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3:00 PM
I think they found one, who had kept detailed records of her clients
 
oh, yeah, I read the story, I meant Kit's coworker
 
Are you offering your services?
 
hmmmmm
no. I'm not in need of cash
I wonder how they caught her
 
Hi, I have another question -- The boy who / whom you wanted to see is my friend.
 
I would use "who" there.
 
3:04 PM
just use who and never worry about the who/whom distinction.
 
@MattЭллен Police posing as potential clients.
 
I see. They must have got tipped off. Who would ruin a sweet deal like that?
 
Thought so. But my tutor says otherwise. His reasoning... The boy is antecedent, and is doing the work of the object => use 'whom'
 
yes, that is technically correct
but whom is slowly dying out
no one would expect you to use it
 
3:07 PM
@MattЭллен except in exams :P
 
Let your tutor listen to that song.
 
@its_me ah. right. that's a problem. :(
 
Thanks for the help anyway. At least I know that I am not 'wrong' ;)
 
@its_me send your teacher to this chat room and we'll sort them out.
 
To whom are you going to make a telephone call?
Why, to deal with this supernatural phenomenon, I shall be calling The Ghost Busters.
 
3:09 PM
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 lol! He no use thez internets!
 
@its_me no wonder seeing how he teaches English from the 18th century.
 
I guess :)
 
@its_me Hm. In that case, print out these Language Log posts and give them to him.
 
deal!
 
And in 50 years, whom will be coming back into fashion, but in the subject position. Grammar mavens everywhere will recoil in horror.
 
3:21 PM
Dear Winamp: WTF can't I select more than one directory to add to the playlist at once? Sincerely, Mr. Shiny & New. PS Stop adding more crap to your program and just make playing songs easy, like it should be.
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 OMG, yes!
Meatball sandwich today.
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You should try VLC. Screw Winamp.
 
Last weekend my wife and I spent a whole hour trying to find an Options menu in Windows Media Player.
 
@Robusto I have VLC. I find it clunky to use.
 
3:22 PM
WMP is one piece of shit, it's unbelievable. Worse than iTunes.
 
I find Winamp to be bloated and clunky.
 
@RegDwighт yeah WMP is really annoying.
 
The music player I use on windows is called Cool Player. It is totally unbloated
 
@Robusto yeah, it's bloated. But you can turn off the clunk if you use the winamp 3 skins.
 
Outside, it's that kind of eerie quiet and slowly rising temperature that comes before a storm.
 
3:23 PM
it does have an annoying quirk of resetting the volume to max when I drag&drop a song onto it
 
But the Winamp3 flavour hasn't been maintained in years. They spend all their time on useless features.
@MattЭллен weird
 
the good thing is I could fix it if I really wanted, because it's open sauce
 
I guess you must not want to
 
not enough
I just leave the volume at max
 
It's kinda funny. When I first met Winamp, in the friggin' 90s, I was like "yes! This is neat!" But now, in 2012, it is still basically the least shitty player I can live with for music.
 
3:26 PM
Cool Player uses the pause button on the keyboard to pause the music. that's what sold me :D
The Maths Room seem to be having fun
 
@MattЭллен winamp can do that too
 
well, winamp seem like a lot to install just to play music
to me
 
They have a slimmer version now
But I like that I can sort my music by path/filename.
Most players seem to forget that songs live on the filesystem
 
Apparently winamp is a 15mb download? Cool Player is 264Kb
 
And then they only allow you to sort thing alphabetically or some shit like that
I like to listen to albums in chronological order
you wouldn't believe how hard that is in some systems
it's basically impossible in WMP
 
3:31 PM
indeed
It's not something I have thought about
I do like to listen in chronological order
 
and on my android tablet I have experimented with various DLNA players; they ALL SUCK.
The "best" one I could find makes it impossible to do things like "shuffle all my music". And if I want to listen to "albums", I have to sort "by track number" and then "by album"; because the default is "alphabetically by song title". WTFF
 
yeah, I still haven't figured out how to add to the "now playing" list on my android
whatever it uses
 
You know, I was wondering; why does those hurricanes have such boring names?
They need badass names, not boring names.
Like, Destiny, or Killer, et cetera.
 
@SonicTheHedgehog People who have family members killed in hurricanes might disagree with you
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That settles it. You'll have to write your own now.
 
3:35 PM
@Mrs Hmm, true.
Didn't think of that.
 
Anyway they retire hurricane names if anyone dies in a hurricane. So your cool names would get all used up.
@SonicTheHedgehog That doesn't ping me anymore. You need the .
@KitFox I have considered it.
 
My apologies.
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I'll buy it.
If it works.
 
Apparently I'm not alone in wanting to write my own music player though. There's only like a billion of shitty, half-finished players out there.
 
Yours would be different.
 
3:36 PM
You're writing your own music player?
 
It wouldn't be shitty.
 
it would be shiny and new
 
Nor would it be half-finished.
@MattЭллен Yes!
 
If you want something done the way you want it done, you always have to do it yourself.
Or be very very rich.
 
I agree.
 
3:37 PM
That's not always true.
 
Stupid hurry-cane is making us hurry up and do special stuff at $job.
 
Instructional diagrams sometimes do the trick.
 
Not always false either.
School is canceled for Mon and Tue. So I'm happy, if nobody dies.
 
Instructional diagrams only get you quality in terms of consistency, not quality in terms of quality. McDonalds vs. haute cuisine.
 
Turns out that having a data warehouse near the coast is not such a good idea after all.
 
3:38 PM
ah, but lego vs plasticine
 
@MattЭллен Again, if you use the instructions, you get the exact same toy millions of other children have.
 
@SonicTheHedgehog You can still be happy even if people die. It's not like you wished it on them and it is perfectly natural to be glad for days off from school.
 
@RegDwighт a high quality toy
 
@Kit Can't stop from feeling guilty for being happy, though. :(
 
not in terms of consistency, but interms of enjoyment
 
3:39 PM
Can you build spearkers with Lego?
 
where as plasticine, with all the flexibility in the world, is not as much fun
 
So many people will lose their family.
 
@MattЭллен well enjoyment is not part of my point. Obviously people enjoy McDonald's, too.
@MattЭллен you could build LEGO out of plasticine.
 
@RegDwighт then what is this quality of which you speak?
 
I have no idea.
I was just saying something.
I thought this was the room where nobody attempts to comprehend me.
 
3:41 PM
I try to comprehend you guys all the time.
 
d'oh. my mistake
 
Huh?
 
We just fail at comprehending.
We try to comprehend.
But we fail.
Hence the Incomprehensible room.
 
I'd rather eat at McDonald's than play with plasticine, if that helps you, @Matt.
I'd also rather play with LEGO than eat haute cuisine.
 
I'd rather eat plasticine than play with McDonald's.
Well, that came out wrong.
 
3:43 PM
What's plasticine? Play-Doh?
 
I was waiting for someone to say the obvious.
 
Clay?
 
Plasticine, a brand of modelling clay, is a putty-like modelling material made from calcium salts, petroleum jelly and aliphatic acids. The name is a registered trademark of Flair Leisure Products plc. Plasticine is used extensively for children's play, but also as a modelling medium for more formal or permanent structures. History Plasticine was formulated by art teacher William Harbutt of Bathampton, in Bath, England, in 1897. He wanted a non-drying clay for his sculpture students. Although the exact composition is a secret, Plasticine is composed of calcium salts (principally calc...
 
@KitFox Play-Doh is a brand of plasticine, yeah
 
Gen-ref.
 
3:43 PM
@Kit A soft modeling material, used esp. by children
 
oh! I didn't know it was a brand too!
 
I've heard of it via The Housemartins, but I wasn't sure what it was.
 
Wallace and Gromit are made of plasticine.
 
Oh!
 
@Reg That guy with a dog animation?
 
3:44 PM
It's definitely not Play-Doh then. More like Sculptey.
 
Or used to be. They use a different technology for Shaun the Sheep characters.
 
now has Timmy Time theme in her head
 
@KitFox probably. I think play-doh is softer than plasticine
 
Yep.
 
I have no idea about play-doh.
 
3:45 PM
Was Bob the Builder originally made with plasticine before being switched to 3D?
 
Plasticine is rather solid but it becomes soft in your hands.
 
our plasticine always ended up in a big brown ball
 
@MattЭллен at least it had an identifiable color. Mine never did.
 
Play-Doh is the consistency of bread dough. Maybe a little firmer and slightly plastic-y feeling.
 
Then no.
 
3:47 PM
It is smooshier than clay.
You don't have to work it first.
Sculpey (often misspelled as Sculpy) is the brand name for a type of polymer clay that can be molded and put into a conventional oven to harden, as opposed to typical modeling clays, which require a much hotter oven, such as a kiln. Until it is baked, Sculpey has a consistency somewhat like Plasticine. It is sold in many colors, though it can also be painted once fired. It has become popular with modeling artists. It is also sometimes used for claymation. Sculpey is a brand of polymer clay made by Polyform Products in the United States. Sculpey was first created in the early 1960’s. The ...
This is what I am familiar with.
Which is apparently like Plasticine.
 
But it appears you can burn it to seal it.
 
I imagine heating plasticine would melt it.
 
Putting plasticine in an oven will get you a brown puddle.
Jinx.
 
@RegDwighт Bake, not burn.
 
3:50 PM
@MattЭллен You haven't followed the instructions for preparing the coke.
 
@RegDwighт coke cuisine?
 
@KitFox explain the difference as if I were a 34-year old physicist.
 
@RegDwighт Burning involves oxidation and generally setting something on fire. Baking involves heating only.
 
Will try with muffins.
 
You bake goods. You don't burn them unless they are cigarettes or joints.
 
3:52 PM
@KitFox (re burning) Or overheating it until it is over-baked and, eg, carbonized
 
Etc.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 OK, granted.
 
I am pretty sure my oven has oxygen in it.
 
but don't people get baked when joints are burned?
 
Also good point.
 
@MattЭллен yes, but the people get baked and the joints get burned
 
3:53 PM
I seeeeee
 
Also, there's no 221b Burner Street.
 
OK, forget I mentioned the oxidation part.
Fire = burned. Heat = baked.
 
Chicken wings = want.
 
@MattЭллен If you want to put it bluntly, yes.
 
The root, the root, the root is on heat. Bake, motherf*cker, bake.
 
3:54 PM
laughs out loud
closes office door
I need some Xanax.
 
Well you can't have a lot of Xanax without having some first.
She's doing it in the right order.
Following the instructions.
 
I feel tremendously strung out today.
Like my head is not screwed on right.
"Bake, motherf*cker, bake."
laughs again
 
Okay! That's it from me! You've been great! Commute!
 
4:12 PM
Suddenly the room is quiet.
 
yeah I was eating lunch and reading api docs
 
I am feeling nervous about the winds picking up.
I also kind of feel like I am going to crawl out of my skin.
I should probably go home and sleep.
 
it's just the ionisation of the atmosphere
making you antsy
 
It feels like hell.
I'm not sure how my boss would take it if I asked him if I could go work from home.
 
do a Tyler Durden: beat yourself to a pulp in his office and call security, then get them to pay your fee for the rest of time, in compensation.
 
4:18 PM
@KitFox You'd probably have to phone him at home, right?
 
@Robusto Haha. Not today.
He lives farther away than I do though.
He does one day a week telecommute.
 
@MattЭллен Or a Lester Burnham:
"Nope. I'm just an ordinary guy with nothing to lose."
 
Oh, I love it when my life is like that.
Sometimes I wish it would just stay that way.
 
Oh! Do a Kaiser Söze - kill your family and hunt your boss down and kill him. Wait, no, that doesn't sound so good.
 
So what are the chances that I coded this page correctly the first time?
 
4:32 PM
depends on what you mean by "correct", probably :)
So @Cerberus the Nexus 4 is $349! That makes it very interesting
 
Only had to fix it six times before it displayed.
And it still needs tweaking.
> Operation is not valid due to the current state of the object.
Wow. There's an error I have never seen before.
 
What is the object? Some DB resource that's already closed?
 
I think it is because my listview object wasn't paged and it returned a lot of rows.
Hmm, that doesn't make sense. There are only 395 rows in that query.
 
> The URL-encoded form data is not valid.
Is what the dump tells me.
Well, I am going to ignore it and see if that makes it go away.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 hee hee hee
 
4:51 PM
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I just heard a thump outside. Do you think it could be a dolphin? How would I know if I don't go check?
 
@Robusto Don't go! Just assume it was the "thunk" of a chat message.
 
Probably the safest policy.
While we're waiting for the storm to intensify, I suggest we add case markers to other English prepositions. Today's innovation: youm, which will take its place alongside whom when used in the prepositional or objective case. So when someone says, "To whom are you speaking?" you can answer, "Why, to youm!"
3
 
likes this
 
Just one of the many services I provide.
Whoa, my "Cloudy Calculator" in Google Chrome is suddenly showing weird characters: ℼⴭ਍⨯਍⨠䌠灯特杩瑨⠠⥣㈠〰ⰹ㈠㄰‰牂湥⁴敗瑳湯删扯湩瑥⁴戼牷扯湩瑥䁴浧楡⹬潣㹭਍⨠䰠捩湥敳⁤湵敤⁲桴⁥䥍⁔楌散獮㩥栠瑴㩰⼯睷⹷灯湥潳牵散漮杲氯捩湥敳⽳業⵴楬‌​散獮⹥桰൰ ⼪਍ⴭാ㰊䐡䍏奔䕐栠浴啐䱂䍉∠⼭圯䌳⼯呄⁄䡘䵔⁌⸱‰瑓楲瑣⼯久 ... etc. I only recognize some of these.
 
5:09 PM
@Robusto Our weathermen know to issue Small Dog Warnings on blustery days, so that we know that the thunks are likely airborne chihuahuas not just bears playing badminton against our houses again.
That, and so we know it is a good day to put Fifi on a longer lead for kite-flying.
What, so today we get to use some of those little-used Asshole flags, eh?
 
I doubt your asshole is little-used.
 
Move the hyphen.
 
small, not-new flags for assholes?
 
Move, or remove? I was just C&Ping you.
 
We seem to have more than the normal Monday share of little used-assholes today.
 
5:15 PM
Hmm ... one of the hallmarks of assholes is that they are used frequently.
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 OMG this always happens to me.
 
5:30 PM
@Mitch There are the traditional white urban underclasses. And the Moroccans. And the Antillians. And some groups of people from eastern Europe. Of course we have many emancipated people from all groups. The mayor of Rotterdam is Moroccan, etc. etc.
@Robusto Woglom? Never heard of that. It doesn't remind me of birds. Or of anything, really. What is that?
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Huh? I can't believe that! How can it be cheaper than the GN? You probably mean with some expensive plan?
 
“Emancipated”?
 
And where did you hear that?
@tchrist As in freed from the shackles of their disadvantaged position.
 
@Cerberus I read it on the Google Blog. And the GN is no longer offered for sale on Google's site. And that's unlocked, no contract.
 
Weird!
Would be cool if it were equally cheap here.
 
5:39 PM
> Sorry! Devices on Google Play is not available in your country yet. We're working to bring devices to more countries as quickly as possible. Please check back again soon.
 
@Cerberus It's a name. Someone told me it was Dutch. I wondered if it was a cognate of the German Vogel.
 
@Robusto It could be Old Dutch.
But I believe it is vogal something in Old Dutch.
 
@Cerberus You mean there was an old made-up language that had to be replaced with a new version?
 
So @MattЭллен someone is besmirching your reputation on meta.
 
5:41 PM
@Robusto Of course. You must update everything continually.
Like wives.
 
makes note
 
And friends.
I mean, old friends are meh.
Better trade them in for cool, new friends!
@Cerberus Narcolepsy, however, is not a circadian sleep disorder. — StoneyB 6 hours ago
 
I can't find any cool new friends in The Incomprehensible Room. Maybe I should look elsewhere.
 
Why does Stoney pick these extremely silly subjects out for "discussions"?
At least pick something interesting to contest.
As if I cared at all about the interpretation of a SWR and whether or not a suggested related disorder is relevant or not when qualified as pathological.
Beyond boring.
 
@Robusto Just about any other room would probably flag your ass to pieces
 
5:55 PM
I’ve just learnt a marvellous new word: thrinter.
Can you guess what it means?
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yay!
 
@tchrist use it in a sentence?
 
@tchrist No, but I bet David Wallace would know.
 
Most of the citations are either impervious, or else give-aways.
Here is an old one, which might be neither:
> 1536 Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 419, ― 4 Trynters, 7 Twynters,··20 Dynmontes, 23 Hogges.
The spelt things oddly then.
 
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 ?"After tchrist had his way with the thrinter, he let her go graze in the pasture again."
 
5:57 PM
A twinter is something related to two winters, and a thrinter to three.
 
@tchrist Yes the did.
 
That is, a two-year-old and a three-year-old.
 
How pastoral.
 
In the North, one counts the passage of years by the number of winters endured.
 
5:58 PM
> thrinter: Of three winters; three years old: said of cattle and sheep. b. sb. A sheep or bovine animal of three years or winters (now applied only to sheep).
> In OE. þri-winter, three-winter-, three-year-; but the word may have been formed anew in 16th c., after twinter.
> twinter: Reduced f. OE. twi-wintre, -winter of two winters: see twi- and winter, and cf. thrinter. So WFris. twinter- two years old (of horses or cows; known to Kilian in tweenter-, twinterdier), and twinter (also twainter) a two-year-old horse or cow, NFris. twenter an ox of this age.
> A. adj. Of two winters; two years old: said of cattle and sheep (also of colts).
 

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