English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

George Pompidou

2:40 AM

hoot hoot!

I'm an owl!

Anonymous

3

George Pompidou

3:02 AM

horses around instead

Player72

3:44 AM

anyone here good with the oddyssey?

George Pompidou

that's not a thing.

Anonymous

The Odyssey exists even if you misspell its title

George Pompidou

but how am I supposed to know what is being referred to if it is misspelled?

have you read The Ofgernebl2függl?

that's a thing, it's just misspelled.

Anonymous

@GeorgePompidou That's a good question. How did you know what it referred to despite the misspelling?

Anonymous

It's unlikely that you didn't.

George Pompidou

3:54 AM

I didn't. I just knew that the oddyssey isn't a thing.

Anonymous

Color me skeptical.

George Pompidou

that's not even a real color.

scuttles off, giggling stupidly

Tanner

4:12 AM

The promotion of "Keeping up with the Joneses" sells the misconception... Is this the proper way to reference an idiom?

Chris's sis

7:58 AM

Greetings

Is it correct to say "I and mister X published a paper"? Or "Me and mister X published a paper"?

skullpatrol

"Mr X and I published a paper" is the correct form @Chris'ssis you would say "I published a paper" not "Me published a paper" and the name of Mr. X goes first as a matter of a polite convention.

Chris's sis

@skullpatrol This is what I wanted to know. Thanks! :-)

skullpatrol

Thanks for asking @Chris'ssis :-)

skullpatrol

8:50 AM

I'm sure there are more technically/grammatically correct ways of explaining it, but that's the way I look at it.

Cerberus

12:02 PM

@Player72 Hi! What do you need?

tchrist

2:19 PM

ELU’s Most Jaded Curmudgeons.

skullpatrol

:O 84%

tchrist

@Reg is one point ahead of even Shog9. Who knew?

And Janus is a point ahead of Jatwood.

Meanwhile, @MattЭллен has clearly retired to bee-keeping and rose gardens.

skullpatrol

why do they call 1% a "point"?

tchrist

That’s a rather pointed question.

skullpatrol

indeed :D

tchrist

2:25 PM

But so it is.

skullpatrol

basis point
n
a measure used for describing interest rates, equal to one hundredth of a percentage point (0.01%)

percentage point (pəˈsɛntɪdʒ pɔɪnt)

one hundredth of a percentage rate ⇒ interest rate changes of a quarter percentage point

Cerberus

2:57 PM

@skullpatrol Say 5% of the population are unemployed. A rise of unemployment by 10% would mean the new figure is 5.5%. A rise by 10 percentage points, however, means the new figure is 15%.

Or did you know that already?

skullpatrol

I didn't know that

Robusto

How not?

skullpatrol

is that^ a rhetorical question pal?

tchrist

% or ‰ or ‱ or ⁰⁄₀₀₀₀₀.

skullpatrol

%...

tchrist

3:06 PM

ₒ₀ₒ₀ₒ₀ₒ₀ₒ₀ₒ₀ₒ

skullpatrol

an infinitesimal percentage point = %...

tchrist

That was a wwwwweally long penta-u.

skullpatrol

a ghost of departed quantities

tchrist

⁰⁄⧞

skullpatrol

the percentage point of a ghost of departed quantities

tchrist

3:10 PM

@skullpatrol ⁰⁄∞∞∞∞∞∞⧜

skullpatrol

that works :D

tchrist

‭ ∞  221E       INFINITY
‭ ⧜  29DC       INCOMPLETE INFINITY
‭ ⧝  29DD       TIE OVER INFINITY
‭ ⧞  29DE       INFINITY NEGATED WITH VERTICAL BAR

skullpatrol

I was arguing about "infinity" most of yesterday

when will I learn :/

never...

tchrist

[ ¹⁄∞⁻, ¹⁄∞⁺ ]

skullpatrol

nice

tchrist

3:16 PM

People have been arguing about infinity forever, and they always shall.

skullpatrol

indeed

tchrist

et nunc et semper

Does MathJax work in the more mathical SE chatrooms?

skullpatrol

yes

tchrist

Bon.

skullpatrol

you need the plug in

tchrist

3:19 PM

Hm

So it works otherwise than how it works in the regular postings?

skullpatrol

dunno

the chatroom needs a special plug in

tchrist

Don’t SE sites with MathJax enabled farm out the rendering?

And how does it tell you that it needs this? I’d rather not sully myself by going there myself.

I wonder if the plugin still going a-farming.

skullpatrol

word of mouth

tchrist

Or whether it instead does everything in situ.

skullpatrol

math.ucla.edu/~robjohn/math/mathjax.html

here

tchrist

3:24 PM

@snailboat So fine a thought though that may be, I doubt it rhymes for me nor thee.

Now why in the world is LᴬΤᴱΧ set in italic?

skullpatrol

where?

tchrist

In your math.ucla link.

I think it looks better that way. :)

I bet I know why.

skullpatrol

why?

tchrist

I bet it renders all roman letters in oblique.

Just as in formulae.

𝒯ℰ𝒳 𝒮𝒞ℋℳℰ𝒞ℋ

Bad E, alas.

Here, this one is all of one cloth woven: 𝔗𝔈𝔛 𝔖ℭℌ𝔐𝔈ℭℌ.

Oder nicht.

    macbook# echo 𝔗𝔈𝔛 𝔖ℭℌ𝔐𝔈ℭℌ | uniquote -x
   \x{1D517}\x{1D508}\x{1D51B}\x{A0}\x{1D516}\x{212D}\x{210C}\x{1D510}\x{1D508}\x{212D}\x{210C}

    macbook# echo 𝔗𝔈𝔛 𝔖ℭℌ𝔐𝔈ℭℌ | uniquote -v
    \N{MATHEMATICAL FRAKTUR CAPITAL T}\N{MATHEMATICAL FRAKTUR CAPITAL E}\N{MATHEMATICAL FRAKTUR CAPITAL X}\N{NO-BREAK SPACE}\N{MATHEMATICAL FRAKTUR CAPITAL S}\N{BLACK-LETTER CAPITAL C}\N{BLACK-LETTER CAPITAL H}\N{MATHEMATICAL FRAKTUR CAPITAL M}\N{MATHEMATICAL FRAKTUR CAPITAL E}\N{BLACK-LETTER CAPITAL C}\N{BLACK-LETTER CAPITAL H}

The stuff in the BMP doesn't look the stuff in the SMP.

skullpatrol

my profile has a bit of that

tchrist

3:39 PM

Unicode didn’t provide a MATHEMATICAL FRACTUR version in the SMP of the stuff they already had a BLACK-LETTER version of in the BMP. This is unfortunate.

But you can fix that by going bold: 𝕿𝕰𝖃 𝕾𝕮𝕳𝕸𝕰𝕮𝕳

And good luck reading black letter.

𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖎𝖒𝖚𝖒

Wow, how felicitous yet unpalæographically fidelitous a letter spacing there on that 𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖎𝖒𝖚𝖒, eh?

Hm, x-heights don’t even vaguely match here.

skullpatrol

huh?

tchrist

skullpatrol

i see now, thanks

tchrist

The x-height of the main font looks nothing like the one used for the SMP math fraktur.

skullpatrol

fontology :)

tchrist

3:46 PM

This is something of a nightmare in typesetting, but some modern systems allow you to say "Pick whatever fractional point-size for font A such that the x-height of A exactly matches the true x-height of font B at some discrete point-size.”

You have to do that when mixing on a line, or it looks like shit.

That way if you have to pinch a glyph from a different font, it has the right size as the rest of the word or line.

Had to do this for my last book.

Because the font they ended up using was pre–Unicode-3.0, so there was a bunch we needed to grab from otherwhere.

skullpatrol

interesting

tchrist

The new U+1E9E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S was one of them.

U+00DF ‹ß› \N{LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S} is Age=1.1, but U+1E9E ‹ẞ› \N{LATIN CAPITAL LETTER SHARP S} is Age=5.1, where by Age, I mean the Unicode character property Age which is used to indicate the first Unicode release in which that code point was an assigned code point.

Oh, and everything starts at Age=1.1; there is no Age=1.0 because it was not compatible.

The argument for a capital sharp s was interesting, and to me at least, unexpected.

skullpatrol

go on...

tchrist

Well, traditionally the lowercase ß was fully equivalent to uppercase SS digraph.

skullpatrol

ok

tchrist

3:57 PM

What I mean is that the uppercase case-mapping is ß -> SS, so running uc("tschüß") is defined to return "TSCHÜSS".

“Capital Sharp S — Germany’s new character”

2

Andrew Leach

That could have interesting results for some words.

tchrist

@AndrewLeach Because the lengths change?

Andrew Leach

No, because uc("imbißstube") would end up with three Ss in the middle, whereas it's easier to read with ß.

tchrist

Ouch.

Andrew Leach

It's intriguing that the two glyphs you have used are actually different on this PC. Capital is wider.

tchrist

4:01 PM

You make a good argument for the creation of a capital version of it, for text set in all caps or small caps.

And that, apparently, is part of the argument that was made for it.

Andrew Leach

That's pretty.

tchrist

Isn’t it? I love how they find places to hide the Umlaute so that they fit within the line proper.

tchrist

4:14 PM

macbook# perl -CSA -le 'printf("lowercase of U+%v04X <%s> is U+%v04X <%s>, uppercase of U+%v04X <%s> is U+%v04X <%s>\n", ($_)x2, (lc)x2, ($_)x2, (uc)x2) for @ARGV' ß ẞ

lowercase of U+00DF <ß> is U+00DF <ß>, uppercase of U+00DF <ß> is U+0053.0053 <SS>
lowercase of U+1E9E <ẞ> is U+00DF <ß>, uppercase of U+1E9E <ẞ> is U+1E9E <ẞ>

Kinda annoying.

And uc(lc("ẞ")) is not ẞ but SS.

If only they had thought of all this for Unicode v1.1, we wouldn’t have a lot of the super-ugliness is casemapping that we have now, all because of the lowercase sharp s.

Then again, un-roundtrippability is normal. Think of the three sigmata. Or just in English: uc("weaſel") is "WEASEL".

There are, alas, “lots” of single code points whose casemapping results in multiple code points.

macbook# unichars 'length(lc) > 1' | wc -l
       1
macbook# unichars 'length(uc) > 1' | wc -l
     102
macbook# unichars 'length(ucfirst) > 1' | wc -l
      48
macbook# unichars 'length(fc) > 1' | wc -l
     104

Any guesses what that first one is, the only code point whose lowercase is more than a single code point?

It’s notorious.

Hint: It might even keep them out of the EU. :)

U+0130 ‭ İ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH DOT ABOVE

macbook#  perl -CSA -e 'printf("lc of U+%v04X <%s> is U+%v04X <%s>\n", ($_)x2, (lc)x2) for @ARGV' İ
lc of U+0130 <İ> is U+0069.0307 <i̇>

Really really annoying.

You can’t “correctly” capitalize “i” in the Turkic languages without special case-mapping rules.

‭ I  0049       LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I
        * Turkish and Azerbaijani use 0131 for lowercase
        x (latin capital letter i with dot above - 0130)
        x (cyrillic capital letter byelorussian-ukrainian i - 0406)
        x (cyrillic letter palochka - 04C0)
        x (script capital i - 2110)
        x (black-letter capital i - 2111)
        x (roman numeral one - 2160)

So in Turkish, lowercase of "I" is actually "ı" U+0131 LATIN SMALL LETTER DOTLESS I.

And in Azerbaijanaramadamadingdonghi.

If only the Romans were still here to teach people how to spell using the Latin alphabet. :)

Mitch

4:44 PM

crushed under weight of complexity....stops using characters to communicate

Matt Эллен

4:55 PM

evening

Robusto

So my cat bit my arm yesterday. Now I'm on 10 days of antibiotics. Stupid cats.

Matt Эллен

biting the arm that feeds it! how foolish. no salmon for that cat this Christmas

Robusto

And then he gives me the stink-eye when I refuse to let him back in the lap.

"Look who's sensitive all of a sudden."

Matt Эллен

the very nerve of it

Mitch

meow

medica

5:05 PM

@Robusto - hey, I hope you saw my apology. I felt very rude.

@Mitch - that was an interesting link. I see that 4 mods were in the top 19. That seems to say I'm correct that downvoting is necessary for the site?

If you were inferring something else, I'm all ears.

Also, I don't know how to see the next page, or the next.

Would you be so kind as to tell me (where to get?) how to do that? Programming is Greek to me - no, actually it's much worse. Programming is like Klingon to me.

Matt Эллен

I think there is only one page. the query itself is limited to the first 100 entries. if you fork the query, you can remove that part and run it and it will return results for everyone with more than 20 downvotes

medica

@Robusto sorry about your cat. One of my big mistakes (my first year out) was treating a girl who had been bitten with the wrong antibiotic (a stupid move and an invaluable lesson). So, good that you're on them.

Matt Эллен

so the query would look like:

SELECT
    Id as [User Link],
    UpVotes,
    DownVotes,
    (DownVotes)*100/(DownVotes+UpVotes) as DownVotesPCT
FROM Users
WHERE  DownVotes > 20     -- Suppress lower vote counts;
 AND Id <> -1 -- these are habitual downvoters.
ORDER BY DownVotesPCT DESC

medica

@Ma fork the query (Matt) = ?;<->??!8-O|:-(?? (me)

haha!

Thanks.

Andrew Leach

@medica Points out ambiguous statement and then thinks better of it.

Matt Эллен

5:14 PM

no probs :)

medica

Do I replace the entire fielf with that or just add it into the field?

Matt Эллен

replace the entire field

medica

thank you.

@AndrewLeach - do speak

I'd like to hear your thoughts

Andrew Leach

I didn't know you could be bitten with the wrong antibiotic.

(Was that worth it?!)

medica

Haha Yes.

At least it's the first time I smile about it in the decades since I've made that mistake.

So am I just hairsplitting with my concern about downvoting? I think I do tend to split hair at times. Maybe more often.

Matt Эллен

5:21 PM

Downvoting is necessary for the site

I wouldn't have cast over 1000 if I didn't think so :D

medica

So, earning the legendary badge isn't a sign of a good user (well, what with how strange rep is, that should go without saying, I guess) but a maybe unhelpful user...?

Matt Эллен

no.

medica

hmm... you know what I mean, though, don't you?

Matt Эллен

the legendary badge is a sign that you have rep capped 200 times

rep capping only implies you didn't down vote an answer in the rep cap period after you capped

so you could have down voted during the period before you capped

medica

But if downvoting is important to the site, doing both decreases the number of legendaries.

Matt Эллен

5:26 PM

I'm not sure what you mean by "both"

medica

No, see, that's not (I think) true, because if you downvoted any time during that 24° period, it gets pitted against your cap. I think

I've looked at those times, and I find sometimes it was on two downvotes I placed all day.

Matt Эллен

maybe. I don't cap often enough to know, but it would seem odd to do it that way, although SE does odd things from time to time.

medica

I've tried reversing the downvotes, and that never works.

It sometimes brings me to 199, but never back to 200.

rep capping only implies you didn't down vote an answer in the rep cap period after you capped This states that only downvotes I've cast after hitting my cap count?

Matt Эллен

that's what I think. I don't know for sure

medica

I'm not sure that's right. I don't know, though.

I hate to make a post on the big site.

Never have

Matt Эллен

5:33 PM

Ill ask around (brb)

medica

@tchrist very pretty font.

@tchrist - interesting article.

Matt Эллен

no response yet.

on the other hand there's nothing to worry about posting to meta meta

Stack Exchange

5:48 PM

Limerick Machine: There once was a man from Ohio Who constantly asked “why oh why oh?” There wasn’…

posted on December 12, 2014 by sgdi

There once was a man from Ohio Who constantly asked “why oh why oh?” There wasn’t a reason It was just the season For things to be making him cry “oh!”

medica

the thought of it makes me cringe.

well, I'll give it a couple of days or weeks or months and see what happens.

Thanks, @MattЭллен. You're very helpful. I appreciate it.

If you hear back, ping me. :-)

Mitch

@medica What I inferred was that contrary to expectations, many of our most prominent members are heavy downvoters. "necessary for the site" was never in my mind. I think downvoting is necessary, but I just happen to tend towards a higher proportion of upvotes.

Dang, you left.

Robusto

@medica No problem. I just thought it was funny.

@medica So what was the wrong antibiotic? They gave me clindamycin.

@Mitch I'm not a heavy downvoter.

So how do I tell my cat that I love it but I'm just not into pain and antibiotics?

Mitch

6:31 PM

@Robusto You are a "prominent member" but not in the 'many' part. From that table.

@Robusto Give it back the mouse it just laid on your doorstep.

Robusto

We got the mouse problem settled.

Mitch

Or denail it... shudders

How did you solve the mouse 'problem'?

Robusto

Stopped storing food in the basement.

KitFox

6:46 PM

@tchrist I have a character that won't display, and I'm not sure how to identify it. Can you help with that?

tchrist

@KitFox Probably.

KitFox

Shall we talk privately?

tchrist

Just paste it here.

KitFox

OK. A moment.

tchrist

Naw, it's easy.

KitFox

6:51 PM

�

tchrist

I in turn paste it into a "what the hell is that?" script.

No, that’s the Unicode Replacement Character.

This is not a failure to display.

KitFox

How do I give you the right thing?

tchrist

I wonder whether this means something in the processing chain messed up and swapped in the URC.

KitFox

I can believe it.

tchrist

Do you have a source where it displays reasonably?

KitFox

6:52 PM

Oh. Wait. I know where I can get it.

brb

’

That. Prime? Maybe a single quote?

tchrist

That’s U+2019, the RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK.

So...

Are you trying to display CP1252 but saying it is actually UTF-8?

KitFox

Maybe.

The db is 1252.

tchrist

That’s trouble.

KitFox

I don't know about the results page, but it's different than the content page, so it displays correctly in one place and not the other.

tchrist

You cannot just display CP1252 in a UTF-8 page without upgrading/re-encoding.

KitFox

6:55 PM

OK. Well, that's not going to be my problem. I'll pass it on to the dev to fix. I just needed to know what wasn't displaying.

tchrist

We, thank god, upgraded all our tables to UTF-8.

cp1252       90  ⇒  U+FFFD  ＜ � ＞  \N{REPLACEMENT CHARACTER}
cp1252       91  ⇒  U+2018  ＜ ‘ ＞  \N{LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK}
cp1252       92  ⇒  U+2019  ＜ ’ ＞  \N{RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK}
cp1252       93  ⇒  U+201C  ＜ “ ＞  \N{LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK}
cp1252       94  ⇒  U+201D  ＜ ” ＞  \N{RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK}
cp1252       95  ⇒  U+2022  ＜ • ＞  \N{BULLET}
cp1252       96  ⇒  U+2013  ＜ – ＞  \N{EN DASH}
cp1252       97  ⇒  U+2014  ＜ — ＞  \N{EM DASH}
cp1252       98  ⇒  U+02DC  ＜ ˜ ＞  \N{SMALL TILDE}

KitFox

Thanks.

tchrist

So that’s the problem. The page encoding is fibbing.

KitFox

I don't understand. It's not translating it correctly?

That looks like the codepage maps correctly.

Robusto

@tchrist We have exactly that problem. Our databases were encoded in Latin-1:Swedish or some such nonsense. All the data has to be reimported. (I mean, where did they get "Swedish" from?)

KitFox

7:02 PM

I can't find how the page is encoded.

Matt Эллен

@KitFox it might say in the head tag something like <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

or <meta charset="utf-8">

KitFox

It's a stupid IE compatibility thing, but seems that means "utf-8".

It's this: <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=9; IE=8; IE=7; IE=EDGE" />

There's no other thing.

So whatever that means.

Matt Эллен

hmmm

KitFox

I don't get it either.

maybe it's embedded somewhere else.

Matt Эллен

yeah, that tag seems to indicate the IE modes that are supported

KitFox

7:07 PM

I would think.

I'm going to let the dev figure it out.

Matt Эллен

yeah, that's their job!

medica

7:29 PM

@Robusto - hi. Do you happen to still be here?

@Robusto - I gave a 12 year old girl who got a cat bite to her cheek erythromycin*. A day later, she was hospitalized for IV antibiotic treatment with the proper drug. Never made the mistake again (one of the few good things about mistakes is that one learns from them very quickly in medicine.)

@Robusto - ok, I don't want to go into too much detail here in chat, but if you're not allergic to penicillin, the drug of choice for cat bites is Augmentin (amoxicillin-clavulanate). Cat bites (the true puncture wounds) are always treated, because they almost always get infected.
The main pathogen is Pasturella *multocida*, so the drug has to cover *at least* that bug.

Matt Эллен

hi @medica. I've chatted to some other mods. What they say is that if you down vote after hitting 200 then you will be below 200 (regardless of how much you would have scored from up votes) until you receive more rep, but if you down voted before you reach 200, you will still reach 200.

crl

Hi marge @medica it's Cyril

medica

Clindamycin has virtually no effect on Pasteurella, so it's usually not used singly, but usually in combination with another abiot.

@crl Hi, Cyril! How are you?

crl

abiots are placebos :p

medica

@crl :D

crl

7:36 PM

no joke, they probably have an effect

medica

@MattЭллен OK, Thanks. I will pay more attention to my voting habits. Is there any reason to think that might be changed?

@crl Hmm, just wondering, Cyril, but are you off your meds?

Stack Exchange

Limerick Machine: They said it would be over quick I’d not even feel a prick It just wasn’t true The pa…

posted on December 12, 2014 by sgdi

They said it would be over quick I’d not even feel a prick It just wasn’t true The pain grew and grew And made me quite violently sick

Matt Эллен

@medica not as far as I know.

medica

@MattЭллен OK. I'll watch myself.

Matt Эллен

rightoh :D

medica

7:38 PM

Thanks. Really.

Matt Эллен

no problem

medica

@crl j/k

How are you, though. I haven't chatted with you in a long time!

crl

@medica I have stopped the meds, they disabled my brain too much, but the psychiatrist does not agree, he is pessimistic..

medica

Ah. Doctors. :(

crl

@medica I tolerate smokers a bit more

medica

7:40 PM

How are you doing, though? Oh, that's great news!

So you feel better overall?

crl

I need to find a job I think, to fill my boredom

I'm just playing scrabble all day long, with a solver, it's fun to beat everyone

medica

Yes, you do. You really do. It would be so good for you. Even if it's just a (smoke-free) coffee shop or something, till you go back to school.

crl

I'm searching a developer job (Python maybe), I think I can be motivated to do that all day

medica

@crl Hehehe! Yes, it is! I used to play chess online. 7 - 10 minute games. Loads of fun.

Better for your overall well-being than computer games, mon ami.

Mitch

@medica Why do you care so badly? So you rep capped at 200 but then downvoted 15 items? You're not exactly hurting.

medica

7:44 PM

@Mitch I don't care badly. I care enough to see if it's a bug. If it's not, I will adapt easily. Just fun to try to get another gold badge. The rep means little to me anymore.

Mitch

@medica Wow, cats are like komodo dragons like that then. if the prey gets away, the cat can just follow them until they get slowed down by a fever.

medica

@Mitch :D

Cats bites are much worse than dog bites for infection. Dog bits are more disfiguring.

crl

@medica but he said that type of illness (schizophrenia) worsen with time, without medics your head becomes constantly jammed

Mitch

@medica I know the feeling, trying to optimize this 'reputation' number. I'm just saying that in the bigger picture, you shouldn't mind since you think of the downvote as a positive contribution. Think of it like bonuses, you lose those points but for better quality.

Johan Larsson

I bought a snowmobile tonight.

Then went back to work.

medica

7:46 PM

@crl Yes, Ceril, I'm afraid that's true, actually. It makes me very sad, but he's right.

crl

ahh ok, I think I will discuss again with him, I need a treatment but just one less powerful

medica

@Mitch Well, actually if I had to pick between the two, I would pick doing what I believe is the right thing, which is to downvote.

crl

Mitch

@JohanLarsson a real one? for fun or for practical use?

Johan Larsson

@crl Mine is a climber, longer and stronger.

crl

7:48 PM

:))

medica

@crl There's not a lot of harm in trying to go without your meds for a while.

Johan Larsson

@Mitch Fun. A friend has been nagging for two years. Ran out of excuses.

Mitch

@medica It's kind of a nice thing that a medication can 'unjam' things.

medica

@crl But if you don't make the changes needed to put you in a better place, you will most likely (I'm sorry to say) go back to how you were a year or so ago (and before).

Mitch

no matter what kind of sickness there is either a cold or cancer or a cat bite or mental things, you always feel like it is your own fault, like its your own personal failing, however irrational that maybe)

medica

7:50 PM

@Mitch Medicines are one of God's gifts to this world.

Mitch

Well, it is totally the cat's fault for the bite.

medica

@Mitch absolutely!

Mitch

@JohanLarsson Can drive it to where you want to go, or do you have trailer to take it up to the place to go?

medica

Blame the cat, blame the cancer, don't blame yourself, unless you smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish, shoot up drugs (even then I feel bad for the user).

crl

@medica ok I see

Mitch

7:52 PM

@medica also germ theory.

and relevantly, washing your hands.

medica

@crl Go out there and get a job, Ceril.

@Mitch another gift to man. Soap.

crl

@medica thanks Susan (it's Cyril)

Mitch

@medica Fishes seem to be able to handle it OK, why not me?

medica

@crl arrch. I'm terrible at spelling. sorry!

Johan Larsson

@Mitch My friend has a stuga in the mountains. Gonna leave it there, not enough snow here. No snow at all in fact.

Mitch

7:54 PM

@medica and waste treatment. how about concrete?

medica

@Mitch try putting your fish into a bowl of Chevas regal. Or Mad Dog 20-20. Or Boone's Farm aple wine (I feel sick even naming the last one.)

Mitch

@JohanLarsson Nice.

Johan Larsson

stuga = ??

Mitch

chalet?

medica

@Mitch lol! Yes, maybe concrete, too.

Mitch

7:56 PM

@medica I'm trying to think of the one single thing that made the difference.

Brushing teeth?

medica

@Mitch clean water

single most important thing.

Mitch

Well then concrete is good for that.

medica

D'oh, you're kidding me.

Mitch

Oh yeah, I heard that guinea worm is becoming rarer and rarer now because of water cleaning practices (concrete is involved!)

medica

you can fight ebola with enough clean water and soap.

@Mitch lol! are you a shareholder in Concrete-o-matic or something?

Mitch

7:58 PM

@medica concrete is good for building water treatment plants. I wouldn't know how to otherwise.

(I don't know how to anyway but in my imagination)

medica

The romans used lead pipes to bring clean water. :(

It was ok if the water was soft, but bad if the water was hard.

Soft water would leave a scale deposit in the pipes, so reduced lead leaching into the water.

:(

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