English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

03:00

@Robusto Yeah, it isn't very academic.

@Cerberus You write a new layer every time you want to provide another way to get at something.

Robusto

What frameworks do is make it possible for unimaginative people to get work as programmers.

Cerberus

@tchrist Umm. But I get this feeling when I'm just programming something that isn't a layer on something, at least not any more than any other piece of code is.

tchrist

This is too hard for me.

Well, or too stoopidz.

From this answer.

That second one makes me want to kick whoever thought that javascript comparisons should be Rorschach splat in the nuts.

I also hate its lack of scoping, but perhaps that's just me.

I don't use it enough to build up a full head of hate.

You know you have a javascriptkiddie writing your perl code when you find humungifuckingly giant closures nested seven levels deep.

Mitch

@Cerberus some new weird one extra feature that affects all the functions of a library, you then create all new functions with similar API but hidden is the old API but with the additional feature

Cerberus

@tchrist Hmm lots of nesting doesn't sound good.

tchrist

03:07

@Mitch String. StringBuilder. StringBuffer. StringButtHurt.

Mitch

E.g. Maybe your new function has to be asynchronous, but the API hides the looping or callback mechanism

tchrist

@Cerberus Lots of nesting is one of my pet peeves. I don't know why it isn't everybody's. It's a code smell.

Mitch

@tchrist exactly

Cerberus

@tchrist I'm not proud of my code. But I do know that it's very hard to read multiple levels of nesting.

So it's probably easier to make mistakes.

@Mitch OK that sounds annoying.

Mitch

It's nice for matrix operations

Cerberus

03:09

At the moment, I'm writing a debugger for Autohotkey.

tchrist

Hm, I just noticed vowel harmony in my English inventions. How curious!

Cerberus

I'm using someone else's library, and I'm even basing my programme on his example debugger.

Mitch

@Cerberus call us when you have an email client in AHK

Or wait a LISP interpreter

Robusto

@tchrist This is obviated if you use === instead of ==.

tchrist

Although it's more likely that I prefer the humungous spelling over the humongous one.

Cerberus

03:10

But now I'm creating a kind of call stack myself, because I couldn't find one in the library. The library uses Xdebug (I think that's what it's called?), which also doesn't seem able to output a real stack.

tchrist

@Robusto !===

Cerberus

Or I'm overlooking it somehow and I'm reinventing the wheel, probably poorly.

Robusto

@tchrist !==, yes.

Cerberus

@Mitch It's not hard to write an e-mail client in AHK?

Why?

Mitch

@tchrist I can never remember how to spell humunculus

Cerberus

03:11

If it doesn't have to be good...

tchrist

@Mitch You poor little man!

Mitch

Mate there should be an 'o'

Robusto

@Cerberus Whenever the wheel is reinvented, one assumes it is reinvented poorly.

Mitch

@tchrist +1

Cerberus

Unless one feels wise enough to judge the first wheel insufficient.

tchrist

03:13

It's a small homen

Not your gay uncle.

Robusto

Wait, you're saying my uncle is gay?

tchrist

A mannikin, sky walker.

Mitch

All those years and you never knew

student

nor his aunt :P

Mitch

Maybe he didn't know

Robusto

03:17

Well, I'm going to go call my uncle and tell him the news.

Meanwhile, gotta get up for an early ride, so heading to bed. Night, all!

tchrist

Better him than your nephew.

student

cya

Cerberus

Bai.

student

tchrist

That says the rise is from heroin and fentanyl.

Cerberus

03:28

Medically prescribed heroin, probably?

tchrist

That exists???

Don't you have to be in hospice dying of cancer or something?

Cerberus

Probably under a different name.

Maybe.

I'm no expert.

tchrist

The heroin surge began in 2010; the fentanyl one two years later.

Cerberus

> Python...supports...procedural...programming.

Don't all 'normal' languages support procedural programming?

Or did I misunderstand.

tchrist

You have to bend over backwards to achieve it in Java.

> However, since 2007, overdose deaths related to heroin have started to increase. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted 10,574 heroin overdose deaths in 2014, which represents more than a fivefold increase of the heroin death rate from 2002 to 2014.

A 5x increase must mean something. Supposedly they get hooked on "leftover" Rx pills and then when they can't get those anymore, they go to the black market.

I don't know. I'm just repeating vagaries passed around like a game of telephone.

Cerberus

03:32

Rx?

tchrist

Prescription

Cerberus

OK.

So pills that are somewhat similar to heroin?

tchrist

People with chronic pain who actually need to have their pain managed but don't get it are at a greatly increased risk of death by deliberate suicide.

Cerberus

Understandably so.

tchrist

@Cerberus So they say. I have no personal insight, so I wonder whether it isn't an exaggerated position.

student

03:34

finally, i found one doing down!

tchrist

> The relationship between prescription opioid abuse and increases in heroin use in the United States is under scrutiny. These substances are all part of the same opioid drug category and overlap in important ways. Currently available research demonstrates:

Prescription opioid use is a risk factor for heroin use.
Heroin use is rare in prescription drug users.
Prescription opioids and heroin have similar effects, different risk factors.
A subset of people who abuse prescription opioids may progress to heroin use.

From drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/…

Cerberus

I believe we have no heroin problem at all any more, except for some old users who have been addicted for decades.

But they get a somewhat less harmful substitute from the government.

And, if it's cheap in America, it's probably cheap here as well?

There is an increase in the use of ecstasy and cocaine.

But those seem to be far less harmful.

tchrist

Well.

Cerberus

@student Methadon is what the government gives to (former) heroin addicts here.

student

ecstasy and coke were big before this boom

tchrist

03:38

Cocaine can easily kill a person, if that's what you mean by dangerous.

Cerberus

But it rarely does so.

tchrist

It shares properties with meth in how it gives rise to crimes against persons in the community, not just crimes against property.

student

coke was only for the rich

Cerberus

But all kinds of crime are dropping.

tchrist

But apparently meth is worse. That rate change is how cops know that meth has hit a small community.

Heroin apparently uses to crimes against property.

Cerberus

03:40

Coke and e are mainly used by party-going semi-young people here.

tchrist

But the speedy things make people mean and dangerous.

Can you become "addicted" to MDMA?

Cerberus

They seem to feel euphoric and full of love.

@tchrist Perhaps, but not so easily.

tchrist

Yes, that's not the mean and dangerous sort of thing.

Cerberus

We've not seen an increased crime rate to accompany increased use of e.

tchrist

I shouldn't think so.

Cerberus

03:42

It seems less harmful than e.g. alcohol.

tchrist

I don't THINK it's something that causes people to commit crimes to get funds to acquire it with.

Cerberus

Indeed not, because people are rarely addicted to it.

And it's cheap.

tchrist

Pot's free! :)

Cerberus

Apparently!

tchrist

LSD is cheap.

Coke is expensive.

Cerberus

03:46

Most of it's cheap.

tchrist

I'm reading your chart.

Cerberus

But coke is just €3 a sniff.

student

snort

tchrist

Right.

Cerberus

If you prefer...

student

03:47

:-)

tchrist

But I doubt that is equitable to a $3 shot of whiskey in effect.

$3 shots of whiskey are somewhat self-limiting.

Cerberus

And you probably don't need that many lines (is that a term in English) of coke at your average party, as opposed to alcohol.

tchrist

K's pretty dear.

Yes, "lines" is a term of art.

I don't think it's the same as a snort but dunno.

Cerberus

@tchrist But there's no quantity.

@tchrist Well, it says "lijntje", which is a line.

student

you snort a line of coke

tchrist

03:48

@Cerberus Good point: how much K that represents is unclear.

Cerberus

So I don't think using coke every Friday is that expensive.

Compared to drinking beer.

student

beer is for beer belly's

tchrist

@Cerberus I sure hope that's not some sort of justification. I really hope it doesn't chase you.

Cerberus

7 mins ago, by tchrist

I don't THINK it's something that causes people to commit crimes to get funds to acquire it with.

tchrist

ah

Blowing a C-note on blow every weekend seems expensive to me, and perilous.

Cerberus

03:51

One can observe people using coke quite frequently here.

Pills are for big parties, that I know of.

@tchrist Wha?

tchrist

But I'm just an old fuddy-duddy afraid of his own grave's shadow. What do I know.

@Cerberus C-note == $100

student

C= centi

Cerberus

And blow is cannabis?

student

coke

tchrist

No, cocaine.

Cerberus

03:53

Okay, but you need only €6 for two lines.

tchrist

Isn't it like Ruffles?

Cerberus

Or however many custom demands that one should take.

@tchrist The name of a new cat?

tchrist

Ruffles-brand potato chips have a marketing jingle-thing about how you can never stop with just one.

Cerberus

That's not my impression.

tchrist

@Cerberus I give my cats human-names.

Cerberus

03:54

I'm sure addiction is possible.

But I think most people use it only at parties, and not many times a night.

Just like pills.

tchrist

I feel like we're priests giving marital advice.

student

lol

Cerberus

Heh.

student

ahmen

Cerberus

If we have read enough decent reports about marital problems, then why shouldn't we?

SmokeDetector

03:56

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, blacklisted website in title, +2 more: freemp3download.club/kill-streak-dc-the-don-mp3-song-download/ by xleprotn on english.SE

student

busted by smokey

Cerberus

Ouch.

tchrist

Busteder by me.

student

bustedest?

Cerberus

I assume he deleted it.

tchrist

03:58

No, I destroyed the user.

Which is a rather more aggressive act, and more profitable to spamram, than even smokey flags.

student

is spam on the rise?

tchrist

Not especially, to my knowledge.

Cerberus

Good.

tchrist

Stack Exchange has developed the most remarkably efficient and effective spam resistance I've ever seen, but now and then new patterns arise for a spell.

I believe there are blog posts about this.

Cerberus

How did you see that?

student

04:04

those guys over at overflow really know their stuff

tchrist

Well, this is coded by a variety of people, some staff and others volunteers, and it's a variety of mechanisms.

Smokey is a volunteer project.

There's some data at its website.

There's some other stuff that the system itself does, which I'm not sure how much I'm supposed to talk about.

Distributed crowd sourcing helps.

When I destroy a user for being a spammer, it's a stronger signal to the system that this was a bad guy than merely having one of their posts flag-deleted.

student

do they get ip banned?

tchrist

Oh yes.

student

even with a vpn?

tchrist

The weighting is adjustable, which affects how long that IP is banned.

Cerberus

04:08

Right, so it learns, to some degree.

tchrist

@student With a VPN, the whole site it's coming from is blocked.

ELU has a three-flags-to-delete threshold.

Most sites have six.

student

cool

tchrist

The CMs can also change the weighting of a site's moderator-destroys-spammer event.

Which has been done in the past from time to time for this or that reason.

Now that Smokey autoflags, the results have been remarkable.

student

i haven't seen smokey in all the chat rooms?

tchrist

He isn't.

He's just in a few.

student

04:12

"(s)he" :-)

tchrist

He "lives" in Charcoal Central or whatever it's called.

He's also in the Tavern, or was. He's here because it helps us police the site.

But I can't "control" him from here, I have to go to CC or Tavern to issue him commands.

Cerberus

So he auto-flags, but that doesn't comprise immediate deletion?

Someone else needs to flag it, too?

tchrist

Exactly.

There are a couple dozen "trusted" users who have consented to being "bot-controlled" by Smokey for autoflagging.

Cerberus

OK.

One user per site?

tchrist

7

A: Creating a site-specific SmokeDetector chat room

I've seen you already created a gallery chatroom for this purpose and added SmokeDetector to it. In theory, that means you can drop by in Charcoal HQ and ask one of the administrators or developers to add this room to the list of rooms Smokey posts in. There are other rooms in the network for exa...

student

04:16

can it be programmed to detect excessive swearing in a chat room?

tchrist

@Cerberus No, it's more normally; they don't fully zap it.

@student Well that would be something else.

student

it could then issue an automatic warning to the room

tchrist

380

Q: Can a machine be taught to flag spam automatically?

TL;DR: We did it, so... yes. What is this? Charcoal is the organization behind the SmokeDetector bot and other nice things. This bot scans new posts across the entire network for spam posts and reports them to various chatrooms where people can act on them. If a post has been created or edite...

Cerberus

What is the use of having Smokey work on a post through several different users?

tchrist

@student There are enough moderators here all the time.

@Cerberus It's in that MSE post I just linked to.

student

04:17

just a thought :-)

Cerberus

Oh, OK.

But it's bed time for me.

student

cya

Cerberus

Sleep well, you two!

student

thx

tchrist

@student You can always flag something as offensive, but understand that merely using a particular word will be unlikely to be agreed to. It has to be used against someone normally.

Past bedtime.

student

04:19

cya

tchrist

It's perfectly possible to say horrible things without swearing, things that should be flagged.

And perfectly possible to say things with swearing that should not be.

student

true

sleep well pal

tchrist

That's why you need people involved in deciding those.

Feeds

06:47

0

Q: Medieval term for sister and brother in-law

Is there a medieval term for sister/brother-in-law? The only example I could find was in GRR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series where he uses the terms goodsister and goodbrother. Are those rooted in actual medieval terms for in-laws? Were the in-laws even addressed as members of family with ...

single-word-requests archaic

Feeds

07:19

1

Q: Any word for one who tries his best to befool anyone

Let me define this question explicitly. For instance, if I go to any book store for purchashing a note book, I'll request the book-seller to give me a quality note book. The original price of that book is $20, but he [book-seller] befools me and make me purchase that book in $30 (by convincing m...

single-word-requests

Robusto

11:43

@Cerberus The problem is, you can't just do one snort. I once asked a cokehead how many highs were in a gram. He said "one"; I then asked how many in an ounce. He said "one" again.

Færd

12:05

@FaheemMitha Hmm, I don't know!

@FaheemMitha I don't think that's correct. What about the descendants of the first peoples? Of the slaves? etc

@Cerberus Of course. I think my statement was too generalized.

Then again, sometimes it's so easy for me to pick out people from some origins. Apart from different ethnicities living in Iran, I sometimes can recognize a French or German person. There are other examples.

And if you allow languages and accents in the noticeable features, then it gets a lot easier.

Sometimes I could catch a Farsi accent in an American person's English who was born in the US but to Farsi-speaking parents.

Færd

12:49

I digressed. The question was whether a Westerner like yourself would be likely to pick out an Iranian from any other Western ethnicity. Short answer: maybe a little bit less so, on average, than you would some other Easterners, eg Indians.

Cerberus

13:00

@Robusto Hah, well, that's not really what I see people do.

They're taken many fewer lines than glasses of alcohol!

@Færd That seems strange to me, at least if you base it on their bodies alone. Dress may help, though.

And languages, yes.

@Færd That's a huge difference. Most Indians have a much darker skin colour.

Iranians mostly look like Mediterraneans to me.

Maybe this beautiful girl doesn't look standard Dutch, but I wouldn't be surprised if she were Dutch.

Maybe she's wearing a little bit of kohl around the eyes?

This one could be Dutch.

Or French.

Or from most European countries.

This one doesn't look typical Dutch, but I would not assume her to be foreign if I met her based on her appearance alone, and I would certainly have no reason think she was Iranian.

Could be Spanish or Israeli or whatever.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus Iranians look recognizably Iranian to me. But they don't particularly stand out from white people.

That's all I was getting at earlier.

Cerberus

@FaheemMitha OK interesting.

And they couldn't be, say, Israeli or Egyptian or Lebanese?

Based on looks alone, disregarding dress and make-up.

Our new mayoress.

Feeds

0

Q: a situation which you’re forced to be in but would still choose over sth else since you’ve gotten used to it with time

For example: isolation and not having anyone in life is an issue many are forced to have in life at a time. They do crave for intimacy and lack of this monotonous lifestyle. However, even if they daydream about things being different, they don’t yet go out of their way to pursue something else in...

single-word-requests word-choice word-usage

Faheem Mitha

13:16

@Cerberus Middle Eastern people, by and large, don't, to my eyes, stand out that much from Westerners.

Cerberus

So...?

Faheem Mitha

Indians, Africans, Chinese/Koreans all stand out more. All in my personal opinion, of course.

Cerberus

No, I think most people would agree.

Faheem Mitha

@Cerberus I don't remember the exact context.

I was talking about this with @Færd yesterday.

Cerberus

I was asking for confirmation whether you could, indeed, identify the Iranians among a group of Lebanese, Israeli, Afghan, and Egyptian people.

Faheem Mitha

13:18

For example, there are some prominent people who are either Lebanese or maybe half-Lebanese, who I'm sure most people don't think are middle Eastern. E.g. Ralph Nader is half-Lebanese.

@Cerberus Who, me? Probably not.

I don't know, really.

I personally think Iranians are quite distinctive looking. But I could be wrong. It's not like I've tested any of this.

Correction - Nader was born of Lebanese parents. Which kind of proves my point.

Would you identify him as Middle-Eastern?

tchrist

13:32

That one doesn't look Iranian to me. :)

Nor that one.

That one I had to look at for a while. Something about the eyes.

Mitch

Samoan?

tchrist

No.

Mitch

Navaho?

tchrist

The first two, yes; the last is Apache.

To be exact, she's the Executive Director of United National Indian Tribal Youth.

Mitch

Provençal?

tchrist

13:39

Mais non.

Mitch

Filipino?

tchrist

Wrong Indies.

Mitch

Chukchi?

Not Estonian

tchrist

Nor Klingon.

Mitch

Kilingon is all African actors

like the Na'avi from Pandora

tchrist

13:41

I'm not sure that one looks African.

Mitch

Scientific American had a really good article on skin color and how long a given population stayed at a given latitude (and then migrated to a different latitude)

had a number of comparison pairs at nearby locations one darker, one lighter

Of course I can't remember any details

tchrist

I don't even.

Cerberus

I would be hard for me to identify the origins of those people.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus that's distinctly not French. Absolutely not. Southwest Mediterranean. Morocco. Never, ever, a French girl.

And most certainly not Dutch. She could live in the Netherlands, yes. That's it.

Mitch

@Cerberus The Finns haven't seen dayight since forever

Cerberus

13:49

@RegDwigнt I'm afraid I cannot agree.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt some provencal woman maybe

Cerberus

@Mitch Oh, they see a lot of daylight now.

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus Go visit France some day, then you'll agree.

Mitch

@Cerberus On TV

RegDwigнt

I live in France, for all intents and purposes. That right there is not French. At all.

Mitch

13:51

But, to keep this on topic, definitely not Iranian.

Cerberus

RegDwigнt

She could be Iranian before she could be French.

Post nose-surgery Iranian, of course.

Cerberus

That is, sunset is after dawn, so they have 24 hours of sunlight.

Mitch

@Cerberus pfft...they don't go outside in the summer, you know that

@RegDwigнt I don't think that's how it works

RegDwigнt

There's summer in Finland?

Mitch

13:52

@RegDwigнt Nose augmentation?

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Of all countries outside Holland, I have visited France the most.

Mitch

@RegDwigнt There's prolonged dusk

RegDwigнt

Then you should know that skinny plus dark hair does not a French girl make. You need distinct facial features that this girl is completely lacking.

Cerberus

Færd

You guys are obsessed with women or what.

Cerberus

13:54

I just Googled for "française".

Mitch

@Cerberus The sun is barely above the horizon. The barely defined edges of the swamp obscures the rest

RegDwigнt

Where'd you even find that Moroccan girl. I tried TinEye and there's 0 hits in 29.3 billion images.

Mitch

@Færd What? We're talking about the weather in Finland dude.

Cerberus

RegDwigнt

That's French alright.

Edith Piaf.

Cerberus

13:55

@RegDwigнt Go to Google Images and type in "francaise".

Mitch

@Cerberus France is pretty multiethnic

Færd

Seriously. Not a single photo of a man.

tchrist

@Mitch Then why do they all speak French?

Mitch

@tchrist I know right!

Færd

I would pick out the last two ones as French too.

Cerberus

13:56

RegDwigнt

@Cerberus that shows me Eva Green and a million logos for some companies that say "francaise"

Cerberus

@Mitch As are most countries.

RegDwigнt

Very few actual people on there. Mostly logos.

Cerberus

@Færd Does that bother you?

tchrist

Mitch

13:57

@Færd OK pics of french dudes

tchrist

@Mitch That one's English.

Cerberus

@RegDwigнt Yes. But the ones that weren't logo's, picked from.

RegDwigнt

And yes, you are aware that half of Morocco lives in France? Doesn't make their genes French.

Mitch

@Cerberus Iceland

is multiethnic

because of the Irish slaves

Færd

@Cerberus Not from a male's standpoint, but ...

@tchrist drools

Mitch

13:58

@tchrist By someone's logic here, googling for an image is truth

Færd

@Mitch What's French about that?

Mitch

@RegDwigнt The French are very adept at logos

RegDwigнt

I'm on page 8 already. No sign of that girl or anyone looking remotely similar. Like, even this guy is on there:

Mitch

ew

Færd

I did immediately pick out the coach of Morocco's football team as a Frenchman.

RegDwigнt

13:59

@Mitch Well he's French alright.

Or was. Before he died.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…