English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

1:25 PM

Anyone seen this fake celebrity?

►

It's funny.

People are really crazy.

Robusto

1:42 PM

There are genuine celebrities?

Cerberus

There are celebrities whose names people know, at least.

Here people pretend to know his name, for some inscrutable reason.

Robusto

Well, a celebrity is someone who is famous for being well-known.

Cerberus

And yet you don't even need to be known at all.

Apparently.

You don't need to be very good looking either.

As long as people think other people know you, they will worship you.

I have some friends who will giggle when they see someone they have seen on television in a bar. Preposterous.

But at least they know whom they are adoring.

Robusto

ZOMG!!! It's Brett Cohen!!! I am so totally blown away!

Dude, he is a genuine fake celebrity. I don't know how you couldn't have spotted it!

That is so AWESUM!!!!

Cerberus

1:58 PM

@Robusto Oh, God! I can't believe I didn't see it!

His heroic features, his euphonious name.

Robusto

In other news, Apple won their patent suit against Samsung. Sheeeeit!

Apple now owns rectangles with rounded corners. I can't fucking believe it.

Cerberus

I know.

And it's not just in America.

Korea is fairly bad too, and so is Germany.

I think we have a few silly patent rulings too.

Robusto

This is such outrageous bullshit.

Cerberus

Everyone who knows anything about it says the patent system is broken.

Robusto

In software it totally is kaput.

Cerberus

2:04 PM

And they're trying to set up a European patent court. It's horrible. This court will be completely independent of the EU! Outrageous!

@Robusto Yes. But not just software.

Design patents are way bad too.

Only chemical and pharmaceutical patents are said to result in a net profit to their holders.

Robusto

So Apple shouldn't just have most of the money. They should have it all.

Cerberus

The others just result in endless lawsuits and stifled competition.

But pharmaceutical patents, too, are semi-broken.

The whole system needs fixing.

Or abolishment.

Anything better than this.

The good thing is that, now that the world has seen the worst excesses, it may at last wake up.

user19161

Bullshit sounds like kaput.

Robusto

@Cerberus You want odds on that?

Cerberus

@Robusto I think it is already happening, but it's slow.

Major political parties here are already discussing how ridiculously expensive certain medicines are, due to patents.

It also came into play in the ACTA debate.

Which was unanimously blocked by our parliament.

user19161

2:17 PM

@Cerberus Medicines here are getting much more expensive too. Just simple flu meds for example.

user19161

Sometimes the new drugs seems like daylight robbery.

user19161

The pharmaceutical companies must be making tons of money.

Cerberus

They are.

I think they spend about 15 % of their budget on research; the rest is marketing and profit, lobbying, that kind of stuff.

Some other overhead too.

I read this figure somewhere.

Robusto

@Cerberus The problem is, developing new pharmaceuticals is very expensive, and the patent window is very short, so the companies feel they have to gouge consumers for that brief period before cheap generics come on the market. But in software, a 15-year (or whatever) patent is outrageously long.

Anyway, errands. AFK

Cerberus

@Robusto That is mostly true, except that development costs are wildly exaggerated. See the 15 % I mentioned.

But yeah, much more expensive than with software.

tchrist

3:33 PM

0

A: Why are most new questions being downvoted?

A Survey of Means, Meaning, and Meanness I don’t believe that ELU is especially different in this compared to other StackExchange sites of its type. In particular, both the mean and median score of questions on the ELU front page are each comparatively high, but so too is our standard deviatio...

What a bunch of meanies — not!

cornbread ninja

I came in to sandbox backwards R.

It just doesn't work.

Я

It isn't me; it can't be done. sevenforums.com/general-discussion/…

tchrist

3:52 PM

@cornbreadninja I do not understand what you are saying, because I do not understand the verb sandbox as it is used here.

That is not a backwards R. Rather, it is U+042F, CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YA. Unicode only has a “backwards R” (the right term is a reversed Latin capital letter R) in the small capitals.

ↄ 2184 LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSED C
Ꜿ A73E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER REVERSED C WITH DOT
ꜿ A73F LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSED C WITH DOT
Ǝ 018E LATIN CAPITAL LETTER REVERSED E
ɘ 0258 LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSED E
ɜ 025C LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSED OPEN E
ᶔ 1D94 LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSED OPEN E WITH RETROFLEX HOOK
ɝ 025D LATIN SMALL LETTER REVERSED OPEN E WITH HOOK
ɞ 025E LATIN SMALL LETTER CLOSED REVERSED OPEN E
ꟻ A7FB LATIN EPIGRAPHIC LETTER REVERSED F
ᴎ 1D0E LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL REVERSED N

And in particular:
ᴙ 1D19 LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL REVERSED R

Not to be confused with:
Я 042F CYRILLIC CAPITAL LETTER YA

Other confusables with LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R include:

( Ʀ → R ) LATIN LETTER YR → LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R
( Ꭱ → R ) CHEROKEE LETTER E → LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R
( Ꮢ → R ) CHEROKEE LETTER SV → LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R
( ᖇ → R ) CANADIAN SYLLABICS TLHI → LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R
( ꓣ → R ) LISU LETTER ZHA → LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R

@cornbreadninja Here is one like the one you were looking at, kinda like the one @Reg used, which is indeeded listed as a confusable:

( я → ᴙ ) CYRILLIC SMALL LETTER YA → LATIN LETTER SMALL CAPITAL REVERSED R

Cerberus

OMG I can't see the LISU LETTER ZHA!

tchrist

@Cerberus Your life is without meaning.

Cerberus

It is indeed.

tchrist

Or at least, your lisu is.

Cerberus

Perhaps I should buy more orange shirts.

tchrist

4:07 PM

If you want to fit in with the Lisu, then yes, that would be a good idea. They have great taste in color:

Lisu people

The Lisu people (, ; , Lìsù zú; ; Lisu: ꓡꓲ-ꓢꓴ or ꓡꓲꓢꓴ) are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group who inhabit the mountainous regions of Burma (Myanmar), Southwest China, Thailand, and the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. About 730,000 live in Lijiang, Baoshan, Nujiang, Diqing and Dehong prefectures in Yunnan Province, China. The Lisu form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. In Burma, the Lisu are known as one of the seven Kachin minority groups and an estimated population of 450,000 Lisu live in (Katha District and Khamti District) Sagaing Divisi...

Cerberus

@tchrist Cute!

Too bad we're no girls.

tchrist

What does that have to do with anything?

You think men are "supposed" to wear different colors than women?

You are insane.

Repressed.

Imprisoned.

Cerberus

Hehe.

Not "supposed".

But there are conventions.

tchrist

God spake, and you goosestepped to his call.

Cerberus

How do you feel about aesthetic conventions in architecture, furniture?

tchrist

4:11 PM

I think they are stupid.

Of course.

Doing something because other people think you should is always the nadir of originality, thought, perceptiveness, and imagination.

Cerberus

And do you think there is any kind of architectural work that doesn't make have use of conventions and expectations?

tchrist

Bah-bah-bah

I am a man, not a sheep.

Cerberus

And yet you admire lots of objects that heavily depend on aesthetic conventions.

Nobody forces anybody to stick with them, but people just like them.

tchrist

You do things because you are insecure with your own image.

You made this clear last night.

When you spelt out the most important criteria for how you dress.

I think you are mad.

Cerberus

Instead of personal insults, which are complete nonsense, perhaps you should better address the question.

Instead of evading it.

tchrist

4:14 PM

I refuse to go down the road of analogy.

Cerberus

You are of course free to use different conventions, as you do.

tchrist

I wear whatever I feel like.

Cerberus

It's not analogy, it is the same thing.

tchrist

It is an analogy, and I won't go there.

Cerberus

@tchrist And what you like is based on certain conventions.

tchrist

4:14 PM

Don't change the subject.

Must I quote you to yourself?

Cerberus

Everything you showed me is heavily conventionalized.

Surely you realize this.

tchrist

Surely you realize I was pulling your leg.

Cerberus

Of course conventions vary with pace and time.

tchrist

I just picked out something that had bright colors, because I know you find them outrageous.

But the examples I pulled were all things I would be glad to wear.

They resemble things in my closet.

Cerberus

Surely you realize how narrowly restricted your clothes are by certain conventions?

tchrist

4:17 PM

You are afraid of color.

Cerberus

They are nearly symmetrical, for one thing.

That's an aesthetic convention.

tchrist

No, I am symmetrical.

The patterns I showed were not.

You are afraid of color.

You think there is something wrong with this and that color.

Cerberus

But the collars and all are symmetrical. That is a convention, based on military dress, in fact.

tchrist

I find that tantamount to insane, because it is wholly irrational.

It is like superstition.

It is a religion.

Cerberus

No, those colours evoke negative emotions for me.

tchrist

4:19 PM

I do not believe it profitable to discuss your idolatries. Do you?

Cerberus

Just as you find other things ugly.

Then stop your pseudo-psychology.

tchrist

Go away, doggy.

I am not going to be herded with the rest of your sheep.

Cerberus

I personally consider it a weakness if I have to resort to personal insults to advance an "argument".

But whatever.

I won't comment on clothing to you ever again.

I guess that wasn't nice of me.

user19161

I see from meta that someone noticed the outrageous downvotes.

user19161

4:38 PM

I agree that downvotes are becoming excessive.

user19161

-3

Q: Is this sentence's grammar correct and meaning

That is: forgive, forgot the forever. It seems to have come from a poem.

user19161

That could mean that the forever forgot to forgive, interesting.

Mitch

5:08 PM

no. that deserves downvotes. what a terribly written question. no effort. exactly like reg;s comment, at 1.5K they should know better.

user19161

Oh I did not mean that should not be downvoted.

user19161

I was talking about different things consecutively.

Mitch

oh sorry, yes, I assumed connection by nearness.

Matt Эллен

5:32 PM

it's only human to do so

user19161

Yes, indeed.

user19161

There are 9000 ways to look at any situation.

Mitch

@MattЭллен I am human!

yay!

user19161

I am NOTW.

Mitch

or maybe you are and everyone else isn't.

user19161

5:37 PM

Er, that does not sound right.

Matt Эллен

I've been reading LotR so much I'm beginning to sound like them!

silly Hobbit

user19161

I wonder if I will ever find another person on earth who thinks like me...

Matt Эллен

A balrog follows a hobbit into a bar, the barman says to the hobbit "looks like he's shadowing you", the hobbit replies "figuratively".

Mitch

rimshot!

Matt Эллен

Try the buffet, it's got lembas bread

all you can eat

Mitch

5:48 PM

I don't get it.

Is it because they were shipwrecked and the hobbit offered the balrog a sandwich saying it was an albatross sandwich, but really it was their shipmate?

Matt Эллен

lol

Mitch

@JasperLoy Oh, don't worry, there are probably lots who think like you, it's just hard to know everyone.

@MattЭллен which one are you at?

first time?

Matt Эллен

@Mitch I'm still reading the fellowship. Yeah first time. I'm nearing the end of it, I feel a balrog is on its way.

Mitch

hm...no spoilers here.

how about 'speak friend and enter'?

Matt Эллен

I've seen all the films, so I know how it ends :D

Mitch

5:52 PM

!

oh

yeah the details in between are murky.

I remember watching that movies and often thinking 'Ohhhh... that's what was going on.'

Matt Эллен

I'm up to the bit in the mines, they're in a great hall and Frodo had a dream of burning eyes

Mitch

what a dreamer.

Matt Эллен

yeah, it was his watch, too!

Mitch

i dont get why he just doesn't give the ring to someone else. seems like a pain in the ass all around.

Matt Эллен

Gandalf won't let him. Some sort of bitch/butch relationship with Sam as the slave

Mitch

5:56 PM

Right. why is Gandlaf such a buttinsky? why would he think some puny hobbit, one he barely knows, could take care of it? wouldn't anybody be good enough?

also, why go into the mines? go around, duh!

Matt Эллен

well, Hobbits are somewhat better at resisting the lure of the ring than most.

Mitch

yo know that...um...spoiler alert...that golllum...you know...

Matt Эллен

I thought the dismissal of Tom Bombadil was odd, they could go and ask him, at least.

Mitch

He's a drunk...not reliable.

Matt Эллен

@Mitch right, but after hundreds of years

Mitch

5:58 PM

um..you know the back story to Gollum or is that explained in FotR?

Matt Эллен

which one?

yeah

Mitch

how he got the ring?

Matt Эллен

by killing his friend

but he was already a mental case

Mitch

his brother deagol.

well, the ring didn't help.

Matt Эллен

still greater resistence than a man would have

Mitch

5:59 PM

didn't ...

youve seen the mo=vie so...

boromir was... had issues with the ring, but his brother faramir... did not.

Matt Эллен

just like in James Bond

Mitch

exactly... wha?

Matt Эллен

006 in goldeneye, played by Sean Bean, was corrupt

probably by the one ring

Mitch

Ohhhh....

Matt Эллен

I'm guessing that makes Q Sauron

if only MI5 knew

I think it's odd how the films make Saruman out to be in league with Sauron from the beginning. Maybe it's to make the plot easier to follow, but it changes his character somewhat.

Mitch

6:05 PM

So the Russians are the hobbits?

Matt Эллен

Ya

Mitch

@MattЭллен i was about to say the books are too long to be represented fully by a movie, but they did a pretty god job of it. surely they could have had that subtlety.

Matt Эллен

Yeah. I enjoyed the films a lot. I hadn't read the books at the time. I think this is a good way to experience the films.

Mitch

In a terribly geeky way, the appendices (at the end of RotK) are the best part. the chronologies, the calendars, the writing.

Matt Эллен

I have that to look forward to then!

cornbread ninja

6:21 PM

@tchrist I was trying out teh unicodez.

Mitch

Gotta go. stuff is about to happen for you in FotR. and then more stuff. (two towers is kind of a drag, but patience, the ending is big...not everyone dies!)

Cerberus

Bye!

Mitch

@cornbreadninja last word...unicode is for babies. reading bit patterns directly is where all the kidz are at.

Cerberus

@Matt You haven't read LotR yet?

cornbread ninja

@Mitch !

Matt Эллен

6:23 PM

@Cerberus I know I've told you before :D

Cerberus

Oh.

cornbread ninja

Howdy @Cerb, @Matt, @sim, @Mitch

Cerberus

Hi.

Matt Эллен

hiya @cornbreadninja

@Cerberus but I'm reading it , so all is not lost!

Cerberus

Excellent.

> To this day, power users lack features that are readily available in competing products. For instance, having one's phone on a timer, more custom power options for a phone or computer, or customizations to the user interface would all be a great start."

Anyone know what "on a timer" is supposed to mean here?

arstechnica.com/apple/2012/08/…

Matt Эллен

6:33 PM

not really. if I put my phone on a timer, I would expect...

um...

it to ring someone at an appointed moment?

Cerberus

Could be?

But surely one can do that through an application?

Then again, the article is not written by a very bright person.

Matt Эллен

ah

could be they mean something they couldn't articulate

Cerberus

Possibly.

I mean, she's not exactly stupid, but she said some other things that are a bit naïve.

Matt Эллен

the clock on my phone has countdown, alarm and timer functionality

Cerberus

Lemme check mine.

Matt Эллен

6:35 PM

maybe she meant the clock?

Cerberus

This is about Iphones, by the way.

Matt Эллен

aye

Cerberus

@MattЭллен So how do you do that?

I can't find it in my clock.

Matt Эллен

tap on my clock, tap on the egg timer, profit

it also has a stopwatch

Cerberus

Nothing happens when I tap on my clock!

Matt Эллен

6:46 PM

how athletic

Cerberus

The screen dims.

Matt Эллен

:O

I don't know what to tell you. your clock is inferior

Cerberus

Long press makes it display just the time.

Apparently so!

Matt Эллен

maybe it's an HTC widget

Cerberus

Probably.

Meysam

6:54 PM

what's the meaning of "an overcast day"?

zero research effort

Cerberus

Lots of clouds.

But not necessarily rain.

It means the sky is overcast with clouds.

Matt Эллен

one with too many actors and not enough script to go around

Cerberus

Heh.

Or that.

Matt Эллен

now you have to choose between me and Cerberus

Cerberus

I pick yours.

Matt Эллен

6:59 PM

who is more likely to be right?

I pick yours

Cerberus

This must be confusing.

Matt Эллен

Meysam has the deciding vote

Cerberus

@Meysam No research effort required here!

The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife.

We an expression like that.

Meysam

@Cerberus That's why I come here before using a dictionary :)

Cerberus

Good!

Matt Эллен

7:02 PM

everyone should ask their questions here before they ask on the main site, that way we close fewer

/irony

Cerberus

But it is true, in fact.

Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@mahnax you should read this groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120824175815101

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus the irony being that then this would become the main site :D

Cerberus

That would be fun.

Matt Эллен

perhaps so...

user19161

7:09 PM

I have no idea why people ask highly complex questions sometimes here instead of on main.

Matt Эллен

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Would you like to contribute something to the blog reboot? I haven't asked before since I assumed you'd pitch if you wanted, but maybe I'm wrong.

user19161

The site is for questions you know; chat is only for gossip!

user19161

@MattЭллен I see no irony, only an iron.

Matt Эллен

speaking of gossip, I heard the Gandalf and a balrog might be dating

@JasperLoy Fe, I say

Alenanno

Hello everyone

Matt Эллен

7:18 PM

Hi @Alenanno

user19161

@MattЭллен Actually I don't know what I meant; I was just crapping.

user19161

@Alenanno Why art thou here today?

Matt Эллен

@JasperLoy Good, good. Keeping it incomprehensible

Alenanno

@JasperLoy This is still the first SE I joined eheh

Cerberus

Hi.

user19161

7:20 PM

I think I will delete one more account and just keep two.

user19161

Let me think more first.

Alenanno

I am a collector: I like many.

user19161

I just deleted nine that day.

Alenanno

that?

Meysam

@Alenanno Hi! what brings you here today?

user19161

7:28 PM

@Meysam You are late! I already asked him that! See above.

Alenanno

@Meysam Just decided to come here for a visit... Do I know you by the way?

Meysam

@JasperLoy I missed it. This time you won

@Alenanno I don't think you know me.

user19161

@Meysam I remember it is your son's birthday this week.

Alenanno

@Meysam Just wondering.

Meysam

@JasperLoy Yes. And I am buying him a penthouse as birthday gift. He will be surprised!

Alenanno

7:31 PM

Gotta go, bye everyone!

Matt Эллен

pop back soon @Alenanno

Alenanno

@MattЭллен Sure! :)

cornbread ninja

Meysam

Bye. We will miss you

Alenanno

@Meysam That's nice to know.

user19161

7:32 PM

@Meysam Oh my, you must be quite old then!

Matt Эллен

dupe!

2

Q: Reverse of schadenfreude

Schadenfreude is "enjoyment obtained from the trouble of others." I'm not looking for the antonym of that, but instead if there is a similar word for the object of schadenfreude. For instance, is there a word for me knowing (or being troubled that) others are experiencing schadenfreude at my expe...

single-word-requests inversion

7

Q: What's the antonym for Schadenfreude?

Schadenfreude is the joy or pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. What is the word for joy or pleasure derived from the happiness of others?

single-word-requests antonyms

Meysam

@JasperLoy I thought my picture shows that I am old

cornbread ninja

@Meysam I like your picture.

user19161

@Meysam That is not you!

Meysam

@cornbreadninja thank you

@JasperLoy It's not

cornbread ninja

7:33 PM

Still don't know who it is, though.

hangs head in shame

Meysam

@cornbreadninja Did he ever walk on moon?

cornbread ninja

@Meysam yeah, under a different name.

Meysam

@cornbreadninja under what name? mars?

cornbread ninja

Neil Armstrong.

The point is that they screwed up the headline.

user19161

At least they did not screw up the body.

cornbread ninja

7:37 PM

Unless you believe that we faked the moon landing.

Spare Oom

@MattЭллен I think the questions look the same, but they're not defining what they mean by the opposite the same way, are they?

Meysam

God bless him. He was a very good man

user19161

I think Meysam is a very good man too.

Matt Эллен

@SpareOom oh, right. bleh. what a rubbish title

cornbread ninja

laytors

Meysam

7:40 PM

Every person who walks on the moon is a very good man indeed.

Spare Oom

@cornbreadninja It looks a bit like E. G. Marshall to me.

@cornbreadninja Wow! Huge error!

user19161

1

Q: "Perverse interest" vs. "perverted interest"

Does anybody recognize differences between the following sentences? She took a perverse interest in photos of boys. She took a perverted interest in photos of boys.

differences adjectives past-participle

user19161

This got me chuckling for a moment. :-)

Spare Oom

►

I don't think I know all the old swearwords.

JSBձոգչ

9:04 PM

3

A: Why are most new questions being downvoted?

A Survey of Means, Meaning, and Meanness I don’t believe that ELU is especially different in this compared to other StackExchange sites of its type. In particular, both the mean and median score of questions on the ELU front page are each comparatively high, but so too is our standard deviatio...

congrats to @tchrist on a most excellent analysis

Matt Эллен

Indeed. a +1 from me

Cerberus

I guess it is a Stack-wide problem.

Hence the Summer of Love.

Very unfortunate.

JSBձոգչ

i'm not actually convinced that it's a problem

a downvote is not unfriendly

though i suppose i can't do anything if people think that it is

Matt Эллен