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Robusto
Robusto
00:33
@CowperKettle "How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, / That has such people in't!"
tchrist
tchrist
1
A: Need help identifying if this is 1) grammatically correct, and 2) an infinitive verb without the word "to" (when to use infinitive without "to"?)

John LawlerA somewhat simplified version, presplit for parsing, is What I have done to fix this problem is modify local to sleep 20 seconds (by calling sleep) and then call mount. This is a Wh-cleft sentence, related to (or derived from, depending on your religion) the basic sentence To fix this ...

CowperKettle
CowperKettle
01:00
This finding suggests that the brain and the testicles share the highest number of genes of any organs in the body.
I wonder if the same holds true for ovaries
Robusto
Robusto
01:15
Aaron Earned An Iron Urn (Baltimore Accent) (@dooleyfunny)
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2
This is hilarious.
Mitch
Mitch
01:30
@CowperKettle can you have both ovaries and testicles at the same time in a body?
Cerberus
Cerberus
I think, probably?
Robusto
Robusto
Intersex
Intersex people are individuals born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". Though the range of atypical sex characteristics may be obvious from birth through the presence of physically ambiguous genitalia, in other instances, these atypical characteristics may go unnoticed, presenting as ambiguous internal reproductive organs or atypical chromosomes that may remain unknown to...
@Mitch So that's a yes.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
02:32
> The book was extremely popular in England, and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades, but eventually fell out of favour in part due to its prejudices against Irish, Jews, Catholics and Americans.
tchrist
tchrist
@Mitch A human cannot produce both male and female gametes, per the referenced article.
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto o it's possible but rare. @CowperKettle For those rare instances I wold suspect that the overlap is nearly total?
but
tchrist
tchrist
It doesn't matter. They can't both work.
Mitch
Mitch
should all cells in a body have identical genes (excpet for sex cells which have a random selection of half?
@CowperKettle you're leaving out the best part
@tchrist so how does that work out with @Robusto/s answer?
tchrist
tchrist
@Mitch Well, it's a rather long article. Have you finished reading it yet?
If you're just asking whether any can reproduce, the answer is yes. Sometimes they aren't fertile, but sometimes they are. But they cannot reproduce both ways at once. There was a case last year of an XY female who couldn't conceive, and when they checked her mother, her mother was also an XY female.
So an XY mother and an XY father together produced an XY daughter.
The women only had ovaries, not testes. And there were no XX cases among the three.
Their XY daughter got her Y from her XY father and her X from her XY mother.
Ootagu
Ootagu
02:48
So what is the ethical problem behind unconscious bias "training"?
tchrist
tchrist
@Ootagu Do you mean training against it or training that furthers it?
@Ootagu bbc.com/worklife/article/…
Mitch
Mitch
2 hours ago, by CowperKettle
I wonder if the same holds true for ovaries
Ootagu
Ootagu
Haha interesting question. It is quite possible that any unconscious bias training can have effects in both directions.
Mitch
Mitch
I was just trying to see if @CowperKettle's question was answerable
Ootagu
Ootagu
Anybody still here?
tchrist
tchrist
02:56
@Ootagu Somewhat.
Ootagu
Ootagu
Well that's good.
Not like the old days when chats were really busy.
tchrist
tchrist
Savvy organizations make conscious use of unconscious bias in their choices of customer service people based on that person's accent.
Because the customer will have an unconscious bias based on the accent of the customer service person they speak with.
Ootagu
Ootagu
I didn't know that.
So they work the issue from the customer's angle.
That is a fascinating idea.
tchrist
tchrist
Certain accents are more trusted in some regions, or less trusted.
Ootagu
Ootagu
May I ask how you even came about that observation?
tchrist
tchrist
02:59
It's been studied.
Ootagu
Ootagu
Unfortunately yes.
tchrist
tchrist
So you want the customer service managers to have an accent that the customer will think conveys a steady hand. This way when they demand to speak with somebody's boss, they eventually get to somebody whose accent unconsciously reassures them.
Ootagu
Ootagu
Nevertheless that seems a productive application of unconscious bias.
tchrist
tchrist
It works out better than ignoring it.
Ootagu
Ootagu
Or fixing it.
tchrist
tchrist
03:01
Not sure you can fix it.
Ootagu
Ootagu
exactly.
tchrist
tchrist
The only accent that is universally more trusted no matter the region is RP.
That works around the UK, and outside of it.
But anything else you have to be careful of, and take into account the customers' regions.
Ootagu
Ootagu
It's interesting to me how this issue (of the unconscious) has surfaced recently despite the general consensus against the existence of the unconscious.
tchrist
tchrist
The "stupid mind tricks" people have always played on people's automatic but un-understood-by-them behaviors.
Or preyed on, if you prefer.
Ootagu
Ootagu
Well phrased.
Mitch
Mitch
03:09
@Ootagu You could say that we've all been unconscious of that all this time.
I'll show myself out.
Ootagu
Ootagu
Good chat, thanks.
tchrist
tchrist
OSCON 2012: Paul Fenwick, "Mindware Upgrades For Fun And Profit"
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tchrist
tchrist
03:28
OSCON 2011: Paul Fenwick, "All Your Brains Suck - Known Bugs And Exploits In Wetware"
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I think the second of those two talks is the one I was thinking of.
Yeah, it's that one. It's got "elderly priming" in it.
 
3 hours later…
Srijan M.T
Srijan M.T
06:56
Is there a difference in synthesis or formation.
Synthesis means to combine a number of different pieces into a whole.
What is the difference in synthesis of some material or formation of some material. I think they are both same
For example : synthesis of molecules is done from atoms. Or I can formation of molecule is done from atoms. Same thing.
Difference in synthesis and formation.
For example : Paracetamol is made by reacting 4-aminophenol with ethanoic anhydride . Now , instead of made in the sentence. Can I put synthesis or formation ?
Of course , grammar changes depending on the sentence
Example: Paracetamol is synthesised by reacting 4-aminophenol with ethanoic anhydride
 
2 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
09:03
51
Q: Found in an 1800s newspaper--what kind of march notation is this?

keejDoes anyone recognize this musical notation? It looks like a bunch of vertical bars. Is it supposed to be read by a machine? It was found in an issue of Scientific American from 1846. I'm guessing the "C" at the beginning means common time, as it usually does.

notation march
Carolina Tar Heels - Peg & Awl
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I listened to this song a lot of times while jogging, and always thougth the words went "pegging on", but in reality it's "peg and awl". LOL. Today I wanted to look up the lyrics and googling for "pegging on" brought up a lot of pron.
Peg and Awl
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Here's the rendition I listened to.
In this rendition, it indeed is closer to pegging on
Original Folkways Recordings: 1960–1962
Original Folkways Recordings: 1960–1962 is the title of a recording by Doc Watson and Clarence Ashley, released in 1994. == History == Banjoist and comedian Ashley and guitarist, singer Watson were recorded both in the studio and field recordings in the early 1960s. In the folk music revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, urban ethnomusicologists rediscovered Ashley's music. In 1960 Ralph Rinzler met Ashley at the Old Time Fiddler's Convention and persuaded him to start playing banjo again and to record his repertoire of songs. Over the next few years he and his friends, including Doc Watson...
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
09:33
user image
 
2 hours later…
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
11:12
@CowperKettle wait, so quantifiably? That doesn't seem surprising then.
@CowperKettle Men produce lots of sperm, women produce much fewer eggs in the ovaries at birth and the number never increases AFAIK
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
11:38
@SrijanM.T you need to use the verb, "synthesize", but yeah, sure, it'd work. Why not. BTW, English punctuation works like this: No space before, and one space after.
On second thought, you seem to punctuate correctly. Just saying that if you're more consistent about it, your writing would be more pleasing to look at.
@Mitch I think one or both organs would have to be dysfunctional when that happens though, though I might be wrong
Who knows what you can find in seven billion people.
Srijan M.T
Srijan M.T
@M.A.R. Ok. I’ll work on that. Also , thanks a lot.
 
1 hour later…
Mitch
Mitch
12:57
@M.A.R. Conceptually not impossible, but I'd figure the ovary's and testicle's activity are controlled in different ways by the same hormones and so maybe both could work but not at the same time?
Anyway, this is all basic science which I have either forgotten or never knew. Which means I should be able to delegate to looking up in a book or instead watching a video of a cat stopping a dog from walking through a doorway.
I'm voting cat-dog-doorway.
hilarious
because ha ha
the dog
the dog is much bigger than the cat
but the cat just stares down the dog
and the dog wags its tail vigorously but doesn't have the courage to walk past because the cat might...
the cat might do something horrible
like
hiss?
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
> Patients who smoke have a higher incidence of nonunion.
The Confederates probably smoked way too much
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Mitch Not just the same hormones, the point is that the ratio between these hormones, and even between progesterone and estrogen, determines a myriad of things and it's really really REALLY complicated.
To make things more complicated, these compounds have lots of other systemic and CNS effects themselves.
I'm learning about progesterone and estrogen imbalances in patients suffering from psychosis, epilepsy, depression, Huntington's disease and some others
JEEZUS.
Robusto
Robusto
13:19
@M.A.R. My biologist son tried to explain those hormones to me once and after about five minutes I gave up and told him to stop.
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
13:30
no nun ion, a new anti-religous cleaning product
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
user image
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
We Have Lost The War On Boars - SOME MORE NEWS
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CowperKettle
CowperKettle
> This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with an oink.
Glibenclamide is almost completely metabolized in the liver with the formation of two inactive metabolites, which are excreted by kidneys (40%) and in the bile (60%).
In the bile or just "in bile"?
Robusto
Robusto
14:00
@CowperKettle the
I'd use it for kidneys as well.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
14:33
@Robusto Thank you!
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
15:14
Norman Cantor
Norman Frank Cantor (November 19, 1929 – September 18, 2004) was a Canadian-American historian who specialized in the medieval period. Known for his accessible writing and engaging narrative style, Cantor's books were among the most widely read treatments of medieval history in English. He estimated that his textbook The Civilization of the Middle Ages, first published in 1963, had a million copies in circulation. == Life == Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to a Jewish family, Cantor received a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Manitoba in 1951. He moved to the United States to obtain...
I downloaded the audioversion of his "The Civilization of the Middle Ages" and it's a pleasure to listen to
Mitch
Mitch
15:41
@M.A.R. It's like a Jenga stack
or
some other kind of stack
where
1 piece affects a whole bunch of other pieces
spaghetti code?
@MattE.Эллен No no not antidistablishmentariansm, I think you mean a product to stop you crying when chopping allium bulbs.
@Robusto Oh. I'd say 'in bile'.
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
16:06
@Mitch no no, not antialliumlacrimation lotion. You thinking of an extremely large area of water at latitudes above the equator
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
16:33
@Mitch well, a Jenga stack where abnormalities, like loose Jenga, are sometimes exacerbated and sometimes alleviated.
The lower stacks that can make the whole thing topple are compounds that are really universal in what they do and regulate.
Cerberus
Cerberus
16:48
user image
Both options seems to be in common use.
Mitch
Mitch
17:15
@MattE.Эллен I was actually thinking 'no no onion'. But what you gave works.
@MattE.Эллен No no not the ocean. The North Atlantic? Wait.. the North Pacific! Is that how this game works?
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
17:46
@Mitch i was going for the North Atlantic, so well done
Robusto
Robusto
18:36
@Mitch Yeah, that's just wrong.
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
19:05
@CowperKettle I'd prefer "in bile" but "in the kidneys"
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Put my dad on a train to St. Pete
@M.A.R. Thank you!
The RZD site allows one to see where the train is at the moment.
There was a handier version with a map showing the position of the train, but it disappeared
The train's position is only registered at stations, it's not GPS or GLONASS-based.
It takes a night, a full day, and a night to get to St. Petersburg by 10 am.
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@CowperKettle wait, "by the kidneys", in the original sentence.
Robusto
Robusto
@M.A.R. The problem with "in bile" is that the conjunction and sets up a parallelism. If there were no and it would make more sense to drop the definite article with bile: "... which are excreted in bile by the kidneys."
I don't know what that and is doing there in the first place. It isn't necessary, and it clouds the issue.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
At 08:40, the train will arrive to Balezino, a huge station where it will be switched from a direct current locomotive to an alternating current locomotive.
West of Balezino, trains run on AC, east of it, on DC.
Cerberus
Cerberus
19:23
@Robusto But bile is produced by the liver and stored in the gall bladder?
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus It's produced by the liver, sure, but once it gets to the kidneys we don't care about its origins. That whole sentence is freighted with misdirection in any case.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
user image
The Magic Anatomy Book by Carol Donner, my favorite picture book during childhood
It must be her only book, judging by Google
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
19:54
@Robusto well the two major ways a drug is excreted have to do with urine and the feces. Water-soluble drugs or their metabolites are excreted by the kidneys, and lipid-soluble drugs or their metabolites in bile. To me "in bile" is like "in water", so I'm hesitant to use the article, even if it sounds clumsy coordinated with "and" like that.
But it could be with "the" too. shrug
And drug excretion is often reported like that because the details are important on how you interpret lab results.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Are there portrait painters in Iran, or is it prohibited since in Islam human pictures are banned?
Or maybe only the pictures of saints etc are banned.
Robusto
Robusto
@M.A.R. Yeah, ultimately this probably depends on what is customary for that kind of article. Some kind of "bio-speak" perhaps.
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@CowperKettle supposedly only depictions of saints are banned, but that hasn't stopped people from adopting a random handsome bearded face, implying it's some saint's face
You know what, I figured it out.
If figured out why middle Eastern countries look so barbaric to westerners. Heck, they look barbaric to me when I'm speaking in English somehow.
People hear these "rules" that have essentially not been actively and consistently enforced for a century, in the form of "Oh BUT did you know!".
So they think, "wow, Islamic countries must really be backwards". Of course, what 17th century catholics did must seem pretty backwards to the modern person as well. Except everyone knows the craziest Evangelical doesn't really act like an authoritarian 17-century Pope, but somehow the implication is that all of these rules are taken seriously in Islamic societies.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
20:11
Islam seems to me a kind of "religion merged with state"
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
(Let's ignore the heterogeneity and breadth that phrase really implies for a moment)
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Since Islam is so merged with state, it looks more strict.
In the West after 1648, religion and state split apart.
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Except, partly, people have roughly the same perversions, the same secrets and the same wants. You could say something like, alright, women are mistreated and abused, sure, but that's not much different from the 60s America I reckon, except with some extra cultural relics.
Like gheyrat.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Or "started splitting apart" since one was obliged to adhere to some religion to enter a university as late as late XIX century.
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
And partly, these globalized movements towards "modernity" or "progress" or whatever you wanna call it, are much more universal than people think.
Both the bad parts, like excessive mindless consumerism, and the good parts, like women rights etc.
@CowperKettle oh, to be sure, it is pretty much that. But what I'm saying is the picture you have in mind would be something between what the Islamic rulebooks say, which are, yeah, exactly 17th century barbaric stuff, and how people (and officials and the police etc.) really feel about the rules and how they live.
And the more closeminded someone removed from the "Islamic way of life" is, the closer they're gonna picture people to what crazy rulebooks say.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
20:18
I feel that in Islam, there is no "getting around the rules" because they are very detailed. In Christianity, it's much more hazy, which allows Popes and Churches to change their behavior.
If needed, they just say "Oh, it was in the Old Testament, so let's not adhere to that". Since we have the New Testament ))
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
And nobody who's ever talking about the rulebooks wants to pretend that they don't really represent how people live and what they believe: People are always afraid of being heretics, and this has been true for a millennia, I suspect. The people in power rule with the help of those rulebooks, and they have their oaths to those rulebooks and stuff, so of course they'll deny the Islamic society is anything but what the rulebooks describe.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
I should go to sleep, it's 01:20 am.
Good night!
Robusto
Robusto
Hasta la vista.
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
And more recently, politicians in non-Islamic governments don't like to pretend it's anything but the rulebooks. And that's not just because of xenophobia or Islamophobic rhetoric or anything, they just don't have an incentive to portray it any other way.
@CowperKettle Night!
So yeah, rant (?) over,
So the rulebook says that a woman can't divorce without the husband's consent, which is ridiculous to I think every Iranian. Of course, it's going to be flaunted some time somewhere and hurt someone, but nobody genuinely believes that crap.
Robusto
Robusto
@M.A.R. Where does piety end and practicality begin in such a society?
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
20:25
Sadly, we're stuck with this until some sort of power shift comes so that the new blook would want to appease to the American overlords and allow for some paradoxical progress, like Saudi Arabia. That or a regime change.
Robusto
Robusto
@M.A.R. Either way sounds like serious dislocation.
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Robusto the answer is constantly changing I bet. Fluctuating even, over longer periods of time. But right now I think a substantial chunk of the population would ditch all this nonsense on a whim, mostly because they're so bitter about the emptiness of the government's rhetoric and just want full bellies again.
And that huge chunk, probably a significant majority, is never represented in the rulebooks, or on TV, or anywhere.
Robusto
Robusto
So there is privation? The people can't even get enough food?
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Robusto It shouldn't be that bad for most of the population but I think it is definitely true for at least the poorest couple of million people.
I suspect people living outside the cities have it really, really bad. You never hear anything about it on TV unless some politician is blaming his predecessors in the position
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
user image
Never expected to read Joel Spolsky's name in Der Spiegel, of all places.
user image
Færd
Færd
20:34
Is his name incompatible with Der Spiegel?
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Well as the article itself says, and indeed opens, nobody's ever heard of Stack Overflow.
Much less of whoever started or operates it.
Færd
Færd
Haha I see.
Nameless people end up on front pages often enough.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
I think you are confusing front pages with ads. :-P
To be fair, the difference these days is mainly academic.
Færd
Færd
Is this an ad? I thought it was the story of the Stack Overflow.
But yeah it's not a front page story.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
No this is not an ad. Hence it does contain the name. QED.
Færd
Færd
20:39
Right. It's about a new deal they're making, apparently.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Yes we are all owned by South Efrikens now.
Whodathunk.
Robusto
Robusto
I thought that was Efrikaans. Who knew?
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Prosus
Prosus N.V., or Prosus, is the international Internet assets division of South African multinational Naspers. The global investment group is the largest consumer Internet company in Europe, and among the largest technology investors in the world, operating across a variety of platforms and geographies. Prosus acquired a portfolio of international Internet firms, including fintech, and food delivery systems. Products and service of its businesses and investments are used by more than 1.5 billion people in 89 markets.On 11 September 2019, Prosus's ordinary shares were listed on Euronext Amsterdam...
Robusto
Robusto
Their nemesis is Antisus.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
@Robusto I for one welcome our alien overlords.
Robusto
Robusto
20:43
Well, you say that now. Just wait until they start making rectal probes mandatory.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
No, that's in China.
This is Africa.
Shakira - Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) (The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup™ Song)
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Robusto
Robusto
Curiously, most of the dishware that comes out of China is plastic. Not china.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Well, that's English for you.
Robusto
Robusto
And in England, "china" means "mate" ... coincidence? I think not.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
The Kansas flu is the Spanish flu, and the Turkey crisis is the Cuba crisis.
And don't even get me started on how Manchester is pronounced Liverpool.
Just go with the flow and don't ask questions.
With that in mind, I'd like to welcome our alien overlords once more.
Robusto
Robusto
20:48
"Don't rock the boat, don't back no losers." That's the Chicago way.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
What do you think this is, a site for questions?
Sorry, I mean:
What do you think this is, a site for questions.
Robusto
Robusto
"He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue." That's the Chicago way.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Chicago - We Both Reached For the Gun
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Robusto
Robusto
No fair bringing in musical theater.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Actually, musicals and theater are very commonly heard and seen at fairs.
Robusto
Robusto
20:52
Sorry, I misquoted. It's "Don't make no waves ... don't back no losers."
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes we both
Oh yes we both
Oh yes, we both reached for
The gun, the gun, the gun, the gun
Oh yes, we both reached for the gun
For the gun
Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes they both
Oh yes, they both
Oh yes, they both reached for
The gun, the gun, the gun, the gun
Oh yes, they both reached for the gun
For the gun
See, I never misquote.
Robusto
Robusto
Well, get a load of Little Miss Quote.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Who's that? I only know Miss Marple.
Robusto
Robusto
A Miss is as good as a Miles (Davis).
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Lies. Nobody is as good as a Miles Davis. Not even a different Miles Davis.
Robusto
Robusto
20:54
Brilliant Attacking Game by World's Newest Grandmaster, Zhansaya Abdumalik!
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RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Haven't seen that one yet.
Somehow every four months or so I get flooded with his recommendations, and then for another four months I get exactly zero.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
21:10
That's a nice game.
Slick moves, yo.
Robusto
Robusto
Yeah, games with complicated attacks are the most fun.
That's why Fischer's flamboyant attacking games were more fun than, say, Karpov's edgy duels.
Although Kasparov had a very flash attacking style as well.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Yes, I like it when every other sentence in the analysis is "but you just don't care".
That's like, steamrolling.
BRB googling for a flamboyant steamroller.
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Noice. Wasn't disappointed.
Robusto
Robusto
In other news, when I visited my son and my grandchild a couple weeks ago he beat me 5-0 in chess. So what else is new? Nothing, apparently.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
21:27
I still remember the huge blunder I made against my granddad on my last visit before he passed away. Ugh. That fucking knight.
Like, I had downed a bottle of vodka, but so had he. So no excuses.
Robusto
Robusto
When I taught my son chess he went through a phase of learning where he roared past me like a Formula One racer over period of one winter.
I started being able to beat him without trying, then I had to try, then I had to really try, then I had to try and pray ... and finally I couldn't beat him to save my life.
My highest chess rating was in the low 1800s, while he went from 900 to 2150 in a little over a year. And he would have gone higher but for poker.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
I basically stopped at 1700ish, cuz that's where the SNES chess games stopped at the time. A department store here that I worked in had a couple chess computers that went to 2200, but those cost an arm and a leg. I only played against them in the breaks. Usually they grilled me no problem.
And then I just stopped playing for like ten years, and apparently if you pause for that long, you lose it all. I started on GameKnot, and also bought Jeremy Silman's book, and that's how I noticed. That I was back down to pretty much 1200 all over again.
And that, in turn, was like ten years ago by now.
Robusto
Robusto
@RegDwigнt You don't lose it all. At least you can get most of it back pretty quickly.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
I think I got to 1700ish on GameKnot as well before stopping.
@Robusto well yes. I still have the book. It's an amazing read every five years. But it's like an all-new amazing read.
A pawn can move diagonally???
Robusto
Robusto
I only got a rating because I needed something to do when taking my son to chess tournaments.
But when you play two classical games (120/40 - 60) it can get to be 12 hours of chess in one day, which is waaaaay more than I have the energy for.
Or the brainpower.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
21:44
Inorite.
And it's a vicious circle of sorts. At least for me. Because before I play again, I want to get back up to speed first. I'd rather embarrass myself at the 1800 level than at the 800 level. And so I just don't play.
And if I do that for long enough, I mentally reach the 800 level alright.
Robusto
Robusto
Chess is mainly a spectator sport for me now.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Like, watching agadmator is not the same as playing. I just sit there and nod, but that's like watching Mark Twain write.
Um, sorta jinx. What sort of jinx is that even.
Robusto
Robusto
Kinda sorta yeah.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
And also, in a way, I even did more spectating as a kid. At least feels that way.
I'd watch all those matches of Kramnik vs. Fritz on TV.
Sometimes with friends.
Back when watching TV with friends was a thing.
I'd guess they still do that on TV these days, but I don't even know how to turn the thing on.
Robusto
Robusto
I remember trying to watch the Fischer-Spassky match ('90s version) on the internet, on a dial-up modem. Sheesh.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
21:53
Fritz (chess)
Fritz is a German chess program originally developed for Chessbase by Frans Morsch based on his Quest program, ported to DOS, and then Windows by Mathias Feist. With version 13, Morsch retired, and his engine was first replaced by Gyula Horvath's Pandix, and then with Fritz 15, Vasik Rajlich's Rybka. The latest version of the consumer product is Fritz 17. This version supports 64-bit hardware and multiprocessing by default. == History == In 1991, the German company ChessBase approached the Dutch chess programmer Frans Morsch about writing a chess engine to add to the database program which they...
Like literally a month ago or whenever, I tried to turn on the TV to watch the Oscars, and the cable box updated for an hour and then told me that my cable card wasn't valid, or maybe it was, and if I was sure that it was, I should just wait for 60 minutes and if it still didn't work, call support.
So I said fuck the Oscars and transcribed some Bach instead.
The show's at like 2 a.m. local time anyway. Who the fuck calls TV support at 3 in the morning.
Robusto
Robusto
@RegDwigнt I'm familiar with Fritz.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Oh, I'm sure you are. That's just for completeness' sake.
Besides, he went by Deep Fritz the last time I watched.
So who knows what he goes by these days.
So I googled just to be sure.
Robusto
Robusto
Then Rybka emerged in the early aughts, IIRC, and then a fracas, and then Stockfish was the form horse until Alpha Zero.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Oh right. Rybka.
Robusto
Robusto
Now I think Stockfish Neural Net Whatever is the current killer.
I stopped being able to beat a chess computer well before Kasparov lost to Deep Blue.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
22:00
I think it just runs in Google Forms these days.
Or maybe in a toaster from a bargain bin. Don't know, haven't checked.
On that note, you play go?
I played a ton against my dad in my teens, then again maybe ten years ago at the office, we had a regular party maybe once a month. But then that stopped.
Robusto
Robusto
@RegDwigнt I've never really tried. Too deep for me, I guess.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
It's so much fun.
And the rules are exceptionally simple.
But I literally don't know anyone who plays.
So I don't even own a board myself.
There's the one in Moscow, I suppose.
Robusto
Robusto
22:21
@RegDwigнt I tried it once against a Go master, who was doing a demonstration at a chess tournament my son and I attended. I was a 9-stone beginner (you know what that means), of course, and he trounced me in very short order with no stones (or one stone? I forget how that works).
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Well the thing with go is that I'm having fun even when I'm losing.
I'm struggling to think of other games where that's the case.
It always feels like I'm learning some cool new trick.
Even though because of the rules' simplicity, there's like two and a half tricks to learn in total.
But it's always like, yeah you're kicking my ass this time, but I'll kick yours the very next game.
Even when I know I won't.
Robusto
Robusto
I'd be like, you're kicking my ass this time and you'll kick it next time as well.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Yes, me point is, with chess that gets very depressing very quickly like.
With go, for me, not really, no.
Robusto
Robusto
Well, with go there's no expectation of being good. With chess you always think, "Why did I lose to that guy?"
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Haha yeah.
Robusto
Robusto
22:26
Or more likely, "Why did I lose to that asshole?"
afk
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
Too many syllables, the guy shorthand saves a lot of time.
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
22:38
I got a violin lesson tomorrow, so I might well be asleep before you return. That, or watching 40 minutes of Stravinsky. We'll see.
 
1 hour later…
Robusto
Robusto
23:42
@RegDwigнt CU

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