English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

user116848

16:00

Can anyone delete my photo here I uploaded it accidentally and I look like shit
http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/15120/room-for-farooq-and-fantasier

skullpatrol

10

Q: Nationalism or Fanatical Fanhood in the UK?

My friend was about 15 years old when he was on a trip to the UK. He is an Indian and was in the UK for just a short trip and had an odd incident which made us all think a good amount of what happened at that point of time. He was wearing a Manchester United or some other famous football club ha...

uk indian-citizens

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Arrowfar You should flag that particular message for a mod. But incidentally I think the picture is fine.

user116848

Okay

user116848

Then I'll leave it there Right?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

if you want

Johan Larsson

16:04

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 or just ping Kit

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it's not a secret picture you never intended anyone to see, right?

It is your avatar photo, after all.

user116848

No not at all

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

In a "private" chat room

user116848

Yeah its okay I guess

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I'm sure nobody will go there anyway. Except if we keep talking about it.

But on the other hand, there's no harm in flagging it and asking a mod to delete it.

You don't need to wait for Kit, any mod will probably oblige.

user116848

16:05

Actually I was trying to see how to upload any picture on a chat. Good thing I didn't try it here

user116848

So apart from Kit other mods don't come here on chat often Right?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Arrowfar RegDwight is often here. The other ELU mods, not really

But in Chat, any mod can do anything, stackexchange-wide. I think.

user116848

So where can I find the names of the other mods?

Mitch

Anything?

skullpatrol

@Mitch Any what?

Johan Larsson

16:18

item

skullpatrol

item of what?

Ice Girl

What to what?

Johan Larsson

of type object

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Arrowfar english.stackexchange.com/users?tab=moderators

afk

skullpatrol

an object of what type?

Johan Larsson

16:22

object is a type (.net)

prolly java also

tchrist

0

Q: Word or phrase for a person who sets their watch forward to prevent being late?

My aunt does this. She sets her watch 15 mins early because she knows that she is chronically late all the time. Is there a word or phrase specifically for the act of setting your watch forward with this intention? Or perhaps for the kind of person who tries to correct themselves with techniques...

single-word-requests

Johan Larsson

is it a good/bad question?

skullpatrol

Strange.

Sort of good when you force yourself to think about it imo

Johan Larsson

yeah, I liked it also, still curious why Tom linked it

tchrist

I always call those sorts of people delusional, or if you prefer words of one syllable, mad.

Johan Larsson

16:38

the question is ok then?

skullpatrol

yes imo

tchrist

I linked it because I find such people who do that to be bizarre examples of attempting to willfully deceive oneself.

Which is usually considered a quackery.

Johan Larsson

for a second I thought I got a straight answer, before the edit.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist it's useful in one circumstance: when you want to wake up at 6:50, but it's much easier to set your alarm for 7:00, you can just set your clock to be 10 mins ahead.

Since that clock is generally unused after waking up, it doesn't screw up the rest of the day's time-keeping

tchrist

Aug 13 '12 at 1:59, by tchrist

I really do usually just say what I mean without a great deal of metaphor.

Johan Larsson

16:42

I have not noticed :)

tchrist

@JohanLarsson Just because I say what I mean does not mean that others always know what I mean to say.

KitFox

@Arrowfar Done.

@Arrowfar Mod names are also in blue in a chat room.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist But there is also a sort of logic to this, in that people get accustomed to doing things at certain times. If doing X at time Y doesn't leave enough time for Z, it might be easier to fudge when time Y is without having to pick a new Y' time.

Kinda like DST

Which I know you love.

skullpatrol

Time is relative.

QED

Alraxite

I used to set my watch late a few times before the day of an exam. Didn't really help because I kind of remembered by how many minutes I had set it late.

tchrist

16:49

@Alraxite Then you are not mad.

Alraxite

That was in order to make me feel I was running late.

So that I wouldn't procrastinate.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 People who plan to do things on time are perpetually late. Only people who plan to do things early have a track record of doing them on time. That’s because there’s always slippage or Murphy, and the early-planner absorbs that while the on-timer screws it up.

Is this not true?

skullpatrol

It's like an anti-procrastination device.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist Yes. Well, that's part of it. But I think the assumption here is that the person in question isn't likely to change their own ability at estimating how long stuff takes or risks of delay. But they can, maybe, introduce head start.

skullpatrol

Forcing yourself to be an "early-planner."

KitFox

16:54

I don't often set my clock ahead. I've done it a few times in my life and found myself in a state of panic because I inevitably forget that I have done so since I never do things like that, preferring instead to plan early.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I'm really just being a devil's advocate here. Personally I set every clock in my house as close to the atomic clocks as possible.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Dunning-Kruger

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist Nah, I dunno. These people at least recognize that there is a problem. They just don't really know how to fix it.

skullpatrol

Admittedly, forcing or trying to trick yourself makes things unnecessarily complicated.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@skullpatrol It's simple. Your watch sets your deadlines. You force the deadlines to be artificially early, so that you have a built-in buffer when you inevitably fail.

It's an end-of-pipe solution that only works in limited cases, but it's better than nothing.

TRiG

17:00

Automatic title case

Alraxite

Wait, what's the advantage of setting your clock early?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Alraxite you set your clock to be ahead of the regular time. So when it's really 6:50, your clock says 7:00.

That way, when you get up at 7, you have 10 extra minutes to get to work.

Johan Larsson

We Are the Chatters, should are be capitalized?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@TRiG People need a tool for this?

skullpatrol

@Alraxite It's a false way of trying to fool yourself, there is no real "advantage."

imo

Alraxite

17:06

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, but I was talking about setting the clock early (that you set an earlier time on the clock than the actual time). I don't understand the question on the main site.

What advantage is her aunt gaining by this?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@skullpatrol Well, as I said before, there is one advantage with an alarm clock like mine, which can be set to 7:00 in 8 button-presses, but takes 56 button presses to reach 6:50

@Alraxite her aunt is doing what I described.

Alraxite

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 "Sets her watch 15 min early" means to set the clock ahead?

TRiG

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Apparently so.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

> Is there a word or phrase specifically for the act of setting your watch forward

I think the OP is being a little loose with the terminology.

What does it mean for a clock to be "early"?

Alraxite

For it to be behind the actual time.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

17:09

Actually I would guess that it does mean ahead. The watch reaches 7:00 before the world does.

Alraxite

That's how I would interpret it anyway.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it arrives there earlier.

Hm. So to set your watch ahead you give it a later time than it is.

Once it's been set ahead, it always shows a later time than it is now.

Is the watch late? it's time is later than now. But is the watch itself late, or early?

Best to avoid those words.

Alraxite

Yeah, it's ambiguous.

Robusto

17:37

@Shog9 Well, in a sense it becomes like a family. And outsiders intrude on family matters at their peril.

Mitch

@skullpatrol Any thing. Mr S said "But in Chat, any mod can do anything, stackexchange-wide. I think." I just want to know the parameters of what that 'any' might be.

Robusto

@TRiG "We Found O'neill's Notes about Ludwig Van Beethoven" (I think it needs more work).

O'Neill's ... About ... van

skullpatrol

and every family has its black sheep

Robusto

I try to be.

skullpatrol

;-)

Mitch

17:46

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It's for the same people who use ppt's Auto-content Wizard, and need to be told that they've been speaking prose all this time.

Alraxite

17:59

BTW, which encryption utilities do you guys use?

I was looking for one...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

18:20

@Alraxite for what purpose?

Alraxite

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 for protecting sensitive information.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Alraxite yeah, but what is your use-case?

how do you expect to use it?

tchrist

@Alraxite From whom? Where?

Alraxite

Um, well, I have some information (mostly in text files) that I'd like not others to access...

It's not only just passwords.

In that case I'd probably use a password manager.

tchrist

@Alraxite chmod og-rwx file*

And what are you doing letting other people on a computer that you keep sensitive data on anyway?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

18:23

@Alraxite You could use something like gpg/pgp to encrypt the files using a private key. Then delete the original files. If you lose the private key you can no longer access the files. You have to decrypt the files to read them.

tchrist

It is difficult to consider a situation where this is worth the hassle.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

You could use TrueCrypt (if you trust it) or Bitlocker (worse) or dm-crypt (linux) to encrypt a whole hard disk or just a sub-volume on a hard disk

Robusto

@tchrist: Or self-delusional. — Robusto 27 secs ago

Alraxite

@tchrist That's unintelligible to me.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 OK. I'll look into it.

tchrist

@Alraxite Then you are from the wrong universe.

Alraxite

18:25

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, I used to use TrueCrypt on my XP machine.

It doesn't support Win 8. Not to mention it's discontinued.

tchrist

Trash.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist I keep a document on my computer that has tons of bank info in it. The purpose is to allow myself or my wife or my heir to consolidate all our financials in the event of one or both of our deaths. The document is updated rarely, and is printed and stored physically. But the electronic copy is gpg encrypted.

Andrew Leach

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 TrueCrypt is deprecated.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Nobody ever thinks of that. I’ve seen the negative fall out too many times.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@AndrewLeach only by its creator.

Alraxite

18:27

Anyway, thanks for the help!

Andrew Leach

Is that not enough? (I've used it in the past, and rather liked it, but now...)

Robusto

I smell a marketing opportunity: How about PornCrypt? It searches your drives for porn and encrypts the files and directories containing them.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@AndrewLeach Well, there is a certain amount of question about why they deprecated it.

Andrew Leach

Hmm. Tell me more...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

It is very fishy.

Johan Larsson

18:28

I have a lib project, a unit test project and now I'm creating a test/visualization project. What could be a good name for the new project?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

They recommended that people switch to BitLocker.

However there is zero evidence that Bitlocker is secure.

tchrist

@Robusto find / -print0 | xargs -0 is_it_pr0n | xargs -0 crypt0pr0n

Johan Larsson

It is for math stuff like fitting a set of point to a plane etc.

Andrew Leach

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And he has a stake in it?

Robusto

@tchrist If you package that with a GUI it could make lots of money.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

18:29

@AndrewLeach impossible to say. Nobody knows who the creators of TrueCrypt are.

Andrew Leach

Perhaps the NSA has leant on him.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

That is the question.

Is the NSA involved? etc.

Robusto

@AndrewLeach Or worse.

Andrew Leach

Oh. No further development then!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Anyway there is an independent audit of the TC source code being done.

If it turns up that the code seems fine, then why not just fork it?

tchrist

18:30

@Robusto Because people who use computers without syntax are like chimps who use language without syntax: no combinatoric power, no expression, no culture. Nothing but incoherent chumps pushing a shiny button all day.

Even dolphins grok syntax, but not chimps or Microsoft users.

Andrew Leach

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes. Fork it; we don't care about the NSA.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Due to a quirk of copyright law, it's unlikely that the author could sue for copyright violation (even if it IS a violation, debatable) because they'd have to identify themselves.

Robusto

@tchrist Push the red button, get a food pellet. What's to understand?

Andrew Leach

(Thanks for the pun.)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Supposedly the author of the code has stated that it cannot be forked, it's broken beyond repair, but they are okay with letting it be used as a reference for a new project.

tchrist

18:31

@Robusto Push the blue button, get a cocaine pellet. What’s to understand?

Andrew Leach

@tchrist But only one enters the Matrix.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But considering the level of paranoia the TC dev(s) have had over the years, the recommendation to "fuck everying, use Microsoft BitLocker" seems very very out of character.

Robusto

@tchrist But do you disdain making money off of those people?

tchrist

@Robusto Ask WC Fields.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@tchrist Is that what those chimps are trying to do to me all day? begone, chimps!

Robusto

18:32

He said, "Never give a sucker an even break."

tchrist

BINGO! We have a winner, folks!

Pablum for the suckers.

Robusto

Made Bill Gates a billionaire.

tchrist

All money is good money.

Robusto

In fact, I'd be surprised if there are any billionaires who didn't make their pile from such activity.

tchrist

Even when you are a complete asshole.

Apparently.

In fact, it doubtless helps.

Andrew Leach

18:35

Ah! One of our astrologers is back.

tchrist

@AndrewLeach You mean black?

Andrew Leach

Possibly. But he has returned as well.

tchrist

See, this person doesn’t understand how SE works:

0

A: a person's interests do [blank]?

I'm going with FumbFingers answer of lead or incline.

Robusto

@AndrewLeach You had more than one? That's being unduly careful.

Andrew Leach

I haven't analysed all the phone numbers.

tchrist

18:36

Or maybe they do.

Robusto

@tchrist Who, FumbleFingers or the other guy?

tchrist

@AndrewLeach Aren’t they all "megabuck per minute, 5-minute minimum" numbers?

@Robusto Yeah, well.

There’s no “Convert comment to answer” option.

Robusto

Sounds like a marketing opportunity.

Andrew Leach

@tchrist I don't know, I haven't analysed them. It's possible they are actually from different countries.

tchrist

@Robusto I wish you would stop using such foul language.

Andrew Leach

18:38

@tchrist Can an accepted answer go the other way?

Robusto

@tchrist You're such a prude. Marketing! Marketing! Advertising! Branding!

tchrist

@AndrewLeach I do not understand what you mean.

@Robusto flags

Andrew Leach

Convert the accepted answer into the comment it should be.

tchrist

@AndrewLeach A moderatron can convert an answer into a comment, but one is loth to do so if it has been accepted.

You just cannot go the other way.

Andrew Leach

Now, now. Moderator, moderatrix. But if elected I shall resist assimilation. Noone has said resistance is futile yet.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

18:42

@tchrist to be fair, FF didn't post his answer as an answer either.

So the OP posted it as an answer instead.

Andrew Leach

Yes, that's fine. There is precedent for a comment being converted to an answer.

tchrist

@AndrewLeach A moderatron no gender has, like unto a waitron, a cyclotron, or a finite automaton.

Andrew Leach

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But it usually takes a little bit of work.

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Indeed.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So I'd be willing to let that one slide. Two wrongs making a right, as it were.

tchrist

18:44

@AndrewLeach I on rare occasion do do that, but when I do, I CW it. (!= I quit)

Andrew Leach

Altruistic.

tchrist

@AndrewLeach Just, as in justice.

It seems unfair to get rep for somebody else’s answer.

But neither do I wish the answer lost in an ephemeral comment.

Andrew Leach

I'm very tempted to flag the answer as Not an answer to see what happens.

tchrist

Plus SE refuses to search on those.

So you have to resort to Google.

Comments are ephemera.

@AndrewLeach It would land in the Low Quality Review Queue, where it would be misleadingly mislabelled as having been automatically flagged for content and quality.

At which point it would either be deleted forthwith or else would pull on some moderatronic tail unnecessarily.

Andrew Leach

Oh. Do manual flags get labelled as automatic in that case?

Robusto

18:49

@tchrist Google's search is better than SE's anyway.

tchrist

@Robusto So is a boot to the head.

@AndrewLeach YES!!! This is the evil.

Robusto

Well, there's that.

Andrew Leach

Aha. Well I can't be blamed for it ending up there then. Jolly good, cos that's what's happened.

tchrist

Et voilà.

> A United Methodist pastor defrocked after officiating at his son's same-sex wedding argued before a nine-person church appeals panel that the decision should be overturned.

Any pastor who wears a frock to his son’s wedding is just asking for trouble.

Now, I did once shoot a wedding where the bride was in a traditional white gown but the groom wore nothing but hotpants and the pastor a simple sarong. But that was a traditional wedding.

So the pastor ran no similar risk of getting his skirt taken away from him.

Cerberus

@JohanLarsson No idea! I don't normally watch football...

Johan Larsson

18:58

You say that two minutes before the game starts, what kind of person are you? :)

Cerberus

@MattЭллен They are using the LHC to accelerate the ball in the game?

@JohanLarsson A dog person.

woof!

tchrist

@TRiG That doesn’t give the answer for right phrasal verbs: A Ringing in My Ears but Bringing In the Sheaves. You need to capitalize the particle that is part of a phrasal verb but not when it is a short preposition.

Andrew Leach

@JohanLarsson Is there a football game?

tchrist

How to Put Up with Your Mother-in-Law for the Week-end

Johan Larsson

@AndrewLeach yeah, no fun for you guys yesterday. Good game though.

Alraxite

19:03

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Do you also use a separate password manager or do you just keep them encrypted in text files?

Cerberus

@tchrist There are different conventions, aren't there?

Andrew Leach

@JohanLarsson Oh. Did something happen?

Cerberus

@AndrewLeach Glad to know you don't follow it either.

Andrew Leach

I was here for a lot of yesterday evening, I think.

Johan Larsson

England lost and are out

Cerberus

19:04

I know nor care where I was!

Poor old England.

Johan Larsson

There is some theoretical possibility that might be gone now

Cerberus

A possibility of what happening?

Johan Larsson

of getting to the next round, it depended on a series of events

Andrew Leach

There was a really good article in tonight's Evening Standard about the poor quality of English football and laying the blame at a standard of education which leaves people unable to string two words together coherently.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Alraxite I memorize my passwords, or write them down, or store the less-important ones in the cloud, minus the information about what they're actually for.

Andrew Leach

19:07

standard.co.uk/comment/comment/…

Alraxite

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh OK, I see. Was just wondering.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 is having a key mandatory in gpg or can I just encrypt it with a password?

key=key file

AJ Henderson

@Alraxite you need a keyfile that is protected by a password

Alraxite

@AJHenderson Oh, OK.

AJ Henderson

you can't derive a private key for asymmetric cryptography from a password

it has to be calculated in conjunction with your public key and the private key has to be stored

your password unlocks the private key file

Alraxite

So I can essentially have a password-only encryption if I keep my key side by side with the encrypted file.

I'm just looking only for password protection.

And that works.

AJ Henderson

19:12

If you just want to encrypt a file, using GPG is overkill

and less secure than other options

Alraxite

Such as...?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@AJHenderson less secure?

AJ Henderson

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 you don't want to encrypt the symmetric key with asymmetric crypto if you don't have to

extra paths to break = less secure

perhaps marginally so, but there are also more theoretical attacks that may occur in the future against asymmetric cryptography

(quantum algorithms for factoring and such)

@Alraxite just use something with straight up AES and a derived key would be my recommendation

or better yet, a derived key encrypting a randomly generated AES key that is used to encrypt the file

Alraxite

@AJHenderson Like AES Crypt?

Does that work?

AJ Henderson

AES Crypt or 7zip

either would work

Alraxite

19:20

Okay.

Thanks!

AJ Henderson

GPG is more useful for exchanging files since you can verify that the file wasn't altered and someone else can open the file without knowing your password

as long as you encrypt it to be sent to them

@Alraxite btw, password managers such as KeePass are the generally recommended best practice for password managment

Alraxite

@AJHenderson Yes, but I also have stuff other than passwords.

AJ Henderson

there is always the risk that someone put a hole in to the manager, but the risk of that is lower than the risk of your password getting leaked on one site and used on others

@Alraxite yeah, I get that, was just responding to the earlier conversation

you might also consider a secure volume

if you regularly will be changing the contents you need encrypted

though now that TrueCrypt isn't maintained, a new favorite for that hasn't emerged yet

Alraxite

I know...

AJ Henderson

I personally don't mind bitlocker, but I know a lot of people don't trust that

but then again, I don't have anything I'm worried about a governmental attacker getting

not saying I want there to not be a way for people to protect their info, but if there is a back door in Bitlocker, I don't particularly care about it for my personal needs

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:27

@AJHenderson unless that hole gets exposed to the general public

Alraxite

I can't even get BitLocker because my Win 8 is the Core one.

AJ Henderson

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 well if it is done properly, that should be very difficult

and the NSA is very good at their crypto

so I'm not too worried about that

Alraxite

But I don't think I'd use it anyway, so there's that.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@AJHenderson heh. intentional security flaws "done properly" ;)

AJ Henderson

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 well keep in mind that the NSA's goal wouldn't just be to get in, but also to make sure others can't

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:30

@AJHenderson those are conflicting goals, though. They also need to keep the existence of their access secret.

and the existence of any times they use the access.

etc.

They might even need to keep the existence of their capabilities secret from Microsoft.

Stack Exchange

Limerick Machine: I once found a pile of cash I thought that it was kinda rash To leave it right there In the...

posted on June 20, 2014 by sgdi

I once found a pile of cash I thought that it was kinda rash To leave it right there In the open air I scarpered with it in a dash

AJ Henderson

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 well to keep it secret from MS would involve needing to have a flaw in the underlying encryption, which would impact any protection

but for a partner like MS, they'd be much more likely to integrate it if they were going to do something and have it store a master key for them in a way that can't be recovered without having a special key they would guard very, very carefully

you have to keep in mind that the same tech also is used by US Businesses

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@AJHenderson yeah it all depends on what kind of access they're trying to give themselves.

AJ Henderson

and US Businesses getting hurt would backfire on them very fast

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@AJHenderson well, it's already becoming a problem.

AJ Henderson

19:33

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yes, and it is causing them issues now

personally, my bet is that there is no major backdoor in BitLocker

if anything it would be engineered weaknesses in AES itself

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

my bet is that there is no secretly-sanctioned backdoor in Bitlocker.

@AJHenderson yes

and that is the worst kind of weakness, because it's security through obscurity

AJ Henderson

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 not neccessarily, the main theory is that it would be in s-box selection

which doesn't actually break it, it just reduces key depth

and only if you know the "key". I mean, basically all security is through obscruity at that point

since you need the key to open the file

the theory is that it would be possible for a key to be used in s-box selection to make it so that a certain key could be used to eliminate a decent number of bits of complexity

but there also isn't any proof

just that s-boxes are funky

to get much beyond that requires graduate level study in AES and your brain under US Export regulation ;)

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Then there’s the opposite kind, security not through info-obscurity but through info-overload:

j/k

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

heh I just saw that on FB

tchrist

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It’s on Sulu’s G+ stream.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:40

must be on his FB stream too

he's one of the only non-actual-friends I linked to on FB

Alraxite

@AJHenderson Do you know of a good virtual drive encryption program?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I should try to meet him in person sometime, to remedy that.

tchrist

He is really hilarious, isn’t he? And I don’t mean that in a Clintonian way.

The only one I ever met was Jimmy Doohan, whom I got drunk with on a first-class flight to Canada long ago.

AJ Henderson

@Alraxite not atm

and I actually have to get going

hichris123

Don't downvote or vote to close spam. Flag it as spam and nothing else.

2

english.stackexchange.com/questions/179026/…

Alraxite

19:42

@AJHenderson Okay, ty.

I'll use 7-zip then.

Because I already have it.

tchrist

@hichris123 Sure. But could you explain more why?

Wasted votes?

Alraxite

@hichris123 VTC?

hichris123

32

Q: Why shouldn't I downvote spam that I've already flagged?

One of the responses to the question about the mass of football spam said: The proper course of action is to flag the post as spam. Three spam flags will remove it from the front page, six will delete it. Don't edit it, don't downvote it, don't use another flag. Flag as spam and move on. As...

discussion down-votes spam

@Alraxite vote to close.

+1 for adding to not do anything else to it but flag as spam! This actually affects how quickly the content is nuked! — Andrew's a Unitato Aug 11 '13 at 22:49

tchrist

This is what pisses me off.

Alraxite

@hichris123 Oh, right.

tchrist

19:45

Google indexes SE so quickly that the spammage gets there.

@hichris123 It gets auto-nuked from N spam/offensive flags, I believe. I had no idea the algorithm let N vary.

I thought it was always um, like six.

hichris123

@tchrist N = 6, or one mod flag.

@tchrist It is, it just slows people down (they don't see it).

tchrist

@hichris123 Right, but how does other activity affect how quickly it gets nuked? Oh, if off the main page. Ok.

hichris123

Gah, where are your mods? :(

(I have accounts for them to nuke)

tchrist

@hichris123 Siestaing.

hichris123

Meh, @RegDwigнt ping time. nuke plz english.stackexchange.com/users/76712/user76712 and english.stackexchange.com/users/80758/user80758

tchrist

19:48

@hichris123 Did you do a cross-site check?

hichris123

@tchrist ?

tchrist

@hichris123 I meant on siesta.

hichris123

ah.

I tried to translate it, and it didn't translate. :P

I'm confused, why are the spammers hitting ELU so hard?

tchrist

Well, siesta is one of those funny words that looks like it comes from a putative verb, but in fact does not. It looks like there should be some ES/PT/IT *sestar stem-changing verb for it, but it actually instead comes from Latin sexta, from sexta hora, which is when one would do that.

hichris123

Do they want to learn English better?

tchrist

19:51

@hichris123 Because we’re ranked like #7?

Just a guess. Or they think people here are easier marks than on the programming sites?

hichris123

@tchrist Huh. So siesta in Spanish comes from latin? Didn't know that.

@tchrist True.

tchrist

@hichris123 De veras.

Or, if you prefer an English-language dictionary:

hichris123

@tchrist Yeah, they're ELU only. Pro tip: if you're looking for spammy accounts, search for "baba ji" or "molvi ji".

tchrist

Odd.

hichris123

@tchrist Huh, did not know that. Thanks.

tchrist

19:58

> In Roman cities, the bell in the forum rang the beginning of the business
day at about six o'clock in the morning (Prime, the "first hour"), noted
the day's progress by striking again at about nine o'clock in the morning
(Terce, the "third hour"), tolled for the lunch break at noon (Sext, the
"sixth hour"), called the people back to work again at about three o'clock
in the afternoon (None, the "ninth hour"), and rang the close of the
business day at about six o'clock in the evening (the time for evening prayer).

Better.

Theodore Broda

@hichris123 How could you conclude that baba ji's posts are spam? He composed a profound post on "astrology call +82 5973491748 learn future marrriga very good". Clearly, his contributions are too advanced for you.

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