English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

17:00

And, it need hardly be added, I didn't vote for my own.

ixtmixilix

dreamy avatar robusto

have you seen the ultra-traditional version?

Cerberus

@Robusto Well, all right, I like begging.

Hi Ix.

You Chinese?

Robusto

@Cerberus Or Aztec?

Cerberus

His name sounds American, yes.

ixtmixilix

ami racun, as the french say

Robusto

17:03

@ixtmixilix — Ha. Must be Asian. No, I haven't.

Cerberus

@ixtmixilix Racun?

ixtmixilix

it's used all the time in calligraphy, couldn't find a jpg

it's got an extra grass radical on top and the side is... dunno what that radical is called...

Robusto

@ixtmixilix — Indonesian?

ixtmixilix

do you know the traditional character for the philosopher zhuangzi's name?

ami racun = american

Robusto

@ixtmixilix — yume be right.

Cerberus

17:05

Ah!

ixtmixilix

lol

Cerberus

So is there any pun in the racun part?

ixtmixilix

i actually logged in just to comment on your picture

yeah, there's a pun, i don't really understand it. i've just been called it before

'notre ami racun vomite dans le boite'

Cerberus

Vomits in the bottle?

ixtmixilix

it was a bit of a wild night in sanlitun, beijing =)

'our american (ami racun) vomited in the trash can'

Cerberus

17:07

Ah.

There's probably something behind the racun part that makes it funny.

ixtmixilix

yeah, i don't get it. it's been ages since that happened

Cerberus

I can think of aucun, but that's probably not it.

Oh, well.

Robusto

@ixtmixilix — Where did you see it that prompted you to give me the fanboi treatment in ELU chat?

ixtmixilix

oh, the main chat page. the whole reason is that my friend uses that character in that color in a lot of his graffiti

so when i saw it i did a double-take, 'cuz i thought you were him

...anyway, gotta make dinner, see you guys later...

Cerberus

Bye!

God I hate Russia.

Well, the map, not the actual country.

Robusto

17:11

@ixtmixilix — Thanks for dropping in.

Cerberus

How am I supposed to click on Samara if it is just somewhere in a huge orange field with no distinguishable features whatsoever?

Robusto

@Cerberus — In Soviet Russia, Samarra clicks on you!

Cerberus

Hey, I have a Regex question.

Robusto

Yes?

Cerberus

Say I have a couple of strings like bookcase, nutcase, testcase.

Robusto

17:13

Yes?

Cerberus

And I want to put "giant" before case except when it is preceded by "book".

So bookcase stays bookcase, but nutcase becomes nutgiantcase.

Robusto

Which language do you want to do this in?

Cerberus

Regex?

Is that a language?

Robusto

Regex isn't a language, per se. It's a tool used by different programming languages.

Cerberus

Eh well, I have no idea. I'm using this FF extension Redirector.

Robusto

17:15

You can use it in Perl, Javascript, etc.

Cerberus

It automatically redirects URLs based on a Regex pattern.

I have no idea how it works internally.

regextester.com

This is the original URL:

Robusto

The point is, you'd have to go beyond Regex to do what you want to do. It would be trivial to do an interposition of "giant" between prefix+"case" but if you need to leave something out that would be harder. It would require at least two steps.

Cerberus

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/04/the_shutdown_economy.ht‌ml

@Robusto Hmm so Regex can't really do it?

What I want to do is add .single before .html, unless it is already there.

Robusto

Well, it can. But you'd have to eliminate book in one statement and find all others in the next. And you'd have to do a replacement, which implies you are using a language that does string replacements with regular expressions.

Cerberus

Ehh...

If I can get it to work on Regextester.com, it will work in this extension.

That's all I know.

Robusto

17:19

@Cerberus — Hmm ... Probably it can be done with a positive look-ahead plus negative look-behind. It's very advanced Regex, but can probably be done, perhaps in one line even. I'd have to think about it.

Cerberus

@Robusto What have now is this:

^(http://www.slate.com/.*)[^(single|\.single)](\.html)$

Replacement: $1.single$2

Input:

Robusto

You're misusing the ^ (not) operator.

Cerberus

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/04/the_shutdown_economy.ht‌ml

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/04/the_shutdown_economy.si‌ngle.html

Output:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/04/the_shutdown_econom.sin‌gle.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/04/the_shutdown_economy.si‌ngle.html

So I feel I'm pretty close.

@Robusto I have it within the square brackets.

But I can't figure out why the y gets eaten.

Robusto

Try a + instead of a *.

Cerberus

Hmm OK.

Robusto

17:24

^(http://www.slate.com/.+)[^(single|\.single)](\.html)$

This is complicated and I'm still kind of hung over and all, like, lazy and shit.

Cerberus

@Robusto Same result.

@Robusto I understand.

Robusto

Try this: ^(http://www.slate.com/.+)[^(\.single)](\.html)$

Cerberus

The y still gets eaten.

Robusto

Or ^(http://www.slate.com/[^\.]+)[^(\.single)](\.html)$

Or ^(http:\/\/www.slate.com/[^\.]+\.)[^(single)](\.html)$

I'm surprised it works without escaping the forward slashes without backward slashes, btw.

Cerberus

Nope, first one same result, second one no match.

@Robusto I suppose forward slashes don't do anything in Regex.

Match 1 is always http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/04/the_shutdown_econom

Very strange.

I want my y back!

Robusto

17:34

They're supposed to be escaped. A Regex statement in Javascript, for example, uses the forward slash as a boundary for the statement: /\b[^w]here\b/gim, for example, will find there but not where, etc.

Cerberus

Perhaps that's only in JS.

Robusto

@Cerberus Can you set a g flag for it to be greedy?

Cerberus

Ehh I dunno?

@Robusto Oh, yes: g is already set.

Robusto

Here are different languages and flavors

Cerberus

I saw an answer to something that was probably similar on one of the SE sites.

But it was too complicated.

Robusto

17:37

BTW, is there a finite number of positive captures you could have?

Cerberus

No, alas.

Robusto

In other words, other than "single" how many words could be used?

Cerberus

Oh!

No, it's just single.

That's why I was able to specify that in the Regex.

How about doing something like "not s not i not n not g not l not e"?

Perhaps negating it letter by letter could help...

Is there a sign that can negate/exclude a single character without the need of brackets?

^(http:\/\/www.slate.com/[^\.]+\.)([^s][^i][^n][^g][^l][^e])(\.html)$

This doesn't work.

Robusto

Try just this: \/(?<!single)\.html

Cerberus

@Robusto Alas, no match.

Robusto

17:44

That's a negative look-behind. Might also have to be \/.*(?<!single)\.html

Cerberus

Oh, I see I have the dialect "Javascript" selected.

@Robusto Still no match.

Robusto

Can you post a bunch of samples?

Cerberus

Sure.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/01/windows_phone_7_win‌dows_8_how_microsoft_can_reclaim_its_throne_in_2012.html

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/01/09/in_real_life_at_tedxvictoria_‌alexandra_samuel_says.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/the_most_worthless_‌week_in_tech.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/webhead/2011/07/lube_job.html

But, if it doesn't work on that first sample, it won't work here either.

Robusto

Well, ^http:\/.+(?<!single)\.html$ works for me.

Give that a try.

Cerberus

Oh!

Robusto

17:54

Do set the dialect to be Javascript, however.

Cerberus

Hmm Regextester says "no match"; the extension says "invalid syntax".

Regextester is set to JS.

Robusto

@Cerberus — JS or Javascript? There might be a difference.

Cerberus

Robusto

Try another dialect. It's working in my IDE's search engine.

Cerberus

@Robusto JavaScript's what it says.

Robusto

17:57

http:\/\/.+(?<!single)\.html$

Reason I ask is because JS can mean JScript also, Microsoft's proprietary brand of Javascript.

Cerberus

Ah OK.

Preg and Ereg give no results at all!

It is the same with Regextester on Chrome.

Thanks for trying in any case!

But as long as the extension won't accept it...

Robusto

@Cerberus Try a better tester: gskinner.com/RegExr

See? Finds all matches except single.html.

Cerberus

@Robusto Oh!

That's weird?

So is Regextester broken?

Robusto

Your tester probably doesn't do negative look-behind.

It's not broken. Not all Regex engines support all regex assertions.

Cerberus

Hmm but then the extension apparently doesn't do it either.

Robusto

18:05

What do you mean? I've kind of forgot what our original purpose was in all this.

Now that we can successfully match lines correctly, the rest should be easy.

Cerberus

I have this Firefox extension called Redirector that automatically redirects URLs.

I need it to work there.

So, if Redirector doesn't do look-behind, then I can't use that, alas.

Robusto

Hmm, look, if all you're trying to do is remove .single from instances, why not just do that?

Cerberus

Even though your solution is beyond reproach.

Robusto

Replace literal ".single.html" with ".html"

No regex required.

In your case above you have .[article-name].single.html format

Cerberus

Huh? I want it the other way around: I need to insert ".single".

Unless it's already there.

Because .single.single breaks it.

^(http://www.slate.com/.*)([^\s])([^\i])([^\n])([^\g])([^\l])([^\e])(\.html)$

Robusto

18:12

Oh, fer chrissakes. Can it do two-line statements? First add the .single and then remove .single.single instances?

Cerberus

I don't think so.

Otherwise there would be infinite recursion.

Robusto

No there wouldn't.

Cerberus

The code above works in Regextester, but not in Redirector.

Robusto

Well, learn to use GreaseMonkey then.

Cerberus

@Robusto Okay, I mean, the program doesn't have two-line statements.

@Robusto If only I could do that!

Robusto

18:14

I don't support Redirector. And look, here I've wasted another good hour figuring out a Regex for you only to find that your crappy application doesn't support real Regex. No good deed ...

Cerberus

Aww.

Robusto

Anyway, time to move on. I'm out. Good luck and cya later.

Cerberus

I appreciate it anyway.

Robusto

Bai.

Cerberus

I didn't know what Redirector would support.

So thanks a bunch!

@Robusto At least I learned something: next time I need this look-behind in another application, I now know how to do it!

> The rabbis came out on top by a wide margin, with an average annual haul of approximately $140,000, including a tax-free housing allowance. Christian holy men earn more than $100,000 less than rabbis, on average, with Catholic priests making even less.

> A Christian holy man could land a high-paying gig at a megachurch, but those jobs are rare. The average pastor with a flock of more than 2,000 people earns $147,000. The best-paid get more than $400,000. Even their underlings do pretty well, with assistant pastors at the biggest churches earning in the high five figures. Only 0.5 percent of protestant churches, however, can boast of such numbers.

slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/01/…

Now I understand why evangelicals are so driven to evangelize in America.

Vitaly

18:35

@Cerberus: why not just use ^(.+)([^single])(\.html)$ and $1$2.single$3? that's dirty, but since your ermmm… freeware doesn't support real regexes …

Cerberus

@Vitaly Oh! But would that work? Lemme try...

Vitaly

Cerberus

@Vitaly http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/01/09/in_real_life_at_tedxvictoria_‌‌alexandra_samuel_says.html doesn't work.

Vitaly

Wait, never mind. Brain crmp.

Cerberus

I understand: it was the first thing I tried.

And I keep forgetting whether [^xyz] excludes x, y, or z, or only xyz.

Jez

18:40

hmm.

Cerberus

So apparently it is x, y, or z.

Jez

we could do with one FOSS tool that allowed a range of optical disc (and image) operations

Cerberus

Huh, what?

And Hi!

Jez

burning to CD/DVD/BR, ripping from CD/DVD/BR, editing ISO images for CD/DVD/BR

ive just been hunting around and the best i can find for these operations are Fireburner and ISObuster on Windows, and ISO Master on Linux.

Cerberus

Doesn't such a thing exist?

Hmm.

Jez

18:42

even then I can't rip a DVD+R, for example, and have the ISO reflect the fact that the media was DVD+R when it's mounted.

it shows up as a CD with 2 gigs of data on it.

Cerberus

Ah OK.

I couldn't help you there: I've never need such functions.

Jez

i rarely do, but when i do i find myself scrambling around to find something

Cerberus

In fact I have never seen a BR disc.

Jez

ISOBuster 'rips' a DVD by writing a CUE and TAO file

it notes the original media type (DVD+R) in the CUE file, but Daemon Tools ignores that

however an ISO file created by ISO Master shows up, when mounted, as a DVD-ROM

so it looks like ISOBuster could if it wanted embed the media type info into an ISO

Cerberus

Hmm interesting.

And does the type of disc matter?

For circumventing DRM?

Jez

18:46

perhaps

im sort of surprised it even works to mount a 'CD' with way more data than a real CD could hold

Cerberus

Hmm.

Jez

another weird/annoying thing is that the Linux version of ISO Master is free but the Windows version is not

so i'm copying stuff over to my Linux box to use ISO Master on them

Cerberus

Run it on a VM?

VMs are really cool.

Jez

maybe, but can you explain to me why modern enterprises want to virtualize literally everything?

Cerberus

Just doo it!

@Jez Perhaps because it is the easiest way to standardize environments?

And the quickest way to reset them to factory state, including pre-installed programs and whatnot?

Jez

18:53

what about the machine hosting the virtualized one?

Cerberus

It needn't be used at all except for entering the VM?

Besides, with disc cloning, the gap between real and virtual machines is getting narrower.

Jez

there's something about virtualizing everything that feels wrong to me.

it's like there's a deficiency in the OS so you need to be able to reset things.

if you want to be able to reset things, you should just be able to reset applications configuration.

Cerberus

I agree.

But 1. since even the OS can get damaged, only a full reinstall of the OS can really do that.

And 2. switching between OSs can be very useful; one can only do that quickly with VMs nowadays. I suppose that could change.

The reason may be that a VM uses much of the stuff the real OS provides it with.

Perhaps that's why one can launch a virtual machine so much more quickly than a real OS.

Just my conjecture.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:22

@Jez One reason people use VMs is for over-committing hardware. In a typical data-center there are lots of computers that are on, not powered down, but using only a fraction of the resources they have. They almost never need all of it and often don't need most of it. By buying really big hardware, and putting lots of VMs on it, you can run more systems more efficiently, and it works really well as long as you never need all the VMs to run at full capacity at the same time.

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 So why can't the application that one would normally use the computers for share the resources efficiently amongst themselves?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Well, the sometimes can't for technical reasons, and sometimes for administrative reasons.

Like, your database might require a particular version of the operating system for certification purposes, but you need a newer version for your web-server.

Or your web-server needs to be tuned differently.

Or they're not even the same OS at all.

Or you like to keep things separate because it's simpler for deployment and maintenance.

Cerberus

Right, that all makes sense.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 So what do you think is the reason that installing a regular OS is still so much word as compared to simply cloning a disc: DRM?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

19:39

@Cerberus so much "work"? Because hardware is complicated, there are lots of combinations out there, customers are very demanding about performance, disk usage, etc, and modern OSes are really complicated. But: Windows Vista's (or is it 7's?) setup program DOES actually install most of the OS by "cloning" it from the DVD.

Windows itself does have some DRM that prevents easy cloning in some cases. But the installer doesn't need to worry about that.

Also: most consumers never install an OS. They probably don't know what that even means. They simply buy it pre-installed, get an "expert" to fix it if it breaks, or buy a new one.

I think Microsoft's retail copies of Windows are mainly advertising for pre-installed copies on new hardware.

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Oh, right, the hardware! Forgot about that for a moment, hehe.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus heheh

Cerberus

But a VM works even if you copy it from one computer to another, doesn't it?

Jez

@MrShinyandNew DRM. What a crock of shit. I installed Debian by writing a boot image into a USB dongle, booting from it, and its downloading all the necessary deb's. :-)

Mahnax

@Will It was more a discussion and less a test.

Jez

19:51

i discovered that the graphics drivers for my Intel board weren't in lenny, so I upgraded it to squeeze (unstable at the time) on a dodgy-looking text interface

was great when it rebooted and the graphical interface suddenly came up

actually no, it would've been testing

got tons of updates all the time, rather annoying

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus The VM works, because the hardware is virtualized. However, installing certain copies of Windows onto VMs is a violation of the license.

Jez

now that it's stable, there are quite a few security updates but nothing like as many

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Jez well, no argument from me about DRM and its actual utility in the market. It certainly doesn't stop piracy.

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Not by Dutch law, probably.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 So is it true that the ease with which, say, VM ware uses my hardware is mostly because it hitch-hikes on the host OS's ability to use the hardware?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus it's complicated

VMWare uses many tricks to make stuff work.

I can't really explain it all right now.

I have to run, I'll be back in a bit.

Cerberus

20:00

Hah OK, later!

I'd be interested to understand it better, why it works so well.

Hey @Mahn your animation in Linguistics was really funny.

You fell down from the sky, slowed down at the place where the avatars rest for a split second, then drop down into nothing less immediately after.

Mahnax

@Cerberus Thank you. I was looking at all the chat rooms, and thought that one was here (because I saw you) and then left once I realized it wasn't the soothing brownish colour that EL&U chat is.

Cerberus

Aww.

You're quite welcome there too, you know.

Mahnax

Hmm, I don't think so.

Cerberus

Why not?

Mahnax

I don't know the people there, nor do I participate on their site.

Whereas in this chat room, I do participate on the main site and I am somewhat familiar with most people who come in here.

Cerberus

20:13

OK, well, that would be a reason why you might not be interested in chatting there now; but let it not be said that you weren't welcome there, or that people wouldn't welcome you!

Mahnax

Okay, okay.

Matt Эллен

this must be a duplicate.

0

Q: Simple Past or Past Perfect

If I went to a place last night where I needed to show an id, but I forgot to have it on me. So if in the morning I was speaking to a friend(reporting on what happened), which one of the following would be correct: I had heard that you needed an ID, but I didn't know if it was absolutely necessa...

Mahnax

I can't find one atm.

I did, however, recently cast the fifth close vote on a gen-ref question.

Hey @sim.

Matt Эллен

Ohai! btw :D

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

20:34

I'm back

Matt Эллен

Hi @MrShinyandNew

Mahnax

Hi @MrsHiny!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

so virtualization is really complicated. the VMware host system actually re-writes the programs and OS code so that it runs inside a program on the main host

it changes certain things which cause processor traps to not trap, and instead invoke VMWare code

Matt Эллен

I'm voting that question above as a duplicate of this:

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

(traps are a kind of instruction that causes the processor to switch to the operating system)

Matt Эллен

20:36

27

Q: How do the tenses in English correspond temporally to one another?

Non-native speakers often get confused about what the tenses in English mean. With input from some of the folk here I've put together a diagram that I hope will provide some clarity on the matter. I offer it as the first answer to this question. Consider it a living document. Input is welcome, ...

verbs tense

Cerberus

20:50

@MrShinyandNew安宇 So how does WMWare know how to manipulate programs inside its guest OS that it has never seen before?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I'm not sure exactly how, but basically it recognizes the OS and knows how that OS loads programs. So it modifies the OS as it loads, and modifies the programs as the OS loads them.

Cerberus

Hmm ah. And yet there is no visible delay!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

21:11

@Cerberus Oh, there's a delay. There's always delay.

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yes, but, oh, how very slight it is!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus But isn't there a fairly large delay while loading the VM itself?

Spare Oom

hi @Cerberus

@Cerberus I had an issue I wanted to discuss with you. Did you get my message? (I feel like I'm interrupting, sorry.)

simchona

21:31

@SpareOom You might want to check the room again--they were discussing this last night

Spare Oom

@simchona I can't get more than the current page

@simchona oh wait, this room?

simchona

@SpareOom If you scroll all the way up, a bar appears to load more. And no, the room Vit took you to

Spare Oom

@simchona I get this message: Since your room is not a Premium Room, you can only view the last page of the chat history.

simchona

@SpareOom Huh. I didn't give it a try myself--I'm sorry! But I know Cerb got your message, because they were discussing it. In a now-hidden archive.

Spare Oom

@simchona Well, that's a start then. I guess I'll have to wait to catch him. He must be busy.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

21:40

hi @simchona, how are your classes going?

Mahnax

Yeah, Cerb is always busy.

Cerberus

22:19

@MrShinyandNew安宇 8 seconds for VMWare to start, 23 seconds for the VM to load from suspension. So, yes, there is some delay there; but I think that is mostly loading most of it into RAM?

@SpareOom Hi!

Yes I replied in the WMT room and discussed it with Vit and Reg.

Spare Oom

@Cerberus Is there anything else I need to do?

Cerberus

@Mahnax Aren't you in the WMT room, by the way? You seem to be progressing fast enough...

Spare Oom

@Cerberus The guy in question is now contacting me on Kong Chat. Can you talk in the other room?

Cerberus

@SpareOom The problem is probably that nobody has enough evidence to do anything, and that it may not be something that is punishable in that guy's country. But what you can do is go to his profile page, and Report him to Kongregate. And include the time and the place where he said these things.

@SpareOom Oh! OK.

Mahnax

22:38

@Cerberus Which WMT room?

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…