English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Cerberus

00:23

Aww I would have voted for you too if I'd had 4 votes! Frankly I just voted for the top 3 rep, because I thought most candidates would make excellent moderators and had no real preference. Seriously, this website is suffering under the burden of too many great users.

The above was @Martha (and all other candidates). Why aren't there more mod spots anyway?

Dusty

00:38

Ok, I think the comment on my answer here english.stackexchange.com/q/14621/2007 is implying that I 'stole' his answer, but they don't seem even a little similar to me. Am I being trolled or am I just missing something?

Martha

00:57

@Dusty, as I remember it, you posted your answer first, so he can hardly be claiming plagiarism. I'd say just ignore the comment.

@Cerberus, my philosophy was, 10k+ users have many mod-like powers, so the diamond mods ought to be folks whose rep is not above 10k, thereby spreading the work. :/ Oh, well.

Dusty

@Martha I'm actually not sure about whose was first, but the post themselves don't seem at all similar, so i was just trying to figure out what he was talking about =D

Dori

01:30

@Martha mplungjan initially answered at 15:31Z, and edited it at 15:37Z. Dusty answered at 15:48Z. But they don't appear that similar to me, either.

Dusty

01:48

@Dori thanks, I feel slightly less crazy now =D

Eldros

08:14

@Cerberus It might have been then more logical to vote for good users with less rep, so as to increase the users with mod power. (Don't forget 10k users have access to most mod tools)

But anyway congratulations to @nohat, @RegDwight and @Kosmonaut. I voted for two of them, but the third one comes as no surprise.

And I hope that some of the excellent candidate will nominate themselves for the next election, though I don't know when it could happen.

RegDwight

09:37

@Dusty and @Martha, too. Hover over the "X hours ago" bit to see the exact date and time. This works not only for answers, but also for questions, comments, user profile fields, and in fact pretty much anywhere you see anything resembling a date. Oh, and then there's always the timeline: /posts/14621/timeline.

Robusto

10:14

@RegDwight: Good morning, Mr. Moderator.

RegDwight

Hello, Mr. Dream!

Robusto

How come you don't have your diamond yet? Is there going to be a medal ceremony or something?

RegDwight

Me do haz.

Only in chat me's blue insteadz.

Das ist normal.

Robusto

Ah, I seez it now.

I must have been looking at a cached Users page.

Ja, hier herrscht Ordnung!

RegDwight

Ordnung muß sein!

Robusto

10:18

Now, are the trains going to start running on time now that you're a mod? I sure hope so.

RegDwight

Well, as chance would have it, there's not much to do this morning.

Murphy's Law.

Robusto

I could become obstreperous and you could ban me. Would that make you happy?

RegDwight

You come to the site as a normal user, everything's a dupe of everything. You visit as a mod, boring nothingness.

@Robusto I think it would make me sad, actually.

Robusto

Hey, it's a slow day. There haven't even been many new questions over the past 14 hours.

RegDwight

But anyhow, back to the real important issues. Have you seen The Three Burials of Melquiadez Estrada?

Robusto

10:21

Nope.

RegDwight

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is a 2005 American drama film directed by Tommy Lee Jones and written by Guillermo Arriaga. It stars Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio Cedillo, and Dwight Yoakam. The film was inspired by the real-life killing in Texas of an American teenager, Esequiel Hernandez Jr, by United States Marines during a military operation near the United States–Mexico border. Plot Melquiades Estrada, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, is shot and buried in a shallow grave in the high desert of West Texas by border patrolman Mike Norton (Barry Pepper). Estrada's ...

This is how you make good modern western movies.

Robusto

Sounds interesting.

It's hard to make a good Western these days.

No Country for Old Men would qualify, I think.

True Grit wouldn't.

RegDwight

The Three Burials is excellent in that it's like a ten-hour movie packed into 120 minutes. While True Grit is like 30 minutes packed into 110. Now, the funny thing is, normally this would imply that True Grit is somehow entertaining while The Three Burials is somehow boring, but the opposite is actually true.

Robusto

I believe it. Is it out on DVD yet?

RegDwight

I mean, usually it's the boring stuff that takes forever, and the fun stuff that makes time fly, but here the opposite is the case.

@Robusto I would guess so.

I've seen a dubbed version, IIRC. The movie is like five years old.

Ah! There it is right in the Wikipedia snippet: it's from 2005.

Robusto

10:27

Yeah, I was going to say I can add.

Or subtract. I'm really versatile.

RegDwight

Are you like a human Watson?

Robusto

Kind of.

Not quite as good with the ladies as he is, though.

And I break down in the math when it comes to non-linear differential equations.

Which is probably why he edges me out with the ladies. Chicks dig diff-eq, what can I say?

RegDwight

Hm. I'm not informed about Watson's lady-loving skills, but I think that's a good thing.

Nyuszika7H

Oy! (:

Robusto

Oh, he doesn't love them. They love him. He plays way hard to get.

Cerberus

10:31

Morning!

RegDwight

Day!

Robusto

Good morning, you three-headed dog, you.

Cerberus

Hmm I expected everybody to be asleep at this time...

RegDwight

Should'em not be like nine or something?

Cerberus

11.30 here.

But In America, what, 12 am-5am?

Robusto

10:32

It's 5:30 a.m. here.

RegDwight

Me's talking about the number of heads.

"The most notable difference is the number of its heads: Most sources describe or depict three heads; others show it with two or even just one; a smaller number of sources show a variable number, sometimes as many as 50."

Cerberus

Ah, see? I was right. Everyone should have been in bed but I (red herring!).

Hehe well I see you have divined my essence.

Robusto

Like I always say, n heads are better than one.

Cerberus

But 50 would be bragging.

Robusto

Most men only have two.

Cerberus

10:34

Wait can't n be 1?

True.

RegDwight

@Robusto Yeah, yeah, here's your thwack.

Cerberus

See now I feel the difference in time zones.

Not morning talk that.

RegDwight

Hm. Word ladder from talk to wood?

Robusto

Ok, let me rephrase: Like I always say, n heads are better than one, where n > 1.

Cerberus

Thank you.

Robusto

10:36

I usually skip the foreplay and go right to wood, myself.

RegDwight

6 mins ago, by Robusto

And I break down in the math when it comes to non-linear differential equations.

Cerberus

That sounds a lot more... appropriate.

Hehe.

sighs

Incidentally, does anyone know why there should be only three moderators?

Nyuszika7H

double oy!

Cerberus

There are many more users I'd have loved to give my votes to.

RegDwight

@Robusto Actually, there have been as many as 20 new questions over the past 14 hours.

Cerberus

10:38

Is that more than average?

I really wouldn't know.

Robusto

@Cerberus — Well, it's not clear there are only three. "A smaller number of sources shows a variable number, sometimes as many as 50."

RegDwight

18 hours ago, by RegDwight

@Martha Never say never, Martha. Besides, they could go for four mods, actually. I'm looking for that question right now...

18 hours ago, by RegDwight

7

A: Continuity of Moderation

One approach I was considering is to officially designate the 4th place winner as an alternate. That would cover two cases: a moderator no longer able to serve, and having someone who can fill in for a temporary absence due to work or family obligations. The entire nomination-campaign-primary-ele...

Robusto

If they were going for four mods they would have done it before the election.

RegDwight

Read the comments there.

Cerberus

@Robusto: Huh so would that be hidden mods or something?

Robusto

10:41

I'm just saying that artists usually depict three mods, but there have been other representations in history. Just like how many heads you have.

Cerberus

Thanks for the link, reading...

Robusto

@RegDwight has been trying on his tiara and sash already.

Cerberus

Hehe nice, there must be a link. The many-headed monster that is EU&L.

Robusto

Oh, by the way, this was the scene right before the voting:

RegDwight

Sash!

SASH! is a German DJ / producer team, fronted by Sascha Lappessen (born 10 June 1970, Nettetal, Germany), who works in the recording studio with Ralf Kappmeier and Thomas "Alisson" Lüdke. They have sold over 18 million albums worldwide and earned more than 65 Gold and Platinum awards. History Sascha Lappessen, Thomas "Alisson" Lüdke, and Ralf Kappmeier, created Sash! in 1995. The previous year, the three had worked together, under the name of Careca, to produce a piece called "Indian Rave", which was a mildy successful song. In 1996, Sash! released "It's My Life", which became a Europea...

Robusto

10:42

That's @RegDwight 8th from the left.

RegDwight

See, you've got what you've been asking for since the beginning.

Robusto

Refresh my memory.

RegDwight

Feb 15 at 1:29, by Robusto

@Kosmonaut, @drachenstern, @waiwai933: I hope there's going to be a swimsuit competition.

Robusto

Well, it took you long enough. You're all such teases.

Cerberus

So I see the number of moderators is somewhat flexible. But why three in the first place?

RegDwight

10:45

It's a magic number.

Cerberus

Arg a Latin mistake.

RegDwight

yesterday, by RegDwight

Hey @Robusto, I dunno if you know any Russian, so I'll let you in on a secret. In Russian, the number 7 stays for luck. 3, 12 and 40 have special meaning, too. I know I'm blowing your mind too hard, so I'll pause for a second.

Cerberus

(In that meta question, not your line obviously.)

(All that anti-prescriptivist therapy for nothing!)

(Bangs head against wall.)

Robusto

@RegDwight — You're always harping on the past.

RegDwight

@Cerberus Latin prescriptivism is somewhat tolerated. We're only skeptical about English prescriptivism here.

Cerberus

10:47

It is a slippery slope!

I feel the urges... taking possession of me...

RegDwight

Yes! That's why we tolerate the Latin prescriptivism only somewhat, any only on Math.

Cerberus

No wait that was my left head.

Only on math? Huh.

Robusto

Actually, I thought the English are sceptical.

RegDwight

Only on meta.Math, actually.

Cerberus

The English are no more sceptical than the Germans.

RegDwight

10:48

@Robusto That's how I spelled it at first.

Robusto

You have to consider your audience.

Cerberus

Right. I suppose mathematicians are nit-pickers?

RegDwight

@Robusto Yeah, I didn't want this to become another ashame affair.

Cerberus

?

Robusto

Refresh my memory?

RegDwight

10:50

I once used ashame, a word Robusto didn't know.

Cerberus

Neither do I...

I suppose it means something like asleep?

RegDwight

And I did it totally on purpose, to see his reaction.

Cerberus

Nice.

Robusto

4 mins ago, by Robusto

@RegDwight — You're always harping on the past.

Cerberus

I expect he remained a gentleman?

RegDwight

10:51

Where do you think the word "ashame**d**" comes from?

Cerberus

Haha.

Robusto

See, this is how we can tell you're a non-native speaker. No native speaker would use ashame that way.

Cerberus

It might be a back-formation of some kind, like -nosed?

RegDwight

@Cerberus Well, sort of.

Feb 23 at 14:05, by Robusto

@RegDwight — Excuse me, they wanted to ashame me? I'm going to wait till the edit period has expired so I can shame you, tovarisch.

Does that pass for "remaining a gentleman"?

Robusto

1 min ago, by Robusto

4 mins ago, by Robusto

@RegDwight — You're always harping on the past.

Cerberus

10:52

@Reg Hehe not quite.

RegDwight

13 secs ago, by Robusto

1 min ago, by Robusto

4 mins ago, by Robusto

@RegDwight — You're always harping on the past.

Robusto

Well, you are.

RegDwight

Are you asking for a confirmation or what?

I thought it was pretty obvious right from the beginning.

Robusto

If it wasn't for links to past chat references and Wikipedia, @RegDwight's output here would be about 18 words per week.

RegDwight

Feb 24 at 2:21, by RegDwight

I'm so tired, I can only quote.

Robusto

10:54

He is sooooo lazy.

RegDwight

Feb 23 at 11:38, by Eldros

If @Robusto is the dictionary here, @RegDwight is like some kind of archivist. Count on him to find the right link/song/reference relevant to the discussion at hand.

Robusto

1 min ago, by RegDwight

13 secs ago, by Robusto

1 min ago, by Robusto

4 mins ago, by Robusto

@RegDwight — You're always harping on the past.

Cerberus

Obviously quoting is the quickest way to communicate in life in general.

RegDwight

Feb 23 at 11:40, by RegDwight

BTW, you misspelled irrelevant.

Cerberus

I feel like we're in the Middle Ages all of a sudden.

RegDwight

10:55

Haha, a Cerberus finds himself in the Middle Ages. How's that for a movie idea?

Robusto

Why are you "archiving Robusto"? That sounds ominous.

Cerberus

Yeah I'm sure it would work.

RegDwight

With Whoopi Goldberg!

Cerberus

Haha what, is she to play me?

In fact she could be my left head.

That is my friendly head - you won't ordinarily see it.

RegDwight

Well, she was in that crappy A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court re-hash.

Cerberus

10:57

(<= Totally film-ignorant)

RegDwight

A Knight in Camelot

A Knight in Camelot is a 1998 TV movie starring Whoopi Goldberg and Michael York. It was directed by Roger Young, distributed by Disney and is loosely based on Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Plot Scientist Vivien Morgan is zapped back to the medieval age and time of King Arthur and Camelot, when her scientific machine malfunctions. She is sent back along with many objects from her desk, including her laptop and boom box. As she is sentenced to be burned at the stake, she discoveres among the laptop-data, that there will be a solar eclipse in short time. With her ...

Robusto

Sorry, not a fan of Whoopi Goldberg or travesties of Twain.

Cerberus

Oh that sounds quite... interesting!

An interesting mixture of genres.

RegDwight

No it doesn't.

No, no, no.

Nyuszika7H

in Sandbox on Stack Overflow Chat, 1 min ago, by Nyuszika7H

12 secs ago, by Nyuszika7H

11 secs ago, by Nyuszika7H

8 secs ago, by Nyuszika7H

5 secs ago, by Nyuszika7H

18 secs ago, by Nyuszika7H

Quoting test!

Cerberus

10:59

And we have a winner!

RegDwight

Rubbish.

Robusto

An interesting movie would be if Whoopie Goldberg got burned at the stake. The End.

RegDwight

We've had longer sequences already.

Robusto

You can hear him searching ...

Cerberus

Well winner of the daily prize perhaps then?

Robusto

10:59

Here it comes ...

Get ready ...

Cerberus

waiting....

Robusto

Hmm, he's usually much faster than this.

Cerberus

My God, has he lost his speedo?

RegDwight

Nah, you can't search for embedded quotes. I would have to remember some keywords from the surrounding conversation.

Robusto

Umm, Nyuszka, that's getting a bit disruptive.

Cerberus

11:00

Well, well. Thanks Nyuszika; especially for that removal!

RegDwight

Feb 18 at 10:59, by Robusto

13 hours ago, by Robusto

27 secs ago, by RegDwight

2 hours ago, by RegDwight

yesterday, by RegDwight

Feb 7 at 15:38, by RegDwight

Russell's paradox

In the foundations of mathematics, Russell's paradox (also known as Russell's antinomy), discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, showed that the naive set theory created by Georg Cantor leads to a contradiction. The same paradox had been discovered a year before by Ernst Zermelo but he did not publish the idea, which remained known only to Hilbert, Husserl and other members of the University of Göttingen. Let R be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. If R qualifies as a member of itself, it would contradict its own definition as a set containing sets that are not member...

Nyuszika7H

@Robusto @Ceberus You can't spell my name…

Robusto

There he goes.

Nyuszika7H

@RegDwight mine was longer :P

Cerberus

Apologies! Corrected.

RegDwight

11:02

@Nyuszika7H That one got much longer, too. But again, I can't be bothered searching. I was only able to find the above one because I remembered the word "foot".

Cerberus

By the way, do other SE sites have a similarly high answerers-to-askers ratio?

Robusto

And people don't seem to understand good writing on English.SE. Go figure.

RegDwight

@Cerberus Um, do we have a high answerer-to-asker ratio?

Cerberus

Well it usually feels as though everyone is waiting for new questions and jumps onto them before I can finish my answers!

RegDwight

Jan 31 at 16:40, by RegDwight

Ha! FGITW!

Cerberus

11:04

?

Your question indicates that perhaps this ratio is normal for SE...

RegDwight

Feb 9 at 16:35, by RegDwight

That's "fastest gun in the West", in case anybody's not informed.

Cerberus

Thanks.

RegDwight

@Cerberus I was under the impression that we are awfully slow when compared to SO.

Cerberus

Seriously?

Nyuszika7H

FGITW

RegDwight

11:05

Well, I haven't visited SO in a long time. But that's what I hear on MSO.

Cerberus

Then what do people do after the split second it took for the first excellent answer to appear?

RegDwight

What do you mean, what do people do?

The complaints I've heard are that there are many more nearly identical answers on SO, because everyone tries to be the FGITW.

Cerberus

Well, when I visit this site I usually wait for a new question to appear that is somewhat decent, then I answer it; but if there is always some excellent answer quicker than mine, I'd feel useless!

Robusto

@RegDwight: I still want to know why you would be archiving me. That sounds very NKVD to me.

Cerberus

Arg, I meant "answer" (corrected).

RegDwight

11:07

Feb 18 at 10:21, by RegDwight

You can edit stuff here.))

Cerberus

Yeah I'd done that already.

Hey is that how you get all those quotes!

RegDwight

@Robusto Well, whom else should I be archiving? Not that many people here.

Nyuszika7H

Robusto

You're just trying to build some kind of case against me. Get me evicted from my back yard or something.

Cerberus

Yay kittens!

Nyuszika7H

11:09

@Cerberus Placekittens! :)

Cerberus

I mean, hey, that is not very appropriate...

RegDwight

@Cerberus Actually, there have been lots and lots of occasions when an answer would come in late and still take the lead.

Nyuszika7H

chat.stackoverflow.com/rooms/574/placekittens

Robusto

Kittens of the breed non sequitur.

RegDwight

That's the best breed evar.

Cerberus

11:10

@Reg: Yeah okay true. But often the first answer is quite decent, not very far below the level of the best answer.

Robusto

OK, time for coffee. TTYL.

Cerberus

Adios!

Nyuszika7H

Amigos!

Cerberus

Oh I dear I talked non-English. Bad.

RegDwight

How come non-sequitur-kittens.com is not registered? Even upsidedowndogs.com is taken!

Cerberus

11:12

(<= Sorry weak at memes.)

I should be putting in my contacts and going for a run; I can hardly read chat anyway... have fun quoting, later!

RegDwight

Okay. CU!

Cerberus

Bai!

Eldros

11:30

Did I shoo them all away?

RegDwight

Yes. It's always your fault. Always.

Even when it's not.

Eldros

I knew it. I already had a suspicion from the many remarks my girlfriend makes.

Well I wanted to get some fresh air anyway. TTYL.

RegDwight

Yeah, excellent weather here. Ciao.

Cerberus

12:17

Well it would have been even nicer if it hadn't been freezing and windy. But the sun was good.

Every time I am amazed at how good it feels to live in a medieval city, even after years and years.

Running through old alleys, along 17th-century canals... how do people live without those?

Tradition and age are such utterly pleasing things.

RegDwight

Überall ist es besser, wo wir nicht sind.

Cerberus

Aberu warum sagst du das?

RegDwight

I just felt reminded of that movie title.

imdb.com/title/tt0122331

Cerberus

Oh I haven't seen it... lemme see.

RegDwight

I haven't seen it, either. I only know the title.

Cerberus

12:23

Oh dear... I don't think I could ever be happy in the New World!

Perhaps New England...but still...

RegDwight

The New World is so 1492.

Cerberus

I know right!

I mean, sure we don't have many medieval buildings left; but it is the churches that are the backbones of the city, even though though only tourists ever visit them.

Traditions should only be destroyed when they are evil through and through; otherwise they should be adapted as subtle as possible.

Nyuszika7H

Hi again, er… I meant: oy!

Cerberus

Oy!

RegDwight

Oye como va mi ritmo.

Cerberus

12:27

...as my rhythm goes... what is "oye"?

Nyuszika7H

FORWARD 200
LEFT 90
PENUP
FORWARD 200
LEFT 90
PENDOWN
FORWARD 200

Cerberus

Thank you Nyu.

Nyuszika7H

@Cerberus NO it's not an answer to your question. :D

It's a simple LOGO script that draws two vertical lines:

RegDwight

@Cerberus Listen. Imperative.

Cerberus

Even if it wasn't!

RegDwight

12:28

Don't tell me you don't know that song.

Cerberus

Sorry no...

RegDwight

►

Cerberus

I don't own a television set.

Nyuszika7H

|     |
|     |
|     |
|     |
|     |

Cerberus

Oh Santana! I used to like him.

RegDwight

12:30

I knew that song before there were television sets. I just held an onion to my ear.

Cerberus

Haha nice mixed(?) metaphor... yeah it sounds good so far.

RegDwight

It's not a metaphor at all. It was the style at the time.

Cerberus

Eh?

RegDwight

Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Give me five bees for a quarter," you'd say.

Cerberus

Right... it could be that I am still panting from my run, but I don't get the link at all!

RegDwight

12:33

Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I held an onion to my ear, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.

imdb.com/title/tt0701151/quotes?qt0348826

Cerberus

But why, why hold vegetables to your ear? I thought you meant that listening to Santana was like holding an onion to your ear because it made you weep...

It would have made for a nice figure of speech, oh well.

RegDwight

22 hours ago, by Robusto

See, this is how I can tell you're a non-native speaker. You don't get all the cultural references.

Cerberus

Oh I see, the Simpsons!

RegDwight

The Simpsons

The Simpsons is an American animated television series created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a working-class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional city of Springfield, and lampoons American culture, society, television and many aspects of the human condition. The family was conceived by Groening shortly before a pitch for a series of animated shorts with the producer James L. Brooks. Groening created a dysfunctional f...

Cerberus

Well I do like the Simpsons. It is just that we only had public television when I grew up, and the Simpsons were only on commercial television. And I haven't had a television at home ever since I went to college so... I have never watched much shows at all in my life, you see...

In fact my peers, whose English might be worse, look at me weird too when I don't get film and television references.

RegDwight

12:43

Hear, hear! @Robusto.

Cerberus

Did you grow up in the USSR?

RegDwight

Well, kind of, for as long as it lasted.

Cerberus

Cool, in a way.

Oh, I should be going. It will soon be time to go imprint the importance of Latin and Greek upon the soul of innocent children and I am trying not to be late again.

Vale!

Benjol

13:27

Congratulations @RegDwight

RegDwight

Why thank you, Benjol.

Benjol

I don't bother congratulating the others, they were already mods :)

And doubled congrats because you're non-native (if I've been reading correctly

Robusto

@RegDwight — "Hear, hear" what?

RegDwight

@Benjol Hahaha. Well, actually, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Nohat, Kosmonaut, and Michael for their efforts in setting the tone for this site.

Benjol

Yup, non-prescriptivists FTW :)

Robusto

13:31

@RegDwight — Wait, I thought this was an atonal site. Or even aleatoric.

RegDwight

@Robusto Hear, hear that someone not getting all the cultural references could simply mean that he doesn't own a boob tube.

Robusto

Well, these days it's impossible to be a native speaker without TV and the Internetz.

RegDwight

Tru dat.

Robusto

2

Q: Colon usage in English

I have always thought that colons were used to clarify, expand, provide evidence for the preceding sentence, or show an example. I have heard that this is not true. (Truly, it is a shame if it is so: colons are my favorite punctuation.) Which of the following sentences uses the colon correctly: ...

Feels like a medical question somehow ...

Benjol

@Robusto I got the internetz, but not the TV...

Robusto

13:33

@Benjol — Check the FAQ. I think it's required for this site, idk.

RegDwight

Though I must say, I used to not own a TV set for like three years in a row, back in 1998 or something. And I didn't miss it at all after a while. And it's only after I got married that I got a PC + some Internets at home.

Robusto

As Jack White so aptly put it, "Oh well oh well oh well".

Benjol

We got dvd player, but no channels. Can't say I miss it much. TV is like Twitter, a flood of rubbish with some hidden gems

Robusto

DVR is my rubbish filter.

You can pick the hidden gems and watch them at your leisure.

I can just feel @RegDwight googling for the Jack White reference.

RegDwight

@Benjol Yeah, I would like to reply that you just have to watch the right channels, but alas, I'm watching a lot of crap, too.

@Robusto Um, actually, no. I thought the quote was perfect. It says everything it needs to say, no follow-up googling required.

Benjol

13:36

At least on StackExchange we get to flag or close the crap :D

RegDwight

Besides, why Jack White, what about Lady Gaga?

Robusto

Crap there is, and crap there will be, even on SE sites. The "we are smarter than me" meme is so 2008, and answers that gets the most don't have to be right answers.

RegDwight

They don't have to be right. But at least they may. That's light years ahead of Yahoo Answers.

Robusto

@RegDwight — Wow, how did I miss Lady Gaga? The clues were there right in front of me: Elton John, George Michael ...

@RegDwight — Not saying the site is not valuable. Just not perfect.

Like any democracy.

RegDwight

Yeah. It's the worst thing if we ignore all those other things that are even worse.

Benjol

13:40

@RegDwight like democracy :)

Robusto

@Benjol — That's what he meant.

RegDwight

Jinx or what?

Robusto

Or maybe he was talking about Lady Gaga. You can never be sure.

RegDwight

Feb 23 at 11:06, by RegDwight

Lots of echo in here.

@Robusto No, that's what you meant. I never mean to mean anything.

Robusto

You don't really mean what you're saying now.

RegDwight

13:41

Precisely. But the opposite is also false.

@Robusto Lady Gaga's talking about me. Not the other way round. Not sure why she keeps calling me Fernando, though. That's so ABBA.

Robusto

2 hours ago, by RegDwight

Feb 18 at 10:59, by Robusto

13 hours ago, by Robusto

27 secs ago, by RegDwight

2 hours ago, by RegDwight

yesterday, by RegDwight

Feb 7 at 15:38, by RegDwight

Russell's paradox

In the foundations of mathematics, Russell's paradox (also known as Russell's antinomy), discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, showed that the naive set theory created by Georg Cantor leads to a contradiction. The same paradox had been discovered a year before by Ernst Zermelo but he did not publish the idea, which remained known only to Hilbert, Husserl and other members of the University of Göttingen. Let R be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. If R qualifies as a member of itself, it would contradict its own definition as a set containing sets that are not member...

RegDwight

♫ Don't call my name, don't call my name, Robusto! ♫

Robusto

Be careful with Lady Gaga. She may wind up wearing you one day.

cbskmvq.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/…

RegDwight

@Robusto Thank you. ABBA is much easier to remember and to search for than foot.

Robusto

And your conducting credentials are suddenly in doubt. Unless you're talking about this kind of conductor:

I will say this about ABBA, though. They are the best band out of Sweden whose name is a palindrome.

Me, I'm more into hard-core death emo.

RegDwight

13:48

What, no love for smörebrödörderöms?

Robusto

Not as good as their American cousins:

S'more

A s'more (sometimes spelled "smore") is a traditional nighttime campfire treat popular in the United States and Canada, consisting of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate sandwiched between two pieces of graham cracker. Etymology and origins S'more appears to be a contraction of the phrase, "some more". While the origin of the dessert is unclear, the first recorded version of the recipe can be found in the publication "Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts" of 1927. The recipe is credited to Loretta Scott Crew, who reportedly made them by the campfire for the Scouts. It is ...

RegDwight

S'morebraten?

Robusto

I think you mean sauerverdientes S'morebrot.

RegDwight

Now I'm hungry.

Robusto

I thought people only had hunger in Germany.

They were never hungry per se.

RegDwight

13:53

Ich bin hungrig.

Robusto

Nee, du hast Hunger.

RegDwight

Ich habe Hunger.

Es hungert mich nach...

Es dürstet mich.

Robusto

It's only when Germans say Wir haben Hungary that I get worried.

RegDwight

Them were Austrians.

Robusto

Nice of you not to differentiate.

RegDwight

13:55

?

Ze Schömans were never interessiert in Ungarn. It was die Österreicher.

Robusto

Austria-Hungary

{| class="infobox" style="width: 290px; text-align: left; font-size: 88%;" |-style="background: #bbccee" !colspan=2 style="text-align:center; font-size: 110%"|Austro-Hungarian Empire |- !colspan=2 style="text-align:center; font-size: 110%"|Official Long names (and English translation thereof) |- |colspan=2|en: The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen ----de: Die im Reichsrat vertretenen Königreiche und Länder und die Länder der heiligen ungarischen Stephanskrone ----hu: A birodalmi tanácsban képviselt királyságo...

RegDwight

Precisely my point.

Robusto

Which reminds me: What ever happened to Westerreich. Did it get consumed?

Benjol

oops, the oneboxing doesn't look so good there

Robusto

Someone's going API-shit right now.

RegDwight

13:57

Feb 25 at 11:53, by RegDwight

Feb 7 at 15:17, by RegDwight

Mariana Trench

The Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the world's oceans, and the lowest elevation of the surface of the Earth's crust. It is currently estimated to be up to deep. It is located in the western Pacific Ocean, to the east of the Mariana Islands. The trench is about long but has a mean width of only . It reaches a maximum-known depth of about at the Vityaz-1 Deep and about at the Challenger Deep, a small slot-shaped valley in its floor, at its southern end. If Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth at , were set in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, there would be of ...

I like that one much, much more.

Robusto

Way more trenchant than your usual remarks.

RegDwight

3

Q: Numbers mysteriously stripped from inlined Wikipedia articles in chat

Case in point. For those too lazy to click, the original Wikipedia article reads: The Mariana Trench [...] is currently estimated to be up to 10,971 m (35,994 ft) deep. [...] The trench is about 2,550 kilometres (1,580 mi) long but has a mean width of only 69 kilometres (43 mi). It reaches a...

bug chat

Benjol

Not wanting to spam you guys, but if you're heavily into commenting before you flag (ok, Reg you don't flag anymore), this script might interest you: stackapps.com/questions/2116

RegDwight

@Robusto Duly thwacked.

@Benjol I have actually just dismissed one of my own flags.

Benjol

@RegDwight Wow, conflicted! casts around for blunt object for eventual legitimate self defence :)

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…