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00:41
@RegDwigнt: Link your would-be (er, wouldn't-be) percussionist to this video at this point:
A pro can't help but count ... all the fucking time.
@DavidM Don't be a fool? Sorry, that ship has already sailed for Der Trumpf.
I'm just so impressed with the literacy level of our president. I want to meet the 14-year-old that helped him write this.
I've gotten more cogent requests from Nigerian princes.
@Robusto Looks like Russia.
@Cerberus Portugal.
00:47
@DavidM Umm I think this is satire.
@Robusto But it is the Soviet mentality!
New York Times
@Cerberus I thought so too.
My favorite part is I'll call you later.
@Cerberus We were hired to put up a barrier. Worrying about those implications is not what we were hired to do.
@DavidM Wait, that's real?
Geezis keerist.
Very, very, very sadly.
The NYT rarely gets baited by the Onion
00:49
10 hours ago, by Robusto
> Not only is the Trump administration profoundly crooked, but it is also so hopelessly inept that it’s unable to keep its machinations secret. It’s as if the Three Stooges starred in a sequel to “Breaking Bad.”
Each time I think these people can't be any dumber, they prove me wrong.
@DavidM I...still can't believe it.
@Robusto Exactly.
And what will history look at Trump like? Class? Right, a fool. And a crooked one at that.
No. Fools have a long a storied tradition of comedic antics that are done on purpose to make people laugh.
This is plain and simple dumb-assery!
Oh, is that the technical term.
@Cerberus in this case, yes.
00:56
Noted.
It's worse than dumb-assery. This goes all the way to shit-for-brains.
This is what would happen if Burlesconi were in charge of a nation with any power behind it ....
I mean, this sounds like something a fourth-grader would write.
Italy is fairly powerful.
Who the fuck does he think he's talking to?
00:58
But he was not as bad as Trump, I should say.
@Cerberus Maybe compared with the Netherlands. But certainly not a world power.
@Cerberus In the EU? Because, I've never really seen them taking on Russia or Germany at the G8
Italy is still often considered to be the 18th most powerful country in the world.
Around the level of India.
India is a nuclear power.
But it must have ranked higher in Berlusconi's heyday.
01:03
Italy hasn't been a contender on the world stage since the unification.
Power is somewhat subjective.
It depends on one's criteria.
But most lists you will find rank it in the top 20 to be sure.
In the '30s they invaded Ethiopia. And nearly lost!
...I wouldn't say they won, either.
:5216374 California has a bigger economy than Italy.
01:04
Is there any meaning to this symbol?
Certainly. But Italy is more powerful in other regards.
Picture got rotated.
@DavidM I don't know.
Could be various things.
Pi, F, some Asian character?
@DavidM It looks like the kanji for katana
Sword.
Than which the pen is mightier? Your call.
Makes sense. It's the symbol for a pool cue brand called Katana.
01:06
Ah!
Never heard of it. Of course, I'm not a pool player. If I ever do play I use a house cue.
I was curious if it was real or nonsense
It's real.
I'd send a pic, but it's a PITA to swap off the mobile site.
I don't even know what a "pro" cue would cost.
Too much for my game.
01:10
I gave my kids Japanese middle names, and they love putting their kanji names on things.
@DavidM I believed you. It makes a certain sense. Your cue is your weapon.
Between $400 and $8000. Both are Katana in that pic. The one with the fake Samurai sword grip is a breaking cue. Goes for about $300. The other is my playing cue, got it at a sample sale for $200. Would retail around $400
Too much for my game.
It's my hobby other than photography.
@DavidM You should talk to @tchrist about photography.
01:15
@Robusto I'll keep it in mind
He took a pic of the eclipse, then asked me to ask him what kind of phone he had for the picture. I said:
Dec 11 '17 at 4:03, by Robusto
I'm guessing a Nikon SLR phone.
Photographers love when you ask them what kind of camera they used. Because, the camera makes the picture come out that way, not the artist.
If you're interested
@DavidM Nice. Is that you in the hairnet?
01:33
No. It's my friend who died a week after that photo.
I was teaching him how to use the creative photo apps on his iPhone and snapped that of him.
Sorry to hear it.
It was about 6 years ago. Great guy.
Funny as hell
Was he another anesthesiologist?
Yes. One of the old hand partners
01:57
Ugh. That sucks.
02:07
Meanwhile, I'm really tired of my perfectly legitimate posts being downvoted without explanation. I think downvotes really should be reserved for poorly worded crap .....
1
A: Antonym for “boilerplate” or “cookie-cutter”

David MI'd probably use unconventional here. Cookie cutter means adhering to the norm. I don't know that I'd typically describe advice that way, but that's the term you requested a semantic opposite. I'd personally use the term conventional like in conventional wisdom. Thank you for your unconven...

02:23
@DavidM I have no idea.
Perhaps because your suggestions don't fit in the desired context as well.
@Cerberus I suppose. But, I think it does based upon the example sentence.
02:42
@DavidM It doesn't not fit.
But I think the asker wanted to emphasise the usefulness of the advice.
02:58
@Cerberus That's fair.
@DavidM So perhaps your answer will be useful to people searching for an antonym of "boilerplate" or "cookie-cutter". But perhaps less so to the asker.
03:40
@DavidM Join the club.
 
1 hour later…
04:56
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body (96): the title of the passage by Sun on english.SE
 
9 hours later…
14:12
13
Q: Difference between "garbage" and "trash"?

bcc32What's the difference between garbage and trash? Is the difference significant?

It really is amazing how much our standards have evolved. This question would have been closed in a heartbeat had it been asked today.
Ha! I didn't realize it, but I must have felt the same back then:
Garbage is what you program into a computer. Trash is what you try to keep your daughter from dating. — Robusto Apr 8 '11 at 0:28
Not surprising. I recently commented on one of @cornbread's old answers, not realizing I'd already commented on it years ago.
I even once looked up on SO how to do something I'd forgotten how exactly it worked, then read the top answer and when I got to the end I noticed my own gravatar staring at me. As @Reg would say, "Dafuq?"
This is all Google's fault. We don't commit to memory what we can Google with a few keystrokes.
And I know we've had this conversation before. Déjà vu all over again, yo.
15:16
Memory, she’s a bitch goddess, no?
 
1 hour later…
16:35
@Robusto But was it good advice?
17:04
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in body, no whitespace in body, potentially bad keyword in body, repeating characters in body (263): Meaning of "like-for-like" in this sentence? ✏️ by Qualitatively on english.SE
17:20
@RegDwigнt is this a correct eszett?
I didn't know they had the serif on the stem too
17:41
@marcellothearcane well yes, because that's how you actually draw the letter. Of course nobody does that anymore. But then again nobody casts letters in stone, either. But we still keep the peculiarities ultimately stemming from that.
@Robusto you could take that to a meta level by saying that you also don't recall how you told that exact story in this exact chat five years ago.
17:54
Feb 22 '15 at 15:40, by Robusto
Occasionally I will search for something on SO and find, to my surprise, that I answered that question and it is the accepted answer. I've not only forgotten I answered the question, but I couldn't remember, off the top of my head, the solution I found. Google has ruined my memory for tech stuff. It's too easy to Google as a first line of defense.
And that's not even the one that I meant. That one was older and more specific. But I'm on page 7 of 36 in the search results and quite bored now.
Apr 29 '15 at 13:29, by Robusto
I answered a question on SO this morning for the first time in ages. And the OP kept revising his question non-stop until my answer no longer made sense. Why do I even bother there? Note to self: do not bother with SO.
Also this nice exchange:
Apr 29 '15 at 13:30, by RegDwigнt
I will crack 20k from passive rep alone.
Apr 29 '15 at 13:30, by Robusto
I will too, eventually, but who wants to wait?
And lo and behold, we waited and we're both way past 20k now.
Does that mean anything? It's a number on the Internet that went up. I know that millions of people care about those for some reason. What's the significance?
@RegDwigнt How is it not already at a meta level? It's OVER 9000 meta already, FFS. To be any more meta it would have to concern fired mods and those who quit in protest.
@Mitch I see what you did there.
18:20
@Robusto hm. That's a good point. Do we have to make it less meta, then. How do we go about that. Maybe by claiming that we remember everything except how to google?
@RegDwigнt We could make a pact to that effect.
But we would have to remember that.
It would be the first constructive pact between the US and Russia since Seward's Folly.
I'm not sure I can muster up that much dedication to the cause.
Funny to hear the words "dedication" and "cause" springing from your lips. Or keyboard.
18:22
@Robusto well if the fake news is to be believed, US and Russia recently worked together to construct Trump.
Let's not say things we can't take back.
My point exactly. The news must be fake.
Seward's Folly it is, then.
> Welcome to The Overflow, a newsletter that brings together great questions from our community, news and articles from our blog, and awesome links from around the web. This is our second-ever issue, and we're glad to be in your inbox!
Yeah, which reminds me, how do I stop getting those emails?
Bounce them to my inbox.
I will never read them on your behalf as well as mine. Costs me nothing.
Thank you.
OVER 9000 Stack Overflow spams en route to your inbox.
18:24
I wouldn't notice or care.
What is email?
It's what your parents send you.
Maybe I should look up the answer on SO. And see that it's mine. Sitting at 8000 reps by now.
I really don't remember most of the answers I've written on any of these sites.
I don't remember many of the sites.
It's nice to read one, though, and think, "Hey, this is really well-written, not like the usual shit people fob off on a gullible ... oh wait, I did that!"
Patting myself on the back is a skill I work on every day.
3
Or when you get an upvote on a forgotten answer on, say, Music.SE. Kinda warms like a wee dram of scotch.
18:27
Well, to be fair, you pat others on their backs too. So I don't see why you shouldn't pat yourself every once in a while.
Coming back to this answer eight years later, I have to say that this is probably as good as an answer can get—beautifully written, well organized, and comprehensive in a way that doesn't get lost in detail. Magnificent. — Robusto Apr 12 at 13:21
@RegDwigнt Well, it was a damn good answer.
120 accounts it says. View more it says.
No thanks.
I can barely remember half of the five I'm looking at.
How did you actually locate that answer?
I'm kind of impressed.
Can you name 120 SE sites off the top of your head?
I'd forgotten all about that exchange.
18:30
@Robusto because that's my job.
As usual.
@RegDwigнt Even so, I remain impressed.
Don't worry, you'll forget about it in a minute.
Forget about what?
Who is this?
Are you a computer?
18:31
Why would you think that are you a computer?
Aug 11 '14 at 12:42, by Robusto
I passed my Turing test, yes.
Turing was gay.
I shall never pass the gay test.
Gay Ian McKellen himself said I shall not.
@RegDwigнt We should wait till @Cerberus weighs in on that. I mean, you're Elton Fucking John, ferchrissakes.
Apr 1 '13 at 12:47, by Robusto
You are now talking to an expert. The transcript of your session will be available online.

Expert: Hi, how can I be of assistance?

You: What are your qualifications?

Expert: That's not easy to explain.

You: Have you passed your Turing test yet?

Expert: Can you rephrase that?

You: Have you your Turing test yet passed?

Expert: I once tried to ask politely, it worked remarkably well.

You: Please tell me if you have passed your Turing test.

Expert: Let's start over. What exactly do you want to do?
@Robusto hey I did marry that one girl from Germany in the 70s. I have no idea what you're on about.
Speaking of Turing tests, I must pass my touring test tomorrow by driving to Las Vegas. Does that count?
18:35
Ugh. Why would you want to go there.
My son's getting married there.
I've heard better impressions from Podunk.
Well the chateau was honky alright. Not my fault.
Also, one of my finer records. Rocketman is on it.
As well as Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters that the world forgot because the world is stupid.
The world is fine. People are stupid.
18:37
Hell is other people.
Die Welt ist nicht schlecht, sie ist nur zu voll.
Hell is pretty much everybody. And anybody.
That's one hell of a claim.
@RegDwigнt Öd und leer das Meer
I never read T. S. Eliot, so I won't get that reference.
Eliot? I was thinking Wagner.
18:40
But that's where Wagner stole it from, no?
There was even like a note in the score or something.
Eliot postdated Wagner.
Well, there were a lot of notes in the score. Because Wagner. But I mean that one specific note.
@Robusto then maybe it was the other way round and Eliot quoted Wagner?
See, I don't remember shit. I should look up my answer on SO.
You should.
But yeah, Wagner died 5 years before Eliot was born.
18:42
Haha the top google result for that quote for me is T. S. Eliot.
Hahahahahaha.
Does Google follow me around in this chat now?
I wouldn't put that past them.
Well, I don't think in Google results. When you said Die Welt ist nicht schlecht, sie ist nur zu voll I thought about the Wagner aria, Öd und leer das Meer.
But I have read "The Wasteland" as well, so ... who knows?
@Robusto Yeah that quote is I don't know even whose. Probably some German quizmaster's. From the 60s.
> Wagnerian themes inhabit T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, which contains lines from Tristan und Isolde and Götterdämmerung, and Verlaine's poem on Parsifal.
But I'm kinda afraid to google now. It will probably say it was by Beethoven.
Mar 18 '11 at 17:56, by Robusto
@jgbelacqua — "The young poet mimics; the mature poet plagiarizes." — T. S. Eliot
18:45
It says it's by Heiner Müller.
And Eliot sure liked to "borrow" other people's shit.
Heiner Müller (German: [haɪnɐ mʏlɐ]; 9 January 1929 – 30 December 1995) was a German (formerly East German) dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. His "enigmatic, fragmentary pieces" are a significant contribution to postmodern drama and postdramatic theatre. == Biography == Müller was born in Eppendorf, Saxony. He joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) in 1947 and began serving for the German Writers' Association (Deutscher Schriftsteller-Verband, DSV) in 1954. Müller became one of the most important dramatists of the German...
@Robusto good composers borrow. Stravinsky steals.
@RegDwigнt Yeah, but Stravinsky steals a cow flop and turns it into a priceless gem. Others do the opposite.
I would never turn a gem into a cow flop. But I would totally add cow bell.
I put my pants on in the morning just like regular people. Except once my pants are on, I make gold records.
But as enjoyable as this conversation is, I must away and prepare for my trip. Hasta la vista, todos cabrones.
18:48
Nice chatting. Thank you. Lators gatorz.
Oh, before I go ...
Stew on that for a while.
Well yes. Metabolism.
We knew that.
In a nutshell, every species has a set number of calories to burn. Once it's burnt it all, the specimen dies. Hence the different life expectancies of all the different species.
So quite literally if you eat less you live longer.
On that note, my penne is ready. With olive oil and cheese.
I'll go stew on that for a while.
Back when I was still doing cycling races, they told me that even at Tour de France levels, the brain alone accounts for 20% of all the energy that the athlete burns.
@RegDwigнt well I never
Well I never either, but even if I type it it shows that serif for me. ß.
19:07
Not on this font
I need better German glyphs
19:22
I can get you better German glyphs for an easy payment of $3000 apiece.
 
1 hour later…
20:43
@Mitch is consonance valid there? Kind of outside my area of expertise. I'm of the impression it's about sound and he's asking about the spelling.
@DavidM I commented about that.
My first thought is 'Why would one care about that enough to make a word for it?'
@Mitch yeah. Got notified right after I messaged you.
A single word is not necessary.
Throw it on the giant pile of who gives a fuck that litters the archives of this site .....
just 'a word with both a capital and miniscule form of the same letter.'
@DavidM You never know...maybe a whole bunch of people care.
20:47
"There's gotta be a word for everything"
a single word
I've asked my share of who gives a fuck questions.
and rhymes with this other word
and we all say 'there's no such word, why would anyone want that word, it's stupid'
Then someone comes along and tells you the word.
and then a year later someone mention exactly the single word that fits.
haha jiinx
20:50
0
A: What is the word for the stuff we use in a coffee shop such as coaster, straw, TA cup and its lid...?

David MIn the industry, you'd refer to these things as disposables implied in the name is that these are items that get used and thrown away (or hopefully recycled). If you're speaking of reusable items that don't walk out with the customer, then you'd call these tableware (see StuartF's answer) drinkw...

Perfect example
Oh for that I'm sure there's an industry word
all the baristas know it
This one didn't ... He asked.
oh
you answered
tableware is definitely not it
20:52
14
Q: Why do we say "Present Arms" instead of "Present Your Arms"?

David MThere is a military command to Present Arms. And, depending upon the military and the situation, the typical response is to either salute or hold one's weapon in front of them in the prescribed manner. I've always wondered why this became the standard construction for this command in place of P...

This is one my who gives a fuckest questions.
In the shipment from Starbucks central there's probably one box labeled 'stuff to put near the door' for all that
Ha! Totally.
@DavidM because maybe it's someone else's arms? battlefield confusion and all?
But...
Those 'who gives a rats ass questions' tend to be mildly interesting, as opposed to the "Is it 'at the hospital' or 'in the hospital'?
There's actually a decent answer given.
That's kind of my point ... The big pile of who gives a fuck is our bread and butter. We close all the practical questions.
If you're in the army you'd totally yell at at people "Wash plates!"
@DavidM ELU is no SO
20:56
I'm not saying I don't like it this way.
I wonder if SE is going to fall apart because of the pronoun/mod firing thing, or if it was only a big deal for a moment and then...poof... who cares then things move on?
I do think we need to change our POB closure reason. For example, many phrase requests are POB, but the wide range of opinions can be helpful to someone. And, they can always choose an answer among those that they like best. Or not. Many good questions never get marked answered.
@Mitch big deal for the moment.
It's like high school, a new group moves in and makes new culture befitting their time.
SE would likely reverse policy before it folded.
Or create some system by which it automatically tells you a person's preferred pronouns
Also, how often do you need a pronoun for someone on SE? Call them by their user name and call it a fucking day.
@DavidM It's all about chat
and in chat only when you're referring to a third party
and the circumstances where that happens ... somethings going on.
"Did you see what that... that... whatever that person is, did you see what they said wrote?"
Mitch made a good point the other day. They mentioned. Not super hard. But maybe I missed something.
How dare you
21:05
Flag it for moderator attention.
I flagged my own comment
Hahahahahaha
Then you admonished yourself?
I'm not a mod so ... no?
I'm going to start using the term arsonist as my third party genderless pronoun.
@Mitch I thought you were. My bad. I guess I'll stop sucking up to you.
Did you see what that arsonist said? It works perfectly and inflames (see what I did there?) people's indignation!!!!
I think I'm a room owner (one of more than one?) which is like a substitute teacher - I have partial mod powers in the chat room, like if someone is getting riled up, I can freeze them for a moment.
21:09
Gotcha
@DavidM Nice.
I quit SE 4 years ago because I got tired of the same old nonsense. I think I might be 20K and out for a while again.
Also, I can ... hm... I think that's about it.
I was tired of arguing with people about where commas belong and whether or not a source was good enough.
@DavidM I like answering questions that are interesting and also telling people they're wrong. Wrong people really bug me.
But also I like the chat. People are fun to talk to.
21:12
That's the only good part
@DavidM People can be uptight.
After a while.
and not in the right way.
@Mitch I'm sorry.
@Mitch You're welcome.
@Cerberus You're not always wrong.
@Cerberus How dare you.
21:14
@Mitch Oh, thank you!
@Cerberus it's your commitment to being wrong that impresses me.
@Mitch I'm not doing anything. It is you who is being welcome.
@DavidM blushes
@Cerberus I resent the implication.
You don't know me
I resents the allegations and I resents the alligator ....
Actually, you probably could have figured I was going to say that.
Aug 8 at 11:13, by Mitch
Feb 16 '12 at 15:32, by Cerberus
I knew you were going to say that.
Ciao for now, jersey cow.
Or rather, Back in a sec, desert fennec.
21:23
@Mitch There, you did it again.
Bai.
21:33
You still here, white tailed deer?
Wait, I didn't know David was a deer.
Would you say allied with or allied to?
With
Depends?
Allied with a country
Allied to ... some abstract idea?
21:53
Allied to pineapples
Right
@Cerberus I'd say "allied with"
No one in their right mind would be allied with a pineapple
Unreliable
@Mitch It's a leftist concept, generally
Commies?
21:56
Gois
Time flows from left to right
Only where you're standing
Sith
What about where you are?
@M.A.R. Noted.
@Mitch It looks confused, keeps asking directions
But, you should note this, Tabrizians are famous for being infamous for giving wrong or vague directions
21:59
Ah, yes, allied to is usually not about diplomacy but about ideas or biology or similar.
@M.A.R. Where is Tabriz?
Just occurred to me. Sith MacFarlane makes so much sense.
@Cerberus My city, NW of Iran, in a province called East Azerbaijan
Even though it is south of Azerbaijan?
@M.A.R. Fail.
That is neither vague nor wrong.
Is that the source of the infamity?
(Hah, you walked into my trap!)
22:02
@Cerberus Well, you weren't asking for directions, or I would have sent you on a road trip all over the solar system
You even said NW.
It's just genetics.
If that isn't a direction, I don't know what it is.
E
Wonders if he's not full Tabriz blood
Well, I'm not.
Oh, you Tabrizians, benign, bureaucratic misdirectors: it doesn't count unless people specifically use the word directions, so you will usually guide people in the right direction anyway.
22:04
@Mitch the source is really that we, or rather the Mayor's office, suck at naming streets
@Cerberus It's a borg-like system
How lovely.
All cubic?
Rectangular cubic
My father is from Maragheh, whose residents are famous for being good at directions
It even has one of the first observatories ever.
In the history of Maragheh, or maybe even the world.
Better to know the directions exactly in order to give bad ones well
@M.A.R. How old is it?
That is rather cool.
@Mitch Fair enough.
Otherwise you might accidentally give the right directions
And you don't want that
22:20
Maragheh observatory (Persian: رصدخانه مراغه‎) was an astronomical observatory established in 1259 CE under the patronage of the Ilkhanid Hulagu and the directorship of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, a Persian scientist and astronomer. Located in the heights west of Maragheh, which is today situated in the East Azerbaijan Province of Iran, it was once considered "the most advanced scientific institution in the Eurasian world".It was financed by waqf revenues, which allowed it to continue to operate even after the death of its founder, and was active for more than 50 years. It served as a model for later...
I hope they didn't just come up with that number
It sounds random
@Mitch Spoken like a true engineer
22:40
@M.A.R. bloop bleep bloop
@M.A.R. Very nice.
@M.A.R. which number? 50 years?

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