English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:01

Cubeless education - is a deadly evil. Cubeless educators are evil bastards.
Humans are dumb, educated stupid, and evil.

Robusto

@FumbleFingers I think it would take a dissertation to prove your assertion.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I think I will put that on my SE profile.

FumbleFingers

@Robusto I find 29 instances of substantively agree in google books, against high hundreds for substantially agree. That's good enough for me.

Robusto

@FumbleFingers But what does that prove?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Proving human stupidity.

FumbleFingers

20:04

@Robusto it proves that people are increasingly using substantive in the metaphoric sense, and reserving substantial for the literal "big, hefty" sense.

Matt Эллен

@RegDwightѬſ道 ah, I haven't read that in so long :)

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@MattЭллен that's because you are educated stupid, and evil.

Matt Эллен

I am stupid and evil and I don't know that I am stupid and evil

that the great thing about the internet - if you have enough money you can say what you like

FumbleFingers

gotta go - idiot box beckons!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Time Cube used to make me laugh. Now I realize that that guy is probably mentally ill and it makes me sad.

Matt Эллен

20:05

cya @FumbleFingers :)

@MrShinyandNew安宇 well, yeah, possibly. But just because someone holds wild, out there beliefs and espouses them in an antagonistic way, does that make him crazy?

Robusto

When the workers control the means of production we won't have to deal with this crap anymore.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

The workers can only control TVs.

Robusto

3

A: What is the origin of "number" as in song or dance?

Do a number on stage means perform a number, where number means: 14. a single or distinct performance within a show, as a song or dance: The comic routine followed the dance number. The etymology of this usage of number is (Etymonline): The meaning "musical selection" is from vaudeville...

Look out! A text wall! And it has a meaningless NGram! Quick, let's upvote it!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@MattЭллен No. But the way he writes reminds me of other writing by people who have been described as paranoid schizophrenics. Rambling, incoherent, repetitive, non-grammatical word-salad. It's not just that he writes that way: it's that he seems compelled to write it. And he seems to believe it and feels that nobody else in the world gets it.

Robusto

The correct answer is "Yes, it does make him crazy."

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:11

All blacks have declared war on us.

No, seriously.

Robusto

But ... once you've had black, you never go back?

Matt Эллен

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I agree, he does need psychiatric help.

or did

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Or she.

Matt Эллен

I doubt he updates those pages, maybe he's got help since then

thewisesthuman.com

RegDwight Ѭſ道

5

Q: Why use "constitutionality" instead of "constitutional"?

This morning I heard the word "constitutionality" being used by a journalist with regard to the debate over the legality of health care reforms here in the US. This grates on my British ears as I would simply use 'constitutional' in this context. Does 'constitutionality' have a different meaning...

How is this a real question?

Matt Эллен

20:13

@RegDwightѬſ道 possibly, but going by the picture probably not

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@MattЭллен so you believe pictures on that site?

Matt Эллен

@RegDwightѬſ道 I believe everything on that site

@RegDwightѬſ道 d'oh I forgot about that one. I meant to ask for more details...

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Never mind, I only just noticed that the URL reads the wisest hu man.

I find it really worring that questions with little to no context get upvoted like that.

This is a recurring pattern.

KitFox

Later!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Well, time for me to go.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:16

CU.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

bye!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

CU

Robusto

bye

Matt Эллен

CU

RegDwight Ѭſ道

bye

Robusto

20:17

bye again

Vitaly

CU

RegDwight Ѭſ道

CU

Matt Эллен

bye

RegDwight Ѭſ道

No Matt, not that. That's too comprehensible.

hi @Rob!

Rob

hi

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:18

Why Norma Jean?

Rob

iconic value

Matt Эллен

Because Billy Jean is not my lover

RegDwight Ѭſ道

May 27 '11 at 18:36, by Robusto

@RegDwight — Great. We can take "Candle in the Wind" off the soundtrack now.

Matt Эллен

Billy Jean is Danny Glover?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

In neon.

Matt Эллен

20:23

I R confused, particularly about this question and it's answer

3

Q: etymology of inkhorn

I had never heard the word inkhorn before I saw it used in http://english.stackexchange.com/a/62354/13812. The NOAD says that this is a historical noun meaning a small portable container for ink, and that as an adjective it denotes pedantic words or expressions used only in academic writing. How ...

etymology history

they seem to say the same thing

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@MattЭллен I thought it's a book by Patrizia Funke or what her name was?

Cornelia.

Inkheart

Inkheart (original title: Tintenherz) is a young adult-child fantasy novel by Cornelia Funke, and the first book of the Inkworld trilogy. Inkheart follows the adventures of a 12-year-old girl named Meggie Folchart whose life changes dramatically when she discovers that her father, a bookbinder named Mortimer (Mo), has an unusual ability; when he reads aloud, he can bring characters and items from books into the real world. When Meggie was three years old, Mo read a book called Inkheart aloud to her mother. In an instant, Meggie's mother (and two cats) vanished into the Inkworld and t...

Matt Эллен

:O

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Inkspell, Inkdeath...

Matt Эллен

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Ewwww

I hate the recording industry. I have that song, "In Neon", on CD. I should be allowed to listen to it on YouTube.

Matt Эллен

20:27

I heartily agree!

I have Black Swan on DVD, I should be able to watch it

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Yup.

Matt Эллен

but the voices are absent

so it doesn't make a lot of sense

stupid DRM

or whatever's fucked it up

RegDwight Ѭſ道

They will never sell you the actual right to watch or listen. They will only sell you a medium. Which costs a couple cents in production.

Matt Эллен

it's ludicrous

RegDwight Ѭſ道

So now I have to go look for that CD. Sigh.

Matt Эллен

20:31

and I will have to torrent the film, or never watch it, which ever comes first

RegDwight Ѭſ道

And with any luck my PC won't play it because I could be a pirate or something.

Matt Эллен

yarrrr!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

The Pirate Party has actually taken over our local parliament yesterday.

Matt Эллен

heh

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Well, not exactly taken over. 8 percent, but still.

That should be enough for a pirate.

Matt Эллен

20:32

Is there a jolly roger flying?

We had a talk from a Pirate Party member last year sometime - the UK Pirate Party, mind you. I don't think they made it into the local elections

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Okay what kind of crap is this?

They really don't want me to listen to the music.

Matt Эллен

dunno

have you tried CDex? is that still free?

yeah, looks like it

cdexos.sourceforge.net/?q=download

Mitch

@FumbleFingers You largely agree with Robusto that they are -not- synonymous now? Oh...OK...so you think that they -used to- be synonymous? So you're saying that the graph is comparing apples and apples at the beginning (early 1800's) but apples and oranges in the late 1900's? Then the chart will be incoherent for whichever position is taken.

Matt Эллен

it can get you a track listing and rip the cd to mp3 for the low, low cost of nothing

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I don't even want to rip it. I just want to click a YouTube link and have it work.

Okay, so the OP has edited his question.

-1

Q: Positioning adverb respect to articles and prepositions

Is grammatically correct positioning an adverb immediately before or after preposition or after an article? For example, read the sentences below. Are there other position where the term 'scarily' can be put? Scarily, she must have been dancing too close to the cliff. She scarily must have bee...

adverbs

Now dig this.

Mitch

20:39

@FumbleFingers NGrams is great...when it can be interpreted properly. As is, it just says which one is more popular than the other, and not whether they have any connected meaning (that's the point of my purple/orange comparison).

RegDwight Ѭſ道

> Is grammatically correct positioning an adverb immediately before or after preposition or after an article?

Except in none of the examples the adverb is positioned immediately before or after preposition or after an article.

Or is that his point?

Ah! It is!

Mitch

@RegDwightѬſ道 Except it sorta is not...because many of his examples are crazy sounding.

Matt Эллен

is it after a scarily article?

well, that's obviously wrong

is it after scarily an article?

that would only work with commas

Gigili

Is it correct to use the word "host" for someone who's infected with a type of virus?

As in:

Matt Эллен

yes

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:45

@Mitch Well I don't think "scarily" is a word that fits anywhere in there.

Gigili

> Human Herpes viruses share common charachteristics like lifetime infection in their host

Matt Эллен

@Gigili yes, that makes sense :)

Gigili

Thank you.

Mitch

@RegDwightѬſ道 hmm...maybe it's the word "scarily' that's the problem

Gigili

How can I say this better:

> Human Herpes Virus 1 (HHV1) and Human Herpes Virus 2(HHV2) along with varicella-zoster virus may remain in body for a long time without showing any signs but all of a sudden cause disease unexpectedly.

KitFox

20:56

HHV1, HHV2, and varicella-zoster virus can incubate in the host for prolonged periods prior to sudden outbreaks of symptoms.

Robusto

@Mitch I agree.

KitFox

Incubate isn't quite right. There's a word, but I can't quite think of it.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@KitFox I am looking for just that right now...

Robusto

Lie dormant?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I only know the Russian term.

Gigili

20:57

@KitFox Whoa, does that have the same meaning?

KitFox

@Robusto Um, yes, that would fit.

That's not the word I am trying to think of though.

Gigili

@RegDwightѬſ道 German keyboard, huh.

KitFox

@Gigili Pretty much, I think, except clearer in meaning for a scientist.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Gigili German kezboard.

Robusto

Maybe estivate? Hibernate? Estihibernate?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

20:59

Incubation period

Incubation period is the time elapsed between exposure to a pathogenic organism, a chemical or radiation, and when symptoms and signs are first apparent. The period may be as short as minutes to as long as thirty years in the case of variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. While Latent or Latency period may be synonymous, a distinction is sometimes made between Incubation period, the period between infection and clinical onset of the disease, and Latent period, the time from infection to infectiousness. Which is shorter depends on the disease. A person may be a carrier of a disease, such as...

KitFox

Latent. That's it.

Robusto

Looks good to me. Incubate it is.

KitFox

HHV1, HHV2, and varicella-zoster virus can remain latent in the host for prolonged periods prior to sudden outbreaks of symptoms.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@KitFox I looked for that, too, but guess what.

Latency stage

In his model of the child's psychosexual development, Sigmund Freud describes five stages. Freud believed that the child discharges his/her libido (sexual energy) through a distinct body area that characterizes each stage. The stages are: *the 'oral phase' (first stage) *the 'anal phase' (second stage) *the 'phallic phase' (third stage) *the 'latency phase' (fourth stage) *the 'genital phase' (fifth stage). Because the latency stage is less of a stage and more of period between stages, it may begin at any time between the ages of 3 and 7 (whenever the child goes to school) and may co...

Robusto

@KitFox What, you're saying @Reg is gay because he uses Wikipedia? That's not nice.

KitFox

21:00

It's not actually incubating. Incubating implies growth of some sort, but the viruses in this case are actually dormant.

Robusto

latent Biology lying dormant or hidden until circumstances are suitable for development or manifestation.

Gigili

@KitFox Great, thank you.

Robusto

I think we have a wiener, folks.

KitFox

@Gigili No sweat.

@RegDwightѬſ道 That's very funny.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@KitFox Well yeah, but the thing is, if the established term is "incubation period", I would just use it rather than describe it in my own wall of text.

KitFox

21:02

@RegDwightѬſ道 It's not an incubation period.

Robusto

@RegDwightѬſ道 "... latent wall of text." Because it's not actually erupting at this point.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Robusto my wall of text ain't in a closet.

Look closeter.

Robusto

When was the last time you looked?

KitFox

Incubation is between the infection and the first eruption.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

And we are talking about?..

Matt Эллен

21:03

after infection and the nth eruption

KitFox

Between eruptions.

Matt Эллен

yeah

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Hm

Let me reread it again, then.

Because that is so not how I read it.

... well, it's ambiguous!

It could very well be the incubation period.

Robusto

No. The difference is that latent means lying dormant and incubate means "develop[ing] slowly without outward or perceptible signs." If something is incubating it is always growing. If it is latent it can stop growing until something else triggers growth again.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I'd rather see the original Gigili is translating.

KitFox

21:05

Virus latency

Virus latency (or viral latency) is the ability of a pathogenic virus to lie dormant (latent) within a cell, denoted as the lysogenic part of the viral life cycle. A latent viral infection is a type of persistent viral infection which is distinguished from a chronic viral infection. A latent infection is a phase in certain viruses' life cycles in which after initial infection, virus production ceases. However, the virus genome is not fully eradicated. The result of this is that the virus can reactivate and begin producing large amounts of viral progeny without the host being infected...

Gigili

> Nowadays eight Herpes viruse types are known in human beings and there also is a probability of discovering more viruses in future. These viruses are catogorized into three families of Alpha, beta and gamma. Herpes viruses cause disease in other animates such as monkey, dog, cow, cat, horse, birds and mouse other than human beings.
Human Herpes viruses share common charachteristics like causing lifetime infection in their host. Human Herpes Virus 1 (HHV1), Human Herpes Virus 2(HHV2) and varicella-zoster virus can remain in body for prolonged periods prior to sudden outbreaks of symp…

Robusto

What I said.

Matt Эллен

good night! I don't want to get infected

user19161

Someone downvoted the question and all the answers to the complex sentence question. Confess!

KitFox

@Robusto Exactly.

user19161

21:06

@MattЭллен Good night!

KitFox

@MattЭллен Cya!

@Gigili Holy ouch.

Robusto

high fives @KitFox

Gigili

@MattЭллен I'll send them to your bed, now that you left like that. Good night.

@KitFox Eh why? =\

user19161

@Gigili monkey

Gigili

Tsss, I knew it!

KitFox

21:07

@Gigili I would just rewrite the whole thing.

Gigili

Silly typos.

user19161

@jrg You're here again today! There must have been a flag.

Gigili

Eeeh, why? Pfft. I thought I did a good one this time.

KitFox

It's a good translation, I'm sure.

Just not the way I would write it.

user19161

Today JA closed a question.

KitFox

21:09

Again?

Robusto

On ELU?

KitFox

@Robusto Belated laugh. This was funny, but I got distracted.

user19161

7

Q: Word for something difficult or nearly impossible to achieve

What is a word which means something difficult or close to impossible to achieve? For example, A ten-percent growth rate is a __: it is certainly possible on paper, but very difficult to accomplish. I can think of a castle in the air or an ideal prospect, but I would love to have a simple o...

single-word-requests

KitFox

Isn't that a dupe?

user19161

I think this question is fine. OP is clear about what he wants and the sentence is given.

KitFox

21:10

I swear I have seen that question before.

Oh. Gotta go. Bye!

user19161

I think there are more unconstructive things than this, say what is the longest word.

Robusto

@WillHunting He lives!

JA Rule!

user19161

0

Q: Complex sentence using "instead"

I would really need help with the following sentence. The significance of culture and identity in development has to do not so much with the cultural factor in the process of development as with abandoning Eurocentric development thinking, i.e. development as catching up and imitation, ...

meaning compound-sentences

Gigili

@KitFox Have fun, thank you for your help.

user19161

Also if the downvoter is here I would really like to hear what is wrong with the posts in the question above.

Robusto

21:14

@WillHunting He would really need help with that sentence? What might cause that state of affairs?

Also, it wasn't me. I hardly ever down-vote. Get my file down here, we'll take a look.

user19161

@Robusto It's OK to downvote even without a comment, but sometimes I just don't get the downvotes.

Robusto

1505 up, 164 down. ~10:1 ratio

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@Robusto wait what?

user19161

Initially I only upvoted, but later I was influenced by all the downvoters so I became evil too.

Robusto

@RegDwightѬſ道 JA is closing questions on ELU.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

21:16

I know.

Hence the exclamation.

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 Then you should utilize the interrobang.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I will utilize and bang whomever I myself choose.

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 No flirting in this chat!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

That's not flirting.

Robusto

@RegDwightѬſ道 May we suggest a nice, young interrobang? There's a sale on those today.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

21:18

@Robusto can I use my Pan Am miles?

Robusto

That show got canceled.

user19161

@george You are here too! Must have been some flagging just now.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Will.

Stop it.

Gigili

Just tell him there was a flag.

Robusto

BTW, we should leave those guys in our chat. It's the only way to be sure we haven't entered the End Times yet. Cuz once Da Raptchah starts, demz gonna fly fly fly on up outta here.

Whew, they're still here.

user19161

21:21

I am not trying to figure out what the flag is. I am just surprised to see these foreign mods.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

The Rapture is long past.

Robusto

Whoa, I missed it?

Also, The Rapture != Da Raptchah. QED.

1 min ago, by Robusto

Whew, they're still here.

user19161

Also foreign mods have no idea of the stuff we say here. They did not read the entire transcript to understand what we are talking about.

haansi

Hello every one. Can any one PLEASE help me and tell if this sentence has some errors in it.

"I have significant experience in Managing IIS, deployment environments, and doing deployments."

I want to say I have experience in managing two things (IIS and deployment servers) and experience of doing deployments on them.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

@WillHunting They read the entire Bible.

@haansi well your explanation of the sentence is better and less ambiguous than the sentence itself.

user19161

21:28

@haansi Do you mean "I have experience in managing and deploying IIS and deployment servers"?

Robusto

BTW, consider this sentence: "I believe that anything or anyone that contradicts something stated in the Bible is wrong." Now, the Bible contradicts itself, right? Ergo, the Bible must be wrong.

MATTHEW 27:46,50: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ...Jesus, when he cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost."
LUKE 23:46: "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, "Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:" and having said thus, he gave up the ghost."
JOHN 19:30: "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished:" and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."

Contradictions.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Silly you, the Bible can't possibly say "When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar" lol.

haansi

@Will Hunting you are correct "I have experience in managing and deploying IIS and deployment servers"?

Robusto

@RegDwightѬſ道 You should ask that on X.SE

user19161

@haansi If you mean doing two things on each of two things, then the sentence I wrote is good!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

21:30

Asking about Unbiblical quotes is Unchristian.

Robusto

@RegDwightѬſ道 I am Unimpressed.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Have some fries with that.

Gigili

Uninstall yourself.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Nice litotes.

Robusto

Not an unnice litotes.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

21:32

Innice.

It's a Latin word.

haansi

@Will Hunting sorry to bother you again but I am confuse can we use and this way twice in a sentence ? I am not native English speaker but read it is used between second last and last in the list. Please advice

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Latin words take in-. Like, indoors, or Stalin.

Robusto

@RegDwightѬſ道 How innocuous.

@RegDwightѬſ道 Don't forget Palin.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Palin is just a lazy man's way of pronouncing Stalin.

user19161

@haansi Well, we can use "and" twice in this way, no problem at all. The first "and" combines the two actions, the second "and" combines the two objects.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

21:34

Also, you misspelled "Forget Palin!".

haansi

Thanks @Will Hunting

Robusto

@RegDwightѬſ道 Nuh-uhhh! Forget Lenin!

user19161

@haansi Another example is "I love kissing and hugging Jane and Jill".

Robusto

Just keep me well supplied with oxytocin. Communist though it may be.

Gigili

@WillHunting No flirting in this chat.

user19161

21:36

@Gigili Oh they might be names of teddy bears.

jrg

@WillHunting Rather, I'm still here.

FumbleFingers

@Mitch I really am feeling a bit confused here. You keep talking about apples and oranges, and how NGrams are misleading - but my point seems simple enough to me, and I don't see how you're addressing it. Also, I don't think the general chat room works for this (I did create a dedicated room).

jrg

@WillHunting Totally the names of teddy bears. :)

FumbleFingers

hello again guys

Robusto

Anyway, as much fun as it is to have actual card-carrying christians in our chat, I'm going to have to go home. Laters.

user19161

21:37

@FumbleFingers Hello.

user19161

@Robusto Bye.

FumbleFingers

bye rob hi will

user19161

@FumbleFingers Very efficient sentence.

FumbleFingers

do not multiply entities

(unnecessarily)

user19161

So now I have an accepted answer that is at -1, does not look good.

FumbleFingers

21:40

@WillHunting on wot?

user19161

0

Q: Complex sentence using "instead"

I would really need help with the following sentence. The significance of culture and identity in development has to do not so much with the cultural factor in the process of development as with abandoning Eurocentric development thinking, i.e. development as catching up and imitation, ...

meaning compound-sentences

FumbleFingers

gimmie a mo to peruse...

user19161

@FumbleFingers The question and all three answers were downvoted.

FumbleFingers

the original sentence is clumsy. I got that far...

user19161

I took a while to parse it too. It is clumsy but alright.

user19161

21:42

In any case it really is asking about the usage of "instead".

FumbleFingers

there's nothing wrong with your answer, so I upvoted it. John's is more incisive, I think - but it's longer, so maybe yours is better (Occam's razor again!)

user19161

I upvoted everything there to neutralize the effect of the downvote.

user19161

That is why I have the sportsmanship badge.

FumbleFingers

anyway, JL is currently my hero! he sent me a $70 spare book (didn't even want the postage), and it arrived this afternoon!

user19161

@FumbleFingers Wow, now the whole world knows!

FumbleFingers

21:46

he offered it me here in chat a couple of weeks ago, so it's no secret

mind you, it'll be embarrassing in a few weeks time when he picks me up on something and says did you not even read that in the book?

user19161

I got a copy of the Cambridge Grammar of English but have not read it. It is not the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language by the way.

FumbleFingers

haha - I see your bete noire question there is a rehash of one I'd earlier noted english.stackexchange.com/questions/62097 as badly written

Mahnax

@FumbleFingers How kind!

FumbleFingers

@Mahnax John suggested I should read the syntactic phenomena of english, so I went off to ebay to have a look - cheapest was $70, plus p&p from the US. I balked, and he offered.

Mahnax

@FumbleFingers That's pretty crazy.

Does he expect it back?

user19161

21:52

@RegDwightѬſ道 I have only read parts of it. But anyway I think we really should not bash religion as much as we do in chat.

FumbleFingers

@Mahnax no no - it's his "spare" copy, but he doesn't take classes anymore, so it really is "surplus" (i hope)

@WillHunting yes, but isn't that because you are a man of faith?

user19161

@FumbleFingers I am of no religion strictly speaking by the way. I am agnostic and mystic I guess.

Mahnax

@FumbleFingers Nice.

FumbleFingers

@WillHunting agnostic is near-as-dammit religious in my book!

@Mahnax it makes up a lot for the fact that JL can be a bit crabby sometimes

user19161

Since it is neither possible to prove nor disprove the existence of supernatural beings, I have chosen the middle path.

FumbleFingers

21:55

@WillHunting how do you disprove the existence of the fairies at the bottom of my garden?

(Occam's razor again)

user19161

@FumbleFingers First I will have to dig deep into the ground.

FumbleFingers

@WillHunting I wouldn't do that! My fairies don't like having their habitat messed about with!

(plus, you may accidentally come across a certain amount of buried cat pooh)

Vitaly

@WillHunting relevant: lesswrong.com/lw/i8/religions_claim_to_be_nondisprovable

And good night.

user19161

@Vitaly Good night!

FumbleFingers

me, I'm still trying to decide if I believe in Benford's Law en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford's_law

Mitch

22:05

@FumbleFingers I put a response over there but you didn't respond there so I came back here. I'll continue to try to ping you there.

Mahnax

22:21

@FumbleFingers I suppose.

JSBᾶngs

@FumbleFingers i believe in Benford's Law, but then I'll believe in any old thing if you put up a wikipedia article about it

FumbleFingers

@JSBᾶngs wikipedia says it works best on numbers that span several orders of magnitude

JSBᾶngs

your mom spans several orders of magnitude

(sorry, i'm feeling silly and/or stupid)

Mahnax

Oh snap!

FumbleFingers

i came across it as a teenager, but dismissed it on the grounds that people tend to measure things differently, and choose measurements, in a way that skews in favour of the first digit being 1

RegDwight Ѭſ道

22:26

I am too tempted to create a Wikipedia article titled "Any Old Thing"

FumbleFingers

but I just read that it still applies if you change the unit of measurement

whatever - I'm going to trust the original gut instinct and say Benford's Law is tosh

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Yeah who needs science, gut instinct is where it's at.

FumbleFingers

@RegDwightѬſ道 more so than wikipedia for me, if they conflict

now - do I want to watch j edgar, or the hunger game? decisions, decisions.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Fair to say, but Wikipedia hasn't invented the law. They are only the messengers.

FumbleFingers

@RegDwightѬſ道 but they don't explain why it's tosh. I'll be embarrassed if I get laughed out of court for asking about it on maths.se

RegDwight Ѭſ道

22:33

You'll get laughed out of court on maths.se anyway.

FumbleFingers

@RegDwightѬſ道 prolly - I don't have any credentials there. justifiably so lol

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I studied maths, and I wouldn't want to show up there.

FumbleFingers

so did i, but only just scraped an A level, and after that I figured out how to make computers do all the hard sums, 'cos I can't

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Welcome to the club.

FumbleFingers

at least it got me out of doing the scoring in darts, down the pub

RegDwight Ѭſ道

22:37

When Ms Singularity arrives, as foretold and promised by Vitaly, she will handle all the computations for me and my computer alike. Which is why I dropped out of CS as well.

FumbleFingers

don't know vitaly, but singularity looks to be arriving to me

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Then I guess I can quit this life of crime and play LEGO all day.

FumbleFingers

'fraid not - someone has to work and pay taxes to keep the next generation fed

RegDwight Ѭſ道

The singularity will do that.

FumbleFingers

ah right - forgot that

RegDwight Ѭſ道

22:41

No need to remember, the singularity will handle that as well.

FumbleFingers

can i play with your lego too?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

But I will never let it play with my LEGO.

Jinx.

FumbleFingers

I am NOT a singularity!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I have a measly 200k pieces, not enough for the two of us. Sorries!

FumbleFingers

(I am legion!)

user19161

22:43

Why does Carlo have so many closed questions? I have a feeling he may be suspended soon.

FumbleFingers

15+ years ago, my kids' childminder had a huge DUSTBIN full of it. All the parents over all the years donated old sets to her!

carlo asks rubbish Q's

Mahnax

@FumbleFingers I agree.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

We did have a couple easy months. But now the next flood is coming.

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 Now you are also a prophet.

FumbleFingers

oh god! it's cyclical?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

22:45

I bet you ten tögrög that someone will pretend that programming languages always use then after if in one week's time.

user19161

@RegDwightѬſ道 I saw he asked the question again after it was deleted. I wonder why. Did he even read the duplicate?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Wait, it was the same OP?

Well, then I bet you twenty tögrög that I know who will ask it again in one week's time.

user19161

I think so. Maybe it was deleted too quickly for him to know there was a duplicate, so don't delete too soon.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I ain't been touchin' that one!

user19161

It is krishna but not the same as the suspended krishna.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

22:47

The community handles many deletes these days.

Me, I usually only delete oooold stuff.

user19161

I wonder if Thursagen will return in 2014 September.

user19161

Then again maybe he is Kris.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I was afraid he would return much sooner.

user19161

And also there is vgv8 now known as web maoist.

Mahnax

@WillHunting You think Kris is Thursagen?

user19161

22:49

@Mahnax I have such a feeling somehow.

Mahnax

@WillHunting Hm, let me take a look.

Okay, Kris likes using bold, sometimes combined with italics.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

That's more like Joe Blow.

Though Joe Blow liked it the other way round.

Mahnax

Thursagen also uses bold fairly often, but not as frequently.

FumbleFingers

prolly Kris is not Thursagen. One of his first answers quotes a chunk of programming text, and I don't think Thursagen ever did anything like that

Mahnax

Hm.

FumbleFingers

22:55

I particularly noticed Thursagen, because he seemed [similar] to me - joined about the same time, kept getting the same rep levels, etc. Plus I had him twigged as "not quite kosher" some time before it was acted on.

user19161

And did you guys know that if you are not logged in, clicking on a closed as duplicate question will bring you to the other question?

FumbleFingers

I think I'm always auto-logged on

Mahnax

Okay, I think it is safe to assume that Kris and Thursagen are two separate beings.

user19161

And that only a mod can edit a merged question though we can edit duplicates with enough rep?

user19161

I discovered these two things only recently.

user19161

22:57

I think it should not be like that.

Gigili

Is this correct: "go to sleep and make a world happy"?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Well no editing merged questions for me today. Off to bed!

FumbleFingers

I don't know what "edit a merged question" means

Gigili

Or should it be the world?

FumbleFingers

nite reg

Mahnax

22:58

@Gigili Are you trying to talk about some random world or the world that you currently reside in?

Also, Kris has a much higher answer to question ratio.

FumbleFingers

@Mahnax It was clear to me after a while that Thursagen was upvoting his own questions under different logon ID's

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