English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

00:00

Huge screen et al.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Soo which one would you pick?

It's for my friend.

(With the same plan.)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus dunno

they all have so many cons

I quite dislike LG

even the N4 hasn't made me like them

Cerberus

Hmm why do you dislike LG?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

the S2 Plus, dunno what that is. not sure if samsung will continue to provide updates, etc.

@Cerberus because they make 2nd-rate products and are terrible at supporting them.

Cerberus

What would you say are the main cons, for the average user? (My friend is probably an average, ignorant user.)

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It is basically the Galaxy S2, barely any changes at all.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Why 2nd rate? How would it affect him? And, by support, you mean updates?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yes, updates. Updates are important.

security updates, and bug fixes.

and feature updates.

also I'm not thrilled with LG hardware.

spec-wise the Samsung seems worst but I bet it has the nicest screen and wouldn't be surprised if it's the most responsive phone.

Cerberus

00:07

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah...but I don't think any mid-range phone will fare any better?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

also I can't recommend a 4.0 phone these days. get something that has an upgrade path to 4.2.

Cerberus

And he probably won't be installing any edgy software.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, that's what I was thinking, although both the LG and the Alcatel's screens looked rather good in Youtube videos.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus The N4's screen is a real disappointment.

more and more I am disappointed by it. I miss the GN's screen.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I arranged an Acer with 4.0 for my other friend, and I was surprised how well ICS worked. Frankly, I didn't notice much of a difference.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hmm really? That's nice to hear, for me! But seriously, where is it lacking? Blacks?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus there are more and more differences that will only become apparent as apps are updated to take advantage of them.

@Cerberus It just outright doesn't look as nice.

It's like if you had a photo of a GN, and left it out in the sun for a few days.

none of the colours are as nice.

Cerberus

00:10

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hmm I suppose so...so the newer version of Android on the S2 Plus would weigh heavily for you?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Haha, poor N4!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus you mean older version. The newer version is 4.2

Cerberus

Isn't it just that AMOLED screen have exaggerated (and unrealistic) saturation?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Newer than the two alternatives!

If he were to buy a mid-range phone with 4.2, it would have to be some kind of tiny phone with a tiny screen.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus Maybe? but the GN just looks nicer. Even after using my phone for weeks now, I still feel a pang of envy when I use my wife's phone occasionally.

Cerberus

I don't think 4.2 is attainable for his budget.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You're just saying that!

I am beaming nonetheless.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus No, but what about a phone that has an upgrade path to 4.2?

Probably the Alcatel will. It's a new phone, right?

I have never seen an alcatel phone except the totally shitty plastic prop my wife got for free with her prepaid plan. That thing is a JOKE.

I didn't even want her to bring it home.

Cerberus

00:14

Haha.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

She was like "free phone!" and I was like "free garbage!"

It literally feels like a plastic prop that happens to make calls and send sms.

Cerberus

At least the smartphone part of the brand "Alcatel" was bought by some unknown Chinese company.

Mahnax

Good evening!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah. so anyway, right now I only recommend nexus phones.

Cerberus

Reviews seem to say that the Alcatel smarthones are not so bad.

Hello!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:15

heheh "not so bad"

Cerberus

The N4 is expensive here, because it has to be imported.

Far too expensive for my friend.

He needs a mid-range phone.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Anyway, personally, I avoid LG products because I don't like how they're made. And I don't like to buy samsung-branded stuff because I hate TouchWiz. Most of the complaints I've heard about Android are actually complaints about Touchwiz.

Cerberus

Right, I don't like it either. But money!

He doesn't want to spend money on a phone.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

is this the alcatel one? gsmarena.com/alcatel_one_touch_idol_ultra-5231.php

Cerberus

Do you think there is anything better under € 100 on this page, with the 275 plan?

studentmobiel.nl/shop/abonnement_met_toestel/nieuw/276/…

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, minus the Ultra.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:17

gsmarena.com/alcatel_one_touch_idol-5230.php

Cerberus

The Ultra is more expensive.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, that 'un.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

only 512 mb ram?

This is the LG? gsmarena.com/lg_optimus_l9_p760-4955.php

I have the LG l7 and it is FREAKING SLOW

I'd really need to try the L9. I wonder if they improved the responsiveness.

The L7 is so slow that it barely responds even when typing.

It's truly awful.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Huh? No, it should have 1 GB. That was my minimum.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes. Reviews on Youtube look fine.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus There is a 512 MB variant out there. be careful.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ugh. Well, if you click the phone name, it says 1 GB, so I'll go with that. On the page I linked to, I mean.

And how about the Acer Liquid E1?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:23

alcatelonetouch.com/global-en/products/smartphones/…

Why not get a GN? are they still overpriced in your neck of the woods?

Cerberus

They aren't sold at all!

And, yes, they would be overpriced if they were.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

The Alcatel has no NFC.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hmm so the "A" version has 512 MB. Good to know.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, well, he can do without. I have never once used it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus I use it often.

I want to use it more. if my tablet had NFC I'd probably go crazy with it.

Cerberus

With tags?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:26

yeah

I wish routers came with NFC that would enable automatic joining of the hotspot.

Cerberus

I don't have tags, and I already use Tasker for everything. Sure, it could be nice, but I'm sure he won't miss it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Tasker dropped to $2 so I bought it, still haven't used it.

Cerberus

Joining of the hotspot?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

the new UI is much much better though.

Cerberus

Yay!

They holofied it. Still counter-intuitive...

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:27

@Cerberus yes. When you come to a new hotspot, why should you have to type int he password? just let me touch the phone against it.

Cerberus

But the program is great.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh, like that.

Well...it is a one-time problem.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yes but they also added more in-program help and made it clearer what the workflow is.

@Cerberus Not if you are constantly flashing phones.

Cerberus

And, besides, you could use an application with a QR code to achieve the same goal.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus you'd think so. but the QR reader isn't built in. So when you're first setting up the device, you have to enter the password in order to download the qr reader.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hmm have they? I haven't used it much since then. I already have everything programmed.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hmm true...but does NFC work out of the box?

So why are you constantly flashing phones anyway?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:30

@Cerberus it could. or should.

Cerberus

I thought you preferred stock?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus android app development.

Cerberus

Hmm.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus yes but sometimes I need a specific version of stock.

Cerberus

Okay.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:30

also if flashing was easier I'd experiment more.

Cerberus

Is it hard?

Just use the Nexus Toolkit?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

well, not really? usually not. but it wipes the phone.

Cerberus

Click, click.

Yeah...so make a Nandroid backup?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

try it on your phone. let me know how it goes for you. :)

Cerberus

And doesn't it leave the "SD card" untouched?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:31

@Cerberus no good, you can't apply a backup against an older version of the os. Well, there are issues.

@Cerberus depends.

Cerberus

I have flashed a few ROMs. Some time ago. It was fast enough.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

yeah but once flashed, I then have to set up the phone to a state where I can work with it.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 No, but the idea is that you can just put everything back after testing the ROM, if that's what you're doing.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah to what?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus ah. no, it's not even that. it's getting the test rom set up to a point where it's useful for testing.

like, I have to install certain apps. etc.

Cerberus

Yeah OK.

Use Titanium?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:34

even the initial part of setting up the wifi password and google acct gets tedious if you're doing it over and over.

Cerberus

How do you get Titanium onto your virgin phone...

I understand.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

titanium isn't part of stock. anything that's not part of stock makes the set-up harder, not easier.

or rather, comes after the hard part.

maybe there's a better way, like, going into developer settings and then shipping a pile of data over ADB. but whatever.

Cerberus

Then you probably need to root it first...?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

not necessarily.

Cerberus

Why don't you get it to triple-boot? I think that's possible? Multi-boot; be able to boot into different ROMs permanently.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:36

but I would need to get the apk's from somewhere.

triple-boot?

Cerberus

So you don't need to flash all the time.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I don't know how possible/convenient that would be.

TemporaryNickName

Do you think Tatinium SDK kicks ass of all other cross platform dev tools?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

might not be possible with stock as one the options.

Cerberus

Why not?

I don't think stock is special.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:40

well, it's special in that it has to work the way it shipped.

I don't know how you'd set up dual-boot on a phone.

Cerberus

I have read about it.

It is supposedly easy.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

hm

well, I don't need to mess with that stuff now.

anyway, for your friend's phone: anything dual-core with 1GB ram will probably serve. a more recently-released phone is more likely to get updates. avoid android 4.0

Cerberus

Yeah.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

also I'd avoid LG, I'm not satisfied with them.

Cerberus

Hmm you really find 4.1+ that important?

The LG has a much larger battery!

That's its main selling point. And it's cheaper.

TemporaryNickName

00:44

It is quite sad to see my lecturer's textbook is rated only 1 star on Google books review

Cerberus

1800 mAh v. 2150 mAh!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@Cerberus does that matter? maybe it wastes more power

Cerberus

I was considering that. But reviews seemed to say its battery use was good.

It's mainly the screen anyway that uses up power.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Hello!

Cerberus

Hi!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

00:50

It's getting there.

dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8937679/…

tee hee

Cerberus

►

A review. They sound pretty enthusiastic.

gsmarena.com/lg_optimus_l9_p760-4955.php

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

it looks exactly like I'd expect the successor to the L7 which I loathe.

Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 This other review ^ says "it's so much better than the L7"!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

every change from stock android bugs me. and the hardware is so mediocre and slow.

Cerberus

(I changed the link at the last moment.)

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

00:55

@Cerberus believe me when I say that isn't hard.

Cerberus

Haha.

Okay.

But still, look at how responsive it is in that review.

And the screen looks pretty good. So much better than the Acer we gave to our friend!

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Please judge my upload.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

If they fixed the performance issues of the L7, then I guess that's my biggest concern addressed.

I hate the LG android launcher but you can get rid of that easily in JB.

Cerberus

Yeah. Except that the L9 doesn't have JB.

But you can no doubt still get rid of it.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

wait, what?

Cerberus

01:00

ICS.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

crap

and this is where you'll get screwed with LG

Cerberus

No doubt!

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

ah, JB is available for it

Cerberus

But the battery!

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oh, really?? Where did you find that?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

google

Cerberus

01:03

By available, you mean stock?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

trying to find an authoritative source

Cerberus

An OTA update?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

I mean it has shipped as an update

Cerberus

Ohh. That would be cool.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

gsmarena.com/…

Cerberus

01:06

Oh! That's pretty cool. I use Gsmarena all the time too btw.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 what did you want us to do with your record store ad?

tchrist

0

A: "Satire" versus "sarcasm"

Beats the salt off MY crackers. Some guy online became offended at me when I didn't immediately understand what he was doing (which he insisted was satire, but he tossed off the comment, believe me) and assumed he was being serious rather than satirical. It's not like Internet doesn't kill tone ...

I don’t even know what to say in response to that.

Except that I don’t think it is actually an answer.

Cerberus

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Nice! Maybe mention the web address once more at the end?

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

01:41

Well I must get going. cya later

Cerberus

01:54

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Bye!

Thanks for your suggestions.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

02:12

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 shrug. Undress it.

@Cerberus I like it.

@tchrist I got your snow.

Cerberus

Good.

tchrist

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Figgers.

I got a whoppin’ ten inches, but I reckon more than half of that has melted today.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

wtf:

> After using OS X over ten years, finally reading a book about using UNIX on the Mac. Surprised by how much I already know.

@tchrist been comin' down four hours now.

Since it was 80 degrees the last two days, it isn't sticking so well to the roads.

tchrist

Same here.

The paper said we got 12.1 inches yesterday.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

moves to Boca

tchrist

02:20

The previous record for May Day was 6.2 inches.

And we had 17 degrees this morning, the coldest ever recorded for May.

Cerberus

play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nuance.swype.dtc

At last, Swype will take my money! Take that! throws money at screen

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@Cerberus me not understand. Was it strictly free before?

tchrist

We’ve had 82 inches of snow since the beginning of March, just two inches shy of 7 feet.

Busting all records.

Love that global warming.

2 feet in March, 4 feet in April, and so far 1 more foot in May.

Nice to have it fall in such convenient units.

We’re up to 125 inches so far this year, so somewhat north of 10 feet.

@corn How much you gettin’?

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@tchrist ffff. I've heard 5-7 and 3-5.

I would guess we already have like two inches.

tchrist

Talking to Mom.

Telling her about your story there. She's way north of you, but it is still raining.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

02:30

I did that today.

It's supposed to snow along 35.

Well, not east and south of it.

tchrist

Strange to snow along an odd-numbered Interstate.

Like, I can see it snowing north of 70, for example, or 80 or 90.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

It's the jet stream and the Gulf situation I think.

It's still moving west to east, but being pushed.

tchrist

I don’t know where this 17 degrees we awoke to this morning came from.

It must be the thing that’s getting you but not quite her. North of her it is snowing though, up closer to Lake Superior than to Lake Michigan.

I have pictures from last year of lovely spring flowers from WEEKS AGO.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

weather.com/video/a-may-snowstorm-36281

Cerberus

@cornbreadninja麵包忍者 Yes.

There was only a beta.

For years and years.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

02:34

related: weather.com/video/giant-rubber-ducky-36504

@Cerberus hmm.

tchrist

Strange to freeze in Kansas City but not in Milwaukee. Duluth, of course, gets nastier.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

@tchrist weather.com/video/milwaukees-60-second-forecast-690

tchrist

On phone, can’t play videos due to sound.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

Suck it, Grand Rapids.

D'oh.

tchrist

Br0ken rec0rds.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

02:38

@tchrist last one is WI/MI.

tchrist

Ah.

Dunno if brother in MI is getting snow.

Talked to dad in IL, but surely not. He’s only an hour from Mom in WI.

cornbread ninja 麵包忍者

I must harm some cartoon fellas.

tchrist

?

MετάEd

Howdy.

Cerberus

OMG.

What have you done?

MετάEd

02:45

It has wings.

RegDwighт

1

Q: Reference to word or phrase that has previously appeared in parentheses

Consider the following sentence: There are three options (Halifax, Winnipeg and Saskatoon). Of the three, Winnipeg is the best choice because of X, Y and Z. The sentence is pretty straightforward. My question has to do with style: is it awkward to make reference to something (Winnipeg) th...

parentheses

I think this is an interesting question for once.

I'd really like to see what style guides say on this. Or whether they address it at all.

In any case, it's fresh.

And what is Cerberus doing here anyway. It's bed time.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…