English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

@Cerberus people are so fickle.

@tchrist There was a question at the start of the day by nortonn s in exactly the same format

which mens ...off to a meeting!

those mens!

@Mitch Tell me about it!!

3:04 PM

@tchrist although it seems to have been deleted by now

MετάEd

Why is bringth deleted instead of linked as a sockpuppet to nortonn?

My document.title seems to be "(1) Newest Questions - English Language and Usage". Hmm, how ungramatikl.

inconsistency is our best weapon against trolls

(. " ). New Questions - English Language and Usage

"A foolish inconsistency is the troll of small minds."

Socrates?

Seneca?

3:14 PM

Hume?

@Robusto After the pictures were developed.

Oh come on!

@MattЭллен Of course!

@Cerberus Kitty Wardwell

@Cerberus Ralph Kramden.

3:15 PM

@MattЭллен but who is "he"?

Barrie?

"He" is the third person masculine singularity.

@KitFox Gruesome.

I don't think anyone said anything to that extent on the question in question.

@RegDwighт he is what ever you say he is.

Josef Stalin.

3:17 PM

I can understand you want to restrict your partner's freedom, but why not use a leash instead?

Something less definitive.

@Robusto Well, his third wife off of Otter Cliffs. His first wife he pushed off a cliff somewhere in Montana.

@Robusto Hrmpf.

> The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. ... A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

> He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again,though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?

Radio won't even play his jam

> Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

3:19 PM

I rather think some sort of balance is best.

Neither too consistent nor too in-.

@KitFox Then I deduce from your statements that the he in question must be the entity known as the Physical Cliff, who is about to bring our country to ruin.

But that's almost a platitude.

to consist, human. To insist, divine.

AFK

The deepest circle of Hell is reserved for those who, during a state of moral emergency, choose to do nothing. — Edmund Burke

3:21 PM

Meeting time. Laterz.

> Still, let's be honest: J.R.R. Tolkien and Ayn Rand top the list of writers who penned beloved, but badly written books. Tolkien could invent names and languages, but he couldn't create a plot at gunpoint. Any and all crises in The Hobbit are solved by McKellan's Gandalf casting a spell that he could have cast 10 minutes prior.

Harhar.

Yes, I saw that.

@Cerberus The hobgoblin quote is from here.

> If you take your kids—while shielding them from various nonhuman bad guys getting decapitated both repeatedly and, worse, bloodlessly—they'll have a good time.

This. Lack of blood. My point. Always have been.

How many times can you decapitate a person again now?

point about what?

3:27 PM

Sep 19 at 14:37, by ЯegDwight

@Cerberus you don't have to overdo it. The thing is, Peter Jackson overdoes it in the opposite direction. Epic battles, awful weapons, thousands die, skulls crushed in, members cut off, and it all looks like a cartoon of people filled with nothing but air.

I see

He has to do that for the rating, you understand.

No I do not, actually.

Too much gore jinxes him into the Restricted category, and then he couldn’t market to pre-adults.

Tens of thousands getting slaughtered and murdered brutally are tens of thousands getting slaughetered and murdered brutally.

3:29 PM

He just works within the nonsense parameters they’ve set for him.

@tchrist I won't rehash the usual argument of movies vs. evening news.

So your argument is with the ratings agencies.

also, it's cheaper to not have lots of fake blood

I don’t mean to imply that you have no argument. Just that it cannot be with the filmmakers.

@tchrist No it is with him, because nobody forces him to work within the nonsense parameters.

Make a Sin City LotR. Who's stopping you?

3:29 PM

Sure they do.

well, New Line cinema might be stopping him

or whoever it is

is it Warner Bors?

I don't think at this point anyone has any business telling him shit.

Go ahead, try making a rated-X blockbuster. Ain’t never gonna happen. It cannot happen.

Look at the age distribution of cinema goers.

@tchrist exactly. So he is not trying to make a good movie. He's aiming for a blockbuster. That puts him right up there with Michael Bay.

@RegDwighт aye, but the people with the money will stick their oars ins

3:31 PM

Golden Rule.

do unto others as you would have them do unto you

A billion dollars (or whatever) gilds a lot of rules.

I'm not sure how that applies

Thems that gots da gold makes da rules.

Funnily enough, Michael Bay is not afraid of blood.

3:32 PM

oh! that golden rule!

And have you seen Die Hard?

Have you seen Brain Dead?

@RegDwighт Many times. It's a Christmas Eve tradition.

Bruce Fucking Willis is bleeding to death in every single movie.

And don't you dare tell me his are not blockbusters.

@RegDwighт Jackson isn't afraid of gore or blood or aything like that

3:33 PM

He looks sexier with blood on him.

@KitFox that.

hmmm

Same reason Kirk always got his shirt torn and his lip slightly bloodied in every episode.

> Warner Bros is hoping The Hobbit will be a smash...and, well, it probably will be, if only because fans, unlike filmgoers, seem to have no rational mechanism that keeps them from paying money for under-made nonsense, even if only to complain about it afterward.

I mean, or so I've heard.

3:34 PM

complaining is fun, though, isn't it?

That's the point.

That's 3/4 the plot of The Big Bang Theory.

lol aye

Stupid people are dumb or Geeks are funny when they talk geek?

I forget which one it is.

@MattЭллен "A Warner Bros. release of a New Line Cinema, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures presentation of a Wingnut Films production." You sort it out. I'll wait. Actually, I won't.

I thought MGM were bancrupt?

"Bancrupt"? Europeans.

3:36 PM

They replaced the lion with basement cat, and gave up their souls

@KitFox no, Typoeans.

I live in South Typorea.

Loves you, fluffy owl.

Europe's not bankrupt yet!

What do you care, you live on your own continent.

At least that's what they teach in your schools.

The Ukistany continent. it's plate is unique because it is so small. I used to be bigger, but then the African and Asian plates separated.

3:40 PM

Wow. I just got a message from the humane society left by the most stereotypically annoyed gayboy voice you can possibly imagine.

Oh. My. Gawd. Can you even imagine?

They put the homo in sapiens.

"If you can just call back between the hours of 1200 and 1800, OK thank you."

Which is even funnier because he called just now. At 1040.

Call back at 1900 and say "No I can't".

lol

3:42 PM

His name was Cody too.

Cuddly Cody.

I wonder if that was his real name, or the name he took when he had his coming out party.

I also wonder if it would help him for me to mention that he should probably just get over himself.

It is . . . interesting . . . to compare what Tom Shippey says about this “market reality” with what Christopher Tolkien has to say about it.

But I feel that way about most teenagers.

@MattЭллен Ukistany? THat's not a ... you made that up!

3:44 PM

@Mitch What? You mean my teachers have been lying to me all these years?! Nooooooooooooooooooo!

CJRT disparages it for being an “action-adventure movie for youth 16–25”, which his father’s books never were.

Or at least, which he claims they never were.

Does he really have the same middle names as dad?

@tchrist well they weren't a romance or comedy, so what else is there?

Accurate historical portrayal

Christopher John Reuel Tolkien

Oh damn. I have a meeting in 15 minutes. That's when I was planning to get lunch.

3:46 PM

Goes by Chris.

John Ronald Reuel Tokien went by Ronald.

Or sometimes Ron.

MJ Toking goes by Mary

giggles

@MattЭллен in real life? most swords just give you a nasty gash, from which you bleed to death quickly enough, or slowly die from infection.

or from pooping too much in camp.

sorry, that's not from a sword but just living with a bunch of dudes who don't clean up after themselves.

ewwwwwww

@Mitch There are dudes who clean up after themselves?

3:50 PM

Of course repeated decapitations are bloodless: all the blood spurts out after the first one. See Game of Thones.

So most battle scenes are like this: "owww that really effing hurt. augh...tell my mom...blurgh. silence"

@KitFox I know! right?

And the smell of blood. And vomit. And...stuff.

Game-a-thons? Is that like walk-a-thons?

kinda like wheel-a-fortune

Game-of-scones

3:53 PM

Game of thons vs. singular theys.

those well-endowed wenches...with snacks!

Bickies.

So what should I do about a requirement to have open-ended comment boxes?

Delicious again, Peter.

@KitFox close it as not constructive

3:54 PM

@KitFox what does that even mean?

I asked about an appropriate length limit and the project lead said he didn't want to stifle their creative urges.

Heh.

stifle his

Logorrhoea.

So I interpreted that as "I trust your expertise to set an appropriate length limit."

3:55 PM

Obviously he who can write an open-ended comment doesn't need a box. He will die long before completing it, and long after his browser (and Internet) version will have become obsolete.

Because that helps me keep my sanity.

Nov 29 at 20:28, by Robusto

Write your complaint here: ____. Be thorough and detailed. Don't leave anything out.

Legorrhoea.

@KitFox Good luck with that.

@KitFox ask them how much space they have left on the harddrive. Then double it. And make that the minimum length requirement. Then have tea.

@KitFox SE uses 600 character limit, that sounds good to me.

4:00 PM

Which is never enough.

or you could use the length of a tweet

Which is way too much.

Holy Sahara! We’re having another 70s day. Why do I even own pants?

Why not generate a random number between X and Y every time?

@MattЭллен No it doesn’t.

4:01 PM

make your users creative. their comments will be indecipherable anyway. a short limit is a good idea

@tchrist yes it does.

@MattЭллен How much would you care to lose on that bet, sir?

@tchrist I don't want to see that 70s show.

@tchrist It sounds very good to me. What do I win?

Hint: These are C# “programmers”. They don’t know how to count.

I think Matt already sink, line and hookered you.

4:03 PM

Hence the pants issue.

It all makes sense.

The limit is not on characters.

It is on code units.

Not the sense anybody would want it to make, but you can't have everything.

Because they are idiots.

And liars.

Yeah we've been there, I thought?

4:04 PM

Maybe or.

Yes, we have.

I just wanted Matt’s megabux.

Somewhere in the transcript is a PhD volume or two.

@tchrist the clever writor that he is, outsmart you he has.

On verra.

Vide ton verre plain, plain ton verre vide.

De veras.

And by Verra’s tits.

Que verra, verra.

4:05 PM

Hm, probably you don’t know that reference. Never mind.

@Tolkien, haha, so true.

Unless you wish tutelling.

10 minutes earlier.

@tchrist We have too many Veras where I come from.

And far away.

Ours are all wet.

4:06 PM

Here's a Vera for you.

That's you!

Spock in drag?

Liberace fils?

@Cerberus more like you. And you know it.

4:07 PM

Why would that be like me?

They all like him.

I see only one head anyway.

se muda

Or is it cleverly hiding two other heads in the star?

Conspicuous headgear is always suspect.

Here are the other two heads.

You have to look from the right angle.

4:08 PM

Ah yes.

Lovely.

@RegDwighт wow, it's like they want to wear all that costumery and makeup.

> The end credits run 16 minutes, certainly a record or close to it, bringing the total running time to six minutes short of three hours.

Fck that. Pixar can turn 16 minutes into two awesome movies that will make you laugh and cry.

I love tech meetings. My boss is about the most efficient person on the planet.

"So I think we should do X for these reasons. What do you think?"

makes notes

is that good or bad?

what if he's wrong or you disagree?

4:24 PM

Does Frodo find out that Sauron is his father?

@Mitch We discuss it. Short, sweet, to the point.

Meetings are for getting things done. Not for talking.

@MattЭллен not before part II of the third part of the trilogy.

Typical Lucas

@KitFox not in my experience. even if it is useful talking.. all that goes through my head is "PLease let it stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Your explanation is very good, exploring all the details. But you had me at 'Yes'.(or 'no'). So please effing stop. before my eyeballs explode and I eat my own face from the inside."

"Also, I will stop jittering every part of my impatient body if you will just. stop. talking."

@Mitch This is what I'm saying. This is why I love my boss. Meetings have a point and they are fast.

4:31 PM

I bet Sauron kept talking.

And staring you down with that eye.

The problem with writing tests for code you've already written is that it finds your flaws

but the talking. that's what would do me in.

Expected Sequence : [{4+5i}, {5+6i}, {6+7i}, {1+2i}, {2+3i}, {3+4i}]
Actual Sequence : [{1+2i}, {2+3i}, {3+4i}, {4+5i}, {5+6i}, {6+7i}]

bums

add 3. done.

oh.

Stop alphabetizing.

Is that the bug you were trying to figure out yesterday?

Oh! Lunch! What am I thinking!?

bbl

4:34 PM

no, this is a bug I didn't know existed

@KitFox that bug got fixed with a hammer

oh bucket of suck, those are the worst.

I'll empathize on a full stomach.

but at least it's fixed

If all you have is a hammer, then every program looks like a bug.

I'll apatheticize on a full stomach.

I'll antipasti on a full stomach.

4:36 PM

Why not make a meal of it?

You always have to make such a great meal out of it.

maggot meal?

Navy seal.

Bucket of eel.

That shall be my next MOC.

4:38 PM

Master of Ceremonies?

tricky. eels are curvy

David Wallace

@MattЭллен But bugs aren't YOUR flaws. Your only flaw was not to write the tests first.

@DavidWallace well, yes, there is that

Curvy eels are slippery

Nov 7 at 14:14, by RegDwighт

@KitFox My Own Creation (as opposed to an official set) and LEGO Digital Designer [format].

Nov 7 at 14:13, by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

@KitFox MOC = "my own creation". LDD is a lego cad tool

4:54 PM

I haven't written a text since college.

then you haven't lived

raises eyebrow @Matt

I don't know. It seemed like the thing to say.

No. More. Zombies.

Ideally, yes.

4:56 PM

I'm drawing a line in the sand. Then putting my head in it.

Are you referring to anything in perticular?

õ_ô

LinkedIn Top News: Are you working on a zombie team?

I just got their spam.

I see

The author writes "existance." It hurts.

he needs a proof reader. 150 proof.

time to fly!

5:01 PM

> Hmmm. "existance of their project" needs corrected to existence. Even Zombies need to use spell check.

Wow. That was an annoyingly crappy article.

6:14 PM

@RegDwighт I need your googlefu.

JSBձոգչ

7:24 PM

why is this room so boring today?

i demand pictures of kittens or small children

MετάEd

Hope that will serve for both.

guffaw

I am tempted to lock all incoming questions until they are sorted out.

The amount of drive-by upvotes on utter crap is insane.

@KitFox you mean this?

7:42 PM

The children either (forgot) their shoes.

@RegDwighт Oh. Yeah. That must be it.

The sentence is either broken.

I thought there was a question specifically about whether this should be done.

The question kind of is. The answers are not.

15

Q: Close Reason Comments

We've been seeing a lot of comments lately that are somewhat along the lines of Off-topic. Voting to close. or This is too localized. [remainder of comment...] Essentially, these comments are simply giving a reason for why the post these comments are on should be closed. However, ther...

I kind of know what other instance you might mean, but I think it was in comments, not a question or answer.

OK. That might be. It's sort of seeming like that, now that you mention it.

Maybe it should be a meta question. I feel like we've been using that reason a lot lately.

Q: S'il vous plait -- If you please

7:54 PM

0

In the Hercules Poirot stories, Poirot uses the term "if you please" a lot. I wonder if this comes from the french "s'il vous plait"?

british-english french

Yes, I know. I should have just closed it.

Does tc's comment seem a bit rude, with the answer?

How?

It felt a bit weird to start a answer with "um, no."

I don't know what you are talking about. :)**2

7:56 PM

I could just be in a weird mood, though

I removed it as soon as typed it.

No, you are right.

Which is why I removed it.

I'm surprised you saw it. It was there extremely fleetingly.

@tchrist Huh, I still see it in the answer. Let me refresh

Ah, there we go.

I agree it didn't belong there.

But I also feel like I should not have answered, that I should have closevoted.

OIC the meta question is by @MετάEd. It was me who converted his comment. No hard feelings. The usual procedure. It got flagged as not an answer, but was substantial enough so I didn't want to delete it outright. Business as usual.

Is that wrong?

7:57 PM

@tchrist Did Reg tween you?

I'm not sure what the "is that wrong" ties to

He's talking at himself, yes. I'm tweening like mad.

But no bother, I'm off to stuffing my face. Lators.