English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

14:00

And intellectuals.

RegDwight

@Robusto You misspelled Dubya.

kiamlaluno

(Can I use the word celciousus?)

Robusto

@RegDwight — It is impossible to misspell W.

RegDwight

You can use any word you like, we just won't bother understanding.

@Robusto And yet, there is not a single W. in your Josef Stalin.

Feb 18 at 14:30, by RegDwight

Damn, I have a boring Friday meeting...

Even more boring than Robusto's misspellings.

TTYL!

Kosmonaut

Finally, no more commies. I was getting worried about my purity of essence.

Robusto

14:04

Me too, Mandrake. Me too.

Cerberus

Curse you capitalists! This war isn't over! disappears in a puff of smoke

RegDwight

14:19

@Cerberus: posting in chat while cycling is not good for your health.

Feb 25 at 16:25, by RegDwight

It's very dangerous to start wondering about anything while on a bicycle.

Kosmonaut

@RegDwight Pretty soon you're only going to speak in permalinks.

RegDwight

If by soon you mean long ago, then yes.

Martha

Stupid germs. I feel miserable. And I'm supposed to do a presentation at 3:00 this afternoon. Hmph.

RegDwight

@Martha Oh. Now I feel sorry. Them must be my germs.

Kosmonaut

It's the commies fluoridating our drinking water.

Martha

14:23

Yeah, this chat seems to be a contagion-fest.

Robusto

@RegDwight — Why do you think there are all those bicycles in the canals over there?

Martha

@Robusto That just proves that posting in chat while cycling is not good for your bicycle.

Robusto

@Martha — Hey! Bicycles are people too!

RegDwight

@Kosmonaut Haha, you mean your drinking gas?

Martha

@Robusto Are they? That would explain why they sometimes walk off...

Kosmonaut

14:26

People are bipedal; bicycles have two pedals; therefore people are bicycles.

3

@RegDwight I'm drinking petrol?

RegDwight

Gasland

Gasland is a 2010 American documentary film written and directed by Josh Fox. The film focuses on communities in the United States impacted by natural gas drilling and, specifically, a stimulation method known as hydraulic fracturing. Synopsis In May 2008, Josh Fox received a letter from a natural gas company offering to lease his family’s land in Milanville, Pennsylvania for $100,000 to drill for gas. Following the lease offer, he looked for information about natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale under large parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and West Virginia. He visited Dimo...

Kosmonaut

Oh right

That

Creepy.

Martha

@Kosmonaut The amazing thing is, there are classical and medieval treatises that use exactly the same logic to prove all sorts of things.

Kosmonaut

@Martha Well, how else are you going to know if someone is a witch?

Martha

My favorite was this guy going on about how if a woman has a baby that looks like her husband, that's not proof that the baby is her husband's, because her guilt would have made her think of her husband more, and therefore influenced the baby's appearance. Or something like that.

All right, I need to go do actual work. No pretend for me today. Have I mentioned I feel miserable?

JSBangs

14:36

0

Q: Foreigner's English pronunciation.

I believe there are many folks from the US/UK and I'm wondering have you guys EVER heard adult foreigner (let's say a person who was born and lived in different country for, let's say at least 20 years) speaking English so fluently that you didn't notice he's from different place? I'm not asking...

this Q is cute, but i'm voting to close as NARQ

as is, it's basically an opinion poll

RegDwight

I find it cool how my close reason overrides yours. Feel that power! I said, feel it already!

Kosmonaut

@RegDwight Yes, I like how you can not only replace their reason, but they are forced to endorse whatever reason you choose.

Or wherever you migrate it to.

JSBangs

i entirely endorse Reg's close reason.

his awesome powers extend to the reshaping of my deepest hopes and desires

2

RegDwight

7 1

16 1

That's five out of five questions that go "is this sentence correct?"

MrHen

@RegDwight Bah.

RegDwight

14:50

Merged, BTW. The first link will 404 now.

MrHen

I bet if you wait a few days there will be 6 or 7

In other news, I learned today that my user number is boob.

RegDwight

I can merge you with user number 300, then you're doomed.

Vitaly

Is there a formal version of the expression to go funny in the head?

MrHen

Go mad?

What do you mean by formal?

He has had a nervous breakdown.

Vitaly

Formal: 1. (of a style of dress, speech, writing, behaviour, etc.) very correct and suitable for official or important occasions.

JSBangs

14:53

formal versions on that will depend on what, exactly, happened

MrHen's suggestion is a good one, if that's what happened

Vitaly

Oops sorry, I should have posted an excerpt:

People __go funny in the head__ when talking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, and allies, and reputation.

JSBangs

aha

try lose their objectivity

RegDwight

Eliezer Yudkowsky.

MrHen

"Become irrational."

@RegDwight Hm, haven't heard that name in a while.

Vitaly

Thanks.

RegDwight

14:55

@MrHen Haven't heard that name in 31 years.

MrHen

@RegDwight Is he even that old?

RegDwight

Yes.

He's 31.

MrHen

Oh. :P

Vitaly

How come almost everyone on SE knows about EY?

RegDwight

Guerilla marketing.

Or should I say, Friendly Artificial Guerilla Marketing.

JSBangs

14:58

i've never heard of him

Robusto

@Kosmonaut — Q.E.D.

Vitaly

@RegDwight Well, whoever does the marketing is doing a good job. I'd like to live in a world full of Bayesian rationalists.

MrHen

@Vitaly I'd like to live in a world full of successful Bayesian rationalists

RegDwight

Statistical Analysis – stats.stackexchange.com

Launched Q&A site for statistics, data analysis, data mining and data visualization

Vitaly

@MrHen Elaborate.

kiamlaluno

15:04

@RegDwight Is that a particular user?

MrHen

@Vitaly The LW crowd isn't very good at certain things and even EY had some pretty glaring issues in his older blog posts. I didn't finish them, though, so I assume they got better.

RegDwight

@kiamlaluno Yes.

MrHen

@RegDwight is that particular user?

kiamlaluno

Does it work like the untagged tag? :-)

JSBangs

@MrHen i, on the other hand, prefer to live in a world of Bayesian irrationalists

MrHen

15:07

@JSBangs Haha, that actually seems like fun :P

RegDwight

Feb 23 at 11:06, by RegDwight

Lots of echo in here.

@JSBangs That one got closed.

Atheism – atheism.stackexchange.com

Q&A site for the skeptics of a higher power.

Closed after 94 days in beta.

Vitaly

@MrHen The LW crowd are not ideal Bayesians.

JSBangs

what is LW?

kiamlaluno

@RegDwight: Ahah! I should have thought that. :-)

RegDwight

Long Wehicle.

MrHen

15:08

@Vitaly Hence my jab at being a successful Bayesian rationalist

kiamlaluno

Large width?

RegDwight

Lovely witch.

kiamlaluno

Long & width.

Vitaly

@JSBangs Click.

Billare

Is there a reason why rep upvotes below negative don't give back exactly +2?

A good reason, I mean.

kiamlaluno

15:09

@Billare: What? :-)

JSBangs

@Vitaly ah, that

Billare

You know the phenomenon of "downvote saving", right?

RegDwight

@Billare What? Upvotes give +10. Retracting a downvote gives +2. Always. Overall rep is irrelevant.

MrHen

@JSBangs Yeah, sorry for using the acronym. I figured Vitaly knew what I was referring to.

Billare

Where people upvote downvoted answers so the feeling doesn't come off too harshly?

Sometimes I do it for new users who leave inane answers.

Usually to -1 or -2.

But they gain rep off bad answers, since 10 - 2 = 8; 5 downvotes needed to balance an upvote.

MrHen

15:10

@Billare Isn't that a form of gaming the system?

Billare

Shouldn't they just gain +2 till the get above 0?

RegDwight

@Billare No. Though lots of things have been proposed in that direction.

JSBangs

@Billaire, interesting question. something to bring up at meta.so

kiamlaluno

As @RegDwight said; if you up vote a question/answer, the user gets 10 points, as usual.

Billare

vgv8 exploited this for example, he had 1k+ rep even though he had negative overall downvotes

JSBangs

15:12

@Billare, the problem i see with this proposal is that it makes the value of votes dependent on their ordering

which makes it very hard to recalc rep when necessary

RegDwight

^This.

kiamlaluno

Yeah, that is what Jeff said, if I remember well.

Billare

Hm..

When is rep recalculated exactly?

What for?

I'm not a programmer, so I don't know how one would solve this problem.

RegDwight

@Billare You can recalc your rep any time by going to /reputation.

Network-wide recalcs are seldom.

As to "what for", to account for deleted/migrated questions and answers.

Billare

Wow, pwned! Lost 30+ rep.

RegDwight

15:17

@Billare Well, you should have compared the numbers first.)))

If you care about those 30+ rep, that is.

Billare

Meh, I had just gotten to edit answers without interminable waits...

But I'm not far.

So...

RegDwight

My actual rep is 4 points higher than the one displayed, which tells me that four of the posts I have downvoted have been deleted since.

JSBangs

hmmm, i was just looking at english.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/words

this [words] tag is pretty useless

RegDwight

@JSBangs Oh yeah, that one should be killed with fire.

Mar 11 at 15:29, by RegDwight

JSBangs

244 usages, alas

Billare

15:20

Wow, a guy named Masoch really did exist.

I thought chaos was being sarcastic towards Arthur because he was annoyed.

RegDwight

@Billare: but one last point. The actual problem with those pity upvotes is, IMHO, that downvoting crap costs you rep, while upvoting crap doesn't. So people like vgv8 will always end up with more rep than they "deserve", for lack of a better word.

JSBangs

@Billare, evidently. I feel a little dirty for answering via google

MrHen

@RegDwight I am not so much worried about users' rep as the rep bad questions/answers get

RegDwight

Ooops, another boring meeting. BRB.

Billare

Downvotes do work, I think.

It's not so much the loss of rep that peeves people downovoted, but the fact that their downvoters are secret.

JSBangs

15:23

@RegDwight can you use your awesome mod powers to ban tags? we could ban new uses of the [words] tag, then work our way through the backlog eventually

Vitaly

How do you choose between two answers by the same user that answer your question in case neither of them alone answers it?

JSBangs

@Vitaly upvote both

give the accepted answer to whoever you like better

Billare

We are equipped with all sorts of mental modules to keep track of who dislikes us, and when they can't tell people get consternated.

Vitaly

@JSBangs Whoever? But they are by the same user (@Billare).

JSBangs

@Billare this is a feature, not a bug. secret downvotes discourage vendettas

Vitaly

15:24

Speaking of that, is there a possibility you merge your two answers so that I could accept one answer, @Billare?

Billare

@JSBangs Yes, I'm aware.

@JSBangs I'm just saying that's not the only advantage. Downvotes that are not specific not only discourage vendettas, but the modify behavior severely.

JSBangs

elaborate, plz

Billare

@JSBangs If you could say, "oh gosh that's from XXX, I hate that guy", you could just ignore it

Oh, ok.

@Vitaliy Will do, I guess.

JSBangs

@Billare ignoring it seems less likely that becoming extra irate

Vitaly

Thanks.

Billare

15:31

@JSBangs Yes, I think they'd become irate and retaliate, but I don't think it would modify behavior there. It's not "the community" in some sense disapproving of you. It's that guy.

@JsBangs And he sucks, who would ever listen to him?

brb

JSBangs

@Billare but i actually think that there's a value to perceiving that you're being downvoted by "the community", especially in the case were you have negative net votes. if you think "three random dudes downvoted me", you are less incentivized to change because you can mentally write off their votes, and you may retaliate against those people. if you think "the english.se collective overmind downvoted me thrice!" you may take it more seriously, plus you can't retaliate

and we want people to take downvotes seriously

downvotes are the stick that drives off bad behavior, just as upvotes are the carrot that rewards good behavior

Billare

16:04

@Vitaliy Merged.

Vitaly

@Billare Accepted.

Cerberus

I don't know what this is about, but what @JSB says sounds sensible.

RegDwight

@JSBangs mods can't blacklist tags. Only devs can.

6

A: Implement a Tag Black List

We do have a blacklist, to be clear -- it's something the dev team has to enter because it's so dangerous to get wrong. We work with the existing site moderators to determine what's bad enough to be blacklisted. It has to be quite bad. And yes we are still planning to implement tag synonym rema...

Also, blacklisting a tag will immediately remove it from all those questions. So if we want to re-tag them with something more useful, we must do it first. Blacklisting will leave no trace other than a few questions tagged untagged, if the blacklisted tag used to be their only tag.

MrHen

16:25

2

Q: US usage of 'mad'

When Americans say something like, "Are you mad at me?", is there any difference between that and, "Are you angry at me?" To me, as a Brit, that usage of 'mad' is a nasty corruption of the word. As it ought to mean 'insane', it feels like "Are you mad at me?" should indicate an even greater sta...

usage american-english british-english

Rant alert?

RegDwight

Well, the second paragraph is kind of uncalled for.

But the answers don't jump on the peeving bandwagon, quite the opposite. Which is good.

MrHen

I pushed an edit

RegDwight

Go buy yourself some candy for your 2 rep.

F'x

16:59

hi all

quick question: if I reach daily cap (+200), then start a bounty (let's say -50), can I then regain the lost rep during the day (and finish at +200) or am I now capped at a total of +150?

Robusto

17:31

@Fx — Why do you care?

MrHen

1

Q: How do bounties affect the rep cap?

Just curious. This is what my rep audit looks for today: 1 3436375 (15) 2 3481588 (10) 2 3481588 (10) 2 3481612 (10) 2 3481612 (10) 2 3481656 (10) 1 3481612 (15) 1 3468630 (2) 2 3481741 (10) 1 3481741 (15) 1 3481656 (15) 2 3481886 (10) 2 3481892 (10) 2 3...

discussion bounty daily-reputation-limit

actually, this is a better question:

5

Q: How does proposing a bounty affect the reputation cap?

This was a question I originally intended to ask before certain temporal anomalies caught my attention. According to this answer, paying for a bounty will actually reduce your reputation cap. I searched more recent posts, but the majority of posts that deal with both reputation caps and bounty a...

support bounty daily-reputation-limit

Vitaly

Does everyone know that the concept of Wiki turned 16 today on March 25, 2011? You can wish happy birthday to it here by adding your wishes and name. Oh, and SE uses the wiki concept, too, so this stands as relevant.

MrHen

-4

Q: What is the difference in meaning between an authoritarian and a totalitarian dictatorship?

What is the difference in meaning between the two - hey, here is an idea: Lets not cut/paste from Wiki/Google et al.....How about an answer that contains an actual, well thought-out, original construct. Odds: 5-1 against ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????...

meaning

Should I even bother editing this?

Robusto

17:53

No.

Dino question.

RegDwight

19:05

@Vitaly I am fairly certain that the concept of Wiki is way older than that. Much like the concept of hypertext is some 100-odd years old, it's only the implementation that we are using that is younger. (And it doesn't help that most of those congrats are in Russian. That makes this celebration even more suspicious.))))

@MrHen adding two more to your collection,

Vitaly

@RegDwight A 2-letter domain, suspicious?!?!

RegDwight

Mar 17 at 22:04, by RegDwight

1

A: How does starting a bounty interact with exceeding the reputation cap?

Bounty is excluded from rep cap. If your bounty is 200, you cannot recover it from questions - sorry. The 200/day rep cap applies (only) to +10 Your Answer was upvoted + 5 Your Question was upvoted + 2 Accept answer to a question + 2 Your Suggested Edit was accepted - 2 Your Question/Answer was...

Mar 17 at 22:05, by RegDwight

1

Q: Reputation cap ignores reputation paid for bounty offerings

I hit my reputation cap, offered a bounty, and got 13 more upvotes after offering the bounty. The 13 upvotes didn't generate any reputation, so I was stuck at 150 reputation gained today (until one of my answers got accepted). (No, they weren't Community Wiki) Why can't I regain the reputation...

feature-request bounty up-votes daily-reputation-limit

Vitaly

WikiWikiWeb

WikiWikiWeb is a term that has been used to refer to four things: the first wiki, or user-editable website, launched on 25 March 1995 by Ward Cunningham as part of the Portland Pattern Repository (the website was also later known as ""); the Perl-based application that was used to run it, also developed by Cunningham, which was the first wiki software (it was later renamed "WikiBase"); the original general term for wikis; and the original term for wiki software. The software and website were developed in 1994 by Cunningham in order to make the exchange of ideas between programmers easier....

MrHen

@RegDwight Eh? What'd I do now?

RegDwight

@MrHen Check out that gray arrow. It leads somewhere.)))

MrHen

19:08

0

Q: What is the difference in the meaning between an authoritarian versus totalitarian dictatorship?

What is the difference in meaning between the two - hey, here is an idea: Lets not cut/paste from Wiki/Google et al.....How about an answer that contains an actual, well thought-out, original construct. Odds: 10-1 against: went up due to the malfeasance being promulgated by a few small-minded ind...

meaning

@RegDwight Yeah... a link I posted to a question from earlier today?

Oh! I get it

the other two links you posted

Dur

RegDwight

Anyhow, thanks for jumping in while I was blithely shopping for groceries once again.

@MrHen Somehow that question is just begging to be closed as a dupe of that vgv8 one.

2

Q: What is a term for a system with rules without any exceptions?

What is the term for a system/organization/things order rigidly governed by rules without any exceptions?

single-word-requests

Feb 18 at 19:10, by Michael Myers

Aaaaand the answer is: English.StackExchange.com!

In other news,

0

Q: Advise vs advice

In what contexts are those two words used? It's been a while since I've read the grammar books and I don't exactly remember the definitions of a few terms like adjective, so I would really appreciate it if the answers didn't leave it off by saying x is verb and y is adjective - I learn more by p...

grammar

MrHen

19:24

@RegDwight Yeah... I almost wrote an extension to my answer that treated them like they were in English 101 and decided against it.

arg, another 1 char typo:

0

Q: Is a statue mad of bronze called bronzed or brazed?

When do you use bronzed vs. brazed? Is a bronze statue bronzed or brazed?

word-choice

F'x

-1

Q: Is there a past tense for the word "shit"?

Recently, whilst enjoying a delightful repast with my friend, Pantagruel, the following query reared it's tiny head: is there a past tense for the word "shit"?

usage meaning

When do we implement the “too simple” rule?

MrHen

I just checked the FAQ and it doesn't seem that "Questions easily answered by a dictionary" are forbidden

So that may need to be changed

F'x

yes, it was discussed at some length, but no action was taken

6

Q: "Find in dictionary" questions

I've noticed that some of the questions can be answered with a quick online dictionary check. Examples: Origin of the word “goodbye” Meaning of borough Should the site be used as a dictionary? I think we should suggest somewhere on the site (on the FAQ?) that users first check online diction...

discussion

7

Q: Can we come up with guidelines for "good" dictionary questions?

This subject came up in the town hall chat: how basic is too basic, and more importantly, how do we help users to write questions that are not too basic? "Find in dictionary" questions Can we come up with guidelines, a la the Good Subjective-Bad Subjective blog post, for asking "what does [x] ...

discussion appropriate-questions on-topic-off-topic

Billare

19:41

@MrHen Unfortunately, that would deter foreign speakers who really can't parse definitions they are given in a dictionary.

F'x

4

Q: Should we require some reasonable research being done? (aka Questions that can be answered by opening an online dictionary)

Despite the apparent consensus (or lack of dissension) on the “Find in dictionary” topic here, I still regularly see questions on EL&U that I don't think are appropriate for the site, because they could simply be answered by someone checking an online dictionary. I'll give some recent example...

discussion

MrHen

I added an entry to the FAQ meta question:

0

A: What questions are on-topic and off-topic here?

{Off-topic} Questions that can be best answered by a dictionary. Examples: Tenses, simple definitions, pronunciations. Exceptions can be made for unusual, uncommon or archaic words.

F'x

Well, quoting a definition and stating what you don't understand is OK, I would say

Billare

Did Rex receive a warning for the duplicate threads?

I think by now it should be obvious he's not coming at this in good faith..

MrHen

I just want to see something in the FAQ so I have a right to flag crap like the latest as Off-Topic

Billare

19:46

Have you ever seen a concrete issue solved in Meta stack?

I mean individual site metas, rather.

They don't seem to work....ideas are hashed, voted up...then kind of die of intertia.

It feels like.

F'x

@MrHen I think there is consensus on that, it's simply bearable right now, so no definite action was taken

RegDwight

@Billare Hey now. Issues get solved all the time. And issues die on MSO all the time, as well.

This particular one would require some action from the devs.

Besides, I am not sure what ArthurRex is up to anyhow.

He seems to misspell "its" on purpose now. In three questions in a row.

Billare

Here's something I've wondered...

F'x

issues get solved, but it helps if you come here and discuss it with a mod

MrHen

@RegDwight Probably peeved by the closed questions

F'x

19:48

9

Q: How should we handle users who generate consistently low-quality and off-topic questions?

I agree so much with Dori's answer in this thread that I thought it was worth making it into a thread of its own. There has been a string of off-topic and low-quality questions (and, to a lower extent, answers) from user vgv8, that many users have expressed annoyance (whether in comments, on meta...

discussion

Billare

Could someone from say, one of those pay to answer Q/A sites

Come here and just post questions to be answered?

Like Cha-Cha or something.

MrHen

@Fx I think the dino questions cross the line. It is my opinion but I have little patiences for punks

Billare

It certainly would explain the limited background in a couple of posters' posts, but that seems way too far out really..

MrHen

I can deal with it and am more than happy to follow the community guidelines, but I find it odd that there is no official way for someone at my level to "help"

RegDwight

@MrHen You can downvote obvious crap and flag obvious spam as such.

F'x

19:51

here's something I have to ask: what a dino question?

MrHen

@RegDwight Fair enough. And done.

RegDwight

@Fx Dino = T-Rex = ArthurRex aka AttilaNYC.

Billare

Hmm...TheApplicants.com?

RegDwight

Okay, I don't feel well leaving right now, but I must. Hopefully @nohat and @Kosmonaut are around to keep an eye on this.

F'x

somehow, we don't have enough active users with +3k rep, who could close these things fast (as happens on SO, for example)

Robusto

20:01

Yeah. Buncha slackers.

Martha

@Fx Yeah, unfortunately I had to, like, actually work today. (I know, I know, sorry for the obscenity.)

MrHen

Haha, a funny consequence of downvoting and editing the same question is a +1 rep total :P

Martha

@MrHen Hey, that's not fair! I don't get rep from edits anymore!

Robusto

Wow, I stayed off chat most of the day and got SO much done.

Of course, I had fun programming tasks to do.

Martha

Mmm, fun programming tasks. Wish I had more of those, instead of these "oh my lord do I have to?" programming tasks.

MrHen

20:03

@Martha Well, it is fair in the sense that you already got your cookie.

Martha

What cookie? I don't remember getting a cookie! Somebody made off with my cookie! Hmph.

Robusto

@Martha — I hear ya. I hate those other kinds of tasks. That is, the non-fun ones.

"And yet, you answered it in the hopes a eating a few more pellets..." — T-Rex

MrHen

@Martha It's not my fault you fed all of your cookies to dinos

Robusto

Hmm, he's thumbing his nose at F'x now. I'd say he is totally outed.

MrHen

@Robusto Someone gave it +1, too, so... that was odd

Martha

20:06

@Robusto The worst is when it's not actually a trivial programming task, but the whole purpose of it is so nonsensical that you just lose the will to live, let alone program. (I'm speaking of course of the whole stupid duty hours regulation nonsense for residency programs.)

F'x

@Robusto and I have made my answer CW in an effort of appeasement

Robusto

@Martha — The worst is when you have to fix defects in someone else's crappy code. Fun is when you get to write your own crappy code from scratch. :)

Martha

@Robusto No, the worst worst is when you have to fix defects in crappy code... that you wrote 5 years ago.

Robusto

Er, I meant to say "your own pristine, elegant code from scratch." I'm sure everyone here understood that.

@Martha — Madam, I never wrote a line of crappy code in my life. Trolls sneak in and rewrite my code at night sometimes, however.

It's figuring out how the trolls screwed things up that can get taxing.

Martha

@Robusto Is that what it is? And here I've been blaming myself unnecessarily. Thanks for enlightening me.

Robusto

20:10

@Martha — Like @RegDwight, "I'm here to help."

Or has he trademarked that phrase yet?

Martha

I don't recall seeing a (TM) attached, so no.

BRB

F'x

™

What Unicode can do for you…

Robusto

So, what, @F'x has trademarked nothingness now.

F'x

all your codepoints are belong to me

Robusto

It hurts that all your royalties get multiplied by zero.

Martha

20:18

There's a tiny little TM there. (This is why I prefer to use <sup>TM</sup> in those places that allow it -- the TM character itself tends to be so small as to be unreadable.)

F'x

<sup>™</sup>?

Martha

In that case, might as well just type a space, it'd have the same effect.

MrHen

@Martha Not to the lawyers...

Martha

Lawyers don't count, do they?

MrHen

Lawyers count everything

Cerberus

22:06

@Martha.... what are you doing? Have you relinquished your duties?

I mean, if that wasn't a pun...

Martha

Oh, sorry. I was pretending to work.

@MrHen, THWACK!

(Better late than never.)

Cerberus

@Martha: Thank you! Now the universe is balanced again.

Martha

We aim to please.

Cerberus

I see... "we" being the gods, or women? Or are they one?

Martha

(Which reminds me of a sign I saw in a men's room I was cleaning once: "We aim to please; You aim, too, please.")

2

@Cerberus It's the royal we, of course.

Cerberus

22:10

Heh that sounds appropriate, and thwack-worthy...

@Martha: How could I forget.

Martha

But I didn't say it, I just quoted it.

Cerberus

Oh, then it doesn't count?

Martha

Nope.

Well, not if I quoted it.

Cerberus

Oh... I see.

How devious.

Martha

2 mins ago, by Martha

We aim to please.

Cerberus

22:11

So what if others quote?

Martha

The decision needs to be made on a case-by-case basis.

Cerberus

Ah, you decide based on your discretionary powers.

Hm I'm going to browse the questions and see which ones deserve a slightly tipsy answer...

Martha

Slightly tipsy already?

Oh, right, you're on the other side of the pond.

Cerberus

Exactly. It is, what, 5 pm for you guys?

Martha

6:15. Stupid daylight savings.

Cerberus

22:15

Right. I think we shall be in sync again tomorrow.

Tomorrow night.

Martha

Well, Sunday morning. But see, at least you're doing it after the start of Spring.

Cerberus

So when did you change?

Martha

It sucks to "spring forward" when it's not even spring yet. We changed on the 6th of this month, I think. Or some ridiculously early date like that.

Cerberus

I see. Well it sucks either way, getting less sleep.

Martha

Ok, I looked it up, it's the 2nd Sunday of March, so the 13th. But still.

Cerberus

22:19

It's stupid in all respects that all the world doesn't use the same date, whatever it be.

Martha

@Cerberus Yeah, and now noon doesn't coincide with noon, and it's all dark and cold in the morning, and the day is over before you realize it.

Cerberus

Hmm... isn't the day supposed to end later now?

Martha

Well, it does, but my perception of it gets confused. Before, it got dark at 5:00, and I still had a couple of hours before I had to think about going home. Now it gets dark at 6:00, so I have an hour less time before I need to think about going home. Does that make sense?

IOW, my internal clock says "5:00" when it's actually 6:00, so I'm perpetually running late.

Cerberus

23:17

@Martha: It makes total sense.

You know what would work? We could all go live on the South Pole October–March, and move to the North Pole for April–September.

Or perhaps a flying saucer gradually moving northward and southward as needed would be better.

It should have a comfortable sitting room, Wifi, etc.

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