English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

13:00

He's often the tallest person in the room even without heels (I don't think he wears any).

Matt Эллен

put your foot in it

Cerberus

Ohh foot in your mouth.

Matt Эллен

aye :D

Cerberus

As long as you don't put it in the transvestite's mouth.

She might nip it off.

Matt Эллен

!! I need them for cycling

Cerberus

13:02

They have fairly good prosthetic legs these days.

Matt Эллен

that's true

Cerberus

Of course you will have to go through life on all fours.

Matt Эллен

I could be a cyborg cyclist

Cerberus

Surely you're not too good for that?

Yes!

Matt Эллен

I wonder if I would go faster or slower...

Cerberus

13:04

If they attach the bike to your body mechanically...

Then you're like some biological engine attachment.

The bike will like that.

Matt Эллен

:O

but will the military mount guns on me and send me to war?! I'm a peaceful cybike.

Jez

what is wrong with my body? my kidneys hurt.

Cerberus

You could do some scouting.

Your kidneys?

See your doctor right away.

Jez

well that's the area

Cerberus

And drink lots of water.

Jez

13:06

it's only a faint pain

Matt Эллен

@Jez kidney stones, kidney infection, some form of autoimmune disease that destroys your kidneys, maybe someone punched you in the kidneys last night. Did you binge drink recently?

Jez

nah not binge drink

Matt Эллен

@Jez you probably have trapped wind or constipation then.

Jez

well it's been for like a week

Matt Эллен

oh

Cerberus

13:07

Is it getting better or worse?

Jez

staying the same

Matt Эллен

you could try the NHS self diagnosis page

or go chat with your local chemist

Jez

that thing is a joke

99% of the time it tells you to see your GP

Matt Эллен

yup :D

Cerberus

Then do so.

Jez

13:10

"Do any of the following apply to your stools (poo)?"

hahahaha

Cerberus

Well.

Jez

trouble is, you go to your doctor with a faint pain and they probably wont care

they wonder why guys don't go to the doctor. it's not because we're shy, it's because it's a waste of time

Matt Эллен

yep. I normally go to the doctor when I already know what is wrong, so I can describe the symptoms to get them to give the medication I need.

Mitch

@DavidWallace well that's just an abuse of the laws of physics. If you keep acting like that you'll wake up one day knowing everything about Kelly Osbourne and no time to do anything about it.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Yeah I do that too.

Jez

13:14

i kind of wish the pain were worse. right now it's like an intermittent bug in a program

very hard to diganose

Cerberus

Heh.

It's probably nothing.

SF.

@Mitch: huh?

Cerberus

But still, if it is really abnormal, and you normally rarely see your doctor, and it has been like this for a week, go see him/her.

Matt Эллен

Aye

Doctors are a lot better at diagnosing medical conditions than people in EL&U chat

Jez

depends what you mean by "really"

Matt Эллен

13:17

@Mitch was there ever any time?

MετάEd

The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental Literature

No idea if this is a good book, but it's a great title.

Matt Эллен

Maybe there's a politician who did a book review?

Santorum on The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental Literature

MετάEd

books.google.com/…

Oh, look. Now you've got your santorum on my pillow book.

Matt Эллен

Is the whole thing available on Google Books?

no. it's not

> Pages 25 to 257 are not shown in this preview.

MετάEd

The first step in finding out if it is a real word is defining "real word". That is not a term I am familiar with. What words do you consider imaginary? — RegDwighт 3 mins ago

Matt Эллен

13:26

lol

MετάEd

holds an imaginary conversation with Reg

JSBձոգչ

@cornbreadninja the pepper jack looks good! i took it out of the mold a few days ago, and it's currently drying. it has a good shape and smell. i'll wax it tonight then put it away to age for 3 months.

Cerberus

Interesting.

It does sound like a lot of work...

JSBձոգչ

but at the end you get cheese!

RegDwighт

dances around the cheese

Cerberus

13:30

Then again, I shouldn't be talking, as I made filled chocolates.

Robusto

Pepperjack loaf. From a bakery near my house.

RegDwighт

That is not cheese.

Cerberus

@JSBձոգչ But can you tell beforehand whether it will be good?

JSBձոգչ

and with the dregs of the milk i made some really fantastic sour cream

Cerberus

Better than store-bought cheese?

JSBձոգչ

13:30

@Cerberus you can make a guess, but it's hard to be sure

that's part of the fun

@Cerberus yes

Cerberus

Hmm.

Forgive me.

JSBձոգչ

i have high confidence in my cheddar and monterey jacks, since i'm pretty familiar with those

Cerberus

suppresses scepsis

or scepsin

JSBձոգչ

we'll see if my parmesan turns out. the problem is that that guy has to age for a year

*skepsis

Cerberus

Ohh parmesan.

Matt Эллен

13:31

sepsis

Cerberus

No, no, I like the c.

Robusto

slowrise.com/ourbreads/ourbreads.php

RegDwighт

Nashoba sounds like a curse word in at least thirty seven languages.

Robusto

@JSBձոգչ You make them from raw milk?

Cerberus

Raw-milk cheese is the best!

Robusto

13:32

I don't think you can make cheese from pasteurized milk. Correct me if I'm wrong.

RegDwighт

And I am somewhat certain that brook is a curse word in the other four thousand nine hundred sixty three.

Robusto

Sigh

Cerberus

Most cheeses are made from non-raw milk, I believe—whatever that is.

Robusto

The Raw and the Cooked

The Raw and the Cooked is the first volume from Mythologiques, a structural study of Amerindian mythology written by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. The original French title was Le Cru et le cuit. In the introduction, Lévi-Strauss writes of his confidence that "certain categorical opposites drawn from everyday experience with the most basic sorts of things — e.g. 'raw' and 'cooked,' 'fresh' and 'rotten,' 'moist' and 'parched,' and others — can serve a people as conceptual tools for the formation of abstract notions and for combining these into propositions." Beginning with a ...

This is all mythology. Cheese mythology.

Cerberus

Ah yes.

Lévi-Strauss.

RegDwighт

13:34

@Robusto you can always add bacteria later. You kind of have to anyway, see rennet.

Cerberus

OMG I'm surrounded by cheese freaks.

Robusto

Bacteria adds itself later, whether you want it to or not.

Cerberus

*add

RegDwighт

QED.

Cerberus

*themselves

*them

JSBձոգչ

13:35

@Robusto yes. bought from a dairy a few miles away.

Robusto

@Cerberus *pedant

*prig

JSBձոգչ

@Robusto you can make a tolerable cheese from pasteurized milk, but it depends on the kind

Robusto

*fussbudget

JSBձոգչ

the kind of cheese, and the degree of pasteurization

Cerberus

Have ever denied that?

Robusto

13:36

I just asserted that.

Cerberus

And I just asserted the other thing.

Robusto

Or perhaps I reaffirmed it. How will we ever know?

Cerberus

It's funny how the singular is sometimes bacter, sometimes bacterium.

Somebody messed up.

Robusto

@Cerberus You show startling omissions of syntax for someone who purports to be a prig, a pedant, and a fussbudget.

Cerberus

Must be God.

Matt Эллен

13:37

@Cerberus no, no. The plural is bacterias.

JSBձոգչ

    /// <summary>
    /// "Close" the message bar. This method does nothing.
    /// </summary>
    public void Close()
    {
        // do nothing
    }

man, i wish all my code was this easy to write

tchrist

*were

Cerberus

@Robusto I'm just modest. I don't like drawing too much attention to.

Robusto

@JSBձոգչ I would refactor that as

   /// <summary>
    /// "Close" the message bar. This method does nothing.
    /// </summary>
    public void Close()
    {
        // noop
    }

JSBձոգչ

@tchrist begone from me, vile prescriptivist with your damnable subjunctives! Piei diavole!

Cerberus

13:38

@MattЭллен smack

Matt Эллен

:D

Cerberus

fiery rain descends upon JSB

Robusto

noop uses six fewer characters than do nothing

Cerberus

flaming lava erupts from the rocks

JSBձոգչ

@Robusto yes, but i have to maintain compatibility with idiots who don't know what noop means

tchrist

13:39

Too many comments.

Matt Эллен

Too few comments.

Robusto

/* no comment */

Cerberus

Too much talk, too little cheese.

JSBձոգչ

@tchrist sub close{}. better?

tchrist

Too much obtrusive markup.

Duh.

Matt Эллен

13:40

Just the right amount of comment.

That's how you know it was written by baby bear

Cerberus

►

Most realistic collisions in a game engine ever.

tchrist

Better to declare it but not define it, so that anything calling it takes an exception as an undefined method.

Robusto

@JSBձոգչ You should use a framework for that. Call the slacker method of the DoNothing class.

Cerberus

Looks very real, all in-game graphics.

tchrist

> sub close {die}

Also works.

Cerberus

13:41

You can literally see cars fold around poles.

tchrist

Although confess might be more suitable to a long litany of sinful revelations.

JSBձոգչ

@tchrist no no no no no. that does something.

SF.

Are there even that many languages?

JSBձոգչ

@SF. how many?

Robusto

public void AutoDaFe(heretic)
{
    // burn heretic here
}

Matt Эллен

13:43

@SF. one for every person in the world

tchrist

At least in Perl, we can spell things correctly.

> sub auto_dà_fe { }

Matt Эллен

you can do that in c#

tchrist

Then why don’t people?

JSBձոգչ

@tchrist does newfangled perl allow non-ASCII unicode chars as regex separators?

Robusto

@tchrist Dùh.

SF.

13:44

> RegDwighт
> And I am somewhat certain that brook is a curse word in the other four thousand nine hundred sixty three.

Somehow my scrolling stopped...

Robusto

Albert Brooks. No, really.

JSBձոգչ

eg s◊text◊othertext◊;

tchrist

Theyseemtothinkthatyoudonotneedspacestoreadseparatewordswhichissomethingthatifor‌onehavemorethanalittletroublewithbutidonotknowaboutotherpeoplewhomighthavesomeone‌gottenusedtothisstyleofillegibilitybynowunderthemodernbusinessorientednoneducatio‌nalsystemthatseemsdominanttoday.

Sure.

Robusto

ididnthaveanytroublereadingthat.

tchrist

Well, I think so.

Gigili

13:46

Hillo.

tchrist

*A ver. . . *

Robusto

Hi-lo, Gigili.

Matt Эллен

@tchrist I think you meant somewhat

JSBձոգչ

good. now i have an ambition to write an entire perl program in which none of the characters can be typed on a standard keyboard

RegDwighт

Юаролнатс.

Robusto

13:46

@Gigili: Do you pronounce your name giggly or jiggly?

Or something else entirely?

tchrist

Maybe not.

SF.

In Ruby you can name a function λ

Gigili

@Robusto The former.

RegDwighт

In Turbo Pascal you can name a function Susan.

Robusto

@SF. Don't you have to pronounce that with a Lisp?

tchrist

13:47

I always write someone for somewhat. I have no idea why.

SF.

Or ∫

Robusto

@RegDwighт Also in Javascript. Also LazySusan.

tchrist

@JSBձոգչ Weird, you cannot do that. I know there was discussion about using the mirrored Unicode characters for paired delimiters.

RegDwighт

@Robusto not in Piet, though.

Robusto

Mondrian?

SF.

13:48

@tchrist: like d and b ?

Robusto

function LazySusan() {
   // revolve slowly, burning heretics ad libitum
}

tchrist

@SF. No, the BidiMirroring code points.

Matt Эллен

d-_-b

tchrist

Damn it I had a program that showed those, and now I cannot find it.

Cerberus

Gigili

13:51

I have a question!

Cerberus

That thumb-down is mine.

tchrist

208D; 208E # SUBSCRIPT LEFT PARENTHESIS
208E; 208D # SUBSCRIPT RIGHT PARENTHESIS
2208; 220B # ELEMENT OF
2209; 220C # NOT AN ELEMENT OF
220A; 220D # SMALL ELEMENT OF
220B; 2208 # CONTAINS AS MEMBER
220C; 2209 # DOES NOT CONTAIN AS MEMBER
220D; 220A # SMALL CONTAINS AS MEMBER
2215; 29F5 # DIVISION SLASH
223C; 223D # TILDE OPERATOR

Gigili

The Free Dictionary says:

tchrist

Things like that.

Gigili

> Probably from to get someone's shirt out, to annoy.

Cerberus

13:52

@SF. Shhh...

Gigili

But some other sources claim it means to get annoyed.

Which one is correct?

Robusto

Matt Эллен

@Gigili if you get someone's shirt out, then you annoy them.

@Robusto kill it from the task manager and forget about it

Gigili

@MattЭллен Right.

So this is wrong?

Cerberus

@Robusto Yes! I just found out last week that you can't tell it to shut up.

Gigili

13:54

> “to get one’s shirt out” (meaning to get annoyed)

Cerberus

You can only postpone it for like 4 hours max.

How crazy is that?

Matt Эллен

@Gigili no.

tchrist

@SF. Actually that one is explicitly listed in the BidiMirroring.txt file as having no correct glyph.

Gigili

I'm confused!

Cerberus

Windows updates suck @mrshinyandnew.

tchrist

13:54

# The following characters have no appropriate mirroring character.
# For these characters it is up to the rendering system
# to provide mirrored glyphs.
# 2224; DOES NOT DIVIDE
# 2226; NOT PARALLEL TO
# 222B; INTEGRAL
# 222C; DOUBLE INTEGRAL
# 222D; TRIPLE INTEGRAL
# 222E; CONTOUR INTEGRAL

SF.

Gawd... @Robusto: Some day I'll go postal at Microsoft. I have to leave to work NOW. I start the PC to set up downloads that should last some 10 hours until I'm back. And this thing pops up.

RegDwighт

@MattЭллен that works?

Matt Эллен

@Gigili "He got my shirt out" = "He annoyed me"

@RegDwighт it respawns but does not display.

tchrist

@MattЭллен Where?

RegDwighт

@MattЭллен wait, if it respawns it does reboot automatically after its default threshold, no?

Matt Эллен

13:56

@tchrist hypothetically. I'm not actually annoyed.

@RegDwighт nope

RegDwighт

Strange.

tchrist

I know not the turn of phrase.

RegDwighт

Well, I'll try it out.

Thanks.

Gigili

@MattЭллен And "I got my shirt out"= "I'm annoyed"?

Both are saying the same thing?

I think I got it!

SF.

No, Gigli. I got his shirt out: I annoyed him, he's annoyed (by me)

Matt Эллен

13:57

@tchrist Nor did I until this question arose

@Gigili yes

SF.

He got my shirt out, he annoyed me, I'm annoyed by him.

MετάEd

@Cerberus You certainly can tell it to shut up. You set it to not check for updates in the first place.

Then you do your own scans for updates, when you want to, and when you are willing to reboot.

@MattЭллен That's kind of a shirty question, really.

Matt Эллен

@MετάEd alright! keep your shirt on!

Cerberus

@MετάEd That's exactly what I do.

This is in a long discussion about the merits and demerits of automatic updates in Windows.

Gigili

Thank you @Matt and @SF.

MετάEd

14:04

@Cerberus Except when I run into an actual technical problem, the only time I update is when Secunia PSI tells me there's an important security update for my system.

Matt Эллен

@Gigili no trouble :)

Cerberus

Secunia?

Like pecunia?

I could do with some pecunia.

MετάEd

@Cerberus secunia.com/products/consumer/psi/sys_req

Matt Эллен

CSI Petunia — for the garden variety crimes.

MετάEd

Free security software.

Cerberus

14:05

Ah.

Robusto

@SF. Microsoft (read: the hacker community) finds a "critical" security flaw in Windows about every three days, and it usually requires a reboot.

What are we up to now? OVER 9000 "critical security flaws" in Windows?

Cerberus

nods

Robusto

Then it's flaws patching flaws. There's no code left, just bug fixes.

Matt Эллен

if we find the master bug and kill it will all the other bugs revert to good code?

Robusto

Are you talking about the Sauron Bug?

Matt Эллен

14:10

The One True Bug!

SF.

@Robusto: I notice every time you get some 12-15 upgrades, there are 3 new ones in about two days. Most likely patching errors in some of these 12-15

MετάEd

@Cerberus For example today Secunia tells me there were critical flaws fixed in Adobe AIR, Flash, QuickTime, and Opera 12 that I haven't yet patched on my PC.

Robusto

And they still haven't put any resources into improving IE's Internet Options interface.

SF.

@MattЭллен: I even know where that bug lies. In the land of Redmont, where the shadows lie.

Matt Эллен

lol

JSBձոգչ

14:11

to be fair, my ubuntu laptop gets updates at roughly the same frequency as my windows box

Cerberus

@MετάEd How do you feel about the word "critical"?

SF.

Nuke it from the orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

JSBձոգչ

or at least it did until i turned off automatic updates

Cerberus

@JSBձոգչ "Gets"?

MετάEd

Microsoft is a bug.

Cerberus

14:11

@JSBձոգչ Ah yes.

Robusto

@Cerberus Would you prefer if we called them judgmental flaws?

Cerberus

Haha.

JSBձոգչ

@Cerberus i turned off updates in ubuntu. not windows.

Matt Эллен

remote access features

Cerberus

@Robusto Judgmental beetles, rather.

JSBձոգչ

14:12

now i just apt-get update; apt-get upgrade every couple of weeks

Cerberus

@JSBձոգչ Yes.

Matt Эллен

But with ubuntu, unless the Kernel updates, you don't have to reboot

JSBձոգչ

then it tells me that i don't have rights, and i have to retype the whole thing with sudo in front

MετάEd

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Redmond where the Shadows lie.
One Bug to rule them all, One Bug to find them,
One Bug to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Redmond where the Shadows lie.

SF.

@JSBձոգչ: My too, but it doesn't force me to reboot nearly as often. And doesn't force me to reboot when I absolutely have no intention of rebooting.

MετάEd

14:13

@JSBձոգչ You can automate that.

And make a little popup every four hours :-)

JSBձոգչ

1 min ago, by JSBձոգչ

or at least it did until i turned off automatic updates

Cerberus

If I have to install 50 critical updates in my Windows over 2012, that means there were at least 50 critical holes in my Windows in 2011.

Will this frequency ever decrease? No.

Robusto

Automatic updates turn me off.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Not until they start firing bug developers.

Cerberus

So there are likely to be 50+ holes in my Windows in 2012 as well.

So what does it matter if I patch a couple?

It's a never-ending cycle.

JSBձոգչ

14:14

the "problem" here is that MS treats all security bugs as critical. this is not actually a problem, but it decreases perceived quality since there's all these "critical" updates all the time

Robusto

@Cerberus Well, since you're still running XP, we can only imagine what your codez must look like by now. Probably like jeans that are all patches.

Cerberus

Do you see the flawed logic in "urgent" security updates?

Robusto

@JSBձոգչ They do that to lull you into a false sense of insecurity.

Cerberus

@Robusto Perhaps that is just en vogue.

@Robusto Exactly!

SF.

My friend switched automatic updates off, after Microsoft pushed a CRITICAL update that consisted of removing the swastika from Windings.

Cerberus

14:16

Haha seriously??

Are you making this up?

Robusto

Then when a real zero-day exploit comes out, people just figure, "Oh well, it's just another routine problem."

Cerberus

Of course.

SF.

@Cerberus: Totally serious. But that was sometime like early XP or even before.

JSBձոգչ

@SF. i'm sure it was critical because someone was going to sue the bejeezus out of them otherwise

Cerberus

Not to mention the fact that you will always be subject to lots of such "real" exploits, because they will have been there since you installed the OS. The moment of their discovery is unrelated.

Robusto

14:17

☭

Cerberus

@SF. Haha incredible.

Matt Эллен

☭

Cerberus

@JSBձոգչ Time to change the judicial system. High time.

Okay, I need to think of funner stuff.

This is too depressing.

@MattЭллен Better!

Matt Эллен

Robusto

@MattЭллен Puss In Boots?

Matt Эллен

14:20

indeed!

SF.

I also liked how they pushed updates that fix calculations of daylight saving changes for the year 2011. They pushed it in december 2011.

Robusto

Terminal cuteness.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Yay!

Robusto

@SF. Hahaha. Yes, I remember that.

JSBձոգչ

@SF. again, this is important for people who need to do datetime calculations for the past year. it's not just important on the day of the switch.

Mitch

14:23

@MattЭллен I know, right? Have you seen her hair lately?

RegDwighт

Well, Android only learned about December 2012 yesterday.

At least Microsoft knows about December.

Mitch

@SF. self explanatory. entropy increases as time goes on. If you learn more as time goes on, you're reducing entropy locally, but making it extra worse somewhere else. Kind of like a desalinization plant. You remove the salt but it's gotta go somewhere? considers start-up company for using salt as a third-world building material

RegDwighт

The third world already is built out of salt.

JSBձոգչ

@Mitch you assume that learning is a local decrease in entropy.

Mitch

@SF. They do that in case they need to test software that'll have to work in extreme environments, like time-travel.

Matt Эллен

14:28

accidental grandfather paradoxes are the worst

Mitch

@MattЭллен kinda awkward too.

Matt Эллен

What's the protocol? Do you become your own grandfather?

Cerberus

@RegDwighт I wish I could say I was on 4.2 and refused to update.

Deny December.

Matt Эллен

What if you killed your grandmother?

Mitch

@JSBձոգչ hm...mind blown? (but only contingently)

Cerberus

14:29

But I haven't updated to 4.2 even.

►

No doubt you already know LotR in Lego animations?

RegDwighт

@Cerberus Eternal November!

Matt Эллен

Of the spotless mind

RegDwighт

The month forgetting, by the month forgot.

Cerberus

Yay!

Robusto

@RegDwighт They know, but they just don't care.

RegDwighт

14:32

@Robusto they learned from you.

Robusto

I know you are, but what am I?

@RegDwighт Every month is the month for getting. Duh.

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