English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2013-09-07 (page 2 of 3)

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6:00 PM

I think that once you get used to shortcuts and hotkeys it is hard to switch

But how long will it take to learn 100 shortcuts without a GUI for reference, especially the ones you use only once a week?

And why can't you have a GUI in addition to shortcuts?

don't look at me I'm a gui-man

I also type like a manager (slow)

@Cerberus Actually, you are completely wrong: there is every reason why you do not want "buttons". Vi is for touch-typists, and it as much faster to edit a file using it compared with a GUI editor as it is faster to type-type a text rather than using one finger on one hand. Anything that distracts your fingers from their rightful place on the home row of your keyboard is abhorrent to the point of being anathema.

I type at 100 words a minute, and I edit at that same speed.

@JohanLarsson Haha.

@tchrist I don't understand your argument.

My argument is twofold:

Don’t you dare make me wear eskimo mittens: would you curse a concert pianist in that way? This is evil.

My fingers were made for typing, not for mousing.

6:12 PM

1. No GUI = extremely steep memorising curve.

Tough.

2. A GUI does not preclude using hotkeys.

That’s silly.

I don’t what your whole hotkey thing is anyway.

It doesn’t matter that somebody with no experience or training cannot sit down and get full use out of a professional tool he has never seen before.

I think Cerb's arguments makes sense

Alt-Q to comment out a section, control-C to copy, e// to type é, etc.

6:13 PM

No, that’s all evil.

I don't think you are addressing my points.

You never do.

You haven’t made any.

@JohanLarsson So do I, what a coincidnce!

@tchrist did you become a father recently?

No.

6:14 PM

@tchrist Okay, so you're in that mood. Then I hereby give up trying to have a discussion with you.

I’m not going to argue with children who think that they are more productive than I am, because I know they have no idea what they are talking about.

And are resistant to learning.

It was never a competition I think

If it takes you a few days or even a week to learn something that you will use every single day and most of the nights for thirty years running, is that considered an unacceptable learning curve?

No.

In fact, it is just exactly the right kind of learning curve: learn once, use forever.

It is a professional tool.

Professional tools are different.

How does a gui hinder that?

Yes.

6:16 PM

If you do not address the questions raised in earnest by your students, you're not a good teacher. If you disqualify your interlocutor, you're not a good debater.

Ad hominem.

I still learn things using VS + R# despite plenty of gui

Anything that takes my fingers away from the home row is inherently fucked up.

It is not ad hominem because I had already ended the discussion.

Because it fucks up my typing flow.

A GUI is therefore inherently counterproductive and evil and wrong.

6:17 PM

we are not trying to sell anything to you

No sequitur.

You’re still ad homineming and you know it.

you seem confident :D

Because I know how fast I edit and how fast other people don’t.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

do you use vim for other things than writing code?

GUI toys for 5 billion people will never serve the needs of professionals, and in fact, will always interfere with those needs by virtue of their mindless misdesign for people with room-temperature IQs.

6:20 PM

So my preliminary hypothesis is that it is either a relict of an ancient time cherished for its venerable age, or snobbery. Which makes sense, considering the way enthusiasts talk about it. Or it must have an advantage that its champions are unable to communicate.

@JohanLarsson I use it for entering text.

No, you are being foolish.

And asserting your own foolishness by repeating it.

why so mad?

Because Cerb has done this before. It is learning-averse.

I already tried. @Rob already tried. He refuses to pay attention.

all he did was have an opinion no?

I write programs, letters, shopping lists, articles, and books with vi.

In answer to your question.

6:22 PM

have you published a book?

Oh, I see.

Six of them, depending on how you count things.

Some over 1,000 pages.

links?

I would still be writing them if I were using GUI toys.

Gosh.

@JohanLarsson This works.

And now I must join friends for lunch.

Who are also vi users.

It’s our interface to text creation.

@tchrist [x] impressed, gonna buy some of them even though I will probably never use Perl

probably the newest one

I like using a program that has both good graphical elements and shortcuts.

6:27 PM

@JohanLarsson You are kind. Get the Cookbook too, it will help. Here is a ref to my position on zenning out when editing.

I also like to make my own shortcuts.

I use them all the time.

Like zx => *

I use that one all the time, because I find * hard to type if you have to hold shift and read up to the upper row at the same time.

I find that I never or hardly ever type zx anyway. And I can always turn it off depending on the name of the application or screen I'm working on, etc.

@tchrist I don't really know when I will have a reason to try Vim, I write almost only C# and am perfectly happy with VS +R# for that.

6:54 PM

@tchrist amazon.com/Happy-Hacking-Keyboard-Professional2-Black/dp/…

drool

Tomorrow September 8 is the anniversary of the first Star Trek broadcast. Live long and prosper. Go where no-one has gone before.

If noöne has gone there before, I'm sure they had a reason not to.

Makes me want to get my Emacs chops back. I used VI long ago but went with Emacs. What makes vim so good? I've opened it up and poked around, but never had time for the learning curve. Some people swear it's faster than Emacs.

Maybe adding buttons and menus would ease the learning curve without detracting from its speed.

@MετάEd If you're talking about the original, you probably mean "where no man has gone before." You PC mofo, you.

6:58 PM

@Cerberus careful now

I personally see no reason to go back to Word Perfect 5.1 unless buttons really hold back the speed. But then I'd like to know how buttons hold anything back. Make the buttons optional, if you must.

@JohanLarsson Hah, I'm not afraid!

pah?

Pah!

@Cerberus It's not really a conceptual learning curve. It's getting all the commands into your ganglia. The way woodshedding a piece of music is a "get it under your fingers" kind of experience.

Gotta go to the dry cleaners now. Laters.

@Robusto Exactly. I call it a memorising curve.

Bai!

7:10 PM

@Robusto You're just helping me accomplish my master plan.

@Robusto is what ...?

skop is Afrikaans for kick

But I don't really know why... It just had a ring to to it and stuck for some reason.

7:29 PM

@tchrist Broken links at the bottom.

@MετάEd have you also published books?

@JohanLarsson No. I have designed a published book.

ah, i have asked you before I think, vague feeling of deja vu

Wonder what the invisible hand is doing right now?

@skopp OK, for people playing along at home, here's my twisted thought process. The chain of associations: 1) You asked if there were any "real" poets on this board. 2) I noticed that your name was skopp. 3) I know that in Old English, the word for people like the "poet" who wrote Beowulf was scop. 4) I thought you might have seen the word and understood what it was, but never heard it spoken, so you didn't really know it was pronounced like shop.

7:53 PM

@skopp Schop.

Some dialects here say skop, though.

Maybe the invisible hand is wearing a boot stamping face — forever?

that would be deceptive, not many would suspect the hand of such a thing.

@Robusto So scop meant bard/poet in Old English? Any idea about its etymology?

@Cerberus I think we've had this discussion.

I thought it might come from the Greek skopos.

A seer, perhaps? I dunno, you're the classical scholar.

@JohanLarsson From George Orwell to Adam Smith. I like the way you think.

Oh.

Jun 3 '11 at 1:59, by Robusto

@Vitaly — By the way, anent this, I do believe the Anglo-Saxon word scop (akin to bard, a singer of heroic songs such as Beowulf), may ultimately be derived from episkopos, which became biscop in OE (today's bishop). Episkopos of course meant "overseer"; and I like to think that scop meant "seer". Well, not bad for a folk etymology, ne?

No, it was with Vitaly. Sorry.

Did someone cue the comic relief? Here comes Jasper.

user87637

7:57 PM

LOL!

@Robusto OED says related to scoff, Germanic word, but gives no ultimate etymology.

user87637

Wow, I have 4 stars for saying some shit, fascinating.

What are some of the adjectives used to describe truly amazing things?

@Cerberus Hence my feeling of being entitled to draw my own conjecture in the matter.

There are recurrent ones like: amazing, unbelievable, etc...

user87637

7:59 PM

@saadtaame I just used fascinating.

3

I'm looking for unusual ones :d

Fantabulous?

@Robusto Very well.

user87637

I learned fascinating from the great @cerberus!

user87637

I usually use amazing myself.

@Robusto But the Germanic older meaning is about mock, ridicule, not see.

@Jasper Really, you didn't know it?

user87637

8:01 PM

@Cerberus I know it. I mean you use it frequently.

OK good.

Now I have to go.

Later!

@Cerberus Which strikes me as odd, since a scop was a poet more in the Homeric than the Juvenalian mold. How would you turn ridicule into "relater of heroic deeds"? I suppose stranger things have happened though . . .

@Robusto The "mock" sense is older, presumably: mock < jest < jester < bard.

@Robusto I'm actually a bit proud of that one. It came out nicely.

Jesters were known to mock even their masters, as you know...

All the while signing songs and entertaining people.

And apparently signing or declaiming epic poems at some point.

8:05 PM

@Cerberus They actually signed the CD covers. They sang the songs.

Spelling. Hard.

*sanging

Speling is hadr.

Would be interesting to hear what Smith would say about his theory if he saw 21st century corporate-scale greed, finance etc.

Adam?

yeah

8:06 PM

1

Q: do we call them 'logical errors' or 'logistical errors'?

Well I am reading a novel which has lots of those lol, where some of the events do not make sense at all. Should I call them logical errors?? or logistical errors???

meaning word-choice word-usage

He was in favour of regulating markets to curb excesses.

wat

Hello.

You're a logistical error.

Damn, tweened by Cerberus.

And now I'm going to make the logistical error of running instead of a more efficient means of transportation.

Bai!

8:07 PM

@Rob will be happy to hear that I'm in the middle of a Breaking Bad marathon, this time with my wife whom I managed to hook.

did fox watch any?

The Kit fox? She's in Season 2. But I thought you knew.

@RegDwighт Nice. Just four more episodes left for me. After it's over and the final season is out on Blu-Ray I plan to do a marathon as well.

And I must be off again.

@Robusto yeah I'm up to date as well. We are only two days behind the US.

I get to watch on Tuesdays.

Anyway, with my wife we're just done with One Minute.

So, pretty much halfway through.

@RegDwighт does she like it?

8:10 PM

Immensely. She did take her time though.

She was never going to watch, like ever. She flat out stated just that, many times over.

But here she is watching, not able or willing to stop.

Basically what happened was that she was sewing some dresses, and as chance would have it there was a BB marathon on some obscure channel, so I put it on and pretended to watch. She of course had no choice but at least listen along, lifting her head from time to time. And so it began.

It took me five sewing sessions and one and a half seasons to convince her without convincing.

@RegDwighт I continue to be impressed with the development. The brilliant way they're using Jesse now. He has gone from weak, addled man in pain to full-fledged nemesis of Walter. And it looks like he just might be going to beat Walter in a way that really hurts: by out-thinking him.

I must say he's outthinking me as well. I have no idea what he's up to.

That "home" he mentioned, could be many things. Well, a couple.

But I don't want to speculate, of course, just like yourself. To not take away from the enjoyment.

I don't either. But the DEA is following along like little bitches. And how about Hank's sudden turn toward darkness, willing to sacrifice Jesse just to get Walt.

@RegDwighт It doesn't take away from the enjoyment. I know I'm going to be wrong, mostly, but I can't help myself.

@Robusto Yeah that was perfectly in character in the great scheme of things, and especially thinking back to when he beat Jesse up (we've watched that episode just two hours ago). But then and there it was sudden indeed.

@Robusto did you watch Ghost dog?

8:18 PM

Even where I am right, like how I predicted that Walt would use the money he gave Walt for his physical therapy and hold it against him, but the way he did it was more than I ever imagined.

@JohanLarsson Not yet.

@Robusto well then speculate away. Is it the family? Is it the formula? I honestly can't tell.

@Robusto that one really came out of nowhere for me. That is probably the one single thing I expected the least over the course of all five seasons.

@RegDwighт It's not Walt's family, because ultimately they are just pawns to him (and how chilling was the way he played Junior?).

But the question is how much of that is known to Jesse.

Or it might be he'll open up Junior's eyes for him. That could hurt Walt.

Someone speculated that Jesse will ride off into the sunset as baby Holly's new dad.

I must say that'd make too much sense to me. I don't want it.

8:22 PM

@RegDwighт The scales have fallen from Jesse's eyes. He is actually a really smart dude, and the one who came up with all the schemes that worked in Season 5 (the train, the giant magnet, etc.). But he won't turn to the dark side, which is why he had no hand in the 10 assassinations. He's Gandalf going up against Saruman now.

@RegDwighт Vince Gilligan isn't going to put that kind of a bow on this.

Yeah. He has so many bows to choose from.

Or had. That sucker knows it all.

I can't tell if you are analyzing it for real or if it is irony, lean towards that it must be irony

@JohanLarsson that's because you are the only person ever to quit watching BB.

He's going to leave us feeling satisfied. Surprised, disturbed, purged and, ultimately, satisfied.

Yeah he keeps saying that.

8:24 PM

@JohanLarsson When speaking about this show I eschew irony. I'm 100% bought in.

I really thought Hank was going to be the nemesis. But he wasn't strong enough, ultimately. It's clear now that it has to be Jesse who does in Walt. Though I didn't realize that until the last five minutes of the latest episode.

That's what's so fucking great about this show. It's smarter than I am.

@RegDwighт I think I watched most of it, maybe the whole thing. Remember that the duty|pride to finishing things was involved at some point.

@Robusto Good thing they didn't kill him off in Season one, then, eh?

@RegDwighт Yeah. I have a theory about that. I think this show has been shaped in three acts. The first two seasons are Act I. Seasons 3 and 4 are Act II. And the last two are Act III. And because of the nature of TV, where a producer doesn't know if a show will get canceled, he has to be ready to end it at any juncture. So as he found there would be more seasons, Gilligan was able to indulge himself (and us) with a richer, more layered drama.

@Robusto and that is totally not Hank's fault, of course. The title of the show is not about Walt, it is about absolutely everyone else whom he drags down with him and forces to break bad themselves. Jesse is the only one who could possibly break good.

Good point.

8:31 PM

@Robusto that makes a lot of sense, but I don't think anyone could have been sure of that a season 2 was sellable.

Oh, and one more scary theory I overheard being entertained. Walter Junior happening across the confession video by accident.

@JohanLarsson No, which is one reason Jesse was slated to die in S1. But although Gilligan knew where the whole thing had to go, he didn't know how it would get there until the final two seasons. He was building the bridge across this canyon even as he was crossing over.

I mean, that poor guy has to do something at some point. He can't just be eating breakfast for six seasons straight.

@RegDwighт I honestly think that's too weak for the show.

I would agree.

It's too mafia-movie style.

8:34 PM

There would be no moral dimension to that.

If Junior does learn about dad, he's going to learn it from Jesse.

Still, my actual point being, Flynn is sort of underused.

I can't even remember how it ended. Is season 5 the definitive end?

So I'm certain we'll see from him.

@JohanLarsson yes. Only four episodes to go.

@RegDwighт He's been a stage prop for six seasons. But that doesn't mean he can't suddenly get a very big role.

Oh and BTW, following your warning I tried real hard not to look at the names of the upcoming episodes. And I succeeded up until last week.

Meaning that I know the title of the upcoming one.

8:36 PM

Whoa, and how about Skyler, all "these are just euphemisms, right"? She wants people whacked now. Walt has totally corrupted her.

@RegDwighт You mean the Shelley one?

The thing is, that one was not a spoiler at all for me because I had no idea what it even meant. But then I overheard someone explaining it. Out of nowhere.

@Robusto The one that's a weird collection of letters with an apostrophe.

"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Probably the best and pithiest use of irony in English.

@Robusto yeah WTF was that. She's batshit scary now.

@RegDwighт Oh, that one. I figured that was some Native American word or phrase.

Well you're ahead of me.

Anyway I'm not going to say what some dude said it meant, but it makes sense.

8:40 PM

And since you looked already, I'll tell you that "Live Free or Die" is the motto of the state of New Hampshire (it's on their license plates) and "the Granite State" is their nickname.

I also watch those Talking Bad specials on YouTube. Now that I'm caught up, it makes for a nice addendum.

@tchrist are you also a breaking bad fan?

I don't like to watch other people talk about it. It's like watching people fuck your girlfriend. I have a very special relationship with this show, and I don't like when it sleeps around.

That is very true actually. So far I mostly watched when it was the actors themselves as guests.

They obviously never speculated or disclosed anything.

But when it's some strangers, like some stupid dumb chick that one time, god in heaven was she annoying.

I don't read anything about it on Reddit or Slate. But I do discuss it with my family and friends.

8:43 PM

I dislike when the product is showing in a series.

@Robusto I only read the synopsis on The TV Critic. It's really good. Reddit is obviously a crapper.

The TV Critic always gets all kinds of subtleties I was too dumb to see or interpret.

@RegDwighт That's where you want Aaron Paul or Bryan Cranston to reach across the coffee table and casually bitch-slap her. "Sorry, honey, but STFU."

I will actually go now and find out her name.

Julie Bowen. Fuck her with a cactus. Seriously. What a dumb piece of waste of molecules.

And they had to match her up with Vince, which is why I watched that crapisode in the first place.

Oh, her. She's OK on Modern Family, but she is not up to commenting on Breaking Bad. I mean, you gotta punch your weight. You can't put Julie Bowen in there with Vince Gilligan.

She was all like, 'OMG this show is so smart and cool, like you know, that one time when...', then inevitably followed by the most basic uninteresting crap fact like 'we find out that Walt is a teacher' or 'Jesse has a mom'. Seriously, the very definition of WTF.

Wife's back, I suppose we're resuming in a minute.

So lators.

8:50 PM

@RegDwighт What I call "banal-retentive" . . .

Yeah. As I said. Cactus.

AFK

Matt Эллен

9:03 PM

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl is a film I just watched. I watched all of it. I can't recommend it.

My general recommendation when it comes to film & TV is to find better use for the space the TV takes up, perhaps a bookshelf or why not good ol' void?

Matt Эллен

oh, I don't have a TV. I watched it on the same screen I'm reading your messages on

like a pro!

Matt Эллен

:D

I mean, I like ridiculous nonsense, but even I have a limit

apparently

because that film is past it

I did not have a TV for a couple of years, the old one stopped working and I saw no reason for replacing it. Bought the new one when my father was coming to visit me for a week, thought he might get bored when I was at work. He did not turn it on once :D

Matt Эллен

9:11 PM

:D

I didn't have a TV for years, then I moved in with my (now ex) girlfriend and bought one. We watched it a lot. When it ended I gave it to her. I have no regrets

well, about giving up the TV, at least

:)

Turning on the TV makes me switch channels with an increasing sense of urgency.

Matt Эллен

do you think you might miss something?

prism-break.org This is a really cool name for a site that provides open-source software.

Matt Эллен

hi @Cerb :D

@MattЭллен haha

Matt Эллен

9:14 PM

@Cerberus it is a clever name

@MattЭллен Hi!

@MattЭллен Aww.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus a life without regret is not a life :D

@MattЭллен Yeah it's nice, even I seem to remember there was a film or something with that title.

@MattЭллен Quite so.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus prison break, starring um... that guy

it's a TV series, the first season was good. I didn't see the second

That I do not know.

Matt Эллен

9:17 PM

something incredibly American like... Chester Bennington

hang on

ah yeah, Wentworth Miller

he's the main guy

@Cerberus it's interesting that ubuntu isn't on there

@MattЭллен Aren't they an American company?

I don't know.

Unrelated:

0

A: What is the policy concerning users who copy and paste answers without acknowledging the source?

What I do is add the source, which can be lot of work to determine if many websites have copied the same text from one another, and/or add a comment "please mention your source if you quote verbatim". I don't think it is serious enough an offence to warrant flagging or any further action; it is m...

Matt Эллен

yeah, I think they are now. They started in SA

SA?

South Africa?

Matt Эллен

South Africa

:D

Ah.

Matt Эллен

9:32 PM

but Debian are American, no?

it's about what you do, not where you are

Hmm you're no doubt right.

user image

I love this.

in C# on Stack Overflow Chat, Sep 4 at 19:02, by not-rightfold

user image

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus yes :D

@JohanLarsson no, you just get bashed

yes probably

Matt Эллен

:p

9:35 PM

Hah.

> Warning for mobile devices & Tor: Websites using HTML5 <video> tags will leak <video>-related DNS queries and data transfer outside of Tor.

?

do you use Tor?

Matt Эллен

oh dear. that's unfortunate. I wonder why that happens

Hiya.

Hi @KitFox

Matt Эллен

hello.

9:44 PM

@skullpatrol Maybe @1:20 is relevant

@KitFox hej, are you a breaking bad fan now?

I've been one, but without the time to watch. I think we just finished or have almost finished the second season.

@JohanLarsson Thanks for the admiration :D

!

O.o

Matt Эллен

(-.-)

9:56 PM

o.O

@JohanLarsson No, I don't really need it for anything specific, and I'm too lazy.

Although I should probably use it to stop the likes of Google and the NSA.

But...

Do you use it?

I remember using it many years ago.

only heard about it, never felt a reason big enough for the effort.

@MattЭллен Yeah, I was wondering about that. It seems strange.

but you probably name a reason big enough

I suppose.

I used the Vidalia TOR extension.

But it should make your traffic slower if you use it for everything.

Maybe use it for websites where you post private data only?

10:09 PM

like nude pics?

But the NSA is the greatest threat, so it wouldn't make sense to use Gmail through TOR.

@JohanLarsson Haha, for example. Or your address, phone number, maybe posts on a medical forum, dating sites, anything.

But there are no nude pictures of me on the Internet.

Actually, TOR's main function is preserving your anonymity.

So using it on sites where you post your name and address is less functional.

Although it still prevents men in the middle from snooping.

10:29 PM

@Robusto Have one.

Is this username discriminatory

45 2

abstract-algebra discrete-mathematics inequality limit modular-arithmetic real-analysis sequences-and-series

Depends on whether it is a joke...but anyway, I'd just leave him be. He's not going to make himself popular that way.

Thanks

10:46 PM

What a weirdo.

I see people are already attacking him/her in the comments.

Perhaps he should be made to change his name because active trolling is not allowed?

yep he's a hater who's gonna hate

@Cerberus and passive trolling is allowed up to the point that it becomes active :-)

@skullpatrol Hehe, I guess...

I mean, he is posting "anti-gay" all over SE. That's active trolling, isn't it? What if this makes Google associate "SE" with "anti-gay"?

Matt Эллен

his answers

seem to be just excuses to post

not wrong, but not saying anything

Good point.

Oh, yeah?

He did get some up-votes.

8

Q: User with homophobic name

I am posting to formally register my disapproval of this user's name. I believe it constitutes hate speech. If you look at the comments on this user's answers, you will see that many others do too. At the very least, the name is already causing a lot of trouble, and the user has not even been ar...

discussion specific-user

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