English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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Robusto

4:00 PM

But the point is, you can order one and have it in a few days.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist Yea, except tey still ave it on some new models.

Robusto

Apple's QA has gone way down in the last ten years.

anongoodnurse

@Robusto I will definitely look into that.

tchrist

@anongoodnurse You just get a standalone keyboard of any variety that is either Bluetooth or else has a connector, usually USB A, that you can plug into the Mac via a USB-C adaptor.

anongoodnurse

@tchrist Bluetoot sounds really good.

tchrist

4:01 PM

I personally use a Happy Hacker Keyboard, but there's no reason to spend that much unless you type on it all day every day.

anongoodnurse

Actually, "bluetoot" sounds odiferous.

tchrist

’Tisn’t the sound that kills ye, but the fragrance.

Robusto

@anongoodnurse For example: newegg.com/p/pl?d=external+keyboard+for+MacBook

anongoodnurse

Tank you both. It's been nice to reconnect,

@tchrist LOL!

tchrist

@anongoodnurse I've been concerned for your children, and you.

Robusto

4:02 PM

@anongoodnurse And you'll be blue in tooth and claw!

anongoodnurse

@tchrist As I ave been for you. Glad to see you're ok.

tchrist

I'm using a 13" MacBook Pro form 2018 w/ four USB-C/Thunderbolt ports. Always new connectors, sigh.

anongoodnurse

Meh, this leg was the perfect preparation for a shutdown.

@Robusto Tat looks great!

tchrist

@anongoodnurse I was a socially recluded hermit before it was popular!

anongoodnurse

Take care, all.

@tchrist :)

Robusto

4:04 PM

Bye!

tchrist

> Social distancing will be needed until at least the end of the year to prevent fresh outbreaks of coronavirus even though the UK has reached the peak of the current epidemic, the government’s chief medical officer has said.

Prof Chris Whitty, the UK’s most senior medic, said it was important to be realistic that “highly disruptive” social distancing would need to be in place for “really quite a long period of time”.

From the Guardian. Or this from the New York Times:

> Americans should expect social distancing guidelines to continue for months, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said in a televised interview on Sunday.

I'm sure that's all not merely correct but understated.

Robusto

4:19 PM

@tchrist Not only is it correct, but it's also 100% certain to be ignored.

tchrist

@Robusto Not by the virus.

Robusto

Of course.

tchrist

"The virus will tell us what we need to know."

That's why the authoritarian dictators of our world are so frustrated by it. It won't do their bidding. Sorry about that Cnut.

Forces majeures are not beholden to you.

Robusto

@tchrist BTW, to the extent that such things can be known, some believe Cnut performed that stunt (if it really happened) to impress upon his fawning courtiers that he was just a man—a crowned man, to be sure, but not one who commanded nature.

tchrist

Cool map.

@Robusto Every epoch and every place will produce its own selfcrowned sons of heaven.

Whether by popular acclaim or by imposition. It's what people do.

Like the Kims.

Robusto

4:35 PM

@tchrist Our country was formed expressly to discourage that.

tchrist

Yet Manifest Destiny is the next best thing to Divine Right.

Go figger.

"For death is the wages of sin" or some such.

Robusto

I wonder what the COVID-19 half-life is on meat.

tchrist

@Robusto Depends on whether it's well done or bleu.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto Yes. Let's do it, then. Rob, Sam, George, Callum, Barbara, Olivia, Sieglinde, Ann-Marie, Jessica, Jessika, Jess, Jessie, Jesse, Oleksandr, Sergey, Anatoly, Natasha.

Well. That's not helping.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Hah. Now I'm even more confused.

RegDwigнt

4:41 PM

Yeah. Like WTF it would know Jessika, which isn't even a name, but not know Jess.

Robusto

It doesn't recognize Sieglinde?

tchrist

@RegDwigнt You shouldn't be using a QWERTZ keyboard.

Robusto

So let's just agree that the squiggle function is an idiot.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto maybe even more to the point, Ann is a name but Marie is not.

tchrist

Marie Marie quite contrarie.

RegDwigнt

4:43 PM

No, wait. Marie is a name but Ann isn't.

That, of course, makes much more sense. I take it all back.

Robusto

2 mins ago, by Robusto

So let's just agree that the squiggle function is an idiot.

tchrist

Software is always awful.

RegDwigнt

Yeah. Then again, wait till you see its creators.

Robusto

If a program is ever perfect it's because the problem it solves is trivial.

"Hello world!"

RegDwigнt

Yeah. Except they can't even make that relation bijective. If a problem is trivial, doesn't mean they won't write you a piece of crap that solves nothing.

Not everyone can spell "world", for starters.

Robusto

4:48 PM

Well, whenever I try to type "Hello world" I invariably type "Hellow world" and then I have to correct it myself. So there is a use case for such a program.

RegDwigнt

Anyway. I didn't mean to interrupt your conversation.

Robusto

Like hell.

Or like hellow.

RegDwigнt

@tchrist that, of course, is not a hugely helpful map unless they include all the plants that are not affected.

Robusto

All it means is that I won't be able to get bacon at the store.

Shel Silverstein - Beans Taste Fine

►

RegDwigнt

Like, this makes it seem like Iowa is an epicenter of the pandemic. While in reality it might be that that's simply where most of their plants are.

Or, like, is the dot in Washington their one and only plant there, or merely one out of two thousand. Huge difference.

Anyway. How is a food processing plant a good venue for a virus outbreak. Shouldn't they be all wearing hazmat suits at all times always anyway.

Only serves to highlight yet another broken system that must've been broken for decades.

Mar 31 at 20:29, by RegDwigнt

The fall isn't fast. We've been falling for a long time. It is only suddenly that we notice it.

Your bacon has always been treated by people who don't wash their hands or cover their mouths when coughing. It's only now that they tell you.

Robusto

4:58 PM

> The Men That Are Falling
(Wallace Stevens)

God and all angels sing the world to sleep
Now that the moon is rising in the heat

And crickets are loud again in the grass. The moon
Burns in the mind on lost remembrances.

He lies down and the night wind blows upon him here.
The bells grow longer. This is not sleep. This is desire.

Ah! Yes, desire…this leaning on his bed,
This leaning on his elbows on his bed,

Staring, at midnight, at the pillow that is black
In the catastrophic room…beyond despair,

RegDwigнt

In Russia, there's that one epidemiologist lady, chief epidemiologist of some state, I forget. And Russia doesn't have states anyway, but you get the idea. Not just a county or even a city. So anyway. She's been like holding scientific presentations on the virus, and going to all those TV shows telling people how to protect themselves and what not to do.

And then at one of said scientific talks, she swooned and collapsed on stage. They took her to the hospital, turned out she had returned from a vacation in Italy just a week earlier and now had the virus.

And later it turned out that she had passed the virus on to half the state. Either directly or by proxy. Gave it to hundreds, and they passed it on to thousands.

Do as I say, not as I do.

But now on the subject of loud crickets in the grass, I have to go terraform my Animal Crossing island.

No corona there.

I put every villager in quarantine if they don't behave.

3 hours later…

Xanne

7:59 PM

@RegDwigнt I have a friend who reads the Russian press. So could you give me a location (oblast?) or a name?

Or is it a place smaller than a county or city?

RegDwigнt

8:47 PM

Stavropol Krai

Stavropol Krai (Russian: Ставропо́льский край, tr. Stavropolsky kray, IPA: [stəvrɐˈpolʲskʲɪj kraj]) is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is geographically located in the North Caucasus region in Southern Russia, and is administratively part of the North Caucasian Federal District. Stavropol Krai has a population of 2,786,281 (2010).Stavropol is the largest city and the capital of Stavropol Krai, and Pyatigorsk is the administrative center of the North Caucasian Federal District. Stavropol Krai is bordered by Krasnodar Krai to the west, Rostov Oblast to the north-west, Kalmykia to the north...