English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Matt Эллен

00:04

gud nett

simchona

00:16

0

A: What's the difference between "e.g." and "ex."?

I think ex. is soooooooooo much better Ex.=good e.g.= bad

Does the comment seem fishy to anyone?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I dunno. I'll just delete this nonsense wholesale.

simchona

That works too

David Wallace

00:42

As general reference?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Nah I meant the answer. Though now that you mention it...

David Wallace

Oh, yeah, the answer sucks too. I think getting rid of the question might have been good earlier; but now that it has two answers, why not just leave it alone?

simchona

01:11

@DavidWallace Multiple answers isn't criteria for leaving something alone...

David Wallace

but it may shade one's perception in a borderline case like this.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

01:24

-1

Q: "Latin vs English" vs "Greek vs English"

Someone recommended that taking Latin courses will help me improve my English grammar and speaking skills. As I was searching books on Amazon, I came across Greek which puzzled me wether to go with Latin or Greek. There are a number of kids in our community who have studied Greek and they seem to...

> First, I don't understand the difference between the two languages. Could someone explain the difference?

@Cerberus.

Also @jsbngs because I know he'll love the tags on this one.

David Wallace

Oh, you closed it, @Reg! Think of the fun I could have had answering it.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Re-post it on Cooking and answer it there.

KitFox

giggles from the hidey sack

David Wallace

@RegDwightѬſ道 tempting. Lingusitics maybe?

Or maybe there's some kind of Greek Culture SE site. That might be fun.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

I'm sure the fine folks at Cooking will migrate it for you.

David Wallace

01:40

@KitFox How long have you been hiding there? You snuck in like a fox.

KitFox

My heart leaps up when I behold
a pudding or a pie:
Or yummy things in cooking pans,
A Danish, tart, or shortcrust flan,
Custards creeping within their mold,
And shall I try
To wrap it up in marzipan
And I could wish my days no less
Bound each to each by sweet stickiness.

2

Where has Ed gone anyway?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Those math folks will flag anything.

Even whores.

KitFox

And penides, apparently.

OK. Good night!

Cerberus

@RegDwightѬſ道 Haha wtf.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

CU

Cerberus

01:49

Night!

RegDwight Ѭſ道

in Mathematics, 3 mins ago, by RegDwight Ѭſ道

So whore presents and expert sex change are fine, but power genitalia is somehow flag-worthy? Ain't this the math room? Where's the logic?

@Cerberus I liked his choice of words. Not "I don't know the difference", but "I don't understand the difference".

Cerberus

So the difference has been pointed out to him ("Greek is one language, Latin another"), and he failed to understand it?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

You sit there, look at Greek, then at Latin, then back at Greek again, and you see the difference, but you just don't understand it!

Cerberus

Oh, yes.

Like not understanding the difference between red and blue?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Perhaps.

Cerberus

01:52

Or man and woman?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

That's too philosophical.

Cerberus

By the way, do you understand the difference between loo and sink?

RegDwight Ѭſ道

They have no letters in common?

Cerberus

So, no?

Then your kitchen must be a bit of a mess.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

My kitchen is picture perfect.

Cerberus

01:55

Funny, if you habitually confuse the two.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

So why are you so openly sharing your most private habits with me like that?

Cerberus

What habit have I shared? You've shared yours.

Notice how I said "you", "your".

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Well notice how Kit said "urine" and I didn't.

Funny how you can't say "urine" without saying "you", lest you end up with a female name.

Cerberus

Rin?

I didn't know that name.

RegDwight Ѭſ道

Irene.

Cerberus

02:04

Oh, instead of!

Right.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

02:18

@davidw I wasn't being ironic.

Also @David, if a dev modifies a test to violate the spec, fine, the test can't catch that. But I was more thinking of the case where a new dev adds a field to the class and forgets the annotations

David Wallace

02:49

@MrShinyandNew安宇 Sorry, I'm not sure what you're not being ironic about. Did I accuse you of something? And presumably, if the new developer adds a field to the class and forgets the annotations, then he/she will also forget to add that field to the list of those in the class that the test checks annotations for.

Anyway, not like it matters now. Clearly you believe it's a worthwhile test. I don't. I don't think we're likely to agree, but I think we've both spent enough time discussing the matter.

David Wallace

04:07

0

Q: Is there really no secret stream copy method in the Java runtime?

I know about IOUtils and I know about FileChannel transferTo. But I would really like to know if there is a stream copy method somewhere hidden in the normal Java runtime. Something like public long copy( InputStream is, OutputStream os){...} I know I can write it myself but I am curious.

java

I'm tempted to answer "if I told you, it wouldn't be a secret".

Robusto

@DavidWallace Or "I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you."

David Wallace

@Robusto Far too clicheed.

Robusto

@DavidWallace — You think your version is not clichéd?

I thought you were trying for a chiché contest, ferchrissakes.

And there's also the venerable "Q. Can you keep a secret? A. Uh-huh. Q. Well, so can I."

David Wallace

I think you're scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Robusto

Hey, you brought it up.

David Wallace

04:16

Don't be such a stick in the mud.

Robusto

@DavidWallace I'm rubber and you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.

David Wallace

Sticks and stones will break my bones.

Robusto

What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?

David Wallace

with his tail between his legs.

Robusto

This is just like deja vu all over again.

David Wallace

04:20

yeah, well I took the easy way out.

Robusto

A stitch in time saves nine.

David Wallace

Measure seven times and cut just once.

Robusto

A fool and his money are amazed they ever got together in the first place.

David Wallace

Money makes the world go round.

Robusto

To give is better than to receive. For example, wedding presents.

David Wallace

04:25

I fear the Greeks bearing gifts.

Robusto

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.

David Wallace

Give them a finger and they'll take the whole hand.

Robusto

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

David Wallace

A great dowry is a bed full of brambles.

Robusto

The sleeping fox catches no poultry. Up! Up!

David Wallace

04:27

The fox fares best when he is cursed.

@Robusto Sounds like a Mafia wedding.

Robusto

@DavidWallace It's all Greek to me.

David Wallace

I said it in Hebrew - I said it in Dutch - // I said it in German and Greek. // But I wholly forgot (and it vexes me much) // that English is what you speak!

Robusto

I said it in Yiddish, I said it in French, I said it in fine Portuguese. I said it in Finnish, but slightly diminished, and in Chinese I barely could wheeze.

OK, you open the game on me with limericks, I have to shoot back:

--------------------------
The actress who played Lysistrata
While on stage seemed no inamorata
But her backstage libido
Made her act more like Dido:
Hot love scenes were desiderata.

------------------------
A gal with a lover from Agra
Thought his output, well, less than Niagara
So she locked him in cloisters
And fed him on oysters
Which she cooked up with ghee and Viagra.

David Wallace

He is an Englishman! For he himself has said it, and it's greatly to his credit, that he is an Englishman!

Robusto

@DavidWallace Speaking of which, how did a Crown colony get a Dutch name?

David Wallace

04:37

Are you referring to my home country?

The Dutch discovered it first, but didn't want it.

Robusto

That depends. Is your home country New Zealand?

Theta30

damn other one that makes a websites with an idea I had before

David Wallace

@Robusto Indeed

@Theta30 What was the idea?

Theta30

@DavidWallace a websites that makes images for any concept

Robusto

@DavidWallace I've never been there. I doubt I ever will go, either. Too much time on a plane.

David Wallace

04:40

Tell me about it. It takes forever to get anywhere from here.

@Theta30 Surely there's room for more than one?

Robusto

@DavidWallace I heard that in the early days of the Internet, New Zealand had but a single T1 line connecting the whole country to the rest of the world.

David Wallace

Every journey starts with a single step.

Robusto

True story?

David Wallace

I think so. I do remember being frustrated that there were people in NZ who, when I emailed them, would not get the email for about a week, because it ended up going to USA and back.

According to Wikipedia, "New Zealand's first internet connection was via Waikato University, managed by John Houlker. The capacity went from 64 kbit/s to 128 kbit/s between February 1993 and February 1994." Those numbers seem a little too small to me. I first used the Internet in 1989 and I can't remember it being quite that terrible.

Robusto

@DavidWallace It was all text in 1989, and damn little of that.

Bandwidth has grown exponentially since then. In 2007 YouTube all by itself used more bandwidth than the entire Internet did in 2000.

David Wallace

04:50

And I bet 3/4 of it was porn.

Robusto

@DavidWallace Only 3/4?

I read a statistic that said 79% of the porn was downloaded by men, and I thought: only 79%?

David Wallace

The sysadm at work claims that 90% of the company's web traffic is to TradeMe (which is like a NZ version of e-Bay).

Robusto

I suppose there are women who download porn, but I'd bet it's on the order of .02%, not 21%

David Wallace

@Robusto Doesn't surprise me. Women are more subtle than men.

Robusto

Maybe they are distinguishing men from boys. 79% men and 20.8% boys.

David Wallace

04:52

LOL

Actually, I think 21% is unsurprising. I know women who are interested in porn. And don't forget, you've got bored housewives at home during the day, with fast broadband.

Robusto

@DavidWallace Somehow I don't see it. The female equivalent of porn is romance novels and baby pictures.

David Wallace

Maybe you just know the wrong women.

Robusto

Or the right ones.

David Wallace

A chacun son gout (or however you spell it)

Robusto

To each his own, yes.

Gawd, I can't believe we're going to go on Daylight Savings Time in two weeks. Awfully early for that.

David Wallace

05:03

We get another four weeks of DST, I think, before we go back to standard time.

Robusto

@DavidWallace Oh, right. You're heading into winter, while we're getting back the sun you stole from us.

David Wallace

But I think your winters go later than our summers.

Robusto

I understand NZ has a pretty temperate climate.

David Wallace

Yeah, our seasons are much alike. Any given day could occur at any time of year.

Robusto

Kind of a Goldilocks climate, not to hot and not too cold?

David Wallace

05:05

Yes, although last year, we actually had snow on the ground in Wellington, for the first time in my living memory.

Robusto

Wellington is in the north?

David Wallace

It's at the southern tip of the North Island, and there's really nothing between Wellington and Antarctica.

I remember summers when I was younger, when the temperature got up to 34 or 35 celsius. I can't imagine that happening these days; certainly the summer we've just had was nothing like that.

Robusto

Hmm, I did lose some rep on SO. Went from 12269 to 12225.

David Wallace

Umm 35 Celsius = 95 Fahrenheit.

Robusto

@DavidWallace I know the conversion.

David Wallace

05:09

Just saving you some mental energy.

Were you in here the other day, when we were discussing reputation drops, then Rebecca showed up?

Robusto

No energy required. 10°C is 18°F, so for positive values you just add 32 + 18°F for every 10°C over 0.

David Wallace

Sounds energetic to me.

Robusto

@DavidWallace No. I thought they would fix the bug that lets someone destroy your rep-cap for the day by down-voting you as the last activity of that day. For example, say you get 24 up votes, which is 240 base value, but they only give you 200 due to the rep cap. Now, if someone comes down after the 24 up votes and votes you down, you have 198 for the day and it never gets recalculated.

But I don't understand the new system. Why does it show a -10 on a question if there were no down votes?

David Wallace

A new question or an old one?

Robusto

From two days ago.

David Wallace

05:20

It's an "unupvote". Somebody removed their upvote. Under the old system, it would have shown up as +65 only.

Robusto

That was mingy of them.

David Wallace

No, that can't be right. The timeline shows it occurring BEFORE any of the upvotes.

Robusto

A mystery.

David Wallace

Did you have over 200 rep+ from something else on that day, that got deleted, so the upvote on this one didn't count, or something? Worth asking on meta if the -10 disturbs you.

Robusto

Haha, no it doesn't disturb me. Just puzzles me, that's all.

David Wallace

05:25

AFK.

Mahnax

05:52

eats ice cream from pail

feels like overemotional teenage girl

doesn't care, resumes munching

Mahnax