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2:12 PM
heh
I feel like accepting the thanks there just killed all the conversation
Jez
Jez
It. Is. Too. Hot. Today.
we need frigging air conditioning here
The guys who sit over buy the window hate the aircon, since blows right down their necks. I'm at a good temp ]:)
Jez
Jez
how big is the company you work for?
This business unit is about 100 people. But we are a small portion of the business group. maybe 3000 people?
2:30 PM
@Jez How's the silage today?
Jez
Jez
doesnt really smell today. just so hot i feel im about to pass out.
the UK is turning into the sahara
Wow that sucks, how many degrees?
Jez
Jez
feels like 30+
hotter in here than outside probably
Man that sucks.
I hate heat more than anything, even more than rain.
Give me -5 over +30 any time.
Heat you can only defend against to a certain degree. Things like cold and rain, you can always add more layers of protection.
2:42 PM
According to the BBC, it's "just" 26 here.
I don't trust my phone. it's saying sunny with showers. this is a lie. Sunny, no chance of showers.
Jez
Jez
there'll probably be a big thunderstorm some time
more like 'sunny, with chance of torrential rain'
heavy rain... on thursday
ugh
hotter tomorrow. fuck you Earth!!!
@GraceNote Exactly!
@MattEllen Mine lies all the time! A few days ago it said snow.
@Jez I sympathize with your suffering!
Buy a mobile a/c?
Jez
Jez
i think it's not just the heat... it's the humidity
I bought one for € 50 second hand.
Jez
Jez
2:52 PM
how exactly would a mobile a/c work?
It is about the size of a big, very heavy suitcase, on wheels.
It has an exhaust hose that vents hot air out the window or into the chimney or what have you.
Jez
Jez
i don't see how it would work. it relies on pumping the heat out of a (near-)sealed spce
The version we had in the other office was a big conditioner unit with a smaller heat-exhanger box you hang out of the window.
I should get a fan in my office. It can get warm-ish
Jez
Jez
huge waste of energy to just let the heat come back in. that's like pumping water out of a ship on the bottom of the ocean
2:53 PM
As long as you are sitting near the gush of cool air that comes from the front part, you will be fine.
Jez
Jez
the electricity bill won't ;-)
Mine was only 700 watt.
That is about 15 cents an hour here.
And it has a lower setting too.
Totally worth it for me.
Jez
Jez
700 watt is 15 cents an hour??
that sounds ludicrously cheap
I used to set a timer so that it would turn on at 7 am and blow cold air onto my bed while I was sleeping.
Jez
Jez
a kettle is only 2000w, ffs
2:55 PM
One kWh is about 21 cents here.
A kettle?
One you put on gas? Or an electrical one?
Jez
Jez
electric.... gas doesnt tend to do kWh
@Jez you know this, I know this, Eon still measures my gas in kWh. go figure.
@Jez You could convert it. Otherwise I don't get where your 200 watt comes from—at least mine if much less, rather around 400 or so, I think. Let me check.
Jez
Jez
2000, not 200
Oh, you're right.
Mine is 1800.
Jez
Jez
2:58 PM
kettles are usually given as an example of very high energy usage for short periods of time
Yes.
The strange thing is that it actually showed much less watt when I put it on a watt meter.
At any rate, a mobile a/c isn't that expensive if you don't leave it on 24/7.
But it's your choice, obviously.
Jez
Jez
need to get A/C in my home. then work from home.
or work in the car, that has A/C
Then you'd have to keep the car running stationary?
Doesn't seem like a very good idea.
Is it?
Jez
Jez
it's a natural enclosed space which is good for AC
Yes, but if you're not driving, won't the car overheat after a while?
And the pollution...
Neighbours won't like it.
3:07 PM
Didn't someone mention the other day: a large block of ice and a Dyson fan will cool your office down. Circulate cool air.
The hejudas is a Dyson fan?
@MattEllen Oh, does that really work well?
I have never seen such a thing, well, not that I remember.
@Cerberus given a large enough block of ice and number of fans for the space
Jez
Jez
3:11 PM
wow
there's a fly in here that's double the size of any fly I've seen before
@Jez mutant flies! run to the hills!
@MattEllen Heh I suppose so.
@Cerberus :D
Kill it! Mate with it!
@Cerberus are left and right head in disagreement?
3:13 PM
Yes, they are, ehm, in different moods.
I have just installed my freshly bought copy of Civ 4 with Fall from Heaven...
I may be absent now or then!
!!
chat will not be the same
We should all play it together!
On Deity.
And we'd beat the computer players to Erebus.
Except that the main world is called Erebus in Fall from Heaven.
sounds complicated
beat them to where they are
Have you ever played Civ?
3:18 PM
OK.
It is a good game, ask Aedia when she wakes up.
I've played other games, like sim city or master of orion
that I guess are similar
Yes, quite. Civ is a bit in between. But better, in my opinion.
If you liked those, man, you really ought to play Civ!
One of our top users on Gaming also heralds Fall from Heaven as awesome
Ah, good!
Jez
Jez
heroes of might and magic II can't be beat
3:21 PM
I have been meaning to play it for years, but only now got around to it. And I have actually bought Civ 4 now, which I had been meaning to do as well.
@Jez That is a rather different genre.
Also fun.
I think I have played I or II.
Oh, and Disciples was great. Much like Heroes, but somehow more fun for me.
You didn't have huge numbers of each unit, as in Heroes, but just one in each slot; but each unit would upgrade after a certain amount of experience, gaining huge new powers. Most units had wildly differing upgrade paths.
BLAM
Oh?
Is it time for the Big Bang again, and you are practising?
3:39 PM
Practice makes perfect. nods head knowingly
I'm sure it will strike nice and hard.
@Cerberus Civ 4 is almost the only computer game I play. Sadly I have so little time to get used to it I still mostly play at Warlord level.
@Rhodri Aww... wait, is that one level above average?
@Cerberus It's pretty low level, but not the lowest. I am not a tactician, sad to say.
@Rhodri Yeah it is the micro-management in the first phase (exploration and city founding) that may be the most important.
I save and load a lot.
I usually don't fight much, though.
4:02 PM
@Cerberus I was exploding, so yes.
@MattEllen Oh, dear. Exploding in a good way, I hope?
@Cerberus yers :D it was home time!
Woohoo!
@Cerberus It is a great game!
@aedia I know right!
I have tried FfH once, but I really need to read up on it more before I try again.
4:11 PM
I have never played the Civ IV expansions, though. Just the vanilla one. And now Civ V.
I had little clue as to what the mana things did, and generally how to proceed.
I have never played any expansions either—until now: I bought the Complete edition, which has Beyond the Sword etc.
How is V!?
F'x
F'x
what do we think about this:
0
Q: Jokes with homophones ribbiting and riveting?

avilellaAre there any jokes that involve the play on the homophone words ribbiting and riveting? Most probably in the context of something like: Direct (one's eyes or attention) intently - all eyes were riveted on him

You have just bought it?
V with its new hex tiles and no unit stacking is really nice when I play on my computer that's got a tv for a monitor (lower resolution). I don't relish the idea of playing IV on there. Hard to see.
I don't even know what ribbiting is.
Ah, yes.
4:13 PM
@Cerberus I got it right when it came out, I think. Through Steam. You can preload games just before their release date, too, so they're waiting for you the day they are released.
Hex tiles would seem a great idea, or, rather, a long-overdue improvement. I don't understand why Sid hasn't implemented that in 2 or 3.
I have bought too many video games that way.
Haha, and then forgot about them?
Well, played them a few times, or played the main campaign through...
I haven't even finished the Starcraft campaign.
It is exhausting. I thought it was going to be a slower-paced game, more like Age of Empires can be.
@Cerberus Ribbiting is the sound a frog makes in English. "Ribbit, ribbit!" What do they say in Dutch?
@aedia Is that SC2? I haven't tried it. I can imagine: I like turn-based.
@aedia Ah, actually that does sound familiar. I remember some English frogs (or someone like Kermit) making that sounds. In Dutch, we say kwaken (quack).
Ducks and frogs speak the same language here, apparently.
4:26 PM
@Cerberus Yeah, SC2. Oh man. Also, the hotkeys! Auugh. For the three different races you can play as, they are so different, even for units you would think are the same, like the barracks-y-thing. Drives me batty.
I don't know how anyone gets good at it. Too fast for me.
Those hotkeys cannot be changed?
@Cerberus I think you can remap them but I got fed up. I needed the mouseover text to help me learn the hotkeys, and then if that doesn't match, I start building buildings that I can't put back, and it's a disaster, and the enemy is in my base before I've got my first army properly amassed.
I can imagine!
I heard that the skill of the top SC players depends much upon their quickness with the hotkeys.
@Cerberus Ha, that's funny! I am now reminded of some awesome cross-language animal sounds chart... I wish I could find it. Hmm.
The skill of the top SC players is dependent on a lot of things.
Fast reaction type and memorization of hotkeys etc. is only one part of it
4:30 PM
@aedia Oh haha, no doubt that exists...
@Mana The article I read said it was the most distinguishing skill at the highest levels... I have no idea myself.
hallo everyone
just stopping in
Hi!
@aedia Ah, cool.
Hi @Mana, @JSB!
See, croaking is what I know; it seems ribbiting is American.
4:35 PM
@Cerberus i'm familiar with both. i wouldn't have thought that croaking (@Cerb: note spelling) was a britishism
And those Dutch sounds aren't entirely unambiguous. Some are conventional representations of the sounds, others are only one of several possibilities, and others again seem to be the names for the sounds.
@JSBangs Right, typo. I had no idea either—just that it sounds far more familiar then ribbiting.
(Aedia's chart says ribbiting is American, so perhaps croaking is both.)
I forgot about croaking. "The frog says, ribbit, ribbit" sounds like what I've heard; maybe I've only read croaking.
Hmm...
I recall a QI item about frog sounds that said different species of frogs have different cries. The "ribbit" we're used to hearing on films and TV is the Californian Tree Frog, or something like that.
4:39 PM
@aedia i would think that the frog says "ribbit", but the word for what he is doing is to croak
The species thing might be the key.
that's very plausible
@JSBangs Ohh. Good point. That sounds right. That's why "ribbiting" sounds a little weird.
@Cerberus I think some of the English ones are the names for the sounds, too, like troat. I have never heard a deer walk up and say, Troat, troat.
@aedia I must admit I hadn't heard of it!
@aedia i've never heard that word at all
4:45 PM
@aedia Yeah, possible. Though I must say I have never had deer walk up to me...
...nor heard of troat.
In Dutch, deer bark.
in Romanian i don't know if they do anything at all
but i am bad at my romanian animal sounds.
In Hungarian, they keep silent, according to the Chart.
@Cerberus They bark? Your frogs quack, your deer bark... I'm beginning to think you have problems with animal identification over there.
Did you learn Romanian from your wife, or am I confused?
@aedia I don't know, it is a brown animal on four legs. Does it matter?
@Cerberus i learnt romanian while i lived in romania, which is where i also met my wife. so i didn't really learn it from her, as i already spoke pretty well when we met
4:49 PM
The small ones in the lake quack.
but she's my main romanian conversation partner these days
Ahh OK.
But, seriously, troating sounds quite like barking, don't you think?
@Cerberus the small four-legged brown animals in the lake quack? those are beavers, or possibly otters, and they don't make very much noise
(My dictionary fails to recognize troating.)
@JSBangs No, I meant those small animals in the lake, whatever they are.
@Cerberus silly dutchmen. there are lots of small animals in a lake which do not quack. there are even lots of small birds in a lake which do not quack
the lakes around here have pelicans, cormorants, killdeer, herons, egrets...
4:52 PM
(I was kidding...)
and loons
It is just that frogs quack and deer bark.
Everywhere has loons.
Oh, sorry, you meant the birds?
we have the best loons
@Rhodri nb: the loons here in america are very different from the loons in britain
both bird and non-bird
The Great Northern Loon, Great Northern Diver, or Common Loon (Gavia immer), is a large member of the loon, or diver, family of birds. The species is known as the Common Loon in North America and the Great Northern Diver in Eurasia; its current name is a compromise proposed by the International Ornithological Committee. Taxonomy The Great Northern Loon is one of the five loon species that make up the genus Gavia, the only genus of the family Gavidae and order Gaviiformes. Its closest relative is the other large black-headed species, the Yellow-billed Loon or White-billed Diver, Gavia ada...
I have never seen those loons around here.
Only the, ehm—what Foucault would call the differently-labelled.
4:55 PM
@Cerberus they're only found in north america. but they're some of the prettiest birds around, and they have a marvelous cry
@Cerberus This one says it's the bucks that troat.
@aedia what about elk?
@aedia Bucks fizz. I thought everyone knew that.
@JSBangs Ah, it seems the same species is called diver in England.
@Cerberus i think the diver is a related species
4:57 PM
@aedia Hmm complicated...
Fizz!?
The Buck's Fizz is an alcoholic drink made with orange juice and champagne. Some older recipes list grenadine as an additional ingredient, although the International Bartenders Association recipe does not include it. Overview The drink is named after London's Buck's Club where it was invented as an excuse to begin drinking early, and first served, by one of its barmen, McGarry, in 1921. The Mimosa cocktail, invented four years later in Paris, also contains sparkling wine and orange juice albeit in equal measures to each other. Buck's Fizz is popularly served at weddings as a less al...
@JSBangs en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk#Behavior Bugling. Eeesh. Scary.
@aedia oh, right, bugling. i should have remembered that
have you never been up in the mountains to hear the elk bugle? it's a common tourist activity where i grew up
There is a recording. It sounds like dying.
Um, no.
you've missed out
5:01 PM
There aren't really elks in the Adirondacks, are there?
the elk around Rocky Mountain National Park are pretty well acclimated to humans, so when they come down into the valleys to mate, people just gather along the side of the road to watch them, listen to them bugle, and (if they're lucky) see them fight
@aedia i don't believe so, but i could be wrong
@JSBangs Oh yes, well known for their bugling, elk are. Duke Elkington was using them in his band all the time.
you'll have to forgive me my links to bird stuff
there was a time when i wanted to be an ornithologist
@JSBangs It says they were reintroduced in the Appalachians but in the more southern parts. I could see 'em now, I guess.
@aedia or you could drive out west where they're freaking everywhere
5:03 PM
@aedia There's not a really many in the northern area, as far as I know. I've heard they've been reintroduced in PA, but I don't think there's a strong program for upstate NY.
@JSBangs Wow. They sound so lonely.
@Rhodri there's nothing like sitting on the lake at night and listening to the loons cry. it'll break your heart
@JSBangs OMG I love the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
@JSBangs Ha. I have skipped much of the middle of the country in my travels, it's true.
@aedia i, on the other hand, have been in every state west of the mississippi (except alaska and hawaii), but have been east only once or twice
twice: once to florida, once to DC, both a long time ago
I've never been farther west than Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Also evening all.
5:09 PM
@FallenAngelEyes that's not too much further east than me.
I'm envious. I've seen very little of the States, really.
@Rhodri but aren't you in the UK? i've never been there at all
When I edit an answer, is it supposed to appear in the active tab?
(Sorry for butting in and all)
@drm65 yes
One didn't
5:11 PM
why would you apologize?
@drm65 which one? maybe they tweaked the algorithm recently
OK, now it did, five mins later
@JSBangs Oh, you had a good conv going
Maybe they tweaked it to appear 5 minutes later
@drm65 There may be a scheduling delay or something, depending on how it all works under the hood.
6
A: Is it true that yeast was once called "Godisgoode"?

drm65It's not just that article. Here's a book which has it: Bread and ale, both packed with calories and nutrients, lay at the heart of all diets, and ale barm was so vital that it was sometimes known as godisgoode 'bicause it cometh of the grete grace of God'. Searching for the last quote, I ...

I just got my update from the guy who wrote the article, in case you're interested.
@drm65 I've just been reading that. Very interesting!
yeah, it's a great answer
5:35 PM
@Jez, don't know about you, but it's tipping it down here! Hope you're getting yours.
user19161
Hello @matt, I just changed my mobile because the old one was spoilt. It's actually an even older one that was not used and given out years ago. I like primitive phones with no camera, no internet, etc.
@Jasper: what phone did you get?
user19161
Motorola c380. Motorola phones are the most durable. Ericsson sucks.
Jez
Jez
@MattEllen bbc weather forecast says hot tomorrow too and then rain
no rain here yet
it's like the horn of Africa
5:42 PM
@Jez well, in South Africa it's winter now, so it could well be raining ;)
user19161
But the rain could be hot rain even hotter than the air. :)
Jez
Jez
erm
South Africa is in .... southern Africa
I assumed the horn was in the south
@Jez A preposterous notion! I never!
user19161
@GraceNote It's true; look at Wikipedia. They are different.
5:45 PM
LOL, it's so not
ok, nevrmind me then!
user19161
@grace Have you and Kit sorted out the Chinese thing yesterday? You confused me!
@JasperLoy We did.
@JasperLoy I have one of these for my cellphone.
user19161
@FallenAngelEyes Looks lovely, and in the durable class as well. Hard keypads are better than soft ones.
@JasperLoy Yep, it's reeeeeeeally old and fairly simple. It does everything I need it to do - call people and receive calls.
user19161
5:58 PM
@FallenAngelEyes Then you are like me too, preferring simple stuff. Hope the thief gets caught!
@JasperLoy Well I couldn't find my charger for that one the night I went, so I used another old phone we had laying around that used to be one of my b/f's phones. So I still have this one at least.
I use my cellphone very rarely, so it tends to go dead often. I need to charge it up when I plan on using it.

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