English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Mitch

00:03

Wait...

You can still get flats with tubeless?

Also are they that bumpy?

Criggie

anything can go flat - tubeless and tubular both can puncture

Mitch

Do you have to pump up tubeless?

What's the point of tubeless then?

Robusto

00:21

@Mitch CO2 cylinders ftw

Mitch

00:45

@Robusto I don't get it. Explain it to me like I don't know what tubeless tires are (which is, coincidentally, the case).

Robusto

@Mitch Tubeless tires are tires that don't have tubes in them. Your car tires, for example, don't have tubes in them.

For a long time bike tires only had tubes. Then, mirabile dictu, they created bike tires that didn't require tubes.

You put in sealant and small punctures seal without further ado. Larger punctures, like the one I had today, require a plug of some kind. Look up Dynaplug and you'll see what I used today.

Cerberus

01:14

@Robusto Why did you hate it?

And why do you need CO2 to pump up a tubeless tyre?

And can't they make tyres that don't require pumping up at all?

Robusto

@Cerberus A. Because when i first tried it the tires they sold me were too permeable, and got a lot of cuts. Also, I didn't understand that tubeless tires require less pressure, but about a third, so I was overinflating them. B. Because it's quicker than a pump. Bike pumps suitable for carrying on a bike are necessarily small, so it takes a LOT of pumping to get the tires full. C. I suppose they can, but they'd be awfully heavy.

Cerberus

@Robusto OK I see, thanks.

alphabet

01:35

@Cerberus Airless bike tires are a real product but I don't think they're very popular. Too expensive, I assume.

Criggie

weight savings, and you can run "lower pressures" which is useful for off-road riding.
Yes, you still have to inflate all pneumatic tyres - the only ones that don't need inflating are solid ones, which are universally hated by anyone who installs them.

In a car, tubes cause friction internally, which means the tyre runs hotter and increasing the pressure inside. Worst case, it can trigger a blowout.

CO2 or similar "fast inflate" is needed to get the tubeless tyre to seat on the bead, which is the edge of the rim. A tubeless tyre is loose all the way around at first and needs a "blast" of air to make it all touch the rim at once and then hold pressure.
A tube can inflate graduallly and press the tyre out into the rim, doesn't matter if that takes minutes, whereas tubeless needs to be within a second or so.

Airless tyres exist, but they're some combination of poor traction, low efficiency/high energy loss, and expensive. Its the sort of tyre you'd put on a Mars Rover where a spare is not an option, or on a war-truck/limo where bullet damage could stop you moving, vs your family car.
Sometimes confused with "run-flats" which are normal tyres but with thicker sidewalls so they can still "function" somewhat while deflated.

I had some "no more flat" bike tyres in the 80s. They were hard as rock and a bit skiddy in the rain, but I never had a flat, until the tread was completely worn through and the case inside had started to perish and separate.

Cerberus

@alphabet But if they never go flat, that would be great.

@Criggie Oh, that sounds inconvenient.

alphabet

02:07

Personally I think tires work a lot better than tyres.

Robusto

02:18

@Criggie I have a 160 psi air compressor, so I seat the tires with that and it works like a charm.

Criggie

02:34

@Robusto yup they're good - but its not somethign you ride around with in your pocket. THAT's where a CO2 cannister comes in handy. But they're $5 each here so I use a pump unless its a race, or its raining, or its my third flat of the day.

@alphabet Shut it, Raccyoon :-P

They never go flat, but they;re a hard, harsh unforgiving ride quality. Air pressure in your wheel is a much-debated subject - and tests are unhelpful.
Tests in a perfect environment (perfectly smooth dry straight road) show that harder tyres are progressively better. Like a polished wooden velodrome suits 120-200 PSI tyres.
But add some surface texture like tarmac or chip-seal., some dirt/dust, perhaps some rain, and maybe even try and turn a corner, and suddenly you feel super unsafe on high pressure.

alphabet

@Criggie How tyresome.

Criggie

mmm road-kyll.

Cerberus

02:51

@Criggie But is there some other way to get spring and elasticity into the tyre?

Any way except using something inflatable?

Criggie

03:01

Yeah - there are springs in elastomer or metal or foam

But they all weigh more than compressed air

and weight at the edge of a wheel has the most impact on performance.

Cerberus

Hmm.

@Criggie But perhaps not if you include the enclosing material, the rubber?

Criggie

Not a bike, and this product is kinda shit, but this video (eventually) shows the inside of the tyre rolling at various speeds.

GoPro Inside a Car Tire (With Balance Beads)

►

The amount of flex on every revolution is insane

CowperKettle

03:25

Balance beads. Never heard of them.

Oh. They are sold online here ozon.ru/category/granuly-dlya-balansirovki-koles

Criggie

Sounds like a scam - certainly a plastic pollutant. The point was just how much the tyre flexes while driving

CowperKettle

03:59

I was at a low-price store yesterday and came across a shelf with school exercise book, and they had a wide and wild variety of covers, the kind that I would envy as a school kid and would want to have.

They seemed AI-generated.

AI art is creeping everywhere. It's on every other ad poster on the walls, certainly

Cerberus

Low-price exercise books?

I don't think those exist here, schools only use approved books, kind of.

Approved by teachers.

CowperKettle

I mean those empty copy-books

Criggie

Yeah its partially a money grab, and a consistency thing.

CowperKettle

Where a pupil is supposed to write his exercises, and sometimes doodle

Criggie

Yep blank exercise books. Its easier for the teacher if they're all the same book size etc.,

CowperKettle

04:09

The Ballad of the Empty Bowl -- Bubba Whiskers | FULL SONG

►

Cerberus

Ahh OK I see.

That makes sense.

CowperKettle

> "This self-titled album from 1966 was the only recording that Bubba Whiskers and the Rodent Wranglers ever released. The pressures and demands of stardom proved to be too much for Bubba, Carl, and Tiger, and they soon dropped out of the public eye, choosing instead to go live as barn cats on a farm in Tennessee."

Criggie

yeah imagine if one kid turns in a ringbinder, and another has loose pages and a third sends a microSD card.

Robusto

@Criggie Well, yeah, but you were talking about seating tires, not dealing with flats.

Criggie

fair point - I have to take the tyre halfway off to change a tube. Tubeless needs less work than that, as long as it stays on the bead.

Xanne

05:25

Word of the evening—*lahar.* A lahar ( /ˈlɑːhɑːr/, from Javanese: ꦮ꧀ꦭꦲꦂ) is a violent type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of pyroclastic material, rocky debris and water. The material flows down from a volcano, typically along a river valley.[1] Adopted by geologists in 1922.

alphabet

05:39

Am I wrong to suggest that different US accents or dialects might use anything from 'veecle' to 'vee-hicle' while most of us in the UK use 'veercle'? — Robbie Goodwin Apr 17 at 20:21

File this under "reasons why we use the IPA instead of trying to explain pronunciations through respelling."

The respelling "veercle" makes sense to him. Not so much to any American reader.

Tanner Swett

I'm trying to figure out the difference in usage between the prefixes masto- and mammo-. Why mastitis, mastology, mastectomy, but mammogram, mammoplasty? The latter group seem to be Latin/Greek hybrids.

alphabet

It's called a veercle because you can veer with it, of course.

@TannerSwett Mast- is the greek root; mammo- is the latin one.

There isn't much logic as to which roots end up in which words.

Tanner Swett

I suppose a purist would probably argue that the creation of the word "mammogram" was an error, and it should have been "mastogram."

However, the accident turned out in our favor, because now we have a word free to be used as the name of a piece of software bridging Mastodon and Telegram.

alphabet

There are lots of words that work that way. E.g. -sexual is a Latin root but it combines exclusively with Greek ones (homosexual, etc.).

There is of course a whole section in Huddleston & Pullum (2002), aka CGEL, aka Now That's What I Call Prepositions, about these sorts of "neoclassical compounds."

Tanner Swett

Thank goodness the word "transgender" (which is homolinguistic) arose and displaced "transsexual" (heterolinguistic).

alphabet

05:52

@TannerSwett Not to be confused with Mammogramstodon, the trendy Mastodon community where the youths share mammogram results.

@TannerSwett Heterolinguistophobe.

Tanner Swett

"Homolinguistic" is heterolinguistic, and thus heterological; but "heterological" is homolinguistic.

3

alphabet

Mammogramstodon will be the next media panic now that we're over the kids on TikTok becoming Bin Laden stans.

Tanner Swett

Anyway, what prompts all of this are my attempts to figure out whether my former intense dislike of breasts is better described as "mammophobia" or "mastophobia." I feel like "mastophobia" is probably slightly preferable.

alphabet

-phobia usually gets used with Greek roots, so mastophobia is your best choice.

Tanner Swett

What I don't remember, however, is exactly why I'm spending a substantial amount of time and effort researching this at 2 in the morning.

alphabet

06:03

Usually that would mean a fear of breasts (though by now we should probably get past the fact that "-phobia" has been repurposed to mean "prejudice against").

Can't fall asleep because you're afraid breasts will appear in your nightmares?

Oh wait, you said "former intense dislike of breasts." Is there a trick to overcoming it?

Tanner Swett

In my case, I overcame it via countless hours of pondering, ruminating, and mulling over my gender identity, and also starting a regimen of estrogen.

alphabet

Do us raccoons have breasts, technically speaking? Is "teat" the more accurate term?

Tanner Swett

I can't say that I would recommend this course of action to everyone.

alphabet

@TannerSwett I hope you overcame the dislike of breasts before starting estrogen.

Tanner Swett

My understanding is that "breast" refers mainly to the glandular tissue, and that humans are unique in developing breasts in puberty; most mammals develop them only when pregnant.

alphabet

06:09

Technically cis men have breasts also (the tissue around the nipple is a breast by the medical definition, and men can even get breast cancer in rare cases).

Tanner Swett

@alphabet No, there was in fact a period of overlap where I was taking estrogen and still intensely disliked the idea of growing breasts.

alphabet

@TannerSwett Ah. Good thing you dodged that bullet.

Tanner Swett

More significantly, there was a period of overlap where I was growing breasts and still intensely disliked the idea of growing breasts. Fortunately, that only lasted about a week or two.

CowperKettle

I feel overwhelemed. As if my brain is not working. Everything triggers irritation, and the only desire is to feel a peaceful state of mind, which is impossible.

alphabet

@TannerSwett Maybe estrogen makes you want breasts also.

Tanner Swett

06:11

I think I feel that way sometimes.

alphabet

Anyway, another nail in the coffin for the "autogynephilia" theory.

Tanner Swett

@alphabet Anecdotes suggest that this may be the case.

alphabet

@TannerSwett You just made me Google "can trans women lactate" and apparently yes, in some cases.

Tanner Swett

Indeed, it is something I theoretically could do if, for some reason, I really wanted to do that.

alphabet

"Gender" is one of those foolish human constructs that we raccoons are too wise to adopt.

On a related note: have you been informed about the health benefits of an all-milk diet? It's a popular topic of discussion here, mostly by me.

Jun 9, 2023 at 19:20, by alphabet

When was the last time you saw a baby cow get schizophrenia? Never, because they're on an all-cows-milk diet.

Jun 9, 2023 at 19:21, by alphabet

They don't get herpes either, except in Alabama. Maybe the milk is less good there?

CowperKettle

08:25

Someone has been serially upvoting my answers carefully, several items per day on different SEs, for the last several days.

Vikas

09:05

@CowperKettle Happened with me in past. I told mods and they reversed it.

jlliagre

570

A: What is serial voting and how does it affect me?

What is voting fraud? Voting fraud is the systematic voting against correct voting rationales. The most common type of voting fraud is serial voting, which is when a single user continually upvotes or downvotes many of your posts within a short period of time. This is not considered normal behavi...

Criggie