English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

00:00

Not making this up.

foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/08/…

> Lawmakers and other important officials took turns sitting in a leather "captain's chair" in the center of the room and watched as Alexander, a lover of science-fiction movies, showed off his data tools on the big screen.

> "Everybody wanted to sit in the chair at least once to pretend he was Jean-Luc Picard," says a retired officer in charge of VIP visits.

Pathetic. Beyond despicable.

tchrist

s/flk/59-jug0jafl'k090-dfg=1

Cerberus

Yes.

tchrist

I saw big hulking army transport vehicles moving through town today full of bottled water.

Cerberus

But you didn't need it.

tchrist

heh

Johan Larsson

00:04

@tchrist textile carpet?

Cerberus

> "He had all these diagrams showing how this [suspected terrorist] was connected to that guy and to that guy," says a former NSA official who heard Alexander give briefings on the floor of the Information Dominance Center. "Some of my colleagues and I were skeptical. Later, we had a chance to review the information. It turns out that all [that] those guys were connected to were pizza shops."

tchrist

It’s for the stranded people.

@Cerberus You know that’s how the press figures out that something major is about to go down, right? They track late-night pizza deliveries to certain government offices.

@JohanLarsson Yes.

Cerberus

@tchrist Sure...but that seems unrelated.

tchrist

Pizza is critical intelligence. :)

Cerberus

Knowing what other people visit the pizza shop that a certain terrorist visits is not the same as investigating his social network.

Johan Larsson

00:08

@tchrist not a good idea in the first place imo, getting it removed is one good thing in all your pain

RegDwighт

Oh, and one more thing. I did zap into GoT on a number of occasions. Tried watching it. But it didn't really make sense. You have to watch it from the beginning to grasp what's going on at all. Not so Breaking Bad. I started watching with the fourth season, in fact. Out of five. And I had no idea who all these people were. Yet it sucked me right in, right then and there.

tchrist

Too many to post here, but these are staggering.

@RegDwighт Yes, it’s a problem.

RegDwighт

And one more thing still. Each season of Breaking Bad has a logical end. It is complete. If you don't feel like watching on, you don't have to. There are no loose ends. At the same time, if you do go on and watch the first episode of the next season, you suddenly realize how many loose ends there actually are. They hit you with it right in the face, the sheer wealth of it is overwhelming. But in a good way. They don't pull stuff out of thin air. It really is all right there. It makes sense.

As Rob once succinctly put it,

Sep 7 at 20:26, by Robusto

That's what's so fucking great about this show. It's smarter than I am.

tchrist

@RegDwighт Those are few and far between.

RegDwighт

Yeah I mean it's like Robusto we're talking about and all.

Cerberus

00:12

@RegDwighт This is true, about the GoT.

tchrist

I know.

Cerberus

> It ~~is smarter~~ has a bigger ego than I have.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus Yeah. Which is why, unlike with BB, I don't really care about any spoilers. They don't spoil anything to me.

Cerberus

Or because you don't like the series, rather...

My friend is trying to make me read the books.

RegDwighт

I didn't say that. In fact I said I was going to watch it. And I am.

It's just that I'll have to pick up at S1E1.

Cerberus

00:14

Really?

Yes, you will.

It starts out good, then deteriorates into meh.

RegDwighт

I'll see.

Cerberus

It is a soap opera for men.

RegDwighт

I haven't started with Mad Men, either.

Another show I don't really care about but everyone keeps telling me it's a must.

Cerberus

Oh, dear.

RegDwighт

Aug 17 at 22:45, by RegDwighт

@Robusto ah, glad you had a look. No, I haven't seen Mad Men yet, it's been on my todo list forever. Somehow I'm really really really not interested in that era, though people keep saying I'll quickly stop noticing.

Cerberus

00:16

I'm trying to think of a non-comedic television series that I really liked.

RegDwighт

Alf.

Stupid edit.

Thank God everyone can see the history!

Cerberus

Heh.

thanks God

RegDwighт

But I'm still not really here.

Cerberus

I guess I liked Brideshead.

But I haven't even seen the entire series. I liked the book.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus Which one? Tell me it's Hermes. It must be Hermes.

Cerberus

00:17

No, silly. Hades.

RegDwighт

is not relieved

Cerberus

Good.

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus meh and soft porn

RegDwighт

Hades has no fluffy wings on his helmet. Ur liek stoopid.

Cerberus

Yes. And violence porn.

RegDwighт

00:18

And I'm still not here, in case you're not noticing.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Notice whom?

That is another thing I disliked about the Game, the functionless violence.

tchrist

Yes.

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus Twin Peaks is insanely good imo

Cerberus

Ah, yes, people have been praising that since forever.

Johan Larsson

there are British drama serieses, which I don't remember the names of, that are good

wtf @ plural of series

Cerberus

00:26

Sure, there are many.

@tchrist Hey, how do I know whether a certain number is a cell phone number?

Johan Larsson

In general they feel more intelligent and credible

Cerberus

Does it start with certain digits?

@JohanLarsson Yeah, I guess. Although Downton Abbey is not that intelligent or credible...

Johan Larsson

no Downton Abbey is crap

Cerberus

> 001 914 ...

Is this likely to be a cell-phone number?

Or is there no way to tell?

@JohanLarsson Well, crap...it is entertaining, no?

Johan Larsson

did not particularly like it, gf watched it so I was exposed to it that way

Cerberus

00:30

Heh.

It is addictive, light entertainment.

Johan Larsson

it was targeting a female audience I think

Cerberus

But probably not something that will be remember 50 years from now.

I don't know, it's very popular among both sexes.

Johan Larsson

the production, clothes etc. was high quality

Cerberus

Around the world.

Johan Larsson

the acting ok

Cerberus

00:31

Sure.

But the plots are fairly standard.

Johan Larsson

yeah standard/boring

@Cerberus this is really really good imo.

only three 90-minute episodes

Cerberus

Hmm.

It sounds...dramatic.

Johan Larsson

I can recommend it wholeheartedly

Cerberus

Noted!

RegDwighт

BTW, does GoT even have a general story arc? I think the last book hasn't even been written yet, am I wrong?

@JohanLarsson another BTW, I looked into that and it's on my To Watch list now. Thanks.

Johan Larsson

00:40

@RegDwighт I think the idea is a couple of expensive episodes in the beginning, sfx etc. then just soft-porn and meh for a while.

RegDwighт

I see.

Mkay.

Johan Larsson

@RegDwighт yeah, not much Berlin at all. Great acting also. Based on a true story is always good.

RegDwighт

It's just that with BB, or really even, to get away from it, with Harry Potter, you know that it's going to end, and in the most general strokes you can think of how.

So it's not just another Married with Children, or even Alf for that matter.

Or actually, God forbid, How I Met Your Mother. Where you know exactly what the end must be, but they keep pushing it away artificially.

Johan Larsson

The guy who plays Walter White does a really good job, liked the cop character also.

RegDwighт

The first two or three seasons of HIMYM were quite solid, come to think of it. But then it just got awful. And awfuler. And more awful.

I quit.

@JohanLarsson you mean Mike? He only really appears in Season 4. I'm confused when you really had enough.

Or Hank? He's with the DEA so not strictly a cop.

Johan Larsson

00:46

Hank

RegDwighт

Okay.

Yeah no matter what you think of the show, the acting is solid and the characters are fleshed out.

Johan Larsson

@RegDwighт I'm also confused, will not write anything negative about BB from now on

RegDwighт

Teeheeheeheehee.

Johan Larsson

have you watched The Wire?

RegDwighт

I have watched enough of it to know I don't understand a word they're saying.

Johan Larsson

00:48

Watching it might be an alternative to watching BB a fift time

RegDwighт

Mar 29 at 13:40, by RegDwighт

I only understand "motherfucker". On the plus side, that's every other word. So I can still kind of follow along.

But no. I haven't really watched it at all.

It's on my list, of course.

You have to remember that I also have to catch up with Russian and German and other stuff.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт It does have a story line, just like any soap opera.

RegDwighт

I'm a busy man.

Cerberus

New bits are sewed on as the old bits are finished.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus well but that's my question. Soap operas don't really have an end in mind. They are in the neverending business.

Cerberus

00:49

There is also a secondary storyline that never interacts with the main story at all, presumably until book 4.

RegDwighт

Hm. Could or could not be interesting.

Cerberus

@RegDwighт Exactly.

@RegDwighт Not really, if you ask me.

RegDwighт

So how much have you seen of it?

Cerberus

I don't know how many more seasons it will take to finish the first book...

I have seen two out of three seasons.

RegDwighт

And the current season is number...?

Cerberus

00:50

I was totally addicted.

3 has finished.

RegDwighт

So three. Hm. I was under the impression there were like six by now.

Cerberus

Alas, no.

RegDwighт

How many episodes per season? Too lazy to check wiki.

Cerberus

It's not all crap. There are some good plots and great characters.

I don't know...I think...22?

RegDwighт

I just can't stand that hydrogenhyperoxide blonde with black eyebrows.

Cerberus

00:52

Which one?

RegDwighт

So stupid.

There are several?

Cerberus

I guess maybe the Queen doesn't have black eyebrows.

RegDwighт

I don't think she's anything of a queen. Not yet anyway.

Cerberus

This is the Queen.

RegDwighт

Oh.

Cerberus

00:54

Serse, or some other failed variation on Circe.

@RegDwighт Ah, yes, that's the other blonde.

The dragon girl.

The totally unrelated plot.

Johan Larsson

Solsidan is an ok Swedish series, first season at least. Comedy about life.

RegDwighт

Wait. Them's different?

Cerberus

Haha.

RegDwighт

compares the pictures closely

sees no difference whatsoever

Cerberus

Hey, I'm the one who scored badly at the face-recognition test.

@RegDwighт Look at the hair. Second girl's hair is more bleached.

RegDwighт

00:55

Could be a different season.

Fall vs. winter.

Cerberus

Haha.

RegDwighт

BTW you won't see any of that shit on BB. The continuity is impeccable.

Cerberus

They were yelling "winter is coming" all the time during seasons 1 and 2.

It still didn't exactly come by the end of 2.

RegDwighт

SPOILERS!1!!!!!!

Cerberus

Oh, hardly.

RegDwighт

00:56

I be the judge.

Cerberus

And I wasn't exactly 100 % unmisleading.

RegDwighт

That is implied and explied and understood and overstood.

Cerberus

And I still don't really get the winter thing.

It is more like...a decorative yell.

RegDwighт

In other nonnews I still have the three letters A, F, K for you. Sorries.

Cerberus

Oh, nice letters.

RegDwighт

00:57

I'm so busy right now!

God.

Cerberus

Watching BB?

RegDwighт

Hermes.

@Cerberus yeah no I wish.

Cerberus

Busy with Hermes?

You have to wait until your wife is in the mood?

RegDwighт

Yeah no you wish.

BBL

Cerberus

He would never come down here.

Bai.

tchrist

01:01

What are you people doing still awake?????

Cerberus

You know we always are.

Johan Larsson

we are here for you

Cerberus

@tchrist So do you know how I can tell whether a number is a cell phone?

@JohanLarsson Always.

tchrist

@Cerberus Yes.

Cerberus

> 001 914...

I think 001 is the country code?

tchrist

01:02

And?

Cerberus

Does 914 mean anything?

I'd rather not post the entire number.

tchrist

Not anymore.

Cerberus

Oh...

tchrist

With number mobility, you can only know by asking them.

Cerberus

So how can you tell whether it's a cell phone?

So...it's impossible to tell?

tchrist

01:03

I can’t tell you that. I’d have to kill you.

No, the phone companies know.

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus did you google the number?

tchrist

I’ve been dwinking.

Cerberus

@tchrist OK.

tchrist

Not many graphs with a skyrocket inflection point.

Cerberus

That's a nice straight line.

@JohanLarsson Hmm I could try that, why not.

It is the friend of a friend.

I need to make sure she got the wedding invitation.

But I don't know her.

tchrist

01:05

The area code does not tell you whether it is a cell phone.

And it never did.

It just no longer guarantees the area.

Cerberus

Noted.

tchrist

Area code 914 is assigned to Westchester County in New York. Please do not make me explain counties again. :)

For example, the cities of Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, and White Plains.

Cerberus

OK.

I'll just text her, then.

tchrist

So it is probably from there, but you cannot tell.

Yes, that’s the best way.

Unless you work for the phone company.

Cerberus

No, I only work for the NSA.

tchrist

01:10

5

4

3

2

1

0

Cerberus

What was that?

tchrist

Gee.

Cerberus

I saw you type 1, 0, but the lines were already gone..

tchrist

Oh.

Cerberus

Sure.

"Provide"?

tchrist

01:13

Sure.

Cerberus

I'm not surprised, although I didn't know you were involved...

tchrist

I prefer it that way.

Cerberus

Understandable.

Sheriff is a funny word.

tchrist

Isn’t it though?

I laughed quite a bit at first.

Cerberus

Old.

tchrist

01:15

You’d think they’d be the good guys.

Cerberus

How normal is it in your country?

tchrist

Part of that is fraud detection.

Cerberus

I'm sure.

tchrist

Hm.

Cerberus

I think the word sheriff went out of use centuries ago in England?

tchrist

01:16

Well, every county’s chief cop is its sheriff.

Cerberus

Yeah, that.

We lost the word schout long ago.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

O hai.

tchrist

Police are municipal, sheriff is county.

Cerberus

Hi!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I know some area codes.

MετάEd

01:16

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Ojai.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Sometimes they have an NPA split.

@MετάEd hao ewe?

I remember when we had to start 10-digit dialing across the state line here in Kansas City.

tchrist

The sheriff was always the county cop. It’s from shire.

> Etymology: OE. scírġeréfa, f. scír shire + ġeréfa reeve. The etymological form shire-reeve (q.v. under shire) has occasionally been used by legal antiquaries from the 16th c. downwards. As the OE. scír had, in addition to its specific sense, the general sense of ‘district under a person’s administration, province’, scírġeréfa had also a wider meaning, e.g. when the bishop is called ‘Christ’s scírġerefa’. (Cf. sense (def#3) below.)

Forms: ɑ. 1 scírġeréfa, 2 scyrreve, pl. scirerevan, sirrefan, 2-3 scirreve, syrreve, 3 schyrreve, 3-5 schir(r)eve, 3-5, (7) shireve, 4-5 schyreve, shirreve, shyr(r)eve, schirrive, schyrryve, (5 pl. shirris), 6 shyreeve.
β. 3 s(s)erreve, 3-5 scherreve, 4 sschereve, shereyve, 4-5 schereve, sher(r)eve, 5 s(c)heryve, sherreive, shurreve, 7 shearive, 7-8 sherive.
ɣ. 3-6 schirref(f, 4-5 schirrif, schyr(r)eff, 4-6 shiref, shyref, 4-7 schiref(f, 5 schyriffe, shyryf(e, -yffe, shi-, shyrryf, shiriff, -efe, shirrieffe, Sc. schirrayf, 5-6 schir(r)effe, shirref, -if, -ef(f)e, 6 schyrriff(e, shyreff(e, s…

@Cerberus I don’t see how that would be the same word.

Cerberus

OK message sent.

@tchrist Perhaps not.

I think schout is related to shall.

I wonder whether Dutch has a word like shire.

tchrist

> 1828-32 Webster s.v., — The sherif, by himself or his deputies, executes civil and criminal process throughout the county, has charge of the jail and prisoners, attends courts and keeps the peace.

Cerberus

The only thing I can think of is schare.

@tchrist That is exactly what a schout did.

Police chief and lower judge, I guess.

tchrist

01:25

No, he is never the judge. That would be Wrong.

Must keep cops and judges separate.

Cerberus

@tchrist Hmm I didn't know shirra was sheriff.

@tchrist That is so very modern.

MετάEd

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Moosely good, thank ewe.

tchrist

He attends courts; he does not preside. That would be evil.

Cerberus

I'm sure he meted out punishments.

tchrist

Yeah, you guys have evil judge-prosecutors, don’t you? Fricking medieval.

At the lictor, the sheriff was in charge of executions. But he could not order them. Officially.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

01:27

I shot the serif / but I did not shoot the ampersand

tchrist

However, his brother or father was probably the judge.

Cerberus

Sheriffs are judges in Scotland.
Sheriff is a ceremonial position in England, Wales, and India.

MετάEd

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I shot the serif / But I swear it was in shelf-defense

Cerberus

@tchrist Had, in the Middle Ages.

Like everyone else.

tchrist

@Cerberus I thought the non-English parts of Europe still had those.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

01:29

@MετάEd in that case...

tchrist

Or some of them.

Cerberus

No?

tchrist

I don’t know. Checking.

Cerberus

It is true that a court can under exceptional circumstances serve someone.

tchrist

It was something in Spain, with the derailing recently in Galicia.

Cerberus

01:30

If the Public Ministry, which houses the Officers of Justice, fails to do its work, a court may intervene and open a case itself.

tchrist

Something about the judge doing the investigating.

MετάEd

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I shot the serif, but I swear the dingbat had it coming.

Cerberus

Judges investigate, to be sure.

tchrist

And finding whom to charge.

That seemed, off.

Cerberus

A judge should never trust what a public prosecutor tells him out of hand.

tchrist

01:32

Well, they’ve just told us to conserve water.

Cerberus

So you need fewer resources here to defend yourself in court against a meritless charge.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@MετάEd :D

Cerberus

A public prosecutor tells you to conserve water?

tchrist

No.

OEM

Office of Emergency Management. County functionary.

> The City of Boulder is urging increased water conservation by city water customers for several reasons as a result of the recent flooding. Water customers are asked to turn off all irrigation systems. Turf, plants and trees do not need supplemental water at this time. Run only run full loads in the clothes and dishwashers. Don't let taps run or flush toilets unnecessarily.

Cerberus

Oh, a change of topic. OK.

tchrist

01:35

I cannot believe they thought they had to tell people that plants don’t need to be watered.

Cerberus

> Turf, plants and trees do not need supplemental water at this time.

Funny.

tchrist

Because of the redundancy?

The city's Betasso Water Treatment Facility is operational and continues to deliver safe drinking water to city residents. However, due to high levels of turbidity in the Boulder Reservoir, the Boulder Reservoir Water Treatment Facility is not able to treat drinking water at this time and was not brought back online as the city had planned. While the Betasso facility has the ability to deliver water to all city customers, the city does not have redundancy in water treatment with the Boulder Reservoir Water facility offline. The city is urging water customers to use water conservatively unti…

So we’ve lost some capacity.

We can handle drinking water, just not stupid wasted water.

Cerberus

Have there been any fires?

Or does that only happen with tsunamis?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Yes, the electrical fires from people sump pumping.

Cerberus

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Oh, dear.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

01:40

IIRC.

@Cerberus oh, dear yourself.

tchrist

That’s correct.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

takes cookie

Cerberus

Japan.

Tsunamis are...fascinating.

tchrist

Another death reported.

Cerberus

tchrist

01:41

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Did you read what I wrote about Katrina?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I did. Need to read the link, though.

Cerberus

What about her?

Have they raised the dikes yet?

tchrist

Biggest airlift since Katrina.

Size of impacted region equal to the state of Connecticut.

@Cerberus The levees have all failed.

See here and page through to the flatlands’ areal flooding, not just the mountains’ flash flooding.

Cerberus

You think they will be raised?

tchrist

What do you mean?

That they will rebuild the levees?

Cerberus

01:50

Yes, but higher.

tchrist

I think the rivers escaped on the plains in places there were not actual levees, but I’m not completely sure how it works.

Oh, you can’t stop that up higher.

Too many contributory streams.

You would have to build a giant dam at the mouth of every canyon.

And it would only save the plains, not the people in the mountains.

It might take us a year to rebuild. Ned will be hungry long before then. And Winter Is Coming.

And 100-year work wouldn’t be enough to have stopped this.

> Engineers often refer to NOAA’s Atlas 14 to find frequency estimates: how often to expect precipitation of a given intensity and duration. Russ Schumacher (Colorado State University) used the atlas to calculate frequency estimates for the rains observed in the critical 48-hour window from 6 a.m. MDT Wednesday to 6 a.m. Friday. In doing so, Schumacher found that a large chunk of Boulder County and parts of several other state counties passed the 1000-year recurrence threshold.

We’d need your country’s level of commitment.

Cerberus

Maybe you could protect some smaller, densely populated areas, like Boulder.

tchrist

Boulder was not destroyed. Barker Dam held. Boulder was merely disastered.

The towns out on the plains are buried in water; they are mucked to death. And the little mountain towns, some are basically destroyed.

Cerberus

And that number of years is not the only thing to consider, but also how badly the area will be damaged if it is flooded.

Chance x damage.

tchrist

Well, yes. That’s basic risk assessment.

Cerberus

01:57

Maybe new neighbourhoods could be built on a raised plateau.

tchrist

The videos from that guy trapped up in the county are just vicious. The flyovers of the people on the plains are just staggering.

Cerberus

Yeah.

Another thing to consider is unbreachable dikes.

The water may flow over the dike, but it cannot create a breach.

So the amount of water flowing over will be limited.

tchrist

We don’t usually use more than simply levees if that.

Cerberus

That may be a lot cheaper than a higher dike.

tchrist

I am not very familiar with what they do out on the plains where they need them.

Cerberus

01:59

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