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01:00 - 17:0018:00 - 00:00

02:03
Guys, how do you recognise a word has no plural form?
Experience.
right
What about if you have no experience?
02:20
Gain some.
There are extremely few count nouns without a plural inflection in English.
Sheep.
Now name another.
Deer.
@EnglishMaster Nope.
what do you mean?
That is a mass noun.
02:22
Therefore it does not count — by definition.
Then I guess I'll stick with "shit"
Nope.
Mass noun.
Try again.
Nope.
Clouds.
God damn
02:24
I see an X. How many X are you seeing? <-- The X must be identical.
You may have to change your username, you realize.
Just give me a second, I'm processing
music
Mass noun.
furniture
Another mass noun. Try harder.
One X, two X, and three X must be valid for the same X.
02:27
I went to three masses this morning.
Mass noun.
As I said, they are extremely rare.
holy phuck.
wait, "fuck"
I think perhaps you need to spend more time differentiating mass nouns from count nouns.
Those were the best three fucks in my life. Next.
02:29
I asked for a single hair from the Lady’s head. She gave me three hairs.
But generally, it is a mass noun.
The point is that it has to be both countable and invariant.
Normally it is a strand of hair, because it is a mass noun.
One little, two little, three little Indians.
Four little, five little, six little Indians.
Seven little, eight little, nine little Indians.
Ten little Indian boys.
I'm not sure, I give up
There, I thought that would help you count. :)
I can add music.
One music, two music, three little music indians
Thanks
I'm listening to it while I'm working
02:33
No problem. I know how hard counting in English can be.
One -> two -> three -> four -> five -> six -> seven -> eight -> nine -> ten
yay!
Do you know why it counts Indians?
I'm not sure
For practice.
Indians are notoriously difficult to count.
Or rather, they have a notoriously hard time with counting.
I wish it was easy to count Indians
02:37
Six of one, five and infinitely repeating nines of the other.
You wish it were easy to count Indians.
I'm not from Earth BTW, I only have 8 fingers =(
That one is much harder.
Wait, I can use my 2 balls in place of 2 fingers
02:39
@EnglishMaster Everyone has only eight fingers.
This is part of the trouble with counting in English.
You have eight fingers and two thumbs.
BTW I was being hated in Ubuntu chatroom because I told them you wouldn't use LibreOffice if you had money to afford MS office. And I compared it to rich guy driving BMW and poor guy driving Toyota
 
3 hours later…
06:13
@crl Gimp is pretty similar but free. Inkscape is ok also.
06:44
Greetings
What are these: 'power, wealth, luxury, long life, happiness', may I ask?
Essentially, I'm trying to find a term that refers to them, but I can't quite think of one
I would be extremely grateful for any help or advice
 
4 hours later…
11:05
@crl Make that your goal of next year. Even then you still won't learn it all.
The big problem with Photoshop for non-designers is simply knowing what to do with graphics. Which is, like, a whole 'nother career.
Think of it this way: you could give a designer an enterprise edition of Visual Studio and they still wouldn't be able to do anything useful with it. That's the equivalent of putting Photoshop in the hands of most developers.
11:25
5
Q: How can I tell the difference between a rabbit and a cat?

Chef_CodeI received a shipment of prefabricated skinned rabbit last week and the shipment seemed unusual, rabbits have a very close resemblance to a cat once there "hair" and skin has been removed. Is there a telltale sign that I working with a Bugs Bunny and not Sylvester? I have a suspicion that Elmer...

Well, you didn't need a whole year for that. ^)^
I just spent three hours trying to do things through proxy
Because?
For some reason I could not connect using phone.
11:38
¿Cuál fue el beneficio de hacer que?
Oh, you answered already.
@Robusto I’d put a cosa at the end of that one if it were me.
So . . . ¿Cuál fue el beneficio de hacer qué cosa?
Yes. Maybe an accent on the qué because it’s interrogative.
Not sure.
It would be dark but for the moon.
Sería oscuro, pero por la luna.
11:44
I get mixed up between para and por.
Pero doesn’t work in contradiction.
Por looks backwards in time, para looks forwards.
That’s one way to look at it, at least. A simplification.
Well, how is Sería oscuro past tense requiring por?
It is the cause.
But it is a future cause.
It can’t be para there. "For her sake" is always por.
Because of.
crl
crl
11:47
@Robusto What I already like is the quick selection function i.imgur.com/olOTAGS.png I don't remember it was that easy with gimp
@crl It's in Gimp, but as with everything else, it's not as good as Photoshop and it works funny.
Estaría oscuro todavía si no hubiese luna llena.
Which isn’t very compactful, I know.
La noche es oscura, as an intrinsic property.
But está if we’re talking about it being dark out right now.
El plenilunio o luna llena es una fase lunar que sucede cuando nuestro planeta se encuentra situado exactamente entre el Sol y la Luna. En este momento el ángulo de elongación o de fase de nuestro satélite es de 0º y la iluminación es del 100%. El hemisferio visible de la Luna alcanza su mayor iluminación, no siendo posible distinguir con detalle los accidentes de su superficie debido a la ausencia de sombras, aunque es el momento ideal para la observación de los rayos de algún cráter radiado. Esta fase sucede a los 14 días aproximadamente del novilunio. En este momento la Luna alcanza una magnitud...
@tchrist La luna ya no está llena.
crl
crl
En los poles, las noches no son todo el tiempo oscuras
Pues casi la está todavía.
11:50
La luna estuvo llena al sabado.
Estuvo.
Oh, right.
Está/Estuvo
@crl Se habla de las noches blancas.
The ser/estar thing becomes instinctive and automatic.
Because you start thinking of them as different things.
That will take some time. And practice.
That maybe only happens once you stop thinking in English.
I’m not sure.
@crl Did you have much trouble with ser/estar?
11:52
Well, for me to stop thinking in English I would have to live in a Spanish environment. That's how it happened for me in German, way back when.
> Esta fase sucede a los 14 días aproximadamente del novilunio.
Such cute fancy names they have!
Normal people would just say luna nueva.
The Latinism is rather culto.
Notice that suceder does not mean to succeed, but to occur.
To succeed is tener éxito.
Or ser exitoso, although that one is clunky.
crl
crl
@tchrist a bit yes, why? I still almost always have to wonder which to use while a native Spanish person wouldn't have to think I guess
Because England and France both have only one verb there where in Iberia they have two.
crl
crl
@tchrist es un fracaso
Heh, that’s not what I call success. :)
Fracaso is failure.
crl
crl
11:56
@tchrist yes right, even though, for locations we can say "se trouver"/'se stituer" for durations we can say "être en train de"
@tchrist I get the sense it's failure in the sense of disaster.
I.e., not a "silent" failure.
Right, those are just fallos. Probably. Or defectos.
@crl The Spanish no longer use trobar much, certainly not like that, although they once did. Encontrarse is good for that, although there’s also quedar.
El fracaso escolar es el hecho de no lograr el título académico mínimo obligatorio de un sistema educativo. No debe confundirse con el abandono escolar temprano o prematuro, indicador que también incluye a quienes terminan la educación obligatoria con aprovechamiento, pero no siguen estudiando (en el caso español el abandono escolar incluye a quienes fracasan en la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria y además, a quienes logran el título y no estudian FP, Bachillerato o cualquier otro tipo de enseñanza). La expresión «fracaso escolar» ha sido cuestionada, debido al estigma que implica, pues parece...
I bet you can read every word of that.
Well, maybe not lograr, although it is a common verb.
It means conseguir.
So maybe manage. Or achieve. Or reach.
But only reach in the metaphorical sense.
@crl Situarse works.
crl
crl
@tchrist yes the pure translation
> El aeropuerto de Málaga sale de pérdidas y se sitúa entre los diez con más beneficios
crl
crl
And Spanish shares with English the Estar + gerundivo
12:04
Yes, Spanish likes its gerunds. It isn’t just estar, although that is certainly canonical.
Italian and Portuguese also like that same gerund form.
French doesn’t form progressives that way, though.
I’d have to check on Catalan. Been too long.
sigió corriendo, salió corriendo, vino corriendo,
I think I have an answer about that somewhere.
17
A: Why is "voy" used in "voy perdiendo" instead of "estoy"?

AlbertusVersión original Disculpa que conteste en español. No estoy seguro de poder transmitir en inglés los matices de progresividad que voy a mencionar. Las construcciones “ir + gerundio” y “estar + gerundio” son perífrasis verbales donde ir y estar tienen función auxiliar. Otros posibles verbos aux...

Ah, I translated someone else’s answer.
Observable.Timer(setting.Time, setting.Time)
          .ObserveOn(_scheduler)
          .Subscribe(_ => repository.Save(item, setting.FileName));
Reactive code is so beautiful
dot > dot > done
Observable->timer($setting->time, $setting->time)
          ->observe_on("_scheduler")
          ->subscribe($_ => repository->save($item, $setting->file_name));
crl
crl
perl version
Not sure about what sort of thing "_scheduler" is. Is that a variable or a function?
12:12
No, I mean lexically.
What is the signature of your observe on method?
an instance variable
@tchrist Is there a trick to change the two character -> to . or any other single character? Short of using perl6 I mean. Typing -> is annoying.
the other are captured in closures
I think alt + 26 does it
crl
crl
@JohanLarsson So this timer saves repository on each of the scheduler actions?
12:13
@terdon I think there was an experiment along those lines.
@JohanLarsson I wondered about that, but I couldn’t tell from looking at it which parts were closures.
@crl It saves item every n seconds using the provided repository
Is the argument to subscribe a closure?
@tchrist I posted the whole thing in a gist.
That doesn’t help as much as you think. :)
crl
crl
@tchrist a lambda no?
12:15
@crl I think so but I don’t know how to read that syntactically.
@tchrist a lambda but I don't use the in variable _ I capture repository item & setting
I don't know high CS so should probably not use those words :)
@tchrist I would say that corresponds to the English "go missing."
@Robusto Except missing is an adjective there, not an adverb, right?
That is, one who goes missing has become a missing person.
I suppose.
Spanish likes progressives a lot.
12:17
@tchrist but it looks pretty nice no? Not a huge bloat all over the place.
I keep translating "I suppose" in my head as por supuesto, which it is not.
@Robusto Me imagino
@JohanLarsson I see you have inherited C’s switch bugs. :(
how?
no pattern matching?
No.
Fall-through semantics.
yeah not super nice
12:22
Using chained method calls is simply a style one needs to become accustomed to. They can make things easier.
I don’t know how to read the "_ =>" part.
Is that declaring a closure?
I use _ to name a variable that I don't use
hold on sample
holds
0
Q: Use "myself" or "I"?

Mike WhippleWhat are the rules when stating a phrase where the choice is to use "myself", "I", or "me"?

Not a stellar question.
Either Unclear or Too Broad.
"The Rules"
Somebody edited an -ise verb to an -ize one last last week, one that can go either way. Not sure any good can come of that.
I prefer to preserve the original, unless it is actually wrong.
And this one of course was not.
@tchrist dumb sample
ints.Select(x => x*x); // here we use the x passed in and square it
ints.Select(_ => 3); // here we don't use it so we get an enumerable of 3s with the length of ints
Hm, ok, maybe.
dumb sample
12:35
Does the second one print "3, 3, 3"?
yeah you have output in the bottom pane. Minor update
Bet you can’t avoid repeating yourself for the code and the string. :)
@ints     = (1, 2, 3);
@squareds = map { $_ ** 2 } @ints;
print join ", ", @squareds;

@mehs     = map { 3 } @ints;
print join ", ", @mehs;
The map function takes a closure on applies it to each element in the list.
map is the same as Select I think
Apparently.
Not sure.
me neither
12:38
There is also grep, which is what I think of as select.
@odds = grep { $_ % 2 == 1 } @ints;
@ints = (1, 2, 3); <- tuple?
Where grep returns only those elements for which the closure test true, but map returns a list of return results.
@JohanLarsson List of three numbers.
@array
An array variable holding a list of three things, each of which is here a number and in fact an integer.
		var filteredAndSquareds = ints.Where(x => x%2 == 1)
			                          .Select(x => x*x);
ew formatting ^filters (where) then maps (select)
I hate SQL.
Brutal world of data processing drones.
I don't know much sql
12:42
WHERE and SELECT are keywords there.
yeah I know that much
Then our knowledge bases are similar. :)
:)
pretty sure you >> me
It’s funny: I can manage long chains of complex combos of grep and map but the second people start throwing SQL at me, my brain melts down.
debugging long chains is not much fun
12:51
No, you have to put the intermediary results somewhere to figure it out.
printf "%6d %s\n", @$_{qw[SIZE NAME]}
    for sort {
                $b->{SIZE}  <=>  $a->{SIZE}
                            ||
                $a->{NAME}  cmp  $b->{NAME}
             }
        map  { {
                    NAME => $_,
                    SIZE => -s,
                }
             }
        grep { -f && -T }
        glob "/etc/*";
how does it execute?
What do you mean?
I try to filter before mapping where possible
I did! :)
f(g(h(x))))
The h function goes first.
12:59
So read right to left.
In this case, bottom up.
In the shell, it would be left to right with a bunch of pipes.
I think I prefer that
But in a programming language, it is right to left. That is not so much fun, because we do not read that direction!
Of course, you could use intermediary variable for everything.
And would have to in order to debug it.
my @files          = glob "/etc/*";

my @textfiles      = grep { -f && -T } @files;

my @records        = map  {
                            { NAME => $_,
                              SIZE => -s,
                           }
                     } @textfiles;

my @sorted_records = sort {
                        $b->{SIZE}  <=>  $a->{SIZE}
                                    ||
                        $a->{NAME}  cmp  $b->{NAME}
                     } @records;

for my $record (@sorted_records) {
@JohanLarsson Better with temp variables.
better as in depends
Well.
At least you have a chance to look at the individual pieces.
yeah
are they eagerly evaluated?
13:08
Meaning?
The braced first argument to each of grep, map, sort is a closure.
In C# they are lazily evaluated so they don't get a value until you actually use them
Temp variables can still be inspected in the debugger but you have to tell it to evaluate
No, those are evaluated right away.
I think perl6 has the lazy thing, but that's a completely different language.
Also, when using the normal SQL ORM, resultsets aren't evaluated until you need a piece of them.
Until then you can keep adding more and more WHERE/SELECT filters.
It hurts my head.
@squares = map { $_ * $_ } @numbers;
So the map function gets called with the closure { $_ * $_ }, which it iteratively applies to each element in the input list to produce corresponding elements in the return list.
So when map returns, those have all executed.
There are other models, but this is the most straightforward one, at least for me.
I really only understand basic programming. All these infinite layers of custom frameworks each with their own magical semantics are completely opaque to me.
Learning frameworks is not much fun.
Like infinitely nested matryoshka dolls with complex interactions between layers.
I hate frameworks so bad.
Unless I wrote them. :)
Frameworks should definitely be SR(P).
13:20
SR(P)?
'interaction between layers' sounds very ew
I spend most of my life debugging other people’s GDMF framework bugs, not actually programming.
GDMF <- profanity?
Yes.
ok I have a guess
13:23
What is the name of the process by which 'in' and 'to', individually exclusive words, go through the transition of becoming the word 'into'?
Why would there be a word for that? :)
I am aware of the fact that contractions go through a similar process, except that they involve the addition of an apostrophe.
e.g. do not -> don't
What about: in to -> into
?
Spelling is artificial, an artifact.
Insofar as I am aware, we have no word for that nowadays, albeit only for English.
I am attempting to make a general reference to this particular transition, so what kind of term or phrase should I use in reference?
In so far as I am aware, we have no word for that now-a-days, al’ be it only for English.
A great many of our adverbs were once prepositional phrases.
13:27
Would "shortening of prepositional phrases, such as 'in to' becoming 'into'" do well then?
This is word formation out of phrases or compound words.
Only once they start to be able to be moved around at will as a unit does it become a lexical item.
I guess that you've studied English at university for a great many years :)
Not so long.
Well, I appreciate your knowledge and time nonetheless
Thanks. :)
Things like today, tomorrow, yesterday were not always “words”.
They were phrases.
Within, without, beyond.
Wherever, whereupon.
13:32
I see
Upstairs, downstairs.
thereof
Orwell was highly critical of these changes
sometime
sometimes
sideways
perhaps
overhead
inside, outside
nowhere
nonetheless, nevertheless
nevermore
People just got fed up with moving their pens three millimetres across ;)
I can’t see what people would find objectionable there.
Well, we don’t have millimeters, so that doesn’t count. :)
Forever, anymore.
somebody, everybody, anybody
crossways
13:38
Ah yes, milli metres
mil li met res
We mea su re in mil li met res
A hemidemisemi-inch. :)
Sometimes we use Ångstroms. :)
How do you say "Å"?
You don’t.
But it starts out angry. :)
Æ?
I feel like I'm at the dentist now
Aaaaaaaaaa
The word angstrom is normally pronounced by starting off with /eŋ/.
You should never try to extrapolate pronunciation from spelling in English. :)
13:43
I don't know the phonetic dictionary :\
Same way as angry starts.
Like hunger pangs.
 
1 hour later…
14:54
@tchrist That's why hungry -> hangry if it goes on too long.
Fui al dentista hoy.
Anonymous
15:09
@Leuchte Compounding. Into is a compound preposition.
@snailboat Does compounding cover prepositions? I guess it must, I just always associate it with larger words like updating and the like.
And most of the examples cited are not prepositions so there goes that argument.
Anonymous
@terdon Lots of different things can be compounded. Sometimes from different lexical classes, e.g. by + cause (preposition + noun) → because (preposition)
Anonymous
(Or traditionally, because (conjunction))
Fair enough. I just always think of coumpound words as more complex. I think that's just me own prejudice though.
 
1 hour later…
16:44
Are there any grammatical terms to refer to different uses of "or"? For example, "Do you think he'll be hungry or thirsty?" could mean "which of these will apply?" or "do you think any will apply?". In one case the conjunction pairs the ideas into a single compound object ("Do you think [X]?") and in the other case it causes the verb to apply to each idea to the verb separately ("Do you think [X] or [Y]?")
Is there any common grammatical terminology used to express the difference between the two uses?
Anonymous
@apsillers Joint coordination and distributive coordination
@snailboat Yes, perfect; thanks!
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