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12:07 AM
Some people are like that.
However, pens also disappear in my house, where I live alone, and even faster at work.
 
@Cerberus Things disappear spontaneously for me as well, even without my wife's intervention. They disappear for days, weeks, sometimes months, even years. And then when I least expect it, there they are. "Oh yeah, I remember this. Where were you when I needed you?"
 
Yes, sometimes the beast spews up what it swallowed.
But things like pens are digested.
Or resurrected, as Mitch suggested.
 
12:24 AM
I always wonder what people really mean by "I'm broke".
 
@Cerberus Well, the other day I found a pen—it just turned up out of nowhere—that had been given to me as a promotion five years ago, personalized with my name on it. I don't know where it went, where it spent its time, or how/why it came back to me. Moreover, I'm not really sure of its provenance, though the personalization can't be denied.
 
The dictionary will say that a person doesn't have any money left.
Personally, I don't think the person means that in the absolute sense.
I think the person means to say that there is nothing left in the budget for whatever.
 
12:45 AM
@Robusto Different omnivores must populate your house. I do not believe such a thing has ever happened here.
@DoubleU Yes, it can be used in an exaggerated way.
@Robusto Is this what your school was like?
With the habits?
 
@Cerberus At times, yes.
@Cerberus Yes.
 
Wow.
 
The movie is very accurate, only it's condensed so that you see in 100 minutes things that would play out over days and weeks. But yeah, that's what it was like.
 
I remember someone once put a drawing-pin on my chair.
I didn't see it and put my knee onto it.
I'm sure I was supposed to sit on it.
 
@Cerberus In AmE those are thumbtacks.
 
12:53 AM
Okay.
Why tacks?
 
Dunno. That's just what they're called.
My niece is one of the lead developers at that company.
 
I suppose a tack is a nail.
 
Kind of a nail.
 
Many programmers in your family?
 
A few. My brother-in-law just retired as a department chair in CompSci for a major tech university.
His daughter, my niece, is the one I mentioned above.
Almost any science job requires programming these days, though.
My son, a biologist, has to program a lot.
 
1:30 AM
Cool.
I know various people who do some programming, but few who do a lot of it.
 
2:28 AM
> But in June, outside, with white tents, white folding chairs and white folding fences against the vivid green of a well-manicured lawn, many exhibitors trotted into the ring looking dressed for a garden wedding or a countryside croquet club. Bow ties, pastels, plaids and floral-print sundresses were in abundance; a bold few wore fascinators.
Who can guess what they mean there by fascinators? I could not.
> Originally: a woman’s hat incorporating a piece of netting that veils or partially veils the face. Now usually: a woman's light, decorative headpiece, typically comprising a comb, hair clip, or headband ornately decorated with feathers, flowers, netting, etc.

1979 Austral. Women's Weekly 17 Jan. 94/1 The five-bow ‘fascinator’ needs 1.50m of picot-edged velvet ribbon..and 75cm of spotted veiling.

1999 Western Morning News (Plymouth) (Nexis) 6 Aug. 24 Women who really do not want a hat can purchase a ‘Fascinator’—one of those little feathery hair decorations which..assorted guests
 
@tchrist I think hats.
Ah, I was right.
 
A fascinator is a formal headpiece, a style of millinery. Since the 1990s the term has referred to a type of formal headwear worn as an alternative to the hat; it is usually a large decorative design attached to a band or clip. In contrast to a hat, its function is purely ornamental: it covers very little of the head, and offers little or no protection from the weather. An intermediate form, incorporating a more substantial base to resemble a hat, is sometimes called a hatinator. == Etymology == The word "fascinator" is derived from the Latin verb fascinare ("to fascinate"), and simply means a...
 
I think it's those tiny hats.
Right!
Wow, I actually knew a word you didn't.
 
I guess a simple feather or orchid in the hair doesn't count?
 
Nah.
I have to say, though, that I always thoughts fascinators were a somewhat...novel item.
 
2:38 AM
It appears to be very new.
 
Which is not good.
 
The term, for this use.
 
But I see some queens wear them nowadays.
I meant the item, not the term.
 
@Cerberus Mandatory in drag. :)
> The use of the term "fascinator" to describe a particular form of late 20th- and early 21st-century millinery emerged towards the end of the late 20th century, possibly as a term for 1990s designs inspired by the small 1960s cocktail hats, which were designed to perch upon the highly coiffed hairstyles of the period.
I guess I was imagining a barrette that you could attach things to.
 
> Some fashion historians think that cocktail hats were the precursor to fascinators, hairpieces worn on the side of the head that gained popularity in the 1970s,[5][1] while others argue that fascinators were worn during the day and cocktail hats in the late afternoon or evening. Unlike a fascinator, a cocktail hat has a fully formed and visible base.[4]
Yeah, they seems somewhat novel to me.
I feel ambivalent towards them.
> In 2012 Royal Ascot announced that women would have to wear hats, not fascinators, as part of a tightening of the dress code in Royal Ascot's Royal Enclosure.[18] In previous years female racegoers were simply advised that "many ladies wear hats".[19]
There you go.
Ascot agrees.
 
2:46 AM
That they aren't real hats? Yeah.
That's probably a hat.
 
@tchrist And that perhaps they ought not to be worn on the most formal occasions.
Or at all?
@tchrist Most probably.
 
@Cerberus heh
Pakol (Urdu:پاکول) is a soft round-topped men's hat, typically of wool and found in any of a variety of earthy colors: brown, black, grey, ivory or dyed red using walnut. It is also known as the Chitrali cap. == Origin == According to some historians and ethnographers Pakol originated from Chitral. The woolen cap has been the staple headgear of the Chitrali people for centuries. The main source of production is Chitral in Pakistan which is also located at the center of its range. It is also worn in some regions of Gilgit-Baltistan, Dir in Pakistan and also by Afghans such as Pashtuns, Tajiks and...
Apparently it's one of those. From eastern Afghanistan.
Pashayi or Pashai (Persian: پشه‌ای‎) are a Dardic ethnolinguistic group living primarily in eastern Afghanistan. They are the descendants of an Indo-Aryan group and have been isolated until recent times. Their total population is estimated to be 500,000. They are one of the oldest known ethnic minorities in Afghanistan. == Geography == They are mainly concentrated in the northern parts of Laghman and Nangarhar, also parts of Kunar, Kapisa, Parwan, Nuristan, and a bit of Panjshir. Some believe the Pashai are descendants of ancient Gāndhārī. Many Pashai consider themselves Pashtuns speaking a special...
 
It looks nice and traditional.
These are proper hats.
Although I'm not a huge fan of Máxima's coat.
Or whatever it is supposed to be.
 
No.
 
2:53 AM
Ick.
 
Then compare that with this pair.
 
The octopus must die.
 
Hehe.
 
That hat screams "Cthulhu was here!"
 
As do the other girl's hooker shoes (that's what we call those).
Proper hats are just nicer in general, though I have to admit I think a good cocktail hat or 'fascinator' has its charm.
But certainly not the one from the abyss.
Is this not where Cthulhu lurks?
 
2:57 AM
Aren't they both wearing stiletti?
 
Perhaps so, but one has the hooker plateau beneath her toes.
 
You mean the extra inch of platform that maybe only the one on the left has?
 
Yes.
It was en vogue for years.
Until ca. 2017?
Most unfortunate it was.
 
Doesn't seem very comfortable for walking the streets.
 
Ten years ago, it was not seen except on certain women.
 
3:01 AM
Which, of course, is what streetwalkers do. :)
 
But then it stampeded over hapless fashion victims.
@tchrist Hah.
 
I must confess that I have scant chance to spy such silly footwear in my environs.
There must be a whole lot of those where you are, that you should have become familiar with the passing trends.
 
Alas, some friends succumbed at the time.
But they have since shedded those ugly pieces.
 
That verb is invariant.
It has no distinct past-tense inflection.
Like hit.
 
I had shed first. Then I wondered, is this right?
 
3:06 AM
They'll still be paying the various medical bills far into the future.
Yes, it was right.
 
So I changed it to shedded to see how that looked.
Not so good.
@tchrist Perhaps, though I'm not sure whether the plateau is much worse than a similarly heeled shoe without.
 
It has a ridiculously long OED entry for its history.
 
Ah, and of course shedded is possible, as in, parked in a shed.
 
> Forms: Past tense and participle shed.

Forms: Old English sc(e)ádan, scédan, Middle English shode(n, scheode(n, Middle English scheade(n; Middle English Ormin shædenn, Middle English–1500s shede(n, Middle English ssede, Middle English schede(n, Middle English–1600s, 1700s–1800s dialect sheed(e, sched, Middle English scheed, Middle English–1500s schedde, 1500s Scottish schad, scheid, 1500s–1600s shedd(e, 1500s–1700s, 1800s dialect shead, 1700s dialect shade, Middle English– shed; 3rd person singular present indicative (occasionally contracted forms) Old English -scǽt, -scát, -sceát, Midd
@Cerberus Yes.
 
I expect it to be related to Dutch schudden.
 
3:09 AM
No, to scheiden.
 
Hmm.
Perhaps those two are related, then.
 
See the Etymology section in the paste.
 
Hmm it appears not.
> me. shod(d)re (ne. shudder).
Of course shudder ←→ schudden was to be expected.
 
Sure.
> the verb in all these languages has the sense to separate, divide; the forms represent two distinct types of the Germanic root, *skaiþ- (: *skῑþ- ) and *skaiđ- (: *skῑđ- ); for cognates in Germanic see sheath n.1, shide n. The pre-Germanic *skeit-: *skoit-: *skῑt-, from which both the Germanic types descend (with difference due to consonant-ablaut), is not directly represented outside Germanic
 
Yes, the e is a nicer match.
Scheiden with shed.
 
3:12 AM
Probably not the same as in the Shetlands, but they aren't completely certain where that came from.
 
Hmm.
 
> The place name is a compound of early Scandinavian origin (compare Old Icelandic Hjaltland , Hjatland , Hjetland , Faroese Hjaltland , Hetland (now the usual form), Norn (Shetland) Yealtaland (a1700, reported in an English context), Old Norwegian, Norwegian (now hist.) Hjaltland , Hjeltland (15th cent. or earlier: see also below for possible alternative Old Norwegian forms))

< a first element of uncertain origin (later interpreted by folk-etymology as Old Icelandic hjalt hilt n. or its early Scandinavian antecedent) + the Scandinavian base of Old Icelandic land land n.1
"first element of uncertain origin" sigh
 
Names are difficult.
 
> The phonological development of the (originally Scandinavian) initial hj- into English sh- (/ʃ/) has parallels in other place names from areas of Scandinavian settlement, compare e.g. the name of Hieptuna , Hyepton , Yheptona , North Riding, Yorkshire (12th cent.; 1086 in Domesday Book as Hipton , now Shipton); compare also discussion at she pron.1
Well that's interesting. The she thing.
I know we nicked some of our pronouns from the Norse.
 
She?
 
3:17 AM
So they say!
> Origin: Probably a variant or alteration of another lexical item. Etymon: hoo pron.
Etymology: Probably a variant of hoo pron., showing a sound change in which the palatal fricative /ç/ indicated by spellings of hoo pron. such as ȝo , ȝho developed to /ʃ/.
"probably"
> The hypothesis that the word shows a borrowing of the early Scandinavian demonstrative form reflected by Old Icelandic sjá this (nominative singular masculine and feminine) fails to explain the vowel forms shown by the English word.
Seems a bit iffy.
> The spread of this variant was probably in response to a functional pressure, to disambiguate the subject forms of the feminine and masculine singular third-person personal pronoun (compare he pron.), and, probably to a lesser extent, also the subject and object form of the third-person plural personal pronoun (compare hi pron.2, they pron.). This pressure probably explains the gradual geographical spread of forms with /ʃ/; it appears that the general pattern was for forms with initial /h/ to be replaced first by forms with initial palatal fricative /ç/, and for forms with the (rare and m
"The change from /ç/ to /ʃ/ has few parallels in English" yeah.
 
English sh that does not correspond with Dutch/German sch does makes me think of Scandinavia, like sk.
 
We now spell OE scip as "ship", but the consonant has not changed.
Yeah, the sk- words sure look Norse often enough.
skald and skarn.
ski :)
 
Frisian and the West-Frisian accent (now in Holland) also have this sk in e.g. skip.
Is that also Schandinavian influence?
 
Oh but does that mean English ship or English skip?
 
Ship.
 
3:23 AM
Interesting.
 
Basically any Dutch sch becomes sk in pronunciation, I think.
It is perhaps the most marked feature of the West-Frisian accent.
It also has some ugly vowels.
 
Says the Dutchman.
 
Actually, many Dutch diphthongs came from Flanders, I believe.
But not these.
Can you find Westfriesland?
 
sure
 
The sea separated it from modern Friesland over a period of some centuries during the Central Middle Ages.
And of course the entire coast down to northern France(?) was once Frisian.
 
3:26 AM
You shouldn't have so many accents. You have no mountains to separate yourselves with.
 
Oh, each village can have its own accent.
And those accents sometimes even survive in a neighbourhood generations after it has been devoured by a big city.
 
Islands might help.
 
Sometime told me about an example of that just a few days ago.
No, no islands.
Just villages on flat land.
But with people who seldom travel.
 
Not sure. There are all kinds of old, weird accents in the seafaring folk in the Northeast, off the coast of Maine and up into the Canadian maritime provinces.
 
Oh, islands do help.
 
3:29 AM
Not travelling will do it.
 
Barriers help against travelling.
Cf. New Guinea and its countless linguistic families or isolates.
 
I have to go appease Lorin. He's crawling all over the keyboard for my attention.
 
Have fun!
@tchrist My parents' cat died, by the way. They got a new pair of cats much sooner than I expected, brother and sister from Greece.
What do you think they named them?
 
Artemis and Apollo.
 
@tchrist Ding!!
You needed only a single try.
The sun-god.
 
3:40 AM
It's like how Brother William knew the abbot's lost horse was named Brunellus in The Name of the Rose.
 
You can see the damage his precursors did.
@tchrist Oh, I should properly read that.
 
Cute.
 
I scanned through it the night before my exam (we needed to have read 15 books).
 
I don't get it
 
There's a lot in there. You'll have missed skimming.
@CowperKettle You and me both.
Some tropical drink with lime and coconut?
It must be that.
 
3:43 AM
@tchrist Yes, I remember nothing.
 
I'll listen to it
 
We're going to the cottage on Wednesday.
I have downloaded the book onto my phone now.
 
Oh good.
The first hundred pages are deliberately discursive to get you into the medieval mindset.
 
weird
 
3:48 AM
@tchrist Like The Lord of the Rings?
@CowperKettle Interesting.
 
@Cerberus In a different way. That was just Tolkien not knowing where he was going. Eco did this deliberately.
 
Hmm didn't he?
 
Vauxhall Gardens is a public park in Kennington, London, England, on the south bank of the River Thames. From 1785 to 1859, the site was a pleasure garden and one of the leading venues for public entertainment in London from the mid-17th century to the mid-19th century. Originally known as New Spring Gardens, it is believed to have opened before the Restoration of 1660, being mentioned by Samuel Pepys in 1662. The Gardens consisted of several acres of trees and shrubs with attractive walks. Initially entrance was free, with food and drink being sold to support the venture. It was accessed by boat...
 
His editors tried to get him to cut it, lest it chase people away. He refused, saying that he didn't want those people anyway.
 
An early and popular train station in Russia was in a garden named Vokzal after Vauxhall Gardens
 
3:49 AM
@Cerberus He knew the quest would be to give up the ring. An inverse quest. But little more.
 
@tchrist Ok that matches my experience reading it.
 
A well-groomed garden in Russia came to be called vokzal in the early 19th century, it could be found in a verse by Pushkin in 1813
 
I think it was the final year of primary school.
But I think my mother warned me.
So that helped.
 
> “My friends and editors suggested I abbreviate the first hundred pages, which they found very difficult and demanding. Without thinking twice, I refused, because, as I insisted, if somebody wanted to enter the abbey and live there for seven days, he had to accept the abbey’s own pace. If he could not, he would never manage to read the whole book.

Therefore those first hundred pages are like a penance or initiation, and if someone does not like them, so much the worse for him. He can stay at the foot of the mountain.” (Eco, Post-Script to The Name of the Rose, 1984, pp. 520).
 
The first 80 pages were somewhat boring, with the occasional fun fact. I remember liking the mathoms.
And only by page 200 or so did things really get interesting.
Once they left merry old England.
 
3:52 AM
Left the Midlands. Or Mercia.
 
Oh, wait, this was about Eco.
 
@CowperKettle How circuitous.
 
Does Artemis share her brother's markings?
 
I think she is somewhat similar.
I have only seen pictures.
I'm off to bed, vale!
 
4:04 AM
Good thinking.
 
4:24 AM
@Færd like a magician thing? I recall myself saying a while earlier while the hypocrite was making random persistent noise on TV that he's elected, quote and unquote, "we're screwed". Nothing eloquent. And there's nothing eloquent about the downgrade we're going to have.
 
I remember very little bullying in secondary schools and high school.
I guess I was a big kid. But I don't recall others getting bullied either.
I remember two dunces that could be classified as bullies, because they didn't really have anything to show for themselves.
I was bullied a lot in a football school.
Yeah, that did sound like your average American high school TBH.
 
4:51 AM
Utah is the driest state
 
@CowperKettle Maybe they're the most ashamed of their drinking?
 
They are Mormons
I looked it up on Wikipedia
It took some time to find even the name of the state. I only know several states by their position - like California
 
 
2 hours later…
6:51 AM
@M.A.R. I just meant to say that he's going to be declared the winner. But I guess you could read it like that too.
 
7:28 AM
I just walked my mom to her second shot of the Sputnik vaccine.
 
 
1 hour later…
8:43 AM
The queue consisted of a single man
There is so little demand for the vaccine that the doctors are sitting doing nothing
 
@Mitch Douglas Adams wrote of a planet where Veet Voogajig found all the lost pens, and became a limousine driver for some wealthy pens
 
 
3 hours later…
11:54 AM
California is now running a lottery to encourage vaccinations. “ Gov. Gavin Newsom played game show host again Friday for the second round of California’s COVID-19 vaccine lottery, where state officials picked 15 new winners to receive $50,000 prizes.”

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article252051983.html#storylink=cpy
 
 
2 hours later…
1:25 PM
@Xanne This isa good move
Moscow is also running a lottery starting today
But my sister in Moscow has already had her first shot. The second is on June 19th
 
@MattE.Эллен Veet Voogajog sounds like Pete Buttigieg the new US Secretary of Transportation and former US Pres candidate.
That's all I got in order to distract everyone from my unconsciously plagiarizing Adams
 
1:49 PM
- What did one flag say to another flag?
- Nothing, it just waved
 
@Mitch probably got bored of ferrying pens around
 
Wow.
Ah. Maybe it's not really the widespread language but a simplified version
Still cool
My cat jumped at the table in the kitchen while nobody was looking, and put his muzzle into a can of olives
Somewhy cats love olives
> After a cashier told a man, 30, to put on a mask, he left the store. He then returned with a handgun, walked up to the cashier and fatally shot her. wsbtv.com/news/local/dekalb-county/…
> Another cashier was also grazed by a bullet. She was treated at the scene.
Thank GOD we don't have the free gun carry policy here.
People here would just shoot at each other daily.
The Ministry of Emergencies said that there has been 'an unprecented' number of fires in Yekaterinburg and nearby in the last several days, with 580 of them put out znak.com/2021-06-15/…
This is true. I have seen a fire truck riding by twice in the last several days. I did not see a real-life fire truck riding past me for years, maybe, prior to the last month.
The weather is very hot. The greenery is untypically lush. I mean the shrubs and grasses have really sprung up all around. It's nice to see, frankly.
Thank you, global warming.
 
3:02 PM
@CowperKettle It's progress. The next step is to actual do signs (way beyond handspelling of letters) and convert those to writing. That is not speech2text but fullsigns2text.
The -actually- useful thing though is, well, it's not particularly useful to anybody to convert hand-letters to letters... it doesn't help deaf people (they can do it already) and what do hearing people need it for... deaf people don't really communicate with hand-letters.
So maybe translating full signs so that non-deaf can understand what deaf people signing are talking about, but again what hearing person really needs that? It's deaf people who need speech converted into signs so they can understand what non-deaf people are speaking out loud.
But I figure most deaf people can read English (or whatever the local written culture is)?
 
3:18 PM
 
oh! you could get an ASL to BSL translator with English as the intermediary language
 
:-o they'll put me out of a job
it's lucky programming is a transferable skill :D
 
Yeah, I bet immunosuppression really messes up vaccination
 
3:59 PM
@MattE.Эллен Where can I see this ticker?
 
@Wipqozn it depends on when the feed gets a question
I'll add a url from SO to get things going...
 
Getting Things Done (GTD) is a personal productivity system developed by David Allen and published in a book of the same name. Described as a time management system, the author states in the book that if a task is on one's mind, it will fill one's mind completely, which guarantees that one will be incapable of handling yet another task; therefore one will fail to complete any of them.The GTD method rests on the idea of moving all items of interest, relevant information, issues, tasks and projects out of one's mind by recording them externally and then breaking them into actionable work items with...
 
I guess I have no idea what I'm doing
3
 
I wonder if it's any good, this GTD. A friend on Facebook posted a post on how it is "great". I'm suspicious of such systems
 
4:12 PM
@MattE.Эллен I feel like that should be a moderation slogon
"I have no idea what I'm doing" ~ Stack Exchange Mods
 
*slogan
 
@CowperKettle Exactly!
 
@Wipqozn yes :D
sorry, @Wipqozn I can't show you the ticker. It will appear by itself eventually
 
@MattE.Эллен thanks for trying!
 
4:44 PM
Now I see it! Thanks @MattE.Эллен.
 
5:22 PM
 
5:39 PM
Matt E. Эллен has stopped a feed from being posted into this room
 
> A new analysis of blood samples from 24,000 Americans taken early last year is the latest and largest study to suggest that the new coronavirus popped up in the U.S. in December 2019 — weeks before cases were first recognized by health officials.
 
6:11 PM
@CowperKettle I'm completely unsurprised by that.
 
6:40 PM
I loved that music video as a kid. It looked ultra-cool due to the 3D computer graphic.
 
@tchrist: Hey, do you have a minute to help me think about why a regular expression isn't working?
@CowperKettle You want your MTV?
 
I did not understand the lyrics then.
 
Me either. I thought they were deeper than the music video made them out to be.
When I first heard the song on the radio I thought they were talking about both the literal meaning and the figurative meaning of pop music being used in the service of capitalism, selling products; then I saw the video and it became clear that they meant "we got to install microwave ovens" literally.
Feet of cuh-lay, Mark Knopfler.
 
@Robusto I heard recently (past ten years?) that it was even more literal than that... that he was in an TV store and it had MTV on and he overheard another customer saying those things.
 
Yeah.
 
6:51 PM
past 20 years?
 
My friend's parents were very privileged and even had a microwave oven. It felt like a miracle contraption.
They worked in the Soviet retail system.
 
In my heart when someone mentions the early 90's it makes me think they're referring to something a few years from now.
@CowperKettle It kinda is.
It's really annoying when something takes 5 minutes to cook in it.
You know what's really annoying? When you're flying in a plane 40,000 feet above the mid-Atlantic and the internet connection is sometimes slow.
 
Once the school declared a day out due to extreme frost, and we went to my friend's flat, and he fed us oranges. He just had oranges, lying in his fridge. And that was not on a big holiday. Since his parents worked in retail, they had access to food that other people could not buy.
 
Since the sixties here, you go into any supermarket and one aisle is dedicated to snacks, one aisle to soft drinks, and one aisle to breakfast cereal. Both sides.
 
@CowperKettle See, that's one good thing about capitalism. You can get oranges anywhere you need one, any time you need it.
 
6:56 PM
One side of the cereal aisle is for hyper-sugared cereal, the other side for only lightly sugared cereal.
 
Once in the summer I was riding a bicycle near the market square, and a truck pulled in, and it started selling oranges. I did the fastest bicycle ride of my life to my home, and screamed "oranges!!!!". My mom gave me money, I rode fast to the market, and managed to buy some. Before they were all sold out.
 
@tchrist: If you have time, do you have any idea why /([^"]*\s*)(https?:\/\/[^\s"]+)/gim only finds the last instance of a URL in a piece of text and not all of them?
 
@Robusto That's all due to suppression of the proletariat.
 
@CowperKettle Yes, I know. But ... oranges!
 
I don't know why very smart people in the late 19th there so adamantly sure that nationalizing all businesses would work out just fine.
I can't get into their brains.
 
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