English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

01:06

A Bonaire whiptail. Most of the wildlife we saw in Curaçao. There were a few birds, but we didn't see any hummingbirds.

@tchrist ^

It was pretty windy on the shore, though. Maybe you have to go inland to see those.

Cerberus

01:32

@Robusto Hello.

Are you still out there?

Robusto

Nope. Home now.

Cerberus

Ahh OK.

How was your trip?

Robusto

Great.

Cerberus

Good.

Was anything different from what you expected?

Robusto

Hmm.

Not really. I didn't have a lot of preconceived notions.

Cerberus

01:34

OK.

Robusto

I guess I was surprised that Willemstad was quite the little metropolis.

Cerberus

Is it?

Robusto

Well, kind of.

I sort of thought the island would be sort of rain-foresty. It's more like a desert island.

Cerberus

Hmm I see.

I'm not sure I had any expectation about forests or deserts.

Only beaches.

How is it a metropolis?

Robusto

Well, it had those.

That's the resort we stayed at. Baoase.

B + A (initials of the owners) + Oase (Dutch for Oasis, so I'm told)

There's a picture from the couch on the veranda.

I was trying to snap a picture of some little yellow-breasted birds, but they kept flitting out of frame.

There's the lagoon at night.

Nice restaurant on the beach there. But not as good as a French restaurant we discovered in Willemstad on the Concordiastrasse

That's as close as we got to a hummingbird.

@Cerberus BTW, I could figure out most of the Dutch I read in the signage there.

It really does seem to be halfway between German and English.

Cerberus

01:46

@Robusto Wow, all looks quite idyllic.

@Robusto That is exactly what it is hehe.

Robusto

It was very relaxing. The island, not the language.

Cerberus

Concordiastrasse? Or -straat?

Robusto

@Cerberus -straat. Heh, there I go interpolating German.

There was a German cruise ship docked downtown one day. Called "Mein Schiff" — no doubt a reference to the Kurt Weill song from Die Dreigroschenoper.

Cerberus

Ah I don't know it.

Only seen the Oper as a school play...

Robusto

Heh, no, I'm wrong. It's not Die Dreigroschenoper. It's from a show called Lady in the Dark.

►

But I could be wrong about the association.

►

This seems like a better performance of that tune.

But I know a singer who really does it better than either of these.

tchrist

01:54

Gosh you people stay up late.

Robusto

Maybe it's because I used to be romantically involved with her and she used to sing it just for me as I played the accompaniment.

@tchrist Heh, it's shy of 10 p.m. here.

tchrist

Indeed.

Robusto

@Cerberus is the one who stays up late late.

BTW, the Barika Hel were all over the resort, and you could lure them if you put a glass of juice on an empty table. That's how they got their nickname "sugar thief" in Dutch (sulkerdiefje). (@Cerb can hook me up if I misspelled it)

tchrist

What are those, bees?

Robusto

No, the other half of the sexual awakening: birds.

tchrist

01:59

Of what sort?

Oh, you mean bananaquits.

Robusto

Yes.

Cerberus

@Robusto Ahh now we're talking!

tchrist

Coereba flaveola

Latin for “flavored Cerberus puppies”.

Cerberus

@Robusto Suikerdiefje.

Haha.

Robusto

Thank you.

Cerberus

02:01

I actually didn't know the name.

Robusto

@tchrist Mmm, marzipan Cerberus puppies.

tchrist

> Nevertheless, its precise relations remain unresolved, so the American Ornithologists’ Union classes it as a species incertae sedis.

Sounds like it doesn’t know where to sit down.

Robusto

He said, sedulously.

In fact, they flit all over. Hard to get a picture.

tchrist

A bird that feed off the seeds of sedition.

Robusto

I think I need a sedative.

tchrist

02:04

@Robusto I know, I’ve been to the Caribe.

Robusto

@Cerberus: There's the pool that was right off our veranda.

Just walk down the stairs and you're swimming.

Cerberus

Again, idyllic.

We don't have that in the cold, boring north.

Robusto

I know. That's why you stole islands from other folk.

tchrist

The problem with the bananaquit is the same as with honeyeaters and sunbirds and the like: they aren’t good enough flyers to hover before the blossoms.

I left out the flowerpeckers.

Robusto

Also taken from our veranda.

tchrist

02:10

That’s virtually impossible to expose for in a way that represents what you actually saw.

Too many stops of delta.

Robusto

Yep.

And too much movement. Especially when you raise a camera to shoot.

tchrist

Easy in two shots from a tripod. Potentially possible with certain very high-end cameras.

The motion defeats the tripod idea. Maybe.

Robusto

Well, you can't really frame it.

I guess you can set up a "trap" for them. Glass of nectar in front of a tripod, you already have the focus, trigger remotely.

tchrist

Yes.

I’ve never been especially successful using trap-focus manually.

Robusto

Well, of course the birds will not sit on the side of the glass you're focusing on.

tchrist

02:15

I imagine that whatever you shot that with won’t let you pull up the shadows without noise. Or is already frozen into artifactual 8-bit jpegs.

Well.

Robusto

Yep. No camera raw on the phone.

tchrist

Oh, a phone. Never mind.

The laws of physics also take their toll.

Robusto

Yes. Nature seems to side with them quite too often.

tchrist

I was wondering about the exceptionally deep depth of field you have there. But when you magnify a teeny-weenie sensor’s capture, you have very little foreground–background separation.

And the full-well capacity of those small sensels isn’t deep enough to pull up any shadows without heisen-noise.

Robusto

Well, the lens is the size of a pea. That means less light but more depth of field, I suppose.

tchrist

02:18

Basically.

Robusto

We're not going to get any 1.0 f-stop.

I'd be surprised if it was under f8.

tchrist

Well...

The problem with that sort of aperture is that you get diffraction effects on such a small sensor.

Or lens.

Robusto

Yeah. And all the spherical and chromatic aberration inherent in a refracting lens.

tchrist

I suspect it is constant aperture, whatever that happens to end up being.

The purple–green CA is always notably bad on certain types of shots.

What’s your hardware?

Robusto

The phone? LG G2.

I also took the last two shots with my Kindle HD 8.9.

tchrist

02:23

Oh, I thought you were the one with one of those Blah-5s.

Robusto

iPhone? No.

At times in my life I've dabbled with photography, but quickly realized I didn't want to make the investment in time and money (and more time) to do real photography.

tchrist

LG G2 is constant f/2.4

Robusto

Ah. OK. That's lower than I would have thought.

tchrist

It has to be like that, or too much diffraction.

Robusto

So lots of light will blow out the whites.

tchrist

02:26

This is always true.

Just need a faster shutter.

Can’t find aperture on your Kindle

Robusto

I wonder why they don't list it.

tchrist

It says “wide-aperture lens” in the product marketing.

Robusto

Whatever that means.

tchrist

Exactly.

Robusto

It looks like about a 55-mm lens to my eye.

tchrist

02:29

Found it.

It’s f/2.2, which is reasonably fast as these things go. But it needs to be.

> Front-facing 720p HD Camera. 8MP rear-facing camera with LED flash, Electronic Image Stabilization, and a wide-aperture 5P f/2.2 lens

Robusto

Hmm.

I think it has a better picture than the phone. But that's not saying much.

tchrist

I don’t know that that is constant-aperture.

@Robusto And there are too many possible variables to say why.

Robusto

Yeah.

tchrist

Lens, pixel-pitch, image stabilization, processing choices, etc etc etc.

Robusto

I like a shorter lens for landscape shots.

My old 28-90 zoom was what I used most.

tchrist

02:33

I don’t know what its 35mm equivalent focal length is.

Because I don’t know the diagonal of the sensor.

Robusto

I don't either.

tchrist

imaging-resource.com/news/2013/09/25/…

Robusto

Well, viewing images on the tablet is great.

tchrist

ifixit.com/Teardown/Kindle+Fire+HD+Teardown/10457

Still can’t find the dang sensor.

Ahah.

They won’t tell.

> Assuming that the camera captures images in the Kindle Fire HD's native resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, that would be a whopping 1.0 megapixel—nothing worth writing home about.

> Amazon doesn't publish the resolution of this camera, and rather states that it is an "HD camera."

Robusto

Heh.

HD covers a multitude of sins.

tchrist

02:40

Only if it’s HDR.

And then only maybe.

But basically, this is a pinhole camera. :)

Robusto

Yes.

Camera obscura.

tchrist

antiqua

I mean, it isn’t quite, but you still have that perception of infinite depth of field.

Robusto

No, not antiqua. You're thinking of that West Indian island that I didn't go to on my vacation.

tchrist

How obscura.

Robusto

The stupid cats just chewed through another charging cable. Damn them all to hell.

If they weren't so damn cute they'd be dead.

tchrist

02:50

Scary.

There are over 7,000 islands in the Caribe.

I stand corrected. A few sunbirds can actually hover, although most perch.

Robusto

Hmm.

Do the male and female bananaquits look the same? If not, why did I always see them in pairs?

tchrist

03:08

I do not believe they are sexually dimorphic. See Sibley 2nd ed p 502.

He only shows juvenile and adult forms, not breaking it down into male and female.

Robusto

That would explain it.

tchrist

I need to take an oath to stop placing only just before the verb.

It's a sucky position for it.

Robusto

I don't see anything wrong with it. I only see stylistic variation.

tchrist

It’s weaker there then anywhere else.

Robusto

Does everything have to be strong always? That is a weakness in itself.

tchrist

03:13

He shows only juvenile and adult forms,

He shows juvenile and adult forms only,

Both those are better than the original, which is a creature of habit.

Robusto

Maybe. But it doesn't bother me, and there is no single "strong" way to write something. You have to keep mixing things up, freshening your prose.

tchrist

I find I have slipped into dull habits, and only placement is one of them. So is saying just far too often.

Have you read Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun yet? I'm trying to get Cerb to read it.

Robusto

No.

tchrist

Highly recommended.

Robusto

I'd be curious what you think of the new SF novel I just put up on Amazon.

tchrist

03:23

Oh!

I thought you were writing detective thrillers.

Robusto

No, not at all.

Got it?

tchrist

Done.

I have a house-guest for the weekend. Need to go check on her.

Robusto

Cool. TTYL.

David M

Greetings

Robusto

Hullo.

David M

03:30

How you been?

Robusto

Good. Just back from Curaçao.

David M

Ah duchy Curaçao

Or however they spell it.

Robusto

That's it.

David M

The wife and I had quite a few laughs . . . because we're immature.

Robusto

It's a Portuguese name. The natives speak Dutch or Papiamento (Portuguese creole).Pap

David M

03:32

No wait . . . it's dushi

@Robusto That I knew. I was talking about the dushi part.

Robusto

Papiamento

}} |nation = }} |region = |speakers = 260,000 |date=1999–2011 |ref=e17 |familycolor = Creole |fam1 = Portuguese-based creole |fam2 = (relexified under Spanish influence) |iso2 = pap |iso3 = pap |lingua = 51-AAC-be |notice = IPA }} Papiamento , or Papiamentu, is the most widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands, having official status on the islands of Aruba and Curaçao. The language is also recognized on Bonaire by the Dutch government. Papiamento is a language derived from African and Portuguese languages with some influences from Amerindian languages, English, Dutch and Span...

@DavidM I get it. You haven't been passing yourself any NO2, have you?

David M

@Robusto No, although I've had plenty of opportunity today.

Robusto

You still use nitrous oxide?

David M

@Robusto Not when I can avoid it. But, there are plenty of people who still do.

Robusto

@DavidM When is it unavoidable?

David M

03:35

dushi - sweet / sweetie. This is used in the sense of pan dushi, sweet bread; dushi Korsou: sweet Curacao, but also as common word between young friends when greeting one and other (eeeeey dushi; hi darling) or used by boys to express their interest in an unknown girl passing by. A dushi is always a female.

@Robusto When one of my partners turned it on and I've taken over their case . . .

When one of my CRNAs uses it despite my telling them I don't like it, etc.

Robusto

CRNA?

David M

Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist

Robusto

Ah.

David M

(Nurses who give anesthesia under my supervision)

Robusto

I got it.

Understudy gas passer.

David M

03:37

Something like that.

Physician extenders.

Similar in function to PAs, nurse practitioners, etc.

Robusto

Yeah.

But I'm curious why it's ever used anymore. I would have thought it gone with the days of ether.

David M

@Robusto Less flammable than ether, easier to control, etc.

Was more important in the days before low solubility anesthetics.

Blah blah blah jargon

The long and the short of it . . .

It starts up quickly and goes away quickly.

Robusto

I see.

David M

In the days when you had anesthetic gasses that didn't, you used to dilute them in NO2

Meaning you'd use 75% of the anesthetic as NO2, and 25% as the other . . .

Robusto

Ah.

David M

03:42

Or closer to 60/40

This way you could wake the patient up faster at the end.

Nowadays we have really quick onset and offset gases that are not NO2.

And, don't have some of its annoying side effects.

Robusto

What are the side effects?

David M

Well . . .

Nausea is a big one.

Because of its low molecular weight it freely diffuses throughout the body.

It collects inside of hollow organs like the stomach and intestines, over-inflating them, making it difficult to close the abdomen in an open case.

It can increase the pressure inside of the eyes in certain types of repairs.

Robusto

@DavidM I can see where that would be a liability.

Whenever I've been given intravenous morphine I immediately puked.

David M

It also seems to be associated with certain types of heart disease, etc.

But that's more sketchy.

@Robusto A perfectly valid reaction.

I hate morphine.

I prefer to give dilaudid.

Fewer side-effects.

Robusto

@DavidM Me too. Like I said before, I don't see how people get hooked on the stuff.

David M

03:47

I think it's a lot like a lock and a key.

If you have the right key, it clicks right and turns.

Some people are just meant to enjoy and get hooked on things like that.

Robusto

I don't have the right key. I hate all those narcotics. I like to be alert.

David M

Me, too.

I don't even drink anymore.

I stopped enjoying it years ago.

Robusto

I enjoyed it on the vacation. But that was wine with food.

David M

My primary motivation for drinking was to hang around at bars.

My primary motivation for hanging around at bars was to meet women.

My primary motivation for meeting women ... was obviated by getting married.

Robusto

@DavidM I know the name of that tune.

Well, I'm beat. Going to bed now, sorry. Was a long flight yesterday. Talk to you another time.

David M

03:50

Enjoy. TTYL

jackopen

04:04

which are the best tools/softwares/book to learn english grammer?

Cerberus

05:35

Hi.

jackopen

05:47

helo @Cerberus

Cerberus

Hi!

0

A: What does it mean "reject it who will"?

The French is this (book I, chaper 8): Voilà parler! s'écria-t-il. L'excellente chose, et vraiment merveilleuse, que ce matérialisme-là! Ne l'a pas qui veut. Ah! quand on l'a, on n'est plus dupe; on ne se laisse pas bêtement exiler comme Caton, ni lapider comme Étienne, ni brûler vif comme Je...

What do you think?

Johan Larsson

06:35

@Cerberus morning

Morning right?

Robusto

10:39

I would say it means something more like "Whosoever may reject it, materialism is nevertheless an excellent choice." — Robusto 18 secs ago

Robusto

10:49

@tchrist: Here's a video on the birds of paradise, which may make up for my entire lack of bird photos from my trip.

Johan Larsson

12:17

@Robusto Where did you trip?

skullpatrol

where did you go on your trip?

Johan Larsson

[sic] intended :)

skullpatrol

:)

@JohanLarsson Where did you vacation?

Johan Larsson

trip is more ambiguous, can you spell ambiguous btw?

skullpatrol

no

Johan Larsson

12:26

me neither

skullpatrol

:D

Robusto

13:35

@JohanLarsson Curaçao.

Johan Larsson

did you have a good time?

and how long?

Robusto

Just a week, and yes we had a good time. I posted some pictures yesterday evening.

Johan Larsson

14:03

read some of the camera discussion

I would want a 3 megapixel full frame camera. (High end)

Low noise and huge range would be nice.

3 megapixel is enough for most purposes.

Robusto

14:28

But more megapixels mean you can blow up details.

Johan Larsson

true if no noise and sharp

Kyriakos Kyritsis

15:57

bu

terdon

16:11

@KyriakosKyritsis ba

Cerberus

bo

Jez

afternoon

Cerberus

That, too.

Jez

bit bored today

Johan Larsson

Sundays are like that. In a good way mostly.

Mitch

16:35

@Cerberus Sounds good to me. Translation is weird, one has to preserve expression -and- meaning at the same time. And maybe the meaning is a bit incoherent through the expression (either intended or not).

Cerberus

Umm yeah, something like that.

Jez

16:51

slashdot.org/…

I don't think "JustOK" sees the irony of his response

terdon

@Cerberus Ne l'a pas qui veut is closer to not everyone who wants it has it

Cerberus

@terdon I don't think so...

Ne...pas modifies l'a primarily.

terdon

@Cerberus exactly

He has it not who wants it would be a direct translation

Hang on, I'll just go ask a frog

Cerberus

Yes, OK.

The thing is, you need to assume who wants to not have it, or it doesn't make sense in context (and it would have been mistranslated).

terdon

@Cerberus Confirmed by a french school teacher. Ne l'a pas qui veu == not all who want it have it.

Cerberus

17:03

Would that make sense in context? That would mean the translation is wrong.

terdon

@Cerberus The translation has really changed stuff, yes.

Cerberus

I assumed the translation was correct.

terdon

Not the way I read it, and much more conclusively, not the way my French housemate reads it.

Cerberus

I don't know this French school teacher, but the text was presumably translated by a certified translator familiar with 19th-century French...

Jez

very odd to begin with Ne not followed by pas

Cerberus

17:04

@terdon Then how do you read reject it who will?

@Jez Yes, it is certainly an uncommon construction, at least in modern French...

terdon

@Cerberus As a mistranslation.

Unless it is supposed to be imperative: have it not who wishes it not

Cerberus

Wouldn't that be odd?

terdon

Hang on, let me check with my expert again

Cerberus

Is this expert a Frenchman? What does he teach?

Perhaps it is a disputed passage.

Jez

"All that glitters is not gold"

probably an odd turn of phrase like that

Cerberus

17:07

@terdon I took it to be an imperative or subjunctive, yes. But then it still doesn't mean what your translation would mean.

terdon

@Cerberus Nope, can't be imperative apparently. She understands "not everyone has it" and can't be coerced into another interpretation. It might be an archaic form but I doubt it cause my resident expert is 1) a native speaker 2) a language geek herself and 3) a school teacher the three should translate into a pretty good grasp of the language.

Cerberus

Does she teach French literature?

terdon

@Jez Not really, no. Ne me parles pas for example. That is a very common construct.

Cerberus

And what do you mean by "can't be imperative"?

The translation clearly is an imperative/subjunctive?

terdon

@Cerberus No, no, she's a school teacher. I'm not saying she is any kind of expert, just a knowledgeable native speaker with an interest in language.

Cerberus

17:11

I'm sure. But so is the translator, presumably.

terdon

@Cerberus I know, I asked if it could be understood as an imperative as in "have it not who want it not" but she couldn't see it that way.

Cerberus

And this construction is apparently rare, I can't find much about it.

terdon

@Cerberus Charles E. Wilbour? Sounds like a non-native. Probably is an accomplished scholar of course and certainly speaks better French than I but he is also not infallible.

Cerberus

@terdon It is clearly not an imperative in French, so I would agree with her hehe.

@terdon Why do you think a non-native?

terdon

Charles E. Wilbour?

Cerberus

17:12

Sounds French enough.

terdon

Nah.

Anyway, he was american:

> Charles Edwin Wilbour (March 17, 1833 – December 17, 1896) was an American journalist and Egyptologist.

Cerberus

Okay, so no.

It could be an lesser-quality translation.

terdon

Apparently it was the 1st (according to his wikipedia page)

Cerberus

Let's find a more recent one, then.

I merely translated the French that way because it seemed to fit the context.

"Whoever wants it, doesn't have it" would not seem to fit?

terdon

@Cerberus The meaning is more "Not all who want it have it"

Cerberus

17:15

That would indeed be the more obvious translation, but I was forced to reject it.

@terdon Right, that is another interpretation, but...

terdon

@Cerberus I found another translation on google books. Looking for the relevant passage now

@Cerberus the other translation agrees with me: "Not everyone who wants it can have it"

Page 37: books.google.fr/…

Cerberus

> Not every one who wants it can have it.

Is what I find.

@terdon Can't access it.

terdon

@Cerberus Exactly. So the Wilbour translation is wrong.

Cerberus

What translator is that?

This is Hapgood.

@terdon Yes, apparently so.

terdon

Try this link: books.google.fr/books?isbn=1596741988

Yes, exactly, Hapgood

Cerberus

17:23

That is, unless the later translator(s) is/are wrong...

Okay, same translation.

terdon

How can they be? They agree with me!

Cerberus

Hehe.

terdon

:)

Cerberus

I shall have to amend my answer, the part about the French translation.

Though not the English.

But I have to go now.

terdon

Later

Cerberus