English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

7:09 PM

Moby Grape sounds weird after ASMR? I would have thought it would sound refreshing.

RegDwighт

So. Um. Egypt is now ruled by the military.

How nice.

KitFox

all mimsy were the borogove

borogove

borogoves.

RegDwighт

I actually watched Mimsy's, er, Mursi's speech last night. What a waste of time.

simchona

I'm watching the news about it now

KitFox

Is this something I should care about?

RegDwighт

7:15 PM

Define care.

You can't change it, or anything remotely connected to it, if that's what you're asking.

KitFox

And who should I be rooting for?

RegDwighт

Ha.

KitFox

So then no.

RegDwighт

You're asking me things.

I don't even know who they have on offer. They don't even know that. But something something Allah vs something something Muslim, that much's for sure.

KitFox

> There is room for exceptions, which then allow the administration to take circumstances of the situation into account to determine continued funding.

RegDwighт

7:18 PM

Though the question is if there will be an offer at all, or if the military just keeps the power to itself. I mean, why not. If I were the military.

KitFox

I read that as "fucking."

RegDwighт

How do you determine fucking?

KitFox

@RegDwighт Because power is a bitch to wield, that's why.

RegDwighт

Spake a mod to a mod.

KitFox

As well you know. taps nose

RegDwighт

7:19 PM

I know all about the FCC.

I mean, power.

KitFox

I like it when you point out that we are on equal footing.

RegDwighт

I sure hope your feet are not quite as large as mine.

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

KitFox

I have very small feet.

Despite being of average height.

RegDwighт

Then careful wielding heavy things, lest you fall over.

KitFox

How big are your feet? Boats?

RegDwighт

7:21 PM

42 and a half in German. That's like I dunno 8 and a something in British.

KitFox

I'd guess a size 12 in American sizes

Oh. Um.

I thought you were 6ft or so?

RegDwighт

I still remember the last time we discussed shoe sizes. That went on for hours.

KitFox

Did we? Was I here for that?

RegDwighт

I've no idea how much 6ft is, but I'm somewhat certain I'm an inch or two longer than that.

KitFox

Then you have quite tiny feet.

1.82 m

iAmbitious

7:23 PM

good night guys

RegDwighт

Jun 24 '12 at 15:25, by RegDwight ΒВB

> Shoe size in the United Kingdom (British size) is based on the length of the last, measured in barleycorn (approx 1/3 inch) starting from the smallest practical size, which is size zero. It is not formally standardised.

KitFox

@iAmbitious Good night.

RegDwighт

Jun 24 '12 at 15:23, by RegDwight ΒВB

Ah to heck with it can't find it. Anyway, some countries and in fact even some manufacturers have several different size systems in place that are completely incompatible with one another or even just themselves.

And that wasn't even the original discussion...

Jun 24 '12 at 15:19, by RegDwight ΒВB

I'm looking for that discussion of shoe sizes we had here one day.

Jun 24 '12 at 15:32, by RegDwight ΒВB

You had to add half a number to every number except in cases when you had not in which case you had to sometimes subtract half a number or not except if it was raining or Tuesday or raining and/or driving.

KitFox

Oh god, whose feet are those!?

RegDwighт

Haha.

Well.

KitFox

7:25 PM

And then no, I wasn't there so I didn't know.

RegDwighт

Certainly not mine. I'd wonder where Cerberus had the pic from.

KitFox

I think my feet are 36 in your measure.

But still. An 8 men's is much too small for someone over 6ft.

RegDwighт

KitFox

Your mom must have had a lot of coffee while you were in utero.

RegDwighт

So yeah, as I said. I actually remembered it right!

42 and a half or 8 and a something.

That's 9 and a something in US.

KitFox

7:27 PM

Still.

Just sayin'.

RegDwighт

Now on to feet. As in, height.

KitFox

I thought you were an accomplished pianist.

RegDwighт

Google sez, 6 feet 3⁄64 inch.

Mahnax

@Mitch Are you suggesting that they're paying for that trip?

KitFox

Well, at least I had your height right.

RegDwighт

7:29 PM

WTF is 3⁄64. It ain't even a number.

You people are crazy.

You and those other two countries.

KitFox

Like a fox.

RegDwighт

0

Q: Don't let dog out. VS. Don't let the dog out

Don't let dog out. Don't let the dog out. Are they both valid sentences? Is only the ladder? Is the needed for non-proper nouns? Don't let Mike out. // Is that valid?

Who let dog out?

KitFox

woof woof woof woof woof

Matt Эллен

can dogs climb ladders?

KitFox

My eyebrows still hurt from yesterday.

I asked her if it would hurt, she said "You've had two children." I said "Yeah, but that was easy."

RegDwighт

7:40 PM

What kind of reply is that anyway.

KitFox

Tart.

I like her. I let her get away with shit in the hopes that it will increase my chances of someday giving her an orgasm.

RegDwighт

It's like saying, "WWII was worse". As if anything that's not as bad as WWII is automatically super good. Stupid relativism.

KitFox

I've also had capsaicin injected under my skin. That wasn't really what I was asking, was it? I should have held her to it.

It's not like I have a shot with her anyway.

Women are so fickle.

RegDwighт

►

Warning: car meets cow. But the cow is fine. Unlike the car.

KitFox

Dude.

RegDwighт

7:49 PM

I do wonder why the title is in Spanish.

Well, the important part is not: "I hate Russia".

KitFox

I was happy I could read it.

Haha, really?

RegDwighт

Yeah.

KitFox

I suppose I ought to learn Russian.

RegDwighт

Well, have you seen him in the video? Poor sod. WTF are you supposed to do?

KitFox

I don't know. Pretty inevitable. Like hitting deer.

RegDwighт

7:50 PM

Especially in Russia. Even if you figure out with major help from God the Almighty whose cow that was, nobody fucking owes you a cent.

Wild Wild East.

KitFox

Could you eat the animal if you killed it with your car?

RegDwighт

Well, again. The idea is you can do anything as long as nobody's preventing you.

KitFox

Oh. How very libertarian.

RegDwighт

Tell me about it.

KitFox

oh damn damn damn stupid concert tonight. I better jet before traffic starts getting crappy.

later

RegDwighт

7:54 PM

Have fun jetting.

Robusto

@MattЭллен If they're specially trained by members of the Church of the Ladder Day Saints.

@RegDwighт The NSA knows whose cow it is.

RegDwighт

And even they prefer to take the cent from you than from that guy.

I am in-no-cent.

What non-cents.

I am in-centsed.

7:58 PM

Centerum centseo Carthago esse delendam.

Robusto

Limn that with pennies, so that I may listen to it in cent-surround.

RegDwighт

Thank you, cent-sei.

Robusto

Nov 24 '12 at 15:05, by Robusto

Thalassa or thalatta — the former or the latter?

RegDwighт

Thalassa of two evils.

Robusto

The lessee of two evils.

Lessee ... did I get that right?

RegDwighт

8:00 PM

Lessee is female. Male is Lescent.

Le scent de la femme.

Robusto

You're making less cents.

RegDwighт

I am the bi centennial man.

Robusto

So it's true. You're bi.

For a start, I would not phonetically spell doing as doin' - the g is pronounced, at least in BrE. — TrevorD Jun 21 at 0:33

RegDwighт

And you keep explaining my jokes to... who?

Robusto

Gotta hand it to the Brits.

They get them's knickers in a twist alla time them does.

RegDwighт

8:02 PM

Alla time hu akbar.

I am the bi the bi centennial man.

Robusto

This is what remains of the British empire: residual peeving about people pronouncing their language wrong, and not paying attention to the (ahem) sterling example of pronunciation (and spelling) that each and every British citizen provides.

They should have patented English when they had the chance.

RegDwighт

Robusto

Steve Jobs would totally patent English. In fact, he might have already.

RegDwighт

Sterling example.

Robusto

Sterling => glinters => tinglers => restling (which is not a word, but should be)

restling n A small period of rest or relaxation.

RegDwighт

8:06 PM

World Restling Federation.

Jeffrey Sterling, Baron Sterling of Plaistow

Jeffrey Maurice Sterling, Baron Sterling of Plaistow, GCVO, CBE (born 27 December 1934), is a British businessman and Conservative peer. The Plaistow referred to is Plaistow, West Sussex, reflected in the land holdings in the county. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1977 and was knighted in the 1985 New Year’s Honours List for public services and services to industry. He was created a life peer as Baron Sterling of Plaistow, of Pall Mall in the City of Westminster in 1990 in Margaret Thatcher’s resignation honours list. He was granted the accolad...

Robusto

I wonder if -ling is related to Ger. -lein.

RegDwighт

I think we discussed it at one point but I didn't pay attention.

Robusto

Then you're no good to me.

RegDwighт

Jun 6 at 18:32, by RegDwighт

You know I'm bad, I'm bad, come on, you know it (bad, bad, really, really bad).

Speaking of which, Weird Al Yankovic did an AMA recently.

I didn't realize he still existed.

Robusto

Kinda too late for that, innit?

Dan Carlin did an AMA a little while ago too.

RegDwighт

8:09 PM

Well I dunno he is still like making stuff and doing things or something.

And there were people who had been like to his concerts only recently.

Robusto

> My one beef, I don't feel that it's correct or responsible to refer to government as some kind of single-minded being.

My friend writes about a DC podcast.

RegDwighт

Yeah, it's not minded.

Robusto

> No, but the problem is, if government is granted asshole-a-saurus powers, it doesn't have to act in concert to abuse those powers. All it takes is someone in some obscure office, acting under the cover of secrecy, to seriously fuck up your shit. There is no accountability. The rest of the government may not even be aware of what is going on, and probably won't be. And if they were, chances are they'd deny it anyway.

RegDwighт

More like multi-arsed.

Robusto

My reply.

Oh, I should add the other part of what he said:

> Good or not, government is a group of people, and its flaws are related to that. It's not one big asshole-a-saurus creature.

RegDwighт

8:11 PM

Well, if you ask me, that's not even the worst part.

Robusto

There's a worst part?

RegDwighт

The worst part is that when there is accountability, it is a joke. Their understanding of accountability is "This person here no longer holds a meaningless title, this other person does. Everyone carries on with everything. Everyone still gets money till the end of their lives."

It's like, you know, if you kill someone, and all they do is give your gun to someone else, and get you a new one.

You've been punished.

Robusto

Well, you are bending over backwards to label that as accountability, and then leaning forwards just as far to dispute the assertion. Let's just say that this whole notion of "accountability" has become a fig leaf for all sorts of violations.

RegDwighт

Well yes, that's what I'm saying.

Cheney has paid for his war crimes by having been paid for them.

Watch Obama get nice and fat and his offspring run the country.

Robusto

In a way, Obama is worse than Cheney. Cheney never campaigned on a platform of openness and reining in executive privilege and power.

The most dangerous threats are the ones that don't look like threats.

RegDwighт

8:18 PM

Actually Cheney and the rest of the PNAC were exceptionally open about their ideas.

Heck, they put it right in the name.

Not so Obama.

Robusto

No. As he signed the Defense Appropriations Act, giving himself dictatorial power (and if the power to imprison or kill any citizen on his whim alone is not dictatorial, then I don't know the meaning of the word), he said, "I'll never use this power." Jon Stewart commented, "Well, that's all right, because you'll always be president."

And of course he went along and used it anyway.

RegDwighт

Civil rights/constitutional law attorney.

Robusto

Exactly.

There was the hope! A student of the Constitution come to right all the previous administration's overreaches.

And it sucked me in. And now I just feel like a sucker.

RegDwighт

Well, I do wonder why people thought that constitutional law attorneys are somehow meant for defending the Constitution, rather than for knowing the best way around it.

People don't seem to make that mistake with other attorneys. Just saying.

Robusto

Well, yeah, but the people in government are all either attorneys or MBAs. I can't decide which is worse.

Where are the poet senators?

RegDwighт

8:23 PM

No shit. Bring them on.

Robusto

Where are the history professor governors?

RegDwighт

Too busy reading books. As in, not Dan Brown.

Robusto

A redundancy.

RegDwighт

Drat, I aimed for not an unlitotes.

Robusto

But even history can come with a lot of spin, depending on who's doing the telling.

RegDwighт

8:25 PM

Written by the winners.

Robusto

Well, not even.

RegDwighт

That's because it's hard to tell who's won.

Only time can do that. And we're like right in the middle of it.

Robusto

For example, I grew up sure in the knowledge that the United States won the Second World War. No mention was made of the fact that Hitler had blundered away any chance he had at victory on the Ostfront before we even got in the war. And it was Russia who had Hitler in full retreat before we ever stormed the beaches of Normandy.

I'm not saying Stalin was anything but a monster. But the Russian army and people are what prevented Hitler from winning the war. It's as plain as that.

RegDwighт

Yeah. We discussed. I never miss the chance to bring that up. 27 million dead before the US even bothered.

And they bothered only because it started to become crystal clear that the Russians were eating their breakfast.

Robusto

If Germany had won at Stalingrad and bought time (and resources, especially oil), they would have been unstoppable. If they'd had even a single year longer to put jet fighters and rockets (and possibly an A-bomb) into production, the outcome might have been vastly different.

@RegDwighт As in "We'd better get some of that pie before there's none left."

There are some who say the only reason we nuked Japan was as an object lesson to Stalin.

RegDwighт

8:38 PM

I still haven't come to terms with how a couple years back, the last Russian soldiers left Germany like a pack of criminals, getting only negative attention if any attention at all, while American GIs get official parades and all, with more flagwaving than they can handle or deserve.

And I don't even mean it negatively, as in "waging illegal wars from German soil" or "spying on German citizens and companies alike". I mean it positively as in "not having done shit".

But wevs.

And present company excepted yada yada.

Robusto

It's all because the West hated Communism above all.

And by "the West" I mean the people who really own it.

RegDwighт

I dunno, to this day not a single person could explain to me what Communism even is.

They only hate a word.

Robusto

You don't have to. All you have to do is shriek "Communism" and it's like yelling "fire" in a theater.

Jinx.

RegDwighт

Google Image Search result for "Obamacare coke".

Robusto

@RegDwighт Haha, nice.

RegDwighт

8:51 PM

> ...Health officials seem to like the idea of a federal soda tax. They say we consume about 250 more calories a day than we did just 20 years ago and most of those calories are from the soda can. Adding a tax of three cents a can to high-calorie sodas could generate $24 billion over the next four years. Opponents argue Americans won't tolerate another tax.

I loled. That is their argument?

Robusto

@RegDwighт I forgot the power of stupidity to fuck up our nation. Thanks for reminding me.

RegDwighт

They won't tolerate it as in how? Stop buying soda? Yeah right.

Robusto

> "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." — Lord Acton.

RegDwighт

People will tolerate anything and everything. If you don't believe it, watch them do it.

Robusto

Yup. If it's a choice between working for real change (not Obama change) and watching TV, guess which TV will get watched.

About the kindest spin I can put on this is that maybe Obama doesn't have as much power as he lets on. I mean, he kept so many people from the Bush administration. Maybe it's the entrenched bureaucracy that is the real power.

RegDwighт

8:55 PM

I remember how a pack of cigarettes cost one DM. I remember how people supposedly wouldn't tolerate it costing two DM. Then they supposedly wouldn't tolerate it costing three. Long story short, it's almost ten DM now (five Euro) and you're not allowed to smoke in bars or pretty much anywhere, and guess what the smokers are doing. Hint: it is not not smoking.

Robusto

I know. They are huddled outside in the rain, smoking.

RegDwighт

For ten times the price.

So three cents a can my ass.

Robusto

We had riots when gasoline went from 30 cents a gallon to 75 cents back in the '70s. Did people stop driving big cars here?

RegDwighт

They stopped driving tiny cars. Look at that Chevy, now look at this Humvee. Now the Chevy. Now the Humvee again.

Robusto

Is it possible that Obama's dumber than we think? I mean, nobody thinks he's anything but an intellectual powerhouse, right? But what if we're wrong about that?

RegDwighт

9:00 PM

It's that usual expectations thing. Nobody ever expected anything from Dubya, so guess what, after a year everyone was saying he was better than expected. Big fucking surprise. Same with Obama except in the opposite direction.

That, by the way, is also the reason why there'll never be a Second Coming. Christ cannot be that dumb.

Robusto

Heh. Don't even get me started. Politically, I feel like a prom date who got gang-raped and let out of the limo in a rainy field miles from the highway.

2

RegDwighт

Now this is nice. I wasn't aware.

Happy birthday, weirdo.

Note to self: Kit one day before Franz.

Also, earlier today IMDb said it was Tom Cruise's 51st.

And so the difference between Tom Cruise and Franz Kafka is my birth year. Coincidence?

Not think I!

simchona

@Sudhir Giving mods your question link won't make it magically get an answer. If people don't want to answer, they won't

tchrist

9:17 PM

@RegDwighт Just think of it as tripleted sixty-fourth notes.

Matt Эллен

RegDwighт

But how much is that in cm?

Matt Эллен

sentient bots

tchrist

Stop moving around.

I dunno. Don't need to know.

RegDwighт

OMFG. If you think I'm reading a 4chan thread, think again.

It's like, long. Dude.

tchrist

9:19 PM

Flattery will get you everywhere.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwighт in short: guy lets quake 3 bots fight each other for 4 years. When he finally checks on them they've stopped fighting.

RegDwighт

Now that's what I call an anticlimax.

Good thing I didn't read it.

tchrist

Saw some pickies of the Egyptian crowds jubilant. I tell ya, those people sure do wear a lot of clothes for this high time of the solar year, especially at that latitude and altitude.

RegDwighт

Well I thought people in the desert always wore lots of clothes to keep themselves cool much in the same way we wear lots of clothes to keep ourselves warm.

tchrist

Dunno. Round here nobody wears much in the summer, and I'm pretty desertish.

I think it was all the silly hats.

RegDwighт

9:26 PM

Besides, my understanding is they are camping there 24/7, and +40 at noon can easily mean -20 at night.

tchrist

Disbelieve.

RegDwighт

Get yourself a proper minus. I can't be bothered.

tchrist

You mean +20 at night.

RegDwighт

Same difference.

When it's +40 all day long, +20 feels like freezing.

But my understanding is that in the desert it's actually below zero at night.

It's stone, not wood. The faster it accumulates warmth, the faster it releases it.

tchrist

So, like, no.

That isn't very desert-like.

Well, the precip chance is.

But that's only a 20 degree temperature swing. Not very high.

There ya go: that's desert.

Your theory about the desert is not wrong. It just does not seem to apply to Cairo. Maybe an urban heat island.

RegDwighт

9:35 PM

Yeah I know, obviously.

I was more like making conversation, as I haven't even seen the people in question, so I can only invent things.

tchrist

I'm sorry.

RegDwighт

Tee hee.

tchrist

That is in the Black Rock Desert, where Burning Man is. Notice it gets to 10C at night.

Robusto

@RegDwighт You were born in the '70s?

tchrist

I promise you that a swing of 10C by night to 50C by day makes for a lot of costume changes.

Robusto

9:38 PM

@RegDwighт Clothing is also a sun shield.

tchrist

Whole lotta garmentry there.

But colorful, that I do grant you.

Robusto

And that's just the women.

tchrist

How can you tell?

Robusto

They are ululating.

tchrist

I hadn't realized that was a feminine verb.

You know, like to birth.

Or how to impregnate is a masculine verb.

Speaking of the devil.

@Reg Are(n't) you going to get in trouble with TPTB?

Robusto

9:43 PM

Hysterical used to be a female-only adjective. The etymology refers to the uterus.

tchrist

Still does.

Robusto

Still is or still does?

I know the etymology still does refer to the uterus.

But the adjective is general now.

Gender neutral.

Uxorious refers to men only.

But now that there are lesbian marriages, maybe there are some uxorious lesbian partners. It could happen.

tchrist

General genera gender genra.

A pussy-whipped lesbian? Paint me dubious.

Robusto

Don't make me bring out the irony board.

tchrist

My nails need sharpening.

Robusto

9:46 PM

Shoulda gone to Emory University.

tchrist

Mt Emory is the tallest peak in Tejas.

Robusto

@RegDwighт: Also, one of the reasons no parades in Deutschland for departing Russkies is that the Russians had the bad taste to do to the German citizenry what the German soldiers did to the Russian civilian population. That wasn't cricket, what your forefathers did in Ostpreußen et al. See, once the Nazis had stopped the atrocities (because they were beaten and fleeing), it was bad form to keep that whole thing going.

Mitch

10:03 PM

@Mahnax Yes, I am inferring that since your going with your family, your parents are covering everything.

tchrist

Turns out there was an important undelivered final text message from my friend lost at sea. It has taken weeks to shake it out of the provider, and State Department intervention, to get around the “sorry, can’t; that’s private” problem.

It shows that they survived the storm, but with shredded sails so running under bare poles at 4 kts. They will therefore be in an area not looked for, if they are still alive.

@Cerberus New word on the last schooner. There may be some hope after all.

Also, it looks like the message is a part of some conversation we hadn’t known about.

Start here with the message from “Friend of Nina” that begins with URGENT.

This is the first good news in weeks.

Mitch

@simchona I looked at it. But... well... not much to say.

tchrist

> I bet RCC pretty irritated with Iridium knowing they had this info knowing lost at sea and evoking US privacy rules. Gosh I get spam everyday because a company sells my personal information. Very up standing Iridium, sailors keep this in mind when using them.

RCC = New Zealand’s (Search-and-)Rescue Coordination Center.

Guess they’re searching 270,000 square miles today.

Not sure why the dad puts them 4–5 days out from Oz.

That’s Louisiana’s “literacy” test from the 1960s, used to stop blacks from voting.

This is why we need the Voting Rights Act.

Somebody should have been lynched for that.

simchona

10:49 PM

@Mitch I did too. But throwing it in the ring, being like "here ya go! Answer it!" twice in two days isn't really the right call

RegDwighт

@Robusto I was almost born in the 80s.

@Robusto well I'm not so sure about that, actually. Remember what the English did to the Germans, and not just after the Nazis started fleeing, but pretty much as an addendum to the war after it was over. And yet, no German has any beef with the English.

I suppose that's because the rape victims survived, while the firestorm victims died in the firestorms.

So the lesson is not, "if you care about your reputation, do not gang-rape", but rather, "if you care about your reputation, gang-rape and then murder".

tchrist

11:04 PM

Pfnuck

Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969) is a satirical novel by Kurt Vonnegut about World War II experiences and journeys through time of a soldier named Billy Pilgrim. Ranked the 18th greatest English language novel of the 20th century by Modern Library, it is generally recognized as Vonnegut's most influential and popular work. Vonnegut's use of the firebombing of Dresden as a central event makes the novel semi-autobiographical, as he was present during the bombing. Plot summary Chaplain's Assistant Billy Pilgrim is a disoriented, fatalistic, an...

That was my intro to the whole affair.

RegDwighт

Kurt's a good man.

tchrist

The Americans studied the Peshtigo Fire to learn about how to make a firestorm.

Yes, I think that is an Amerind word. It's funny looking/sounding.

RegDwighт

Well, on this cheerful note I'll be taking my leave for today.

Goede nacht.

tchrist

Goethe not?

KitFox