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12:00 AM
Grepping the OED does take measurable time, but grepping say Lord of the Rings does not.
It's the biggest file I have.
% ls -hl Books/Tolkien/J.R.R._Tolkien_-_The_Hobbit_and_The_Lord_of_the_Rings.txt oed/lib/2e
-rw-r--r--  2 tomchristiansen  staff   2.9M May  1  2012 Books/Tolkien/J.R.R._Tolkien_-_The_Hobbit_and_The_Lord_of_the_Rings.txt
-rw-r--r--  1 tomchristiansen  staff   546M Jul 21  2009 oed/lib/2e
How big is Alice?
logs back in
You can always run cat a a a a a a a a a a a a a a > b to make bigger ones.
12:03 AM
-rwxr-xr-x 1 kpanos students 159333 Dec 9 19:03 alice.txt*
Not sure why it's executable. :|
I must commute. BBL
Muy pequeñito.
howdy ln
2 hours later…
2:36 AM
A: Why isn't this word a verb?

John LawlerThe reason it's not a verb is as Robusto says. The reason you're confused is because you're using "Verb" in two senses. Robusto's answer deals with the correct use of the technical term "Verb", which is syntactic. You, on the other hand, appear to be using "Verb" to mean "Predicate", which i...

Who had the insufferable gall to downvote this answer?
1 hour later…
3:50 AM
@Robusto No idea. It’s not like they left any criticism behind, either.
1 hour later…
5:15 AM
@MετάEd Please don't add the '!' into NS posts now. He isn't around to roll it back and create a CW, and I don't think it's worth the edit war
@simchona A CW?
@MετάEd Community Wiki.
That's the original use of "!" in posts--to get him to edit war until it became a CW, since they were on his sockpuppets that weren't merged yet
Ah. I didn't know the connection between "!" and community wiki. I thought the point was just to bring these posts to the attention of editors.
@MετάEd Those questions you edited are already NS, so they don't need the '!'
6:03 AM
Time for me to mount the sleigh.
2 hours later…
8:19 AM
@tchrist Haha, now they downvoted me. No good deed goes unpunished ...
9:00 AM
gouraud morning
1 hour later…
10:22 AM
@Robusto wow, that's formatting to the max. Bold and italics and monospaced and in quotes. John has outlawlered himself.
11:00 AM
@MετάEd You noticed the sleigh!
@Robusto Not me, I don't waste 1 point to downvote an answer, I am stingy like that.
@RegDwighт I find this overformatting particularly common among Indian SE users, I wonder why...
@MattЭллен Boo! Are you having lunch now?
@Mahnax I think your avatar looks terrible, but it's OK if you like it.
Jasper is on a ping streak.
11:04 AM
@JasperLoy hello! No, it's only 11. I'm still waiting...
@RegDwighт I am also on a capping streak on Math. As you can see, my rep there is rising rapidly...
Oh wow. Indeed.
rapidly rising reps reveals recent retirement rescinding
@MattЭллен rescind
11:07 AM
No, Matt, please do not rescind.
How is ELL? Is it coming to fruition?
Will Jasper become a legend on Math.SE?
Nah, I intend to retire there when I attain 10k.
@JasperLoy we were at 144 committers yesterday
@MattЭллен That is the square of 12.
11:10 AM
indeed. a very divisible number
We are actually at 72% 101% 100%.
So now we just need 56 random people off the street.
Anyway, it would be very interesting to see what happens to both ELL and ELU when we have both.
I know what will happen. You will get to 10k on ELL and then retire. And then you will get to 20k on ELL and retire. And then...
SE will collapse in on itself, and the internet will cease to use English
Perhaps ELL will become the new ELU, and there will be no more of the current ELU.
11:11 AM
@MattЭллен Way to spoil the plot.
I thought everyone had read the movie by now!
ELL is scheduled to go live on December 21st. No further hints will be given.
@RegDwighт Wow, you belong to the Secret Service!
Not everyone can belong to the Not-So-Secret Service you are part of.
It will be a very merry Christmas to have both ELL and ELU.
11:16 AM
Hi, @MattЭллен
How are you?
pretty good. How are you?
Just fine.
Jolly good.
11:18 AM
What are you upto?
day dreaming at work. Yourself?
Day dreaming at home.
Where is @RegDwighт?
Not here.
Is he still in communism?
I didnt expect you to be here.
Can we change our habits?
I mean is it possible to change your natural habits and still be happy?
if you want to change your habit, then by changing it doesn't that make you happy?
11:22 AM
Then why they say always be yourself.
Hollywood is full of jerks?
I think I read this in a book.
It might be.
"be yourself" really means "be confident that people will like you"
Okay. So it doesnt mean you shouldnt change your bad habits and turn them into good ones?
Exactly. If there are things you don't like about yourself, you should probably try to change them
11:26 AM
Okay, what if changing those things causes distress?
Like how?
Like being picky.
Some people dont like it.
A person changes themself and that has the side effect of making them picky?
Or someone is picky and they should change?
The second one.
Someone is picky adn they should change.
Well, it's up to them. They have to decide what is more important: people not thinking they are picky or them being able to be picky.
11:30 AM
Hi, can someone please give an example of the usage for back and forth ? Say A is the place where I start, go to B and then come back to A; and do this again and again, how do I use the idiom back and forth ?
if it's really important to them that people don't think they're picky then they should change
No they are picky but they want to change that habit of being picky.
@Sudhi e.g. I have been going back and forth between A and B all day
Into not being picky.
@Noah OK, so they should change.
11:31 AM
@MattЭллен between? I thought one is supposed to use to and from [ at least in the examples that I saw online ]
@Sudhi to and from wouldn't fit in my example
@MattЭллен Okay.
@Noah As Captain Dylan Hunt says "Nothing worth having is ever easy"
@MattЭллен okay, that makes it simpler and easy to use. Err, just to confirm, it's always back and forth and not forth and back , right?
@MattЭллен Which means? Sorry, I mean if you could elaborate on it a little bit.
11:36 AM
@Sudhi the idiom is back and forth, yes. forth and back is not impossible, but is probably used in poetry and other stylised text, not normal English.
@Noah changing a habit is difficult.
Thank God for Politics.SE. Now we can finally deal with such pressing questions as "Was Hitler's regime a right-wing regime?"
@MattЭллен thanks!
@MattЭллен Umm, I see.
@Sudhi no trouble :)
@Noah otherwise it wouldn't be a habit.
@RegDwighт Or why is Reg a member of communism:)
11:38 AM
I <3 SE sites :) Have a great time ye' all!
@MattЭллен Okay.
@Noah That question hasn't been asked just yet. I suppose they are saving it up for the public beta.
@RegDwighт Some one might be sleeping on it right now. So who knows? it might be in the process of getting there in time.
@RegDwighт And things as constructive as "Why are democrats such big commies?"
@MattЭллен I don't think they mingle very well.
11:49 AM
APists — people who worship the news
I thought apists worshipped bees.
Apists ape bees.
the notorious monkey bees.
Which reminds me. I still can't log in and write a blog article.
11:53 AM
I don't know why you're different WRT google login
It's a conspiracy.
@Robusto I dont know who they are/
Seems likely. What's the aim of the conspiracy?
Why, to conspire, of course.
ah! the worst kind of conspiracy.
11:56 AM
And the aim of a democracy is to demote.
Burn, stupid stove, burn!
You actually want the fuel to burn, not the stove.
feeling cold this morning, @KitFox?
@Robusto demote wall street.
@MattЭллен The stove went out last night.
11:57 AM
@MattЭллен What the hell, do you think she is sitting on a stove.
It's about fifty degrees in here.
If it's 50 degrees Celsius, that's pretty hot.
That like -90 celsius
@Noah yes. obviously Kit is sat on a stove.
11:57 AM
I am sitting on the stove.
@MattЭллен LOL
But it is cold, so that's not helping.
@KitFox Go to the sun.
That's too far away to help.
11:59 AM
@KitFox I could carry you there. All you have to do is come on board.
I can't leave my boys until Gramma gets here.
Ah HA. Now it's started up.
it must've been above 12C when I got up this morning (that's what my thermostat is set at). I guess being on the 2nd (AmE 3rd) floor gives me insulation, because it was very frosty outside.
kicks stove
I lived in a top floor apartment once where I had no control over the heat. It was regularly 90 degrees.
woohoo! you'll be warm soon
@MattЭллен Why dont you guys move to a warm place.
12:01 PM
@Noah I like it here, apart from the cold
You could come work over here, though. We have cold too!
And we're sort of like England, only New.
So I had two good nights of sleep finally, but I've been feeling like crap during the day still.
@MattЭллен Okay. I wanna go to Mars. I dont like it here— on earth.
@Noah You know it's a lot colder on Mars, right?
It just looks warm on account of all the rust.
12:04 PM
@KitFox No, I dont. But I just wanna go there. Far away from humans.
You can go far away from humans and be warm on Earth. It's more practical anyway.
@KitFox I didn't know you've not been sleeping. That sucks. Do you know what's causing it?
@MattЭллен I think I have some kind of illness. I've been feeling under the weather, but not anything I can really put my finger on.
@Noah you could live in a rain forest. that's warm (a bit wet) and until the loggers come there will be no humans for miles if you pick a good spot.
It might be caffeine withdrawal. I'm not sure.
12:06 PM
Have you cut out caffeine? That's a mighty big habit to break!
Not really intentionally, but I stopped drinking soda everyday.
And I ran out of caffeinated coffee pods.
I only have decaf left.
@MattЭллен That's a possibility.
@MattЭллен And now I sort of feel like since I started, maybe I should just do it.
12:09 PM
@KitFox sounds like a plan. but I guess your adrenaline levels will plummet for a bit?
Then there's more room for pulled pork sandwiches.
@MattЭллен I'm not sure. I can't tell why I feel crappy.
My husband thinks it's just a virus.
But then. Pulled pork.
Could be. I hope you're feeling better soon.
Of course it could be that you're using a lot of energy staying warm over night, which tires you out more than sleeping energises you
Me too. I want to get back to revising the book. All I'm doing when I feel cruddy is w-rk.
@MattЭллен Haha. Except that I have that goose-down duvet to keep me cozy.
12:11 PM
ah :D I still feel cold with my decent tog duvet, though
11 tog I think
something like that
i really hate it when you don't know whether a women isn't responding to you because she's busy, or not interested
so many times I've regretted not being a mind reader
I wonder what goose down rates. It's effing hot.
@KitFox mmmmm. sounds good!
goose down. that'll get scratchy as the feathers come through the lining.
12:14 PM
Mine hasn't.
> Down clusters in the duvet create a fluffy air trap that keeps you warm inside the duvet, although your bedroom temperature may be cold.
I've avoided feather duvets and pillows since I was little because of allergies
anyway, i want technology that gives me a cool pillow
Mine must be in the 13.5 range. I guess they come lighter as well.
that needs to be invented
12:15 PM
@MattЭллен Awww. That's too bad. There's nothing snugger.
and not something that will melt, something that will last
@KitFox regular synthetic duvets are fine.
I thought they had cooling pillows.
if anything, i find even them too hot
so it's the company's christmas lunch today
ours is tomorrow!
my social anxiety is making me nervous about the whole thing
i HATE secret santa. so dumb. i didnt take part in that so i'll probably look like an idiot there
12:17 PM
hmmm. we don't have that here
we did it at the last place I worked. it was frustrating because I didn't really know the people
lucky. you haven't yet had a bright spark who thought it would "be a bit of fun"
How many words do we utter per day?
and frankly i dont talk much to ppl in the office. the food looks nice but the company...............
@Noah maybe.... 5000 an hour?
massively depends on what you're doing
if you're working on programming, 0.
except maybe "fucking thing, god damn it"
If environmentalists find out about this, we can be in a lot of troubles.
"Don't hit your brother with that."
12:20 PM
@Noah that's not really quantifiable. and average would be pretty meaningless, I think. I mean, some people say nothing for days, but others are paid to talk, so it really depends
or if you're Bill O'Reilly, "FUCKIN THING! SUCKS!!"
g2g bai!
Stack Overflow is so helpful! two questions in one day! I didn't even have to ask them.
12:40 PM
@Jez Nah, if you're Bill O'Reilly you say "Christianity is a philosophy, not a religion."
1:16 PM
@JasperLoy Lovely.
@Robusto Then what is a religion?
is it a religion if only one person believes?
Sure, why not?
Religion implies a group activity to me, that's all
1:20 PM
@Robusto he's just playing the clown, as is Silverman
Well, it is a social formation after all.
it's quite obviously just a performance now
@Robusto There you go.
that donkey wants a taste too!
Well, that's not my child. So clearly b).
That's my thought.
improve the gene pool in your favour!
See, I've infected you.
1:47 PM
oh wait. you mean infected me with a virus that will make me infertile?
oh dear
Now if I can just revise the effing thing, it will be a masterwork of influential...something or other.
I'll be the next Ayn Rand.
Only with shorter novels.
I still want to know what the right SE site is where that sort of thing is the right answer.
Linguistics? Depends on the question I guess.
I bet all of Cross Validated, ELU, Linguistics, and SO proper would chase it off.
we've had word tree answers before. Yours should be OK here.
We are offline!
1:53 PM
We’ll see. I had expected the question to be closed as Off Topic before I could finish typing.
We are?
It was being really slow, but is it down?
that's what the page told me
Just crawlingly slow.
Yep. Offline for maintenance.
Did you do the exercise, @Matt?
1:54 PM
I missed the memo.
@KitFox I don't think so. What was the exercise?
I do not get offline.
I get correct access. But glacially slow.
in The Overlook Hotel, Dec 4 at 18:15, by KitFox
For the December 11 chat, we'll talk about the story Monkey on my Back. The writing exercise is three paragraphs. In the first, describe an object. In the second, describe a person. In the third, describe the interaction between the person and the object.
You can skip the reading part.
Q: Clean The Place All Up

doublekWhat to do with 'all': He cleaned the place all up. He cleaned all the place up. He cleaned the place up all. Where should 'all' be put?

I posted here because the flag gives me errors.
@KitFox OK. I probably won't manage that today. I'll have to submit something tomorrow.
1:56 PM
@tchrist Because the site is offline.
@MattЭллен But...you'll come to chat right?
I get no indication that it is offline, though.
Can you see the link above, to get at later? I have to shower and commute.
@KitFox for a bit, but I've got to get home, then there's band practice later (1st in over a month)
@tchrist Yeah, I'll get it later. Thanks.
You’re welcome.
@MattЭллен gasp!
1:58 PM
@KitFox I’ll try to remember to flag it from The Other Side if it is still there once I get there in a couple hours.
@KitFox I know! The drummer was writing a book or something.
Those drummers.
@KitFox getting airs above his station
@RegDwighт Wow. Ouch.
