English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

17:00

It is a more deserving one than many.

I haven't gotten an Enlightened badge for . . . days now. I feel left out. :)

You should be proud of me: I did field work today investigating hoohoodilly, which I couldn’t remember myself.

RegDwighт

That sic question is still giving me a vertigo.

tchrist

So I called a local youngster whom I’d heard use it to be reminded of it. He says now he just says danger (said like dang ’er) instead of the hoohoodilly kidsword.

RegDwighт

Millions of reps for everyone. Everyone!

Never heard of hoohoodilly.

tchrist

Well, it would be wrong if the reps were just for one person.

RegDwighт

There should be a sorting option that excludes stuff that got MCed.

tchrist

17:03

I think hoohoodilly is a Colorado version of wangadoodle.

Those are usually obvious.

RegDwighт

A Fish Called Wangadoodle.

That's almost an Indian name.

tchrist

Wangadoodle sounds like one of the acts from the “Puppetry of the Penis” show.

Where they would draw/sketch things.

Puppetry of the Penis

Puppetry of the Penis is a performance show. The show was initially conceived by Australian Simon Morley as the title of an art calendar, showcasing 12 of his favourite penis installations (known as Dick Tricks). On New Year's Eve in 1997 he had a garage full of calendars to sell, and with requests for live demonstrations mounting he finally decided to create an act with fellow Aussie David "Friendy" Friend. The act was first performed on the international stage at the 1998 Melbourne International Comedy Festival in Australia. The show involves two nude men who bend, twist, and fold the...

Why thank you. :)

RegDwighт

For some reason that reminds me of that YouTube video..

►

tchrist

There is nothing new under the sun.

I have only figured out one way to generate Necromancer badges, alas.

RegDwighт

Answering dupes?

tchrist

17:10

Pretty much. Or unclosed GR.

Cerberus

Hello.

tchrist

The thing is with Necromancer is that you don’t even have to be Accepted. So you just have to catch people’s interest.

RegDwighт

I remember how for my first Necromancer(s) I actually specifically waited for the question(s) to get old.

But getting five upvotes on it was hard.

Cerberus

Badge whore?

RegDwighт

Whoa, it's at 18 now.

Who'd have thunk.

It sat at 3 for years. Then at 4 for another years.

Cerberus

17:13

A miracle.

RegDwighт

Money for jam.

I didn't realize I could afford that much jam now.

tchrist

I am up to seven Necromancers now.

It is because I don’t like the old answers.

RegDwighт

Liqui Moly!

tchrist

I thought that was a bit tonguey.

RegDwighт

@tchrist yeah but the thought of wading through 18k questions looking for stuff I don't like...

tchrist

17:15

@RegDwighт It isn’t like you have to go long to find such.

RegDwighт

Probably not if you do. But I'm afraid to even try.

I usually only keep an eye on recent stuff that gets awful answers

tchrist

Yes, I noticed.

RegDwighт

Though I'll usually persuade others to answer.

tchrist

I was looking to see whether I could necro you, but you don’t do that much.

RegDwighт

I've been getting lots of Excavators, across the network.

That is more like me.

tchrist

17:18

I decided the only way to put Necro badges up on the board is to earn them. Too hard to search for applicable foursies.

Archaeologist?

RegDwighт

No, Excavator.

Editing old shit.

Don't even remember what Archaeologist was for.

tchrist

Excavator was one of my very first badges here.

Archaeologist is much more work.

There are only seven of us.

It is Excavator * 100.

RegDwighт

Oh, that.

Hm.

It's not a badge to aim for.

tchrist

Thee and me, and the usual suspects.

Mostly.

RegDwighт

It's one of those badges that really just happen one day.

tchrist

17:20

Yes, exactly. An unexpected surprise.

RegDwighт

Which was kind of the original idea behind having any badges.

tchrist

Which I know is redundant.

RegDwighт

These days it's all progress bars all over the place.

tchrist

Do you understand why?

Seems obvious.

They really want people to do that sort of grunt-work.

RegDwighт

Why progress badges?

Because people keep asking for them, that's why.

tchrist

17:21

If you mean the Review stuff.

RegDwighт

Oh that.

Well those aren't actually helping anywhere as much as they are putting me off.

tchrist

It is their way to get more people doing more work.

RegDwighт

You edited 183 stuffs! Now go edit 817 more!

tchrist

Hm, putting you off for which reason?

Oh right.

RegDwighт

It's a bore.

tchrist

17:23

Plus they have started limiting them.

RegDwighт

Limiting what?

tchrist

I used to be able to rack up 200 or 500 a day, and now it is down to 20.

You can only close-review 20 things a day.

RegDwighт

I noticed that I am only allowed to review 40 close votes on SO now.

Jinx.

tchrist

No matter votes.

Oh, is it 40?

RegDwighт

Well I always have 10 over.

And I have 50.

tchrist

17:24

Cause?

I wonder whether they don’t use a floating ceiling.

Raise the ceiling when they need more done.

RegDwighт

With 54k close votes to review they need a ceiling of 4000/day, not 40.

tchrist

They are afraid of people just hitting Do Not Close, or whatever, again and again and again and again.

RegDwighт

Yes, there've been complaints on MSO.

tchrist

I cannot figure out what a Do Not ... does. Nothing, I think.

RegDwighт

It does something now. Used to be not so.

tchrist

17:26

You realize this means one of two things, don’t you:

RegDwighт

They explained it in the recent podcast.

tchrist

Glad to see I'm not alone. I got a whole bunch of badges for answers that had been sitting not just at 9 or 24, but at 8 or 23 for like a year. — RegDwighт 41 mins ago

RegDwighт

Five Do Not Closes wipe the state clean, getting rid of any Closes.

tchrist

Oh really? That is very interesting. Good to know, thanks.

RegDwighт

Cue a meta question about how they're shooting themselves in the foot with that.

tchrist

17:27

Much easier than having you do a quick close and reopen. :)

RegDwighт

I don't quite remember if they invalidate the Closes immediately; I think they rather turn on vote aging without waiting for 100 views.

Something like that.

tchrist

If you got recently badged not merely for 9/24 but for 8/23, that either means multiple badgers or a sock or three. I am betting the former.

RegDwighт

Which sort of makes sense on SO where most questions get less than 100 views.

tchrist

< 100 views, not votes, right?

RegDwighт

@tchrist that crossed my mind. Both possibilities.

@tchrist brain fart.

tchrist

17:30

I was going through stuff looking for stuff I might Necromancer myself by answering, and I often up-ping things I think deserve it, whether they are at 9/24 or otherwise. That might be part of it.

Because I just hadn’t read a lot of those old answers.

I sometimes downping, too, but people don’t get badges for that.

It is possible other people are doing what I am doing. I don't know.

RegDwighт

It should be a moving threshold. So everyone keeps upvoting and upvoting and upvoting. Can't let this sit at 27! It must have 28!

tchrist

It is well known that there is vote inertia.

Upvoted stuff gets more upvoted, downvoted stuff gets more downvoted.

RegDwighт

That's how stock exchange works.

Or the market in general.

The rich get richer.

tchrist

Lemmings, but that insults the lemmings.

Speaking of lemmings, I turned in my vote and now I don’t get daily mailings and phone calls any more.

RegDwighт

I think it's just a very basic decision-making mechanism deeply wired in our brains.

Most decisions are ad hoc, using just a couple constraints. Everywhere in life.

tchrist

17:34

Easier that way.

RegDwighт

Mother nature knows what she's doing.

tchrist

The paths that required juggling 37 independent variables to arrive at a decision. . . perished.

RegDwighт

Don't need to eat a whole pizza to make up for the energy loss of a single decision.

We have way too huge brains anyway. A waste.

I read somewhere that 10% of the calorie intake of Tour de France cyclists is burnt in their brains, not legs.

tchrist

Now you are talking like a pregnant woman dreading delivery of a bigheaded baby.

RegDwighт

It's my Saturday hobby.

tchrist

17:38

Hm, somebody “just” Nice Answered me, but I see no Enlightened that goes along with it. I don’t think the Enlightened scripts runs very often.

Either that, or it is replacing some hole.

RegDwighт

Enlightened always takes a couple minutes longer.

But just a couple minutes.

tchrist

Weird.

38 minutes now.

RegDwighт

Hold your breath.

tchrist

10

A: Hwat, hwere, and hwy?

Hwoa! Hwat’s with the hwistling hwisky? > In which English accents do they put an h before every word that starts with wh? That isn’t what’s going on — you only think you hear an h, because your phoneme set doesn’t include this sound, but its use is pretty common in various accents. Which ...

No other answers.

I can only imagine that I got a retracted badge.

RegDwighт

I could dig up the time stamps on mine and make a comparison, but I'm lazy. Waiting is faster.

tchrist

17:39

If they reverse serial upvoters, you keep the badge but not the rep.

But the next time you should get it, you don’t.

RegDwighт

That's by design.

Badges are never retracted.

tchrist

Yes, I know. It makes me wonder whether that is the explanation for this occasion.

RegDwighт

Except tag badges.

tchrist

And whether this will now happen to @Rob et al., too, not just to me.

RegDwighт

@tchrist God you're so impatient.

tchrist

17:41

@RegDwighт 2 Peter 3:9

RegDwighт

Your latest Enlighteneds: oct 16 at 0:46 sep 21 at 1:23 sep 18 at 21:06; the corresponding Nice Answers: oct 11 at 22:53 sep 20 at 22:27 sep 17 at 5:30.

tchrist

So it is not every five minutes after all.

RegDwighт

Yeah... Guess I was speaking from own experience.

You can unhold your breath again.

Ima make me tea.

tchrist

Our lead tester just dumped 38 more megabytes of test data on me a few minutes ago, so that I can get something fixed without waiting till Monday. Need to go be about that.

RegDwighт

To each his own.

I prefer tea.

Cerberus

17:47

With milk.

tchrist

And honey.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus Who are you, an insane Englishman?

Cerberus

That wasn't a question!

RegDwighт

I drank a lot of tea with milk as a child. Wouldn't do that now. It's gross.

tchrist

. . .mad dogs and Englishmen. . .

Cerberus

17:48

It is the only way to drink tea.

The English rule tea.

In Europe, at least.

In Asia, it's China.

In Africa, it's Morocco.

RegDwighт

@Cerberus that reminds me of a children's book in which they made tea, but they had no milk, and no sugar, and no tea, so ended up drinking boiled water.

Cerberus

Haha.

That reminds of a the story about stone soup. Do you know it?

RegDwighт

Anyway, I'm AFK.

Cerberus

Aww.

RegDwighт

Yeah sorry. Post your story anyway.

Will read later.

Cerberus

17:49

Ok.

There was this wise man who was hungry.

He made a fire in the village square and put up a large kettle.

Some villagers walking buy asked him what he was doing.

He said, "I'm making stone soup."

"What is that?", the villagers asked. "How can you make soup from stone and rocks?"

"Just you wait", the old man said. "This is magical soup."

Some more villagers stopped to watch him.

He took several large rocks from a bag. Each stone he carefully dropped into the soup, with the appropriate incantations.

He tasted the soup. "Hmm this tastes quite good already!"

A few villagers asked sceptically, "may I taste it?"

"I'm afraid that is not possible", said the wise man, "not until it's finished".

He performed a few more spells and added a few more rocks.

"Now the soup is almost finished", he spoke to the crowd. "But I think it could profit from a bit of salt. Now where did I put my salt? Oh dear, I left it at home. Does anyone have some salt on hand?"

Robusto

Piano Sonata No. 29 (Beethoven)

Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106 (known as the Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, or more simply as the Hammerklavier) is a piano sonata widely considered to be one of the most important works of the composer's third period and among the greatest piano sonatas. It is widely considered Beethoven's single most challenging composition for the piano, and it remains one of the most challenging solo works in the classical piano repertoire. Composition Dedicated to his patron, the Archduke Rudolf, the sonata was written primarily from the summer of 1817 to th...

Cerberus

When a curious villager said, "certainly, I'll get you some salt", the wise man asked, "thank you very much; oh, if you're going to your house anyway, could get get some pepper and parsley too""

Once these ingredients had been added, he tasted again, and said, "this is delicious! I think it would be nigh perfect with some extra celery and carrot, but, alas, I'm out of carrots." Some villagers quickly fetched him the vegetables.

The same scene was repeated with mustard, cream, and beef.

At last, the wise man cried out, "it is perfect!"

Robusto

TL;DR

Cerberus

All the villagers received a cup of soup, and it was indeed delicious.

Some hams and bread and cheeses were brought to the square as well. And the whole village had a great meal and a great day. FIN

Robusto

And that, dear friends, is how the rhinoceros got its horn.

Cerberus

18:02

That was the story about stone soup.

Robusto

So I gathered. Thanks for sharing.

Cerberus

I'd do anything for you.

tchrist

►

Robusto

@Cerberus is the Artful Dodger.

Cerberus

How am I dodging?

tchrist

18:07

Have we all been here?

Cerberus

freewaregenius.com

tchrist

►

Cerberus

Is this page slow to load for you too? ^

tchrist

No.

Cerberus

Oh.

Weird.

It's always slow for me.

tchrist

18:08

It is a very famous street.

And masterfully done.

Cerberus

@tchrist I know this song.

tchrist

Oh, how strange. The actor who played Oliver grew up to be the godfather (and possible sperm donor) of Michael Jackson’s children.

Mark Lester

Mark Lester (born Mark A. Letzer; 11 July 1958) is an English former child star and actor known for playing the title role in the 1968 musical film version of Oliver! and starring in a number of other British and European films of the 1960s and 70s and in a number of television series. Early life Lester was born in the city of Oxford in Oxfordshire in Southern England, to actress Rita Keene Lester and actor and producer Michael Lester (originally Michael Boris Letzer). His father was Jewish and his mother Anglican. Lester was educated at three independent schools: at Corona Theatre Scho...

Cerberus

@tchrist Nice. I had never seen it, only heard it. The ballet is quite good.

tchrist

It really is.

Gigili

18:36

Hi @Cerberus, is there a way to lock the phone?

Cerberus

@Gigili What do you mean lock?

There are many different kinds.

Gigili

Umm, OK. I should have googled it first.

Thanks.

Cerberus

If you will just describe in more detail what you mean?

The phone has a slide lock turned on by default, so you probably don't mean that.

@Gigili Go to Settings>Security.

RegDwighт

@Robusto yes. So? Just what I said.

And I'm off again! This tea is really good and I have some stupid movie on hold.

Cerberus

19:21

mapfrappe.com/?show=7199

You can create your own outlines and comparisons, and drag them around the map.

So @Davidwallace, you could cram Europe into the Tasman Sea.

Some folding would be required, though.

The map corrects for/against Google Maps' Mercator projection.

To Portugal: I'm sorry I cut off your nose.

I started at Gibraltar, and I was a bit sloppy at first.

So seeing Sydney from NZ is like seeing Greece from Spain.

Robusto

@RegDwighт Whatever you say means whatever you want. I think we've all come to understand that.

Mitch

@Cerberus so the real question..was CR=XVH messing with us when he asked that?

Cerberus

Hehe.

I don't think he was.

Mitch

I get some trolling behavior, but that just wouldn't have made sense to troll like that.

@Cerberus +1

Cerberus

Mitch

19:31

@Cerberus: what do you call a pastry that is like a croissant, but not curved, and has chocolate in the middle?

Cerberus

mapfrappe.com/?show=7200

@Mitch Ehm I think we would call it a chocoladebroodje.

Maybe a chocolate bun for you?

Mitch

@Cerberus In France there's a recent kerfuffle about 'pain au chocolat'

Cerberus

Funny. Your country is almost the same size as Australia.

@Mitch Haha, oh, dear.

Mitch

In the US we cal it 'pain au chocolat'. the only political consideration being that it's kind of frou-frou to even ask for it. (there are no other words I think)

Cerberus

@Mitch Chocoladebroodje = little chocolate bread.

Asking for it in French would indeed be a bit pretentious.

Mitch

19:35

@Cerberus yeah, but we'd kick their ass in a head to head natural disaster competition. all they got it desert (and more small animals that can kill you). we got hurricanes -and- tornadoes -and- earthquakes). we're about even with sharks and brush fires.

Cerberus

On the other hand, if it were truly made according to the French recipe and put on the menu such, one could order a pain au chocolat.

Mitch

@Cerberus I just wondered if the french terms had slid over.

Cerberus

@Mitch They have more poisonous animals, more sharks...

BRB groceries.

Mitch

over the border from french speaking belgium through flanders to your area.

@Cerberus yes, more poisonous animals... I'll give you sharks.

Hey Mahnax...sorry to leave as you arrive...annoying things call (work stuff)

Mahnax

Oh hi. No need to apologize.

cornbread ninja

19:51

hiyo

Robusto

@Mitch Petit-pain?

Mahnax

@cornbreadninja Hi!

Robusto

You all would have guessed who edited a post to put in curly quotes. :)

That might not have been his only reason, of course, but it made me smile.

Mahnax

Haha, nice.

cornbread ninja

@Mahnax bonjour!

Mahnax

19:58

@cornbreadninja How are you today?

cornbread ninja

terribly clean at the moment. fixing up my unix logs for class.

how are you?

it's 6 outside. :(

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