English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

I found it really ambiguous. At first I thought, what a weird passive aggressive thing to tell the newcomer, to take care in asking for clarifications etc

Then I realized it is to answerers, to be nice to the new guy.

Then I thought, why shouldn't we be nice after that. Old people deserve to be niced to also.

Then I thought, is my tea ready, and went to get it and forgot all about all this stuff.

Lawrence

I just joined another community. It was nice seeing the notice. Strange how being on the other end opens up one's perspective.

Mitch

2:13 PM

Another one? There are others?

Lawrence

I'm sure you've seen ELL.

Parallel universes or somesuch.

We ought to be nice to one another. But legislated niceness feels a bit odd.

Cerberus

@Lawrence Ah, OK, I suppose boiling in water does the trick!

@Mitch Oh, does that really work? Without boiling them in water.

@Mitch Older people can take more abuse.

Lumberjack

@Lawrence Hello Lawrence. Happy Wednesday! :)

Lawrence

Happy Wednesday! :)

Lumberjack

My parents had a pet raccoon when I was a little boy. They named him Buddy. I don't think we had a microwave at the time.

But he liked to get into EVERYTHING. He was the cutest little thing you ever did see.

Cerberus

2:20 PM

Cute.

I've had a mouse in the microwave–oven combo twice.

In the back, where all the electronics are.

My house inexplicably began to stink badly whenever I used the oven.

Lawrence

We get crickets.

Cerberus

Better than mice?

Lawrence

@Lawrence It's been my position for a long time that we need to cultivate the community, not just curate the database. Still, if the programmers are busy adding functionality, it wouldn't hurt to add a few links to the tour and FAQ. Those things can be hard to find. Like steganography.

@Cerberus Well, they tend to be cleaner.

Cerberus

Exactly.

And pee.

Lawrence

Do insects do that?

Cerberus

2:25 PM

And nibble on your bags of crisps.

@Lawrence I'm sure they do, but it doesn't stink.

And there aren't any diseases in it that we could catch, I should think.

Lawrence

Yes, that's a good consideration.

There's a push for insects to be the next mainstream protein.

Do we only make protein from digested protein, or can we make it from other kinds of (ingested) DNA?

Cerberus

But...they don't taste good.

Why DNA?

Lawrence

@Cerberus Speaking from experience?

Cerberus

No, but it's what I've been told by people who are.

Lawrence

@Cerberus Because I don't think we make protein from anything else.

Cerberus

2:29 PM

Umm.

Lawrence

@Cerberus Hmm, maybe time to work on the flavoring.

Cerberus

I don't actually know how our bodies make the proteins that we use.

But isn't DNA tiny?

Surely it doesn't have enough mass to be a major source of nutrition?

Lawrence

@Cerberus Each piece, yes. But I assure you they assemble into rather larger chunks.

terdon

Um...

No, we don't make (dietary) protein from DNA.

Cerberus

Right.

Why dietary?

terdon

2:31 PM

DNA contains the information needed for out body to produce protein, yes. But eating it does not help there.

Lawrence

Oh.

Cerberus

Just as I thought.

terdon

@Cerberus Because the major job of genes is to encode proteins: the cell "reads" the gene (DNA) and produces a protein.

Cerberus

We destroy all complex molecules that have nutritional value for us, don't we?

terdon

And no, it isn't tiny. Or rather, it's both tiny and huge.

hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/StevenChen.shtml

Cerberus

2:32 PM

@terdon Yes, but what is dietary protein? Isn't it protein that has nutritional value for us?

Mitch

@Cerberus Oh. Sorry. I was totally thinking about how to bake them properly in a conventional oven, not microwave.

Cerberus

@terdon Tiny in mass compared to the rest of the cell.

@Mitch Ahh.

terdon

@Cerberus Yeees, depends on how you define complex. But yes, complex molecules are broken down.

@Cerberus In mass yes. In length, however, it's pretty huge.

Lawrence

@terdon Well, I was wondering ... some are promoting insects as the next protein. They multiply and grow quickly. But if they need to consume (plant?) protein to express their own (somatic?) protein, we still need protein, right? Or can they make protein out of other things? Are leaves protein?

Cerberus

@terdon So we never use a protein from meat as such in our bodies: instead, we break it down, and use its components to construct new proteins. Right?

@terdon Sure, but we were talking about using it as nutrition, in which its mass should matter.

Mitch

2:34 PM

@Lawrence People don't read FAQs. Or rather some will, but even then it's hard to remember it all. When was the last time anybody read their country's constitution?

terdon

@Cerberus The term "protein" is ~~abused~~ used to denote a class of food, as distinct from carbohydrates and fat. Those proteins are collected by eating meat, for instance. But the proteins themselves are broken into amino acids, some of which are indeed essential and can only be obtained that way.

Essential amino acid

An essential amino acid, or indispensable amino acid, is an amino acid that cannot be synthesized de novo (from scratch) by the organism, and thus must be supplied in its diet. The nine amino acids humans cannot synthesize are phenylalanine, valine, threonine, tryptophan, methionine, leucine, isoleucine, lysine, and histidine (i.e., F V T W M L I K H).Six other amino acids are considered conditionally essential in the human diet, meaning their synthesis can be limited under special pathophysiological conditions, such as prematurity in the infant or individuals in severe catabolic distress. These...

@Cerberus right

Cerberus

@Lawrence I think plant matter contains few proteins; insects make them themselves (as do we).

Mitch

@Cerberus Ooh. That's really unhealthy for mice. Way too much oil in it than their tiny metabolisms can process.

Cerberus

@terdon Right, that is how I vaguely understood it to work

terdon

@Lawrence The thing is that the term is used in a kind weird way in the context of nutrition. To a biologist, a protein is a very specific class of molecule. Leaves contain protein, but are not exclusively made up of it.

Mitch

2:36 PM

@Lawrence a little nutty, a little bitter, like some lebanese olives

Cerberus

@Mitch But mostly very bland, right?

@Mitch But the plastic is good for them?

Lawrence

@Mitch We've had quite a few questions that are off-topic recently - but could be on-topic with a few tweaks. A little nudge to look at the on-topic FAQ might have been all they needed.

Cerberus

@terdon But leaves contain relatively small amounts of protein, right?

By mass, as compared with animal bodies.

terdon

yes

Cerberus

OK.

Lawrence

2:37 PM

@Mitch Like some of us, sometimes.

Mitch

@Cerberus I think most plastic is metaboliccally inert, but I suppose if you don't do it right it could cause mechanical blockages. I've heard that some fish are dying off because of that.

@Cerberus yes

Lawrence

@terdon Yes, I meant protein as the biologist would understand it, then. Can we start off with non-protein food (if there's such a thing) and make our own protein?

Cerberus

@Mitch Exactly.

Mitch

@Lawrence haha.

wait.. you're talking about eating people right?

Cerberus

@Lawrence Plants can!

Lawrence

2:39 PM

@Mitch No, of course not.

terdon

@Lawrence Mostly, yes. Proteins are made of amino acids. And we can make most of the necessary amino acids ourselves. The rest, the essential amino acids, we need to get by eating stuff.

Mitch

@Lawrence only if it is mostly amino acids

Lawrence

@Lawrence Unless that's read as "people who are eating food that is not people".

terdon

We can synthesize 13 of the 22 amino acids we use. Only 9 are essential.

Cerberus

Are these amino acids?

Mitch

2:41 PM

@Lawrence I mean, Im not judging... so long as it's no one you know. That would be wrong

Cerberus

Are they non-complex?

terdon

@Cerberus yep

Cerberus

OK.

terdon

@Cerberus That's why I said it depends on where you draw the line for complex vs simple :)

Cerberus

Right!

terdon

2:41 PM

Those are very very simple when compared to a protein

Cerberus

I remember playing this game where you had to fold proteins, to help science.

terdon

qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-a57ab67d62d1d75c333f1340491771e7

Cerberus

They were indeed far more complex than this.

Mitch

@terdon I just heard a news story that said pretty much an infinite variety of amino acids could be synthesized, each with differnet little doodads on them, and so when lined up as a protein could get all sorts of weirdo foldings.

terdon

Lawrence

2:42 PM

@terdon So if we're contemplating using insects as food due to scarcity, would it be more effective to go vegetarian? (I'm not vegetarian, don't worry - no barrel to push there.)

Cerberus

@terdon That's better. And it contains lots of abbreviations, right? Omitted letters.

terdon

@terdon That's a teeny tiny protein. Most are far longer and more complex than that

Lawrence

@Mitch That sounds twilight zoney.

Cerberus

Right.

terdon

@Lawrence I don't see why. The same argument you're making about insects (they need to eat plants) is just as valid for cows.

@Cerberus Yes. Each corner is a carbon atom, for example.

Mitch

2:44 PM

@Lawrence There are some -vitamins- which are only produced by animals that are necessary for humans (B12), but ither than that I think all amino acids can be gotten from vegetables

Cerberus

We need to eat animal stuff to get our essential amino acids, whether it's insects or vertebrates. Right?

Mitch

@Lawrence Or sciency.

Cerberus

Or is it posisble to get all of them from legumes or whatever? Probably?

But it's difficult?

Vegans live.

terdon

@Cerberus As I recall, most can be obtained through other means as well. It's just a bit more complex.

Mitch

dirty rice

Cerberus

2:45 PM

Right.

terdon

@Cerberus As I recall, most can be obtained through other means as well. It's just a bit more complex.

But we've now left the confort zone of my specific field (genetics). So take what I say with a grain of salt.

Cerberus

@terdon Right, I thought so.

Lawrence

@terdon Yes, true. But cows take up a lot of space and take a long time to get to a marketable size. Insects can be eaten whole (no waste), etc. There's an ugh factor to eating insects, though.

Mitch

dirty rice (rice that hasn't been washed too thoroughly) contains some proteins/vitamins that are essential

Cerberus

@terdon I'm sure that will make it more palatable.

Mitch

2:46 PM

@terdon salt will kill you

terdon

heh :)

@Lawrence Don't see why. Many people eat shrimp and they're basically swimming bugs.

Arthropods, anyway. Like insects.

Cerberus

@Lawrence Indeed, cows are probably 100 times worse for the environment for the same amount of essential amino acids (and fats?).

Mitch

@Lawrence uh ...I don't think that is recommended. the carapaces on a lot of insects is non-digestible. Like crustacean exoskeletons.

Cerberus

I find aquatic arthropods aequally meh.

Mitch

but I don't think it is good as dietary fiber (nondigestible stuff that aids digestion)

Cerberus

2:47 PM

Eating a shrimp is just as meh as eating a cricket for me.

terdon

I'd much rather eat a cockroach than a mussel.

Lawrence

@terdon You have a point.

Cerberus

@Mitch Oh, that's too bad.

Lawrence

@Cerberus They make nice steaks, though.

Cerberus

Musell

El musell és, en alguns animals, (inclosos éssers humans), la part baixa de la cara, la boca i les galtes. En alguns animals, si el nas està molt prop de la boca, es considera part del musell, com en els gats, gossos, éssers humans, etc. == Musells de gossos == Els musells dels gossos varien àmpliament de forma i van dels extremadament llargs i prims (dolicocefàlics) als pràcticament inexistents per plans (braquicefàlics). Algunes races tenen musells que en certa manera recorden al llop original en forma i grandària (mesocefàlics) i uns altres s'han escurçat en certa manera. Llebrer afganès...

Mitch

2:48 PM

@terdon We have you on record saying that. Are you willing to go public with that statement as a presidential candidate?

Cerberus

@Lawrence Quite.

@Mitch Praesident of the room?

Mitch

@Cerberus right. so some processing, to remove wins and thorax covers is probably desirable.

Cerberus

Right.

Mitch

like beetles. the inside is all protein, but the shell, way too crunchy

terdon

@Mitch Absolutely. There are very few things in the world I would not choose to eat instead of mussels or any other seafood. Allergies, don'tcha know.

Cerberus

2:50 PM

@Mitch That sounds like fun, just like removing the scaly bits from shrimp and pulling out the intestine.

@terdon Mussels?

Mitch

@Cerberus United Federation of Planets, obviously. What century are you in? 22nd? 21st?!!

Cerberus

Oh, of course.

terdon

@Cerberus Yes, thanks. I don't eat the stuff, so can't spell it either.

Yes, that makes sense.

Mitch

@terdon nice. appeal to the anaphylaxis-believers.

Cerberus

I got really sick after eating a mussel when I was 6 or so.

terdon

2:51 PM

@Mitch Those buggers vote, man!

Cerberus

I still don't really like them.

Mitch

@terdon As a registered nutritionist I must caution against too much indulging in insect meat. Way way too much cholesterol.

Cerberus

Their flavour is meh, and their texture is like the slugs of a failing rubber factory.

Mitch

actually, in pretty much the same was as shrimp and other underwater spiders

Cerberus

@Mitch Are you, really?

Mitch

2:52 PM

@terdon haha. buggers.

Cerberus

@Mitch That's a good name!

Mitch

2 hours ago, by Mitch

@Cerberus "I confess I was kidding the whole time"

Lawrence

Hang on, shrimp don't have 6 legs. They're not insects of any variety.

terdon

@Lawrence No, not insects. But they're arthropods, as are insects.

Mitch

Notice the strategic link to a quote of a quote

Lawrence

2:54 PM

Then again, caterpillars have more than 6 legs as well. Are they considered insects just because they are the juvenile version of insects?

terdon

Lawrence

@terdon So noted.

Mitch

I think caterpillars are often poisonous, even if they are pre-butterfiles

which feel beautiful as you chew them

Cerberus

@Mitch I knew it.

@Lawrence Yes.

Mitch

Barnacles are weird.

There I said it

Cerberus

2:56 PM

Just as frog juveniles without legs are still frogs.

Lawrence

@terdon So, ticks and mites are arachnida, not insects.

Mitch

@Cerberus but at least they move.

Cerberus

Indeed.

Mitch

barnacles just sit there

Lawrence

@Cerberus So what about the 'must have 6 legs' criterion?

terdon

2:57 PM

But there's the biological definition of insects (members of the insecta class) and the normal person's definition (creepy crawlies).

Cerberus

And yet it moves

"And yet it moves" or "Albeit it does move" (Italian: E pur si muove or Eppur si muove [epˈpur si ˈmwɔːve]) is a phrase attributed to the Italian mathematician, physicist and philosopher Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) in 1633 after being forced to recant his claims that the Earth moves around the immovable Sun rather than the converse during the Galileo affair.In this context, the implication of the phrase is: despite his recantation, the Church's proclamations to the contrary, or any other conviction or doctrine of men, the Earth does, in fact, move (around the Sun, and not vice versa). As such,...

Mitch

@Lawrence I thought ticks and mites are actually crustaceans. crabs in fact. literally, crabs

Cerberus

Who are you now, Galilei?

terdon

@Lawrence Yes, but of course there's the biological definition of insects (members of the insecta class) and the normal person's definition (creepy crawlies).

Cerberus

@Lawrence Applies only to adults!

Mitch

2:58 PM

@Cerberus I love that aria

Cerberus

@Lawrence Consider if, in all stages of an vertebrate's life, it must have vertebrae: then no embryos would be vertebrates.

Mitch

Renata Scotto - Gianni Schicchi - O mio babbino caro

►

Lawrence

@terdon What's the biological definition of the insecta class?

Cerberus

Definitions apply to adults.

Lawrence

@Cerberus Interesting. The layman's definitions are constructed only by inspecting the adults of the species.

terdon

3:01 PM

@Lawrence That's a bit of a hard one. We used to do this based on morphological characteristics, but these days it's mostly done by comparing DNA sequences and looking at similarities. I don't really know what a modern day phylogeneticist would use as a definition.

Cerberus

@Lawrence Yeah.

@terdon I read an article about that recently.

Lawrence

@terdon Ah, back to DNA. That would make sense.

Cerberus

It's all under debate.

Anonymous

@terdon Don't you think that applies more to bug? People tend to say bug for creepy crawlies, but using insect haphazardly? That seems a little weirder to me.

Cerberus

The definition of a species is not just based on DNA, nor just on morphology.

But some combination, common sense, other stuff.

terdon

3:02 PM

@snailboat I think most people (but have absolutely no evidence to back this up) would refer to $randomBug as an insect.

Anonymous

I see. Well, that's definitely weird for me, but that's just my own intuition talking.

terdon

But I may well be wrong. I think I would have before studying biology, but I can't swear to that either, I've been a biologist longer than not by now.

Cerberus

Many people think spiders are insects.

But they will readily accept that they aren't when so told.

Lawrence

@snailboat "Bug" is pretty widely applicable - all the way from lobster-like creatures to insects and arachnids, and to even tinier organisms such as germs.

Anonymous

Much more readily than they'll accept anything about birds and dinosaurs.

Cerberus

3:04 PM

Indeed!

Although even that they will eventually accept.

terdon

@snailboat Well, that's probably why most parents choose to talk about birds and bees, instead.

Cerberus

And possibly even that whales are the sisters of deer.

Anonymous

@terdon The Dinosaurs and the Bees sounds like a good title.

Lawrence

@terdon "Birds and dinosaurs" is a different category of story.

Cerberus

Which is harder to accept than that seals are related to dogs and bears, and that sea cows are related to elephants.

terdon

3:06 PM

@Cerberus Well, all you need to do is look at a seal and a boxer

Cerberus

I suppose!

terdon

Mitch

@snailboat Yes, totally. But I think that terdon is right that 'insect', though more technical than 'bug', is used informally too (just not as informally as bug). Like a spider might be called an insect

Cerberus

Lawrence

Night, all!

Mitch

3:09 PM

@terdon A boxer is a dog except for the mooshed-in face

Anonymous

@Mitch See, if I heard that, I don't think I'd understand it as colloquial usage of insect. It would just register as factually incorrect in my head.

Mitch

@Lawrence What time zone are you in? +8UTC?

Anonymous

And I might be confused for a moment. But maybe it's something I could adapt to.

Mitch

@snailboat Yeah. me too. but... hm...

Cerberus

@Mitch Yes, but consider this. "I saw a bug crawling in my shoe." — "No, that's not a bug, it's a spider. Spiders aren't bugs." — "Oh, I didn't know spiders weren't bugs." (This dialogue would be unrealistic, but it would work if you replaced bug with insect.)

@Lawrence Sleep well!

Mitch

3:10 PM

@Cerberus You should get new shoes

Cerberus

NOU

Mitch

Advice I may well take

Can you get shoes at IKEA?

Put that on your list

The problem with IKEA furniture is that it looks great, but is crap.

Like google, I don't know how people lived before there was IKEA? Where could you get cheap furniture, lamps, and stuff? It didn't exist!

Cerberus

I don't know.

@Mitch It makes little sense to buy furniture new if it isn't really cheap like Ikea...

My friend sold her Ikea nightstand for more than she had paid for it new, though...

It depends with Ikea: my couch is holding strong after 8 years.

As does my bed.

Mitch

@Cerberus She put in the labor of building it

Cerberus

Yes.

But even so: second hand usually brings down the price of anything, even Ikea or Lego, I should expect.

Mitch

3:18 PM

@Cerberus anything with the particle board parts can barely get past a single move.

Cerberus

Oh, those in particular?

Mitch

Yeah, like cabinets or bookcases

but yeah, bedframes are little sturdier

Cerberus

My closet is indeed slightly skewed or uneven, and it hasn't been moved.

Mitch

@Cerberus Houses, art, um... diamonds... um

anything else?

@Cerberus book cases notoriously get swaybacked

Cerberus

I suspect my couch and my bed don't have particle board in the load-bearing parts.

Mitch

3:20 PM

or anywhere

Cerberus

@Mitch Yes, there are exceptions—things that have cultural value.

Diamonds are the opposite: they lose like 40% of their 'value' the moment you buy them new.

@Mitch True.

Lawrence

@Mitch I'm in Australia.

It's night time here now. :)

@Cerberus Cheers!

Mitch

@MetaEd Well?

How's your morning?

MetaEd

3:39 PM

@Mitch Mostly relaxing.

Mitch

@MetaEd I sense some tension

> More people have been to Russia than I have.

> No head injury is too trivial to ignore.

> Can a man marry his widow’s sister?

> More girls ate pizza than the boy did

Feeds

4:02 PM

0

Q: Person who never talks in commanding manner

Single-word for a person who never talks with anyone in commanding manner in any situation.

single-word-requests

MetaEd

4:51 PM

@Mitch Certainly, in the sense that I use tension as well as relaxation to type words into the chat box.

Feeds

5:32 PM

0

Q: word for categories of units

Let's say I'm trying to measure some variable, like GDP. The unit I'm measuring this in is dollars, and the type of unit is currency. Is there a word to describe things like "currency" in this scenario? As another example, a variable could be stomach size, the unit is kilograms, and the thing I'...

single-word-requests

Mitch

7:35 PM

@MetaEd I'm always anxious about getting my relaxation technique just right

I'm better at most people at being non-competitive

Tweeted by benorlin on August 21, 2018 at 4:43 PM

Fermi question Fermi questions

MetaEd

7:58 PM

@Mitch There's probably a gatha for that.

{
	no warnings 'deprecated' ;
	$[ = 1 ;
}

Apparently I'm deprecated.

Mitch

@MetaEd Ugh...I knew I came here for some reason... and ... I've forgotten it again

Augh... I know now!

MetaEd

Well, nuts. My Perl is very rusty.

And tc is busy with something much more important than Perl rust.

Mitch

All this talk of indicting the president seems like the perversist direction of ...

@MetaEd What is the name of that game we keep talking about whose whole point is to manipulate the rules of the game?

Nomos?

MetaEd

@Mitch Nomic.

Mitch

8:13 PM

Cripes

or rather 'Cripes!'

MetaEd

Know anybody who wants to play?

Mitch

All this talk of indicting the president seems like the perversist direction of Nomic

@MetaEd No. Nobody around here likes playing games.

On vacation the other week, we played Monopoly. All it does is bring up childhood memories of how bad you felt losing at monopoly.

Then the next night we played Risk. All it does is bring up different terrible childhood memories of how bad you felt losing at Risk.

TRiG

Eggcorn of the day: null-in-void

Mitch

Nice

MetaEd

@Mitch Need more distance.

@TRiG nullemployed? nullenvoyed? nell'n'floyd?

Mitch

8:22 PM

Now you're unemployed

TRiG

@Mitch That's not nice news.

Mitch

@MetaEd Like OLd-timer's for Alzheimer's? That doesn't sound to me like an eggcorn.

It's like cockroach for cucaracha or dames pleines for dumpllings.

hm..maybe foreign mistranslations are eggcornish anyway

anyway 'old timer' is a pretty close translation of alzheimer, so it doesn't bother me

@TRiG Walking round like you're Pretty Boy Floyd?

'Lesser of two equals' ... that's a good one

TRiG

@Mitch Heh.

Mitch

@TRiG You turned stick-up kid

look what you done did

Got sent up for a eight-year bid

You say I'm cool

hey I'm no fool

But then you wind up dropping outta high school

Driving big cars, spending twenties and tens

And you'll wanna grow up to be just like them

MetaEd

8:45 PM

@Mitch It's like reign on yore wending day.

It's a free ryed win you've all read y-payed.

Mitch

> Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage, honor itch offer lodge, dock, florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry putty ladle rat cluck wetter ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut

MetaEd

9:09 PM

@Mitch For south.

Mitch

9:29 PM

+1

Ender Look

9:50 PM

Can I make a fullish question? If I am doing a course that means I am the teacher or the student?

MetaEd

10:02 PM

@EnderLook That might be regional. In my region, I would not say I am doing a course. I might be confused by it. Possibly in other regions it means the same as taking a course. Then you would be the student. But if you were taking it on, you might be the new teacher.

Feeds

11:03 PM

0

Q: "Both" for more than two objects

If I were to ask: Which children did you bring? and you respond: I brought both Adam and Billy. The "both" implies not only that you brought two children, but that you brought your only two children (that the whole set was brought). If, however, you had more than two children, neithe...

single-word-requests meaning lists

Ender Look

@MetaEd Ok, thanks!

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…