English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@Cerberus That's all it's known for. Plus it's more popular with Americans, and we didn't want to vacation with those people. I mean, we brought our own.

Cerberus

Ah OK, right.

Yeah we hate meeting Dutchmen abroad just as much.

But we still go to Tuscany and the Dordogne and such places.

Robusto

@Cerberus That's going by sea. By land it's closer, but less passable.

@Cerberus I've been to the Dordogne. Shot a TV commercial there, in fact.

At Sarlat-la-Caneda.

Cerberus

Ah, yes, I've been to Sarlat.

Robusto

I can't remember the hotel we stayed at. Place de la Madeleine or something?

Cerberus

12:05 AM

Very touristy, right?

No idea...

Robusto

Meh, I dunno. We were there off-season. In March, I believe.

All I remember is, I was more tired than I've ever been in my life from that shoot.

Cerberus

Ah OK, that must be quite different.

n11

Can we discuss a simple logic, a bit mathematical thing

Cerberus

I didn't know you were involved with TV commercials.

Robusto

Get up before dawn, drive to the location, shoot all day until dark, then drive back to the hotel. Get back by midnight, at which point everyone wanted to go out to dinner.

@Cerberus What did you think I did? You knew I used to be in advertising.

Cerberus

12:07 AM

Hmm.

I picture you as a former musician.

Eh, memory.

Robusto

Yes, I was that too.

Cerberus

See?

Robusto

And I was an English major. And other things. And now I do web programming.

Who says American lives don't have second acts?

Hmm, looks like the hotel was either Le Madrigal or de la Mairie. I know it had an M in the title.

n11

ok, I will, if we have [a,b,c] I'm generating all possible polynomial combinations with degree <=k, let's take k=2: we have [a,b,c,a²,b²,c²,ab,ac,bc] right, 3 terms with degree 1, 6 with degree 2. Similarly with k=3 it will add 10 terms of degree 3 (so 19 in total), now I don't have the formula for these values

Robusto

I remember my room number: 78. That's because it was so difficult to say: soixante dix huit.

Damn, the shit that hangs around in memory.

@n11 Did you wander into the wrong chat? Granted we speak all languages, but Math might be a better room for this.

n11

12:12 AM

I know :) where? math? ok.

Cerberus

@Robusto Verrry versatile.

Robusto

@Cerberus Also been a teacher.

Cerberus

I remember now. English?

Robusto

@Cerberus Flute. English. Statistics. Etc.

Cerberus

Haha.

That's a lot.

Robusto

12:15 AM

I kid you not.

Also history.

One day in the not too distant future I hope to retire. I was actually thinking about it quite recently, but events conspired to pull me back in.

Cerberus

Hey, if you can afford it...

Robusto

People keep offering me more and more money to do their front-end programming.

Cerberus

Do you need the money?

Robusto

Not really. I could easily retire now.

But you never know what the future will bring. What if there were an economic collapse?

I suppose that would screw me even if I were still working. Nevertheless . . .

Cerberus

How would an economic collapse screw you, if you have your savings somewhere safe?

Robusto

12:19 AM

@Cerberus Show me where that place is.

Cerberus

In different banks, up to the state-guaranteed limit?

Robusto

What if the banks screw the country again, and this time no bail-out?

Cerberus

Presumably, the state guarantees you will get your savings back if the back goes bankrupt up to a certain amount, right?

Robusto

Bank failure is only one of the possible scenarios.

Still, I shouldn't live my life in fear. Except governments are so damn stupid and corrupt.

Cerberus

Yeah.

You will have to retire some day anyway.

Robusto

12:23 AM

Yeah. I actually departed my last job last month out of frustration, and thought a great deal about that.

But once people found out I was "available" . . . well, I started getting all kinds of interest.

I told them I was going to wait till I had my vacation. Now I'm back, and it's time to deal with these offers.

Part of me hoped they would forget. They didn't.

I've really liked sleeping till I wake up, no responsibilities, the ability to sit there and read an entire book straight through. All that freedom shit.

Cerberus

Can't you work part time?

Robusto

There's no such thing. If you're in, you're in.

Cerberus

But why?

Have you tried?

My mother worked part time for many years, now full time.

Robusto

I don't know what that would be. I always work till the job is done.

If the work is sufficiently interesting, that is. If it's not, why do it it at all?

Cerberus

You only work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you go home at six, and you don't work from home.

Robusto

12:29 AM

Ha! I don't live in that world. I live in the United States of America.

Cerberus

What if you tried?

Robusto

Dunno. It would still have to be worth my while.

The thing is, agreeing to work at all involves taking on responsibility. And the overhead is greater, proportionally, the less time you actually put in.

Cerberus

That is to some degree true; but, on the other hand, at some point people don't count on your being available any more, and things change.

Robusto

Well, if I do retire they would not count on me at all.

Cerberus

And you can just turn off your work phone when you're not working and not check your work e-mail. As it should be. I know that is hard to do...but it can be done. Some German companies even shut down company e-mail servers after 7 and during the weekend.

Robusto

12:35 AM

I should have lived in Germany then.

@JohanLarsson: Are you light as a feather?

Tim

what are some interesting nursery rhymes that can make you smile?

Do lullabies count?

Oh, dear.

I hear Detroit is not a pretty place.

Robusto

No. It's not.

Tim

12:46 AM

@Cerberus maybe yes, maybe no. plus, learning French is chanllenging

Robusto

Tim

@Robusto Still it is home to some people.

Robusto

Those called unfortunate.

Tim

@Robusto what is OZ really?

Robusto

Oz isn't "really" anything.

Tim

12:49 AM

@Robusto It looks scary to me, not make me smile.

Robusto

That's the general idea.

tchrist

@Tim Two vast and trunkless legs of stone.

Tim

@Robusto It has meaning, does it?

Cerberus

@Tim Right. At least you can listen to it without understanding it.

Tim

@Cerberus But it can't make me smile without understanding

Cerberus

12:51 AM

Yes, alas.

Tim

@tchrist Are you talking about this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias

tchrist

Of course.

Tim

I was looking for something that is very simple (even very young children can enjoy)?

And I can find interesting and smile

tchrist

What, Mother Goose?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Rip Van Winkle?

Tim

12:57 AM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Ideally, it is some nursury rhythm. So when you read it aloud, you find it interesting too.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Little Miss Muffet.

!!wiki little miss muffet

KitSox

Little Miss Muffet

"Little Miss Muffet" is a nursery rhyme, one of the most commonly printed in the mid-twentieth century. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 20605. Lyrics :Little Miss Muffet :Sat on a tuffet, :Eating her curds and whey; :Along came a spider, :Who sat down beside her :And frightened Miss Muffet away. Origins and meaning The rhyme first appeared in print in 1805, in a book titled Songs for the Nursery. Like many such rhymes, its origins are unclear. Some claim it was written by Dr Thomas Muffet (d.1604), an English physician and entomologist, regarding his stepdaughter Patience; oth...

Tim

@tchrist yes, something like that. thanks

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 thanks! I like it!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Oh, good.

You're welcome.

Tim

I enjoy those simple things,

Robusto

1:02 AM

Hey, cornbread!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Howdy!

Robusto

How ya been?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Excepting today, hale and hearty. You?

tchrist

With a ping and a pang the fiddle-strings broke!
     the cow jumped over the Moon,
And the little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the Saturday dish went off at a run
     with the silver Sunday spoon.

There are a million of those in children’s nursery rhymes.

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Pretty good. Did you see my vacation pics?

tchrist

1:04 AM

Everyone grows up with them.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

eyes like saucers; oh, you think she's a dish

@Robusto No!

Why do I always insist on embroidering at night?

Tim

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 How about some nursery rhythms. Can they make you happier?

@tchrist I like them.

Robusto

2 days ago, by Robusto

Start there.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Tim Not really.

@Robusto well, hi there.

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Dunno. If it were crocheting, I'd say you got hooked. But I don't know from embroidery.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

1:06 AM

@Robusto you have me in stitches over here.

Robusto

Touché.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

►

@Robusto just saw this.

Tim

@tchrist What is your favorite?

tchrist

@Tim What, nursery rhyme? Cannot possibly say.

Tim

@tchrist which one can still make you smile?

tchrist

1:14 AM

I may not be the best person to ask about smiling.

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Live?

@tchrist Here's a question you could field: how many times in TLotR does smile or one of its derivatives appear?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Where were you?

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Curaçao.

tchrist

@Robusto 93, if you include The Hobbit.

macbook# tcgrep -C '\b[sS]mil' J.R.R._Tolkien_-_The_Hobbit_and_The_Lord_of_the_Rings.txt
93

Maybe.

Robusto

@tchrist Ha! See, I knew you were the best person to ask, with some qualification, about smiling.

Tim

1:17 AM

@Robusto wait, is that you singing?

Robusto

@Tim Yes. I am Elvis Costello. I didn't want to out myself, but . . .

I guess it explains a lot.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

swoons

Tim

Fortunately, I don't know who Elvis Costello is

tchrist

imagines Lou Costello in an Elvis get-up

Robusto

►

Tim

1:19 AM

I prefer nursery rhythms, for now

Cerberus

@Tim I don't know either, only heard the name.

Tim

@Cerberus never heard of the name either. But I will like his songs later.

Cerberus

You already know?

So prescient.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Robusto those were very nice. Did you have a good time?

Cerb!

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Mais oui.

Feb 24 '11 at 20:41, by Robusto

But for his private wife and kids somehow
Real life becomes a rumour
Days of Dutch courage, just three French letters
And a German sense of humor

Cerberus

1:21 AM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Holla!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

yesterday, by cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

"Mais vous aimez brunch, Papa."

@Cerberus I ain't no hollaback girl.

Cerberus

Dammit.

The idea is that girls who holla back are, what, easy?

Robusto

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 J'aime brunch aussi.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

More like second rate.

Second string.

Cerberus

How does it work?

Robusto

1:23 AM

First you have to tune all those second strings.

Cerberus

That's a lot of work for girls.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

To tie up loose ends.

Whoa! Whoa.

Robusto

►

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

though it may be secondhand, it's by no means second rate

Cerberus

I know hollaback girl is something from (American) pop culture, but I never quite understand what it is about or where it came from.

Robusto

1:24 AM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Starworthy. Probably his best album, Armed Forces was.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

7 mins ago, by cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

swoons

tchrist

@Cerberus Have you begun your walk with Severian yet?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

!!wiki hollaback girl

KitSox

Hollaback Girl

"Hollaback Girl" is a song by American recording artist Gwen Stefani from her debut solo album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004). As part of Stefani's vision of creating "a silly dance record", the song is influenced by 1980s dance and pop music. The song was written by Stefani, Pharrell Williams, and Chad Hugo as a response to Courtney Love's statement that Stefani was a "cheerleader" in an interview with Seventeen magazine. The song was released as the album's third single on March 15, 2005, and was one of the year's most popular songs, peaking inside the top ten on the majority of th...

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

It's about cheerleaders.

@Robusto this.

Robusto

1:26 AM

Cheerleaders call the cheers, others holla back.

Cerberus

@tchrist Not yet.

I have been distracted.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

It's important to note that probably only cheerleaders knew what they were prior to the release of that song.

Cerberus

@tchrist By the way, I must admit you were righter than I thought about eastern Ukraïne.

Russia may or may not try something, at this point.

Robusto

@Cerberus That was always true, and always will be true.

tchrist

@Cerberus I at whiles keep him at my bed’s headboard, a balm for the world before sleep take me.

Cerberus

1:29 AM

I read unconfirmed reports that Russian parachutists may have landed somewhere, I think Slavjansk.

tchrist

@Cerberus Pessimists are never unpleasantly disappointed.

Cerberus

@Robusto Heh, well, yes, but it seems less unlikely now.

@tchrist How long ago have you last read him?

@tchrist But never cheerful.

tchrist

@Cerberus Look upon the fingers of your hand, and strike off a few. Those are days.

Cerberus

I mean, the text you are reading now, how long ago was the last time you read it?

tchrist

@Cerberus That depends upon the frequency of the pleasant disappointments.

Cerberus

1:31 AM

I don't know, perhaps pessimists are never cheerful at all.

tchrist

@Cerberus I just finished a reread. You are asking the previous time?

Cerberus

Yes.

tchrist

ponders

n11

It's impressive how much toothpaste there still are if you completely open the tube, thanks capitalism

Cerberus

Because I don't keep a book on my bed stand that I have recently read.

tchrist

1:32 AM

Not long ago, perhaps a decade or two.

Cerberus

Ah, that's long enough.

By the way, did I tell you I have a new Crimean acquaintance?

tchrist

No. Local or remote?

And his name is River?

Cerberus

He lives here, was born there, I believe.

Hah. Hah.

No, Arthur.

I think one of his parents is Dutch.

tchrist

Arthur sounds rather non-Slavic.

Cerberus

He is attractive and smart and writes good Dutch, but is depressed.

Well, many names are used internationally.

tchrist

1:34 AM

If you moved to Crimea, you could be alike.

He lives here.

Ah.

Was raised here.

Well, the situation there is depressing.

To those who are from there.

I imagine.

Cerberus

And he said almost everyone in the Crimea is fine with the annexation.

No, he thinks it's fine.

tchrist

1:35 AM

My Ukrainian friends are from Kiev and environs. It is different.

Cerberus

Only the Tartars mostly don't like it in the Crimea; he said even the Ukrainian minority there are in favour.

Yes, Kiev is the opposite.

tchrist

The thing with Wolfe is that there are always many layers of meaning and connection and subtexts, things that you only work out as you turn your mind to them.

This is true even in, perhaps especially in, The Fifth Head of Cerberus.

Severian’s saga is one of the harder reads for most people because of the language.

When Wolfe doesn’t tell you something, it’s because you are expected to work it out for yourself, like Bach’s “incomplete” canons.

Cerberus

I have to admit that what stopped me was rather the slow take-off of the story.

A fairly normal family in a fairly modern/everyday environment. I was lazy.

Cerberus.

tchrist

When you have a first-person narrative purportedly writing a memoir, this is especially important. Such as why didn’t Severian write of his sexual congress with Thecla while she was a client of his, something we only learn about later from her.

@Cerberus Everyone in that book is the same person. Kinda.

Cerberus

The same person?

I never got that far...

tchrist

1:43 AM

Number 5 is a clone of Maitre, etc etc.

Hence his number.

Cerberus

I don't remember.

tchrist

It’s ok. I found it too slow as well. As I said, it was an early effort. But it holds many key concepts about identity that will replay throughout Wolfe’s later opus.

Cerberus

Right.

tchrist

If having read the Book of the New Sun, you go on to read the Book of the Long Sun and especially the Book of the Short Sun, which are set in the same universe and in which in fact we meet Severian again in the third solar cycle, those themes from Fifth Head are particularly resurgent. Overt things about aliens pretending to be people until they actually are, but also subtle things about genetics and hybrids, polyploidy and such.

Cerberus

I didn't even know that word!

tchrist

1:48 AM

The other two Books are must easier reads, I confess, especially the middle one.

Oh.

You know how the wild rose is a blossom with only a single set of petals circling about its center?

And how domestic cultivars rarely are?

Cerberus

Kind of...

I read about how polyploid organisms have more than the normal number of chromosomes.

tchrist

When you hybridize, you get 2n, 4n, 6n the chromosomes, and this produces the doubling etc of petals.

Yes.

Cerberus

Right.

tchrist

The critters on the Short Sun worlds, especially on Blue, tend to be whatever the 2n of whatever a quadruped is.

Cerberus

They have eight legs?

tchrist

1:51 AM

Eight-leggèd canine analogues, for example.

Yes.

And the Neighbors, the Vanished People, who stand upright and speak as you and I, have four arms and four legs apiece.

Cerberus

That's a lot.

Hindu.

tchrist

Let me find a quote.

Bah, I can’t find it. But the gist is that when a villager disbelieves someone’s story of seeing some Neighbors in the forest but was unable to say for sure how many were there, the narrator remarks in his own head how that in his own experience, it is next to impossible to judge how many are there when it’s more than just two or three.

The profusion of limbs is just part of why, but a significant part I am sure.

The thing is, (the theory is that) this is actually polyploidy in critters as though they were plants, not something that evolved on its own naturally.

And that is something we first see in Fifth Head where it explicitly explained. In the Short Sun worlds, we are never directly told this.

Tim

It is nice watching you two talking about something I can't understand :)

hi I am still here

Cerberus

Hi!

@tchrist Cannot polyploidy occur naturally?

tchrist

@Cerberus Botanically, yes.

It doesn’t work in critters for one or another reason related to X-deactivation.

Or perhaps rather, to the lack of a corresponding mechanism for Y-deactivation.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…