English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@Robusto the dresses? Dunno.

@Robusto did what I could.

2:05 AM

So if you just have a skirt, I presume you have some kind of tennis top with that? And are there shorts built-in for those as well? The skirt, I mean.

I don't. They only had weird sleeveless polos, also day-glo. So I got a sporting brassiere and have been wearing regular t-shirts.

I don't understand why men wear such constricting clothing, comparatively.

Constricting? How so? I would think a bra must be the most constricting thing in the world.

Long shorts, tall socks, long polos without even bowler's vents.

Got to strap them puppies down.

Tits don't help your game. Might as well stifle them.

Jiggle is uncomfortable.

I would imagine.

Don't get me wrong, I like tits. I just think they would be a nuisance if you had to wear them.

They're alright. Can't sit on 'em.

2:09 AM

No. Balls can be problematic, and you can sit on those.

Yes.

I guess it's all what you're used to.

"I don't know how you guys walk around with those things." --Elaine Benes

What's with the elephants on Armed Forces?

2:28 AM

All's well that Thameswell.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I wondered that myself.

Been a mystery for 35 years or so.

@Robusto Hey, me too.

Haha.

Mystery to Me is among my favorite album covers. Yes.

Let us gaze upon it:

But tits and balls and menstruation and all that is just proof that nature really doesn't give a shit about our comfort so long as we can reproduce the species.

2:32 AM

@Robusto I refuse.

Too bad. You have to put up with the reproductive stuff anyway.

It means nothing to nature.

War elephant

A war elephant was an elephant trained and guided by humans for combat. Their main use was to charge the enemy, breaking their ranks and instilling terror. Elephantry are military units with elephant-mounted troops. They were first employed in India, the practice spreading out across south-east Asia and westwards into the Mediterranean. Their most famous use in the West was by the Greek general Pyrrhus of Epirus and in significant numbers by the armies of Carthage, including briefly by Hannibal. In the Mediterranean, improved tactics reduced the value of the elephant in battle, while their ...

@Robusto So do you.

To wit: unwanted, unexpected boners

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Yup. But I did my bit for the species.

2:34 AM

Hey. I didn't ask to be born. The world doesn't owe me shit? I don't owe the world shit.

Sorry.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 No, I mean whether or not you reproduce you still have to deal with the shit involved.

That's how much I feel.

@Robusto yeah! So do you. Boners, &c. I was responding to "I did my bit for the species."

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Not saying I don't.

So we're back in agreement.

I think boners are probably more fun than menstruation, though.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I never didn't agree. Perhaps I didn't make my meaning clear.

2:37 AM

Yeah.

@Robusto Mayhap you didn't.

@Robusto menstruation feels like a stomachache in your spine.

@Johan starred your Ambrosia link. Perhaps he thinks they're black? ^_^

@Robusto I was sure it was @skillpatrol.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 I can picture that.

Who knows?

Wait. Black?

I said perhaps he thinks so.

2:39 AM

But why?

BRB sweater

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Just a wild guess.

@Robusto Okay.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Yeah, weird eh?

I have a zippered sweatshirt on. So weird.

Was 45 last night.

@tchrist It was maybe 72 today.

Warmer than here.

2:44 AM

It's been upper 80s to 90s here, cooling off only to low 70s at night.

I've been sleeping with the hated air conditioning on.

Feels like a mausoleum in here now.

We're gonna go back up to the mid-80s tomorrow.

So they say. 90 here I think.

Well, I'm off to bed. Have fun, y'all.

Night!

2:46 AM

Toodles!

The bedroom could not be further from the a/c in this house.

And plus we close the door because of the cat.

3:03 AM

What, that works?

Mine pick the lock.

Or something.

e_e

It works. I thought about getting a baby gate so we can get more air, but she'd jump over or sit there and meow.

6:00 AM

taught the same basic course for 36 years

4

6:48 AM

@skullpatrol A class with 1200 students!

I already need some extra oxygen when it's bigger than 25.

8:14 AM

@DamkerngT. the article says: "almost 1600 students" actually, which is almost double of biggest one at Harvard. Also available on YouTube, if you're interested pal :-)

@skullpatrol Thanks for the info. Your messages usually land me on interesting places!

:D

What is the keyword I should use to search for the video on YouTube?

I'll try to work on the "usually" part to make it "always." ;-)

@skullpatrol Okay! Hehe!

8:19 AM

At Harvard, a course called Justice taught by Michael Sandel, a professor of government, has 779 students this semester. @DamkerngT.

@skullpatrol Found it! Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?: youtube.com/watch?v=8rv-4aUbZxQ

2

yep

Enjoy!

@skullpatrol Thank you very much!

np pal

9:00 AM

SO has 9,999,747 questions and rising.

It was 9,995,287 about 19 hours ago. About 234 questions an hour. I guess we'll get the ten-millionth question the next hour!

:O

9:23 AM

Yes. Shog has been staving off the tide for hm 8 hours now, manually pruning old questions. He had help from another SE employee but that fellow seems to have gone to bed.

It’ll be within minutes now.

How exciting....

...numerically 100 million will take a lot longer.

Unless the growth is exponential.

9:43 AM

I’m sure it’s exponential with time. The question is what the exponent is.

9:55 AM

You mean what the base is? The exponent is time.

Yes, I meant the function.

Saying it is a function of time is easy. The question is what that function is.

Interestingly, R. L. Moore did not use the idea of a function in his classes.

He didn't think it was "simple."

The exponent is involves time :-)

10:54 AM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 This is the problem with cats.

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者: Here's a link that might explain the elephants:

> On the 18th March 1979, Gorbachev was elected the premier of the USSR, and on his inauguration at the Kremlin (which traditionally takes place on the back of a bull African elephant) he declared the US to be 'a nightmare state of capitalists and criminals'. This led to public outcry and a widespread boycott on all goods featuring elephants in the United States that year.

Would not be out of EC's reach to satirize stupid US policies with an album cover.

11:11 AM

@tchrist legacyrlmoore.org/Reports/2005/sample.html

@skullpatrol I forget what it's called, but there is some theory that incremental number systems of this sort (stock market indices, number of questions on SO, etc.) conforms to a logarithmic function: the largest portion of time is spent with 1 as the initial numeral, 2 next, and 9 least.

Challenge in the Classroom Part 1.mpg

11:29 AM

►

sorry, it runs into part 2

Challenge in the Classroom Part 2

►

Today the notion of a function is one of the first ideas taught.

1:26 PM

You guys are slackers: I have delete-voted on ELU more than all other non-moderators here combined.

(With some hemming allowed for Community’s graveyard.)

@skillpatrol Times have changed.

@tchrist have they ever...

...functions taught to 13 year olds.

Or Terry Tao learned them at 7!

1:49 PM

Think how long it takes them to learn the minus function. :)

True.

@tchrist Obviously you are overcompensating for some early childhood trauma.

Also what is the "Community’s graveyard"?

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者: Forget that link. I posted that without sufficient coffee. In retrospect, the conjecture is obviously spurious.

2:11 PM

@skillpatrol Dead people.

And it isn’t “the” Community, but rather Community♦ as a proper noun.

Community♦ inherits all actions of dead people.

So ex-users.

Which brings up the question: is Community♦ a superclass or a subclass of user?

@Robusto amusing nonetheless.

Yeah.

More strangeness from the SC:

Me: How are we doing with the back end?
SC: The code is there in the branch.
Me: Thanks. I was thinking you were going to alert me when you had finished.
SC: Sure.

Are we even on the same planet?

Maybe they will alert you going forward.

2:27 PM

How would I know if they mean anything at all?

SC?

Subcontinent.

Software Clowns?

Sometimes it seems that way.

Where the Americas are viewed as a single continent (America), it is divided into two subcontinents (North America and South America)

2:40 PM

Not the subcontinent I was thinking of.

India is often referred to as "the subcontinent."

abbreviating subcontinent as SC is odd

That may be. I am an odd person.

3:11 PM

What's the temp like for riding today?

Lower than yesterday, but still hot. Mid-80s.

However, three-day weekend, starting tomorrow. We get Friday off for summer hours this week.

The bad news: it's supposed to rain all weekend. Bummer.

Do you ride everyday?

Every day possible.

I do the spin cycle indoors during the snow months, but if the streets are dry I cycle outside even then. I have winter gear that lets me ride in sub-freezing temps.

You should give your legs 24 hours to recover between rides.

23 aren't enough?

3:26 PM

yes, close enough :-)

actually for heavy resistance training the body needs 48 hours.

Biking isn't what I would call heavy resistance training. I use low enough gears and really only meet with heavy resistance when going up steep slopes.

On average it's light resistance. Well, light to moderate.

but you do feel the burn in your thighs and calfs, right?

Yes.

Not as much of a burn as you feel from lifting weights, though.

And I don't get muscle soreness from the build-up of lactic acid, etc.

not even after a long lay-off?

It would have to be pretty long. I just went a week without riding (vacation) and I felt nothing but great being back out on the bike.

3:36 PM

Then you'll be fine doing it everyday.

It's low impact too.

Exactly. After my knee surgery, low-impact is the only kind of exercise I can do.

That was my next point: To respect any injuries, soreness...

@Robusto Ambrosia?

@skillpatrol Yeah, it's a fine line. The week off definitely helped alleviate some incipient tendinitis symptoms I was feeling.

...and of course stay well hydrated :-)

3:41 PM

@JohanLarsson I was just tweaking you with that remark. I was thinking that the group sounded like they were trying to be black, and you definitely have a fondness (understandably) for black groups.

ok

@skillpatrol I do.

The electro swing one?

The link @cornbread has up on the starboard.

oh, missed it

3:43 PM

@Robusto Do you take any supplements?

Vitamins etc.

. < maybe it is getting old, idk

@skillpatrol I take a daily supplement, and a couple of other things, including Omega-3.

@Robusto Not the best I have heard after hearing 50%

No. I said that as a joke, mainly to see if you were in the chat and paying attention.

ålrejt

I was debugging in the machine.

I worked alone here for two weeks, changed ~1000 code files.

There was a bug when we ran it today, turned out it was a hardware error that had happened when the machine was unused.

Not the first place we looked :)

3:47 PM

@JohanLarsson Be careful. Overwork increases risk of stroke.

yeah, I have poor life expectancy

but it is fun to code

Yeah, but strokes are no fun.

^

4:10 PM

appreciate the concern

4:35 PM

0

Q: Does it make sense?

Does 'which is a must' make sense? I'm writing a poem for a competion and I need to know whether it makes sense as it is a phrase I would like to use in the poem.

omissibility

This is just sad.

If you don't know whether something "makes sense" wtf are you doing trying to write poetry?

to learn?

@JohanLarsson Not where one ought to start learning, I think. That's like trying to learn computers by starting with compiler optimization.

ok, we frown at ambition

I get what you mean

I don't frown at ambition at all.

I was being dikk

4:44 PM

I know.

For @RegDwigнt

@Cerberus Urban planning?

Urban unplanning.

@Cerberus Or maybe it's a metaphor for how the Web grew up. Pictured: America Online and their competitors.

Gigili

5:37 PM

@Mitch Hey my private proofreader clears throat

I have a short text, do you have time to take a look at it? pooleez

5:53 PM

@Robusto ~~white-boy~~ blue-eyed soul.

@Robusto Haha aww.

We were spared America Online. But we did have Compuserve!

I think it came on a disc with a magazine.

So we got Internet access.

The late nineties.

I have an AOL 1.0 floppy.

Q: Which is the stronger name for a corporation? Brand A Tire or Brand A Tires?

6:10 PM

0

Should a corporation's name be singular or plural? Using a singular term -tire- makes it less defined and more of an umbrella brand, while using the plural term - tires - is more specific. So, is there a grammatical reasoning behind the former vs. the latter? Thank you.

differences nouns

Yuk.

Mitch

7:07 PM

@Gigili Short... sure.

@Robusto Which side is which? And by the way, that's me on the left.

7:55 PM

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 OMG that must be worth a fortune ~~on Ebay~~ at Christie's now.

8:40 PM

Are commas at the end of lines in an address a British thing? I tried googling, but didn't pick up anything.

I kind of prefer them without, it looks less cluttery.

@FaheemMitha Where?

As in, Dear Madam,?

@Cerberus Where what?

"An address" is highly ambiguous and vague.

@Cerberus Oh, an address, in a letter.

All of this is about letters.

But there are several addresses in and on letters, and several possible commas.

Example?

8:43 PM

@Cerberus If you are writing name, street, city, state, they might be on separate lines.

Do you end those lines with commas?

They really aren't functional, those commas.

Or not needed, to put it differently.

Ah OK.

At the end of the line, I don't know.

It may be more common in Britain.

I've honestly never thought about it.

Within the same line, between parts of the address, I think that's standard everywhere.

But that wasn't what you meant.

@Cerberus No, it wasn't.

So, there isn't a standard, then?

I don't know.

Maybe the comma is standard in Britain.

Maybe

9:59 PM

Where did you get that @Cerberus ?

Tech insights.

10:35 PM

Yes.

What about service and repair?

These tech gadgets are mostly use and abuse anyway :-)

@Cerberus Not sure what that proves, if anything.

Q: Bunnies answer the answers to one of your question

10:50 PM

0

Why is there so many bunnies in the world

buzzword

Fucking bunnies fucking bunnies.

Spam

@skullpatrol Yes, there are other costs. But these are the marginal costs.

@Robusto Why should it prove anything?

I don't know. You must have had a reason for posting it.

One more close vote and then we can delete it.

I'm just curious to what it portends.

10:59 PM

One more DV please.

@tchrist Why don't you vote to delete it?

I am waiting.

@tchrist I voted.

Thanks.

Q: Which is the stronger name for a corporation? Brand A Tire or Brand A Tires?

But you need to get rid of this piece of trash:

-1

Should a corporation's name be singular or plural? Using a singular term -tire- makes it less defined and more of an umbrella brand, while using the plural term - tires - is more specific. So, is there a grammatical reasoning behind the former vs. the latter? Thank you.

differences nouns

Ah, it's gone.

@Robusto I just came across it when I was looking up what phone screens cost these days. Not much, apparently.