English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

16:00

I'm a backcountry hiker and backpacker. I'm not stupid.

Or I wouldn't still be alive to type this.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@tchrist Seemingly.

tchrist

Well, at least you won't have all the water up to the Continental Divide crashing down on you.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@tchrist true. And I'm pretty far from the river, and from Flush Creek.

We'll see if the Plaza floods again.

tchrist

That doesn't matter with this storm.

Even if you are at the top of a hill, your basement can flood.

When the water table rises to the troposphere.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

groucho-karl-marx.blogspot.com/2010/09/…

tchrist

16:05

And if you are at the bottom of a hill, God defend you, because nothing else will.

I hope you only get inches not feet.

I can't believe it is fricking downpouring again, hard and heavy and long.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@tchrist thank you.

Johan Larsson

what does the forecast say now?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I hope your rain stops in the next minute.

tchrist

So do I, but all signs point elsewhither.

cyberskull

Have you thought about living somewhere else when this is over?

tchrist

16:09

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

wunderground.com/radar/…

tchrist

Current forecast

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

> THIS WILL CAUSE STREAMS AND CREEKS TO
BEGINNING TO RISE AGAIN.

tchrist

Well, at least it doesn’t say “biblical” again, or that “things are not looking good”.

But well, I think they are not looking good.

They had not gone down yet.

cyberskull

3 mins ago, by cyberskull

Have you thought about living somewhere else when this is over?

tchrist

16:14

Of course not.

Cerberus

6 secs ago, by Cerberus

Like in the Himalaya?

Or maybe here, below sea level.

tchrist

This is an event that one is only likely to see 7% of the time during a normal lifetime.

I just saw it once, and I have maybe 20 years left. Very low chance.

cyberskull

@Cerberus Hey, 6 secs ago is too short!

Johan Larsson

@tchrist I did not find any forecast mentioning mm of rain. This is nice from SMHI.

tchrist

We don’t get “mm” of rain.

Cerberus

16:18

@cyberskull What if I'm just short tempered? Or short haired?

cyberskull

@Cerberus Hmmm...good point.

Cerberus

@JohanLarsson What does börd mean? Must be "fall" or something?

tchrist

I have seen estimates ranging from ⅓" per hour up to 1" per ¾ hour. I leave the remaining arithmetricks to you.

Cerberus

Too hard!

tchrist

Then don’t trick.

Learn.

Cerberus

16:20

The metric system has dumbed us down, we can only do mm.

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus Nederbörd is snow/rain, have to look up what börd means. Think it has something to do with where a person is born.

Cerberus

Really??

In Dutch, it's "neerslag", which really means something like "down-beating".

tchrist

macbook# units '0.33 inch/hour' 'meters/second'
	* 2.3283333e-06
	/ 429491.77
macbook# units 'inch/ 0.75 hour' 'meters/second'
	* 9.4074074e-06
	/ 106299.21

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus Börd no point in me trying to translate it

Cerberus

As rain beats down on the land.

tchrist

16:21

There it is in glorious SI. Enjoy.

Just hope you’re bloody happy now.

SI is simply useless.

Cerberus

@JohanLarsson Like birth/geboorte?

Funny.

cyberskull

@tchrist What does SI stand for?

tchrist

So we’re getting 2.3 – 9.4 meters per second of rain.

@cyberskull I don’t know. It’s f'ing French.

Hm, I seem to have a slight magnitude error.

cyberskull

System International

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus yep looks like it, it is an old word that is not used much, might be used in legal things but that is just a guess

Cerberus

16:24

So it's like "rain-birth" in the sense of "the coming-into-being of rain". But "the coming into being down"...

tchrist

Multiply by 10⁻⁶.

cyberskull

1 min ago, by tchrist

Hm, I seem to have a slight magnitude error.

slight?

Cerberus

Americans like big things.

Like Benneton sizes.

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus Neder sounds like lowerish. No idea where nederbörd comes from, birth does not make much sense to me

Cerberus

Yeah it's odd.

Johan Larsson

16:26

but we can't just have rain, we have snow and rain and a mix of them at times

Cerberus

Same here with neerslag.

Johan Larsson

I think there are fun jobs in predicting weather

I miss uncertainty in the forecasts, sent an email about it a while ago, don't think I got an answer. Should send another one.

Cerberus

Agreed.

tchrist

So we are appear to be getting anywhere between 2.3 – 9.4 × 10⁻⁶ meters per second of rain dans le Système international d’unités, et j’éspere que ça te suffise.

Johan Larsson

usually the accuracy is very good for one or two days

I failed, brainfart

tchrist

16:30

Oui.

We do not used derived units in SI.

Now, multiply that by time, and by area, and by the change in altitude causing the force to be multiplied as it rushes down the creeks.

All that shall be done strictly in SI units.

Enjoy. Hope this helps.

Cerberus

"Dans"?

tchrist

Tu dirais qq autre chose?

Cerberus

Depends on what you intended to say...

tchrist

I thought about avec.

Johan Larsson

MathCAD handles units nicely, there is a free express version

tchrist

16:34

We measure stuff here in acre-feet. :)

Cerberus

@tchrist Selon is what I would use.

@JohanLarsson Why "hr"?

tchrist

I am sure that hr is not SI.

Nor, in fact, is mm.

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus it is what they called it, I could redefine it if you want

tchrist

Although I will consider letting it slide.

Cerberus

@JohanLarsson Haha no.

> Albanian ndë- below, low' + (*bherō) fallen' = Swedish nederbörd snowfall' (nedan below' + börd `descent, fall (birth, descent, ancestry, lineage, parentage)' = German niederschlagsmenge (nieder-schlagsmenge).

Johan Larsson

16:40

Cerberus

From *bher-1, English meaning: to bear, carry

Rain bears down on the land?

cyberskull

why do you have to bring bears into this?

Cerberus

GROWL

cyberskull

:D

Cerberus

So that explains nederbörd. Next!

tchrist

17:22

@Cerb Remember that big dam we talked about a few days ago, the one that I said was guarding Boulder?

Cerberus

I do now!

tchrist

At the time, it had plenty of capacity. It no longer does. It’s full.

Cerberus

Full?

tchrist

Water is at the top.

Cerberus

Overflowing water?

tchrist

17:22

Spilling over.

Yes.

Cerberus

Could it break?

tchrist

Probably not.

Cerberus

OK good.

tchrist

That would be the end of all of Boulder. I would survive, but a lot of people would not.

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus guess it is designed for that with a safety factor

Cerberus

17:24

A little bit of extra water might not be a huge problem?

@JohanLarsson Yes, so one would assume.

tchrist

Right now, any water is a problem.

Don’t know how much.

Cerberus

If the town is flooded anyway...

How high is the water now in the inner city?

tchrist

We aren’t underwater like Longmont and such.

I don’t know. The creek mostly went back into its bed.

Cerberus

It all depends on the landscape I guess...

tchrist

I don’t know what’s going on as it spreads out in eastern Boulder. It had been massively flooded, but that was not residential.

Farms were lost, though.

Still are.

Just. Tired.

Cerberus

17:27

Why don't you go take a nap. It's all in the hands of the gods now.

tchrist

We’re supposed to call and register our damage with FEMA. I was going to do that, but then it started up again, so don’t know the full toll.

Part of my weariness is that I have been trying to catch up for time missed at work, and I am smack into that horrible situation again of dealing with code from people whose heads should have rolled for having written it. It is madness upon madness.

But I should like a nap.

That’s our current picture. And it isn’t pretty, at all. From here.

It’s actually worse than that with hard closures, I believe.

cyberskull

Get some sleep pal...you'll need it.

Cerberus

Yeah that looks ugly.

Is Boulder somewhere underneath the waves?

Denver was not much affected?

Johan Larsson

Sleeping is best when it rains.

cyberskull

@tchrist accept the things you can not change

tchrist

17:36

@Cerberus I don’t think most of Boulder is flooded, not like to our north. Some eastern parts are, though.

@cyberskull I am so angry at the people who wrote this code I wish they could be terminated with prejudice but they are long gone. It’s like you commission a fine-art portrait and got a finger painting. Assholes.

Cerberus

Going over someone else's code...

Must be terrible.

tchrist

Depends on whether they were children or professionals.

These were children.

Spoiled, stupid children.

Cerberus

Going over someone else's transcription or translation is already fraught with peril, but the interconnections are a bit less complicated.

tchrist

There is no sense to it.

It is just a train wreck.

A tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus under the bed I think

@tchrist how many lines? What language? Does it have tests?

tchrist

17:43

@JohanLarsson No, these assholes have no automated tests. Many tens of thousands of lines of shell and perl and c and c++, all equally horribly written. It is an insult to children everywhere to call these fingerpaintings.

I am so full of hate right now, it scares me.

Johan Larsson

Hate is not very good, can lead to ass cancer and other PITA.

tchrist

I know.

Got the red buzzing FLASH-FLOOD ALERT again on my cell about an hour ago.

Johan Larsson

Why do you have to go through someone else's code? Are you tasked with it?

tchrist

Yes, I am.

I have to build something that checks their work.

Fuckers.

So first I have to understand it.

And it is nearly impossible, because crap is spread out everywhere.

It has every code-smell you can imagine, in spades and hearts and clubs and diamonds.

Johan Larsson

The pain is felt in Sweden

tchrist

17:48

Right now I have no heart, so am looking for a club to beat them over the head with and then a spade to put them six feet under with.

Not necessarily in that order.

Johan Larsson

what is the code supposed to do?

Cerberus

@JohanLarsson Someone rolled it over?

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus I used google maps to find it

Cerberus

Good thinking.

I'm a bit pissed.

And not the British way!

Johan Larsson

pissed as in angry or drunk?

Cerberus

17:58

The former!

Johan Larsson

but why?

Cerberus

I'm supposed to organise a bachelor's party.

And we had it all planned out.

But now my coörganiser wants to change everything.

Making it more expensive and stuff.

I had a short historical city tour planned.

Johan Larsson

and what is the new suggestion?

Cerberus

Visiting a kind of "haunted house" which is basically a silly tourist trap.

Very crude, and it costs more money.

And she also wants to play some sort of game where people have to pick a song for the bride-to-be to guess.

But I don't want to have a fight with her.

I did let my disappointment shimmer through.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Um.

Isn't that a bachelorette party?

Cerberus

18:03

Yeah it is.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Okay.

Cerberus

But the categories get all mixed up.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

As you were.

Cerberus

When you have men and women, and you have to wade through British and American terms...

Oh, well.

I guess it's not terribly important.

I was afraid this would happen.

Johan Larsson

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 What if she was the ~male~ half of a lesbian marriage?

Cerberus

18:05

Yeah, exactly!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Okay, okay!

Sheesh! :)

Matt Эллен

a "hen doo" in regular English

Cerberus

Doo, even?

Matt Эллен

oh, I never know how to spell that

Cerberus

I called it a "hen party" in my e-mail to the ladies and gentlemen.

Matt Эллен

18:07

do seems to short

Cerberus

I have no idea!

Matt Эллен

yeah, or hen party

Cerberus

OK.

Matt Эллен

I was on a stag doo last night

Cerberus

Oh! Was it fun?

What did you do?

Matt Эллен

18:07

yeah :D

Cerberus

And how much did you have to pay?

Matt Эллен

the Stag spent the night pretending that he used to be The Milkybar Kid

up front was £123

Cerberus

Ah.

Matt Эллен

then there were drinks and entry fees

Cerberus

That's quite a bit of money...

Matt Эллен

18:08

holy shit

the rain's here

Cerberus

Wait, drinks and entry fees came on top of that?

Matt Эллен

yeah

there was a hotel and activities

Cerberus

Oh, my.

Johan Larsson

who are your friends? Manchester United?

Cerberus

I was trying to keep it under € 50.

Matt Эллен

18:09

I've never had to plan one of these and i think they're a sort of status symbol in the UK

Cerberus

I'm not sure I would come if I had to pay € 200.

But at least it was fun!

Matt Эллен

yea :D

Johan Larsson

I'm pretty sure I would find an excuse even if it was free :D

Cerberus

Yeah.

Matt Эллен

the last stag doo I went on was more expensive than that

Cerberus

18:10

@JohanLarsson Maybe not for my best friend.

@MattЭллен So what happens if your bank account is empty?

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus that is me right?

Cerberus

Uhh sure!

Do you think I should have put my foot down?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus I don't know :D I mean, the last stag doo was actually split in 2, an expensive one and a less expensive (but still not cheap) one

people take stag doos seriously here

Cerberus

The bride to be specifically said she wanted it to be cheap and simple, just basically dinner with her best friends.

Matt Эллен

too seriously, perhaps

Cerberus

18:12

@MattЭллен My ears are hurting!

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus in that case you've nothing to worry about

cyberskull

Bachelor party

A bachelor party (United States), known as a stag party, stag night or stag do (especially in Great Britain, Ireland and Canada) a bull's party (South Africa), or a buck's party or buck's night (Australia), is a party held for a man shortly before he enters marriage, to celebrate his "last night of freedom" or merely to spend time with his male friends, who are often at his wedding party afterwards. A bachelor party is usually planned by the best man or other friends of the groom, occasionally, with the assistance of a bachelor party planning company. Variations The equivalent event...

Cerberus

Well, we're now going to this tourist trap, and people have to pay € 90 instead of what I had in mind.

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus you should have put your foot down then imo. Too late to do it now?

Cerberus

Yeah it's too late.

I didn't want to pick a fight with the bride's female best friend.

Johan Larsson

18:13

then all you can do is sabotage the new plan

Cerberus

Haha.

Matt Эллен

lol

Cerberus

Oh, well, it's not that bad.

I'm sure it will still be fun.

Matt Эллен

> In Germany, this event is called Junggesellenabschied

Cerberus

Right!

Matt Эллен

18:15

you couldn't keep it simple, could you Germany?

Johan Larsson

Svensexa, möhippa in Swedish

cyberskull

in the UK ("hag" being a combination of the words "hen" and "stag"), in which both the bride and groom attend.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен "Bachelor's Good-bye."

Matt Эллен

Jungges_ellen_abschied

Cerberus

@cyberskull Ah, nice.

@MattЭллен No, Jung-gesellen-abschied.

Matt Эллен

18:16

@Cerberus that's not what I'm pointing out

Cerberus

Or, rather, Junggesellen-abschied.

@MattЭллен Oh, I apologise...

Matt Эллен

:D

Cerberus

Keep on pointing!

Matt Эллен

It's like you don't even know my name sigh

Cerberus

Ohhh wait.

I didn't recognise you without your proper capital!

Matt Эллен

18:17

lol

Cerberus

It's like...recognising Lord Grantham without his walking-stick!

Johan Larsson

Downton Abbey?

Cerberus

Ding!

Matt Эллен

So you're going to spend more money than planned at this hen night? Pretty much par for the course.

Cerberus

Well, I'm going to force other people to spend more than I had told them it would be.

And against the wishes of the bride to be.

I guess it's still not more than other hen parties, they're often like € 120 here.

But that was specifically what the bride did not want.

And I don't get the chance to enlighten people with quick and simple ways to date Amsterdam architecture.

On the other hand, I don't have to do anything any more.

I guess it's not a big deal, but I just got off the phone and I was a bit annoyed.

My coörganiser said her friends recommended this and it was the normal way and such.

But now I have to go to a birthday party.

Thanks for listening to my whining.

Johan Larsson

18:29

@Cerberus why the umlaut?

uhh

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus have fun!

Cerberus

@JohanLarsson It's a trema, not an umlaut!

Also called diaeresis in English.

@JohanLarsson Oh, dear. That's horrible.

We want it to be civilised!

@MattЭллен Gracias!

Johan Larsson

@Cerberus I googled them dots

Cerberus

Haha yes.

Matt Эллен

the stag last night went around giving away sweets to strangers. he was dressed as a cowboy.

Cerberus

18:34

But no.

In this root, it is tradition to write noöne specifically, but tremata on other words are also appreciated.

@MattЭллен Dressing people up...

I see the Brits doing that here, of course.

Matt Эллен

püt thëm ëvërÿẅhërë

Cerberus

Nooo...

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus yeah.

We dressed my brother up as a Teletubby

Johan Larsson

@MattЭллен övningskörning (driving practice)

Matt Эллен

@JohanLarsson övnïngskörnïng -> more metal

Johan Larsson

18:37

true

why is the Nederland starred? I'm missing something

RegDwighт

It's a place in Colorado tchrist was talking about. But Cerberus jokingly reinterpreted it as "the Netherlands".

You are supposed to laugh. Now laugh already.

Johan Larsson

ty sir

Cerberus

Heh.

RegDwighт

@JohanLarsson You mistyped "ha ha".

Cerberus

As Reg says Nederland is what we call our country.

The exact word and spelling.

Bai!

Johan Larsson

18:52

hejdå

RegDwighт

@Cerberus is a liar, of course.

> We zijn er weer bij en dat is prima, viva Hollandia!

So there.

Cerberus

Oops!

RegDwighт

We houden van het leven de liefde en de lust. We feesten door tot 's avonds laat nog lang niet uitgeblust.

Cerberus

My mistake.

Bai!

RegDwighт

BAI

Stack Exchange

19:00

Limerick Machine: There once was a man in a suit Who couldn’t get on his left boot He pushed and he squirmed …

posted on September 15, 2013 by sgdi

There once was a man in a suit Who couldn’t get on his left boot He pushed and he squirmed He pulled and he turned In the end he went naked of foot

tchrist

19:13

If anybody sees Noah, kick ’em around a bit for me.

@Cerb You were right.

RegDwighт

kicks @Noah around a bit

Well, that was easy.

tchrist

Pretty sure this is all his fault.

Two- and Four-mile Canyons Creeks are overflowing again, as is my own Wonderland Lake, which is actually a reservoir. But I think it’s spilling at the spillway not at the dike. I refuse to go out in this to verify.

@JohanLarsson Here was the prediction ~16 hours ago:

We’re under the “1018” label in the upper middle. Thing is, we’ve already exceeded our inch and aren’t half done yet.

The storm is again just sitting here.

Seems like Obama just declared us a disaster, again. I thought he had done this on Thursday. This must be something new.

Johan Larsson

19:47

@tchrist why? Sounds like it would be faster to ask you to write it in the first place. Was it outsourced?

tchrist

20:46

@JohanLarsson Yes.

And my basement is flooding again.

Johan Larsson

yes as in it was outsourced?

tchrist

right

Johan Larsson

management never wrote much code right?

tchrist

actually, they did, at least the ones close to my level

but those are the people making these decisions

Johan Larsson

hmm, then they should know that understanding and fixing low quality code takes more time than writing

tchrist

20:49

i wish.

I think they had had no idea how low the quality of the code they’d outsourced really was.

Since the only tests are for getting the right output when fed the right input.

And they discontinued code reviews as taking too much time.

They never had a quality standard.

Johan Larsson

ugly spot

tchrist

And are rightly loath to dictate stupidities like brace placement or whatever.

But they are beginning to wonder if that had been a mistake.

Single-letter global variable names for thousands of lines. That kind of shit.

Johan Larsson

What happens if you say that the mess is beyond rescue?

No point in investigating it any further

Making a superman effort and fixing it will likely lead to the same thing happening again?

@tchrist floor drain operating in the wrong direction?

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…