English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@Mitch that too. Mead hid her informants' identities. It sounds as though Freeman spoke with completely different people.

13013056625. the alt thing is not working.

also

the fact that they are woman and man might enter into it

@cornbreadninja exactly. and Freeman was talking to dudes. old crotchety dudes. what would they know about what the girls were thinking (frankly Mead doesn't have racy pictures as evidence).

She should have posted racy pictures.

Just cuz.

2:06 AM

actually that's where national geographic got its rep among boy scouts.

Where did all them boob pictures come from, then?

or from her photographer friend.

if that is what he was, if he existed at all. Mead just used a notebook.

Nothing wrong with notebooks!

I will not have you sully Mead's reputation!

all those lines. the rigid patriarchy of linearity.

unless it didn't have lines.

Can't have a patriarchy without lines.

2:09 AM

(o)(o)

Ehm, thank you.

Hey all.

Hi!

Good afternoon.

howdy!

It's tea time, isn't it?

2:15 AM

@Cerberus I was going to ask you how things went. But then I read it above.

Yeah, it was OK, but not fantastic.

It's quarter past two here.

I don't feel like tea, unless KitFox makes some.

Ohh...they should stop shifting our time zones around!

Somehow I feel a bit disappointed and tired now.

It's been this way for five months, dude. But they're about to shift it again.

headslap

2:16 AM

@Cerberus I quite understand. But it was worth a shot, right?

Sure.

I mean, it sounds like it wasn't completely terrible.

Like some dates that I've had.

Oh, no, it was all right. It's just that rain and tiredness and alcohol don't go well together.

Oh, do you have a good story?

No, I have a series of sad and pathetic stories, that you don't want to hear.

Haha.

That doesn't sound like fun.

2:19 AM

Oh, no. I've had some nice times too. It's hard to know in advance what you're going to get.

True.

Actually, it went about like I expected.

But still, you know.

And my end result was happiness. I have a wonderful wife. Did I mention that?

@DavidWallace Yes!

And congrats on her.

Err, thank you, I guess.

I can't imagine ever showing up to a date with a bicycle though.

Haha, why not?

How else?

2:21 AM

Have you seen the topography of the Wellington region?

Only from very far above.

Well, the way I understand it, New Zealand came up out of the water when two tectonic plates crashed against each other. So it's a great big wrinkly, umm [insert word for wrinkly thing].

By "crashed" of course, I mean over hundreds of thousands of years.

Oh, I thought very suddenly.

The point is, if you want to go north or south, you can go in a straight line. If you want to go east or west, you have to go up, down, up, down, whatever. And some of our hills are pretty steep.

Even within the city proper?

2:24 AM

So the only people who cycle regularly here are cycling freaks.

Within Wellington especially. The Hutt Valley, where I live, is not so bad.

So you couldn't cycle 1 km without going crazy?

In Wellington, you could go north or south for 1km, sure. Not east or west.

The Hutt Valley is much wider; you could cycle most of it. Same with Porirua, I guess.

Have you thought of bulldozers?

Haha, that would be a popular move. Some of our most expensive land is on hills.

People buy it for the views.

The bulldozers could be used to fill up the lower areas.

Oh, wait.

This view thing.

We just don't have it.

2:28 AM

In some places, it's like having Google Earth in your own living room.

... oh, wait.

...you already have Google Earth in your living room?

Haha, more than one copy. I however live on the flat, so my view consists of my back yard, some rooftops and some trees.

@Cerb @Mitch I'm glad I watched that. I hadn't planned to.

@DavidWallace Ohh a yard!

But I have lived in a couple of places where I had a view of many, many square kilometres.

2:31 AM

Not many people have that here.

@cornbreadninja Yeah, what have you learned?

I own 600 square metres of land.

@Cerberus quite a lot. Shall I give it away?

@DavidWallace That is great. You can have that here if you own a roof terrace.

@DavidWallace is that a hectare?

@cornbreadninja If it's cool and interesting?

@DavidWallace That's quite a bit!

2:32 AM

No, a hectare is 10000 square metres. I'm not that rich.

@Cerberus they interviewed her informant in 1987 or 88

@DavidWallace OIC

OK.

It's extremely interesting starting at about the 32:00 mark.

@Cerberus I'm not entirely sure what a roof terrace is.

I must travel.

2:34 AM

@cornbreadninja Good journey!

@DavidWallace Let me find a picture.

It's just a terrace on a roof.

Is there a better word for that?

I don't think so; and I've just realised that I misunderstood your earlier remark.

@DavidWallace Oh?

When you said "You can have that here if you own a roof terrace", I thought you meant 600 square metres of land; but you actually meant a view.

Oh, yes, the view.

What city is that?

2:37 AM

I...don't know.

It looks Mediterranean.

Or perhaps Latin America.

Those look like orthodox churches. So not Latin America.

If I had to guess, I'd say Greece or Ukraine.

> The roof terrace of the Casa Grande hotel in Santiago de Cuba.

No way!

Cuba?

nods

My first thought was Greece too.

I was going to send you the Google Earth picture of my back yard, but it's not hi-res enough to show anything interesting.

2:40 AM

> With a view of the turrets of the Catedrál de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción.

@DavidWallace I will still admire it.

Wow. Those SO don't look catholic to me.

I don't know, there are many catholic styles.

Trees, even!

So my house is the one with the "A".

2:44 AM

Looks nice.

Yes, I have several trees.

I have a basil plant.

I've just realised that I included the entire house next door too. Never mind.

They won't mind.

The stalkers will skip them.

BRB taking out contacts.

So you can see the edges of my land; it's a long narrow rectangle, and the north-west corner is just about right at the top of that photo.

2:54 AM

Not that narrow.

@Cerberus That’s spelled wrong.

Oh, is it?

Then you should edit the description.

Where is it?

There is no acute on the a in catedral.

Because it is already stressed on the final syllable.

Stress is trivial in Spanish.

I don’t see an edit button on that page.

2:57 AM

But there are words that have acute accents where they are NOT required to indicate stress.

Only for the homophones, almost all of which have just one syllable.

This is not one of those.

Stress is trivial in Spanish.

tu tú, mi mí, el él, de dé, aun aún, solo sólo

And then the words like que that get a written stress when they are used interrogatively or as an exclamation.

There are no words with a written stress that is not used to indicate actual stress.

Are you certain that Cuban Spanish follows the same rules as other dialects? This is a proper name, so it may have a non-standard name. But I certainly agree that "catedral" is a standard Spanish word, and "catedrál" is not.

Even with the one-syllable homophones, it is the tonic version that receives the stress.

Yes, duh.

Thus tú sabes receives prosodic stress, but tu cosa does not.

Perhaps spelling changed, and the socialists never applied it to all names?

@Cerberus No. This is simply wrong. Period.

This is one of those things I know better than I know the back of my hand.

3:02 AM

nods gravely

Similarly para mí receives prosodic stress, but mi cosa does not.

So, Cerberus, please be more careful with your labels of cathedrals next time.

So even on the one-syllable words, the acute indicates stress.

It’s not his fault.

It’s the picture description.

Which I do not know how to edit, or I would.

The rules used to be different.

@DavidWallace I'm not censoring cathedraic quotations just to protect catholic sensibilities!

That’s why it used to be written Santa Fé.

But fe is no longer written with an accent.

I don’t remember when that changed. Not recently.

But there was never any cause, ever, to write *catedrál.

3:05 AM

It is senseless.

Here you can edit it.

ftfy

For yourself.

Already did.

3:07 AM

@DavidWallace I hope you got that that was a joke.

Me being such a devout catholic and all, you mean?

@cornbreadninja @Cerberus: I watched it. The gist: one of her informants said they were lying to her.

@DavidWallace Protective of religion anyway.

So Mead wasn't making stuff up, but she maybe was fooled.

Hmm OK.

3:08 AM

But note that was Derek Freeman's thesis, and the movie was made from Derek Freeman's side of the argument.

I never meant to say she made data up!

Mead's reputation stands well.

@Cerberus Oh, that! Umm, catholics can look after themselves.

Really?

But they're only, what, 1.5 billion strong?

(and Freeman's not. his was a bit of a disgrace, the reaction that supported Mead.

3:09 AM

I guess it is a complicated debate.

Hmm there are about a billion catholics.

Not a bad score.

@Mitch spoiler!

No, there are about a billion people who CLAIM to be catholics.

@Cerb I have arrived tactlessly intact.

@DavidWallace At least that's something...

@cornbreadninja You, tactless?

Hardly.

There'd be far more if you include everyone who says the Nicene Creed.

No, actually, there'd probably be far fewer.

3:15 AM

We blieves in one big kitteh, Ceiling Cat,
who maded teh urfs an teh skiez
an all teh cheezburgers an teh invizibul bicycles an stuff.

We blieves in one happycat, Jeebus,
onliest son ov Ceiling Cat,
bornded beefor all teh cheezburgers an stuffs,
He gots some Ceiling Cat in him, srsly, k?
He helpded Ceiling Cat makes all teh cheezburgers an stuffs.

Christians are so complicated.

Yes, we loves the Ceiling Cat!

And thus Credo in unum deum passes on to the next generation.

prayz bee to seeling kat

@tchrist I actually meant the bit about one holy catholic and apostolic church.

*in unum discum casei

3:17 AM

@DavidWallace > We blieves in teh itteh bitteh kitteh committeh.

gets flags ready

Oh, dear.

Heresy has been signalled!

waves white flag

waves pirate flag

Poking fun at religions that you happen not to believe in is just so unnecessary.

3:19 AM

salutes jolly roger, eats jolly rancher

somehow feels really uncontroversial now

By that I mean not disputatious.

I’m so glad this room has a self-appointed guardian of public morality and defender against free speech.

And good humor.

pokes religuns

@tchrist as the wise old owl said, whooooo?

pokes souls that are trying to escape You should be glad I am here to guard you, fleeting things!

@tchrist Potato potato.

3:21 AM

> O Hai Mary, full ov chezburgers, teh Ceiling Cat ish wit u, srsly. Blesd r u among womans, and blesd is teh frut ov yer tummy oven teh Happy cat. Holy Mary, mommy ov Happy cat, prai 4 us sinnahs, nao an at teh hour ov r death, kthxbai. Amen.

@tchrist for some reason, that reminds me of that issue of Swamp Thing wherein the wimmins enter menstruation huts.

We're all capable of following the inane link. Pasting bits in here is, well, unnecessary.

Then don’t read it.

avaaz.org/en/stop_the_corporate_death_star/?bkFlOcb&v=17866

Why don't you all concentrate on this?

You're all in the path of the death star.

Sign the petition.

dc.wikia.com/wiki/Swamp_Thing_Vol_2_40

3:25 AM

Why, when we can have our own little jihadist defence of the holy faith?

Thankfully, Europe will be spared this monstrosity, and we killed its sister.

Luke always wins.

But you people need to fight the TPP!

@cornbreadninja That is...unusual.

@Cerberus sha!

Sha?

Shah? Pasha?

3:31 AM

There is no link on that TPP page to any useful information about it. Why would I sign their petition if they're not prepared to tell me exactly what they're protesting against?

Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership

@DavidWallace Oh, that is an oversight. I happened to have read stuff about it already.

The 2005 Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement is a multilateral free trade agreement that aims to further liberalize the economies of the Asia-Pacific region. In 2007, negotiations began for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a significantly expanded version of the agreement, encompassing a larger group of countries. These ongoing negotiations have drawn criticism and protest from the public and elected officials, in part due to the secrecy of the negotiations and a number of controversial clauses in draft agreements leaked to the public. Membership and accession ...

There you go.

It's evil.

> You could have to pay a fine for simply clicking on the wrong link.

I trust my Prime Minister not to do evil stuff.

stopthetrap.net

@DavidWallace You should trust me more.

I have nothing but the best intentions, for you and your country.

I trust you very much, Cerberus.

And I tell you that this is the most harmful treaty ever to have been devised for the internet.

Do you remember ACTA?

It was voted down by the European Parliament by a huge majority, because it violated various civil rights, and the economy, and the internet.

The TPP is considerably worse than ACTA.

They're trying to keep it a secret.

Only corporate lobbyists and government negotiators are allowed to see the proposals.

What has been leaked is really, really bad stuff.

3:41 AM

OK, I must spend some more time studying this. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Good in trying to bring it down!

I'm not generally a lefty btw.

Just centre.

On a different note, do you see the diamonds with question marks on this page?

en.indiegogo.com/internet2012?c=activity

Does @tchrist see them?

I wonder whether these are the same guys I saw on this other page we talked about earlier.

@Cerberus Yes, those are the Unicode REPLACEMENT CHARACTER. Looks like it’s UTF-8 that went through a double-encoding process, and then something swapped in the URC for the bad expansions.

Oh, yes, that was what happened the other time too.

So everybody sees that? Then why don't they fix it?

Maybe they don't know how.

Apparently not...

But it's silly.

3:59 AM

Yeah. There is really good software out there, with which a complete idiot can build a web site. The problem with this is that you get complete idiots building web sites.

Heh.

But I am such an idiot, and I could fix that, if it were my page!

Soo what are you all doing.

I'd rather not say.