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12:00 AM
Prefix keys are a lot better than hold-down modifiers. But do they work system wide?
 
My wife would be pleased to code in special characters but would be mystified by the technical solutions you and I like.
 
Nothing is easy for someone who has no clue.
 
That's not it. The problem is that a standard Windows box doesn't do it.
 
Why mystified? What's mysterious about "type o// if you want ó"?
 
Even if they have a clue, they can't just install software at the public library or what have you.
 
12:01 AM
Nor can I.
 
I should be able to sit down at a PC in a kiosk and code an O with macron.
Right?
Otherwise, what good is it to have a PC that knows how to display an O with macron?
Microsoft deliberately does not support this at the OS level. They support it in Office because that way you have to buy Office.
 
Neither I nor my parents nor my brother use a different computer for serious work than our one or two main computers.
 
That's an anecdote. That doesn't solve the problem for most people.
Because y'all are not most people.
 
@MετάEd You really think that's why it sucks so much in Windows? That's terrible!
 
Of course I do.
 
12:03 AM
@MετάEd For those people, nothing can solve their problem, so...
I think almost everyone I know, of all generations, uses one or two computers 99 % of the time.
 
@Cerberus The way ahead, I think, is to have browsers provide the input method.
Then screw Microsoft.
 
Why browsers?
Then it won't work in Word or Outlook...
 
@MετάEd But I can't remember all those codes! Sometimes I'll go to the google translate keyboards. Or my ع ف 安 .
 
@MετάEd And will it work in Very Important Office Java Applet From 1999?
 
Oops. Got them out of order. But sounds out right anyway.
 
12:06 AM
There's a thing called Input Tools which extends Chrome to support something like 90 languages.
 
Either way, most people I know should be able to use Autohotkey once it's been installed with a pre-made script (or, even better, a compiled executable that you only need to run at startup, no installation).
And yet nobody does.
Except I.
 
Nobody knows about AHK.
 
Well, many people do.
And Autohotkey is spreading, but not as fast as I would expect.
And those who do know it still don't use it for special characters and accents.
So there's something mysterious going on.
The Freemasons!
Again.
 
No, the masons are for it. Your problem is the Catholic church.
If God had intended people to key o with macron, He would have provided it on the keyboard.
If it's not on a page of the 1601 Authorized Version, God didn't need it.
You don't spell Pope with a macron, do you? 'Nuff said.
 
God = Bill Gates?
Mēânwhīle, Ī căñ ëàsīly typē ány dïacrĭtīc Î wânt.
If the Pope had wanted us to be limited in what we could do, he'd have given us all Iphones. But he didn't!!
P.S. Franciscus, where is my Android tablet??
Or did you intend for me to worship the HTC One?
 
12:28 AM
@MετάEd feels peer pressure. stops spelling Pope with a macron
@Cerberus No but God has met him.
 
Ah.
 
12:54 AM
!!wiki bill gates
 
William Henry "Bill" Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate, investor, programmer, inventor and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009—excluding 2008, when he was ranked third; in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the world's second wealthiest person. According to the Bloomberg Billionai...
 
I scored 90 on the kerning game. What do I win.
 
A kernel.
 
No, no, not kernel. You mean that military rank just below general.
 
No I mean the military rank just above major.
 
1:14 AM
What's a major?
 
1:51 AM
!!wiki army ranks
 
The following tables present the rank insignia of the Japanese military before and during World War II. These designs were worn on shoulders as passants between the years 1911 and 1938, then on collars afterwards until 1945, when the Imperial Japanese Army was dissolved. The same officer ranks were used for both the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy, the only distinction being the placement of the word Rikugun (Army) or Kaigun (Navy) before the rank. Thus, for example, a Captain in the navy shared the same rank designation as that of a Colonel in the Army-Taisa (Colonel),...
 
!!wiki US army ranks
 
|country= |allegiance= Constitution of the United States |branch= |type= Army |size= 546,047 Active personnel 559,244 Reserve and National Guard personnel 1,105,301 total |command_structure= Department of War (1789–1947) Department of the Army (1947–present) |garrison= |garrison_label= |nickname= |patron= |motto= "This We'll Defend" |colors= Black, Gold |colors_label= Colors |march= "The Army Goes Rolling Along" |mascot= |equipment= |equipment_label= |battles= American Revolutionary War Indian Wars War of 1812 Mexican–American War Utah War American Civil War Spanish-American War Philippi...
 
2:15 AM
@tchrist A scale with a third that is two whole tones above the root.
 
 
1 hour later…
3:35 AM
Hi.
 
4:32 AM
> A recently discovered G tridens fruitfly that has evolved a to have images of detailed, ant-like insects on each wing, complete with six legs, a thorax, antennae and a tapered abdomen. The fly uses the images defensively, waving them back and forth when threatened to create the illusion of massing ants.
2
 
Fruitflies have tattoos.
Who would have thought.
 
Guys, I figured out watching movies and TV shows is one of the best way to pick up useful everyday English phrases and words. However, if I am in an environment where I can't really watch movies and TV shows but I can only read books, what kind of books would you recommend as replacement?
Gosh, who calls your personal / travel / business schedule as "itinerary" nowadays. ^_^ Right? We call it time-freaking-table
hehe ^_^ right?
 
 
2 hours later…
7:16 AM
@EnglishMaster Maybe you can try reading movie scripts. They're not very hard to find on the web these days. I've just started to read the script of Cabin in the Woods, and I found lots of "everyday" phrases (for example, I just learned what ala PSA means.)
 
 
2 hours later…
8:50 AM
@Cerberus Fascinating.
 
9:25 AM
Hello.
 
9:44 AM
@Robusto I didn't know fishes had tones. Or roots.
 
we've all got roots. somewhere
 
Moi, je suis deraciné.
 
I have a kilovisit
 
Nice.
I've been meaning to post a screenshot when I hit 1234.
 
9:58 AM
But now I've probably jinxed it.
So for documentation purposes I'll go grab the current one.
 
@MattЭллен 52 is the number of weeks in a year.
 
Wow, I got 12 stars for that line, miracle.
 
10:14 AM
I saw 12 stars after sniffing that line
 
Once a famous conductor was chiding a famous singer, and she said she was a star. The conductor then told her there are only stars in the sky.
 
@JasperLoy I gave you the 12th to provoke just that comment. You didn't disappoint!
Jasper might well be winning the Mr Predictable award this year! Fingers crossed.
 
I am trying to answer more questions to attain 1k, then I can retire.
 
Dec 18 '13 at 18:36, by RegDwigнt
@JasperLoy How about you retire from retiring? Just think about it. In the sum, you have spent whole days of your life just on retiring. You could have had an icecream instead.
 
@JasperLoy It's 13 now.
 
10:22 AM
2
Q: Word for "what if" scenarios

sashankWhat is the English word that best captures " what if" situations. Some thing in lines of "What if something goes wrong". It is close to being pessimistic. But pessimistic is too much negative. Am basically looking for a word that captures "what if situations" rather than "what if" word itself. ...

I don't understand Susan's comment on one of the answers, and don't understand why "hypotheticals" was downvoted.
 
nor me. I upvoted it, as I was about to answer the same
 
Certainly, David's answer is an answer, not a comment.
And certainly, pswg's answer seems valid.
 
The whole question is meh.
 
Susan herself answered with hypotheticals then deleted it
 
I am wondering whether Susan will overtake Barrie.
 
10:25 AM
@RegDwigнt it's a SWR, so par for the course
 
@MattЭллен Look at the question once again. The OP has considered pessimistic and worst-case. Clearly he is thinking in a completely different direction than any and all of the answerers.
Everyone so far has missed the point.
 
I suppose
as I said, par for the course
 
Exactly.
In other news, I do not fully understand what "a cord that doesn't fit perfectly in the socket" is.
What doesn't fit in the socket is the plug, I would say.
If you're sticking the cord into the socket, you're Doing It Wrong.
 
:D
even more dangerous!
 
-3
Q: Looks like there's nothing for it but the lake

user58207Looks like there's nothing for it but the lake. (A sentence in the novel of "A Burglar's Christmans by Willa Cather)

"Unclear what you're asking"? It is perfectly clear that he is not asking anything at all.
Nothing unclear about it.
This is not even a NARQ. It is not a Q.
 
10:41 AM
Indeed!
The post is totally NAQerd
Or maybe NAQed
 
flags @RegDwigнt as not a real user
 
@kalina you don't need to flag me as such, I already have a diamond that means that.
-1
Q: Using article "the" for an artwork

NajiI want to name an artwork I made but I am not a native English speaker. The title I have selected is vision, meaning having insight. The point is I don't know whether I should name it The Vision or Vision.

This question is giving me a headache.
 
god just remove all of my fun from the world why don't you
 
As was to be expected, there are exactly two answers, one saying it should be The Vision, and the other saying it should be just Vision. So far, so boring. What gets me is that the OP has commented on both saying "thank you for the confirmation, that's exactly what I did".
@kalina I already did that yesterday.
 
NO
 
10:45 AM
@kalina is this the first EL&U chat prayer?
 
@kalina YA
 
my fun is protected by fire
@MattЭллен I am not religious
please don't force me to have a religious discussion
 
Ёр фан воз аннайалэйтид естердэй.
 
I get banned whenever I talk about my views on religion because religious people are close minded to my opinions and find them offensive
 
@kalina well not here.
 
10:47 AM
@RegDwigнt lol
 
@kalina You can try this chat.
 
You've come to the right place. Offend away.
 
a chat ban is a chat ban
I once got a 2 hour chat ban for telling a moderator that they're not supposed to edit spam out of posts, that spam flags deal with spam posts as Stack Exchange intends that you deal with them
 
bans chat
 
I am a ban magnet
 
10:48 AM
I'm just a regular magnet
 
I may have also included a comment like "as a moderator you'd expect you'd have a clue about these things" but I find that the comment in context was perfectly valid
 
@kalina nah, that guideline only works for the trilogy.
And it's only ever been posted on MSO.
 
MSO is the overruling meta
 
not for much longer
 
if it exists on MSO but not site-meta, MSO is valid
 
10:49 AM
MSO is the most useless collection of straw polls by people who don't even know which sites we do or do not have.
 
soon to be MSE!
 
SOON IT WILL BE MSE AND MY POINT WILL BE ACCEPTED BY THE STACK EXCHANGE OVERLORDS
 
MSE=Math SE, lol
 
My view is somewhat clouded by the fact I come from a super clean site
 
10:49 AM
oh no! Maths will be in charge of the network
 
but then, it wasn't super clean before I and a couple of other key users joined
and we all joined at around the same time
 
@kalina can't be that clean if it clouds views.
 
so what does that tell you?
 
you are all now very dirty
 
@RegDwigнt oh it can, my view is clouded because Arqade is super clean and all other stack exchange sites are not
then if you go to a site like Ask Ubuntu
where every other question is closed and nothing gets deleted and nobody votes on anything
eugh shivers
 
10:51 AM
@kalina Well that of course is nonsense. Arqade is nowhere near ELU level.
 
what makes a site clean?
 
@MattЭллен everything is edited, everything that is closed (except dupes) is deleted in a timely manner, high answered question ratio, review queue is always empty, etc
meta policy for pretty much everything
 
Don't sweat over such stuff @kalina, you have a life.
 
10:52 AM
active group of chatters
@RegDwigнt an alot is a furry animal
we call him @Wipqozn
 
Exactly.
 
you just cost me a day of my life
brb, editing
 
I'm just saying, that's 300+ posts that could use editing and I haven't even tried.
 
within 20 minutes there will be complaints I'm destroying the front page
you'll see how little I care at that time
 
10:54 AM
I like your style.
 
my argument to "destroying the front page" is "wouldn't you rather me destroy the front page 200 times over the next 20 days or once, right here, right now?
 
I'd help out, but I ain't got the reps, and people will be up in arms rejecting my suggested edits.
@kalina precisely right.
 
@RegDwigнt I hate this so much
An edit is not "too minor" if you fix the one thing wrong with the post
 
Aye.
 
We have heard all these arguments 9000 times.
 
10:56 AM
-1
Q: What's the term for a cord that doesn't fit perfectly in the socket

I Spawn At HomeWhat do you call a power cord for example that doesn't fit perfectly in the power socket and you can move it if you press it on the side. I used fiddle but am not sure if that's the correct term.

 
well, best have one more time, to make it over 9000
 
Jan 2 at 23:27, by RegDwigнt
@Gilles wrong is wrong. Or do you want me to get to 3k? The spirits that you call...
 
I mean, what
 
@JasperLoy we have heard yourself retiring OVER 9000 times. What is your point, again?..
 
@RegDwigнt Now I need to edit out your .. .
 
10:57 AM
@wander can you flesh that out? And hi!
@JasperLoy you just try.
 
Hi Reg. it's not my question and I'm not entirely sure how I would flesh it out yet.
 
@wander no I meant what was your question about the question.
"I mean, what" sounded like there would be a sequel.
 
Yeah we dunno what you wanna say.
 
Ahhhhh. I was just utterly bemused by it. I mean, I am struggling to think of any terms that are specific to power cords
 
I know it's not your question, and I don't understand it myself. But "I mean, what" was yours.
@wander Ah.
I was wondering something else a couple minutes ago.
22 mins ago, by RegDwigнt
What doesn't fit in the socket is the plug, I would say.
22 mins ago, by RegDwigнt
If you're sticking the cord into the socket, you're Doing It Wrong.
So I'm not quite sure how to visualize OP's situation.
 
11:00 AM
That's another good point. @RegDwigнt.
I thought of laptop chargers
I imagined losing my Thinkpad's charger and trying to sodomise my Thinkpad with a charger from a HP laptop or something.
 
Oh yeah. Always fun.
 
Can I use markdown in here? test
 
This chat has special people that specialize in just that special kind of sodomy.
 
Yum
 
You can do a lot of things in here.
Hm. The monospace is barely noticeable on can for me.
Should have used something with an m and an i.
 
millimetre
 
Actually I have a question but it's not really about English language. Who makes the themes for these sites? I'm participating in philosophy.SE at the moment, but it's so sad to look at.
@MattЭллен thanks
 
Jin
and his team
or at least, that's who it used to be
 
@MattЭллен Thank you.
 
no probs :)
The stack exchange chefs aren't members of any SE sites. Or they haven't admitted to it. I'd expect them to be members of Seasonal Advice!
 
11:20 AM
@wander Philosophy is just a beta site. It's supposed to look sad, so you are all motivated to get it out of beta ASAP.
 
lol at "Jin and his team"
 
The beta theme is the same for all beta sites.
 
I noticed. I was wondering whether they'd accept a donated theme should I make it.
 
Nope, don't bother.
 
Philosophy.SE has been around for ages, how come it is still a beta?
 
11:21 AM
Well, what do the numbers say...
 
Inactivity?
 
944
Philosophyphilosophy.stackexchange.com

Beta Q&A site for those interested in logical reasoning.

Currently in public beta.

Too few questions per day.
The rest looks very good, actually.
 
Dayum shame.
 
I blame @Cerberus. He should be chatting less and asking questions more.
 
maybe they're philosophically opposed to graduation
 
11:23 AM
See. Maybe. So many questions to ask about that alone!
 
One of the troubles with philosophy is that half the questions can be directed elsewhere. "Ah, that's a language problem." "What you're talking about is a quirk of mathematics..." "That's a psychological question really"

Another problem is that there just aren't many users. The answers and question edits are solid but there really aren't many people around there. I see the same three names in pretty much every question. Their chat is deserted. 7 days without conversation. 4 days without conversation.
 
That's funny, because we get quite a few "language" questions that are really about philosophy.
 
Indeed.
 
Y people always comes to wrong place???!!!1!
 
That's how I got a user on philosophy
 
11:28 AM
There's plenty of enthusiasm but the numbers aren't high enough. Perhaps if it were to include theology, it would increase, but I don't see it ending well. 500 questions about interpreting the Qu'ran
We get enough of those already.
 
There's Islam.SE for that anyway.
 
Ha
Indeed.
 
I should know, I'm their #7 by hats.
 
[hats.se]
sadly not
 
You can propose it.
 
11:30 AM
[millinery.se]
the former would be exclusively questions about winterbash
have you seen the animations of some of the SE team members?
hover over the pictures and they'll load up
 
A ghetto cactuar...
 
That's Grace Note for you :D
 
@MattЭллен yeah I saw them when they were still new. They probably got a dozen new employees since then, though I guess not animations.
 
why so many sales people?
 
I like Michael Pryor's animation the best.
@wander because there's so little to sell?
 
11:36 AM
@RegDwigнt lol, yeah
 
You know, for counterbalance.
 
@RegDwigнt lol
 
It's like with advertising. You say the opposite of the worst thing people say about you.
You don't bother with addressing things you're good at. You address the ones you suck at.
 
@RegDwigнt page 1 of 4 done
 
Hm. Where the hell is rchern, by the way?
I must say I haven't bumped into her in chat or on any site for years, either.
@kalina I approve of your antimythical deeds.
 
11:40 AM
@RegDwigнt can't see her user on MSO
 
before I deleted my account, I was the top editor and reviewer by miles
 
did she have a different username?
 
after deleting my account, I'm now high on the list of editors and the only user with multiple steward badges
 
Why did you delete your account, @kalina?
 
I WILL RESTORE MY ACCOUNT
@MattЭллен I believe she's Rachel Chernoff
 
11:41 AM
ah!
 
@MattЭллен Should be trivial to search for just "che" or "reb" or "bec".
 
@wander major disagreement
 
@kalina um, Rebecca.
 
@RegDwigнt one of those
 
Yes, mine, not yours.
 
11:41 AM
I have never communicated with said individual
 
We have in this very room.
 
@RegDwigнt so many che s
Her last comment on MSO was a year ago. Her last answer 8 months ago. but she visited on thursday
 
That's Kosmo levels.
 
sorry, not 8 months ago, I can't count. 4 months ago
in august
 
Jul 13 '11 at 20:06, by Rebecca Chernoff
Jeff isn't someone who will never say sorry. He has in the past.
 
11:46 AM
He's moved on, so have we
 
I am so jelly of @kalina right now. Our site will never be rid of alots. Because our questions are about them.
Not to mention this monstrum:
18
Q: Why is “definitely” so frequently typoed?

badpDefinitely seems to be one of the most frequently typoed words in written English on the Internet, enough to bring somebody to create d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y.com. Simon Google says, in a completely unscientific manner: defini tely ×105,000,000 (43.4%) defina tely ×  80,000,000 (33.0%) define t ly ×  

We now have every misspelling of "definitely" on this site, forever.
 
Oh! I'll just add sdklfjhadhf, as another
 
@RegDwigнt gives me an opportunity to delete vote as well
 
@MattЭллен that is not a valid misspelling. Clearly you meant to misspell it sdklfjhdahf.
 
oh damn, what a typo!
lol
 
11:52 AM
I mean, just google for both and you'll see.
 
I didn't get those results :D
 
I wanted to gimp something at first, but as always the reality is better than fiction.
 
I'm logged in with Google+, though. Perhaps that's what the + stands for.
> Noodle → head.
 
perhaps
 
12:00 PM
What kind of heads do you strangle island people have?
Or what kind of noodles?
 
It's a strange concept to get the ol' noodle around, that's for sure.
 
So how do you refer to your johnsons, as potatoes?
 
meat and potatoes, yes
 
And I guess your arms are squares?
 
arms... hmmm... what are arms...
 
12:03 PM
Those things you massively destruct with.
You can also race with them.
 
used to scratch your bach
 
Armenian armukn.
Of course it would be that in ARMenian.
 
Of course!
 
4
Q: Does the Earth rotate vertically too?

mikethematrixWe know that the earth has seen several Ice Ages. And we know the Earth's magnetic poles seem to flip once in a while. Could all of this be explained by a once every 250 Million Years or so the Earth actually rotates head over heels, so to speak?

Silly physicists. There is no "vertically" in space.
 
it's the podean bias. north/south -> up/down
 
12:10 PM
Except that north is only up if that's where you put it.
 
exactly
the podean bias
 
in The Bridge, 1 min ago, by MBraedley
@kalina did you just do a search for "alot" and fix every post you found?
 
No, it's not a podean bias, it's a bias bias.
 
shall we launch a campaign to convince people that ESE is up?
 
Waste of resources. Think big. You gonna launch a campaign, make it be "the earth is flat".
 
12:14 PM
oh! how about that vertical only applies if you're talking about away from the centre of the body that you're on, in the direction that is shortest to outer space
 
How about vertical only being a ploy by Hitchcock heirs to establish a word for which they can demand royalties?
 
@RegDwigнt hmmm. I will aim for "mountains are made from an accumulation of hens teeth"
and follow up with "the moon isn't made of cheese"
 
12:47 PM
They migrated the question to ELL just before I could post an answer...
 
Thank you for referring to me in plural.
 
Ah, you migrated and answered it, that's cheating.
 
No, the exact opposite is true. Cheating is what you're doing, trying to get reps on a site for questions that are off-topic on it.
 
Geezis, you are very good at arguing.
 
!!summon 35
 
12:52 PM
1
Q: Is "that of" used in an appropriate way?

MarcoCould you please tell me whether I use that of in an appropriate way or not? Here are the results of the calculations. That of calculation number four is pretty difficult to get.

seems similar
although much older
 
Exact duplicate.
 
Hm. Demonstrative pronoun, he says. Adjectival, says nohat.
@JasperLoy you're an exact duplicate.
No, seriously. Your entire account is an exact duplicate.
 
I really want to reverse time. Too much has gone wrong in my life. Now I can't fix it.
 
So here's the thing. Jasper upvoted OVER 9000 (and that's the actual number, for once) things under his old account. Normally they'd get nuked, but as a courtesy the devs let them be. So what if he now goes upvoting the exact same things again under the new one? That's against the rules.
 
12:57 PM
quite
 
@RegDwigнt Why didn't they nuke them?
 
Of course technically it's only against the rules if he upvotes his deleted account.
@JasperLoy because there were too many. And because rather than doing stupid things and then asking why others have to cope with them, you shouldn't have done the stupid things in the first place.
 
@RegDwigнt and that would only benefit the Community user
 
Yeah.
So. We just found a way to generate infinite reps while playing by the rules. Simply upvote everything, delete your account, create new account, repeat.
 
QED
 
1:01 PM
It's the perpetuum repile.
 
Which reminds me of my piles.
 
1:19 PM
50 alots to go
 
1:31 PM
A Google image search for perpetuum reptile is ... interesting.
 
1:42 PM
The [rude-words] tag was created during hatbash. I suggest remapping it to [offensive-language]: english.stackexchange.com/tags/offensive-language/synonyms What do you think?
2
 
1:58 PM
sounds like a good idea to me
 
I like it too.
 

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