2005-08-23 Swhack IRC Log

00:00:28 <thelsdj> i know it works with win2k and win2k3, though win2k3 you have to use pid, can't use process name
00:00:30 <jcowan> thelsdj: ta
00:01:23 <thelsdj> i don't use it on xp but i asume it would work fine
00:02:40 <jsled> jcowan: do you have CK language examples?
00:05:43 <jcowan> Not yet.
00:05:55 <jcowan> Imagine Java with a different set of modifiers; that will suffice.
00:06:56 <jcowan> Or C++, or C#.
00:07:09 <jcowan> And instead of class declarations, you have type declarations and behavior declarations.
00:07:31 <jsled> type <name> { signature+ }
00:07:48 <jsled> behavior <name> { (signature { impl })+ }
00:08:39 <jsled> And, I guess, there still is a `class type+, behavior+;`
00:09:30 <jcowan> No, types serve that function, so there are no classes as such.
00:11:38 <jcowan> type name extends supertype,... uses behavior,... { method signature; ...}
00:29:30 <Arnia> What sort of type system?
00:33:04 <jcowan> Currently just subtype polymorphism: very mainstream.
00:33:20 <jcowan> I'm still thinking about how parametric polymorphism fits in, having seen from Java how not to do it.
00:33:40 <Arnia> Hindley Milner?
00:33:49 <jcowan> It's the "oop without implementation inheritance" that makes CK interesting.
00:34:12 <jcowan> At the moment I'm not even specifying dynamic vs. static type, though I'm making sure everything works okay with static typing.
00:36:41 <Arnia> So what does a type represent? What information is on a type
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00:44:56 <jcowan> Arnia: have you read the Recycled Knowledge entry yet?
00:45:03 <jcowan> http://recycledknowledge.blogspot.com
00:50:29 <Arnia> * Arnia reads
00:52:47 <Arnia> jcowan: Sounds like the GLib object system
00:52:57 <Arnia> (used in GTk etc)
00:53:59 <Arnia> Not exactly the same, but you may be interested in their approach
00:54:32 <Arnia> Their requirements were building a type system that worked in static and dynamic languages equally idiomatically for each language
00:54:34 <Arnia> http://www.le-hacker.org/papers/gobject/
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01:05:22 <Arnia> jcowan: Incidentally I was thinking of making a language with description logic types. It seems a good mix of dynamic and static typing. Your type signatures specify just what you care about, and can be generated automatically by analysing the code
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01:06:38 <jcowan> I don't want structural type equality in this language, because of the danger of accidental collisions.
01:07:39 <Arnia> Do you mean structure in terms of methods, instance data or...
01:08:14 <jcowan> I mean I don't want type equality defined structurally.
01:08:27 <jcowan> In ML or Algol 68, all things like (int, int) are the same.
01:09:24 <Arnia> Ah, with a DL type system you specify types very fine grained and yet decidably
01:10:11 <jcowan> In a name-equality language there is no decidability about it: A is a subtype of B only if a declaration says that it is.
01:10:16 <Arnia> For example I could have a type signature for a variable that required the variable to reference something that has some method that returns something static
01:10:50 <Arnia> (this is about the only thing I can see as positive for OWL-S)
01:11:50 <Arnia> Hmm... strict subtyping in that fashion is rather limiting
01:12:25 <Arnia> first-order parametric types like HM typing are an attempt to get around that, but have always felt awkward to me
01:12:48 <jcowan> It's meant to be limiting.
01:13:03 <Arnia> And higher-order parametric types are generally undecidable I believe
01:13:04 <jcowan> CK is designed around programming-in-the-large where you don't want, as I said, accidental collisions
01:13:16 <Arnia> Define an accidental collision
01:13:19 <jcowan> (whereby a Length is also a Mass just because both of them are floating-point values).
01:13:30 <jcowan> or a complex number is just any old tuple.
01:13:35 <jcowan> (of numbers, that is)
01:13:42 <Arnia> * Arnia just had a very high blood sugar and is feeling a little odd as a result
01:13:58 <jcowan> Ah. My sympathies.
01:14:08 <Arnia> Ok... but you can admit flexibility without ending up in that situation
01:14:38 <Arnia> If python ever gets a type system, I'd want it to be DL based
01:14:42 <jcowan> My design point is flexible implementations of rigid types.
01:16:51 <Arnia> Ok, so you have to explicitly request a parent's behaviour?
01:17:19 <Arnia> How does this differ from super? (I'm not very on the ball tonight, sorry :()
01:17:46 <jcowan> You can only get a parent's behavior by including the same behavior object your parent uses.
01:17:58 <jcowan> You don't get parental behaviors by default; you get only the behaviors you explicitly ask for.
01:18:27 <jcowan> s/behavior object/behavior
01:18:33 <Arnia> So how does this differ from structured programming?
01:18:57 <Arnia> It seems like types are structs and behaviours are functions atm to me
01:19:57 <jcowan> (BTW, do you take insulin glargine?)
01:20:13 <Arnia> No. I take Humulin I
01:20:36 <Arnia> My mum takes glargine and has had some odd effects that make me wary
01:21:02 <jcowan> I just injected and it burned, which has happened to me on fairly rare occasions and I always wondered why.
01:21:23 <Arnia> I get the burn from humalog too
01:21:29 <Arnia> (like you said, rarely)
01:21:44 <jcowan> But never from novolog.
01:21:49 <Arnia> I'm wondering if it is to do with the amino acid substitution they perform to get the level performance
01:22:25 <jcowan> The point is that a behavior is a package of methods and state.
01:22:42 <Arnia> (of course, glargine's performance isn't totally level as my mum found out. Admittedly she is an old pork insulin person so she's never taken to human insulin well)
01:23:34 <Arnia> Ok... so types contain no instance data at all? They're just markers then?
01:24:37 <jcowan> Yes and no.
01:24:50 <jcowan> They contain no instance data that is not itself contained in a behavior.
01:25:00 <jcowan> A type is just a list of method signatures, a list of supertypes, and a list of behaviors.
01:26:05 <jcowan> Under the constraint that the behaviors collectively must provide exactly one implementation for (1) each other's external method declarations (2) the methods declared in the type and its supertypes.
01:26:35 <Arnia> hmm... sounds interesting but I'm not sure how well it solves a problem I have never encountered
01:26:45 <Arnia> What motivated this?
01:27:53 <jcowan> The fragile subclass problem (the way in which a superclass method invoked on a subclass object expects the methods it calls to preserve certain invariants, but there's no guarantee they will.
01:28:58 <Arnia> How does this method compare to contracts from Eiffel?
01:30:00 <jcowan> It solves a different problem. I'm not averse to contracts in CK, either.
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01:31:12 <Arnia> I still reckon the issue is better solved in the type system used, but I'm interested to see how this goes
01:31:25 <Arnia> * Arnia is always open to experimentatin
01:31:31 <Arnia> ugh... +o
01:33:11 <Arnia> s/in the type system used/in the expressiveness of the typing used
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01:33:33 <Arnia> Wow... scare him off
01:33:36 <Arnia> scared
01:34:31 <jcowan> As I say, this is about implementation flexibility.
01:34:55 <Arnia> What language are you writing this in?
01:35:14 <jcowan> English.
01:35:26 <Arnia> The implementation :p
01:37:02 <jcowan> There isn't any yet. May never be. It's a model.
01:37:15 <jcowan> I just think best when I have an (imaginary) concreteness to think about.
01:37:29 <Arnia> Ah, fair enough
01:38:05 <Arnia> Now for a really scary thought, using NAL-8 as a programming language :p
01:38:11 <jcowan> Gak.
01:38:19 <Arnia> Oh it is doable
01:38:34 <Arnia> Not only that, but it seems to map very well to natural language aspect, mood and tense
01:38:34 <jcowan> Sure. The question is, is anything doable *in* it.
01:38:52 <Arnia> Which of course makes it interesting for me
01:38:57 <jcowan> Well, I can't really judge; I'm still stuck in -2-3-4 and haven't had time to make any progress.
01:40:26 <Arnia> Yeah. I can precis NAL-7 for you (NAL-8 is just adding decision making on top of that). Every statement is an event, some unspecified with regards to temporal extent and relation.
01:40:58 <Arnia> Two new combinators -- ',' for sequence and ';' for parallel
01:41:22 <Arnia> Duration, start time and end time are just normal NAL relations
01:41:33 <Arnia> , and ; are just variants of conjunction
01:42:01 <Arnia> (not intersection, higher order statement conjunction)
01:42:24 <Arnia> This allows one to state necessary or sufficient pre and post conditions for an event
01:43:05 <Arnia> NAL-8 introduces 'goals' as a third sort of sentence (after judgements and questions)
01:43:40 <Arnia> A goal has a utility associated, and this can be reasoned with using the truth-values of NAL judgements
01:44:39 <Arnia> An operation is a relation that happens to interface to the outside world via some means, they are placed into consequential relations with goals and other operations and relations
01:45:40 <Arnia> Hence you can judge the utility of an operation via its position with regards some goal
01:46:03 <Arnia> The operation with the highest utility each decision period will fire
01:46:22 <Arnia> That's about it
01:46:57 <jcowan> What is a utility, though?
01:48:51 <BeHappy_> yawn
01:48:53 <BeHappy_> good morning
01:49:18 <Arnia> He leaves the definition of utility for an agent undefined and up to further research. I'm probably going to go with Erik T Mueller's definition of utility as a combination of positive and negative emotional attachment formed by both real world experience (can I do more from this position) and daydreaming on fictional scenarios
01:50:58 <Arnia> (this is as defined in "Daydreaming in Humans and Machines" which is a very good book on this)
01:52:44 <jcowan> Sounds interesting.
01:53:47 <sbp> * sbp publishes a post he's been mulling over for two days
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02:02:18 <Arnia> jcowan: Whilst the book is cast in a symbollic AI form using axiomatic logics, most of the results are independent of that. After reading it I came to the conclusion that for an agent to be independent it must be capable of daydreaming in some form to build up an efficient plan library that it can access and adapt
02:03:17 <Arnia> jcowan: Oddly, this is more straightforward in NARS. Most of the hoops Mueller had to jump through to make his system induce and abduce vanish since those operations come for free in NAL
02:03:31 <jcowan> * jcowan chuckles.
02:03:32 <Arnia> * Arnia goes to sbp's blog
02:05:27 <sbp> Arnia: http://inamidst.com/notes/fitzroybeagle
02:09:25 <Arnia> Nice article
02:09:39 <sbp> thanks
02:11:40 <jcowan> Yes indeed.
02:11:49 <jcowan> You know about SJG's essay on Fitzroy?
02:12:00 <sbp> no?
02:12:09 <jcowan> How he worried all his life that he'd commit suicide like his uncle, Viscount Castlereagh?
02:12:22 <sbp> actually I did see some comment about FitzRoy from SJG I think
02:12:28 <sbp> yeah, I saw that. and he did
02:12:33 <jcowan> In fact, he brought Darwin along as his personal guest to help fend off the isolation of the captaincy.
02:12:36 <sbp> he only included Darwin on ... right
02:12:47 <sbp> a couple of others had turned him down first
02:13:02 <sbp> tradition and rank prevented him from dining with his officers
02:13:15 <sbp> and Captain King, his predecessor, had just shot himself
02:13:18 <jcowan> Right.
02:13:20 <sbp> so the danger was clearly there
02:13:32 <jcowan> Also the Darwin/Lincoln coinkydink.
02:13:39 <sbp> oh?
02:15:20 <jcowan> Born on the same day.
02:15:32 <sbp> oh, didn't know that
02:17:29 <thelsdj> i think its time to read this sciechedelic love story again, been a few years
02:17:40 <sbp> ironic that his debate outrage was just two months before the first forecast
02:17:51 <sbp> amazing that he was there at all really
02:18:32 <sbp> Wikipedia seems to suggest that the crowd didn't really know who he was. I wonder if they'd've reacted differently if they did?
02:19:38 <jcowan> Gould's essay K x B is also excellent.
02:21:42 <sbp> what are K and B?
02:22:03 <jcowan> "Knight Takes Bishop?" is the actual title.
02:22:19 <jcowan> About the debate and what really happened there.
02:24:22 <sbp> wait, pardon? what happened where?
02:24:32 <sbp> St. Thomas Becket?
02:25:23 <Arnia> * Arnia would politely request that sbp doesn't bring back bad memories from his family's past ;)
02:25:32 <jcowan> Oh, no. Wilberforce vs. Huxley (only it was really Hooker that did the Soapy Sam bashing)
02:26:04 <sbp> ohh, of course
02:26:07 <jcowan> * jcowan has already committed to help hang Arnia on a lamppost, comes the revolution.
02:26:11 <sbp> Arnia: hmm?
02:26:32 <jcowan> Arnia, c'est un aristo.
02:27:10 <Arnia> sbp: My family comes from the Plantagenates
02:27:39 <sbp> ah. well Henry did repent pretty publically
02:27:58 <sbp> I mean, he didn't walk *that* far but when you're being whipped...
02:28:04 <jcowan> Bah! L'hypocrite-la!
02:28:33 <Arnia> *goggles* http://www.forteantimes.com/review/ninja.shtml
02:29:22 <sbp> requires log-in
02:29:58 <Arnia> Not here it doesn't...
02:30:06 <Arnia> It is on the front page
02:30:15 <Arnia> Just look for the ninjas :p
02:32:26 <sbp> heh, I read the reviews for Koma and Fooly Cooly this morning
02:32:30 <sbp> but not the Ninja thingy
02:32:41 <sbp> it's definitely asking for a log-on
02:33:06 <sbp> I'll probably register when less tired. FT is teh awesome enough
02:34:22 <sbp> 'night all!
02:34:26 <Arnia> Night :)
03:10:17 <thelsdj> i've decided to take up magic(k), use it to make myself a better programmer teehee, kinda weird way to go about it
03:12:07 <jcowan> Debugging is the art of causing change in a program in accordance with will.
03:12:39 <thelsdj> sounds about right
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03:37:24 <deltab> I've read a book about dowsing written by a programmer who used it to find bugs.
03:41:29 <thelsdj> western geomancy looks like a pretty nice divination system, uses binary
03:42:09 <deltab> he'd print his code out onto fanfold paper, split the listing in half, dowse each half to see which had the bug, and repeat
03:45:22 <crschmidt> deltab: "We use the term "dowsing" to describe the process of exploring software and the related documentation from an application-domain point of view."
03:45:25 <crschmidt> ?
03:45:40 <crschmidt> Rather than the water-finding one
03:47:47 <deltab> no, he meant the whole crystal-on-a-string thing
03:48:12 <deltab> though he says you can use a ring, tin soldier, anything
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03:50:34 <thelsdj> you'd have to not let yourself know which stack is which, or it would just be your subconcious guiding it
03:51:31 <deltab> he suggests that maybe it is the subconcious
03:52:12 <deltab> he says he doesn't know why it works, just that it does
03:52:31 <thelsdj> heh yea thats how i'm first going to work on magic, as i don't really 100% believe in the will being able to effect things outside yourself, but if i focus on the parts where its the will effecting the self then i shouldn't have a problem believing
03:55:04 <deltab> there was some discussion of Murphy's Law and the complementary Nasruddin's Law
03:55:54 <deltab> possibly referring to this guy: http://www.lifepositive.com/Spirit/world-religions/sufism/nasruddin-mulla.asp
03:59:05 <deltab> more: http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/~jyoti/mulla.html
04:00:38 <jcowan> That's him.
04:01:02 <jcowan> Nasr ud-Din is a major folk hero and source of crazy wisdom in Islamic cultures.
04:15:40 <deltab> much more available from Google
04:33:50 <Arnia> thelsdj: If you're good at visualising structures, you'll be good at magick
04:35:22 <thelsdj> my main problem is lack of dedication, theres a 95% chance i won't stick with it for more than a week and 95% chance the next week, etc heh
04:35:45 <Arnia> What framework were you looking to try?
04:36:13 <Arnia> If lack of dedication is considered to be a stumbling block then a heavily ritual form is probably not for you
04:36:15 <thelsdj> the one that seems to have the least amount of framework, chaos magick, i'd much rather build something for myself
04:36:25 <Arnia> Ah, I was going to suggest that :)
04:36:31 <Arnia> * Arnia does a lot of chaos magick
04:37:04 <Arnia> Remember, it should be fun. The most powerful banishing technique is, after all, laughter
04:37:22 <thelsdj> i'll probably use liber null as a rough guide, do some other reading on dreaming and meditation
04:37:45 <jcowan> * jcowan has always thought the references to satori in Zen can be identified with laughter.
04:37:52 <Arnia> Remember the maxim, "nothing is true, everything is permitted"
04:38:14 <jcowan> Or as the case may be "everything is true, nothing is permitted"
04:38:26 <Arnia> jcowan: Buddhism is pretty much magical philosophy
04:38:51 <jcowan> Zen is eating taffy/toffee and knowing *yourself* that it's sweet and sticky.
04:39:08 <Arnia> jcowan: And magical fighting is (or at least, was) part of tai-chi
04:41:37 <Arnia> thelsdj: Be careful though... don't be reckless, and don't expect Swords and Sourcery style effect. Low magic universe and all...
04:42:08 <thelsdj> yea, my main _goal_ is to see how much i can integrate it with technology, will be interesting
04:42:34 <Arnia> technomancy... wonderful
04:42:49 <Arnia> * Arnia keeps the tech and the magic as far apart as possible
04:43:00 <jcowan> Ittywhonk!
04:43:02 <thelsdj> teehee
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04:43:19 <Arnia> You do not want to accidentally invoke something into your computer and give it power
04:43:37 <thelsdj> hrm, yea don't want to lose files, or break the internet
04:43:44 <Arnia> * Arnia has seen the result of people naming and personifying technology before and it isn't fun
04:44:18 <Arnia> If you give something a name and personality, you're asking for trouble unless you have controlled the evokation precisely
04:44:58 <Arnia> Someone I know, learning how much I distrust such hybrids, deliberately went and evoked stuff into all the machines in Cuth's bar
04:45:37 <thelsdj> one idea i had was building an astral temple with a virtual world counterpart to see if i could use that to interface with the computer
04:45:41 <Arnia> The result was suddenly the jukebox (for example) developed a taste in music and would reject stuff that it didn't like.
04:46:17 <Arnia> They kept trying to repair it, but it did no good. They're dispensing with it all together now
04:46:34 <Arnia> But the idea of an astral temple counterpart is quite good
04:46:43 <Arnia> Get good at Naming first though
04:47:20 <Arnia> * Arnia spends too much time cleaning up magical junk left behind by dabblers who don't know what they're doing ;)
04:48:24 <thelsdj> which is in general more dangerous, evoking someone elses idea or creating your own?
04:48:56 <thelsdj> i could see each being dangerous in different ways
04:49:11 <Arnia> They're both pretty dangerous. Especially if you haven't got a feel for when it is safe
04:49:28 <Arnia> Start small... really small
04:49:39 <Arnia> Learn how to feel the magic around you to start with
04:49:57 <thelsdj> yea, i'm not one to jump into something like this, seems extremely stupid
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09:28:30 <JBee> well
09:28:46 <JBee> i want sb to help me!
09:29:02 <JBee> i'm a newbie!
09:29:29 <JBee> who will do this 4 me???
09:29:47 <JBee> who will become ma mentor???
09:29:50 <JBee> lol
09:29:55 <JBee> ???
09:30:40 <kpreid> you'll never get any help if you neither ask a specific question nor specify a topic
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09:35:32 <JBee> let's say i ping a pc!
09:35:50 <JBee> how can i give a command to it then???
09:36:22 <Jibbler> this is not a hacking channel, JBee. well, not that sort of hacking, at least
09:36:40 <JBee> ok
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10:58:44 <kandinski> hallo all I am in Cambridge k thanks
11:04:33 <Arnia> kandinski: bah... cantab.
11:05:03 <kandinski> hat is cantab!
11:13:07 <Arnia> * Arnia cheers on Dunlemum
11:22:33 <sbp> sbp has changed the topic to: "Blackmail material - you can never have too much! *thumbs up*"
11:22:41 <sbp> - http://outpostnine.com/editorials/teacher69.html
11:23:27 <Arnia> Hey sbp
11:26:49 <sbp> ehyup Arnia
11:36:24 <kandinski> OH MY GOD DARKNESS IS SPREADING!
11:38:10 <kandinski> he is the mastah
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12:28:40 <here2alka> anyone have Magna light?
12:32:45 <sbp> here2alka: the font? not here, though it's likely that someone around here does...
12:33:40 <here2alka> really
12:33:42 <here2alka> i need it bad
12:34:02 <sbp> won't Times New Roman do? :-)
12:34:22 <Arnia> * Arnia nukes sbp
12:34:25 <sbp> heh, heh
12:34:34 <here2alka> lol nah im doing a spoof of a uconn emblem for this band
12:34:35 <Arnia> Palatino all the way :)
12:34:46 <kandinski> leaving you now: bye!
12:34:48 <Arnia> * Arnia set his dissertation in Palatino. Beautiful font
12:34:50 <here2alka> i might just have to buy this one yuck
12:34:55 <sbp> Palatino is a bit too dark for lo... wow
12:34:59 <Arnia> * Arnia hands kandinski a rubber duck
12:35:04 <sbp> see, that doesn't surprise me much though because it's very You
12:35:20 <Arnia> How is it very Me? :)
12:35:27 <sbp> also I probably have a craply hinted Palatino
12:35:41 <sbp> well, it's kinda businesslike but gothic on the edges
12:35:59 <sbp> Palatino in a Nutshell(TM)
12:36:19 <here2alka> shit magna family is like 115 bucks. 35 for just the light :(
12:36:31 <sbp> here2alka: only 21 from http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/magna/
12:36:32 <Arnia> Hah. http://www.dur.ac.uk/j.r.c.geldart/projects/frege/docs/report.pdf
12:36:37 <Arnia> See how beautiful it is :)
12:37:39 <here2alka> im so tired
12:37:43 <here2alka> i need the EF one
12:37:49 <here2alka> magna EF light
12:37:57 <sbp> yeah, that does work well
12:38:10 <sbp> wouldn't even've said that's Palatino
12:38:13 <sbp> shows what I know
12:38:35 <kandinski> I HATES PALATINO
12:38:45 <kandinski> I WAS NOT GONE, JUST HIDING
12:38:50 <sbp> here2alka: you'll have to lurk a bit for more likely people, but if me and Arnia and kandinski don't have it between us...
12:38:55 <sbp> it's a bit unlikely
12:39:25 <sbp> "This is a reference to a character from ‘Winnie the Pooh’ by A. A. Milne who spelt
12:39:25 <sbp> ‘owl’ as ‘wol’.
12:39:37 <sbp> " - is that true? I thought it was a post-facto explanation
12:39:41 <here2alka> i see, maybe ill just have to eat the 20 bucks oh well
12:39:55 <here2alka> finnally i found a channel with people who know type at least
12:40:00 <julie> julie (n=nobody@athena.crschmidt.net) has joined #swhack
12:40:02 <here2alka> are there many channels like this?
12:40:09 <sbp> no, this is the only one
12:40:15 <sbp> I kid. there are a handful more
12:40:20 <here2alka> really
12:40:25 <sbp> most are on specific technical subjects though
12:40:31 <sbp> this is perhaps the only topicless one
12:40:42 <sbp> The Off-Topic is On-Topic Channel(TM)
12:41:55 <here2alka> are there channels that actually xdcc and fserve fonts lol?
12:42:31 <sbp> argh. I just Googled for an onomatopoeic word that I thought I might've coined, and Google came up with the personalized search results thing. I turned it off to see what it had added, and the only prominent thing was an LJ post! why is it pushing LJ posts up my results?
12:42:34 <sbp> I blame crschmidt
12:42:48 <sbp> here2alka: heh, no font warez0ring channels that I know of
12:43:02 <here2alka> haha i didnt think so
12:43:32 <Arnia> * Arnia eats a font
12:43:38 <Arnia> * Arnia eats Kandinski
12:43:39 <here2alka> and all this time i thought font folio and adobe open type would get me thru life :(
12:43:45 <crschmidt> because livejournal has extremelly good google rank in g eneral due to (typically) extremely well linked users
12:43:53 <Arnia> At least he didn't slag off Gill Sans
12:47:00 <here2alka> so do guys buy a lot of type?
12:47:03 <sbp> crschmidt: yeah, but these are *personalised* search results
12:47:12 <sbp> if they had a high ranking, they'd have a high ranking for everyone
12:47:20 <sbp> but for me personally, it's bumping it up
12:47:38 <crschmidt> ah, i'm sorry i thought you meant it showed up when you turned it off
12:47:45 <crschmidt> in that case, it's definitely my fault
12:47:58 <sbp> yes
12:48:20 <sbp> o/~ mama told me not to LJ o/~
12:50:02 <here2alka> i love how samuel adams summer ale has a best served before november label
12:50:14 <here2alka> who would want summer ale in the fall so weird
12:50:25 <Arnia> * Arnia considers going down to the pub
12:50:33 <sbp> .g samuel adams summer ale
12:50:36 <phenny> samuel adams summer ale: http://www.mylifeisbeer.com/beer/bottles/bottledetail/70/
12:51:07 <here2alka> this stuff is so good
12:51:40 <here2alka> like who would be drinking summer ale in during october fest
12:52:00 <here2alka> i wonder why they bother putting this on the label
12:52:33 <sbp> well it's like the nut package with "open other end" on the bottom
12:52:35 <sbp> people are stupid
12:52:49 <here2alka> ya
12:54:09 <here2alka> haha if you look forward to seasonal brew does that mean your an alcoholic?
12:54:36 <Arnia> I think it means you're a northener
12:54:45 <sbp> only if you have spring, summer, autumn, and winter brews
12:56:42 <here2alka> im from new england but live in california. something about it i dunno just seems more fresh even though it prolly just as old as normal stuff
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13:07:22 <niven.freenode.net> topic is: "Blackmail material - you can never have too much! *thumbs up*"
13:07:22 <niven.freenode.net> Users on #swhack: loggy phenny +julie Arnia here2alka bskahan +q8uv +supybot libby ef +lisppaste2 jcowan_ bjoern_ uche +blogbot thelsdj Emeka deusx Jibbler xover Ash JibberJim crschmidt CaptSolo Xavier xower GabeW lonur themaximus +Monty jsled kandinski deltab sbp kados sbp` jessica Grantbow
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13:19:51 <Arnia> mmm... quite like this one: http://www.dafont.com/en/font.php?file=sanford
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13:46:55 <Monty> it's gregery!
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13:50:23 <jcowan> Ittywhonk!
13:50:55 <Arnia> Hey jcowan
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14:01:34 <jcowan> Ho, Arnia.
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14:22:43 <Monty> hi uche_
14:28:49 <Arnia> jcowan: What were your thoughts on the manifesto btw?
14:37:16 <jcowan> That it may well be the right moment for it.
14:37:21 <jcowan> If it can get traction.
14:41:21 <Jibbler> * Jibbler chuckles at http://www.thelink.com/link/the-link/link-mobile-phones.php?mobile-phone-type=Dixon's%20Dirty%20Spammers
14:42:06 <jcowan> WTF? If that's their advertising model, it's downright bizarre.
14:43:33 <crschmidt> I think the point is that the content of the page is driven by the mobile-phone-type argument: http://www.thelink.com/link/the-link/link-mobile-phones.php?mobile-phone-type=Cingular for example, shows Cingular
14:44:44 <bjoern_> bjoern_ has quit ("Quit")
14:45:25 <jcowan> What's more, if you keep reloading the page you get slightly different content each time.
14:46:10 <jcowan> The ideal salescritter: it can sell any product even in total ignorance of its features or existence.
14:46:12 <Jibbler> yes, that's search engine optimization at play :)
14:46:44 <jcowan> No, it's too complex to be just SEO, I think.
14:47:14 <Arnia> * Arnia snickers at http://eagle.auc.ca/~dreid/
14:47:27 <Jibbler> looks like seo to me
14:47:37 <Jibbler> all the named links pointing to the same place...
14:48:19 <jcowan> Ah, I think I see. It uses the same sentences each time but in different orders.
14:48:36 <Arnia> Hah... this is good, http://www.somethingawful.com/articles.php?a=1675
14:52:41 <jcowan> Arnia: see also http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/
14:54:12 <sbp> you can insert HTML too
14:54:27 <sbp> http://www.thelink.com/link/the-link/link-mobile-phones.php?mobile-phone-type=%3Cem%3Eanal%20stimulators%3C/em%3E
14:54:35 <jcowan> Ooh ooh, xss rulez!
14:55:42 <sbp> heh, heh: http://www.thelink.com/link/the-link/link-mobile-phones.php?mobile-phone-type=%3Cspan%20style=%22font-size:3em;%22%3Eloudspeakers%3C/span%3E
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15:02:59 <sbp> [off
15:03:04 <sbp> AHEM
15:04:28 <jcowan> We also have jewelweed, which is a sovereign for poison ivy or poison oak. None of which you have.
15:05:03 <sbp> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rumexobtusifolius1web.jpg
15:05:08 <sbp> I think that'd be good for the ass
15:05:14 <jcowan> In any case, there must be second-growth woods in various places; surely it can't be *all* plowed fields and pasture?
15:05:30 <sbp> we do have forests, but it's immensely cut back from what it once was
15:05:35 <sbp> England is mainly farmland
15:05:41 <jcowan> Same here, of course.
15:05:54 <sbp> or, increasingly now, city. but you tend to get a disproportinate view since that's where all the people live
15:06:04 <sbp> yeah, same anywhere where lots of people need to live I guess
15:06:11 <jcowan> But we have vast amounts of second- and third-growth forest particularly in the Northeast, where farming is just too difficult thanks to all the rocks.
15:06:44 <sbp> we have lots of copses and blah. some of the hedgerows are centuries old too
15:06:49 <jcowan> The soil of New England is full of stones of various sizes left behind by the glaciers. Pick them up, make fences out of them, within twenty years more have appeared from below the topsoil.
15:07:51 <jcowan> Occasional patches of old-growth forest still exist, notably on the Palisades, the cliffs on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River facing Manhattan. The trees don't look like much, which is why they were never considered worthwhile as timber.
15:08:07 <jcowan> Manhattan itself has been extensively landscaped.
15:08:28 <jcowan> We have exalted every valley (or almost every) and made the rough places plain (or most of them).
15:08:29 <bskahan> bskahan (n=bskahan@host223.digitalpulp.com) has joined #swhack
15:08:35 <sbp> how did Central Park come about? was it put in some demolished space, or planned out from the beginning?
15:08:40 <jcowan> Neither.
15:09:16 <jcowan> The original 1811 city plan shows no sign of it, though some of our smaller parks and squares are shown.
15:09:42 <jcowan> But it was basically a swampland with occasional squatter shacks on bits of high ground.
15:10:14 <jcowan> Everything you see there now is the product of landscaping.
15:10:21 <sbp> heh, so it's just wasteland that eventually became a park?
15:10:25 <jcowan> The ponds are fed by pipes, e.g.
15:10:59 <jcowan> By plan I mean literally plan, not a map of what actually existed but of what was planned for.
15:11:23 <jcowan> teh Link will not display images, at least not large ones, alas.
15:11:53 <jcowan> Ooh. Rumex obtusifolius looks quite good.
15:12:37 <sbp> cool display at http://www.dgsgardening.btinternet.co.uk/weedlf.htm
15:13:21 <Arnia> ... http://www.fingoth.net/404
15:13:39 <jcowan> Here is the soft and pleasing leaf of Acer pennsylvanicum:
15:13:40 <jcowan> http://www.lejardindesophie.net/jardinautes/sophie/phoplantes/a/phoplansoa/acerpennsylv2a.jpg
15:14:23 <Jibbler> lol http://www.thelink.com/link/the-link/link-mobile-phones.php?mobile-phone-type=%3Cblink%3Epies
15:14:39 <sbp> how durable is it?
15:15:04 <jcowan> Pretty good from what I remember. It was a long time ago.
15:15:09 <jcowan> http://simegen.com/404 is quite appealing.
15:15:44 <jcowan> jibbler, that is evil.
15:15:55 <lonur> lonur has quit (Remote closed the connection)
15:16:23 <jcowan> OTOH, http://www.catb.org/404 is just plain brain damaged.
15:16:35 <jsled> http://www.thelink.com/link/the-link/link-mobile-phones.php?mobile-phone-type=%3Cblink%3Epussies%3C/blink%3E
15:19:32 <jcowan> About 1600 people got turfed out in order to make Central Park, WP says.
15:19:54 <jcowan> Wow, I didn't know this: the park has one of the last stands of American elm trees, apparently because it's on an island.
15:20:47 <jcowan> Or this: there were only 100 crimes (vs 25m visitors) in all 2004, making it one of the safest urban parks in the world.
15:23:09 <sbp> what happened to all the other elms? did they get (wait for it) supPLANTed? ahahaha
15:23:27 <sbp> 100 crimes? hmm
15:23:31 <sbp> one every three days
15:23:41 <sbp> .calc 25,000,000,000 / 265
15:23:44 <phenny> 25 000 000 000 / 265 = 94 339 622.6
15:23:46 <sbp> ...
15:23:48 <sbp> .calc 25,000,000,000 / 365
15:23:50 <Jibbler> but what is a crime
15:23:50 <phenny> 25 000 000 000 / 365 = 68 493 150.7
15:23:56 <sbp> ...!
15:23:59 <sbp> .calc 25,000,000 / 365
15:24:00 <Jibbler> could include stealing an ice cream to murder
15:24:01 <phenny> 25 000 000 / 365 = 68 493.1507
15:24:05 <sbp> there we go. got there in the end
15:24:14 <sbp> for 68,000 daily visitors that is indeed rather good
15:25:03 <jcowan> sbp: No, they were hosed by Dutch elm disease, a fungus imported accidentally in 1926 from Asia.
15:25:19 <sbp> ah. I was wondering if you had that there too and decided it unlikely
15:25:26 <sbp> it's a particular blight here as well
15:25:32 <jcowan> So I see.
15:26:18 <jcowan> Interesting: most elms in the U.K. (the roots still survive and put up shoots) are clones: a single tree was probably brought in in Roman times.
15:26:40 <sbp> oh cool
15:26:49 <Arnia> * Arnia is reminded of Japanese Knotweed
15:26:55 <Arnia> * Arnia shudders
15:27:42 <jcowan> Apparently you've had DED since 1927, but the real damage was done in 1967 when a particularly virulent strain arrived in Britain from the U.S.
15:27:54 <jcowan> (aka "Tom Paine's Revenge")
15:28:07 <jcowan> * jcowan made up that last bit.
15:29:21 <sbp> OMG you killed our elms!
15:29:23 <sbp> (you bastards!)
15:29:50 <sbp> when I was younger, one of my most memorable travelling impressions is of a Dutch Elm Disease control area that we used to have to drive by a lot
15:30:58 <sbp> it seemed a shame to have this bit of the countryside penned in
15:31:24 <sbp> there's probably a bypass going through it these days now anyway
15:31:39 <jcowan> Was this pen to keep DED in or out?
15:31:47 <sbp> o/~ paved paradise, and put up a parking lot o/~
15:31:51 <sbp> I think it was to keep it in
15:32:07 <sbp> though either way it doesn't make much sense
15:32:20 <Arnia> * Arnia waves a wand and turns sbp into Joni Mitchell 2.0
15:32:40 <sbp> if it's to keep it in you may as well just deforest it. if it's to keep it out, surely people aren't going to pose that much risk - how is it carried?
15:32:51 <jcowan> By bark beetles.
15:33:07 <sbp> I presume they can move of their own accord and don't read signs?
15:34:05 <jessica> * jessica is trying to explain to a friend about why Democrats can't win American elections.
15:34:32 <jessica> What do you do with a campaign platform that consists of "Abort unwanted fetuses, support organized crime through organized labor, and hug trees"?
15:35:05 <sbp> except on Staten Island
15:35:26 <jessica> Well, yes, they get elected here in the People's Republic of Taxachusetts, too.
15:35:29 <jessica> We're talking national elections.
15:35:42 <jessica> This person doesn't get why Richard M. Nixon was worse for the country than Dubya, at least so far.
15:35:45 <Arnia> "If there is going to be crime, it may as well be organised"
15:36:11 <jcowan> The worst thing Nixon ever did, by far, was to attempt to pervert the IRS.
15:36:36 <jessica> * jessica nods. I miss those loving messages from all the men and women and attack dogs down at the Internal Revenue.
15:36:48 <jessica> (IOW, John, what in the nine hells are you talking about?)
15:36:58 <sbp> the best thing he did was to appoint a Vice President whose name is an anagram of "grow a penis"
15:37:06 <jcowan> We hate Internal Revenue, of course, as people always do, but we also basically trust them for the most part. Their job would be impossible, not merely difficult, if we didn't cooperate so well.
15:37:49 <jcowan> Nixon tried to use the IRS to attack his political enemies. If that trend had spread....
15:38:11 <jessica> Sean -- it's worse than that. VPs aren't appointed upon election. The American people *elected* a man whose name was an anagram of "grow a penis".
15:38:19 <jessica> I can see what a pain that'd be, John.
15:38:42 <jcowan> It would make Whitewater look like a picnic.
15:39:06 <sbp> awesome
15:39:49 <jcowan> As for attack dogs, you can hardly blame Nixon for Mayor Daley.
15:40:07 <crschmidt> Of Chicago?
15:40:22 <crschmidt> * crschmidt isn't sure if there's any other.
15:40:31 <jessica> Yes.
15:40:48 <jcowan> The elder, crschmidt.
15:40:59 <crschmidt> * crschmidt nods.
15:41:00 <jessica> Not the one who dug up an airport in the middle of the night, darlink.
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15:41:21 <crschmidt> I'm aware of the multitude of Daleys in Chicago politics. I just wasn't sure if there were others elsewhere.
15:41:36 <jessica> Nope. They're like all Chicagoans -- they stay in their part of the country and we like it that way.
15:41:51 <sbp> except for Aaron, who went astray
15:41:51 <jessica> (Except for you. But lifelong Chicagoans stay there, because they deserve no better. :P
15:41:59 <jessica> So did Schmidty.
15:42:05 <sbp> he's a Chicagoan?
15:42:10 <jessica> Aye.
15:42:15 <sbp> I thought he was from outside
15:42:17 <jcowan> Indeed, a Chicagorilla.
15:42:21 <jcowan> It makes no difference.
15:42:38 <jcowan> The outskirts may not be Chicago, but they are still Chicagoland.
15:42:56 <jessica> Chicago invented the concept of urban sprawl in the same way that Los Angeles did. Very few Chicagoans grow up in the city. They grow up in some pissant suburb twenty miles out of town.
15:43:18 <sbp> I know, but there are also lots of satellite towns
15:43:31 <jcowan> * jcowan picks up the Real Life blammo-gun and threatens his criminous cat with it.
15:43:33 <sbp> which aren't connected to Chicago through sprawl
15:43:44 <crschmidt> sbp: There are? that's news to me.
15:43:45 <sbp> kitty catty puss puss!
15:43:49 <jcowan> It's the mental connection that counts.
15:43:58 <jcowan> (Relax, sbp, it's a plant sprayer.)
15:44:09 <crschmidt> As far as I was aware, every town within an hour of Chicago can only b e gotten to via hours of grueling suburban roads.
15:44:16 <crschmidt> Hm. Hour and hours. Oops.
15:44:31 <sbp> Joliet? Aurora?
15:44:38 <jessica> Scorching desert, blistering winds, enduring food demonstrators at the local Jewel, etc.
15:45:06 <jessica> Facing crowds of bored teenagers and plague and pestilence and trying to orient yourself in a town with 25 Olive Garden restaurants . . .
15:45:09 <Eimi> Eimi (n=eimi@external-nat-space1.cec.wustl.edu) has joined #swhack
15:45:21 <sbp> or you could've been from Rockford or Peoria or something
15:46:40 <crschmidt> Aurora is most definitely connected by sprawl.
15:46:59 <sbp> that's where Wayne's World was set
15:47:06 <crschmidt> Ayep
15:47:20 <crschmidt> that's the edge of the western sprawl: pretty much exactly where I lived.
15:47:25 <jessica> The entire area seems the same to me.
15:47:38 <jessica> You have Chicago, and then you have acre upon acre of beautiful, rippling, fertile . . . mall.
15:47:43 <crschmidt> Directly between Elgin and Aurora on the north-south westernmost border of the suburbs, Randall Road.
15:49:58 <jcowan> Nixon also didn't have a venal bone in his body, unlike W who has little else.
15:50:07 <jcowan> His ambitions (and they were vast) were strictly monarchical.
15:50:15 <jcowan> And I mean in the mold of Richard III, not Elizabeth II.
15:50:38 <sbp> Richard III gets kinda a bad rap
15:50:48 <jessica> Richard III at least was trying to get stuff done.
15:50:51 <sbp> because the Tudor dynasty that came in after him went on so long and included Shakespeare
15:51:05 <sbp> the Princes in the Tower might even have been disposed of by Henry VII
15:51:13 <sbp> outside chance though
15:51:27 <jcowan> Nixon was getting stuff done too.
15:51:36 <jcowan> Arguably he was the last liberal president.
15:51:46 <sbp> wasn't Carter okay?
15:52:07 <jcowan> A fine human being, but neither an effective president nor anything a liberal would call a liberal.
15:52:12 <jessica> Carter was . . .
15:52:19 <jessica> Well, I mean, he gave back the Big Ditch.
15:52:33 <jessica> But the Panamaians were negotiating with CARTER, so it wasn't like they were playing the varsity. :P
15:54:18 <jcowan> Anyhow, there is no "T" in "grow a penis", so there.
15:54:41 <sbp> Spiro's middle initial?
15:54:45 <jcowan> Gale's boss at the time, a Greek-American, was just insanely proud when Spiro T got the nod.
15:54:48 <jcowan> sbp: yes.
15:54:55 <jcowan> By which he was usually known at the time.
15:55:01 <jsled> but there is in 'got raw penis'.
15:55:13 <jcowan> Fair enough, jsled
15:55:20 <jcowan> acronym jsled
15:55:20 <Monty> "JSLED" - join someonee leaf evil deserves
15:55:36 <jsled> not just someone.... someonee.
15:55:48 <jcowan> Sounds like a slogan for a tire company.
15:56:59 <jcowan> pronounced so-me-o-nee.
15:57:43 <danja> danja (i=DannyAye@host132-217.pool80104.interbusiness.it) has joined #swhack
15:59:06 <jcowan> * jcowan realizes that he misread jessica's reference to the Big Ditch as the Big Dig, a mental move productive of nothing but confusion but now hopefully straightened out.
16:00:26 <jcowan> * jcowan must go fetch home the 35+ pounds of laundry he put in the other day.
16:00:37 <jcowan> Ittywhonk and sayonara!
16:02:04 <jcowan> jcowan has quit ("Leaving")
16:02:05 <sbp> c'ya jcowan!
16:02:07 <sbp> ARGH
16:02:12 <sbp> hi there danja!
16:03:54 <crschmidt> howdy danja!
16:04:00 <sbp> phenny: tell jcowan you were on the channel when I touched the return key, and off it by the time I'd depressed it: http://swhack.com/logs/2005-08-23#T16-00-26
16:04:02 <phenny> sbp: I'll pass that on when jcowan is around.
16:04:18 <crschmidt> .w depress
16:04:21 <phenny> depress 1. lower someone's spirits
16:04:24 <phenny> depress 2. lower (prices or markets)
16:04:27 <phenny> depress 3. cause to drop or sink [...]
16:06:40 <danja> hi guys!
16:07:30 <danja> * danja now has reliable connection
16:07:48 <crschmidt> how goes life in the red?
16:08:06 <danja> heh, familiar landscape
16:08:27 <Arnia> * Arnia hits shower until it works
16:08:58 <danja> * danja impressed by IRC in shower
16:10:15 <crschmidt> Darn you Europeans with easy-access large overdraft
16:11:56 <danja> ;-)
16:12:24 <crschmidt> * crschmidt is right now hoping he's going to be able to make rent this month
16:12:52 <sbp> if not, hire out jessica to perform tasks for d8uv
16:13:02 <sbp> he can outsource, for example, his copious Mountain Dew drinking
16:27:38 <crschmidt> I think we'd rather live on the street
16:32:24 <sbp> heh, heh
16:37:30 <jessica> . . .
16:37:49 <jessica> Wait. When faced with a pliable 20-something girl desperate for money, Cody would outsource his *Mountain Dew addiction*?
16:37:55 <jessica> What a waste of goods and services.
16:40:07 <sbp> you could play SL for him a bit too
16:40:38 <sbp> no extra pay though
16:57:18 <Morbus> Morbus (n=morbus@morbus.totalnetnh.net) has joined #swhack
16:59:43 <JimJibber> JimJibber (n=none@dsl-217-155-144-152.zen.co.uk) has joined #swhack
17:03:55 <JibberJim> JibberJim has quit (Read error: 110 (Connection timed out))
17:04:42 <uche_> 同一个世界，同一个梦想
17:29:53 <nsh> nsh (n=evolx@wikipedia/nsh) has joined #swhack
17:29:53 <Monty> hi nsh, how ya doing?
17:29:55 <phenny> Monty: shh, don't let anyone know you're around!
17:29:55 <Monty> kaboing
17:31:56 <jcowan_> jcowan_ is now known as jcowan
17:36:07 <Morbus> Morbus has quit ("http://www.disobey.com/")
17:36:17 <Arnia> Heh: http://youngpup.net/2005/0821092919
17:36:49 <jsled> Anyone use cruisecontrol?
17:42:27 <jcowan> Nah, too dangerous. People easily fall asleep and crash.
17:42:29 <phenny> jcowan: 16:04Z <sbp> tell jcowan you were on the channel when I touched the return key, and off it by the time I'd depressed it: http://swhack.com/logs/2005-08-23#T16-00-26
17:42:46 <jcowan> Luckily my work alter ego was here the whole time, sbp.
17:44:01 <jcowan> phenny: tell sbp "Luckily my work alter ego was here the whole time."
17:44:03 <phenny> jcowan: I'll pass that on when sbp is around.
17:44:33 <jcowan> * jcowan tries to become spb to steal sbp's misdirected phennygrams, but fails miserably.
17:47:45 <sbp> oho (AIYCA), welcome back jcowan
17:47:47 <phenny> sbp: 17:44Z <jcowan> tell sbp "Luckily my work alter ego was here the whole time."
17:47:54 <sbp> indeed, missed that
17:48:02 <sbp> .eval phenny.reminders.has_key('spb')
17:48:04 <jcowan> We have remerged, fortunately.
17:48:04 <phenny> True
17:48:18 <sbp> .eval len(phenny.reminders['spb'])
17:48:20 <phenny> 1
17:48:31 <sbp> .eval phenny.reminders['spb']
17:48:33 <phenny> [('kandinski', 'tell', '18 Jul 07:31Z', 'that in jimmy wales\' talk yesterday he spoke about the National Gallery telling him to take photos of
17:48:37 <phenny> paintings down, and he said "no, they are in the public domain", and they did not take them down')]
17:49:05 <sbp> .eval phenny.reminders.__del__('spb')
17:49:07 <phenny> exceptions.AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute '__del__'
17:49:22 <sbp> .eval phenny.reminders.__setitem__('spb', [])
17:49:24 <phenny> None
17:49:28 <sbp> .eval len(phenny.reminders['spb'])
17:49:30 <phenny> 0
17:49:33 <jcowan> .eval 3+4
17:49:44 <crschmidt> Only works for super-phenny-users
17:49:47 <sbp> for you, that command is ".calc" :-)
17:49:51 <jcowan> Yeah, I know that.
17:49:58 <jcowan> Ya can't blame a guy for tryin'.
17:50:00 <jsled> evaltease
17:50:03 <sbp> heh, heh
17:50:09 <sbp> it'd be way too dangerous
17:50:13 <nsh> * nsh docks at lave
17:50:21 <sbp> not only messing-with-phenny-wise, but messing-with-manxome-wise
17:50:25 <jcowan> blammo, blammo, with the plant sprayer, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!
17:50:48 <jcowan> "If 3+4 works, everything works." --Smalltalk implementor's motto
17:50:53 <sbp> heh
17:50:59 <jcowan> blammo
17:51:27 <jcowan> More accurately, if you can type "3 + 4" into a window, have it show up, select the text, pop up a menu, choose "Print it" and see a 7 in the window, everything does indeed work.
17:52:00 <jcowan> .calc 1.0/0.0
17:52:03 <phenny> jcowan: Sorry, no result.
17:52:11 <jcowan> waah.
17:52:15 <jcowan> * jcowan hoped for +Inf
17:52:20 <jcowan> or some such.
17:53:09 <jcowan> Guy Steele used to have a three-part test for Common Lisp implementations. It was many years before any implementation could pass all three parts.
17:53:34 <sbp> .calc 1 / (0.5 - 0.5)
17:53:36 <phenny> sbp: Sorry, no result.
17:54:47 <thelsdj> .calc 1 / (((0.5 + 0.5) / 2) - 0.5)
17:54:49 <phenny> thelsdj: Sorry, no result.
17:54:59 <jcowan> First, type T [CL for "true"] to the repl. If it prints T, it passes part one.
17:55:11 <sbp> .calc 1 / 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000001
17:55:13 <phenny> 1 / 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000001 = 1.0e41
17:55:14 <jcowan> Next, define the factorial function in the usual recursive way, and type
17:55:25 <sbp> .calc 1 / 1.0e99
17:55:27 <phenny> 1 / 1.0e99 = 1.0e-99
17:55:31 <sbp> .calc 1 / 1.0e100
17:55:32 <jcowan> (/ (factorial 1000) (factorial 999)) to the repl. If it prints 1000, it passes part two.
17:55:33 <phenny> 1 / 1.0e100 = 1.0e-100
17:56:08 <jcowan> Next, type (expt -8 1/3). If it prints a complex number, it passes part three. Extra credit if it prints the *correct* complex number.
17:56:19 <sbp> extra credit? chuckle
17:56:49 <jcowan> Way too many implementations either barfed or printed -2, which is indeed one of the cube roots of -8, but not the principal cube root.
17:56:56 <sbp> .calc 1
17:56:58 <phenny> sbp: Sorry, no result.
17:57:07 <sbp> .g T
17:57:09 <phenny> T: http://www.t-mobile.com/
17:57:09 <jcowan> Ho, now, that is way too much.
17:57:19 <jcowan> should print http://www.att.com
17:57:22 <sbp> .calc 1000! / 999!
17:57:24 <phenny> sbp: Sorry, no result.
17:57:36 <sbp> Google is definitely not CL compliant
17:57:43 <sbp> .calc -8 ^ (1/3)
17:57:45 <phenny> -8^(1 / 3) = -2
17:58:29 <nsh> .calc (-8) ^ (1/3)
17:58:29 <phenny> -8^(1 / 3) = -2
17:58:54 <jcowan> clisp on cygwin passes part 1, fails part 2 with a crash.
18:00:03 <jcowan> Passes part 3 but produces the wrong answer (I think) when I try cubing the result.
18:00:40 <sbp> so why should -8 ** 1/3 produce a complex number?
18:00:45 <sbp> the complex component is zero
18:00:55 <sbp> which is traditionally omitted, surely?
18:01:34 <sbp> .calc -2 ^ 3
18:01:35 <phenny> -2^3 = -8
18:01:42 <jcowan> Nope, the correct answer is approximately 1.0+1.7320508i.
18:02:11 <crschmidt> .calc (1.0+1.7320508i) ^3
18:02:11 <phenny> (1.0 + 1.7320508i)^3 = -7.99999992 + 4.54132643e-08 i
18:02:26 <jcowan> Woops, roundoff error somewhere.
18:02:39 <crschmidt> well, you gave an approximate answer.
18:02:42 <jcowan> Probably when my system printed the cube root.
18:02:51 <sbp> .eval (1.0 + 1.7j) ** 3
18:02:51 <phenny> (-7.6699999999999999+0.18700000000000017j)
18:02:54 <sbp> .eval (1.0 + 1.8j) ** 3
18:02:54 <phenny> (-8.7200000000000006-0.43200000000000038j)
18:03:20 <jcowan> The point is that since there are in general three cube roots of any number, and only one can be returned, CL specifies that the number with the smallest theta (in polar representation) is returned.
18:03:33 <sbp> ooh
18:03:41 <jcowan> Thus (expt 4 1/2) will return 2, not -2.
18:04:02 <crschmidt> .calc (1.0+1.732050808i) ^3
18:04:04 <phenny> (1.0 + 1.732050808i)^3 = -8 - 2.5867371e-09 i
18:04:58 <crschmidt> * crschmidt wonders how sa-learn affects a virtually-hosted situation by default
18:08:59 <jcowan> .calc T
18:09:02 <phenny> jcowan: Sorry, no result.
18:09:06 <jcowan> .calc 1+0
18:09:08 <phenny> 1 + 0 = 1
18:09:11 <jcowan> .calc 1
18:09:14 <phenny> jcowan: Sorry, no result.
18:09:25 <jcowan> * jcowan doesn't understand why that one fails, sbp.
18:10:22 <crschmidt> google doesn't handle it
18:10:26 <sbp> it thinks you're Googling for the 1
18:10:43 <sbp> .calc cube root of 837597192579824752
18:10:45 <phenny> cube root(837 597 192 579 824 752) = 942 638.277
18:11:05 <jcowan> Ah, and here I thought this was all Python evaluation.
18:11:21 <jcowan> Come to think of it, perhaps so it is, on the Google side.
18:11:27 <crschmidt> 13:54:42 < sbp> .calc 1000! / 999!
18:11:28 <crschmidt> 13:54:45 < phenny> sbp: Sorry, no result.
18:11:28 <crschmidt> 13:54:56 < sbp> Google is definitely not CL compliant
18:11:49 <jcowan> I figured that was just because Python didn't have !
18:12:06 <crschmidt> .calc 5!/3!
18:12:09 <phenny> (5 !) / (3 !) = 20
18:12:25 <jcowan> Ah.
18:12:36 <crschmidt> Not that that proves anything about Python.
18:12:44 <jcowan> .calc gamma(-1)
18:12:47 <phenny> jcowan: Sorry, no result.
18:12:55 <jcowan> .calc sin(pi)
18:12:56 <bjoern_> bjoern_ has quit (Read error: 110 (Connection timed out))
18:12:58 <phenny> sin(pi) = 0
18:13:15 <crschmidt> .calc e^i*pi
18:13:17 <phenny> (e^i) * pi = 1.69740975 + 2.64355906 i
18:13:22 <crschmidt> .calc e^(i*pi)
18:13:24 <phenny> e^(i * pi) = -1
18:13:43 <jcowan> Hurrah!
18:14:16 <jcowan> Britney Gallivan (paper folder) is indeed a babe.
18:15:23 <sbp> and reclaiming the name "Britney" for intelligent people
18:15:26 <jcowan> Indeed.
18:15:30 <sbp> definitely a #swhack heroine
18:15:35 <jcowan> * jcowan does know how to tear a telephone book in half, though.
18:15:42 <sbp> a page at a time?
18:16:01 <jcowan> Bah. No, and not by splitting down the binding either. It's straight.
18:16:22 <sbp> will you reveal your secret?
18:16:45 <jcowan> Bake the phone book in a 95 C / 200 F oven for a few hours first.
18:16:50 <sbp> heh, heh
18:16:59 <sbp> you've done this?
18:17:03 <jcowan> Years ago, yes.
18:17:08 <crschmidt> * crschmidt chuckles appreciatively
18:17:13 <jcowan> It still looks quite normal but is very brittle and will tear easily.
18:17:22 <sbp> ah, in your fabled early Chomsky-berating years
18:17:28 <jcowan> Be prepared to sweep up a lot of paper flakes.
18:17:44 <sbp> or do it on $Flanders's lawn
18:17:55 <sbp> or your own. good for the soil
18:18:02 <kandinski> but if the paper flakes are seen, everybody realises the trick, yes?
18:18:16 <sbp> quickly stand on them
18:18:16 <jcowan> Not really. Most people don't know what to expect, and are too busy oohing and aahing.
18:18:29 <jcowan> .eval $Flanders
18:18:38 <sbp> .eval Flanders
18:18:40 <phenny> exceptions.NameError: name 'Flanders' is not defined
18:18:45 <JJ2> JJ2 (n=none@82-43-210-159.cable.ubr10.newm.blueyonder.co.uk) has joined #swhack
18:18:53 <jcowan> What do you mean by "$Flanders"
18:18:55 <sbp> JJ2! New and Improved!
18:19:03 <sbp> I mean whomever your equivalent of Flanders is
18:19:09 <sbp> as in Ned Flanders to Homer Simpson
18:19:25 <jcowan> * jcowan is not a Simpsons fan -- nor an anti-fan either.
18:19:41 <JJ2> JJ2 is now known as JibberJim
18:19:47 <JibberJim> no, just JimJibber and JibberJim were hanging out...
18:20:11 <sbp> ah
18:21:04 <jcowan> Hmm, if I dumped the flakes there, would in Flanders's fields the poppies grow?
18:21:11 <BeHappy_> BeHappy_ (n=willy@host182-43.pool8251.interbusiness.it) has joined #swhack
18:21:31 <sbp> they'd be the colour of the pages though, perhaps
18:21:49 <jcowan> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2175870.stm
18:22:15 <sbp> yeah, I vaguely remember that
18:30:55 <JimJibber> JimJibber has quit (Read error: 110 (Connection timed out))
18:34:05 <jcowan> * jcowan has no lawn, anyhow; in the city he has concrete, in the country, a huge expanse of weedy meadow.
18:41:07 <sbp> you should grow a chamomile lawn on your roof
18:41:27 <jcowan> * jcowan doesn't want to put any more pressure on his roof than it gets already, particularly when snow falls.
18:41:51 <jcowan> Not to mention that the landlord strictly limits access thereto: an alarm sounds if you open the roof door.
18:42:09 <sbp> well that's no good
18:42:16 <sbp> windowsill lawn?
18:43:08 <crschmidt> heh, heh
18:43:32 <crschmidt> all the windows at our place have hard-to-remove screens in them, and none of them get much light due to tree cover
18:44:22 <jcowan> Our southern exposure is mostly blocked by the 9-story building across the street (and I'm on the 2nd (en-us) / 1st (en-uk) floor).
18:44:59 <JibberJim> crschmidt, what you doing work wise these days?
18:45:16 <crschmidt> JibberJim: 18 million different things at the moment
18:45:29 <JibberJim> available for 18 million and 1 ?
18:45:40 <crschmidt> Probably not til the 31st at the earliest
18:45:58 <kandinski> it is just 1/18000000th of your time that he is asking you for, come on!
18:46:07 <JibberJim> but in principle in the future, or are you gonna go be permanent at some point?
18:46:20 <crschmidt> Oh, I don't plan on going back to a "real job" unless I have to
18:46:47 <crschmidt> Wedu contracting ~20 hours a week, Local Contract doing PHP development project about 2 days a week, need to write 10 hacks by the 31st for Syndication hacks, and also working on another project for "as many hours as you can give us"
18:47:15 <kandinski> if the money is not good, I will go over and shoot you
18:47:17 <JibberJim> okay, cool, I have a person looking for php dev work at various points...
18:47:19 <crschmidt> (the last one pays the most, so i'm trying to wrap up everything else I can to get onto that)
18:48:00 <JibberJim> this would probably be 350ish day rate I'd guess
18:48:11 <JibberJim> dunno how that compares to US rates
18:48:42 <kandinski> what? this is serious day rate money for 8 hours of work?
18:48:56 <kandinski> 500 euros a day?
18:49:12 <kandinski> * kandinski starts amazoning for "lern yerself php" books
18:49:46 <crschmidt> kandinski: my previous employer charges $125/hour for web development work, but part of that is because they are full service. Going rate in USD is $50-$75/hour, depending on project and what your'e working on
18:49:58 <JibberJim> 350 USD is 500 Euros, is that right?
18:50:02 <kandinski> yes
18:50:05 <kandinski> no
18:50:10 <crschmidt> other way around, isn't it?
18:50:20 <kandinski> I assumed you were telling him 350 pounds sterling
18:50:37 <kandinski> 350 euros is about 420 dollars, I think
18:50:39 <JibberJim> no I converted to $'s I'm afraid
18:50:42 <crschmidt> JibberJim: Yeah, that's not bad, would depend on the project and when exactly it came up
18:50:52 <crschmidt> huh, I thought euros were higher than dollars
18:50:57 <crschmidt> .calc 350 EUR to USD
18:51:00 <phenny> Web
18:51:01 <crschmidt> oh wait, no
18:51:01 <kandinski> yes, euros are higher than dollars
18:51:09 <crschmidt> oh, right
18:51:14 <kandinski> that is why less euros make more dollars
18:51:15 <JibberJim> Sure, but I can keep you in mind yeah crschmidt, they'll be irregular...
18:51:20 <crschmidt> JibberJim: yep
18:52:01 <jcowan> "I'm sorry, but the number you have called is an imaginary number. Please multiply by i (or rotate 90 degrees) and try again."
18:53:00 <crschmidt> JibberJim: Right now I wouldn't turn down a connection if my life depended on it. I may have something to keep me fed for a month or two, but nothing long enough term that I'd be willing to quite reaching out now ;)
18:53:26 <crschmidt> s/quite/quit/
18:54:06 <jcowan> I see a GBP is now about a euro and a half.
18:59:59 <dmiles_afk> dmiles_afk (i=dmiles@bdsl.66.14.82.104.gte.net) has joined #swhack
19:01:56 <Morbus> Morbus (n=morbus@morbus.totalnetnh.net) has joined #swhack
19:03:23 <jcowan> Ho hey ho, it is teh Morbus, teh one and teh only, he of the brown fluid, he of the subtle knives, he of teh ...
19:03:34 <Morbus> eh oh.
19:03:45 <sbp> .calc 350 EUR in USD
19:03:47 <phenny> 350 Euros = 427.07 U.S. dollars
19:03:48 <sbp> GIGO
19:04:06 <jcowan> .calc 350 km in furlongs
19:04:08 <phenny> 350 kilometers = 1 739.83934 furlongs
19:04:17 <sbp> .calc one mile in feet
19:04:19 <phenny> Web
19:04:22 <jcowan> .calc 100 mph in furlongs/fortnight
19:04:24 <sbp> .calc 1 mile in feet
19:04:25 <phenny> 100 mph = 268 800 furlongs / fortnight
19:04:27 <phenny> 1 mile = 5 280 feet
19:04:38 <sbp> it knows its stuff
19:04:44 <sbp> .calc 1 nautical mile in feet
19:04:44 <phenny> 1 nautical mile = 6 076.11549 feet
19:04:51 <jcowan> 1 firkin of ale in London in gallons
19:05:12 <jcowan> .calc 1 firkin of ale in London in gallons
19:05:12 <phenny> jcowan: Sorry, no result.
19:05:20 <jcowan> No it doesn't.
19:08:15 <jcowan> Praps not Google's fault. No web pages actually say how much a firkin of ale in London is.
19:13:17 <sbp> how much do you expect it to be?
19:13:34 <JibberJim> about a firkin?
19:16:25 <sbp> silly me
19:17:03 <jsled> .calc 1 firkin of ale in gallons
19:17:04 <phenny> jsled: Sorry, no result.
19:17:15 <sbp> .calc 1 gallon in firkins
19:17:15 <phenny> sbp: Sorry, no result.
19:17:35 <sbp> how much is a fucking firkin!
19:17:45 <jsled> ~40l ~19 gallons
19:18:06 <jsled> Excuse me. 9 gallons
19:18:10 <sbp> bad jsled
19:18:16 <sbp> now that I know, I can't ask the cool question
19:19:10 <sbp> [[[
19:19:11 <sbp> Doug Ewell scripsit:
19:19:11 <sbp> > Shouldn't a "pint" of beer be administratively fixed at 500 mL, just as
19:19:11 <sbp> > a "fifth" of liquor in America is now officially 750 mL? Seems like a
19:19:11 <sbp> > good task for an ISO working group.
19:19:16 <sbp> Arrgh. Shall we return to a firkin of beer in London being one size,
19:19:16 <sbp> a firkin of wine in London another, whereas in the rest of England a
19:19:16 <sbp> firkin, of beer or wine indifferently, was still a third size?
19:19:17 <sbp> Pints, unlike fifths, are in general use. Leave bad enough alone.
19:19:29 <sbp> ]]] - John Cowan, http://www.mail-archive.com/unicode@unicode.org/msg18104.html
19:19:54 <crschmidt> * crschmidt wonders how that relates to unicode
19:20:09 <sbp> .cp COMBINING PINT OF BEER IN STOMACH
19:20:10 <phenny> Sorry, no results found for 'COMBINING PINT OF BEER IN STOMACH'.
19:21:45 <jcowan> Of course the snappy answer to "How much is a firkin?" is "Half a kilderkin, of course."
19:22:16 <sbp> ah, but was the kilderkin regionalised?
19:22:33 <jcowan> Probably.
19:25:08 <sbp> hmm. meremade = fizzy brine?
19:25:38 <jcowan> Modern counterpart: a bushel simpliciter is the volume of a cylinder 8 inches long and 18 1/2 inches in diameter, or roughly 2150.42 in^3,
19:26:14 <jcowan> but a bushel of wheat or soybeans is 60 lb, a measure of weight,
19:26:18 <sbp> to the kilderkin or firkin?
19:26:46 <jcowan> Nope.
19:27:06 <jcowan> Those are liquid-volume measures, whereas the bushel is a dry volume measure.
19:27:06 <sbp> yeah, sorry, I understand with the second line
19:27:31 <jcowan> A bushel of maize or rye, though, is only 56 lb,
19:27:50 <sbp> what about a bushel of feathers and a bushel of lead?
19:28:05 <jcowan> Presumably those would be volumetric, not being grains.
19:28:31 <jcowan> A bushel of barley is 48 lb and of rice is 45 lb.
19:28:43 <jcowan> Worst of all, a bushel of oats is 32 lb in the U.S. but 34 lb in Canada.
19:28:50 <kandinski> bushel: like the arroba in Spain
19:29:00 <kandinski> funnily, the arroba also meant an area of land
19:29:03 <sbp> you always get more for your money in Canada
19:29:04 <jcowan> How much is that?
19:29:09 <kandinski> (further regionalised, of course)
19:29:23 <kandinski> modern arrobas are about 40 kg, but ymmv greatly
19:30:04 <sbp> hmm, technically shouldn't smoots be variable with Smoot?
19:30:30 <jcowan> Smoot is defined to be invariant.
19:31:00 <jcowan> Unless exposed to excessively low or high temperature, in which case he variates loudly.
19:31:21 <sbp> heh
19:32:15 <crschmidt> Smoot - isn't he the guy they measured the bridge-by-MIT in Boston with?
19:32:15 <edsu> edsu has quit ("leaving")
19:32:40 <jcowan> kandinski: says here that an arroba of oil is about 12.5 liters, whereas an arroba of wine is more like 16.1 liters.
19:32:47 <jcowan> crschmidt: yes.
19:32:55 <kandinski> * kandinski shrugs
19:33:10 <kandinski> I was thinking of grain arrobas
19:33:14 <kandinski> but I might be very wrong
19:33:19 <jcowan> The Harvard Bridge is 364.4 smoots plus an ear.
19:33:25 <sbp> "Poronkusema (literally: passing of water of reindeer) is a measurement of distance originating from Northern Finland. It is a distance travelled in a reindeer pulled sleigh, between two instances of reindeer passing water. This distance is 7.5-10 km." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strange_units_of_measurement
19:33:35 <crschmidt> Ah, the Hravard Bridge. 5 feet 7 inches. --http://www.sizes.com/units/smoot.htm
19:33:36 <jcowan> kandinski: probably a generic unit for lots of things.
19:33:46 <kandinski> yes
19:33:58 <kandinski> as I say, the arroba of land was the land that gave an arroba of wheat
19:34:02 <kandinski> in certain parts
19:34:11 <jcowan> What makes it really funny is that Oliver R. Smoot much later became president of ANSI, and then of ISO.
19:34:23 <sbp> I'm not sure I quite grok the Poronkusema
19:34:25 <kandinski> which means not much if the soil or water or even roturation system change
19:34:38 <sbp> reindeer can pass water for 10km?
19:35:17 <kandinski> no
19:35:22 <here2alka> here2alka (n=NOPE@cpe-67-49-111-13.socal.res.rr.com) has joined #swhack
19:35:23 <kandinski> between two passings
19:35:38 <kandinski> so how much they can walk without passing water
19:35:42 <sbp> so the distance between which you spot a reindeer being?
19:35:43 <kandinski> that is what I get
19:35:46 <here2alka> im checking again just to make sure
19:35:49 <sbp> er, peeing. and ah, sounds fine
19:35:50 <jcowan> sbp: you are looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strange_units_of_measurement ?
19:35:52 <sbp> hi there here2alka
19:36:00 <here2alka> anyone have Magna light or better yet the magna family?
19:36:05 <sbp> jcowan: yeah. see URI at the end of the quote
19:36:12 <here2alka> whats up
19:36:20 <sbp> welcome back, here2alka
19:38:25 <jcowan> Apparently the original value of the Harvard Bridge measurement was "364.4 smoots *plus or minus* an ear", but the error bar has been corrupted over the years to become part of the measurement.
19:38:28 <sbp> Donald Knuth's first professionally published article was in Mad Magazine?
19:38:58 <jcowan> Yup.
19:39:01 <kandinski> wHAt?
19:39:07 <jcowan> The Potrzebie system of measures.
19:39:17 <jcowan> better known as the Furlong/Firkin/Fortnight system.
19:39:24 <sbp> kandinski: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strange_units_of_measurement#Potrzebie
19:39:26 <kandinski> amazingness
19:39:32 <sbp> oh, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potrzebie
19:40:58 <jcowan> "Whan that swithin potrzebie,
19:40:58 <jcowan> "The burgid prillie giben heebie-jeebie." --Chaucer
19:43:11 <ef> ef has quit ("User pushed the X - because it's Xtra, baby")
19:43:19 <verbosus> verbosus (n=verbosus@ip-130-86.sn2.eutelia.it) has joined #swhack
19:43:19 <sbp> yeah, just read that
19:43:22 <kandinski> should Charlie Stross's megaseconds be there?
19:43:31 <sbp> I like the millihelen
19:43:41 <kandinski> he uses them in scifi
19:43:50 <verbosus> BURT!
19:43:50 <phenny> verbosus: 22 Aug 18:53Z <sbp> tell verbosus that infomesh.net is working fine for me
19:43:50 <kandinski> the millihelen is very good
19:44:00 <verbosus> thanks, phenny
19:44:00 <phenny> Not at all.
19:44:05 <verbosus> hello, everyone!
19:44:32 <kandinski> hi verb
19:44:53 <verbosus> hey kand
19:47:36 <verbosus> how does one do an HTTP HEAD in Python?
19:48:06 <sbp> ooh, ooh!
19:48:09 <sbp> I know! I know!
19:48:13 <sbp> MUAHAHUAHAHAAH
19:48:18 <kandinski> the herz/dioptre is cool
19:48:24 <sbp> yeah
19:48:38 <verbosus> * verbosus is poking at the httplib docs
19:48:56 <crschmidt> * crschmidt knows how to get the headers, but not how to perform a HEAD operation
19:49:24 <verbosus> sbp: speak, quick!
19:49:39 <sbp> paint my chicken coop
19:49:53 <verbosus> * verbosus is about to fart REAL LOUD in sbp’s own room
19:50:41 <verbosus> * verbosus poked inside the inamidst.com HTTP HEAD service
19:51:05 <verbosus> which apparently urllib.urlopen()s stuff
19:51:25 <sbp> yep, that's it
19:51:32 <crschmidt> but that's not a HEAD request?
19:51:35 <verbosus> that HEADs?
19:51:36 <sbp> you can get the headers and the response number that way
19:51:48 <sbp> an info() is surely a head?
19:51:52 <crschmidt> nope
19:51:56 <crschmidt> urllib.urlopen() performs a GET
19:52:19 <verbosus> unl33t
19:53:13 <sbp> then yes, httplib is the only way
19:54:14 <verbosus> * verbosus confirms that urllib.urlopen() does a GET, not a HEAD
19:54:23 <crschmidt> * crschmidt just said that!
19:54:23 <crschmidt> ;)
19:54:31 <verbosus> just confirmed that!
19:54:47 <sbp> heh, I tested it too
19:54:51 <verbosus> ROFFLE
19:55:06 <verbosus> verbosus has changed the topic to: Never trust a #swhacker
19:55:21 <Morbus> what's that french word, sounds like repertoire, that means "a certain understanding, comaraderie, etc."
19:55:24 <verbosus> or, “always fact-check a #swhacker”
19:55:29 <Morbus> dep et tay or something.
19:55:30 <sbp> verbosus: dude are you banging a website?
19:55:44 <verbosus> sbp: nay, I’m scraping the Validator
19:55:50 <verbosus> I used to use the XML interface
19:55:51 <sbp> recherche?
19:55:56 <sbp> no
19:56:06 <verbosus> but I saw that an HEAD has everything I need
19:56:06 <sbp> verbosus: Achewood
19:56:07 <Morbus> i think its more than one word.
19:56:16 <Morbus> ah well.
19:56:17 <verbosus> sbp: it’s being outstanding as of late
19:56:31 <sbp> the "banging a website?" thing is from there
19:56:48 <verbosus> sbp: yes, I am very stupid, thanks
19:56:50 <verbosus> :-p
19:57:33 <verbosus> not my friend
19:57:39 <jcowan> kandinski: I think the Msec/Gsec were invented by Joan Vinge for her asteroid-based civilizations.
19:57:50 <kandinski> hmm
19:57:51 <kandinski> good
19:58:24 <sbp> Monty: amity? bon homie?
19:58:24 <Monty> ooo!
19:58:33 <sbp> er
19:58:37 <sbp> Morbus: amity? bon homie?
19:58:49 <Morbus> noe.
19:59:22 <verbosus> OK
19:59:28 <verbosus> >>> conn = httplib.HTTPConnection("oscar.local")
19:59:28 <verbosus> >>> conn.request("HEAD", "/")
20:01:42 <sbp> Morbus: rapport?
20:01:50 <Morbus> that's english.
20:01:55 <nsh> nsh has quit ()
20:02:01 <Morbus> oh. no its not.
20:02:11 <Morbus> but, yes, that's what what I *mean*, but not the word i was looking for.
20:02:16 <Morbus> i gave up.
20:02:37 <sbp> NO, YOU MUST NOT
20:02:43 <Morbus> reparte?
20:02:46 <sbp> WE WILL FIND THIS PHRASE
20:02:50 <sbp> .w reparte
20:02:53 <phenny> I couldn't find reparte in WordNet.
20:02:57 <Morbus> nope.
20:03:08 <Morbus> argh! that is the word!
20:03:14 <Morbus> http://www.answers.com/topic/repartee
20:03:22 <jcowan> jcowan has changed the topic to: You can always tell a Yankee | You can always tell the Dutch | You can always tell a #swhacker | But you cannot tell him much.
20:03:59 <sbp> mon ami, c'est la verb
20:04:15 <verbosus> verb, verb, verb: osus!
20:04:29 <sbp> so wait, that's not actually what you meant then?
20:04:39 <Morbus> no, that's what i meant.
20:04:43 <Morbus> exactly what i meant.
20:04:57 <sbp> but repartee is wit! I was looking for friendliness
20:06:46 <bskahan> bskahan has quit (Read error: 131 (Connection reset by peer))
20:08:18 <Morbus> yeah, well, whatever.
20:08:20 <Morbus> * Morbus chuckles.
20:08:28 <Morbus> i'm still mad at you for ibb.
20:08:38 <sbp> FINE, EVEN
20:08:50 <sbp> but your BBRH move is indeed clever
20:09:00 <sbp> that's what you need to do more of
20:09:11 <sbp> phantom things I can't help but dib
20:09:42 <Morbus> that'll only get more impossible as time goes on.
20:10:02 <jcowan> Did y'all see my suggestions for N?
20:11:09 <jcowan> Ah, I see Morbus has.
20:11:36 <Morbus> i dunno what i'm gonna do yet.
20:11:45 <jcowan> I found these when going through a dictionary looking for a suitable term: I settled on "notary public".
20:11:50 <jcowan> and then posted my other candidates.
20:13:39 <sbp> ah, open N? perhaps I'll make something
20:14:38 <Morbus> Notenmangrey
20:17:41 <jcowan> * jcowan pukes at the very thought of it.
20:17:49 <Morbus> * Morbus chuckles.
20:18:00 <Morbus> i was thinking of doing something dark again. it's been a while.
20:18:31 <sbp> Norman's Cottage of Delicious Macabre Treats
20:18:40 <Morbus> too locationy
20:18:43 <Morbus> and it creates a new person.
20:18:48 <sbp> no, that's his name
20:18:51 <sbp> ah
20:19:01 <Morbus> like corpse birth
20:19:05 <Morbus> that was a open C.
20:19:09 <sbp> Nightening
20:19:14 <sbp> Nightscare
20:19:14 <Morbus> too lame ass.
20:19:17 <Morbus> ;)
20:19:21 <sbp> Nfuckyou
20:19:35 <Morbus> heh, heh.
20:19:38 <Morbus> any word on rss3?
20:19:46 <sbp> NooOoOoOooOo, An Axe Maniac!
20:19:48 <Morbus> still nothing on his blog.
20:19:51 <sbp> nope
20:20:02 <sbp> only one extra bit of linkage that I could find
20:20:06 <sbp> a passing mention
20:20:25 <Morbus> * Morbus grumbles
20:20:34 <crschmidt> * crschmidt wonders if he's going to go the RSS 1.1 route
20:21:05 <verbosus> Morbus: RSS3 is incredible.
20:21:05 <sbp> I hope not, he ought to make a public apology
20:21:23 <jcowan> I think "nitrification" could be made very dark indeed.
20:21:24 <crschmidt> People probably said that about us as well.
20:21:25 <verbosus> where’s the dude’s blog?
20:21:26 <sbp> verbosus: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2005Aug/0018
20:21:46 <sbp> crschmidt: but we know better
20:21:54 <jcowan> To say nothing of the possibilities of "nubility"!
20:22:10 <sbp> Narcotic Frogspawn
20:22:12 <jcowan> That would seem to be right up your Eros/Thanatos alley, Morbus.
20:22:12 <Morbus> necromantic.
20:22:14 <Morbus> * Morbus chuckles.
20:22:17 <verbosus> hahaha
20:22:41 <sbp> verbosus: no reply from the guy yet, though!
20:22:51 <sbp> not a word from him anywhere, as far as I can tell
20:22:58 <Morbus> its no fun if he doesn't play
20:23:21 <jcowan> Then there was the guy who gave up his post as President of the University of Chicago to become CEO of Woolworth's, the Wal-mart of its day.
20:23:31 <sbp> well if he doesn't come out we win by default, but yeah. no fun
20:23:41 <jcowan> "He went from ideas to notions."
20:24:07 <verbosus> anyway, this Avidan is a genius
20:24:15 <jcowan> sbp: I thought you were releasing a new article, or did I lose count and it was Fitzroy that you released?
20:24:31 <sbp> the blink comparator article is still being written
20:24:37 <sbp> actually just needs polishing + title
20:24:41 <sbp> the content is all done
20:24:53 <sbp> I've been working on some other tricky drafts today
20:24:57 <sbp> tons of research
20:25:23 <verbosus> * verbosus wonders how can sbp perform so much research every day and still have a life
20:25:36 <sbp> such is the summer vacation
20:25:54 <verbosus> no, no: you do this consistently every single fucking day of the year
20:26:03 <verbosus> s/fucking//
20:27:12 <sbp> I liked the fucking
20:27:19 <sbp> put it back! put it back! :-)
20:27:33 <verbosus> s//fucking/ !
20:27:35 <crschmidt> s/ /fucking/g
20:28:18 <sbp> "fuckingno,fuckingno:fuckingyoufuckingdofuckingthisfuckingconsistentlyfuckingeveryfuckingsinglefuckingfuckingdayfuckingoffuckingthefuckingyear"
20:28:22 <crschmidt> yep
20:28:27 <jsled> ETOOMUCHFUCKING
20:28:33 <crschmidt> no such thing
20:28:42 <jcowan> There speaks the *young* man.
20:28:44 <sbp> ENOTENOUGHFUCKINGFUCKING
20:28:53 <jcowan> sbp: proposed title: "Portraits of Blinking Idiots"
20:29:15 <sbp> ah! that is almost an exceptionally good one that fails in my plot twist at the end
20:29:52 <jcowan> "(blink) Nope! (blink) Nope!" is another that comes to mind.
20:29:57 <sbp> perhaps I'll send it to you in draft and you can suggest based on a reading?
20:30:01 <jcowan> Gladly.
20:30:13 <jcowan> (the cross-eyed bear)
20:31:17 <jcowan> I found an Ander-Saxon translation I had made of Shippey's bit about "I'll sell you the horse that pulls my cart" and sent it to him by email.
20:31:24 <sbp> sent
20:31:25 <JibberJim> I need a new server :-(
20:31:35 <JibberJim> server load is killing me
20:31:45 <sbp> cross-eyed bear?
20:31:49 <verbosus> what’s loading it so much?
20:31:54 <crschmidt> * crschmidt offers to host anything Jim can spin off to a non-windows server
20:32:37 <JibberJim> all the CPU intensive stuff is on the main site, wouldn't lose much, should just sort out a decent box, but cheers!
20:33:04 <JibberJim> well the php blog seems to eating a lot of cycles, all the foaf RDF database isn't happy.
20:33:13 <JibberJim> but it's mostly just very underpowered
20:35:27 <verbosus> wordpress is heavy on the CPU?
20:35:37 <JibberJim> it is on mine!
20:36:01 <JibberJim> and it's php load not mysql load
20:39:37 <crschmidt> Huh, that's odd
20:39:54 <crschmidt> When I was slashdotted, I didn't even see the load past 1 or 2 as far as load average on the machine
20:39:57 <crschmidt> and CPU never hit 100%
20:40:21 <verbosus> ’cause you have FAT IRON
20:40:39 <crschmidt> not really - 1.4 Ghz P4 was running it at the time
20:40:54 <crschmidt> was only serving out a max of 10-15 requests per second though
20:42:17 <JibberJim> I serve about 1 per sec
20:42:34 <JibberJim> on a 700Mhz something or other
20:43:15 <crschmidt> I typically don't get near that many
20:43:25 <crschmidt> JibberJim: what version of WP?
20:43:30 <crschmidt> Have you tried any of the staticize plugins?
20:43:43 <JibberJim> they all seemed to want linux
20:44:30 <crschmidt> hm
20:46:06 <JibberJim> netstat is showing about 60 current connections...
21:04:45 <danja> * danja slaps danja around a bit with a TCL powered popup
21:04:59 <danja> danja has quit ("Ciao!")
21:06:38 <crschmidt> Athena gets an average of 435 hits/hour
21:06:42 <crschmidt> which is all the websites she's serving
21:07:55 <Morbus> i get that much every three minutes or so.
21:08:01 <Morbus> for the disobey properties.
21:08:09 <crschmidt> * crschmidt nods
21:08:24 <crschmidt> I'm low traffic. I realize this. This is why I'm trying to sell more people accounts on the server ;)
21:08:27 <Morbus> sbp: turned in my second article today.
21:08:34 <Morbus> started work on my third.
21:09:18 <sbp> awesome
21:09:22 <sbp> how much scandal therein?
21:09:28 <Morbus> not too much.
21:09:35 <Morbus> i ended up removing the reference to fingering yourself.
21:09:45 <Morbus> heh, heh.
21:10:04 <sbp> oh man
21:11:29 <Morbus> insanely anxious to work on bloodlust ccg some more.
21:12:08 <crschmidt> Oh jcowan, he of the mastery of all facts of known and forgotten lore: From whence comes the phrase "Red Cent"? Is there a cent of another color against which the USD penny at one point competed?
21:13:00 <crschmidt> http://www.word-detective.com/122099.html seems to think it's just an intensifier for the penny
21:13:06 <jcowan> No, I think "red" is just TerseSpeak for "copper-colored".
21:13:25 <crschmidt> Yeah, I was just wondering why the "red" was there: A cent is a cent is a cent, surely.
21:13:30 <jcowan> In 1943 we did make cent coins out of steel to conserve copper for the war effort, but I doubt that's relevant.
21:13:41 <Morbus> damn reds.
21:13:44 <crschmidt> Unless there were, in the past, silver cents for the copper to compete against.
21:13:47 <jcowan> Nope.
21:13:47 <sbp> white cent
21:17:09 <jcowan> It's like asking why the red rubber rat's ass is red. Sounds better that way.
21:21:49 <jcowan> sbp: the email never arrived. Did you botch the address (cowan@ccil.org), perhaps?
21:22:07 <sbp> "To: John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>"
21:22:17 <sbp> it seemed to send okay
21:22:17 <here2alka> here2alka has quit (Read error: 110 (Connection timed out))
21:22:25 <sbp> I'll retry
21:23:01 <sbp> sent again. perhaps it's in the spam trap?
21:24:27 <jcowan> Nope, checked.
21:29:00 <sbp> time of the first one:
21:29:01 <sbp> Date: Aug 23, 2005 9:28 PM
21:29:08 <sbp> time of this one:
21:29:09 <sbp> Date: Aug 23, 2005 10:20 PM
21:29:10 <sbp> .t BST
21:29:12 <phenny> Tue, 23 Aug 2005 22:29:10 BST
21:29:23 <Morbus> sbp: confirmed. next article on orn next tue.
21:29:46 <sbp> quite slow. why the delay?
21:29:54 <Morbus> pretty standard.
21:30:05 <Morbus> i'm fine with it. gives it more time to percolate so i can catch more errors.
21:30:13 <sbp> true
21:30:14 <Morbus> and honestly, i only have one day a week to work on stuff anyways.
21:30:21 <Morbus> so, gives me time to keep on track.
21:30:27 <Morbus> (at this point, every three weeks).
21:30:35 <jcowan> sbp: second one arrived, I'm reading it.
21:35:53 <sbp> * sbp fears for the first one
21:36:17 <jcowan> I find the reference to "six classical planets" a little bizarre given the time period.
21:36:29 <jcowan> There were seven classical planets, including Sun and Moon and excluding Earth.
21:37:13 <sbp> but Copernicus had long since put his theory forwards, no?
21:37:23 <sbp> Shakespeare writes of the "watery star"
21:38:07 <sbp> I wasn't sure of that though, you're right. actually, I meant to look that up
21:38:27 <jcowan> Yes, but I don't think it was accepted in England at all seriously by then.
21:39:05 <sbp> ah yeah, the sense is given into the 1700s
21:39:16 <sbp> "The seven planets, in the order of their accepted distance from the Earth, were the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. " - OED
21:39:25 <sbp> and Gallileo was certainly being persecuted
21:40:09 <jcowan> _Two New Systems_ came out in 1632.
21:40:18 <sbp> corrected it to "seven"
21:41:22 <jcowan> * jcowan carries on.
21:42:52 <verbosus> verbosus has quit ()
21:45:41 <jcowan> Ha, the line between High and Low German is also called the Weisswuerstaequator!
21:47:02 <sbp> also? what else is called that?
21:49:04 <jcowan> No, I mean its normal, formal name is the Benrathlinie, for the town it passes through.
21:49:17 <jcowan> * jcowan loves Weisswuerst.
21:49:26 <jcowan> aka boudin-blanc.
21:49:56 <jcowan> I kinda think the first and last paragraphs are not really necessary to the tale.
21:50:20 <sbp> agreed, but they're the coolinators
21:50:32 <sbp> I wanted to do an airy link between Shakespeare and Pluto
21:50:49 <sbp> so I thought that putting them in their historical contexts and then showing how that panned out across time would be interesting
21:51:02 <sbp> also the Flamsteed bit is just too precious
21:54:29 <sbp> any title suggestions?
21:54:56 <jcowan> * jcowan thinks on it.
21:55:47 <jcowan> Suggested rewording of:
21:55:55 <jcowan> Though Uranus wasn't discovered until 1781, it was spotted in 1690 by the first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, who thought it was a star and duly catalogued it as 34 Tauri. Neptune had been spotted even earlier by Galileo, in 1612 when Shakespeare was writing Henry VIII with John Fletcher, but Galileo had also mistaken it for a star.
21:55:56 <jcowan> as:
21:56:56 <Morbus> Morbus has quit (Remote closed the connection)
21:57:49 <jcowan> Uranus was spotted in 1690 by the first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, who thought it was a star and duly catalogued it as 34 Tauri; it wasn't identified as a planet until 1781. Neptune etc. etc.; it was recognized as a planet in 1846. With the demotion of the Sun and Moon to non-planets, and the recognition of the Earth as a planet, that made a total of eight.
21:58:17 <jcowan> That flows more naturally up to the discovery of Pluto.
21:58:58 <sbp> but the joke is that they were finding stuff and thinking they were stars. so the punchline is at the end of each of the two sentences
21:59:06 <jcowan> Also s/categorisational/categorical, unless you think "categorical mistake" has lost too much of its force these days.
21:59:16 <sbp> * sbp looks
21:59:25 <jcowan> last graf.
21:59:56 <sbp> yeah, with categorical mistake, "categorical" sounds like an intensifier
22:00:03 <sbp> "I deny those remarks categorically!"
22:00:17 <jcowan> originally it meant precisely a mistake in category, but I think that is too subtle nowadays.
22:00:33 <jcowan> Map-territory confusions, e.g., are categorical mistakes.
22:00:37 <sbp> which is a shame, but what can one do other can go on a mass-prescriptivism spree?
22:00:46 <jcowan> BREAK OUT THE BLAMMO GUN
22:00:53 <sbp> blammo, blammo
22:01:11 <jcowan> It just sounds too weird to say something wasn't discovered until 1781 and was spotted in 1690 in the same breath.
22:01:34 <jcowan> "Although Columbus didn't discover America until 1492, it was first seen by Europeans in 1010."
22:01:56 <jcowan> If you want to put 1781 first, at least use wording like "identified as a planet"
22:02:25 <jcowan> More flatfooted, perhaps, but much less bewildering.
22:03:51 <sbp> well, that Columbus line is perfectly true!
22:04:07 <sbp> discovery is a very psychological thing. in fact, the American Indians were the first to discover it
22:04:34 <jcowan> I don't think so. For one thing, Columbus can hardly be said to "discover" the New World, since he went to his grave thinking he had found the short route to the East.
22:04:37 <sbp> agreed on "identified as a planet"
22:04:50 <sbp> then you really need to rethink Columbus Day
22:04:51 <JibberJim> Pluto a planet?
22:05:01 <JibberJim> aren't they reviewing that..
22:05:03 <sbp> JibberJim: Uranus
22:05:05 <jcowan> Not really.
22:05:28 <jcowan> I think it's only the wild-eyed radicals who are thinking of demoting Pluto; that will never fly.
22:05:37 <jcowan> Recognizing it as both a planet and a KBO, though, that's sensible.
22:05:43 <sbp> changed planet thing
22:05:50 <sbp> yeah
22:06:01 <sbp> so what about Lila? is that to be classified as a planet?
22:06:05 <sbp> it's bigger than Pluto
22:06:16 <jcowan> Quien sabe?
22:06:37 <sbp> well someone has to decide
22:06:49 <sbp> I propose you!
22:06:51 <jcowan> s/was an immense work listing over three thousand stars, and giving/listed over three thousand stars and gave
22:07:10 <jcowan> I'd say no. Grandfather Pluto's status, yes; add 10-15 new planets, no.
22:07:29 <jcowan> The main point should be carried in the main verbs: "is an immense work" is weak.
22:08:18 <jcowan> I also think my sentence (or some variant thereof) about demoting the Sun and Moon is important at the end of the first graf.
22:08:19 <sbp> agreed and implemented
22:08:44 <sbp> * sbp looks
22:10:54 <sbp> [[[
22:10:54 <sbp> The Sun and Moon were demoted as planets, and the Earth
22:10:54 <sbp> promoted, giving eight known planets heading into the 20th century.
22:10:55 <sbp> ]]]
22:11:09 <sbp> how's that?
22:11:20 <jcowan> The planets were heading around the sun, not into the 20th century.
22:11:40 <jcowan> by the turn of the 20th century
22:11:52 <jcowan> I have a title!!!
22:12:33 <sbp> implemented that: "The Sun and Moon were later demoted as planets, and the Earth promoted, giving eight known planets by the turn of the 20th century."
22:12:34 <sbp> oh?
22:13:01 <jcowan> "Eppur Si Muove"
22:13:25 <sbp> that's awesome
22:13:41 <jcowan> thenkkyew thenkkyew
22:14:55 <sbp> * sbp updates the credit
22:16:33 <jcowan> I'm not too sure about "later" in that sentence: it may suggest a date too late, depending on what precedes it.
22:16:56 <sbp> 1612 is the prior context
22:17:03 <jcowan> Okay, fair enough.
22:17:33 <sbp> well, "by the turn of the 20th century" makes it useless anyway
22:17:36 <sbp> I'll hoick it out
22:17:41 <jcowan> Good.
22:18:02 <jcowan> Now if only I could think of a (collective) title for the latest crop of episodes from our collaborative-writing-over-IRC activity.
22:18:10 <jcowan> We can't publish without a title.
22:18:54 <sbp> hmm
22:19:08 <sbp> but I want a word after "were", rhythmically
22:19:23 <sbp> jcowan: the S~G collaborations?
22:19:26 <jcowan> Yes.
22:19:38 <sbp> well, what are they about?
22:19:46 <jcowan> "eventually demoted"?
22:19:55 <jcowan> "of course demoted"?
22:20:11 <jcowan> That's what makes it hard: not enough of a common thread in this part.
22:20:20 <sbp> eventually's cool
22:20:57 <sbp> No Common Thread
22:21:13 <sbp> Add Thread to Flavour
22:21:28 <sbp> Sanstring
22:21:38 <sbp> Any Which Way But Threaded
22:21:49 <sbp> How The Thread Was Lost
22:22:06 <sbp> All Play and No Thread
22:22:37 <jcowan> * jcowan horks.
22:22:52 <sbp> Threddie's Back! Nightmare on Threadlington Street
22:23:30 <sbp> see, this is why I asked you for a title
22:23:49 <jcowan> There's a plot arc that runs through the odd-numbered episodes, but the even-numbered ones are a miscellany.
22:23:57 <jcowan> That's what happens when you write first, plot afterwards.
22:24:03 <jcowan> But writing to a fixed outline gets tedious fast.
22:24:49 <jcowan> sbp: make link for "seven classical planets", as lots of people won't know what they are.
22:26:07 <sbp> * sbp finds http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_heavenly_objects
22:26:11 <sbp> just the ticket
22:26:23 <jcowan> Yeah, I was just about to paste that.
22:27:16 <sbp> hmm. not even 500 words, but it looks a lot more
22:27:27 <jcowan> Especially if you follow all the links.
22:28:06 <jcowan> If you want more, you could make a precis of Gadd's article, or mention more forgeries.
22:29:06 <sbp> nah, I think I'm okay with a trim entry
22:29:18 <sbp> no point padding just to get the wordcount up
22:29:20 <sbp> (and the other forgery is pretty boring)
22:29:45 <sbp> generally my upper limit is just over 1000 words
22:29:47 <sbp> no lower limit
22:30:04 <sbp> bit worried that the post I've been researching today will go way over 1000
22:30:12 <sbp> ironically, it mentions "John Cowan" in the second sentence
22:30:15 <sbp> but it's the other one
22:30:45 <jcowan> heehee.
22:31:12 <jcowan> http://www.newscientist.com/channel/mech-tech/mg18725112.200 is an abstract of the original New Scientist article (I read it in hard copy) that got me started on this.
22:31:24 <jcowan> 1559 words, they say.
22:32:26 <sbp> ah yeah, I saw that in research but was irritated I couldn't get the expansion
22:32:44 <sbp> brb, got a handful of Iridium flares within thirty minutes of one another!
22:32:55 <jcowan> Cool.
22:33:17 <jcowan> BTW, I'm worried about the current IDiot trend because of a new feature:
22:33:32 <jcowan> the IDiots have framed themselves as the skeptics (though they are not) and the sensible people as the dogmatists.
22:34:01 <jcowan> "Well, maybe the earth is round and maybe it's flat; shouldn't we give our children both sides of the story and let them decide?"
22:34:37 <jcowan> Which would be all right (and even salutary) if the deck weren't stacked.
22:35:05 <sbp> er back, first one isn't for a while
22:35:36 <sbp> yes, it's more pernicious than normal
22:35:53 <sbp> that's just creepy spin
22:36:27 <sbp> I have renewed appreciation for the complexity of the whole thing given FitzRoy, seeing how remarkable a fellow he was and yet he sailed with Darwin and couldn't be brought to believe the theory
22:36:38 <sbp> but FitzRoy was FitzRoy, and these people are nutters
22:37:14 <jcowan> Most people who disbelieve it are worried about the consequences of believing it rather than its truth per se.
22:37:34 <jcowan> or the consequences of its being widely believed, I should say.
22:37:36 <sbp> what consequences though? that's the freaky bit I don't really get
22:38:27 <sbp> plenty of Christian evolutionists, no? just not many fundamentalists
22:38:35 <Eimi> Eimi has quit ("Leaving")
22:38:38 <sbp> but we don't have that latter rude word over here...
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22:39:07 <jcowan> William Jennings Bryan intervened in the Scopes "monkey trial" because he knew that German intellectuals explicitly founded their (pre-Hitler) Master Race theories on (a perversion of) Darwinism.
22:39:37 <jcowan> For him, anti-evolutionism went hand in hand with populism.
22:40:11 <jcowan> There are indeed plenty of Christian evolutionists, starting with the Pope.
22:40:18 <jcowan> er, the last pope; not too sure about this one.
22:41:21 <sbp> I think the ID proponents are more smoke than fire
22:41:36 <sbp> because they're high-profile in the media, it makes them seem larger than they really are
22:41:49 <jcowan> I hope so. But W may think it's time to toss a bone to his base, and with him appointing the next Supreme Court justice, I'm really not too sure.
22:42:02 <sbp> for every ID themepark in the backwaters of America, there's a whole country that believes in evolution
22:42:09 <jcowan> Oh yes.
22:43:15 <jcowan> Fundamentalists themselves are no threat: they're more worried than anything. But particularly with the anti-religious bigotry of what passes for the left in this country, I do worry.
22:44:33 <sbp> (whee, another flare)
22:45:19 <sbp> I also find it a little hypocrtical for me to comment on the situation
22:45:20 <jcowan> At first I thought you were talking about iridium rather than Iridium.
22:45:26 <jcowan> sbp: why?
22:45:28 <sbp> since I'm not a biologist
22:45:30 <sbp> heh, nope
22:45:54 <Narrenschiff> Narrenschiff (n=ritchie@unsidhe.plus.com) has joined #swhack
22:46:35 <sbp> I couldn't prove to you that evolution takes, just outline some of the fundamental parts of the process that I've heard regurgitated in various things over the years--school, journals, the news, friends, popular science books
22:47:17 <sbp> what I mainly judge on, and what most people mainly judge on, is the reputation basis: we see the top scientists of the day propounding the theory, and the like the simplistic argument...
22:47:35 <sbp> ...but how many people have read Origin of the Species, and even a minority of the important work that's followed?
22:48:13 <sbp> to some extent it doesn't matter. just like I don't need to personally verify that the earth is round to be able to get satellite photos off the web, or to jet off around it
22:48:56 <jcowan> I can't find the ignition temp of iridium, but it must be high indeed.
22:49:02 <sbp> but the fallacy is that we think we're more learned now, when in fact people are always dumb in general and it's the leading lights such as Copernicus and Darwin that tell us that things are wrong
22:49:23 <sbp> the rest of us believe the consensuses after just like we believed them before
22:49:44 <sbp> yeah, must be trippy high
22:50:01 <sbp> more of a melting point too than ignition, surely?
22:50:12 <jcowan> However, each of us is ho bios politikos, so we can judge that part of it all right.
22:50:35 <sbp> ho bios politikos?
22:50:55 <jcowan> The popular level of knowledge does rise over the millennia, though -- only a really tiny handful of cranks think the Earth is flat, which was surely consensus everywhere a few millennia (not centuries) ago.
22:51:10 <sbp> no, only in the compoundative fields
22:51:11 <jcowan> "The political (or city-dwelling) animal"
22:51:16 <sbp> science and maths, especially
22:51:24 <sbp> in philosophy... yeesh
22:51:40 <jcowan> The philosophers have no one but themselves to blame for that.
22:51:43 <sbp> Literature is studded with occasional giants, but they're more or less evenly distributed I think
22:52:20 <jcowan> Kant tackled problems of immense intrinsic difficulty, and he was no good at exposition (indeed, he publicly hoped to find a competent expositor in Fichte, but that didn't work out so well).
22:52:32 <jcowan> Since then, incompetent exposition has become the fashion.
22:52:46 <jcowan> Plato may sometimes be irritatingly thick, but he's always clear.
22:54:00 <jcowan> Anyway, it's alomst 1700 local. Time to ittywhonk.
22:54:19 <sbp> bah, missed the third due to cloud cover
22:54:21 <jcowan> (I do agree that there's no net improvement in the arts.)
22:54:23 <Narrenschiff> Who was it who said that thought went forward via a series of ruptures?
22:54:25 <sbp> ittywhonk away! c'ya
22:54:26 <Narrenschiff> French. Used to be a postman.
22:54:35 <sbp> I like the post-impressionist period most
22:54:48 <sbp> could be the high-point for another few centuries :-)
22:54:49 <Narrenschiff> I can't remember, I was drunk.
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22:55:36 <sbp> Narrenschiff: this is something jcowan would know if he hadn't just, apparently, left
22:56:07 <Narrenschiff> A superstar philosopher!
22:56:20 <jcowan> Pascale Pichon, I think.
22:56:32 <Narrenschiff> Sounds right.
22:57:03 <jcowan> But many have used the line, and he may not have been the first.
22:57:25 <Arnia> Arnia has left #swhack
22:57:30 <sbp> see, there we go
22:58:30 <Narrenschiff> I would check, but my internet connection seems to be melting and pooling in low spots in the house.
23:01:23 <kandinski> good night allbye, good night
23:01:52 <sbp> 'night kandinski
23:02:00 <crschmidt> night kandinski
23:04:09 <kandinski> ready to die
23:04:14 <kandinski> oops
23:04:24 <kandinski> I meant "knackerated"
23:06:24 <jessica> knackerated isn't a word . . .
23:06:34 <jsled> It's a great word.
23:07:03 <jessica> * jessica yawns. probably. I'm just exhausted.
23:07:16 <jessica> note to self. stop driving between boston and new hampshire. there's no need.
23:16:21 <thelsdj> so many people are stuck with that drive its insane
23:16:59 <thelsdj> i used to live in southern nh, knew lots of people who worked in boston, i only went to boston like 5 times in the 14 years i lived there
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23:20:25 <jessica> I lived in Manchvegas and Nashua for years.
23:20:42 <jessica> We moved to Cambridge, but now I go up to N.H. to visit family. And in this case, to pick up my daughters from a visit with their grandparents.
23:21:10 <thelsdj> manchvegas? lmao i never heard it called that
23:22:41 <jessica> It's an ironic statement. :P
23:23:03 <jessica> Anyway, yeah. The drive is exhausting. I love living in Boston, I love not having to drive. I hate driving with a passion, mostly 'cause I never really did it until I was 21.
23:23:24 <thelsdj> i just turned 23 and still don't have my license
23:24:19 <jessica> I'm almost 24. But I had mine since age 16. Age 15-17 in college and never needing a car, age 17-18 army service, where a car was impossible, and age 18-21 married, so most expeditions beyond the grocery store or pediatrician's appointments were with him driving.
23:24:30 <thelsdj> one of these days i'll have to get it but for right now i'm happy not to have to drive
23:25:03 <thelsdj> no car == nice savings
23:25:17 <crschmidt> * crschmidt nods
23:25:50 <crschmidt> The commute from Boston to Manch for a month was killer -- cost a lot in gas too (even in the 45mpg jetta)
23:26:07 <jessica> Cars are expensive and a pain in the ass, but they're necessary in most of the U.S. I personally love my Jetta for the occasional jaunt, but I prefer my bike or the MBTA for everything else.
23:26:35 <Morbus> I don't know how to drive. Thus, I don't have a car.
23:27:43 <thelsdj> i would need lots of practice or a class before i could get a license
23:31:58 <libby> * libby grins at http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050822fa_fact
23:35:18 <Morbus> Monty: WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD?
23:35:19 <Monty> What do you think ?
23:35:33 <Morbus> Monty: I THINK IT COMMITTED SUICIDE>
23:35:37 <Monty> annoyance factor to beat the Pooh? by Dutch elm disease, a website???
23:36:02 <Morbus> monty: HOW MANY FEMINISTS DOES IT TAKE TO MISTAKENLY SOUGHT REDEMPTION FOR YOUR SIX OF DIAMONDS?
23:36:03 <Monty> Define an old tuple.
23:36:56 <Morbus> monty: fegg farts when he laughs
23:36:57 <Monty> ooh
23:37:10 <Morbus> monty: WHY DID CONNIE CHUNG DESCRIBE TWIPPLE?
23:37:11 <Monty> zu hause
23:37:19 <Morbus> pff. these arent' good at all.
23:37:42 <Morbus> monty: WHAT DID THE STACCATO POD SAY TO SHATTERED TECH OF INTERNET?
23:37:44 <Monty> Okay, fair few times and Nashua for tryin'.
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