English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Vitaly

03:01

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I use two different browsers for day-to-day browsing. My primary browser is Opera with disabled iframes, JS, plug-ins, and so on, some sites like this one are partially whitelisted. When I need Flash Player, I use Chrome.

Mahnax

Although I do occasionally use Xcode for editing files.

Vitaly

Yeah, Interface Builder was a great app, or whatever it's called these days.

Mahnax

They got rid of Interface Builder!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Vitaly Well, sure. But you're hardly typical of web users or mac users or high-school students.

Vitaly

Really?

Mahnax

03:02

Now it's integrated right into Xcode.

I don't like it.

Vitaly

Oh.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

so for fuck's sake. the reason my code wasn't working is that this entire codebase is architected wrongly, differently from the main codebase.

Cerberus

@Vitaly Don't you need Flash for lots of sites? Do you use a plug-in to automatically switch to Chrome, or do you copy-paste the address by hand?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

So when I thought I was modifying a template method, it turns out I wasn't, because there isn't a template method.

Cerberus

Aww.

Well, you've figured it out.

Vitaly

03:03

@Cerberus My “lots of sites” are probably different to your “lots of sites”, so…

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I have wasted like 3 days on this

Cerberus

@Vitaly So...

Vitaly

@Cerberus So, no.

Cerberus

Odd.

So I take it you copy-paste by hand?

Mahnax

@Vit The files are no longer *.nib or *.xib, they're *.storyboard.

Vitaly

03:06

@Cerberus Copy-paste from where? I don't even go to Flash-based sites often enough to need copy-pasting from my primary browser.

Cerberus

You never surf?

Mahnax

In Russia? That would be mighty cold.

Cerberus

You never click on any Youtube links in this chat, for example?

Or any of the other Flash-based sites linked to here.

@Mahnax Wind-sleigh surfing on ice.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerb: I use flashblock and rarely need to unblock flash

Cerberus

Rarely?

At least you only need to click a button.

You never watch any Youtube, Vimeo, etc. videos?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:10

well, I white-list youtube and a couple google properties.

Cerberus

Ah.

Yes, I used to do that too.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

But vimeo, no, they're blocked.

Cerberus

Why?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I don't use it enough

Cerberus

I recall your watching several Vimdeo videos I posted here...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:11

I'm not even sure why I blocked youtube

Vitaly

Apr 21 at 15:54, by Vitaly

@Robusto Yeah, this is why my custom CSS has been downsizing images and YouTube previews here since about 8 months ago when this started.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

er, unblocked

Vitaly

In other words, no, I don't.

Cerberus

Like the one with the images from the ISS?

@Vitaly Then you are unusual indeed.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I mean, I will visit vimeo, and unblock the player for the duration of playing the video, but even if I were to whitelist all the video sites I occasionally visit, the whitelist would still be short.

Cerberus

03:12

There's tons of interesting moving content on the web, and most of it is sadly in Flash.

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Sure, I used to do the same.

Unblocking with the click of a button is no big deal.

Actually Noscript blocks Flash normally.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

my whitelist has 23 items. Some are work-relatred, some are subdomains (eg grooveshark.com and listen.grooveshark.com) that I haven't pruned

Cerberus

So I guess I also have a whitelist, albeit a very long one.

user19161

Speaking of flash, I find that gnash can play many youtube videos, but not the flash videos on some other sites.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus noscript is too paranoid for me.

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 In what way?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:14

@ClarkKent yay! I was wondering how long I'd have to wait for the Jasper perspective :)

Cerberus

Haha.

I just want my stuff to work. That's priority number one.

Vitaly

By the way, does anybody here know of an easy way to set up an HTTP proxy and add rules for it to modify the web page content on the fly, so that the stuff doesn't even need to be processed by my browser in order for it to be blocked?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus in that I don't need the inconvenience of noscript for the minor benefits it brings

user19161

@MrShinyandNew安宇 But in your opinion, will flash become obsolete in 5 years with HTML5?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Vitaly you mean like a squid proxy that rewrites the html before it reaches your browser?

Cerberus

03:15

@Vitaly Why not Adblock Plus? It supposedly blocks all ads before the browser processes them.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@ClarkKent in many ways it is already obsolete.

Vitaly

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, but easier.

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Understandable. Though I must say the inconvenience is minor the way I have it set up.

Mahnax

Would any of you recommend dropping Objective-C completely and focussing on something more universal?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Vitaly then no, I don't really. unless adblock or its ilk will meet your needs.

user19161

03:17

@Cerberus I believe you clicked on the wrong line.

Cerberus

@ClarkKent Oops. All those stupid moving lines!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mahnax Objective-C is useful. Nothing is really universal. If you're still learning stuff, keep at it. But don't forget that Objective-C is really only used on Apple systems.

user19161

@Mahnax It is interesting that there are the spellings focused/focussed.

Mahnax

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Well, the problem is that doing Objective-C again would pretty much be starting over.

It's been a while, and things have changed in that while.

Vitaly

I'd hate trying to teach someone how to set up Squid and configure it…

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:18

@Mahnax well, what is your goal?

Mahnax

@MrShinyandNew安宇 That's what I've been trying to figure out, honestly.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mahnax well, the most universal language might be Javascript. (+CSS, HTML)

Cerberus

> "There was one drone strike close to the house where we were being held. It was so close that shrapnel and mud showered down into the courtyard.

"Just the force and size of the explosion amazed me. It comes with no warning and tremendous force."

He says that is not a light foot-print.

"They are a constant presence, you hear them circling over head the whole time.

"It's terrifying for everyone on the ground because they can hear it, like a small plane. What is so unsettling is you have no idea when this missile is going to come and kill you. There's a sense that your sovereignty is bei…

Mahnax

@MrShinyandNew安宇 I'm fairly familiar with that already.

Cerberus

I find drones interesting.

Do they work or not?

I usually hear positive opinions.

Mahnax

03:21

I was considering HTML5.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mahnax HTML5 is just HTML4 with a few new tricks.

Cerberus

> "Look at Yemen on Christmas Day 2009, the day the so-called underwear bomber attempted to bring down a flight over Detroit.

"On that day al-Qaeda numbered about 200 to 300 individuals and they controlled no territory. Now today, two-and-a-half years later, despite all the drone strikes al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has tripled in size, it's now around 1,000 members and it controls significant territory.

"The more the US bombs, the more they grow."

Mahnax

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, I know. So it wouldn't take too long, and I'd need something else.

Cerberus

bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18270490

Mahnax

Oh, wow. I've never done anything with jQuery.

And I've heard that jQuery is way better than Javascript.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:24

@Mahnax jquery is just a thing that makes javascript nicer in the presence of browsers.

It IS javascript.

Mahnax

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Yes, I know.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it's more accurate to say that jquery is way better than "W3C Dom interfaces"

Mahnax

It is a bit different though, and it's probably worth learning.

Gah, I'm not making a whole lot of sense tonight.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Mahnax it's worth using, it's a really great library. But it doesn't bring anything to the table except convenince when manipulating HTML

So it's good for making GUIs, essentially

it's good for smoothing over browser differences

it helps you organize your code a bit

@Cerberus Those numbers are interesting but I wonder if maybe bombs are only correlated to increased al qaeda size and not the cause.

Mahnax

Ah, I see.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:32

anyway, jquery is nice. If you are planning to write an html app, I'd consider using it.

Mahnax

Well, so far I have a nice list of things to do this summer:
- Read a bunch of books
- Learn HTML5/jQuery
- Improve python skills
- Learn some Russian
- Learn some more Finnish so as not to be a disappointment to my grandparents and myself

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

And for a UI library, you could use jquery UI or jquery Mobile

Mahnax

Oh, and Welsh.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

and Mandarin

Mahnax

Eh, maybe.

We'll see.

I don't think I actually agreed to that.

Oh, @Vit, any other apps for my computer that you recommend? (since you seemed appalled by my lack of alternate browsers)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:34

oh, and if you want to program for Android, you'll need to learn Java.

Vitaly

Er, I was kidding.

Mahnax

Oh, good then. Nothing to see here!

Cerberus

@MrShinyandNew安宇 It is a possibility.

It could be that Al-Qaeda was expanding anyway.

But it does show that the drones were not extremely effective there.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

03:51

Well, I've made some progress, time for me to go. later folks!

Mahnax

Bye!

Cerberus

Bye!

I'm off to bed too.

walks around the room one more time to wave at everyone

thereby accidentally toppling some antique objects that crash on the stone floor

Mahnax

shrieks

coughs because is sick

Cerberus

Sorry.

Aww.

Cold?

Mahnax

I'm sick for the first time in six months or so.

Sore throat, sneezing, runny/stuffed nose.

Cerberus

03:59

Very sick?

Oh, yes, that sucks.

Mahnax

Not too bad, but rather unpleasant.

And I'm a little out of it.

Cerberus

My advice: decongestant relieves most of the unpleasantness of a cold.

Don't take it for longer than a week or two, though.

And paracetamol also helps a great deal.

Combined they make me feel OK during the worst phase of a bad cold.

And they work for hours.

So take care!

Mahnax

Thanks, good night!

Cerberus

Vale!

cpx

04:17

Does anyone know a good resource to study English Verb Tenses with some visual aids?

I've been referred to this one.

Mahnax

04:32

@cpx Aha!

I can help with that.

55

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

EDIT: Added past continuous, trimmed image so it would be slightly larger, and gave it a transparent background. EDIT 2: Added middle line, made some adjustments per @Kosmonaut.

Well, that's sort of what you're looking for.

It's a visual aid.

cpx

04:50

Oh, thanks! @Mahnax

Mahnax

@cpx No problem!

David Wallace

06:51

14 hours ago, by Cerberus

@David: Are any judges in NZ elected?

@Cerberus I have no idea how judges here are chosen. We certainly don't have elections for them.

cpx

Do native speakers usually find the grammar rules easy to understand?

David Wallace

08:02

@cpx No. But they largely follow them, without actually knowing what the rules are.

cpx

So, is it easier to learn the language without actually studying the rules?

Matt Эллен

only if you're a child

cpx

Or should we study them?

Ah.

Can we learn like a child maybe?

Matt Эллен

only if you're a child :Þ

David Wallace

Possibly if you were alone in a new country with a new language, and unable to communicate in your native tongue.

Language learning is largely driven by need.

Matt Эллен

08:08

the brain goes through certain processes. after the age of about 10 people find it a lot more difficult to acquire new languages.

cpx

I can pretend to forget my native language.

Matt Эллен

not impossible of course

David Wallace

@MattЭллен Because they have other things to think about. Babies largely do not.

cpx

But its still not the same I think, maybe because our brain automatically catches it.

David Wallace

@MattЭллен I have a nephew who arrived in New Zealand at age 16 with very little Engish and speaks perfect unaccented English now.

By "unaccented", of course, I mean "with a New Zealand accent".

Matt Эллен

08:10

good for him!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

08:38

0

Q: How to check if a word has plural form

Any easy way to check if a given word has plural form? e.g. seafood

Oh come on.

David Wallace

I enjoyed the "british-english" tag. Do American words not have plurals?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

08:57

I don't know, is there an easy way to check?

Matt Эллен

ask the person sat next to you

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Sat next to me is a rucksack. He insists his plural is Rucksäcke. That doesn't help me with Americans. Like, at all.

Hugo

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 He's wrong. It's ruckensacken.

Matt Эллен

oh, well, ask an American when it become a problem!

Hugo

flickr.com/photos/aloversdiscourse/favorites

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

09:01

@MattЭллен Why do you refer to Americans as "it"?

Hugo

Library porn.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Who will ever read all that shit?

Matt Эллен

@RegDwightΒВBẞ8 the gender neutral pronoun?

or maybe I was speaking about the weather

Noob AS Three Developer

ah this site is not for learners, sounds like it is only for masters :| . how rude it is to delete the question "what is the opposite of die-hard fan"

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Matt Эллен

09:04

awwwwwwww

I think I saw where someone had knocked a deer over with their car and then beheaded it. The deer was dead in the middle of the road, and I couldn't' see it's head. one of its legs had come off too.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@NoobASThreeDeveloper english.stackexchange.com/about

> This is a free, community driven Q&A for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts.

If you can't tie two words together, you will indeed struggle to be met with open arms.

Gigili

I can tie two words together.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Here's an open arm.

Gigili

Thank you.

David Wallace

@Gigili Which two?

Gigili

09:16

As two as possible.

David Wallace

That's four.

Noob AS Three Developer

@RegDwightB8 i dont know what you are trying to say

i did not get you

David Wallace

Nobody gets Reg.

Gigili

He's ungetable.

David Wallace

in every way.

Noob AS Three Developer

09:20

forgetable

David Wallace

apologies to Nat King Cole.

Noob AS Three Developer

meaning ignorable?

Matt Эллен

@NoobASThreeDeveloper I think he's trying to say that the question was very low quality.

Noob AS Three Developer

hmmmm, if so, people should allow or help to correct. any way I have no clue what way my question "what is the opposite die-hard fan", before I could see the responses it got deleted

can someone tell me how to ask this question if anyone think it is worth to ask and answer?

Matt Эллен

@NoobASThreeDeveloper If you read about EL&U, the faq and How to Ask, these might hold the answers you are looking for

David Wallace

09:26

@NoobASThreeDeveloper Are you a linguist, an etymologist, or a serious English language enthusiast?

If not, Reg may wish to play at the other end of the sandpit.

Noob AS Three Developer

serious English language enthusiast is close

Matt Эллен

@NoobASThreeDeveloper one problem with your question was that it was very subjective.

SE is not receptive to such questions

Noob AS Three Developer

i need to learn english first to ask questions here, i guess its not the right place to learn for intermediate levels like me

Matt Эллен

depends on the question

David Wallace

@NoobASThreeDeveloper You can ask questions here in chat. But what do you think the opposite of "die-hard fan" might be?

(other than Bruce Willis hater)

Hugo

09:30

@NoobASThreeDeveloper The word for the opposite of something is "antonym". If you search Google for antonym and die-hard, you might find something in a dictionary

David Wallace

@Hugo But that might not help him/her choose between a number of alternatives. For that, human intervention may be more helpful than a dictionary.

Hugo

@DavidWallace True, but it would be a start.

David Wallace

Yes, you're right. I sometimes feel that people here are unduly rude to newcomers though.

Noob AS Three Developer

i know opp. of fan is hater, a die-hard fan is the fan who stands in the front to die for someone, so can it be "kill-brutal hater"

Matt Эллен

die-hard means difficult to kill

David Wallace

09:35

Not in the context of "die hard fan" it doesn't.

Matt Эллен

have you looked up die-hard in a dictionary?

@DavidWallace yes it does

a fan whose devotion will not die

David Wallace

Yeah, that doesn't mean the fan himself/herself is hard to kill.

Matt Эллен

the devotion is the fan.

David Wallace

It's also unclear whether Noob is looking for something like "fickle follower" (a fan who's not at all die-hard), or something like "sworn enemy" (that is, a non-fan in a die-hard way).

Noob AS Three Developer

die hard = continue to exist

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

09:37

@DavidWallace fickle follower got suggested but rejected.

David Wallace

Rejected by whom? I would have upvoted it.

Matt Эллен

@NoobASThreeDeveloper that's not what dictionary.com suggests to me

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Well everyone did upvote it. But the OP rejected it.

Noob AS Three Developer

i am using worweb pro software

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

It had 7 upvotes.

Noob AS Three Developer

09:38

*wordweb

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

You can edit your stuff here. Press the up arrow key.

Hugo

@NoobASThreeDeveloper I think you're confusing "die-hard" with "immortal"

David Wallace

OK, Noob, can you please clarify which sense you're looking for? A fan who's not die-hard; or a non-fan who IS die-hard?

Matt Эллен

a non-fan who is not die-hard?

Noob AS Three Developer

David Wallace

09:40

@NoobASThreeDeveloper None of those meanings applies in the context you gave.

Noob AS Three Developer

i want to know that if an extreeme fan is called a die-hard fan then what is extreeme hater is called

Matt Эллен

@NoobASThreeDeveloper since it's an adjective, the last one applies

David Wallace

Did you consider "die-hard hater"?

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

A die-hard hater

Noob AS Three Developer

like there are some die-hard fans of justine biber there are haters

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

09:41

Jinx.

David Wallace

@MattЭллен Not sure that it does.

Noob AS Three Developer

ok, die-hard hater makes sense to me

Matt Эллен

@DavidWallace obstinately opinionated <- pretty sure that's the crux of it

David Wallace

My other suggestion was "sworn enemy".

Noob AS Three Developer

i was in assumption that a die-hard is some one ready to die

...ready to give life as a fan

David Wallace

09:43

An incorrect assumption.

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@NoobASThreeDeveloper Obviously you are not familiar with Bruce Willis.

Die Hard

Die Hard is a 1988 American action film directed by John McTiernan and written by Steve de Souza and Jeb Stuart based on the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp. Released on July 15, 1988, the film follows NYPD officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) as he takes on a group of highly organized criminals led by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) performing a heist under the guise of a terrorist attack, using hostages including McClane's wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) to keep the police at bay. The film's success spawned four sequels; Die Hard 2 in 1990, Die Hard with a Vengeance in 1995, L...

David Wallace

@MattЭллен OK, you're right, I'm wrong, I take it back. I got obsessed over the "tradition-bound" bit and didn't think too much about the rest of the definition.

Noob AS Three Developer

that makes sense to me, because of my false assumption, i was thinking the opp. word could be something related to "kill"ing

thanks very much every one

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

@DavidWallace I think both of you are right.

On the one hand the definition is a bit oversimplified, as dictionary definitions go. On the other hand the gist of it certainly does apply.

David Wallace

It was a poor definition in any case.

Matt Эллен

09:46

aye

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Lordy do we have weird stuff.

-7

Q: what is the meaning of "be"?

here ,it is two different sentence for "be".i can not get proper meaning of it. it may require **to be bound** to objects. Let p **be** the number of tasks with a one-to-one mapping of tasks onto processes. A fundamental technique for reducing the interaction overhead is to minimize the overall ...

verbs

@all:thanks to all — user1334247 May 3 at 5:36

Matt Эллен

he's welcome!

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

How dare you speak on behalf of all?

Matt Эллен

well one of us had to speak up

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

I, for one, can't welcome him for I gave away my open arm already.

Matt Эллен

09:57

all speaking at once would have been deafening

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

A deafening moment.

Matt Эллен

someone ate my a

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

And now your e!

OMGOMGOMG!

Matt Эллен

it's a vowelacious appetite

RegDwight ΒВBẞ8

Oh crap, them's making another Die Hard?

The fourth was insufferable already.

Gigili

09:59

Wow, I read it as die, the feminine definite article, all the time.

Matt Эллен

:D Bruce Willis needs some cash

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…