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00:10:56 * Arnia mixes perigrin with a normally distributed source of noise
00:11:24 * perigrin becomes a rhymnocerous
00:12:05 <Arnia> perigrin: read my blog! I've made a post! It is probably nonsense!
00:12:14 <perigrin> URL!?
00:12:29 * perigrin add it to his feed reader!
00:12:42 <Arnia> http://www.dur.ac.uk/j.r.c.geldart/essays/there_again/towards_the_active_web.html
00:14:12 <Arnia> iplayer is being really slow :(
00:14:21 <Arnia> Might have to watch this tomorrow morning
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00:21:00 <cr`x> look at you with your gentium!
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02:44:40 <xover> [[[
02:44:40 <xover> We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated "Stripped" by
02:44:40 <xover> Christina Aguilera have also purchased "Greatest Hits" by Spice Girls.
02:44:40 <xover> For this reason, you might like to know that "Greatest Hits" is now available.
02:44:40 <xover> ]]] — Amazon Spam
02:45:16 <xover> While I'm sure that's technically truw. what the fuck does it have to do with /me/, Amazon?
02:46:48 <xover> Ah, this is Amazon.com, not the .co.uk.
03:03:04 *** cr`x has quit ("אַכטונג! קאָמפיוטער שלאָפֿט.")
03:09:54 <xover> .compare "growing strong" "going strong"
03:09:55 *** est has quit (Read error: 110 (Connection timed out))
03:09:58 <phenny> "going strong" (6,320,000), "growing strong" (540,000)
03:24:31 *** cr`x (n=crux@user-12lcqh4.cable.mindspring.com) has joined #swhack
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03:31:58 <Monty> howdy, est
03:41:05 <xover> .title http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/16/library-of-congress.html
03:41:09 <phenny> xover: Library of Congress uses Flickr to crowdsource tagging and organizing its photo archive - Boing Boing
03:43:10 <cr`x> You christians have a lot of funny rituals. It seems like everyone has half a dozen different first communions.
03:45:38 <xover> .title http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/16/sensitive-synthetic.html
03:45:41 <phenny> xover: Sensitive synthetic skin - Boing Boing
04:19:36 <jsled> .title http://www.thenewfreedom.net/wp/2008/01/16/richard-stallman-cranking-dat-soulja-boy/
04:19:39 <phenny> jsled: The New Freedom » Blog Archive » Richard Stallman Cranking Dat Soulja Boy
04:20:16 <jsled> cr`x: eh? As I recall, there's only one First Communion. Though there are other … events.
04:25:03 <xover> .title http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/16/meet-the-disintegrator-24-barrels-of-rubber-band-minigun-madnes/
04:25:06 <phenny> xover: Meet the Disintegrator: 24 barrels of rubber band minigun madness - Engadget
04:26:40 <xover> You've got to watch that video!
04:27:38 <xover> A monster feat of home engineering.
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04:34:23 <Monty> lo cr`x_
04:38:23 <jsled> quite sweet.
04:38:40 <jsled> e_videotoolong, though.
04:39:36 <xover> They had to fill up enough to match the length of the song. :-)
04:39:48 <jsled> yeah, gee, thanks.
04:40:00 <jsled> The locale college station metal show has much better.
04:40:38 <cr`x_> dang, did i miss some metal talk?
04:41:06 <jsled> Oh, yay, electoral-vote.com is back.
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04:59:55 <jsled> .pc “”
05:00:13 <phenny> 201C: LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK (“)
05:00:16 <phenny> 201D: RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK (”)
05:00:30 <jsled> took you long enough.
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05:06:30 <shminux> phenny: help pc
05:06:33 <phenny> Sorry, no documentation for pc.
05:07:57 <jsled> phenny: help
05:07:59 <phenny> Hi, I'm phenny (a http://inamidst.com/phenny/)
05:08:02 <phenny> Commands: acronym, beats, charinfo, codepoint, compare, email, event, gimage, google, googlecalc, googlecount, googledef, googlesplat, httphead, kalusa, mangle, map, myersbriggs, podecoint, rate, rates, remind, representation, seen, swhackcount, swhackcount2007, swhackorigin, swhacktail, tavtime, thesaurus, time, title, tock, translate, validate, weather, wikipedia, wordlength2007, wordnet
05:08:06 <phenny> Try "phenny: help command?" if stuck. My owner is sbp.
05:08:19 <jsled> phenny: help pc?
05:08:22 <phenny> Sorry, no documentation for pc.
05:08:25 <jsled> phenny: help .pc?
05:08:27 <phenny> Sorry, no documentation for .pc.
05:08:31 <jsled> .g podecoint
05:08:36 <phenny> jsled: http://swhack.com/logs/2008-01-04
05:08:51 <jsled> phenny: help podecoint?
05:08:54 <phenny> '.pc <utf-8> - Discover a utf-8 encoded codepoint.'
05:09:03 <shminux> heh
05:09:04 <jsled> AH HA!
05:09:08 <shminux> why spoonerism?
05:09:23 <jsled> phenny: help codepoint?
05:09:26 <phenny> '.cp <regexp> - Search for a particular Unicode codepoint.'
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05:31:56 <shawn_> strip doesn't work on the mac, anyone know what I'm talking about?
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06:12:33 <cre8radix> shebang
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06:55:42 <Monty> Speak of the devil, it's idickinson!
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06:59:34 * Arnia sits down between Monty and Dahut
06:59:34 <Monty> cats is my passwords
07:08:43 <Arnia> "Are you asking me out on a date?" "Are you interested?" "As long as it isn't in an office; some fetishes should be kept to yourself"
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07:39:08 <Arnia> gah, why do they insist on screwing up education so badly?
07:39:14 <Arnia> .title http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7192330.stm
07:39:19 <phenny> Arnia: BBC NEWS | Education | Geography 'must be made relevant'
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07:59:16 *** sbp changed the topic to: "<Monty> cats is my passwords"
07:59:18 <sbp> yo
07:59:26 <_bjoern> nu
08:00:03 <sbp> “Climate change, sustainable development and trade disputes could all be studied to increase interest, Ofsted said.” — oh yeah, that'll make it well exciting
08:00:30 <sbp> “today, as a treat, we're going to be studying... trade disputes!”
08:00:51 <Arnia> Because the whole point of education is to increase the numbers on the books for a given subject
08:00:58 <sbp> hehe
08:01:40 <Arnia> twats
08:03:35 * Arnia is waiting for a Special Delivery
08:04:07 <Arnia> Wish they gave a better prediction than 'before 1pm' cos I'd really like to be able to start coding so I have something to show my supervisor tomorrow
08:05:20 <Arnia> Well... it has left the delivery office, so it should be on the rounds now :/
08:06:55 * Arnia takes a moment to marvel
08:07:50 <sbp> yeah, I like delivery predictions
08:07:55 <Arnia> Just fifteen years ago, most people wouldn't have seriously thought that by 2008 we'd be able to, without calling a call-centre, track packages as they're delivered
08:08:18 <sbp> “some time at the end of March. if you are not in, we will dispose of your package in a controlled explosion. PS. It won't be *very* controlled.”
08:08:27 <Arnia> When I get irritated by things, I find it is helpful to put it all into perspective and realise just how astonishing all this really is
08:08:36 *** _greg_ (n=greg@isotoma.gotadsl.co.uk) has joined #swhack
08:08:38 <sbp> tru
08:08:40 <sbp> e
08:08:57 <Arnia> yet we largely take it for granted
08:09:09 <sbp> we're moon wanters, Arnia. that's what we are
08:09:13 <sbp> a bunch of frigging moon wanters
08:09:40 <Arnia> well, I do think there are better ways to do things than we do them now. But it is astonishing we can do them at all
08:09:41 <sbp> I think you're right... for me it's the library catalogue that does it
08:09:45 <sbp> but also... right
08:10:34 <Arnia> Mentioning library catalogues... remember how utterly infuriating it was to use a card catalogue?
08:10:42 <sbp> yep
08:10:50 <Arnia> Spending hours in the stacks chasing down a single paper
08:11:09 <laplink> Given the shitty state of many digital catalogs, card catalogs could in some instances be argued to be an improvement.
08:11:15 <Arnia> or trying to get hold of a copy of a book which had gone missing in the inter-library loan system
08:11:30 <sbp> 16:09:32 <sbp> my favourite example is looking for something in the library
08:11:30 <sbp> 16:09:45 <sbp> people just don't seem to remember how bad things were in the catalogue days
08:11:30 <sbp> 16:10:27 <Arnia> yeah... well, I can just about remember having to use card catalogues in my local library
08:11:35 <sbp> - http://swhack.com/logs/2008-01-06#T16-09-32
08:11:57 * Arnia remembers as a child when they brought in the electronic catalogue for the Bucks library service
08:12:12 * sbp thinks of this as a design pattern, but hasn't written it up yet!
08:12:21 <sbp> I haven't even stubbed something in patterns/ for it yet... hmm
08:12:25 <sbp> what should I call it...
08:12:40 <sbp> ForgottenCatalogues?
08:12:51 <laplink> ThingsUsedToBeBetter
08:13:01 <laplink> InMyDay
08:13:02 <Arnia> It fascinated me that you could look up, from the library in Gerrards Cross, the contents of the library in Wendover, or Buckingham, or Milton Keynes.
08:13:08 <laplink> BackWhenIWas
08:13:09 <sbp> InMyDay: chuckle
08:13:17 <sbp> DuringTheWar
08:13:28 <laplink> WhenIWasInNam
08:13:33 <sbp> hehe
08:13:56 <sbp> yeah, I remember that
08:13:57 <Arnia> WhenIWereALad
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08:14:45 <Arnia> You could even search neighbouring areas... so I could check Oxford's system, or Luton's or Reading's
08:15:01 <Arnia> They spent a fortune on that system I think :)
08:15:15 <Arnia> bet most of the consolidation was done by hand as well
08:18:32 <Arnia> consolidate_catalogue :- self(S), S::catalog(C), randomise_indices(C).
08:19:04 <sbp> the disintegrator video is fun
08:19:34 <Arnia> More I think about it, the more I think Erik T Müller was right. AI should be messy, and code is a good way of writing things... but not C. Prolog or Haskell or something, not C
08:19:36 <Arnia> or Java
08:19:46 * Arnia nukes all academics who write their libraries in Java
08:20:46 <sbp> thanks. saves me doing it
08:21:22 <Arnia> It amuses me though the way that Java developers go on about how great their IDEs are, etc.
08:21:51 <Arnia> Personally I think requiring an IDE for a language is a sign of a problem with the language
08:23:33 <Arnia> it is just frustrating how much academic software is written it it :p
08:23:53 <Arnia> (usually with lofty claims of 'portability' and the like)
08:24:07 * Arnia stares balefully at Protegé
08:24:31 <Arnia> and I'm off on a ramble before 10am... yay
08:24:51 <sbp> might as well get one in early
08:25:07 <sbp> there's no such thing as hating Java too much
08:25:36 <laplink> It think Java must be about the least portable language in practice; at least in my experience with real world implementations.
08:25:43 <Arnia> Why are there so many people who love it so much?
08:26:11 <Arnia> Why do we still teach it?
08:26:25 <laplink> Because Java sounds good in theory?
08:26:48 <_bjoern> It does?
08:26:49 <laplink> And even better if you only look at the surface.
08:27:55 <Arnia> Oh in theory it is fine — and other languages have been based on similar ideas — but Java has the wrong sort of VM, a weird form of OO which is very inflexible, a strict type-system without enough subtlety to make it useful and a bloody hideous syntax.
08:28:15 <Arnia> *takes a deep breath*
08:28:57 <Arnia> and, for a language touted as a wonderful *server* language by a company heavily involved in Big Iron, it is absolutely shocking at concurrency
08:29:16 <Arnia> Makes the GIL look quite sweet
08:31:20 <realist> sun = big iron?
08:32:02 <Arnia> Late 80s/Early 90s, when Java was developed. Workstations and servers
08:33:32 * Arnia hopes massively distributed information (yes, trying to steal back a TLA) will kill off Java
08:33:35 *** darobin (n=robinb@colbert-ext.lid.theveniceproject.com) has joined #swhack
08:33:47 <Arnia> Well not kill off... but put it out to pasture like COBOL
08:34:04 * Arnia actually would prefer it to go to the knackers yard
08:35:08 <darobin> Monty!!! twe!!!
08:35:12 <Monty> stephmw i do things were a difference between mapping APIs. (at www.ajatus.info)
08:35:17 <twe> Twe the twe twe.
08:35:29 <twe> It may provide limited apis to get a 100x speedup on python code just by idly musing on the difference.
08:35:31 <darobin> oh come on twe, I'm sure you can say something much more interesting
08:35:35 <Arnia> Twe: What are your thoughts on Java?
08:35:41 <twe> Can i have to do something interesting.
08:35:59 <twe> Arnia: Don't worry, i have seen my page of your http://www.bjoernsworld.de/temp/whatwg-top-posters-may07-with-decrease-grouped.svgz is where the values are going to be able to do that. But if i learned to change that in java.
08:36:21 <realist> Arnia: big iron generally refers to mainframe though
08:36:44 * Arnia thinks of servers in the same grouping
08:37:28 <laplink> realist: Sun's portfolio falls in that murky middle-ground between typical mainframes and regular servers.
08:37:38 <twe> (That is to meet you, est. It is no middle ground.
08:37:54 <realist> Arnia: careful, blasphemy's outlawed in the UK ;-)
08:38:40 <_bjoern> twe should not post [off]'d urls.
08:38:42 <realist> laplink: hence commonly referred to as "midrange"
08:38:52 <twe> _bjoern: What's wrong with d other than text/plain, i get: "internet explorer was not in the post.
08:44:48 <darobin> I guess twe shouldn't see off comments at all in fact
08:44:53 <twe> I guess in a twe...
08:45:02 <darobin> twe: stop looking at the private comments
08:45:08 <twe> darobin: Looking at those comments.
08:45:23 <darobin> bad bot twe
08:45:33 <twe> I still see bug#458095: itp: phenny -- extensible irc bot of the twe-twe!
08:45:46 <_bjoern> Yes, that would do it.
08:46:52 <laplink> .title http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10
08:46:55 <phenny> laplink: Penny Arcade! - I Hope You Like Text
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08:51:04 <Monty> hey jewel
08:54:51 *** sbp changed the topic to: "<twe> I still see bug#458095: itp: phenny -- extensible irc bot of the twe-twe!"
08:56:18 <darobin> libby, danbri: you kids around?
08:56:24 * darobin is in Leiden
08:57:46 <sbp> they knew you were coming and went to Genoa
08:58:08 <danbri> leiden?!
08:58:13 * Arnia teleports darobin to dahut's house
08:58:15 <danbri> what on earth would you be doing there?
08:58:32 <darobin> sbp: damn, I should've known
08:58:33 <danbri> Libby's in a telecon in 1h with me, i'm in Bristol
08:59:06 <Arnia> Damn geography
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08:59:20 <darobin> danbri!!!! ah, dammit, I was hoping I could get a beer with you to brighten my stay
08:59:28 <darobin> Arnia: which one of dahut's houses?
08:59:29 <dahut> AT HUD!
09:00:02 <Arnia> He's at HUD house apparently
09:00:17 <Arnia> ooh, seagulls
09:00:31 <darobin> mmmm, Hud
09:00:42 <darobin> .wik HUD
09:00:45 <phenny> "Hud (prophet), an Islamic prophet, also known as Eber" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HUD
09:00:48 <darobin> I think it's his vernacular for 'hood
09:02:12 <darobin> I leave tomorrow at 17h06, so it's only a little over 29 hours still
09:02:53 <Arnia> What's Leiden known for?
09:03:09 <darobin> boredom, mostly
09:03:14 <darobin> .wik
09:03:16 <darobin> err
09:03:16 <phenny> Maybe you meant ".wik Zen"?
09:03:20 <darobin> .wik Leiden
09:03:24 <phenny> "Leiden (also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leiden
09:03:25 <darobin> heh, nice one phenny
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09:18:35 <sbp> ooh, interesting SHAKSPER post from Stanley Wells
09:18:49 <sbp> mentioning recent work on Shakepseare's religion, by none other than Bearman
09:23:12 *** sbp changed the topic to: "“NOBODY GOES NEAR MY DNA! MY DNA IS PRIVATE!”"
09:23:20 <sbp> (- from an upcoming Bogart)
09:24:36 <darobin> ≪⏏≫ ≪⌽≫ ⊂⊗⊃ ≲⊕≳ ∭∭∭∭
09:24:49 <_bjoern> Usually people litter every place they go with their DNA.
09:24:50 <darobin> unicode flying saucers riding a wave
09:25:09 <sbp> PRIVATE
09:25:11 <_bjoern> Unimpressive darobin.
09:25:51 <darobin> I like it :)
09:26:46 <darobin> and if you couldn't tell, I'm really bored
09:27:54 *** MoiraA has quit ("bye!")
09:31:08 <sbp> good ol' Leiden
09:31:37 * Arnia contemplates soup
09:34:51 <darobin> soup! OMG! it might even have a taste!
09:35:37 <_bjoern> .gs soup has *
09:35:38 <_bjoern> .gs soup is *
09:35:41 <phenny> soup has *: simmered (4), cooked (4), thickened (3), healing (3), gotten (3), no balls (2), msg (2), lots (2), got balls (2), gained rave (2), dropped (2), cooled (2), boiled (2), wowed, ulue,
09:35:44 <phenny> soup is *: boiling (5), simmering (3), ruined (3), reheated (3), delish (3), cuisines (3), sweeter (2), sopn (2), simmerin (2), profitable (2), much (2), ladled (2), highly (2), generaly (2),
09:35:50 <Arnia> or I could go for orange honey sandwiches
09:37:33 <darobin> lucky bastard
09:37:44 <darobin> I forgot to mention: there is no food in Leiden
09:37:50 <Arnia> ...
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09:38:32 <darobin> libby can attest to it if you don't believe me Arnia
09:38:50 <Arnia> What do you mean, no food?
09:41:33 <_bjoern> phenny!
09:41:36 <phenny> _bjoern!
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09:42:43 <darobin> Arnia: nothing that can be dignified with that denomination
09:43:04 <Arnia> yech...
09:43:14 <darobin> well, you know, Holland...
09:43:18 <Arnia> *reconsiders the Netherlands as a post-doc option*
09:44:18 <darobin> OMG NO DON'T GO THERE!
09:44:33 <darobin> where were you thinking of?
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09:47:53 <Arnia> Dunno... my supervisor keeps suggesting it; haven't gotten around to checking the idea out :)
09:48:51 <sbp> yeah, are you mad?
09:49:12 <sbp> the country seems to have no sense of humour whatsoever
09:49:25 <sbp> it is where you go to be a liberal robot
09:49:42 <sbp> I blame the lack of mountains personally
09:49:46 <darobin> a very exact definition
09:50:10 <darobin> I was going to blame a specific branch of protestantism, but hey that's probably culturally overdone
09:50:17 <sbp> hehe
09:50:26 <darobin> and they really have no food
09:50:30 <darobin> except in Amsterdam
09:50:33 <sbp> notable exports: football (sometimes)
09:50:43 <darobin> but then you have to deal with it being full of stoned tourists
09:50:45 <Arnia> Well, I'd rather not... but I don't know why my supervisor keeps mentioning it
09:50:50 <sbp> I mean even Switzerland has given the world more (skiing and fondue)
09:51:01 <sbp> (oh and chocolate. and cuckoo clocks)
09:51:12 <darobin> I'd take Geneva over anything in .nl very, very gladly
09:51:34 <sbp> one of my ambitions is to hold a convention in Geneva
09:51:43 <sbp> because then I could say I held a Geneva convention
09:52:07 <sbp> almost all of my ambitions are not very funny jokes
09:52:43 * darobin chortles
09:52:48 <darobin> I'd come, though
09:52:53 <sbp> awesome
09:53:05 * sbp pencils you in
09:53:24 <darobin> there's a whole list we could do
09:53:30 <darobin> e.g. agree in Yalta
09:53:41 <darobin> battle in Waterloo
09:53:45 <sbp> ooh, I hadn't considered the extensibility of this idea
09:54:11 <darobin> deal in someplace new
09:54:28 <sbp> that proposed new town on the Thames perhaps
09:54:43 <darobin> they're making a new town?
09:54:56 <sbp> yeah. and it looks like Milton Keynes Take II. it's extraordinary
09:55:20 <darobin> like that strange city with the strange name which... right, MK is the name
09:55:27 <darobin> pointer?
09:55:34 <sbp> looxoring
09:55:59 <darobin> crazy brits
09:56:05 <darobin> I don't think we make new towns
09:56:18 <laplink> They just sort of happen?
09:57:00 <darobin> I think we just grow the ones we have
10:00:14 <sbp> damn I can't find the story
10:00:23 <sbp> it seems to be a subset of the Thames Gateway proposals
10:00:48 <darobin> I can't find a new town in France posterior to 1972
10:01:37 <sbp> oh here we go
10:01:39 <sbp> .title http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7118909.stm
10:01:43 <phenny> sbp: BBC NEWS | UK | Is Thames Gateway too ambitious?
10:01:55 <darobin> ah cool ta!
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10:02:28 <Monty> it's ace_me!
10:02:51 <sbp> at least they're only going to destroy a relatively crap part of Britain
10:02:54 <sbp> could be worse
10:03:01 <sbp> the CPRE are up in arms about it anyway
10:03:18 <sbp> but though I'm exceptionally pro-CPRE, I'd like to see 'em suggest something better
10:04:23 <Arnia> Unfortunately, the housing is proposed to go on marshland. This seems very... uh... silly to me
10:04:36 <sbp> having said that, they are going way too far into Kent
10:04:42 <Arnia> What with increased risk of flooding and London sinking
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10:04:48 <sbp> heh, yeah
10:04:54 <sbp> they're building on all the dangerous bits
10:05:03 <sbp> they need to put stilts in I think
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10:07:13 <sbp> the trouble with fixing crime and whatnot is that there's only two ways you can do it really, apart from increasing police numbers a billionfold. either increase the prosperity of an area, or massively decrease the population density
10:07:51 <Arnia> Yeah
10:07:58 <sbp> yet we seem bent on accommodating more and more people
10:08:21 <sbp> the population explosion is really bad
10:08:44 <sbp> isn't the UK something like the fifth most densely populated country in the world now?
10:09:55 <sbp> we need to annex some waste country and just gradually push people into it as an overflow
10:10:27 <sbp> then again, we tried that many times before (Ireland, colonies, commonwealth...)
10:10:38 <sbp> people just freaking breed even more rapidly in the overflow
10:11:39 <Arnia> The population density is ludicrous, but there is little to be done
10:13:02 <sbp> could do what China does and ban people having more than one kid
10:13:10 <sbp> because, you know, it's worked so well in China
10:14:01 <sbp> LAY IT DOWN TO ME PHENNY
10:14:04 <phenny> sbp: 11:44Z <gromgull> tell sbp to read consider being on the program committe of SFSW and to see the email I sent
10:17:42 <laplink> You could ban people.
10:17:46 <laplink> And having children.
10:19:35 <sbp> we should just neuter all non disabled people with an IQ below 50
10:19:44 <sbp> I don't believe in IQ tests or neutering...
10:19:50 <sbp> but I'll bet it would help significantly
10:21:40 <laplink> Make neutering mandatory, but with an opt-out option on a web page, and with public computer terminals provided for those too poor or too smart to own their own computer.
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10:21:45 <Monty> hey lisppaste2
10:21:56 <sbp> laplink: with a captcha! :-)
10:22:04 <laplink> Presto: Those too dumb to operate a computer self-selects themselves out of the gene pool.
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10:27:53 <Monty> But what does leobard have to do with the price of fish?
10:27:55 <phenny> Hush there, Monty.
10:27:59 <Monty> still see 'em suggest something like you be cold enough to watch that purpose
10:28:09 <Arnia> I'm not sure I want to see a world full of techies
10:28:41 <realist> sbp: wouldn't nuetering people with low IQ, inevitably lower everyone else's IQ?
10:29:03 <leobard> a world of techies: if they would all be women, would be ok
10:29:03 <realist> Sorry, shift the bell curve.
10:31:44 <sbp> realist: yeah, but you only need to do it for as long as population is a problem
10:32:22 <sbp> you don't apply it and apply it until there's only one person left and he's shitting himself that one day he'll be less clever than himself
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11:10:31 <bjoern_> phenny, "Dumm fickt gut."?
11:10:36 <phenny> bjoern_: "Stupidly fickt well." (de)
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11:37:36 <sbp> .ety puzzle
11:37:39 <phenny> "c.1595, pusle 'bewilder, confound,' possibly frequentative of pose (v.) in obsolete sense of 'perplex' (cf. nuzzle from nose)." - http://etymonline.com/?term=puzzle
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11:39:27 <sbp> “it's hard to lay a third of an egg; unless it's a very long labour”
11:39:29 <sbp> — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_teaser
11:40:59 <darobin> how did you taft there?
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12:05:01 <glen_quagmire> If I make all submit buttons javascript, did I just prevent spammers?
12:05:07 <Arnia> no
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12:05:26 <Arnia> The only secure system is the utterly inaccessible system
12:05:56 <glen_quagmire> i see
12:08:41 <darobin> but you can trim a fair bunch off with javascript stuff
12:08:58 <darobin> especially if you obfuscate it, gzip it, and then have it change randomly
12:09:54 *** sbp changed the topic to: "“NOBODY GOES NEAR MY DNA! MY DNA IS PRIVATE!” · <Arnia> The only secure system is the utterly inaccessible system"
12:14:40 <sbp> [[[
12:14:41 <sbp> In 1987, coffee merchants Tony Wild and David Hutton created a public limited company called "The East India Company" and in 1990 registered versions of the Company's coat of arms as a trademark, although the Patent Office noted 'Registration of this mark shall give no right to the exclusive use of the words "The East India Company".
12:14:48 <sbp> By December 1996, this company had a website. It sold St Helena coffee branded with the Company name and also produced a book on the history of the Company. This company has no legal continuity with the original Company, even though it claims on its website to have been founded in 1600.
12:14:56 <sbp> ]]] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_East_India_Company
12:16:34 <sbp> cool: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies
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12:22:49 <Arnia> .title http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahedron_Letters
12:22:52 <phenny> Arnia: Tetrahedron Letters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
12:24:40 <sbp> “In the United Kingdom, an unlimited company is a company formed by registration under the Companies Act 1985 where the liability of the members is unlimited - that is, they are liable to contribute whatever sums are required to pay the debts of the company should it go into compulsory liquidation. Not surprisingly, this is not a common form of company.”
12:24:41 <sbp> — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlimited_company
12:28:24 <laplink> NoteToSelf: X360++ (Mass Effect), X360++ (Halo 1-3), X360++ (Assassin's Creed), PS3++ (Assassin's Creed)
12:30:51 <laplink> NoteToSelf: X360-- (Red RIng of Death), X360-- (Price), X360-- (Microsoft), PS3-- (Price)
12:31:01 <laplink> *grr*
12:31:08 <laplink> 0 / 0
12:31:40 <laplink> Well, actually, if you count MSFT as a -2, and likewise with the PS3's price…
12:31:44 <laplink> -1 / -1
12:31:57 <laplink> Which is probably closer to the truth.
12:33:15 <sbp> hehe
12:34:14 <laplink> .calc 400 USD in NOK
12:34:16 <phenny> 400 U.S. dollars = 2 135.59992 Norwegian kroner
12:35:00 <Arnia> 'The consultant advised them to focus on simple messages, such as “Public access equals government censorship”.' -- http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7126/pdf/445347a.pdf
12:35:09 <laplink> Then again, if the reported tightening of their production costs ($800->$400/unit) leads to a comparable price drop...
12:36:13 * laplink heads out for a fag, before The Government censors that word…
12:40:09 <darobin> .pc non breaking
12:40:12 <phenny> 006E: LATIN SMALL LETTER N (n)
12:40:15 <phenny> 006F: LATIN SMALL LETTER O (o)
12:40:16 <darobin> gah
12:40:18 <phenny> 006E: LATIN SMALL LETTER N (n)
12:40:20 <darobin> .cp non breaking
12:40:22 <phenny> Sorry, no results found for 'non breaking'.
12:40:24 <darobin> I can never remember
12:40:28 <darobin> .cp breaking
12:40:31 <phenny> 00A0: NO-BREAK SPACE ( )
12:40:34 <phenny> 1B60: BALINESE PAMENENG (᭠)
12:40:37 <phenny> 2011: NON-BREAKING HYPHEN (‑) [...]
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12:46:59 <kpreid> [[[
12:47:07 <kpreid> Dude #1: They have been underestimating my power.
12:47:07 <kpreid> Dude #2: What?
12:47:07 <kpreid> Dude #1: They have been underestimating my power for quite some time now.
12:47:07 <kpreid> Dude #2: What are you, a supervillain? Who's been underestimating your power? The justice league?
12:47:07 <kpreid> Dude #1: No, the electric company. They say I owe them eight hundred dollars.
12:47:08 <kpreid> Dude #2: Dude, you and I were having two totally different conversations.
12:47:09 <kpreid> ]]]
12:47:15 <kpreid> -- http://antickmusings.blogspot.com/2008/01/when-supervillains-meet-coned.html
12:49:02 <sbp> chuckle
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12:49:47 * sbp thinks a bit about organisations forking and merging and stuff, and comparisons to ye latest advances in class theory
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13:04:11 <Arnia> sbp: oh bugger... I have some references on that
13:04:21 <Arnia> It comes down to sheaf theory
13:04:27 <Arnia> but I'll have to dig them out
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13:06:18 <Arnia> see you all later
13:06:47 <cre8radix> l8r, Arnia
13:07:34 *** Arnia has quit ()
13:08:52 <sbp> aw man
13:08:57 <sbp> I wanna hear about sheaf theory
13:09:13 <darobin> .wik sheaf theory
13:09:16 <phenny> "In mathematics, a sheaf is the basic tool for expressing relationships between small regions of a space and large regions." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheaf_theory
13:09:18 * perigrin doesn't believe in Sheafs
13:09:23 <twe> Which is probably just a theory.
13:09:33 <darobin> heh
13:09:40 <perigrin> Exactly TWE!
13:09:44 <sbp> sheaves!
13:09:54 <sbp> you freaking phonological heathen
13:09:57 <perigrin> sbp, worse! They're irregular!
13:10:20 <sbp> nooOOoo
13:10:22 <perigrin> I thought we covered that when I introduced my self as an american?
13:10:26 <sbp> actually I guess irregularity is fun
13:10:27 <sbp> hehe
13:11:33 <sbp> phenny: tell Arnia would totally like to hear about sheaves (BAD PERIGRIN! NOT SHEAFS!) if it's not too much hassle for you to dig 'em out, yeah!
13:11:36 <phenny> sbp: I'll pass that on when arnia is around.
13:12:09 <perigrin> okay because I've lead a very sheltered life ... is there some nicely written page or talk that explains the classic idioms of python and why people like them?
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13:13:03 <clsn> Well, the "cheese shop" sketch is a classic...
13:13:18 <clsn> And the use of coconuts to imitate hoofbeats...
13:13:27 <perigrin> yeah it was the Holy Grail that attracted me
13:13:41 * clsn nods. Even saw Spamalot on broadway a few months back.
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13:14:01 <perigrin> I was however in this case referring to the programming language ...
13:14:06 <clsn> OOooooh.
13:14:06 <perigrin> not the comedy troup
13:14:39 <clsn> I sort of made up the idioms as I went along when I started pythoning.
13:14:39 <sbp> hehe
13:14:44 <sbp> idioms, idioms...
13:14:46 * perigrin has really only dealt with crschmidt and sbp code when it comes to python
13:14:57 <sbp> it's difficult because it's more of a high-level philosophy than anything
13:15:13 <sbp> you can say how it feels and stuff, but you can't really argue it to be objectively superior to any other language (except for Java)
13:15:14 <perigrin> This is the gist of what I've gathered ...
13:15:37 <clsn> People come to programming with, say, C experience and think it will be helpful in programming Perl or Python... C isn't a creature of the same order as those. Nor even as Java.
13:15:52 <perigrin> I'm a perl programmer ... I'm low man in the pile right now as far as popular languages :)
13:16:10 <clsn> Hey, I still am more comfortable with Perl than Python for many things.
13:16:19 <sbp> some nice features are that you can learn all of the syntax quite easily, and yet it's very expressive and high level; that the standard library is so good that in a lot of cases you just don't have to rely on external packages; that it's getting nice and up to date with generators and stuff like that
13:16:33 <clsn> My standard rant on the Java-Python-Perl spectrum:
13:17:23 <clsn> Java is a B&D language, very big on purity of idea. Everything is a class, thou shalt declare a class in every program, etc... No shortcuts, no vagueness. Certainly no relief for the typing fingers.
13:18:06 <clsn> Perl is a results-oriented language. Get the fucking thing to WORK dammit. It's the language you want when the boss is breathing down your neck. So it has all kinds of shortcuts, leading to some absolutely insane syntax here and there.
13:18:35 <clsn> Reading the manpage description of the scalar meaning of the .. operator is a mystifying experience (until you see it in practice and go "ooooh....")
13:18:45 <darobin> perigrin: I guess it depends a lot on what idioms you use in Perl, but from what I've worked with Python taking your Perl idioms and figuring the most logical translation to Python works a lot of the time
13:19:07 <darobin> in fact they often end up looking quite similar, apart from the fact that I have a little trouble reading Python
13:19:19 <clsn> Python seems (to me) to try to tread the middle ground to an extent. It's a little more coordinated than Perl, and OO isn't a bag on the side made of glorified hashes.
13:19:25 <xover> “A little”? Kudos for you then.
13:19:28 <darobin> the rest you can pretty much pick up by reading a little bit of code here and there
13:19:46 <sbp> yeah. then you can augment that later by reading the list of python builtins. there are like fifty of them, and if you learn 'em all (which isn't hard) it just makes things a lot easier for you later down the line
13:19:49 <clsn> But neither is it totally bogged down in details, nor does it shove OO into your every orifice like Java.
13:19:52 <perigrin> darobin, well I find anymore if it doesn't have sigils it takes me a second run through
13:20:01 <sbp> you only need like 20% of it anyway; stuff like xrange and enumerate
13:20:26 <clsn> Heh, oddly I do have trouble still shifting from sigilless to sigilful languages (perl, PHP) and back...
13:20:26 <darobin> perigrin: yeah, me too, sigils plus the fact that I'm wired to see blocks based on curlies
13:20:44 <perigrin> THAT IS MY PROBLEM WITH RUBY!
13:20:45 <perigrin> Thank you
13:20:49 <darobin> but it's pretty neat overall
13:20:58 <perigrin> I hadn't figured out why I couldn't get past end as a block end
13:21:00 <sbp> en
13:21:03 <sbp> end
13:21:05 <sbp> end
13:21:07 <sbp> end
13:21:08 <sbp> end
13:21:10 <sbp> end
13:21:12 <sbp> end
13:21:15 <sbp> end
13:21:17 <sbp> end
13:21:21 <sbp> - my usual Ruby parody
13:21:27 <clsn> I don't miss the curlies, except when doing Yacc-like stuff when you want to be able to stick in semi-arbitrary code snippets.
13:21:31 <sbp> - only normally the first end has a d in it
13:21:39 <darobin> I saw some very nice parsing idoms that were built atop the fact that Python's eval can be made safe by specifying which builtins (including none) are made available to it
13:21:42 <perigrin> clsn, well I'm biased with Perl OO ... Moose has cleaned up the drool a bunch
13:21:59 <sbp> darobin: my Ajax parser does that
13:22:16 <darobin> basically people would parse by doing the minimal amount of replacement that turns the original into a valid python data struct, then eval it
13:22:18 <darobin> very neat
13:22:22 <clsn> The enforced prettyprinting of Python helps with space economy (don't need quite as much vertical whitespace for closebraces) and does make it easier to read.
13:22:28 <darobin> sbp: yeah, I guess it's easiest with JSON
13:23:01 <darobin> clsn: I find that's rather taste/habit based really
13:23:17 <darobin> I guess I'd get used to it if I ever had to do Python for any length of time
13:23:18 <clsn> perigrin: I haven't tinkered with Moose, nor with Perl6 really.
13:23:32 <sbp> .eval eval('open', {'__builtins__':None})
13:23:35 <phenny> NameError: name 'open' is not defined (file "/home/sbp/phenny/modules/admin.py", line 63, in f_eval)
13:23:37 <sbp> .eval eval('open')
13:23:40 <phenny> <type 'file'>
13:23:44 <perigrin> well I can't speak for perl6 but I'm employed to write Moose code ...
13:23:47 <sbp> you do it like that
13:24:22 <clsn> Yeah, and Perl for that matter has one or two pleasantly obnoxious syntax points. I refer to the fact that if statements MUST have braces around the then and else clauses. Mind you, I think this is a good thing.
13:24:44 <perigrin> :)
13:25:04 <perigrin> well ... you can use the trinary operator ...
13:25:09 <clsn> Because there's ALWAYS the time when you use a braceless then, and then stick a debugging printf into it when it seems weird, and then things totally don't work anymore.
13:25:10 <darobin> I don't recall, does Python have postfix if and unless?
13:25:14 <sbp> yadda yadda yadda
13:25:21 <clsn> The latest Python has a ternary op. I like it.
13:25:21 <sbp> nope
13:25:25 <sbp> it does... right
13:25:26 <clsn> I think Python 1.5
13:25:29 <perigrin> darobin, no but they do have if foo: bar
13:25:30 <clsn> Yeah, but no postfix.
13:25:31 <sbp> ...
13:25:34 <sbp> 1.5?!
13:25:37 <sbp> 1.5 is like 1993
13:25:43 <darobin> that's a shame, I miss postfix whenever it's not there
13:25:46 <clsn> 2.5
13:25:49 <sbp> :-)
13:25:56 <sbp> Python's ternary is like:
13:26:01 <darobin> it's so natural to say "return if whatever"
13:26:12 <xover> BTW, a standard .no idiom for “yucky” is “python”.
13:26:16 <sbp> joy = if woman than sex else wank
13:26:19 <darobin> or "die unless this is cool"
13:26:23 <sbp> s/than/then/
13:26:29 <sbp> IIRC
13:26:32 <clsn> I haven't seen many languages with Perl's afterthought if. I think of it as a peculiarity of Perl. A rather nice peculiarity, though.
13:26:37 * sbp checks, has never actually used Python's ternary in anger
13:26:41 <clsn> sbp No, I don't think so.
13:26:56 <clsn> it's joy = sex if woman else wank
13:27:13 <clsn> (and I don't even have 2.5 installed on my system)
13:27:17 <sbp> oh right, yeah
13:27:40 <sbp> cf. http://www.python.org/doc/faq/programming/#is-there-an-equivalent-of-c-s-ternary-operator
13:27:42 <clsn> I also like Perl's "open file or die", though that isn't so perl-specific.
13:28:12 <perigrin> vote() or die "Puffy said VOTE Bitch"
13:28:15 <perigrin> ;
13:28:21 <clsn> Heh. :)
13:28:32 <sbp> line endings should be :)
13:28:46 <sbp> x = 'hmm' :)
13:28:47 <perigrin> sbp, they really should
13:28:49 <sbp> print x :)
13:29:09 <clsn> I started reading up on Haskell because of Arnia's praise thereof. Maybe I should work on learning some ruby too?
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13:29:11 <sbp> the only exception being, well...
13:29:19 <sbp> raise SomeError("DAMN") :(
13:29:24 <perigrin> sbp, now add in the >_< operator
13:29:28 <sbp> ehheh
13:29:49 <perigrin> also ... I think you mean
13:29:53 <clsn> Tho I get the feeling after a while that the more and more esoteric plusses and minusses of programming languages, the fine points of OO etc, aren't all as important as they're believed to be.
13:29:54 <perigrin> FAIL "Damn" :(
13:30:06 <darobin> sbp: that's XQuery baby
13:30:09 <clsn> Kinda like INTERCAL's "PLEASE DO..." statement introduction.
13:30:10 <sbp> polymorph(*&fodox->[0] % |foobells| -- conjunct(* $ hermitian(*** |"str".type|) ) {}) >_<
13:30:13 <darobin> (: this is a comment! :)
13:30:24 <sbp> darobin: yeah. I actually sent a comment about that before REC, I think
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13:31:47 * perigrin actually started parsing *&fodox->[0] (let's see the glob of the value stored in the 0th element returned by fodox) before he stopped himself
13:31:57 <sbp> hehe
13:32:28 <perigrin> though I think you'd need &fodox() for the parser to be able to disambiguate that ... and possibly *{ }
13:32:54 <clsn> METAFONT's if/thens (and defs, for that matter) were purely macroish. Straight text substitution. So you can do some syntactically evil things and nobody will mind.
13:33:54 <perigrin> I haven't yet had to deal with a language with macros ... I'm not sure I have enough brain power at this point to cope
13:34:08 <darobin> it's always evil
13:34:15 <clsn> Combine that with its insane but brilliant math engine, it's a wonder it's only used for fonts.
13:34:15 <darobin> ASN.1 macros were fun
13:34:40 <clsn> I do occasionally find myself missing #define, as most languages have realized the inherent potential for evil in it.
13:34:40 <darobin> you could redefine everything, including the way macros were defined
13:35:06 <darobin> oh, and they didn't need to be declared before they were used
13:35:20 <darobin> took them a while to realise that meant parsing might never finish...
13:35:53 <perigrin> heh
13:35:59 <clsn> Sometimes "public static final LIMIT=5;" just isn't as satisfying.
13:36:17 * perigrin shivers
13:36:26 <kpreid> clsn: how so? Too verbose and piecewise?
13:36:26 <sbp> wash your brain out with soap young man
13:36:43 <darobin> well, it's Java to boot
13:37:19 <clsn> Not as iconic and bare-bones as "#define LIMIT 5" Oh, yeah, defining a variable, how nice... and you're not allowed to change it, young man. As opposed to "It's a 5. It's a Digit. Fucking deal with it."
13:37:28 <kpreid> clsn: in my experience, the primary evil is that FFIs don't get to retrieve LIMIT since it's compiled out, whereas for p.s.f. they can.
13:37:48 <clsn> FFIs? Sorry...
13:38:18 <sbp> what gets me is how much programming is to do with maths
13:38:29 <sbp> I mean it's all maths when you get right down into the fucking bowels
13:38:34 <clsn> Can you even make immutable constants in Python?
13:38:40 <sbp> because it's all binary
13:38:49 <clsn> Well, also, math is really the one thing computers are actually good at.
13:38:52 <sbp> immutable: no
13:38:55 <sbp> yeah
13:39:01 <perigrin> clsn, actually they're not ... they just add.
13:39:07 <sbp> it's just surprising that as you go higher up, it doesn't get more... mathless
13:39:16 <sbp> all that really gets added are structures
13:39:19 <perigrin> Try to get them to write a proof for you ... FAIL
13:39:20 <sbp> lists! hashtables!
13:39:20 <clsn> Yeah yeah I know. But even at a higher level, math is what they do best.
13:39:28 <sbp> and object orientation
13:39:31 <clsn> Not even math, arithmetic.
13:39:39 <sbp> hmm
13:39:49 <kpreid> clsn: FFI: foreign function interface. i.e. invoking one language from another
13:40:18 <sbp> I was thinking about this when I looked at the world's first few programming languages
13:40:22 <sbp> it all just evolved out of maths
13:40:32 <sbp> and it's funny that LISP and so many other very standard stuff is so early
13:40:47 <clsn> Programming is a lot of math, but then, what's the alternative? Also, math is the most logically-constrained and developed field. It's hard to base a programming language on metaphor or painting.
13:40:48 <kpreid> clsn: in general such things mean you get to work with the runtime parts (e.g. the symbols a C library exports) but not the compile-time ones (macros &c)
13:41:03 <sbp> ah, but is it impossible?
13:41:12 <clsn> kpreid: gotcha. yeah, #defines are poor choices for that.
13:41:25 <clsn> sbp: no clue. But even if it isn't, it isn't a surprise it all started with math.
13:41:27 <sbp> I'm just wondering where high-level will be going in the next ten, twenty, thirty years
13:41:32 <realist> think about what you're "programming"
13:41:35 <sbp> what's going to be the next high?
13:41:39 <twe> Let's just take a descriptive or a prescriptive line, and i've no idea where that is wondering.
13:41:41 <realist> a 'computer'
13:41:55 <clsn> Hmm... Well, I think we'll see more standard operations becoming builtins.
13:41:59 <sbp> sure, but as we get more higher level, we introduce less mathslike concepts
13:42:06 <clsn> Not just "sort" but stuff like "neuralnetwork" maybe.
13:42:07 <sbp> object orientation is the major hook away rom that
13:42:08 <realist> of course it's computational mathematics
13:42:33 <perigrin> sbp, except then they sucked it all back in with Category Theory and Set Theory and and and
13:42:37 <perigrin> the bastards!
13:42:39 <realist> right, abstraction, until you get something like Java, or VB
13:42:42 * realist spits
13:42:42 <sbp> yet there seems to be still a lot more of the essentially low level sort of programming than the high level, even in supposedly high level languages
13:43:03 <clsn> String-processing to become even more powerful, to incorporate some NLP stuff, esp. since NLP is where a lot of work is expected of us (people wanna talk to their computers)
13:43:04 <sbp> it's not abstraction. it's just moving away from maths and into other useful things
13:43:22 <sbp> but I'll be writing something like arcs, which is supposed to be a Semantic Web browser, and there'll be so much maths and structure!
13:43:44 <realist> .g define: abstract
13:43:47 <phenny> define: abstract: sorry, no results were found.
13:43:48 <sbp> things like the UI and all the pretty colours and other interface metaphors are the only relief
13:43:58 <sbp> .gd abstract
13:43:58 <clsn> Well, there's always a certain amount of low-level algorithmic shtuff. Even in instructions meant for semi-humans there are things like "if this then do that."
13:44:01 <phenny> abstract: consider a concept without thinking of a specific example; consider abstractly or theoretically
13:44:09 <sbp> true
13:44:28 <realist> anyway I'm off to sleep
13:44:29 <sbp> but natural languages are so unlike programming languages
13:44:32 <sbp> c'ya!
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13:44:59 <sbp> perigrin: sucked it back in... hehe, yeah
13:44:59 <clsn> And we're trying to program computers to think more abstractly than they do, so obviously the instructions have to be less abstract.
13:45:26 <sbp> sure
13:45:34 *** comzeradd (n=comzerad@adsl52-85.kln.forthnet.gr) has joined #swhack
13:45:40 <sbp> of course the domain moves when you stop just issuing commands
13:45:41 <kpreid> a lot of modern programs have low-level details in their high-level code that really ought to have been abstracted away long ago
13:46:04 <clsn> Well, it isn't for nothing that Chomsky et al did all that stuff with CFGs. CFGs are definitely woefully inadequate to handle serious natlangs, but they do a very good job at parts, and the concepts they introduce are definitely significant.
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13:46:17 <sbp> you can tell your fridge "chill shit to 5C plz". what can you ask it which you can't get a human to do, but would want a fridge to do?
13:46:48 <sbp> I think that's what I'm getting at. is there a class of things we should be exploring which aren't really programming language domain, but aren't natural language domain either. is there a third domain?
13:47:08 <clsn> A domain of expression, or of tasks? Or both?
13:47:12 <sbp> and will high-level programming eventually lead towards that domain?
13:47:17 <kpreid> I question whether there are even two domains.
13:47:18 <sbp> I'm not sure
13:47:19 <clsn> A dimension of light and shadow... woops sorry.
13:47:25 <sbp> hehe
13:47:30 <clsn> I'm also not sure.
13:47:41 <perigrin> beyond sight and sound
13:47:44 <perigrin> no wait
13:48:28 <perigrin> sbp, well part of the problem is that computes because they need to translate everything down to simple arithmatic require rigorous logical constructs
13:48:36 <clsn> I don't know that the programming language/natural language dichotomy is so rigid. Yeah, programming languages are boring and ask you to do things you couldn't keep track of in your head, but they're only asking for tasks which a human could understand and do too.
13:48:37 <perigrin> er "computers" even
13:48:47 <sbp> yeah. but we *can* model stuff on top of those rigorous constraints
13:48:52 <sbp> even things like probability and so on
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13:49:06 <perigrin> and you're starting to get into one of the major complaints about perl ... "it's too contextual"
13:49:08 <clsn> perigrin: That's true, but then so do neurons. sbp is wondering if we can't abstract them high enough to unmathify the language.
13:49:09 <perigrin> :)
13:49:26 <sbp> I suppose there are related silly questions like (where are all these people coming from?) like whether natural languages are turing complete, or beyond turing complete, and blah blah
13:49:58 <clsn> Natlangs are incredibly dependent on context and pragmatics. Which makes a program unportable since it has to carry all the state with it. not desirable in accomplishing specific things.
13:50:10 <sbp> I think natural language is provably beyond Turing complete given that you can express a proof of some of the busy beaver numbers in it, which can't be computed on a Turing complete machine, as I understand it (that seems to be pretty much most of the definition)
13:50:31 <perigrin> I suspect natural languages escape from teh Church Turing thesis by either being not rigorouly defined enough to be able to accurately describe themselves
13:50:43 <perigrin> *or* ...
13:50:48 <perigrin> lost the plot there
13:51:17 <clsn> Hmm, but any mathematical proof can be converted into formal logic, hence Gödel etc. I'm not so sure that we can imagine Busy Beavers any more perfectly than a TM-based AI.
13:52:40 * darobin shudders as #swhack slips towards reinventing AppleScript
13:52:44 <sbp> hahaha
13:52:55 <perigrin> darobin, Cobol!
13:53:18 <darobin> Get the Content from the File in the Directory in the Home
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13:53:22 * perigrin has heard enough stories to fear and pity those who came before with COBOL
13:53:27 <clsn> Of course, imagining super-Turing computing is weird enough. I read a paper linked off WP's article on Hypercomputing. It's almost hard to find actual problems that you can sensibly talk about that involve hypercomptuting.
13:53:52 <darobin> .wik hypercomputing
13:53:55 <phenny> "Hypercomputation refers to various hypothetical methods for the computation of non-Turing-computable functions (see also supertask)." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercomputing
13:54:09 <sbp> Switch to window IRC on Darobin's Computer and type "Here we go round the mulberry bush" and press Enter
13:54:09 <perigrin> .wik supertask
13:54:12 <phenny> "In philosophy, a supertask is a task occurring within a finite interval of time involving infinitely many steps (subtasks)." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertask
13:54:15 <clsn> My mother learned Cobol when it wasn't cool. Actually, well after it was cool.
13:55:04 * clsn remembers having suggested what apparently are called "accelerated Turing Machines" in an early computing class in college, and was told you couldn't do that,.
13:55:14 <sbp> awesome
13:55:21 <sbp> what are they?
13:55:33 <sbp> I suggested quaternions in college
13:55:36 <darobin> like ticker-tape, only faster
13:55:41 <clsn> Accelerated TMs are ones that perform on operation in one tick, the next one in half a tick, the next in a quarter, and so on, so at the end of two ticks they'e done an infinite number of steps.
13:55:53 <sbp> when officially, imaginary numbers weren't even on our syllabus
13:56:14 <sbp> independent invention are teh fun
13:56:18 <clsn> Ayup.
13:56:26 <sbp> oho, Zeno's Turing Machine
13:56:32 <clsn> Basically, yeah.
13:56:35 <perigrin> clsn, my mom was the one telling me the horror stories
13:56:41 <clsn> Heh. :)
13:56:56 <clsn> Horror stories. My third-grade teacher read us stories from Edgar Allen Poe.
13:56:58 <clsn> With the lights off.
13:57:00 <perigrin> something about having to write a header file parser in COBOL ...
13:57:04 <clsn> By the light of a fucking CANDLE.
13:57:17 <clsn> (a big weird-looking candle too)
13:57:31 <perigrin> "and then ... in the still of night ... I had to run the entire student registration ... ON ONLY 640K of RAM!" AHHHHHHH!
13:57:46 <sbp> clsn: is that teacher in prison now, by any chance?
13:58:10 <clsn> I remember when I went off to college with my new IBM AT, with 30MB of hdd space, and thinking, wow, 30 megs. What the hell will I ever find to fill THAT MUCH space??
13:58:14 * sbp chuckles at perigrin's use of the Gates number
13:58:32 <sbp> heh, yeah
13:58:36 <clsn> Actually, no, she was pretty cool. And I guess that was part of it, having the guts to do that.
13:58:45 <clsn> For that matter, her husband was a cop.
13:58:58 <perigrin> in this case I believe it was an accurate description of the memory available to her in the PDP 11 ... I'm not sure.
13:59:14 <clsn> He came to school for the Policement Are Your Friends talk. Demonstrated the handcuffs. I actually managed to get out of them.
13:59:21 * perigrin has never *seen* a PDP 11
13:59:22 <sbp> ah
13:59:30 <sbp> ooh, this reminds me of a bash.org quote. yay
13:59:51 <clsn> I think I worked on one when I was in Israel; my friend and I hacked ourselves accounts on some machines in the university...
13:59:59 <perigrin> clsn, he then kept a close eye on you for the rest of your school days?
14:00:05 <sbp> <DaZE> at my school.. the cop from DARE passed around 3 joints to show everyone... and he said "if i dont get all three of these back this schools getting locked down and everyones getting searched till i find it.." and like 30 minutes later when everyone got to see 'em and they got passed back the cop had 4
14:00:10 <clsn> We did a lot of programming in APL on a *true* APL machine. Mmm, pretty.
14:00:16 <sbp> - http://www.bash.org/?409
14:00:23 <clsn> sbp: LOL
14:00:36 <perigrin> sbp, scary I was thinking of the same quote
14:00:37 <clsn> Heh... Nah. Just that I was REALLY skinny.
14:00:42 <sbp> hehe
14:00:55 <clsn> I'm not sure of the wisdom of passing them around in the first place.
14:01:28 <sbp> so you can made sure that if someone passes you a spliff in future that you're not getting the kind of crap ganja that is passed out by DARE
14:02:19 <clsn> sbp: I guess.
14:02:22 <sbp> (I should note that I don't know that DARE is)
14:02:32 <sbp> (but that did not matter for the purposes of my joke)
14:02:38 <clsn> It's a "keep kids off drugs" organization.
14:02:42 <clsn> I forget what it stands for.
14:02:58 <sbp> DON'T ANALLY RECREATIONALLY EXPERIMENT
14:03:21 <xover> ,wik Drug Abuse Resistance Education
14:03:25 <JibbyBot> "Drug Abuse Resistance Education, better known as DARE or D.A.R.E., is an international education program that seeks to prevent use of illegal drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education
14:03:25 <xover> .wik Drug Abuse Resistance Education
14:03:29 <phenny> "Drug Abuse Resistance Education, better known as DARE or D.A.R.E., is an international education program that seeks to prevent use of illegal drugs, membership in gangs, and violent behavior." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education
14:03:33 <xover> heh heh
14:03:45 <perigrin> sbp, DRUGS ARE REALLY EVIL
14:04:11 <xover> Drugs Are Rockinest EVVAH!
14:12:46 <clsn> sbp: so, if I posted a blog entry on color temperature (you know, stuff like "4500K" on fluorescent light bulbs), would you read it?
14:12:55 <sbp> yes
14:13:03 <clsn> I suppose you would, because I'm someone you know and you have no life. But I mean, would it be worthwhile...
14:13:07 <cr`x> only if it was oyf Yidish
14:13:08 <sbp> as long as you didn't get me to add all the temperatures to find the total temperatures
14:13:39 <clsn> OK... I've been meaning to scribble one.
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14:22:31 *** twe has quit (Read error: 104 (Connection reset by peer))
14:23:52 *** twe (n=twe@66.92.66.26) has joined #swhack
14:25:24 <darobin> .title http://www.theonion.com/content/video/mitt_romney_defends_himself?utm_source=onion_rss_daily
14:25:26 <phenny> darobin: Mitt Romney Defends Himself Against Allegations Of Tolerance | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
14:25:49 <perigrin> heh
14:25:57 <perigrin> That silly Mitt
14:26:34 <cr`x> metadata!
14:26:44 <perigrin> dahut!
14:26:51 <cr`x> :
14:26:54 <cr`x> (
14:27:41 <perigrin> dahut
14:27:41 * dahut topples down the mountain
14:27:44 <perigrin> there we go
14:27:46 <perigrin> silly dahut
14:27:47 <dahut> METADATA!
14:29:40 <cr`x> wank it
14:29:40 * dahut gets busy harping on the one-eyed trouser trout
14:29:43 <cr`x> yay!
14:29:52 <perigrin> mekano-pip, hit on cr`x
14:29:53 <mekano-pip> cr`x: THATZ NICE THROAT - YOUZ SELLINS TIMESHISZ?
14:30:06 <sbp> mekano-pip: hit on twe
14:30:07 <mekano-pip> twe: LETZ ENJOY TEH TRADISHUNAL CUSTOM IN PERU OV GETTINS BAD EYESITE.
14:30:18 <perigrin> this is a bad idea
14:30:20 <sbp> yep
14:30:21 <twe> [Off] hit on a tech that not enough people know where i put where with a female pip.
14:30:26 * perigrin readies the kill switch
14:30:29 <sbp> hehe
14:30:39 <twe> mekano-pip: Huh. Oh, blast, i know what's causing it, but in that the ends of the os. What this means for your custom and help you remember that paper, but i don't enjoy it.
14:30:39 <sbp> that was surprising. he doesn't prefix!
14:30:43 <mekano-pip> twe: QUOI? OUI.. AND CAUSIN IT BUT IN THAT TEH ENDZ OF TEH OZ AR TEH BLAST YU KNOW WUT. WHUT AR IT TO YOUZ?
14:30:44 <sbp> oh, there we go
14:30:53 <twe> mekano-pip: But that they are the ones posted on his bio i could know?
14:30:55 <mekano-pip> twe: INTERESTIN. TEH ONEZ POSTED ON HIZ BIO YOUZ COULD KNOW IS THEY.
14:30:56 <perigrin> that was him responding to you
14:30:59 <sbp> yeah
14:31:07 <twe> mekano-pip: You'd have to live on in the wimbledon area, and if so is it to youz.
14:31:08 <mekano-pip> twe: THAT AR PURELY HYPUDDESIZ. KTHXBYE!
14:31:16 <twe> mekano-pip: Purely for its plannin lojbanist." - http://etymonline.com/?search=fornicate.
14:31:17 <mekano-pip> twe: YORE PURPOSE AR ITZ PLANNIN LOJBANIST. THNXZ FUR THAT WEB ADDRESZ.
14:31:27 <twe> mekano-pip: She became an ex-clubs in the web for that purpose.
14:31:28 * cr`x slowly starts going insane
14:31:28 <mekano-pip> twe: HOW DO YOO KNOW BECAME AN EX CLUBZ IN TEH WEB FOAR THAT PURPOSE? KTHXBYE!
14:31:31 <sbp> heheh
14:31:35 <twe> mekano-pip: Don't do that on purpose.
14:31:39 <mekano-pip> twe: K ILL TRY NOT T DO IT T MUCH.
14:31:48 <twe> mekano-pip: Ill just wait untills sbp is it not?
14:31:49 <mekano-pip> twe: HOW DO YU PLAN TO DO THIZ?
14:31:55 <twe> mekano-pip: I use to do thiz?
14:31:59 <mekano-pip> twe: WHEN DID YOUZ STOP IT?
14:32:05 <sbp> what?!
14:32:07 <twe> mekano-pip: Stop looking at it to youz.
14:32:08 <mekano-pip> twe: KAY ILL TRY NOT TO DO IT SO MUCH.
14:32:08 <perigrin> !?
14:32:10 <swhask> Maybe you meant: . v
14:33:15 <sbp> /mode +q #swhack twe
14:33:18 <sbp> that gave the +t
14:33:22 <sbp> /mode #swhack +q twe
14:33:25 <sbp> that was the correct answer
14:33:31 <twe> I'll pass that on when twe is a separate field of interdisciplinary study, combining elements of q1 and q2 in weird ways.
14:33:35 <twe> Twe the twe twe.
14:33:38 <sbp> hehe
14:33:54 *** sbp changed the topic to: "<twe> I'll pass that on when twe is a separate field of interdisciplinary study, combining elements of q1 and q2 in weird ways."
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14:42:01 <Monty> bah, it's Arnia again
14:53:15 <sbp> Arnia: coughphennybaitcough
14:54:03 * Arnia boings in kind
14:54:06 <phenny> Arnia: 14:42Z <sbp> tell Arnia would totally like to hear about sheaves (BAD PERIGRIN! NOT SHEAFS!) if it's not too much hassle for you to dig 'em out, yeah!
14:54:51 <Arnia> .g type-theoretical grammar
14:54:54 <phenny> Arnia: http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Mathematics/Logic/?view=usa&ci=019853857X
14:55:32 <Arnia> .g Category Theory for Computing Science
14:55:34 <phenny> Arnia: http://www.case.edu/artsci/math/wells/pub/ctcs.html
14:55:42 <Arnia> .wik sheaf theory
14:55:45 <phenny> "In mathematics, a sheaf is the basic tool for expressing relationships between small regions of a space and large regions." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheaf_theory
14:55:54 <twe> In fact they are hampered by their relationships to the tool?
14:56:08 <Arnia> Think of it as a way of attaching information to a topological space
14:56:09 <sbp> is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheaf_theory the right thing?
14:56:12 <Arnia> (such as time)
14:56:16 <Arnia> Yes
14:56:40 <Arnia> Uh, can probably phrase that better
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14:57:05 <Arnia> Think of it as a way of attaching information to a topological space (such as the space of temporal intervals)
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14:58:26 <sbp> I don't see the connection to social organisations
15:00:10 <sbp> and whew, this is pretty deep into category theory
15:00:24 <Arnia> Well, you can extend the information you represent to include entities and their lifecycles
15:00:50 <Arnia> So you can say that such-and-such a property holds on this interval, but not on this other interval
15:01:08 <Arnia> The gluing property of sheaves ensures that you end up with a coherent representation
15:01:17 <Arnia> (from a category theory perspective blah blah)
15:01:51 <sbp> I can't see writing off to Companies house or the Charity commission with a manifesto written in category theory... :-)
15:02:02 <sbp> this is a far step from Robert's Rules of Order
15:02:10 <sbp> but yeah, I see what you're driving at. I think
15:03:27 <Arnia> There are several possible representations of time using sheaves... they all use the gluing axiom to implement temporal inertia
15:03:50 <Arnia> (if something holds true on an entire interval, it must hold true on all subintervals)
15:04:06 <sbp> I was thinking more like a minimal set of rules that would allow people to play interesting games of organisational nomic, that introduced ideas from prototypicality theory (so groups don't shatter, they just mutate)
15:05:50 <sbp> Arnia: an unrelated question, what do category theorists calculate with? what I mean is... is there some kind of mechanical aid that can be used for category theorists? even in calculus and things like that... well actually I guess there are quite a few niftybits on the best calculators for calculus
15:05:54 <sbp> but what about category theory?
15:06:54 <Arnia> sbp: other than their heads? Generally tools like Coq, Isabelle/HOL, OBJ, LF/LEGO, etc.
15:06:54 <sbp> it's easier to understand why people add numbers than to integrate an equation. and much easier than understanding why they make commutative diagrams of homomorphisms or whatever
15:07:05 <sbp> ooh, thanks
15:07:20 <Arnia> sbp: if you mean, what's the abstraction that is calculated on? Graphs
15:07:47 <Arnia> So in some fashion, any tool chosen has to work with graphs
15:07:55 <Arnia> Anyway
15:08:17 <Arnia> For a minimal set of rules for time, use Allen's intervals
15:08:28 <sbp> .wik Allen's intervals
15:08:32 <phenny> "Allen's Interval Algebra is a calculus for temporal reasoning that has been introduced by James F. Allen in 1983." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen's_Interval_Algebra
15:09:32 <sbp> nice
15:09:45 <sbp> there was some big hoo-hah over this on language log a year or two ago
15:10:28 <sbp> but again, I can't imagine using this
15:10:53 <sbp> I have some experience of organisational proof models from DanC work at the W3C...
15:11:11 <sbp> not sure that's what I'm looking for though
15:11:13 <Arnia> sbp: it comes down to very simple topology... but I could suggest more refinements if I know more about what you're thinking of using it in :)
15:11:19 <sbp> yeah
15:11:26 <sbp> I think I need to write an article
15:11:42 <sbp> I don't entirely understand what I'm after yet :-)
15:11:54 <sbp> so actually, I need to write an essay. in its etymological sense
15:13:26 <Arnia> woo :)
15:13:34 * sbp does so
15:13:43 <Arnia> Appropriate I chose to call that section of my website the 'essays' section
15:14:09 <sbp> mmm
15:14:19 <sbp> I'm going with topic/ for my junk
15:14:41 <sbp> this'll be at topic/organisation
15:15:53 <Arnia> I'd love a sort of thinktank.swhack.com site... where we can shove our odd papers and essays
15:16:00 <perigrin> Arnia, I'm about to step out to lunch but I had a thought that couldn't your COMMAND/PROMISE pair be implemented in terms of ASK/TELL
15:16:02 <Arnia> Perhaps running something like Fermat's Last Margin
15:16:11 <perigrin> and ultimately ASK/TELL in terms of GET/POST ?
15:16:15 <sbp> .wik Fermat's Last Margin
15:16:20 <phenny> "In 1637 Pierre de Fermat wrote, in his copy of Claude-Gaspar Bachet's translation of the famous Arithmetica of Diophantus, 'I have a truly marvelous proof of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.' (Original Latin: 'Cuius rei demonstrationem [...]" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat's_last_theorem
15:16:27 <sbp> bad Wikipedia
15:17:15 <sbp> I get the gist from Google
15:17:19 <Arnia> perigrin: COMMAND/PROMISE could... but you'd lose the illocutionary information. Essentially there would be no easy way to analyse patterns of action (which is unfortunately needed at current technology)
15:17:52 <Arnia> perigrin: and the reason for not going with GET and POST (although you could use them) is that they have lots of semantic-baggage as well as being based on paths
15:18:00 <perigrin> I was just trying to boostrap my way in :)
15:18:11 <Arnia> perigrin: we're not GET'ing a path... we're ASK'ing a question
15:18:18 <perigrin> Right
15:18:23 <perigrin> it would totally be a kluge
15:18:29 <Arnia> perigrin: no, I appreciate it :) I'm just wary about klu... yes
15:18:45 <Arnia> sbp: one of shapr's play things
15:18:52 <perigrin> I just wanted to make sure I understood the idea properly enough though
15:19:00 <Arnia> Would work better with Napier documents
15:19:04 <perigrin> and that there wasn't some hidden concern
15:19:13 <Arnia> (then you could actually share the document itself rather than a PDF)
15:19:21 <perigrin> I agree the extra semantics are nice
15:21:01 <Arnia> perigrin: really the only two operations are push and pull (although in a more complex sense than document exchange) however I wanted COMMAND and PROMISE to explicitly signal negotiation of goals (whereas ASK and TELL are negotiations of understanding)
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15:21:42 * perigrin nods
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15:22:04 <Arnia> perigrin: GREET is there to support full decentralisation, indicating the opening of a dialogue (which persists until another GREET), and capability security (maybe, not sure about how I'm going to be doing that yet)
15:22:34 <perigrin> sure thought I think it should be spelt OHAI
15:22:41 <Arnia> There's a lot of awkwardness in our understanding of goal negotiation, and lots of tricks that are needed to deal with dynamism in the underlying world.
15:22:48 <Arnia> Oh yes, I agree
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15:23:39 <perigrin> okay ... gotta move crap to the car so I can deal with it after lunch
15:24:02 <perigrin> I like the ideas though :)
15:24:21 <Arnia> danja: have you had a read?
15:24:25 * perigrin waves and goes to bundle up
15:24:27 <perigrin> .weather kmsp
15:24:31 <phenny> Overcast ☁, 1.4℉ (-17℃), 29.86in (1008mb), Gentle breeze 9kt (↑) - KMSP 10:53, 1653Z
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15:33:56 * Arnia tries to figure out the IEEE submission guidelines again
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15:40:56 <sbp> alright, first draft is ready to read
15:41:12 <sbp> http://inamidst.com/topic/organisation
15:41:15 <sbp> get it whilst it's hot!
15:42:13 <Arnia> serfdom is bad?
15:42:16 <sbp> complete stream of consciousness at the moment
15:42:23 <sbp> I don't even know what serfdom means
15:42:28 <sbp> I put it in because it's a funny word
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15:42:40 <sbp> so I figured it was bound to be something that somebody thinks is bad
15:43:30 <sbp> this is the best sentence:
15:43:34 <sbp> “With a creative organisation, the aim are so complicated.”
15:43:43 <sbp> absolute proof that I have not so much as sanity checked the grammar yet
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15:43:54 <sbp> ("aims are more complicated" is what I meant)
15:44:19 * sbp fixes just that
15:45:32 <sbp> heh. I love my paragraph of explanation about prototypicality
15:45:36 * sbp hugs it
15:46:05 * Arnia puts sbp on Ceefax
15:46:29 <Arnia> It is a very good paragraph though
15:46:37 * kpreid calls sbp's paragraph George.
15:46:37 <Arnia> I do like the example of a bath and a ship
15:46:49 <Arnia> (but the standard example there is chairs and stools)
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15:46:58 * sbp adds a link to http://inamidst.com/patterns/ChassigniteInterest
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15:47:07 <sbp> George the Prototypicality Paragraph
15:47:16 <sbp> chairs and stools: heh, yeah, I was going to use it
15:47:23 <sbp> but I thought NO! FIGHT THE POWER
15:47:30 * sbp uses chairs and stools in here recently, though, I think
15:47:44 <kpreid> were they thrown?
15:48:10 <sbp> not as such
15:48:18 <sbp> only pots tend to be thrown
15:48