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00:36
@Cerberus I know!
pardon me
pardons you
No capital punishment for you, Mr.
@Cerberus Careful, somebody up there appears to be listening after all.
I keep looking for glitches in the Matrix.
 
1 hour later…
01:56
0
A: English Language & Usage's updated site theme is ready for testing!

tchristRows are out of alignment The numbers and the words of the middle set are out of line with the other pair: Notice how "answers" is on a different baseline from "votes" and "views". Notice how the first 3 is on a different baseline from the second 3. This is the way it is supposed to look: ...

0
Q: How to mention this "YES" moment?

Min SoeCan anyone help me how I can describe a small achievement between different successful results? Something like your team had already scored a lot of goals and you came up from the bench and score one more goal. So, it's not a lot, but a lot for you. You'll do something like "Fit Yes" to yourself....

0
Q: I have a sensory details chart that needs to be filled out for my college class soon!

PotatoI need a few words to describe what the rural outdoors tastes, sounds, and smells like. Something to describe the air or a lake maybe?

Right on.
02:12
@tchrist Now, if only the server hosting the whole "new design" débâcle could be hit, too...
I just got my very firstest Reversal badge.
On meta, of course.
02:44
0
Q: Single word for "in a different way"

Elisha ben AbbuyahIf "in a different place" is "elsewhere," is there a single word for "in a different way?" The sentence is, "We might be able to make sense of this in a different way." Thanks, SL

 
6 hours later…
08:56
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body: Alpha Size Fuel Review by Uted on english.SE
 
1 hour later…
10:11
So I wander in here and the first thing I see is five people not being able to think of an adverb for different. And the second thing I see is another five people discussing whether a fact is a physical creature with a mouth.
And the third thing I see is a guy asking for "a few college level words to describe what the rural outdoors taste like".
This site should be renamed from ELU to TROLOLOLU.
Now that would be a design change I'd support.
 
1 hour later…
11:22
What's it mean "to stand something on edge"?
> Do not move your mattress, box spring, or frame, or stand them on edge. Doing so could cause the bedbugs to scatter
11:50
@KarlG: I've worked in the business as a front-end developer for over 20 years. Before that I was a creative director, and dealt with graphic issues like type and color all the time. I know all the tricks, all the problems. What we had before here looked professional (even though it wasn't to my taste); what we have now does not. — Robusto 48 secs ago
@RegDwigнt You'd find something wrong even with that. LOLOLOL
12:17
0
Q: Use of contiguous for time

MatthijsCan I use 'contiguous' for time periods that immediately follow each other, or is usage restricted to geography? For example, would it be correct to say that "session B will be taught contiguously with class A", if I mean to say that class B will start as soon as class A ends? If that use is no...

12:40
@Robusto no. Finding requires that I first go look for it. And I never need to look for horribly wrong things. They are always horribly apparent. Alas.
Don't put the mattress upright on its side.
@Meysam A mattress is a 3-dimensional object, with length, width, and height, and sosix flat surfaces, the main sleeping one (two of them) which usually are parallel to the floor, and 4 narrow faces. Those narrow faces, while geometrically would not be called edges, are so thin in comparison to the sleeping surface that it is easy to think of them as edges of the sleeping face. Standing a mattress on its edge is tipping the mattress (I suppose) up against a wall so it is 'on' the 'edge'
Let it lie down.
jinxed and tweened
ha
@Mitch I spent the last three minutes typing just that and then I said fuck it and found a pic instead.
If someone can't understand what an "edge" is, then certainly saying things like "surface" and "3-dimensional" and "comparison" and "parallel" and "narrow" is not exactly going to help.
@RegDwigнt I see your point but raise you a 'sometimes, when you can't just show a video, using more words that are synonyms tells you the appropriate nuance'. He might have been thinking that the surface is not an edge (which it isn't literally re your picture) but is somewhat metaphorically if you think of a mattress like a piece of paper.
12:50
@Mitch what is raise means.
make higher
oh so smoke pot
usually by putting four bricks underneath
why is Mitch smoke pot
elevate?
12:51
is that before twelvate?
my excessive pot smoking is not the issue here
it is now, young sir
it's before enervate
yes it needs a nerf alright
I always thought 'enervate' was a good thing utnil I learned its meaning
12:52
Lol and now I have to react to flags in Russian.
some of the tomatoes are orange
@MattE.Эллен I don't think that'll take care of the bedbug problem
@RegDwigнt those are easy. always valid
No, that's the thing. That flag totally isn't valid.
the words that are not offensive in Russian are useless
12:54
@RegDwigнt Read between the lines
those Russian flags keep coming
"там в политоте сидит kvaz1r и открыто говрит что русских надо убивать, особенно тех кто за путина" so obviously talking about someone's mother
@MattE.Эллен They look political
yeah, although I don't trust google translate.
But flaggd as offensive by 3 people, so maybe there's a point
@Mitch you only say that because you learned Russian from me.
Nov 22 '13 at 19:24, by RegDwigнt
Did you know that every second word in Russian is a euphemism for "drink all things now"? The rest being euphemisms for "your", "mother", or some combination thereof.
12:57
@MattE.Эллен I was about to say 'GT doesn't return anything offensive', and then realized my rookie mistake.
mother all your things, now drink
@Mitch it's worse, he's talking about Putin. And killing all the Russians.
@RegDwigнt you miss one word, like 'killing', and people start to judge you.
or 'not'
Putin Killing Russian? must be Fake News™
Yeah I'm leaving that kindergarten alone.
12:59
@RegDwigнt What the hell are all the Russian flags?
Oh kindergarten, right.
Kindergarten.
You said she said he said but mommy I said then he said but wah.
ufunny
Even if someone did say "kill all the Russians", that's not a flaggable offense per se.
I just typed those very words myself, look.
put the room in timeout
@MattE.Эллен Excellent. Red and yellow teams have been deployed. Cover your eyes and ears.
@RegDwigнt flagged
obviously
13:01
if everyone eats all the tomatoes where do we get the seeds from?
Yeah you might as well, I gotta run anyway, have violin class in an hour.
@MattE.Эллен from chihuahua excrements.
@MattE.Эллен Oh Matt
Who was first, the tomato or the chihuahua? Discuss.
Poop. We get them from the poop. Toilets are seed reclamation devices.
that makes sense. mystery solved.
13:02
You're a semen reclamation device.
No wait, I have to say it in Russian first.
Ёр э симен рикламэйшн дивайс.
There. Now go.
Don't collect the 200 roubles.
13:04
The horse is dead, long live the horse!
@RegDwigнt Eiffelturm.
@tchrist сам такой.
Talking about your mother again, I see.
Srsly tho I need to go brush my teeth and floss them too and then put on my tutu.
@tchrist always am. She just wrote me the other day. Now I have to reply. Gah.
@RegDwigнt I know what an edge is, but I had a hard time trying to make sense of that sentence.
thanks
@Mitch thanks
What does "A door tag will be left noting appropriate reentry time" mean?
> You and your pets must vacate your unit for a minimum of 4 hours. A door tag will be left noting appropriate reentry time.
You cannot enter?
13:20
@Meysam Well, you should not enter before that time or else you'll probably breathof the bedbug killing gas (which is what I'm guessing is happening )
'cannot' means 'unable' like the door is locked. 'should' means 'we have deemed it unsafe'
'a door tag' is just a note left on the door or door handle
@Mitch yeah I know
'a minimum of 4 hours' means you shouldn't come in before 4 hours, and actually it will probably take longer than 4 hours, so look at our note to see when. It might be 4 hours, but more likely longer. Definitely not in 3 hours.'
does it mean as long as the door tag is there, you shouldn't enter again and no excuses will be accepted?
@Mitch The second sentence is the issue, not the first
I think the notice on the door will give a time when it is safe to re-enter. There's no police guard preventing you from entering before that time, but they know from experience that before then it will not be good to breath the air in there.
The time given on the note will say when you can come back in, and you shouldn't before then.
got it
thanks
13:25
also, you should take any pets with you.
before the gassing starts.
I suppose fish will be OK if you cover the aquarium.
0
Q: Term to name a person who is a mother/father from a person who is not?

jalazbeIs there a term to name a person who is a mother/father from a person who is not? There are different adjectives to describe a person: single married divorced parent What would be a person before he/she becomes father or mother?

13:57
@Mitch fish taste awful, so it's best to keep them alive so you don't have to eat them
@MattE.Эллен is that before or after bedbug gassing?
I hadn't considered. Both, I think
14:17
hm... a true connoisseur
14:28
@Lawrence I left for a while because I had lung cancer and was undergoing treatment. I haven't been present much since then, mostly because the other mods have been doing just fine without me.
Hi Matt!
So, thinking of Nano this year?
Nah. I haven't even been able to keep up writing the 2nd draft I started in July
Are you?
Thinking about it, but haven't decided firmly on it. I have a conference in November, and the elections, and I haven't finished a draft in two years, and I haven't written much recently.
@RegDwigнt Thanks! and you're a milestone subscriber - 150th! Sesquicentennialist!
hmmm. It might be funny to try and do a stream of consciousness nanowrimo, or like maybe not every day, but 3 or 4 days a week in November
14:36
That could be really fun.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ax_to_grind
> He was flattered by the stranger into turning the grindstone

What does it mean to 'turn the grindstone'?
maybe aim low, like 30k instead of 50k
That's what I tried to do for ... one of them. Ended up as a story. Maybe the first one?
@ledonter A grindstone is used for sharpening blades. In the days before electricity, you turned one by hand. It requires a lot of effort.
@ledonter it looks literal
The sentence means that the stranger used flattery to convince the man to turn the grindstone, and thus sharpen his blade.
14:39
I guess I just don't know precisely what grindstone is and how it can be turned :D
But ok I got it
It's a big heavy rock, shaped like a wheel.
A grindstone is a round sharpening stone used for grinding or sharpening ferrous tools. Grindstones are usually made from sandstone.Grindstone machines usually have pedals for speeding up and slowing down the stone to control the sharpening process. The earliest known representation of a rotary grindstone, operated by a crank handle, is found in the Carolingian manuscript Utrecht Psalter. This pen drawing from about 830 goes back to a late antique original. The Luttrell Psalter, dating to around 1340, describes a grindstone rotated by two cranks, one at each end of its axle. Around 1480, the early...
You lay the blade against it at an appropriate angle, and it basically files the edge smooth. It takes skill to do it well.
14:52
@KitZ.Fox Good evening, Ms Fox.
Good to see you around.
And how are you, @Lawrence?
I'm well, thanks.
What's new with you these past two years?
There was a winter bug going through a while back (Australia), but it seems to have mostly cleared up now.
I'm kinda glad I didn't get into the mod team, what with the new changes and all. :)
That's good. I have a friend who lives in Moe. I sent him a present, completely forgetting that we were on opposite seasons.
14:57
What do you think of the new themes?
@Lawrence Eh, you'd have adapted just fine, I'm sure.
@KitZ.Fox Haha, it's nice dreaming about the opposite seasons. Then we grumble when we get to them in real life half a year later.
@Lawrence I don't think much of them, I'm afraid. I haven't looked much though, to be honest.
How have you been over the last couple of months?
Up and down. Mostly OK.
14:59
@KitZ.Fox Thanks, that's very kind of you. :)
@KitZ.Fox A lot of people don't like them. But it seems they're part of a cost-conserving measure, so it's full-steam ahead.
I can relate to that.
I have more work than I have resources for and business keeps delaying my projects despite the large increases in risk I keep telling them about.
But they keep paying me, so I can't complain too much.
@KitZ.Fox Glad to hear it (the "Mostly OK" bit). Yeah, life throws a few curves now and then. I can relate to that.
@KitZ.Fox Ha! Overworked and not underpaid? It's a different sort of risk for the business owner, I suppose.
Well, and not even overworked. I tell them "I don't have resources for this, so it is not getting done. If you want it done, I need more resources."
@KitZ.Fox Sounds like a nice job. Still in programming?
Yes. We switched over to Agile ... I don't even know how long ago, maybe two or three years? So I get a variety of tasks, which I like.
I have a broad skillset, and working this way keeps it fresh.
15:09
We went through a down-sizing after the GFC. Can you believe it's about a decade ago now? Still, interesting work in embedded systems.
Wow. Seems like that happened...not so long ago.
I know. We produced electronics, and lead times for components just went through the roof.
What should have taken weeks started to take the better part of a year.
Software is so much easier to manage.
I can't even imagine how complicated embedded systems must be.
My husband did a bunch of work with PLCs. That was the most complicated it got for his job as an electrician.
He said it was certainly more complicated than running conduit. Haha.
So what's your part in the process?
15:16
@KitZ.Fox We were looking at using them for a gate relay control.
@Lawrence What's 'GFC'?
@KitZ.Fox Mostly the architecture.
@Mitch Global Financial Crisis
Oh. Duh
The financial crisis of 2007–2008, also known as the global financial crisis and the 2008 financial crisis, is considered by many economists to have been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.It began in 2007 with a crisis in the subprime mortgage market in the United States, and developed into a full-blown international banking crisis with the collapse of the investment bank Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008. Excessive risk-taking by banks such as Lehman Brothers helped to magnify the financial impact globally. Massive bail-outs of financial institutions and other...
@Lawrence Is it fun? Or more like, an engaging challenge?
15:17
@KitZ.Fox Actually, I have overall responsibility, but my area is in architecture. It's a lot of fun. When the electronics get fabricated and we can see the LEDs light up, it 'comes alive'.
0
Q: Is there a word for someone who is not a parent?

CharlieYou can say of a person that they are single/married/divorced/widowed, even that that person is a parent (father or mother). But is there a single word to refer to someone who is not a parent? I can only think of some compounds such as childless or kidless, but I'm not sure if they convey the me...

@Lawrence Not knowing the acronym, I thought GFC was some country-wide regulation on electrical component development, lengthening your cycle.
@Lawrence That sounds quite rewarding.
Software seems so obviously easier to change than hardware, but I'm always impressed with how quickly 'upgrades' happen (or annoyed depending on if you're the one who has to procure the object)
@KitZ.Fox Then we plug it into the back end and browse the front-ends. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We had a hardware engineer who said that the future was in the software. I don't think he was wrong. We still need hardware, of course, but a lot of it seems pretty generic.
There's quite a bit of work that goes into it, though. Not intending to put that role down.
15:21
and I've heard that hardware manufacturing projects, not just electrical, but much further afield like civil engineering, are starting to use 'Agile'.
@Mitch Haha. It had a huge impact on our development cycle.
@Lawrence are you still working for the same company as then?
@Mitch The trick is to stop the engineering team from starting from scratch ... again.
@Mitch Yup.
@Mitch How do they do iterations? Too many spins (PCB production) and price starts to add up.
What do you do, @Mitch?
@Lawrence software
Fellow coder. :)
15:24
;)
secret handshake
it's just a handshake
not sure which hand to shake
look up the interface
just a usual business handshake
Ah...
secret handshake
but same here it's weird because who actually shakes hands except for people in ties
15:26
quick, somebody speak the shibboleth! we need in-group signalling stat!
look up shibboleth
hitchhiker's guide!
serifim
shibboleth is a shibboleth
15:26
@Lawrence 403
I just made myself guffaw.
using quotes badly is an antishibboleth
@KitZ.Fox hur hur hur
@KitZ.Fox Laughter ... the best medicine.
Do you get Reader's Digest over there?
I'm pretty sure penicillin works a lot better for some things
These days, with the super bugs, people are starting to recommend dirt instead.
@Lawrence If you remove the third, fifth and sixth letters, it's Red Digest, comrade.
15:28
@Lawrence Yes. We used to read the Drama in Real Life at camp. Pretty sure that's where I got most of my childhood trauma.
I've heard rubbing bacon on it will do the trick.
@Mitch Actually, I seem to find them mostly in dentist's offices.
I don't remember that
@KitZ.Fox Was that the section that would detail some emergency and how it got sorted out?
@Lawrence Yes. A whole bunch of eyewitness accounts of tragedies.
Only sometimes with happy endings.
I used to read my Grandmother's copies when visiting her because she and my mom would talk about boring adult stuff (I'm guessing the benefit of annuities vs t-bills?).
15:31
Hahaha
@KitZ.Fox We did tragedies at high school (Lit). Almost a form of child abuse.
And so later on I realized how ripped off I was when I discovered what 'digest' meant
Were you required to wail and rend your garments?
@Mitch Right!? All those gotdamn readers -- summarized!
@KitZ.Fox No, but ... the poor characters.
Yeah. I was recollecting that I was required to do a presentation where I dressed as Anne Frank and told the story of "my" life.
augh
15:33
Ooh, glad we didn't have to identify that deeply with the characters. Reading about them was bad enough. I much prefer the stories with happy endings.
@KitZ.Fox haha. I thought I had read War and Peace and didn't get all the problems people had with patronymics and geography and who did what to whom where. I mean All you need to know it was something about Russia
something something something Russia.
@Mitch But then you wouldn't know whether it was Animal Farm or War and Peace.
Or ... um. that Dostoyevsky one.
@KitZ.Fox In the schools here (Massachusetts) in 5th grade (10-11 year olds?) you get assigned a random person on the Mayflower to re-enact, and 1/2 the kids get someone who died on board and didn't step foot on North America
15:35
Weird.
not exactly the same as Anne Frank. But still.
Do they assign kids to Native Americans too? >.>
@KitZ.Fox Doctor Zhivago: snowy, Russia, stirring music
There's a lot of James Bond set there, too.
wait, that's War and piece too
15:36
hmm, I could watch that.
What's the Russia thing I've been thinking about recently?
Dr Zhivago: War and Peace, but with a doctor. It's in the effing title
@KitZ.Fox "that Dostoyevsky one"
:P
ah yes, that was it.
No, wait. It was Reg I was thinking about.
@KitZ.Fox Oh.. hm... can't remember. They did do a lot about the local Wampanoag Indians... but I can't remember if anyone was assigned that.
Probably ought. To be fair.
15:38
Crime and Punishment?
"And then the settlers raped my sister and I died of smallpox. The end."
Frankly that story would have been 'Dead from European measles well before the Mayflower set sail'
@Lawrence Yes, that's the one.
I listened to it in the car during my commute.
And wished that I could study Russian so I could read it properly.
I think most of the villages had been reduced by 90% before colonists started coming because fishermen had brought diseases to the NE coast.
@KitZ.Fox Ha! Am I good or what.
Actually, it was more of a lucky guess.
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (English: ; Russian: Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, tr. Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, IPA: [ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ dəstɐˈjɛfskʲɪj] ( listen); 11 November 1821 – 9 February 1881), sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher. Dostoevsky's literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed works include Crime and Punishment (1866), The...
15:39
Well, that's his most famous one, innit?
It's just about the only one I recognised. :)
@Lawrence Poor woman killed out of existential absurdity. Guy eventually gives himself up.
Could have been The Brothers Karamotzov ... Karomaztov... Carrotmoztoff
@KitZ.Fox That'll be hard. They have different words for everything.
@KitZ.Fox No. That's the group of jugglers
Meh, no harder than Chinese. They have the same word for everything.
15:42
Haha!
@KitZ.Fox figuring out which one is the hardest part
@KitZ.Fox There was a comics-inspired movie that had something like that, taken to the n-th degree. A talking tree that could only say 2 phrases.
One phrase, wasn't it?
Ah, groot.
2 phrases, technically: "I'm Groot" and "We're Groot".
Without the contractions.
"I am Groot" and "We are Groot"
ah yes, I had forgotten that dramatic ending.
15:46
Stored in a pocket dimension?
Or completely erased?
And potentially un-erased at some later point.
In some Michael Myers movie (Wayne's World), he's talking with his Chinese girlfriend in Chinese and it's subtitled and either he says one word in Chinese and the subtitles go on and on and on.
Or the other way around
Or both
Flippityback Humblebutt knew what he was talking about. The only way to win was to give up the time stone. Obviously, they will fix it later. The end.
@Mitch Oh I forgot about that. That was really funny.
@Mitch Then there are those Kung-Fu send-ups where the mouth moves first and the sounds of the words follow a little later.
@KitZ.Fox Sort of ... "just give it time", hmm?
@Lawrence THAT'S WHY DUBBING IS A HORRIBLE CRIME AGAINST AESTHETICS.
Right @Cerberus?
It might have been Eddie Murphy that did that send-up.
brb
15:53
@Lawrence Yes. Exactly. Haha.
I'm back
@Mitch It's not just aesthetics. The voice acting on dubs is usually horrible.
@KitZ.Fox But...
What about cartoons?
It's all dubbed
Video games too. And crap voice acting can easily kill it.
Supposedly the German version of Finding Nemo was really good because they found lots of local dialect actors to give it ... color.
or am i thinking of Harry Potter?
which is mostly not animated
expect for the story about the three deathly hallows
15:58
@Mitch I heard on the radio recently that Disney's cartoons had such good soundtracks because they had these orchestra musicians hanging around between stints with Humphrey Bogart or whoever, and the lead musician decided to hire them.
@KitZ.Fox I only know gaming voices scripts from walking through another room next to the one where it is going on, and it doesn't sound like it's bad or good just kinda... flat.
"I am killing these guys bloop bleep bloop"
Disney's voice overs were also mostly (exclusively?) done by just one person, at least in the old days.
@Lawrence Heroin
Eh?
Um, no thanks. I'm good.
Heroin makes eerything sound better

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