English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

14:03

@MattЭллен Extended Play. Which also describes the European Parliament.

Matt Эллен

it's just one long Expenses Party

@Cerberus it'll be three years in May

Robusto

0

Q: Expression "I can / can't tell the things"

I'm French and have sometimes/often difficulty to undertsand certain expressions. Presently, I'm not sure of the sense of the following phrase: I can tell the things that lies in this sentence : I am learning Python and so far I can tell the things below about __new__ and __init__ ...

Belongs on ELL.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Wow.

Robusto

> Also, is the word bellow part of the phrase ? or not, as I did in the above line with can't ?
In fact, I also wonder if the phrase is an idiom or not.

Cerberus

@Robusto I want to be able to migrate questions.

Hmm Grace suggested that we should compile a list.

I'm too lazy.

Matt Эллен

14:05

I don't. plus we're meant to be compiling a list for GraceNote

jinx

Cerberus

Why don't you?

Matt Эллен

because I've only seen two today

I haven't really been on the site much

Also, I don't think migration is such a hot idea

let ELL get going

it needs more visitors (especially teachers), but it has a good amount of questions

See? I've got lots of excuses

But since you suggest it, I'll do something

Cerberus

I don't know, it seems all the questions have already been answered when I visit ELL.

I don't think EL&U or ELL have ever suffered from having too few people willing to answer all questions.

Matt Эллен

14:26

0

Q: Questions for ELL

A week ago in chat Grace Note asked us to compile a list of questions we think should be migrated to English Language Learners. Now, I'm not wholly in favour of migrating to ELL at the moment, because it's new and needs to find its feet without some other site interfering, but many users do want...

discussion migration

@Cerberus I'm going by the area 51 stats

ELL should be at 1500 visits per day but is currently at < 400

also willing doesn't mean able :D

Cerberus

14:42

@MattЭллен Where do you see those?

@MattЭллен Tsk.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/lookup/ell.stackexchange.com

Cerberus

@MattЭллен +1

A Meta question is a great idea.

Matt Эллен

thanks :D

Crazy Buddy

Hey guys... Good night :P

Matt Эллен

Good night!

Crazy Buddy

14:47

@Cerberus Someone does remember me... Isn't it?

Cerberus

@CrazyBuddy Hi! What do you mean? I don't think Matt meant you there...

Matt Эллен

I didn't mean anyone, I was just being a jerk

Crazy Buddy

@Cerberus Nah, I just thought that you won't have forgot me...

Cerberus

How could I forget you?

You're too crazy to forget.

Crazy Buddy

That's what I came to say...

:P

Whatever this room indicates, you guys are mostly (always) talking about food..

Cerberus

14:51

No, you are talking about food. Right now.

Oh crap. Now I am too.

Epitorial

A stunning Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) report prepared for President Putin, which is circulating in the Kremlin today, states that Pope Benedict XVI was forced to resign this past week over Catholic Church fears that this 85-year-old leader of over 1 billion Christians was “mentally and physically unprepared” to deal with the coming revelation about the truth of alien beings.

In our 22 January report, Russia Orders Obama: Tell World About Aliens, Or We Will, we detailed how the issue of extraterrestrial beings was brought to the forefront of the World Economic Forum (WEF) with the na…

Crazy Buddy

@Cerberus Damn... There I fell into the trap...

with my own mouth...

Cerberus

And you lured me into the trap along with you.

Crazy Buddy

:P

Hey, you're cool (funny too)...

BTW, every chat room has a guy who is always around... So, you're the active guy in this room..?

Whenever I enter this room, you're here..

Matt Эллен

Cerberus is the most active guy in any chat room!

Crazy Buddy

14:55

@MattЭллен Ah... I didn't see that..

@MattЭллен But, I'm before Cerberus :P

Epitorial

This news leads me to think that human consciousness in every ignorant (not knowing what's behind the scenes) part of the world will grow fast within several months.

Matt Эллен

@CrazyBuddy order by "activity", not "recent" in the tabs at the top

Crazy Buddy

Ohh.. My God... Gotta win this guy :P

But, where am I?

I'm not in the whole page..! :-(

Matt Эллен

you're on page 23

Cerberus

@Epitorial I have checked the sources behind that article, and it appears there are no sources behind it that are credible in the slightest degree.

In case you actually believed it.

They only link to credible sources that do not support their theories at all.

Matt Эллен

15:04

ah! the best sources :D

Cerberus

Yup!

Robusto

When asked by a rabbi if one should believe in free will, Christopher Hitchens replied: "I believe we have no choice."

2

Cerberus

Heh.

Jez

When asked by Hitchens if one should believe in free will, a Christian replied: "The boss insists on it." :-)

Robusto

Which boss would that be?

Cerberus

15:09

Don't do it! It will be a huge disappointment, however attractive the prospect may seem. — Cerberus 26 secs ago

@Jez Nice.

Matt Эллен

@Robusto Hugo Boss

Robusto

Tell Hugo Boss to go fuck himself.

Matt Эллен

he's dead. but I did just find out that he was a nazi

Hugo boss produced the SS uniforms

Cerberus

Really??

That's cool, in that it is another reason to dislike the company and the brand.

Matt Эллен

He didn't design them, but yes

Epitorial

15:14

@Cerberus, check this out: whatdoesitmean.com/index1657.htm.

Cerberus

I didn't even know he was German.

Matt Эллен

according to Wikipedia

Cerberus

@Epitorial I have checked it out and checked its sources. No credible sources supporting their wild theories appear to exist.

Be critical of what you read!

People can claim anything that suits their fancy.

Matt Эллен

Especially if you read it on a site as poorly designed as that

MετάEd

It – 𝀫 – still doesn't work. Damn.

Cerberus

15:15

@MattЭллен I wasn't going to say that.

But, yes, looking at the design and formatting, I gave it a .1 % chance of being trustworthy at first sight.

Matt Эллен

Always criticise design choices!

Cerberus

Always criticise everything!

Matt Эллен

:D

Cerberus

Huh, "suits their fancy"?

If that isn't a contamination...

Either ...that suits them or ...that strikes their fancy.

MετάEd

I can put 𝀫 into Notepad and see it; I can print it. But none of my browsers will render it.

Matt Эллен

15:19

or takes their fancy

Cerberus

You don't see this?

Matt Эллен

I don't see it

MετάEd

So my system obviously supports the astral planes; I have a font with an astral character; I can print an astral character; but it doesn't work in the browsers.

@Cerberus Right. I see a box (placeholder).

Cerberus

Or that they take a fancy to?

@MετάEd How odd. Then it must be a specific font you don't have installed.

I have struggled with displaying characters in browsers for years, but in the end it all came down to system fonts.

MετάEd

@Cerberus No, as I just said. I can copy that very character out of the browser and paste it into Notepad and see it.

I can print it from Notepad and see it on paper.

Cerberus

15:22

What OS?

MετάEd

But I can't see it in the browser. Chrome, Opera, Firefox, Safari, IE, none of them render it.

Windows 7 Professional 64.

Support for the supplemental planes has been around since XP.

Cerberus

Have you tried Office?

Libre Office Excel: no.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Why Office? I've already tried Notepad, for crissakes.

The OS and my font load obviously support the character.

Cerberus

To map its territory.

MετάEd

This could be an OS issue, but then it has to be an OS issue that affects browsers and not other apps.

Cerberus

15:24

Because I can't see it in all applications here.

Matt Эллен

that sort of means something else but is close enough.
People can claim anything that strikes their fancy -> People can claim anything suits what they beileve (at the moment)
People can claim anything that they take a fancy to -> People can claim anything they've taken a preference to.

or maybe not

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Yeah, right, that's how I read that.

No, you're right.

But how about that takes their fancy?

Matt Эллен

I'm not sure anymore. I've thought about it too much

Cerberus

I would never use that, so I'm not sure.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus I think that goes with the second one

Cerberus

15:25

@MattЭллен No, you were 100 % correct. That's how it feels to me too.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Works in LibreOffice.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен OK, that was my hunch.

@MετάEd Interesting. Then we are opposites.

Let me test a couple more programs.

> Microsoft Excel 2003: no.

> Notepad++: no.

> Chrome: no.

> Microsoft Word 2003: no.

MετάEd

@Cerberus BabelMap finds it.

Cerberus

> Windows XP "Run": no.

@MετάEd What's that?

> Everything Search: no.

Matt Эллен

your handwriting?

MετάEd

15:30

@Cerberus It's a workalike for Character Map that works with all the supplemental planes and provides additional information about fonts.

@MattЭллен It's U+1D02B BYZANTINE MUSICAL SYMBOL SYNAGMA META STAVROU

@Cerberus Works in Office Word Viewer 2004.

Cerberus

@MετάEd What is ChM? Anything I should want?

Matt Эллен

> My handwriting: no

@Cerberus you have charmap

it comes with windows

MετάEd

@Cerberus %windir%\system32\charmap.exe

Cerberus

Ah.

What do you use that for?

My usual technique is to install more and more fonts until I see the character, hehe.

Matt Эллен

I use it to look up characters

Cerberus

15:34

For what?

Matt Эллен

copy pasting

also just to see what there is in a font

Cerberus

Ah OK.

So it appears only Firefox can display the character on my system.

MετάEd

I have that character in three different fonts. Musica, Symbola, and LastResort.

Cerberus

hugs and kisses Firefox

I have Musica and Symbola.

Is LastResort good to have?

Or does that just give the Unicode numbers when it can't find a character?

MετάEd

@Cerberus Well, I will say that Firefox is displaying a hex thingy, not a box. Maybe for some reason it's using LastResort as its first fallback.

I'll try pulling LastResort.

Epitorial

15:37

@Cerberus, I believe you didn't click on the underlined texts on the article. It contains the hyperlink to the sources.

Cerberus

@MετάEd Ah! Actually, I think I once had a font that did that, and I think I removed it for the same reason!

@Epitorial Ehhh I said I had checked the sources. I clicked the links, and no reliable sources turned up supporting their claims.

Epitorial

15:59

Okay. Well, I have to find it for myself then.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Well, it did no good. When I think about it, LastResort doesn't look like the box Firefox is giving me.

@Cerberus I used to have trouble in XP when I would use a Type 1 font as my browser's default font. The browser would not fall back to other fonts, and I would get a lot of boxes where I had good fonts.

@Cerberus So it might be that my font library is confusing my browsers. Strange though that my font library is not confusing any other PC apps.

Cerberus

@Epitorial Find what? It's just not true what those articles claim, sorry...

@MετάEd Perhaps you have another font that functions like LR?

MετάEd

@Cerberus The only other one I have is Unifont. And that has the character.

Cerberus

@MετάEd I don't know, my FF has behaved perfectly ever since I installed more fonts.

MετάEd

Well, or it doesn't.

No, Unifont can't be the problem because it doesn't have the character.

Cerberus

16:11

Oh.

Try a virtual machine?

MετάEd

@Cerberus A vanilla OS is what you are thinking.

Cerberus

Or a clone, yes.

If you have one on hand.

But a VM seems like the first/easiest step.

A VM with the same OS as your own.

MετάEd

@Cerberus Right. I have a VM on this PC already, but it's running XP because I have one old app (PageMaker 6.5) that won't run on Win7.

Dang, that's probably real work to set up.

But it makes sense.

Cerberus

I always have a Win 7 VM and an XP VM ready.

MετάEd

What for?

Cerberus

16:15

For testing and security.

And there is no reason not to have them.

MετάEd

Do you run Windows Virtual PC? Or a third party virtualization?

@Cerberus Performance.

Cerberus

Virtual Box.

@MετάEd ?

What do I care about performance?

The performance inside the VM does not affect my system.

My real machine.

MετάEd

@Cerberus I use that XP VM for a real application, and I am not happy with the performance of the app, nor am I happy with the performance of my primary OS when I have the VM running. But it's a necessary evil.

I did not know about VirtualBox. Will check that out.

I bet I'll have a nice little Linux virtual box within a week.

Cerberus

@MετάEd Oh, sure. But that doesn't mean that there is any down-side to having the VM installed.

Just don't have it running all the time.

@MετάEd Yay!

MετάEd

@Cerberus Agreed. I have plenty of disk space, as long as I don't get carried away.

Cerberus

16:22

@MετάEd I believe some people said VMWare's free program was slightly better, but in my experience Virtual Box, which I believe is open source, is better. I haven't tried VMWare in a while, though.

@MετάEd Yeah I delete old snapshots in Virtual Box every now and then.

And its virtual hard drives use dynamic space, I believe.

MετάEd

@Cerberus That's nice.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus they can be switched to fixed size too, which is good for speed

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Oh, why is that good for speed, and how good?

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus I can't remember. I'm looking for the article

Cerberus

@MattЭллен OK.

> Thanks and Best wishes to you and all your family. — in a standard message from a Chinese Ebay seller

So cute.

Matt Эллен

16:31

maybe it was about separate harddisks

I can't find the thing about fixed capacity virtual disks

Cerberus

Hmm.

@MattЭллен That makes sense!

The only thing is...

99 % of the time, my OS and programs don't stress the hard drive much.

They're loaded in memory.

Matt Эллен

yeah. I think Jeff has higher demands than you :D

Cerberus

And the VM only uses the hard drive heavily when it's loading an image.

@MattЭллен Yeah, so he may be thinking of a VM and an OS that use large databases continuously or something. He didn't specify.

He's also talking about laptops. I mean, come on!

I don't want to use a laptop for my regular computery things.

Matt Эллен

indeed. I don't have a laptop that I use

tchrist

@MετάEd UCS-2 abominations.

Matt Эллен

16:42

I've considered getting a laptop for when I want to do programming but out and about

but that happens rarely

so I just wait

tchrist

Today I’ve finally hit the 50% milestone.

Feels like much more than that.

Cerberus

@MattЭллен Yeah it can be useful for that.

tchrist

Cerberus

I might use a cheap tablet + external keyboard for that if I needed to.

Although I actually hate all non-desktop keyboards.

Matt Эллен

@tchrist happy birthday

Cerberus

16:44

I want a LARGE keyboard which keys that go down far when you press them.

@tchrist Is it your birthday?

tchrist

Hm, thanks. How did you know? I meant 250 out of 500 flags for Marshal.

Cerberus

Have you turned 50 today? Hip hip hurray!

Matt Эллен

oh, well I was guessing

tchrist

Damn it.

Cerberus

Hehe.

tchrist

16:45

I did that to you once.

Cerberus

To me?

tchrist

To Matt.

Got him to confirm something by accident.

Cerberus

I hope I didn't fill in my correct birthday.

I always do the correct year but January 1.

tchrist

Julian, no doubt.

Cerberus

Ah yes, a tried and true technique.

So are you celebrating it?

tchrist

16:46

That’s a bit more than a flag per day for each of the days I’ve been here consecutively.

Robusto

I don't put personal information out in public forums.

Cerberus

It's funny how we are 20 years plus five days apart.

@Robusto And right you are.

tchrist

I have a friend who is 10 years and 6 days, and a cousin who is 3 years and 2 days.

Cerberus

Ah, my age isn't on SE at all.

Robusto

@Cerberus You are crossing over soon?

Cerberus

16:48

Indeed.

Matt Эллен

to the magic land of 30 years old!

Robusto

No young punk anymore, but a reponsible adult?

tchrist

And nobody remembered to wish Abe a happy birthday yesterday.

Cerberus

Not looking forward to it, but all my attempts to avert the big three-o have been thwarted.

Matt Эллен

@tchrist I did in private

Cerberus

16:48

@Robusto Stop it!!

Robusto

@tchrist Obviously you didn't visit my shrine to him.

Cerberus

Abe?

Robusto

Lincoln.

Matt Эллен

@Cerberus You'll have to get a Mortgage

MετάEd

@tchrist UCS-2 is what's interfering with browser support for that character, but not interfering with other apps?

Cerberus

16:49

Wait. You all know the birthdays of old presidents?

Matt Эллен

not to forget Darwin, of course

Robusto

Some.

Cerberus

Americans and their patriotism! The French could learn something from you.

MετάEd

@tchrist Threescore years and ten? So you're 35.

Matt Эллен

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin, FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, overcoming scientific rejection of ea...

Cerberus

16:49

@MattЭллен Ahhh nooo!

Robusto

We celebrate President's Day on Monday. It's supposed to mark Lincoln's (Feb. 12) and Washington's (Feb. 22).

tchrist

@MετάEd A lot of Microsoft thingies use UCS-2 for their internal representation of Unicode. Java uses UTF-16, but many clueless programmers treat it as UCS-2. Only programs that use UTF-8 or either of UCS-4/UTF-32 never have problems with these things.

Cerberus

@Robusto Even though it is on neither? And all people know these birthdays?

Robusto

@Cerberus Not all.

Cerberus

But most?

tchrist

16:51

@Cerb is about to turn deeteen.

Robusto

There is no single fact known by everybody.

2

Matt Эллен

Obviously everyone who chats here knows them because they correspond to mine and Aedia's birthdays

Robusto

@Cerberus No. The people of my generation would, because we were taught them. But young punks don't learn anything anymore.

tchrist

Everybody who wasn’t born yesterday knows that Lincoln was born on February 12th and Washingon on February 22nd.

Because it used to be on the calendar.

Cerberus

I wouldn't know a single birthday of anyone who's dead, except when it is a modern holiday, and celebrated on the very same day.

tchrist

16:52

Stop jynxun.

Robusto

@Cerberus What year did Socrates die?

Cerberus

@Robusto Kids these days. A disgrace to their country.

@Robusto I wouldn't even know the year, let alone the day.

MετάEd

@tchrist Well, what I know is that Notepad, MS Office, and Libre Office will correctly accept the character, that Windows will correctly copy and paste it from app to app, that I have fonts with that character in them, and that I can even print documents containing it and the character prints correctly. Only none of my browsers can display the character.

tchrist

@Robusto In the year 1 Before-After-Socrates.

MετάEd

Why only all browsers would fail to reproduce it I don't know.

Robusto

16:53

399 BC

tchrist

@MετάEd I have never seen that problem on Unix. Or a Mac.

Insofar as those are or are not distinct.

Cerberus

Yeah it's odd.

Robusto

And Washington died in 1799 AD. Coincidence?

Cerberus

I don't think so!!!

tchrist

casts a hex on @Cerb granting him three more teenage years

Cerberus

16:54

Yay!

Robusto

And Jefferson and Adams both died on July 4, 1825.

MετάEd

@tchrist Right. There's definitely something bogus happening on Windows 7, but I can't nail it down.

Cerberus

How do you know all these dates?

tchrist

@Robusto Everybody knows that.

Matt Эллен

CU

MετάEd

16:54

@Cerberus You were able to see the character on Windows 7 with Firefox, right?

Robusto

@Cerberus Because they just stick in my head.

tchrist

Exactly.

It’s because @Rob was born before all these electromental prosthetics that people rely on these days.

Robusto

Yes. But Google has ruined my brain.

Cerberus

@MετάEd XP, yes.

tchrist

You know, like the people who used to actual rotary-dial phone numbers.

Robusto

16:56

Now I no longer find it necessary to remember things.

I don't even know my son's phone number. It's on speed dial, so I never have to remember it.

Cerberus

I remember dialling phone numbers.

Twenty years or so ago.

Then we got a wireless phone.

@Robusto Yeah I only know my parents' home number, which is where I grew up.

And the home numbers of maybe two or three primary-school friends.

MετάEd

@Cerberus XP 32 or 64?

Robusto

Did you know that area codes were originally low numbers for big cities because the phone company figured so many calls would be going there it would waste too many people's time to have to dial large numbers and wait for the rotary dial to return to 0?

Cerberus

@MετάEd 32

SP3

MετάEd

@Cerberus I have one of those virtualized as I mentioned. Let me try loading FF on it.

Cerberus

16:59

I could let you download my virtual machine (I turned a clone of my OS into a VM), but it would take ages with my 0.8 Mbps upload speed.

Robusto

Cerb probably has an ancient version of FF as well, though.

Cerberus

15, actually.

And I may switch to 18 or so soon.

@MετάEd OK.

lets you

Robusto

@Cerberus Still well behind the times. At least three weeks past.

Cerberus

Yeah.

It was because of the tabs-on-top issue.

I thought they had made that compulsory.

But apparently it is not so, not yet.

Robusto

Firefox thinks about the browser wars the same way NBA teams think about basketball games: first one to 100 wins.

Cerberus

17:00

I believe they will do so soon.

I couldn't care less about version numbers.

Robusto

I think you could care less. You're just not trying hard enough.

Cerberus

tries

fails

Robusto

Slacker.

Cerberus

Can't go below zero, no matter how high the version numbers.

Robusto

Negative numbers are real. You aren't litoting enough.

I litote, you litote, he/she/it litotes, we litote, you litote, they litote.

Cerberus

17:05

You're the Greek authority, you must be right.

Like BXVI on...anything.

Robusto

I am not E. L. Greco.

Cerberus

Who?

The painter?

Robusto

The joke.

Cerberus

The what? puzzled faces

must consult Wikipedia

Robusto

It's a combination of E. L. Doctorow and El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos): E. L. Greco. pauses for laughter

Kit

17:22

laughs

Robusto

See? Kit gets it. But then, foxes were always smarter than dogs.

Even invisible foxen.

Cerberus

Hmm I don't know Doctorow except his name, I'm afraid.

But I'm sure it must be a great joke if it appeals to your invisible friends!

Epitorial

17:52

Interesting video about UFO’s: youtu.be/jYY68vI7vzU.

Cerberus

Definitely a UFO. What else could it be?

Epitorial

Oh, I just use it for attraction.

Cerberus

You use UFOs to attract whom?

Epitorial

Those who are interested.

livresque

haha @Robusto, I have never heard of a verb for litotes.

Must be a-kenning.

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English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…