English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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Cerberus

00:44

@Mitch And unless you're in situations where it is commonly done, which I mentioned.

@Mitch Hehe.

@Mitch Right, but I don't think one normally needs to use it?

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

02:25

sciencenews.org/article/…

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

04:49

Note that Russia has the western-most predominantly Buddhist region, along the Volga river.

Buddhism in Kalmykia

The Kalmyk people are the only people of Europe whose national religion is Buddhism. In 2016, 53.4% of the population surveyed identified themselves as Buddhist. They live in Kalmykia, a federal subject of the Russian Federation located in southwestern Russia. The border faces Dagestan to the south, Stavropol Krai to the southwest, Rostov Oblast to the west, Volgograd Oblast to the northwest and Astrakhan Oblast to the east. The Caspian Sea borders Kalmykia to the southeast. The Kalmyks are the descendants of Oirats who migrated to Europe during the early part of the 17th century. As Tibetan...

CroCo

Good morning everyone,
Is this sentence grammatically correct
Wheeled mobile robots have been being the primary platform for testing and verifying different SLAM algorithms.

I'm asking about "have been being"

Andrew Leach

05:42

@Node.JS That question is off-topic as it's not about the nuts and bolts of English. It's not clear whether you are asking for technical help with BibTeX or about the citation itself. Citation questions go on Writers; TeX questions go on TeX.

@CroCo It certainly isn't idiomatic, and with have been being it's far better to use just have been. Searching for "have been being" does yield a couple of questions with relevant information in answers and comments.

Q: “Have been occupied” VS. “have been being occupied”

I have a question about the present perfect. Here's a sample dialogue. Mary: Hey, John...Are you listening? Hello?? John: Oh hey Mary...I've been occupied with this dreadful thought. Mary: What might that be? John: I don't even have the courage to talk about it.... In the dialogue, John says, "...

Q: Is "have been being investigated" in the following sentence grammatically correct?

I need to know whether the following sentence is grammatically correct or not. Specifically, I am unsure about have been being investigated part. Do the times that I am using match each other? The interest in researching X has been growing in recent years, and as its applications to variou...

grammaticality tenses present-perfect progressive-aspect

CowperKettle

06:30

3 hours later…

CowperKettle

09:26

1 hour later…

Andrew Leach

10:27

Suddenly I feel old.

Q: How did the HP 9100 use base 14?

Wikipedia's page on numeral systems claims: 14 Tetradecimal Programming for the HP 9100A/B calculator and image processing applications; pound and stone Exactly how did the HP 9100A/B use base 14? How was this internally represented (e.g. 4 bits per digit)?

history hp

Was that really that long ago?!

CowperKettle

Hewlett-Packard 9100A

The Hewlett-Packard 9100A (hp 9100A) is an early programmable calculator (or computer), first appearing in 1968. HP called it a desktop calculator because, as Bill Hewlett said, "If we had called it a computer, it would have been rejected by our customers' computer gurus because it didn't look like an IBM. We therefore decided to call it a calculator, and all such nonsense disappeared."An ad for the 9100A in 1968 Science magazine contains one of the earliest documented use (as of 2000) of the phrase personal computer. == History == The unit was descended from a prototype produced by engi...

My mother brought along a calculator of similar dimensions to our flat sometimes in the late 1980s

She sometimes failed to finish her work at work and had to work at home.

The calculator seemed so cool to me.

I sat for minutes, making different calculations on it.

It was a big Soviet calculator looking like this one, and it plugged into the mains.

But it was not programmable, it was way, way simpler I guess.

Andrew Leach

Suddenly I feel less old. The firm I worked for on my degree course used what I'm sure were 9100s, but HP must have reused the number. Phew. (Still, even that was some time ago!)

CowperKettle

Our teacher of math at school used to tell us that we should learn to calculate using paper.

Because "calculators won't always be near you in your adult life"

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

When I first went to school, in 1985, teachers grumbled that our writing was poor, and that is was a bad decision for shools to drop the compulsory use of nib pens in the first three years of schooling.

Up to 1975, all Soviet school kids had to first learn to use nib pens, you know, the kind used in the 19th century, in order to inculcate in them the habit to write in good hand.

Then gradually it was dropped, as Soviet industry finally caught up and started mass production of high quality rolling pens.

Still the quality was poorer than that of Western ones.

Andrew Leach

So did I. My primary school even had inkwells, although we had progressed to cartridge pens by the time I got there.

CowperKettle

10:42

Sometimes my parents managed to get me transparent Bic! pens. But it was dangerous to have them. The bullies could take them away.

Because Bic pens were so much better than Soviet pens.

@AndrewLeach Yes, the schools had inkwells up to the mid 70s

And in Soviet post offices inkwells were kept intil the late 1980s.

You had to write the address on the covers using the inkwell and the nib pen, in order for it to be readable by the machinery.

I guess it contained some metal paint.

Up to 2011, Russian Post used the sealing wax for correspondence.

I remember the smell of sealing wax at post offices.

Because they constantly kept it hot, if there were many customers.

The poured it in blobs at your package, and then used a special stamp to produce this kind of stamp.

It was all so slow, a walk to post a message or a package took so much time.

It's so streamlined now. You walk in, show the code using your phone app, the operator scans it, goes somewhere inside for your package, and as she returns, you recieve an SMS with another code, which you tell her to recieve the package. And that's all.

Post offices became much better in terms of time and effort spent.

That's how they did it.

They swathed your parcel in a cloth and then used sealing wax.

Some kids collected these stamps and attemped to fashion them by reheating into something.

CowperKettle

11:40

A photo from the Russian State Duma (parliament) in 1995

That's Vachyeslav Marychev, he was a real clown ))

One time he came wearing a strap-on female breast.

Right to a Duma session ))

1 hour later…

CowperKettle

12:49

Scientists claim that overeating is not the primary cause of obesity

Robusto

13:46

Q: Should I use "happy to know that" instead of "happy to hear that" in e-mail?

I am writing an e-mail and just got some news that I'm very happy to know. Normally, in conversation, I say "happy to hear that"; however, in e-mail, should I write "happy to hear that" or "happy to know that"? Thanks,

grammar word-choice word-usage

Is there a level below "giving help with an email" to which this site can sink?

@CowperKettle Just one?

24 Years

►

CowperKettle

14:39

@Robusto No, as you can see. I made a grammar mistake

Vladimir Resin, one of officials in Moscow. Has a watch that costs 1138173 USD

One million dollar watch.

Vladimir Resin

Vladimir Iosifovich Resin (Belarusian: Уладзімір Іосіфавіч Рэсін; Russian: Влади́мир Ио́сифович Ре́син; born 21 February 1936, Minsk, Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union) is a Russian politician who was the acting mayor of Moscow, appointed by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev to succeed Yury Luzhkov on 28 September 2010. Resin previously served as the first deputy mayor under Luzhkov. == Biography == Resin was born to a Jewish family on 21 February 1936 in Minsk. He graduated from the Moscow Mining Institute in 1958 and worked in the construction and mining sectors. In 1988, he started working in the...

He is currently the Overseer of Moscow's 200 Churches Program, intended to have 200 new churches to be built in the city.

A very pious man.

CowperKettle

14:56

@Robusto Yes, "eliminating rapists" is a LOL of a great size.

Mitch

15:08

@CowperKettle Any watch over $500,000 is just way too much.

@Robusto There needs to be a place for that kind of question. Hopefully very far from here.

1 hour later…

Robusto

16:16

@CowperKettle Yeah, I was just funnin' ya.

But in fact your construction was technically fine. The term breast can refer to the entire chest of a man or woman. Cf. OE breost. Again, I was just funnin'.

CowperKettle

17:01

Beethoven: 12 Scottish Songs, WoO 156 - 5. Cease Your Funning

►

1 hour later…

Mitch

18:27

@CowperKettle ahhhh.. Beethoven.

>  Cease your funning
Force or cunning
Never shall my heart trepan;
All these sallies
Are but malice
To seduce my constant man
'Tis most certain
By their flirting
Women oft have envy shown
Pleas'd to ruin
Other's wooing
Never happy with their own

2 hours later…

SmokeDetector

20:41

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at beginning of answer, link at end of answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (96): Polygons: why are three and four different from other "sidegons" by sara on english.SE

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