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12:00 AM
The comment rankings are informative as to the tenor of things.
 
RD1
I've noticed that the more passionate people are about a question, the more likely they are to upvote multiple comments in a thread. I think it's because they wish they could upvote the question multiple times. (I know I've done this)
2
 
Math SE isn't the only place this tension is happening. He said something to the effect that the TCS site would be "marginalized" in "our system of networks" if they "continued on this path"; i.e. not opened their group to lower-level, non-research questions. Then he shut down the Computer Science mainstream proposal, so that TCS might submit I suppose.
 
RD1
What's TCS?
 
Theoretical Computer Science.
 
RD1
Ah, I don't have a strong enough CS background to lurk over there.
Martha has a legitimate chance to pass FGIW. Instant superstardom.
 
12:05 AM
I've got my Fanatic badge and never visited again.
 
lol
 
Doesn't happen on too many sites.
Normally I stick around, however sporadically.
 
It is like so many ancient architectural masterpieces. Beautiful to behold yes, lots of energy and time and grueling work were poured into Versailles and the pyramids, but ultimately the motivation of the kings who commissioned those works were to make a graven image unto themselves.
Not to create something beautiful for the sake of itself.
 
@Billare And yet, everybody knows Versailles, but not everybody will name the king.
 
RD1
It's never a bad guess to go with Louis.
 
12:10 AM
Harhar.
 
/oblique rant, I suppose.
 
4
A: Eeeek! What happened to my envelope?

systempuntooutI hated that envelope I won't miss it, and I totally love the new fancy micro dashboard; thanks for this.

See? Case dismissed.
 
RD1
Stay tuned for the next uproar. Same Bat-Time. Same Bat-Channel.
 
It took them less than one day. I'm not unimpressed.
 
RD1
And that includes reading all of the hatemail, hateposts and hatechatmessages.
 
12:15 AM
Greetings.
Did I hear my name?
 
Howdy.
 
No one is denying the StackExchange management aren't good programmers.
 
Hades, was it thee?
 
They are.
 
RD1
Life was simpler when you could hang a "Suggestions Box" sign on a garbage can in the corner.
 
12:15 AM
@Cerberus Very much so.
 
Excellent, in fact, they have some of the quickest turnarounds I've ever seen.
 
Or should that be "thou": was the subjective case still current then?
One sec.
 
But on the community side, the buck stops with a person who isn't particularly pleasurable to deal with, IMO.
Robert Cartaino? Dori? Jin? Love those guys.
But only one can wear the One Ring.
@Cerberus: Do you have any phrases that say something to the effect "It is not wise to criticize the King?", in Latin or Shakespeare?
 
@Billare: Does it have to be an existing phrase, or may I create one?
 
@Cerberus Hrm, I'd prefer an existing one, but you can create one if it sounds really poetic!
 
12:21 AM
The changes to the "dashboard" are missing the point entirely.
 
@Billare: Okay I'll think about it; not sure whether I can find an existing phrase.
 
@Martha Go on.
 
@Billare It just has to be something that has almost exactly the opposite moral of "The Emperor's New Clothes".
 
The most useful aspect of the /recent page is that it remembers where you were. It doesn't show you things you've already seen, unless you tell it to.
The dashboard is showing "recent changes" for some random and non-useful definition of "recent", and I can click on it as many times as I want, it still shows the same things.
 
The thing I liked most about the envelope is it told me exactly what comments and answers I entered.
I don't like this truncation.
 
12:25 AM
@Martha Well, knowing them guys, the dashboard will have tabs on top of tabs on top of tabs in no time.
 
And if I want to view my recent responses, that's still three clicks away. At least.
 
@Cerberus Hmm the moral of that would be that in-crowd conventions can be absurd? Or is that not the essence? I'm not sure how I should imagine the opposite of that...
 
Ok folks, have to go. This whole fiasco is just raising my blood pressure anyway. TTYL.
 
CU.
 
Ciao.
 
RD1
12:29 AM
@billare How about this from Voltaire: "l est dangereux d’avoir raison dans des choses où des hommes accrédités ont tort." (It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.)
That should be "Il est" obviously
The established men part refers to the government
It's one of my favorite Voltaire quotes.
 
Beautiful!
 
RD1
It's often translated in English as simply "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
 
That sounds very appropriate.
I was searching the corpus of classical Latin for combinations of criticize and king/emperor, but found nothing.
 
RD1
Yeah, I'm not good with Latin, but I have forgotten quite a bit of French.
 
Perhaps qui regem corrigat ipse peribit (he who corrects a king will perish himself).
 
RD1
12:38 AM
Excellent advice.
 
I do think that this royal behaviour has at least been overtly banished from academic circles.
 
@Billare, @RegDwight, @Martha: Well, you can still go to /users/recent...
 
Goodness me..
Very nice.
How should I enter that 71? Can you give me an explicit HTML link?
 
@Hello71 Uh, what?
Ah. Yes, we can.
 
I have checked the grammar, Cicero should be OK with it. Perhaps better Qui regem corrigat ipse pereat: He who corrects a king might perish himself.
 
12:45 AM
Timeo Danaeos et dona ferentes.
 
Danaos
Nice quote.
Almost as nice as Romanes eunt domus.
 
Me Latin spellin', she not so good.
 
Aww. You can still correct it!
 
Veni, Vidi, Dormivi.
Besides, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur.
 
RD1
What's the Latin quote for "I came, I saw, I rep-whored"?
 
12:48 AM
I'm afraid dormio doesn't have a perfect.
 
Like Cromwell, I say you may paint me warts and all.
 
rephorui, probably.
 
Satur venter non studet libenter.
 
A full stomach doesn't like to study?
 
Carpe reputatum.
 
12:49 AM
Grasp him who has been judged?
 
Seize the rep. It's dog Latin.
Cave canem.
 
RD1
Nice.
 
Yo dawg Latin.
 
Not pig? Dog Latin would be my Latin.
Haha I like the cava part...
 
RD1
si hoc legere scis nimium eruditiones habes.
 
12:51 AM
Stupid keyboard, doesn't type what I'm thinking.
Also, had most of a bottle of wine, so anything goes! Wheeee!
 
Uh... um... lorem ipsum.
 
Edamus, bibamus, gaudeamus!
 
Hmm that nimium sounds off.
 
RD1
Yeah, I'm not so good with the Latin.
 
Gaudeamus et altera pars?
 
12:52 AM
If you know reading this, you have all too many, erudition.
 
Homines libenter quod volunt credunt.
 
Rob gets an A for edamus etc.
REg: huh? Let us rejoice, and/also the second part/party/etc.?
 
I don't know if you saw this, Cerberus:
 
Kyrie, gloria, credo, sanctus, benedictus et agnus dei.
 
Mar 6 at 18:13, by Robusto
 
12:53 AM
And Rob gets another A for his homines...
 
Hey, I was a freakin' altar boy and I went to 12 years of Catholic school. That ought to count for something.
 
@Cerberus Obviously a play on Rob's gaudeamus and audiatur.
Het beginsel van hoor en wederhoor is een principe uit de rechtspraak en de journalistiek dat inhoudt dat, als iemand beschuldigd wordt, er geluisterd moet worden naar wat de beschuldigde er op heeft te zeggen, voor er over hem geoordeeld wordt. Het is een van de algemene beginselen van behoorlijk proces. Het belang van hoor en wederhoor Het beginsel van hoor en wederhoor is om twee redenen van belang: # voor de volledigheid van de waarheidsvinding, dus bij het vaststellen van de feiten; # voor de evenwichtigheid van de beoordeling, bij het waarderen van de feiten. Als men informatie heef...
 
My favorite thing to say to a vending machine, btw, would be: Machina improba! Vel mihi ede potum vel mihi redde nummos meos!
 
Yes.
 
Si hoc "postum" legere potes, operis boni in rebus Latinus alacribus et fructuosis potiri potes!
 
12:57 AM
Sure.
 
Well, that was a conversation killer.
Spero nos familiares mansuros.
 
Pretty good scene for a Western! I could only catch half of the Latin, what with the heavy accent and the usual English pronunciation of Latin.
 
The translation is below.
Some good soul provided it.
 
Oh I see.
 
An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia regatur orbis?
 
1:02 AM
The translation got iuventus wrong, which is youth, not experience.
 
@RegDwight I do, and I'm not your son.
 
Hey I know that an nescis quote...
 
@Robusto Cuiusvis hominis est errare, nullius nisi insipientis in errore perseverare.
 
Another excellent quote. I know that one too...
But my memory is bad as always.
 
Verba movent, exempla trahunt.
 
1:03 AM
Uh... um... in vino veritas!
 
Quod erat demonstrandum!
 
Ah, who said that verba movent one again?
 
Si, es verdad.
No wait.
 
Well I am glad your quotes are improving both in correctness and in importance!
 
@Cerberus In vitium ducit culpae fuga, si caret arte.
 
1:05 AM
Breviter et commode dictum.
 
Nihil verum nisil mors.
 
And here's what we learned almost immediately in first year Latin in high school, to explain why we didn't have our homework: Canis meus id comedit.
 
Hmm... If you flee guilt, it will lead you to sin, unless your flight is devious/smart.
 
Nemo ante mortem beatus dicendus.
 
Haha very nice @Rob.
@Reg: That is definitely not Roman.
Though grammatically correct.
 
1:07 AM
Neither is si, verdad.
 
No, Reg's quote is actually Greek via Latin.
 
That would be Portuguese or something?
 
Spanish.
 
"Count no man happy until he is dead. At best, he is merely fortunate."
 
(Romans would never praise life after death.)
Ah ok.
 
1:08 AM
Mors certa, vita incerta.
 
That might be Seneca.
But happiness after death is Christian.
 
Euripedes is the one who said @Reg's quote.
 
Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil.
 
Which one?
@Reg: That is most definitely Stoic, so probably Seneca?
 
Nemo ante mortem beatus dicendus.
 
1:10 AM
I have no idea, really. Carpe diem.
 
Euripides? Then why would it be quoted anywhere in Latin translation? Huh?
 
Beats me.
I went through a phase of reading everything I could about ancient Greece. Here's a writer I strongly recommend:
Humphrey Davey Findley Kitto (6 February 1897 – 21 January 1982) was a British classical scholar of Cornish ancestry. He was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire. He was educated at The Crypt School, Gloucester and St. John's College, Cambridge. He wrote his doctorate in 1920 at the University of Bristol. He became a Lecturer in Greek at the University of Glasgow from 1920 to 1944. On that year, he returned to the University of Bristol where he became Professor of Greek and emeritus in 1962. He concentrated on studies of Greek tragedy, producing also translations of works of Sophocles. His ...
 
I knew everything about Ancient Greek mythology as a child. Now I remember close to nothing.
I only remember Chronos, Chaos, Zeus.
 
Well, Kitto's book on Greek tragedy is unparalleled. He even discusses Hamlet in the context of Greek tragedy in it. It is priceless.
 
I even made a complete family tree of the Greek Gods when I was 10... now I don't remember much either, besides the most important ones.
 
RD1
1:14 AM
@Cerberus Reg's quote "Post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil." is from Seneca (Troades) if that's the one you were questioning.
 
BTW, did I hear someone call me a rep whore just as I came in? I'm drunk enough to resent that.
 
RD1
@robusto Delayed reaction, but no. Nobody was calling you that.
 
@RD0: Ah, just as I thought! It was the one here attributed to Euripides and elsewhere to Solon that I found highly doubtful.
 
27 mins ago, by RD1
What's the Latin quote for "I came, I saw, I rep-whored"?
 
That Kitto guy sounds cool.
 
1:16 AM
In vino veritas.
 
He who fits the shoe...
Or what is it in English?
 
Bona diagnosis, bona curatio.
 
Eh, good diagnose(?), good caring?
 
And, Cerberus, iuventus is OK to translate as fool, as it means someone who is young and therefore unwise.
 
@Cerberus I would say "cure", no?
 
1:17 AM
No. curatio as the root of curate, or caretaker.
 
But it said experience? Besides, I find youth => fool rather excessively free...
 
Well, it's certainly true in this chat.
 
Curatio as cure? I don't think so, but I'll look it up...
 
@Cerberus Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.
 
No it is rather the action of caring or curing.
 
1:19 AM
Yes, caring. What I said.
 
Yes, curing. What I said.
 
curator ORIGIN late Middle English (denoting an ecclesiastical pastor, also (still a Scots legal term) the guardian of a minor): from Old French curateur or, in later use, directly from Latin curator, from curare (see cure ). The current sense dates from the mid 17th cent.
 
Either I will find a way or I will create one?
That sounds OK.
 
@RegDwight — Cave quid dicis, quando, et cui.
 
Anyhow, people, my head is assploding. Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est.
 
1:20 AM
No it is not over with!
 
My part is over.
 
We have not yet begun to embarrass ourselves.
 
I have.
 
Curare is the verb to cure. But I suppose you could freely translate curatio as cure in some contexts. It was rather the diagnosis that threw me off, because it sounds unliterary (more like technical prose).
@Rob: That sounds ok: Watch out what you say, when, and to whom.
 
Yup.
 
1:22 AM
How can I draw an arrow in plain text?
 
And @Reg your Plaudite... sounds OK as well. Yay.
 
RD1
---->
 
Hehe.
 
I mean something more elegant, like Unicode.'
 
@Billare →
 
RD1
1:22 AM
lol
 
Thanks!
 
@Cerberus That's not mine, that was Beethoven IIRC.
 
Oh, well, then it sucks.
Hehe no.
 
RD1
@billare All the arrows are here if you need them:alanwood.net/unicode/arrows.html Go wild!
 
I sometimes just google a symbol and copy-paste it from Wikipedia when I need it.
 
1:24 AM
It was Beethoven? I thought it was Schiller.
 
←↑→↓↔↵⇐⇑⇓⇔⇒
 
RD1
I also do ⇝ the same.
 
I finally got a good program to do macrons though, yay.
 
Meh, RD beats me to it. As always.
 
RD1
Meh.
Vescere bracis meis.
 
1:25 AM
Wait, is this the same person who used to be RD01?
 
Meh indeed.
 
Same gravatar. Hmm ...
 
RD1
Used to be, eh?
 
Huh, why does "misspellings" take two "s"s?
 
Huh... eat my pants?
 
1:25 AM
TAFKARD01.
 
lol
 
@Billare It takes three. Count them.
 
lol @RegDwight I mean.
 
RD1
@Cerberus Close enough to the Simpsons.
 
Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.
 
1:26 AM
It's like he realized he wouldn't actually need up to 99 alts. 9 will suffice.
 
@RD0: Yeah it sounds elegant.
 
RD1
When you're coding bots, you don't want to lock yourself in to a hard limit.
 
A hard limit?
 
What if you are a bot?
 
Yay philosophy!
 
1:27 AM
2
Q: When was "antimatter" first used?

kiamlalunoWhen was antimatter first used? Who was the person that used it?

 
RD1
Anyone else watch the Big Bang Theory?
 
Reg, you are the original botmeister.
 
Peter Shor (!) on antimatter.
 
@RD1 I hate that show. I truly do.
 
Here's another good one: Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
 
1:27 AM
@Robusto No, the original just got banned.
 
I've tried to watch it once or twice, I can't get what's funny. In general I'm not a fan of sitcoms.
 
RD1
There's a great scene where they convince Sheldon he's a robot.
 
I just feel embarrassed for people most of the time.
 
@RD1 You misspelled "boring".
 
RD1
Well, to each his own, I guess.
 
1:29 AM
Aaaand we've come full circle.
 
RD1
The Envelope?
 
2 hours ago, by Billare
Render unto Caesar kinda has the flavor but not really.
 
@RD1 Suum cuique.
 
Coito ergo sum.
 
Impressive Latin skills.
 
1:31 AM
Should be coeo
 
Lol, coito.
 
See, Robusto loled.
 
Good one.
 
@Robusto: Hey, let me ask the question I asked earlier: Can you think of a Latin phrase that encapsulates the opposite moral of "The Emperor's New Clothes"?
 
That's all I'm aiming for, really.
 
1:31 AM
Coito is not a finite verb.
 
Nobody cares.
 
@Cerberus It's a translingual pun. It counts.
 
Hey what if you need to flirt with a classicist girl...
 
@Billare Um, hasn't that been answered already?
 
RD1
I thought Cerberus had some good Latin phrases for it.
 
1:32 AM
@Billare: Then first what is the essence of the moral of that story?
 
@Billare Can you encapsulate the moral of The Emperor's New Clothes for me?
 
And what is its opposite?
 
@Robusto That dude is naked, huhuh.
 
I mean, I know the story. Just give me the 8-words-or-less phrase that sums it up for you.
@RegDwight Ssshhh, grown-ups are talking, dear.
 
"Dear".
 
1:33 AM
@Cerberus That's not an eight-word summary.
 
Joco uti.
 
Was it too short for you?
 
Maybe Nobilitat stultum vestis honesta virum.
 
Honourable/honest clothes ennoble a stupid man?
 
@RegDwight It has, I'm just asking for curiosity's sake now.
 
1:35 AM
Yes.
 
OK.
 
@RegDwight Testing his mettle, so to speak. What is the great Robusto capable of scrounging up?
 
That's as close as I can come to the opposite of the Emperor's New Clothes.
 
@RegDwight BTW he's gunning for you.
 
Let him.
 
1:36 AM
@Billare — I don't need your approval.
 
In Dutch we have a saying: let the monkey wear a golden ring, it will still be an ugly thing.
 
<looks at his wedding ring>
 
Hehe.
 
"Nobilitat stultum vestis honesta virum." Oooh, it sounds pretty. What does it mean, more or less literally?
 
It doesn't apply to birds.
 
1:37 AM
Joco uti?
 
@Billare: I gave the translation above.
 
@Billare Hahahahaha. That's me in a nutshell.
 
Joco uti isn't correct.
(Just peeving.)
 
Sosiouxme!
 
Thwack!
 
1:38 AM
Eh?
So Mini-Martha is a bird.
 
The Sioux () are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects. The Sioux comprise three major divisions based on Siouan dialect and subculture: *Isáŋyathi or Isáŋathi ("Knife," originating from the name of a lake in present-day Minnesota): residing in the extreme east of the Dakotas, Minnesota, and northern Iowa, and are often referred to as the Santee or Eastern Dakota. *Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋ and Iháŋktȟuŋwaŋna ("Village-at-the-end" and "little village-at-the-end")...
 
I should have known, since babies are flown in by birds.
 
@Robusto Maybe I should have better explained myself...the antimoral of the Emperor's new clothes is that the crowd doesn't praise you for exposing the king's foolishness, instead you're locked in the Tower with black bread and eventually executed. What aphorism captures that sentiment?
 
There's a good Latin tag about birds: Bonis avibus.
 
RD1
I could stand the tower, but I draw the line at black bread.
 
1:39 AM
Means under favorable auguries.
 
With good birds, as in a good omen?
Right.
 
What's with this birds obsession? Whom are you talking to anyhow?
 
Can an omen ever be good, by the way?
 
@Cerberus I finally saw it, thanks. (I just realized I have a tendency to misspell "Cerberus" as "Cerebrus").
 
What bird should I be looking at?
@Billare: You are not alone! I have gotten used to that name as well.
 
1:40 AM
Was that literal when authors used that term? Was black bread moldy or cooked that way? Like a strange sort of rye, maybe?
 
@Cerberus Sure it can. Menetekel can't, I think.
 
@Reg: Ok.
But surely ominous cannot?
 
Uh. Theoretically, it can. Practically, I don't think anybody uses it that way.
 
(My guess would be that the bread was rye bread yes, I think I actually read that somewhere.)
 
@billare: There is something I recall dimly, like "It is dangerous to hold the ear of a tyrant," but I can't remember if it was in Latin or Greek.
 
1:43 AM
@Reg: So the descriptivist must concede... it is negative! Yay.
 
@Robusto Sounds great. Let me know if you remember...
 
I can never remember anything so don't ask me.
 
@Cerberus ": being or exhibiting an omen : portentous; especially : foreboding or foreshadowing evil : inauspicious" M-W. "1. Of or pertaining to an omen or to omens; being or exhibiting an omen; significant. 2. Specifically, giving indication of a coming ill; being an evil omen; threatening; portentous; inauspicious." Wiktionary.
 
@Reg: Yeah that would agree with my intuition.
 
Uh, how so?
 
1:45 AM
In Latin, omen would actually sooner be good than bad.
 
So anyone know the answer to that "black bread" question? Would it be a good one to post?
 
Yes.
 
@Reg: I don't know, my intuition tells me what words mean when I don't have a dictionary on hand...?
 
@Billare — You could give it a try. If there were rep involved, I might be induced to remember. Me being such a rep-whore and all ...
 
It would probably be mostly an historical question...
 
1:46 AM
I mean, how does it agree with your intuition if your intuition says that it's negative?
 
@Robusto: The only person ascribing that label to you has so far been you...
 
RD1
Oh gods, I wasn't referring to you. Let it go, rep-whore.
 
Seriously, I'm not a rep whore. I'm just that good. And on top of that I'm probably the most modest and self-effacing person on this whole site.
 
Stop calling each other things.
 
RD1
Lol.
 
1:48 AM
Robusto is a nurse.
 
Ich bin keine Krankenschwester.
 
@Reg: My intuition about the English word told me that it was negative, though I wasn't sure, nor could I remember any authoritative text or quote or anything. That was before I "remembered" (i.e. looked up) that it wasn't negative in Latin.
 
@Robusto Du bist ein kranker Bruder.
 
Ich bin ein krankes, krankes Hündchen.
<= doesn't know the German word for puppy.
 
Nein das bin ich doch!
Junger Hund?
 
1:49 AM
Feb 22 at 14:05, by Robusto
@RegDwight — You are one sick, sick puppy.
 
Ah.
 
God, is he fast!
He must bookmark all these.
 
Hahahahaha.
 
RD1
Frighteningly fast.
 
Yes, I have 4273568 tabs open at the moment.
 
1:50 AM
@Reg: You would make an excellent classicist: quoting relevant passages from earlier writers is what the commentaries are full of. Congrats.
 
And I have memorized their order.
 
So ... Hündchen? Understandable, sure, but echt?
 
It sounds rather like a small dog to me... but I could be wrong...
 
And Mädchen is a small maid?
 
Dictionary says both are correct.
It used to be, yes.
 
1:52 AM
@Robusto Hündchen works, though many people these days actually say Hundebaby.
 
Haha seriously?
 
I know. Magd is the older word for maid, I think.
 
Yup.
 
@RegDwight — Yay, I've still got it!
 
The problem with Hündchen is that it sounds way too much like Hühnchen.
 
1:53 AM
Ah right.
 
Uh, I thought we were through talking about birds.
 
Eben
 
I wollt' ich wär' ein Huhn, ich hätt' nich viel zo tun, lalala...
Know it?
 
... ich legte jeden Tag ein Ei, und samstags auch mal zwei!
 
Anyway, enjoy the fantasy.
 
1:54 AM
UMG.
 
Ja du kennst es!
 
RD1
I'm afraid to click on any of those videos.
 
Gotta love Rammstein.
 
@RD1 You're missing out. Max Raabe rules hard.
 
RD1
1:57 AM
I had a college roommate who played Du Hast about 4 times an hour. minimum.
 
@RD1 — Be careful with RegDwight links. You can't unsee that shit.
 
RD1
RegDwight videos are unavailable in my country.
 
Haha sein Kopf ist ja so lächerlich.
Du Hast? Is that also Rammstein?
 
Sure. Du hast mich gefragt und ich hab nichts gesagt.
 
Er hat uns Max Raabe gegeben.
 
1:59 AM
Er = Gott.
 

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