English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

12:07 AM

@Cerberus Is Belgium Dutch very similar to Netherlands Dutch?

12:59 AM

"I however prefer ketchup." Really? I prefer ketchup however, so take that. This too has gone too far. I'm just boycotting these stinking little adverbs until further notice. quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/when-use-comma-too

Cerberus

1:40 AM

@JasperLoy Yes, standard Flemish and standard Dutch from the Netherlands are very similar, it's easy to understand one another.

But the dialects are a different story.

Then again, I can't understand many dialects from the Netherlands either.

Jasper Loy

I see. How about Afrikaans? Is it mutually intellgible with Dutch?

Cerberus

No, Afrikaans is quite different.

If I'm lucky, I might catch the general idea someone is trying to communicate, or I might not.

It's like a remote dialect that's very hard to understand.

Jasper Loy

Aha! Somehow German sounds beautiful but Dutch sounds vulgar to me. =)

Cerberus

Sometimes it is surprisingly easy, but at other times it's incomprehensible.

@JasperLoy Dutch has many vulgar sounds, like the voiceless d/b/g at the end of a syllable.

And the many /x/ sounds, which sound harsh.

And the vowels are less pure than in German.

Then again, English vowels are so much worse...

Jasper Loy

English is so hard to pronounce.

You can't tell from the spelling.

Cerberus

1:44 AM

Or, rather: English spelling is hard.

Because they never updated it.

Jasper Loy

Yeah, like diarrhoea, lol.

Cerberus

Or even native English words.

Jasper Loy

By the way, Office 2019 has been released, but the version for individuals will take a few more days.

If you don't need so many features, using it for three years is still cheaper than an Office 365 annual subscription which has more features.

But 2019 only runs on Windows 10.

Cerberus

Yeah.

And an older version of Office is even cheaper.

Jasper Loy

I see the website uniq.software, looks genuine to me.

They sell cheap copies of Windows and Office.

Cerberus

1:50 AM

I would personally stick with Ebay.

Jasper Loy

But I don't trust ebay.

And the thing about using pirated software is that you don't know what spyware they come with, if it is pirated.

Cerberus

You only need the key.

You can download Windows itself from Microsoft's website.

Besides, those keys on Ebay shouldn't be pirated. They're just OEM licences.

Jasper Loy

That is the thing. The key may not work after a few days...

Cerberus

Or volume licences.

Jasper Loy

I guess one can try one's luck.

Cerberus

1:52 AM

People generally have a good experience with keys bought there.

Worst case scenario, you buy another one if Microsoft should somehow be able to retract it.

(You can still continue to use Windows if your key is no longer accepted, it won't be locked down or anything.)

Jasper Loy

By the way, do not delete the account you associate with activating any keys. I learned the hard way.

Cerberus

Amazon also sells Windows keys.

Jasper Loy

I deleted my Microsoft account and I could not reinstall Office.

Cerberus

Nobody but you deletes accounts!

5

That sucks.

Jasper Loy

In this case, it is because I really have no use for the account, except to install Office.

Cerberus

2:04 AM

Really, they require that?

Annoying.

CowperKettle

4:44 AM

> Good morn, my fellow bicyclists
And fellow bicyclettes,
The sun has risen nice today,
Let’s hope it nicely sets.

And ere it sets, let's have a ride
And lots of fun together,
For it's a shame to sit inside
In such a splendid weather

2

Jasper Loy

9:28 AM

@CowperKettle Is this your poem?

SmokeDetector

10:08 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, repeating words in answer (177): Is there a word to describe things that do not follow a rule by poo jones on english.SE

Feeds

11:00 AM

0

Q: I’d like to have the voice of Jim Morrison's Or,I’d like to have the voice of Jim Morrison?

I’d like to have the voice of Jim Morrison's!!! Or, I’d like to have the voice of Jim Morrison. Which one is true?

CowperKettle

11:16 AM

@JasperLoy Yes, I composed it yesterday - the morning was warm and very sunny.

So I entered our chat in VKontakte, a chat where my 20 bicyclist friends are chatting, and saw them all saying "Dobroye Utro" (Good Morning in Russian)

And I wrote - "Good morn" (In English)

And then suddenly I came up with "my fellow bicyclists and fellow bicyclettes", and started to look for a rhyme to "bicyclettes", and wrote this ditty )))

Feeds

12:54 PM

0

Q: Word for a cut in a shampoo packet

Here, I want the word that denotes a cut in a packet of a shampoo. The cut doesn't necessarily be made by those who purchase such shampoos, but by the manufecturers of a particular company. Such cuts are made in packets of shampoos, so that the people who purchase can easily tear them for the use...

single-word-requests

MetaEd

1:13 PM

"Prime number mystery divides math world"

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Remember when I was explaining to you how our parliaments work? I learned something new today: the incumbent premier can ask the Crown to be allowed to form the government even if they don't win a plurality or form an alliance. The Crown can say no but would normally say yes; except that nobody ever does this unless they have a majority or a plurality. But in New Brunswick province the government is doing just that: they are the second-place party but they're going to try forming govt.

CowperKettle

1:31 PM

@JasperLoy Another recent masterpiece, haha, of mine

> Whence they appear, and where they briskly go,
Ask not the wind, for wind could never catch them,
And if its gusts in speed could ever match them,
They’d never tell, and you would never know.

Do not believe, whoever tells you so,
That it’s themselves they’re running from, their struggles;
A mighty stream a-flight in foam and bubbles
Will stay itself, despite its constant flow.

Feeds

2:30 PM

0

Q: Is there an adjective for "Made of Air"?

I was trying to think up a name for an ability in a fantasy game which conjures up a shield made of air around oneself, like ____ Shield (analogous to "Earthen Shield", for example). I tried google and came up empty.

single-word-requests adjectives

MetaEd

3:15 PM

@Cerberus I am incomprehensible ;_;

Feeds

3:35 PM

0

Q: Word frequently used in conjunction with obfuscation?

What is a word frequently used with obfuscation? For example “Fox News frequently uses the tactics of obfuscation and_” ?

single-word-requests

CowperKettle

Does the term package(d) unit always relate to air handling?

Could a unit that produces hydrogen for industrial purposes be called a "packaged unit"?

My text uses the term блочная установка (block-type facility, Russian), and Multitran says it might be "packaged unit" but Googling brings up instances related to air handling.

Jasper Loy

@CowperKettle Maybe you can write for a living.

Feeds

3:51 PM

0

Q: A word that means 'a bit'

Okay, I am writing a novel and I want to know a single word that means 'a bit'. The book is set in the 1840s so preferably should be a bit dated. See, I used it again! Please help!

single-word-requests

Feeds

4:23 PM

0

Q: A better word for "obstacle" when referring to a conflicting entity

In context, I am looking for a word that refers to something that is in our way and inevitable, a conundrum. The sentence runs "It was there where I survived the greatest obstacle we will ever know. It was there where I survived myself." Obstacle doesn't follow the flow of the rest of the literar...

single-word-requests word-choice

RegDwigнt

4:57 PM

@MetaEd yeah nun of that made any sense to me.

@CowperKettle I've never heard of either packaged unit or блочная установка. What on Earth are they making you translate. :-O

MetaEd

@RegDwigнt It's a bunch of nunsense to be sure.

RegDwigнt

@MetaEd second only to nun.

Actually, what the f is even air handling.

MetaEd

@RegDwigнt I probably should not have posted it as it is confusing to nun-English-speaking people.

RegDwigнt

I think I have forelearnt all of English.

Haha and I broke the chat as well.

Jasper Loy

I saw your latest video @RegDwigнt. The comment was quite funny.

MetaEd

5:01 PM

@RegDwigнt Pretty sure it's a general case of air bending.

RegDwigнt

My comments are always funny. Like this one. I'm laughing my ass off right now.

Curio

Can I use the past conditional to talk about future actions in the past?

RegDwigнt

@MetaEd oh, you're talking about M. Shyama Nun?

Jasper Loy

@RegDwigнt If you always LMAO, you will have no more ass left.

RegDwigнt

@Curio do you have an example?

Curio

5:02 PM

For example:
I thought that I might be ill because the electricity would have got out the sockets

Without context it seems no sense :P

RegDwigнt

I don't think I'd use any sort of conditional there at all.

Jasper Loy

@Curio I don't even understand that sentence.

Curio

What about: "I knew that you would have become famous"?

RegDwigнt

I thought I might be ill because the electricity had gotten out of sockets.

@Curio I knew that you'd become famous.

Curio

Why not would have become?

MetaEd

5:04 PM

@RegDwigнt Aren't you thinking of that neurologist, V. S. Ramachand Nun?

RegDwigнt

@Curio No reason other than I don't think anyone ever says that.

@MetaEd no, I am not thinking of that neurologist. But thank you for asking!

Curio

<<I know that you'll become famous>>

RegDwigнt

Exactly. And not "I know that you'll have become famous".

Jasper Loy

@Curio With tenses, the context is very important. If you want you can post a question on the site with the full context.

RegDwigнt

And so likewise the past is "I knew that you'd become" and not "I knew that you'd have become".

Curio

5:06 PM

Ok, I've understood, I was only thinking about an equivalent in my language

thanks

Jasper Loy

Tenses, articles, and punctuation are the three most difficult things in English. =)

RegDwigнt

No problem. I'm trying to think of equivalents in other languages as well. But they all want to keep things simple it appears.

@JasperLoy the most difficult things in English is spelling "English" with a capital E. Just look at the main site.

Prepositions are trivial compared to that insurmountable challenge.

Jasper Loy

@RegDwigнt Also spelling pronunciation correctly.

RegDwigнt

Haha, hear that, @MetaEd?!! ProNUNciation. Hahaha.

MetaEd

You are corret.

RegDwigнt

5:08 PM

So funny.

So nunny, even.

Jasper Loy

I have edited over 9000 copies of pronounciation on this site.

Mitch

@JasperLoy and spelling

RegDwigнt

Yeah but only once for every account of yours.

Mitch

Tenses, articles, punctuation, and spelling are the most difficult in English

Prepositions.

MetaEd

@RegDwigнt If you're not careful, you'll be faced with deNUNciation and a NUNcio will exorcise you with his NUNchuks.

Mitch

5:10 PM

We left out prepositions

Jasper Loy

The truth is that until now, I do not know of a single good exposition of punctuation except the last chapter of CGEL.

RegDwigнt

The two most difficult things in English are tenses, articles, and punctuation. The three most difficult things in English are tenses, articles and punctuation. And spelling. The four most difficult things

Mitch

Tenses articles punctuation spelling and prepositions

Those are the worst

also 'th'

RegDwigнt

And an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 How odd. So this is only on the provincial level? And what if another party asks the Crown to form a government as well?

Mitch

5:12 PM

Tenses articles punctuation (commas am I right!) spelling prepositions and pronouncing 'th'

Cerberus

And can parliament dismiss the government?

RegDwigнt

I can dismiss everyone. Don't bother the parliament, I'll do it on my own.

Jasper Loy

I hope that this year, Trump will be impeached and Brexit will be reversed.

Mitch

And Roberts Rules or Order

parliamentary procedure

RegDwigнt

And I hope that this year I will grow wings and fly people to the Moon for one trillion GBP per person.

Mitch

5:13 PM

rules upon rules upon rules

MetaEd

No need to bring owls into it.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt where canI send you money?

MetaEd

@JasperLoy As they say, you can hope in one hand ...

Jasper Loy

@RegDwigнt Flying Without Wings is one of my favourite songs, if you recall.

RegDwigнt

No need, or nuneed for short.

Mitch

5:14 PM

@MetaEd I've never heard the '...' part. That gives a subtle twist to the proverb.

Jasper Loy

I listened to it 100 times a day long ago.

RegDwigнt

@Mitch ko-fi.com/J3J1IIGZ

You will need to buy a lot of coffee before you reach 1 trillion, tho.

Mitch

@JasperLoy There's a lot of music I really like, but frankly do not want to hear again because I've heard it too many times.

It's like air

I love air

really

Jasper Loy

In the past, 1 billion used to mean 1 million million in the UK, but now it just means 1 thousand million.

Mitch

but if people keep pointing it out, it just bores me

RegDwigнt

5:15 PM

Air makes you die. No, seriously. Look up telomerase.

The oxygen chips away at the ends of your chromosomes until your chromosomes are broken and you die.

MetaEd

@RegDwigнt So does too much LDS.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt wait...and when you finish all that coffee I get to go to the moon?

Jasper Loy

It is interesting that the world's first two trillion dollar companies start with A: Apple and Amazon.

Mitch

If I just buyable that coffee straight and drink it, I'll be able to flap my own wings to get there

RegDwigнt

@Mitch I think when I'm finished with that much coffee, I can get you to fucking Andromeda. In under a minute.

Mitch

5:16 PM

also, I'd need to pee a lot.

extra propulsion maybe?

RegDwigнt

No, that's what beans are for.

Mitch

Speaking of excrement, I just saw a really shitty movie

Jasper Loy

Kappa Fornacis, the name of a constellation, was the name of my group in elementary school.

Mitch

Geostorm

RegDwigнt

@Mitch when did you swap accounts with Jasper?

Mitch

5:17 PM

@RegDwigнt Ha ha. You exaggerate

RegDwigнt

@Mitch buy me 1/3 trillion coffees and we'll see.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt I haven't said anything about my own personal bowel habits

yet

Jasper Loy

I saw a very good movie recently, The Wrong Friend. Sophia Katarina is so beautiful. I must watch all her movies.

Mitch

I'm awaiting a request

I'll go all out if asked.

Pun totally intended

RegDwigнt

Nun totally intended.

Cerberus

5:19 PM

God, you people talk a lot.

Gigili

@JasperLoy That smiley is under my copyright.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus Dog, you don't talk at all.

Jasper Loy

And I saw another movie yesterday, The Toy Box, about a vehicle that kills the people in it.

Mitch

What bothered me about this excrement of a movie? The unrealistic economics of creating a space station and wether controlling apparatus in the present day or very near future

Gigili

Please send me a dollar for each use.

Jasper Loy

5:20 PM

But the best movie I saw this year is Skybound, about a plane that is unable to land.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt woof

Mitch

Also its retrograde unfeminism.

RegDwigнt

Every plane is able to land.

Mitch

haha. space nerd pun

retrograde for reactionary

RegDwigнt

Landing is the easy part.

Jasper Loy

5:20 PM

@Gigili I am very poor.

Mitch

@Cerberus says the most talkative person ever

Oh

RegDwigнt

@Mitch certainly you mean nunfeminism.

Mitch

Oh I get it

Thanks!

Jasper Loy

You will all remember the worst movie I ever watched, Freeze, a Japanese movie about a woman who has sex with men and then kill them and chop them up and put them in freezers.

Mitch

@JasperLoy Oh. It'll land. Trust me.

Gigili

5:22 PM

@JasperLoy Please email me to learn more about payment options.

Mitch

Oh you mean land well

Jasper Loy

@Gigili Haha, actually I do remember your email address!

RegDwigнt

Yeah what kind of rubbish sci-fi fantasy is that, women never have sex with men lol, who came up with that nonsense.

Mitch

[smiley emoji][dollar emoji][smiley emoji][dollar emoji]

Jasper Loy

The best German movie I watched is Sommersturm, about a gay boy coming out, and the best Dutch movie I watched is Jongens, also about a gay boy coming out, strange...

Mitch

5:23 PM

@JasperLoy I don't get it. What was so bad about that? The dialog?

cinematography?

Lighting

it was the lighting

RegDwigнt

Try watching a movie about a gay boy staying in. Anything with Tom Cruise, for example.

Jasper Loy

@Mitch It becomes too meaningless and repetitive, killing person after person.

MetaEd

@RegDwigнt How close to the speed of light would that have to be?

Mitch

So hard to get right on the inside of a refrigerator

Cerberus

@Mitch Oh, you've got me there...

RegDwigнt

5:24 PM

@MetaEd it would need to be very, very close to the speed of light.

Jasper Loy

@RegDwigнt However, I have not watched the very famous movie, Brokeback Mountain.

Mitch

@JasperLoy boring

also, you get bored with the taste after awhile

RegDwigнt

That's what she said.

Mitch

CANNIBALISM JOKE!

ew

more of them

Jasper Loy

Oh I also watched about 5 cannibalism movies, very gory...

RegDwigнt

5:25 PM

NUNibalism joke!

Mitch

@JasperLoy It's by the 6th one where you really get it

Jasper Loy

But if you like gore, I recommend watching Wrong Turn 1--6.

Gigili

Is it April 1 already?

Jasper Loy

Nope. I don't like April Fool's Day.

Mitch

@Gigili It's April first somewhere on the planet

Beer me!

wait..

Jasper Loy

5:28 PM

I also watched Halloween 1--10, and Halloween 11 will be showing in a couple of weeks.

Mitch

Prank me!

MetaEd

@RegDwigнt My calculator overflowed.

Jasper Loy

Oh and amazingly, I did watch James Bond 1--24! And 25 has been delayed with a change of directors.

MetaEd

16.9 days would be 99.99999999999999c and that is as close as I got.

Mitch

@JasperLoy I must commend the James Bond movie people for not using roman numerals but having the artistically fortitude to make boat loads of money by using a new strange name every time.

MetaEd

5:29 PM

That would be such a boring trip. Except of course for the arrival, which would be spectacular.

RegDwigнt

Yeah I just looked it up, the speed would need to be 2.5 million times the speed of light, so actually not that close to the speed of light at all. Phew. What a relief.

Jasper Loy

@Mitch Yes, some books are based on the movies, some movies are based on the books, in this case. And the books have had a few authors over the years.

MetaEd

@RegDwigнt Only from the point of view of a person watching from here.

From your perspective you can reduce the time as much as you want and still not exceed the speed limit.

RegDwigнt

Actually, I forgot to multiply by the number of minutes in a year.

That'd be 1314000 million times the speed of light.

Sorry, a common typo.

Jasper Loy

@Mitch My favourite Bond movie of all time is still On Her Majesty's Secret Service, a very old movie, because I love Diana Rigg. It is also the only movie where Bond gets married, but sadly the wife in the movie died shortly after the wedding, which is why Bond remains single.

RegDwigнt

5:32 PM

@MetaEd from the point of view of a person watching from here, we'd just vanish into thin air instantaneously. Unless said person has a really really good camera that can film at 1314000 million frames per second.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt Obviously you've reversed the polarity on your tachyon generator, creating a space-time anomaly...wait... no a space-time vortex, and bypassed the quantum injection filter and ... running calculations ... achieved a hyper localized Alcubierre drive that obviates the need for a natural but rare space-ship sized wormhole.

MetaEd

Mitch

Because the wormholes they shown TV are so unrealistic.

RegDwigнt

You misspelled nunning calculations, mate.

@MetaEd y she wear makeup. Does Jesus know.

Mitch

@MetaEd They (the people who say such things) always seem to leave out that part.

MetaEd

5:35 PM

@RegDwigнt For the angles.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt No, but her mother superior knows.

Abba - Does Your Mother Know

►

Jasper Loy

I only recently learnt about Abba when I read the news.

Mitch

Did you read it today?

Oh boy.

Jasper Loy

So it seems that next year, there will be 2 Nobel Literature prizes because there wasn't any this year due to the scandal.

RegDwigнt

Fact: Andromeda doesn't even exist. And it will take you 2.5 million years to prove me wrong. Good luck with that, suckers.

Jasper Loy

5:37 PM

@Mitch A few weeks ago.

Mitch

The scandal with ABBA?

Jasper Loy

@Mitch No, the Nobel committee.

Mitch

@JasperLoy I'm failing to see the connection with the scandal about ABBA

Jasper Loy

@Mitch Oh, I don't know about Abba scandal, lol.

Mitch

Yeah. It's a scandal that ABBA has not received a Nobel prize in literature for their song lyrics

Jasper Loy

5:39 PM

LOL

Mitch

HAHA

also,the blood one doesn't want to get the band back together because the other one is now a blond too.

Jasper Loy

I cannot write good literature. The best sentence I have is this: The banana in the papaya in the iguana in the zenana is in Panama.

Mitch

Or was originally a blond, and was forced to color here hair dark, and now that one wants to be the blond now.

you know, fair play

take turns

Jasper Loy

I am very happy to receive 2 emails today from 2 different people.

Mitch

@JasperLoy I think you just made that up just now

RegDwigнt

5:42 PM

Fact: ABBA's lyrics are better than Bob Dylan's, and it's not even their mother tongue. And it will take you 2.5 million years to prove me wrong. Good luck with that, suckers.

Jasper Loy

@Mitch No, I wrote it many years ago in this chat.

@RegDwigнt Yes, Bob Dylan only has nice hair...

RegDwigнt

No that's Kate Blanchett.

Feeds

0

Q: Term for when a software is used in its own development

An example is the developers of MacOS working on computers using MacOS when developing the operating system.

single-word-requests phrase-requests programming

RegDwigнt

The term is "security risk".

Jasper Loy

Did you know that macOS Mojave has just been released? Time to upgrade your computers for free!

RegDwigнt

5:44 PM

Thesaurus.com also suggest "being full of oneself".

Mitch

@RegDwigнt What if we agree with you?

@JasperLoy Link please!

RegDwigнt

@JasperLoy I didn't know my 12-year-old PC running Vista could be upgraded to Mojave for free! Thank you.

@Mitch then it will take you even longer than 2.5 million years to prove me wrong. Sucks to be you, really.

Jasper Loy

@Mitch chat.stackexchange.com/search?q=banana+in+the+papaya

RegDwigнt

That is the single worst page on all of the Internet. Do not click on that link, guys.

Jasper Loy

@RegDwigнt It is time to get a new computer!

RegDwigнt

5:47 PM

It is never time to get a new computer.

Why would I get a computer in the first place if I constantly needed a new one.

What am I, a woman buying shoes?

Jasper Loy

12 years is long. I have heard of people using only for 10 years at most.

But I guess Cerberus still uses Windows XP.

RegDwigнt

Yes. And I have heard of people not using MacOS at all. Imagine that.

I told Steve once, and he immediately died.

Don't let that happen to you.

Jasper Loy

There is a video of him pulling a thin MacBook out of an envelope.

MetaEd

Better to use eunuchs. Any nun will tell you.

RegDwigнt

Fact: "eunuch" has a nun in it, upside down.

Jasper Loy

5:50 PM

Do you know the best joke I ever made in this chat?

RegDwigнt

And it will take you etc.

@JasperLoy yes, when you deleted your account for the very first time.

That was funny.

Jasper Loy

Jul 23 '12 at 21:55, by Robusto

Jasper — lol. You finally made me lol you.

I will be getting a copy of Office 2019 to install on my Acer laptop soon...

RegDwigнt

Yeah well. @Rob is old. He'll lol at everything. Sometimes he'll just sit on his terrace in his rocking chair, and laugh out loud at nothing in particular.

Jasper Loy

Actually, I have never bought anything from Apple. I thought about getting a MacBook, but decided against it in the end.

I am not convinced that macOS is superior to Windows.

MetaEd

@RegDwigнt Lucky one.

Jasper Loy

5:55 PM

In fact, after using Linux for many years, I am also not convinced that Linux is better than Windows. Windows is just easy to use. There are bugs, but every OS will have bugs now and then.

MetaEd

Some say Linux is easy to use, hard to learn, but Windows is hard to use, easy to learn.

Jasper Loy

After using both, I think they are both OK to learn, and OK to use. =)

Very strange that Manjaro is becoming the top distro on distrowatch.com statistics.

MetaEd

I'm probably going to learn CentOS soon.

Jasper Loy

CentOS is one of the worst distros I have tried.

It is stable, but its software is too old, and there isn't some software I wanted in the repos.

At least Debian is not that old and has more software.

But of course it is the RHEL clone.

You might also wanna look at Scientific, which is also RHEL clone.

Overall, my experience with Scientific was better than with CentOS.

MetaEd

I've heard of Scientific. Stable is probably my number one requirement other than simplicity.

Jasper Loy

6:00 PM

I see. Then I recommend Debian Stable.

Cerberus

Scientific is fake.

Academia is a conspiracy.

Jasper Loy

Yes, these days they call many non-scientific things science.

Cerberus

One that has festered since times Platonic.

MetaEd

@JasperLoy It's complicated. If my provider supported it I'd run Slackware.

Jasper Loy

And in academia, it is publish or perish, so professors publish mediocre papers instead of devote more time to teaching students who pay high tuition fees.

@MetaEd Slackware is too hard for me, so I never tried it.

MetaEd

6:03 PM

@JasperLoy For me it's the opposite. It's the easiest.

Cerberus

Just write your own OS, d'oh.

Jasper Loy

@MetaEd I see. Arch is hard to use too, but if you want the latest software, it is Arch, and Manjaro makes Arch easy.

@Cerberus The reactOS project to clone Windows is still not successful. I doubt it will ever come to usable stage.

MetaEd

@JasperLoy Rackspace offers only seven flavors: CentOS, CoreOS, Debian, Fedora, Scientific Linux, Ubuntu, Vyatta.

Jasper Loy

@MetaEd Ah I would pick Debian and Ubuntu there. Debian is getting worse in recent years, and Ubuntu is equally stable, so these two are tied now.

MetaEd

@JasperLoy I have experience of Ubuntu. Much too complicated. By this I mean too many layers on top of the basic operating system. Too much automation, too much handholding.

Cerberus

6:06 PM

@JasperLoy Yeah, that sounds...difficult.

MetaEd

What I really want to see when I install a new OS is the # prompt.

Jasper Loy

OIC, you want nothing in your OS, LOL.

MetaEd

Yes, exactly. I'll be building a server to handle email, web service, name service, that sort of thing. That needs to be bare bones, stable, and secure.

The more things, the more things to go wrong.

Jasper Loy

I see. Maybe if you do a net install of Debian, you don't need to install any desktop environment.

MetaEd

If my experience with Ubuntu is any guide, Debian will be too complicated.

Jasper Loy

6:09 PM

I have always installed a DE, so I don't know.

MetaEd

6:34 PM

@JasperLoy In theory, I think a person can create a disk image of any kind, such as Slackware, and run it on Rackspace as an unsupported image.

Robusto

7:09 PM

@RegDwigнt That's 100% accurate except that I have no terrace, no rocking chair, and nothing to laugh about since Trump was elected.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto so you're Radio Yerevan, I see. Glad to meet you at last!

Jasper Loy

Then that makes it almost 0 per cent accurate, lol.

RegDwigнt

Jun 11 '14 at 0:16, by RegDwigнt

> The Armenian Radio was asked: "Is it true that in Moscow, Mercedes cars are being given to citizens?"
The Armenian Radio answers: "Yes, but it is not Moscow but Leningrad, not Mercedes but Ladas, and not given to but stolen from." (This was even funnier in the Hungarian version where the main pun was the similarity of the words osztogatnak "they give them away" and fosztogatnak "they rob them".)

Fuck me, since when do I speak Hungarian. I didn't even know.

Jun 11 '14 at 0:14, by RegDwigнt

Well they are all of this very form. Someone asks Radio Yerevan, "is it true that Vladimir Ivanov won a car in a lottery?", then Radio Yerevan replies, "yes, that is true, except it was a bicycle, and it got stolen from him".

Jasper Loy

Hungarian is supposed to be harder to learn than Russian. It is a Uralic language.

Araucaria

@tchrist @RegDwigнt Anyone seen or head of Edwin Ashworth recently?

RegDwigнt

7:20 PM

Nah, people only think Uralic is hard because nobody lives there. If everyone lived there, everyone would speak it no problem.

@Araucaria not really, but then again I visit like once a week so I've not seen most people in years.

Jasper Loy

@RegDwigнt I see. Hard is all in the mind...

RegDwigнt

Everything is hard if you can't do it. Everything is easy if you can.

Every single question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire is easy if you know the answer.

Did you know you can play the violin? If you played the violin, you'd know.

Araucaria

@RegDwigнt Oh, I thought you were virtually always here!

RegDwigнt

No it's just that in the three seconds that I am here I manage to make more people's lives miserable than most can do in three years. Hence the illusion that I'm omnipresent. When in reality I am merely efficient.

My time is scarce. I put it to good use.

Jasper Loy

Good for you. Do you have kids now?

RegDwigнt

7:27 PM

Having kids if awfully inefficient. They claim every last second of your time as theirs.

Jasper Loy

I see. I don't want kids either. But then again, I still haven't found Maria.

RegDwigнt

Just google her address.

Jasper Loy

I may not find a Maria this life, but that's going to be OK.

RegDwigнt

Well I can tell you where not to look. Not on Tinder, not on OKCupid, not ElitePartner.de. All these things don't work. That should save you some time.

Anyway, let me finish up this romance I just wrote while waiting for the pizza. And then let me finish the pizza.

Jasper Loy

Really? My friend got a lot of dates on dating sites and apps.

Mitch

7:47 PM

@Araucaria Yes, I noticed his absence. But there's no accounting for why anyone is here or not. There are more reasons to not be here than there there are to be here.

Mitch

8:15 PM

4

Q: Why/how native English speakers understand all russian words in "A Clockwork Orange"?

When native speakers read "A Clockwork Orange", and sees "Moloko", "Devotchka", or "Kartoffel" how do they understand the meaning "moloko = milk", "Devotchka = girl", "Kartoffel = potato" ? In "A Clockwork Orange" available 192 russian words! Maybe Anthony Burgess did a linguistic experiment?

meaning british-english

Vote to reopen. It's a reasonable linguistic question about understandability of a particular set of foreign words by a native English speaker. It's not a POB, but rather it may have different understandability by different English speakers. (and it turns out that for the most part the answer is just 'no, English speakers don't recognize Russian at all'. If it were about Italians reading Spanish, the answer would well be different.

MetaEd

@Mitch But wait, how is it a question about English specifically? It seems to be more of a question about how people reading a text using "foreign" or "made up" words are able to make sense of the text anyway. English doesn't seem to enter into it.

Mitch

8:58 PM

@MetaEd I think you didn't get my point about Italian/Spanish. The question is: do English speakers understand this small set of Russian words. The answer is unopinionatedly 'no' for almost any set of words. If Italian/Spanish were substituted, there would likely be unopiniontaed but different answers depending on the sets (yes to all, no to any, some (and here is a probably list).

The fact that you can change some of the variables and get other non vague answers leads one to believe that the original is not just an opinion. Most knowledgable people should be able to give the same right answer.

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