from seeing a famous building.

yeah.

but a famous building is just a famous building. in NY it seems like everything is famous.

a famous deli. A famous lamp post. a famous staircase.

It is the opposite for me:

1:30 AM

Sorta like how in Salzburg, lots of the town is famous for being in The Sound of Music

I went on a tour and they showed us all the famous minutia. This is the staircase where they did this scene. This is the garden where they did that. etc.

Random street scenes here are always shot either in the towns of Bussum/Naarden/Hilversum, because that's where the TV studios are, or in Amsterdam. So I always seen familiar benches, trams, street corners on television.

If you went on a tour of NY that showed all the bits that were used in famous movies or tv shows, you'd have to just criss-cross the entire city for days.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't mean to be rude, that's just...I don't know what to say. Not the kind of tour I would take!

@Cerberus See, it's different for you. Europe is different that way. There are lots of little regional TV cultures. In Canada, our TV experience is basically the US TV experience, so we get lots and lots of New York but essentially nothing set in Canada.

@Cerberus You know, you can actually go on more than one tour!

The Sound of Music tour was good though, because it took us all over the place to some locations we might not have otherwise gotten to, and the tour guide talked about lots of things besides just the movie trivia.

aaanyway. NY didn't feel real to me. it felt fake.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, most drama is British or American here as well, lots of Hollywood. But most of the other stuff isn't, like the news, street interviews, talkshows, comedies about recent issues, etc.

1:37 AM

@Cerberus Sure, I guess we have local talk shows and news and stuff and those are popular. But it's one thing to see a place you know on the news, and another thing to see a place you've seen in 20 different TV shows but never on the news.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But, I'm sorry, why would you want to know where a scene in a movie was shot? How is that interesting, as compared to art and history? The movie could have been shot in any city, but the art and history of a place are unique to it, and it's your only chance to really imbibe them in person.

I swear it was like going to visit Narnia or something.

Isn't this a bit like "celebrity spotting"?

@Cerberus I'm not much for art. And I did learn about the history, on the tour.

I'm sure you could have gone to certain NY bars or restaurants where you would have seen various celebrities...

1:39 AM

@Cerberus oh, yeah, that's another thing, celebrity spotting. we spotted some celebrities.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But much less history than in a normal tour...

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Surely you do not approve of celebrity spotting?

"approve" of celebrity spotting?

is there some other meaning to that phrase, besides just "seeing a celebrity"?

And celebrity culture in general?

The whole city is like a celebrity.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It's doing it on purpose, looking for them.

Have you ever walked around NY in Street View?

1:41 AM

@Cerberus oh... well, yeah, that'd be a little pointless. I wouldn't go out of my way to try to see a celebrity.

@Cerberus No, never.

So here's an example of how NY didn't feel real. I've watched all 6 seasons of The Sopranos. And in that show they often eat at an italian restaurant. Where everyone has an italian accent. etc. Well, we ate at a place that could have been right out of that show. I seriously felt like I was surrounded by gangsters. Even the gangster dad brought his daughter to the restaurant for her college graduation.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Is it really different from visiting random buildings where a movie was shot (unless the building itself is interesting)?

Gangsters, really?

That's scary!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Why did you think they might be or looked like gangsters?

@Cerberus well, I dunno! I have no idea how many gangsters there are in real life or whether they actually eat at places like that. But NY isn't real anyway! It's fiction! And fictionally, this was a place they'd go.

@Cerberus Because they were Italian

Umm, okay.

You have no people with an Italian accent in Toronto?

Haven't you seen The Godfather? or The Sopranos?

What do you have!?

1:47 AM

@Cerberus Um, I guess we do, somewhere. College street, maybe. Most people with foreign accents I come across are Chinese or Indian or maybe Eastern European. Some Spanish.

I have seen some scenes of gangster films with Italian gangsters, probably, but, so, it's just the accent? Or did you see them cast suspicious looks around, perform mysterious handshakes?

Oh, also oddly: besides English, the number one language I noticed people speaking was Quebec French.

Hmm interesting.

I suppose it's not that far from Montréal by train.

@Cerberus No, I am not saying they WERE gangsters. I'm just saying that the atmosphere was such that if I were in a movie, they would be.

I'm not sure how to understand that, but OK. It sounds entertaining?

1:48 AM

There was some European French too. Lots of French-speakers, like, on every corner.

You can tell the difference?

@Cerberus I was amused :) but I didn't want to say anything in case they WERE gangsters. or in case they found it offensive :)

I'm still working on that skill, although I do notice how Québécois often have really weird vowels.

@Cerberus between Quebec French and France french? They are TOTALLY different. like English from Ireland vs Toronto.

Well, you have to know a fair bit of English to tell.

I don't remember we ever discussed your French.

1:50 AM

I would say that they are different enough that if you have only been exposed to one, you'll find the other hard to understand.

I have a hard time understanding spoken French of any variety on the street.

Yeah, you probably need to be able to understand it clearly before you can hear the accents. otherwise it's just gibberish anyway, right?

French was my first language though. But it's soooooo rusty.

Or at least half-clearly.

With effort, I could probably hear the difference between standard French and Québécois, but only if there were no other accents around, like Provençal or whatever.

I guess you need to have some idea of what to expect, otherwise how do you know what it is about this speaker that you can't understand? I can sometimes tell the difference between Japanese and Korean, though I don't speak them, but there's no way I could tell you the difference between any two varieties of those languages.

Actually, I think it's not called Provençal, but w'evs.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, exactly.

1:55 AM

I can also recognize Acadian French and Cajun French. And sometimes I can recognize French from Belgium. But there are so many accents and dialects in Europe, I have probably never heard them or even heard of them.

What the heck are those?

I can't recognise Walloon French. But then I've never tried, and I've never had the opportunity to really listen to the differences.

Acadian is the French spoken in the Canadian maritime provinces. The Acadians were settlers that the British rounded up and relocated. Some ended up in Louisiana (Acadian -> Cajun)

Maritime provinces? Including Q.?

no, not including Quebec. Mainly New Brunswick and Nova Scotia

Okay.

2:02 AM

Acadians

The Acadians (, ) are the descendants of the 17th-century French colonists who settled in Acadia, a colony of New France. The colony was located in what is now Eastern Canada's Maritime provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island), as well as part of Quebec, and present-day Maine to the Kennebec River. Although today most of the Acadians and Québécois are French speaking (francophone) Canadians, Acadia was a distinct colony of New France, and was geographically and administratively separate from the French colony of Canada (modern day Quebec), which led to Acadians and...

I see.

Silly that they should have dropped the r. I was already thinking it must be Arcadia.

Although admittedly "La Cadie" is even sillier.

I think it's sillier to give New World locations Old World place names. duh, confusion!

At least Acadia and Arcadia are not going to be confused.

Haha.

Acadia confused me already!

In case anyone wants a really nice Geoguesser:
http://geoguessr.com/?s=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%3D

The first and the last round are really beautiful. And there are no ugly country roads: every country is guessable.

2:23 AM

I scored really badly

my first time playing. I am terrible at that game

> You lost the challenge with 9132 points against 13883.

Oh, but 9000 is a decent score, especially for a first-timer.

I had no idea it was your first game!

You know you can post a link to your results?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 The thing is, it helps a lot to know certain things, such as that Spain and Mexico are the only Spanish countries.

@Cerberus in the game? or in real life?

also there is way too much area that uses Cyrillic.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Which do you think? In the game, silly!

Just as Cyrillic is always Russia.

And they never have places in the eastern half of Russia, or very rarely.

I had one Cyrillic in Ukraine, I think

Really?

Hmm then you must have been lucky.

Meanwhile, I'm in a weird country with a fucked up language.

> kivéve autóbusz

2:38 AM

hungarian, according to GT

Yeah, I was just going to say, it's so fucked up, it must be Hungarian.

But I'm not allowed to consult external references!

I also recognised Hungary by the roofs. I never knew they had such roofs before this game.

Hello!

Hello there!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh, and low-res country roads are always Australia or USA.

To distinguish between the two, look at the shadows: is the sun in the north or in the south?

:D

And do they drive on the left or on the right side? That's harder to find out than you think, because you usually can't tell what side you are on if the road is small, and you can't see your direction either—you need to look at other cars. Or you can tell by which side of the road the signs are on.

And miles v. km.

2:45 AM

@Mr.Shiny do you know if I can unpad an <h2>?

I made a class fer it and told padding-top and padding-bottom to be 0px, but there is still a lot of leading/padding after it.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 yes

probably margin, actually

Do I need like, h2.after?

ohhhhh duh

no

brb

when in doubt, add a border

2:46 AM

Yeah, I'm not sure what after means exactly

ahhhh!

Thank you!

well, it's h2:after and what it does is generate a pseudo-element that you can use as if you had a span or something right after your other element.

You guys like the game btw.? I haven't see you play much, Corny...

Oh, that is perfect (margin)

@Cerberus the geo game?

:before and :after are useful when you can't edit the markup but wish there were more elements on the page.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Yes?

2:48 AM

@Cerberus I don't have the link anymore. :(

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 you lost me there.

@Cerberus it's okay but I am already bored. I dislike that you can deduce things like "if the shadows are this way it's australia" or "spanish is mexico or spain".

But it's okay.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 You don't have to like it! I was just wondering. It's Geo Guesser, you can Google it whenever you're in the mood.

Take a look at the CSS Speech bubbles.

@Cerberus I do! And thank you.

2:49 AM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, how else could you deduce things? By the way, if it's too easy for you, try pinpointing the location up to a few metres. It is possible.

They use pseudo elements to add extra boxes on the page, which they style with some border tricks in order to fake a speech bubble.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Cool!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 whoa!

@Cerberus oh, it's not that it's too easy. But if all the cyrillic is in Western russia, and I have no way of knowing where in russia stuff is, I feel like I just learn some rote answer: cyrillic: moscow. as good a guess as any.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No, no, you can find out which city it is.

2:52 AM

Fucking God in Raver's Heaven Paradise, if that wasn't one hell of two parties, then hell has no meaning.

2

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I once got the exact spot in Volvograd up to 2 metres, as Reg can attest.

to me, that sentence has no meaning

@RegDwighт I take it you had fun?

@Cerberus and fun I had.

Excellent.

Two parties, even?

2:53 AM

Too drunk right now to go to bed. I'd be dead by morning.

Haha. Drink water!

So have to keep myself awake for another hour or three.

@Cerberus I'm drinking soup. Electrolytes. I know the ins and outs, but thank you.

Drink lotsa H2O.

And just go to bed if you can.

Or sit down and listen to some music.

Nah, salt and milk.

Blegh.

2:54 AM

These are key right now.

Aspirin.

so @Reg I got the modular building palace cinema.

@Cerberus not at once, you funny doggie.

Though for all I know dogs would totally like salty milk.

They are like that.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I am jelly.

For once you have a set I don't.

I didn't know Russian inebriety wad different from ours.

But not for long, that much's a given.

2:55 AM

@RegDwighт lol I have lots of sets you don't have

@RegDwighт . . .'cause jam don't shake like that.

most of my collection predates yours

Don't provoke drunkards!

:D

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I mean actual sets, not vintage crap.

2:55 AM

so do I

And don't be a predator on Reg's Lego.

actual sets

some are still in their boxen

goes back to writing htmls

(I have to compensate for not owning a single LEGO brick produced before 2008. Please excuse me.)

Bai.

2:56 AM

@RegDwighт wait, what? 2008!

geez

bai jian!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 ever heard of Dark Ages? Cus I have, young man.

so in 5 years you've amassed like 300k pieces

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 160k. Let's not exaggerate.

whereas for me I've been buying since 2001 and I have 36k

2:57 AM

And only like 138k are documented. The rest are an educated guess.

@RegDwighт where did I get 300k from then. thought that was the real number

anyway. still. that's a lot of lego buying.

Yeah. Tell me about it.

In fact just the other day someone did do the math for me in this very chat.

May 26 at 17:24, by Einsteins Grandson

So 16.000 euros? That's a lot

I have to resist making too many lego purchases. otherwise my existing collection doesn't get used at all.

I do wish people would stop spelling it out for me like that.

not to mention the money spent on the storage system. my storage system has cost me probably $600 so far