English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

alphabet

00:04

@jlliagre I dunno. Maybe that just means most people don't fully realize they've reached midlife until they're well past it.

CowperKettle

02:00

> Pogs - (Internet slang, text messaging, Twitch-speak) - A phrase that positively compliments something. Ex. praise. "Pogs in the chat!"

tchrist

02:15

@Vikas Doctors who prescribe antibacterials for viral infections are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

@HippoSawrUs Fear not, for those who know more than you will correct you if you are wrong, just as those who know less than you will correct you if you are right.

@CowperKettle Welcome comrade! At the United Nations, America has now clearly realigned itself with the Axis of Evil. It's hard to wake up in the morning and find that you're playing on Team Bad Guys now.

HippoSawrUs

02:50

@tchrist Yes, I will delete it all. I just wanted the OP to know what ppl might actually say. IDC now.

And you know I was referring to a…horse maybe, pointing in some direction

And that JC Superstar is just cussing in the South

Færd

03:09

currently reading récoltes et semailles by alexander grothendieck

@tchrist that's a harsh judgment

to pass on yourself i mean

salut!

CowperKettle

03:43

@tchrist Don't take it close to heart! Things are always changing.

Xanne

04:42

Connections
Puzzle #625
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Xanne

04:52

Strands #359
“Life is like a box of chocolates”
🔵🔵💡🔵
🟡🔵🔵🔵

CowperKettle

05:36

Underwater hockey

Underwater hockey (UWH), also known as Octopush in the United Kingdom, is a globally played limited-contact sport in which two teams compete to manoeuvre a puck across the bottom of a swimming pool into the opposing team's goal by propelling it with a hockey stick (or pusher). A key challenge of the game is that players are not able to use breathing devices such as scuba gear whilst playing, they must hold their breath. The game originated in Portsmouth, England in 1954 when Alan Blake, a founder of the newly formed Southsea Sub-Aqua Club, invented the game he called Octopush as a means of keeping...

Sport of the day

@Færd This is cool!

Alexander Grothendieck

Alexander Grothendieck, later Alexandre Grothendieck in French (; German: [ˌalɛˈksandɐ ˈɡʁoːtn̩ˌdiːk] ; French: [ɡʁɔtɛndik]; 28 March 1928 – 13 November 2014), was a German-born French mathematician who became the leading figure in the creation of modern algebraic geometry. His research extended the scope of the field and added elements of commutative algebra, homological algebra, sheaf theory, and category theory to its foundations, while his so-called "relative" perspective led to revolutionary advances in many areas of pure mathematics. He is considered by many to be the greatest mathematician...

CowperKettle

05:54

Xanne

@Færd Nice to see you again. I hope you are getting along well, whatever it is you have decided you don’t want to do.

SmokeDetector

07:05

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at beginning of answer (40): What is the origin of the expression "seeing red" in reference to "being angry"?‭ by Harriss Bisby‭ on english.SE

M.A.R.

@Vikas there are two major ways we administer antibiotics: Either we take an infected sample and grow the microbes in it in a lab to determine what the infection is precisely caused by, which is how it's commonly done when you have the available time and resources, or we administer them based on wat we suspect the infection is caused by, based on previous experience, patterns of the infection, symptoms etc. The latter is called empiric antibiotic therapy.

The established consensus is empiric antibiotic therapy for common cold in healthy adults is not recommended, because the significant majority or these infections are caused by half a dozen completely different viruses. Antibiotics (like azithromycin) kill bacteria; they have no effect on viruses.

In other words, the cost of treating otherwise healthy aduls with symptoms of common cold (which is antibiotic resistance) is more than the benefit it would have on the few cases where the infection is bacterial, and not viral.

There is unfortunately no way to definitively tell them apart, a viral and a bacterial 'cold', based on signs and symptoms alone, and sample culture would simply be too expensive and impractical for every case. There are some patterns though. For example, if you're not coughing at all and you have inflamed tonsils or throat, it's more likely to be a bacterial infection than if you do cough.

What this means, practically, is that unless you have a condition that compromises your immune system, you shouldn't take antibiotics (azithromycin, amoxicillin-clavulanate, ceftriaxone, levofloxacin etc.) and let the cold run its course. You can take antihistamines to relieve the symptoms (runny nose, itchy throat, coughing etc.) but there is no magic pill to make it go away.

If, after, say, ten days to two weeks, your cold is getting worse instead of better, you develop new symptoms (like shortness of breath, pain in the ear and so on) then it's more likely to be a bacterial infection, and treatment with antibiotics is reasonable.

Even then, there's a proper antibiotics treatment protocol to follow. Just azithromycin won't be enough.

So, for once, chatGPT regurgitated its stolen feed properly.

OMG @Færd! Long time no chat! What's up? How are you doing these days?

Well let's just pretend my several typos up there aren't there.

New device. My hands aren't comfortable around the keyboard yet.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, in Iran, and I suspect also in India, some doctors will probably prescribe antibiotics anyway, because they don't care about antibiotic resistance or drug side effects @Vikas. It's their diagnosis though, so the best approach, paradoxically, would be to follow their advice as closely as you can, because they have the most oversight over your health.

2

Deciding not to take the pill the doctor prescribed because of some random dude on the internet is how serious medical errors happen later on.

CowperKettle

08:34

Gloves worn on handlebars are called pogs, according to Criggie.

pogie

Noun: pogie (plural pogies)

Alternative form of pogy (“type of fish”)
pogie (plural pogies)
(rowing, kayaking) A protective hand covering attached to the oars or paddles while rowing, canoeing or kayaking. They insulate the hands from wind and cold while allowing the bare hands inside to contact the paddle shaft or oar and maintain grip and feel.
2000 November 12, Merill Hilf, ‘Tis the Season to Layer, Rowing News, page 4,
Pogies are essential for winter rowing, and I also favor sock liners made of wool, silk, or polypropylene worn under a nice thick pair of wool socks. […] A pogie is basically a mitten worn over your hand with a hole in the side for the oar handle.
(cycling, motorcycling) A protective hand covering, sometimes insulated, attached to handlebars to protect hands from wind and precipitation.

Ah! Pogies really

jlliagre

09:24

@Færd Last week, Colin McLarty asked a question about that book on FrenchSE.

Vikas

11:12

@M.A.R. So they prescribe it to target all possibilities instead of waiting to confirm the cause.

@M.A.R. Yes. I've prescribed myself to not go to any doctor for next 3-4 days. By then, I'd know if it's going away or it's becoming more serious.

@M.A.R. Is this "antihistamines" drug same as Cetirizine pills? I think it's over the counter pill. I remember my friend would take it but I don't know for what symptoms. Probably cold.

I don't know any over the counter pills for cold that I can take for initial symptoms like paracetamol is for fever.

I can easily get them from pharmacy by telling symptoms though. No prescriptions needed.

Michael Rybkin

11:42

Hi, guys. Can I check with you these sentences? Do they sound natural enough to say?

1. This technology is what made human civilization thrive on the planet.
2. He's a person of outstanding talent!
3. He has a talent for programming.
4. It doesn't seem to be worth the effort to do that.
5. I love this jam! Awesome guitar work!
6. It's bumming me out. I hate this situation.
7. That's the saddest song I've ever heard.
8. I'm not a people person. I don't like to be around people.

CowperKettle

12:03

Vikas

13:34

I used copilot to translate some nice poetry in English:

Mirza Ghalib: "Let me drink in the mosque, Or tell me a place where God is not."

Iqbal: "The mosque is God's house, not a place to drink, Go to the heart of an infidel, for God is not there."

Ahmad Faraz: "I have come from the heart of an infidel, seeing this, God is present there, but He is unaware."

Færd

14:31

@Xanne nice to see you too! thank you.

@M.A.R. hey MAR :) happy to see you! for now i'm mostly reading and taking notes and going on walls and stuff for a bit. what about you?

@jlliagre interesting. what do you think, generally and at first glance, about the writing style?

GratefulDisciple

15:01

@MichaelRybkin All sound natural. For #1 I would simplify: "This technology helped human civilization thrive on the planet."

Connections
Puzzle #625
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🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟪🟪🟪
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@Mitch Thonny is simpler for beginner yet has excellent debugging features that help me explain programming language concepts such as stacks, heap, lvalue vs. rvalue, variable scoping, etc. So I think I'll use that for a few months then go to PyCharm or vscode.

Mitch

15:49

@Færd as satisfying as squashing bugs.

Literally, like stray ants.

Michael Rybkin

@GratefulDisciple Thank you very much for your invaluable help.

What exactly are they saying with that joke? I don't get it.

Mitch

@GratefulDisciple are you trying to teach them just Python or CS in general including programming language concepts?

@MichaelRybkin I don't get it either. Presumably there is some pun involving 'peaks' and birds and finishing people off (killing them all?) but I can't figure it out.

Michael Rybkin

@Mitch Thank you.

Mitch

@CowperKettle they're not exactly gloves. Rather they are things on handles that protect your hands or keep your hands warm.

Which is to say pigs can take the form of a glove, but it is attached to a handle.

The word is very strange sounding and rare. It is using elementary (totally normal) sound patterns in English, like it should be a word, but is so rare that it sounds like a nonsense word

jlliagre

@Færd I'm far to have read even a tiny portion of Récoltes et semailles and I'm even further from being able to grasp the mathematical concepts presented but everything I read so far was very nicely written.

GratefulDisciple

16:26

@Mitch CS in general, sorry should have been more clear. I believe in college CS curriculum for broadening one's horizon. In the transition era to AI-centric computing solutions, that's even more important.

There was one book that came out when I was in college (but we didn't use this): Foundations of Computer Science by the authors of the Dragon book. While I wouldn't go into that depth, I'd like to cover most of the topics there and supplement it with the machinery of computers, systems, networks, and databases.

MetaEd

17:55

Wordle 1,347 3/6

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Mitch

@M.A.R. It's very frustrating when ChatGPT gets something correct because then still, just because it is typed out on the screen, you believe it has some kind of authority, but because it has gotten things wrong often enough, you sort of doubt what is actually the case.

MetaEd

Strands #359
“Life is like a box of chocolates”
🟡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🔵🔵

Connections
Puzzle #625
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨

@Mitch so it's exactly like reading the newspaper

M.A.R.

18:31

@Vikas drugs that block histamine receptors are antihistamines. Cetirizine is an antihistamine that's kinda somewhere between 1st-gen and 2nd-gen antihistamines, so it's sedating but not that sedating.

MetaEd

Is cetirizine the one that was recently said to be ineffective? Or what was that

M.A.R.

Those were decongestants

MetaEd

gotcha

GratefulDisciple

@MetaEd I was going to say the same thing!

M.A.R.

Phenylephrine, for example

@Færd bored and lazy, and I probably have been since we last chatted (chaught?)

Why is "chaught" not a thing?

Chat chaught choten

GratefulDisciple

19:13

@CowperKettle Don't give TCG ideas! He might countername it to Lake of Hawaii or Sea of Western America.

MetaEd

20:06

@M.A.R. chit, chatte, gechotten

don't freak, but this is fraught

Mitch

@MetaEd I trust journalists (live human beings) and respected institutions more. Yes, they aren't perfect, and their statements are often unreliable and uncheckable, but LLMs are much much worse.

GratefulDisciple

20:45

@Mitch Correction, this is the book I'm planning to use Great Ideas in Computer Science (2001) which is an update of the 1st edition (1990). That Foundations book is good for going in depth in data structures & algorithms, good for the 2nd book.

CowperKettle

Phone wet? Put it in rice. Add 1/2 tsp salt, two cups water, and your earbuds. Bring to a simmer.

@M.A.R. And in Russia

MetaEd

21:07

@Mitch sure -- because then you have LLMs reading the newspaper

And I don't trust journalists. Not that I think journalists as a class are actually trying to write lies. Most are probably doing their best. But I know for a fact that software and hardware reporting is terrible, and science reporting is terrible, so I pretty much think the rest is terrible too, and I don't trust the output.

GratefulDisciple

@MetaEd Sounds more natural. How would you do a similar verb "chant" ?

MetaEd

@GratefulDisciple it's clearly a contraction. Chin, chan, chun. Chin't, chan't, chun't.

GratefulDisciple

@MetaEd "software and hardware reporting is terrible" Would you make an exception for The A Register whose motto is "Biting the hand that feeds IT"? Nothing better than adversarial reporting.

@MetaEd :-)

GratefulDisciple

21:32

@Mitch "but LLMs are much much worse" and can cost you a $5K fine each and possibly disbar you if you accumulate too many "points"?

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…