Tavern on the Meta

12:00 AM

Wikipedia ( or ) is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 17 million articles (over 3.5 million in English) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site. Wikipedia was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and has become the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, The name ' was coined by Larry Sanger and is a portmanteau from wiki (a technology for creating collaborativ...

@Kev indeed

Michael Myers

Banana equivalent dose

A banana equivalent dose is a concept occasionally used by nuclear power proponents to place in scale the dangers of radiation by comparing exposures to the radiation generated by a common banana. Many foods are naturally radioactive, and bananas are particularly so, due to the radioactive potassium-40 they contain. The banana equivalent dose is the radiation exposure received by eating a single banana. Radiation leaks from nuclear plants are often measured in extraordinarily small units (the picocurie, a millionth of a millionth of a curie, is typical). By comparing the exposure from th...

drachenstern

@Josh I had to go all meta on you

Tim Stone

Drunken noodles

Drunken noodles (or Pad Kee Mao, less frequently Pad Ki Mao or Pad Kimao, Lao: ຜັດຂີ້ເມົາ; , , ) is a Chinese-influenced dish that was made popular by the Chinese people living in Laos and Thailand. It is a stir fried noodle dish very similar to Phat Si Io, but with a slightly different flavor profile. It is made with broad rice noodles, soy sauce, fish sauce, garlic, meat or tofu, bean sprouts, and various seasonings. Chili and basil give rise to its distinctive spiciness. Drunken fried rice or khao phat khimao is a similar dish. External links *[http://www.templeofthai.com/recipes/...

(Sorry, I'm hungry)

Josh

@Kev do your cheques come in different colours? ;-)

Kev

the banks in the UK and Ireland are doing their utter best to ditch them

Josh

12:01 AM

Rogan josh

Rogan josh (or roghan josh) is an aromatic curry dish hailing from Kashmir and is quite popular in India, Pakistan, Singapore and the United Kingdom. Rogan (روغن) means oil in Persian, while josh (جوش) means heat, hot, boiling, or passionate. Rogan josh thus means cooked in oil at intense heat. Another interpretation of the name rogan josh is derived from the word rogan meaning color and josh meaning passion, hot or red. So this is a meat dish which is red in color. The red color is essential to this dish and to achieve this end kashmiri mirch, which means "pepper from Kashmir" is used. T...

Kev

they usually have the bank corp logo. e.g. bank of scotland are light blue, RBS a different shade. each bank different

Tim Stone

@Josh Ah yes, that's pretty tasty.

Dan Grossman

Boobquake

Boobquake, which took place on April 26, 2010, was devised by Jennifer McCreight, a senior in the Purdue University College of Science, in response to news reports that Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi had blamed women who dress immodestly for causing earthquakes. On April 19, it was reported that Seddiqi advised his listeners that: "Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes" and Iranians should "adapt their lives to Islam’s moral codes” to avoid being "buried under the rubble". One year prior...

Josh

I love me my lamb roganjosh!

@DanGrossman WTF!?!?!?!??!

I... I have no words for that

Tim Stone

You didn't hear about that in the news a while back?

Josh

12:03 AM

I must have missed that one

Dan Grossman

Pasilalinic-sympathetic compass

The pasilalinic-sympathetic compass, also referred to as the snail telegraph, was a contraption built in an attempt to prove the misguided hypothesis that snails create a permanent telepathic link when they touch. The belief was developed by French occultist Jacques Toussaint Benoit and colleague Monsieur Biat-Chretien in the early to mid 19th century. The supposed telepathic bond between the two snails was imagined to have no physical limit, thus making communication possible over any distance. By touching one half of the snail partnership it was suggested that the other snail would ...

Josh

@DanGrossman those two snails are being dirty!

Dan Grossman

here's something else a little dirty

Lloyds Bank coprolite

The Lloyds Bank coprolite is a large human coprolite, or fossilized dung specimen, recovered by archaeologists excavating the Viking settlement of Jórvík (now York) in England. It was found in 1972 beneath the site of what was to become the York branch of Lloyds Bank and may be the largest example of fossilised human faeces ever found. Analysis of the nine-inch (23 cm) long stool has indicated that its producer subsisted largely on meat and bread whilst the presence of several hundred parasitic eggs suggests he or she was riddled with intestinal worms. In 1991, paleoscatologist Andr...

Josh

And by that, of course I mean they're slithering around in the dirt

Dan Grossman

Interactive Urinal Communicator

The Interactive Urinal Communicator is an advertising device invented by bioengineer Dr. Richard Deutsch for the Islip, New York company Wizmark. The 3.5 inch screen is placed in a urinal to promote products or services. Deutsch commented, "Now when nature calls, there is going to be something entertaining to look at and listen to." Features of the advertising include: * Flashing lights that are activated by physical presence, or actual urination * A lenticular image that changes depending on viewpoint * A 16-second pre-recorded audio message * A temperature-sensitive image Deutsch comme...

Shog9

12:07 AM

@DanGrossman "As of 2003, efforts were underway to reconstruct it."

I may be able to help with that...

drachenstern

@DanGrossman the article is just ... wow

Is anyone getting any work done right now? I should be but I'm so not

Dan Grossman

Chicken gun

__NOTOC__ A chicken gun is a large diameter compressed air cannon used to test the strength of aircraft windshields and the safety of jet engines. A common danger to aircraft is that they collide with birds in flight. Most parts of an aircraft are strong enough to resist such a bird strike. Jet engines may sustain serious damage, however, and cockpit windows are necessarily made of transparent materials and are a vulnerable spot. The chicken gun is designed to simulate high speed bird impacts. It is named after its unusual ammunition: a whole dead standard-sized chicken, as would be used ...

Tim Stone

@drachenstern I am, though I'm about to go make food I think. :P

Dan Grossman

I just love nerd sniping

Digesting Duck

The Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck, was an automaton in the form of a duck, created by Jacques de Vaucanson in 1739. The mechanical duck appeared to have the ability to eat kernels of grain, and to metabolize and defecate them. While the duck did not actually have the ability to do this - the food was collected in one inner container, and the pre-stored feces was 'produced' from a second, so that no actual digestion took place - Vaucanson hoped that a truly digesting automaton could one day be designed. Voltaire wrote that "without [...] the duck of Vaucanson, you have nothing to ...

Shog9

I'm making cornbread

CO'NBREAD!

cohnbread? :~

Tim Stone

12:09 AM

@Shog9 I had chili and cornbread the other week, it was pretty decent.

Shog9

@TimStone ya, that's a good combo - I have a little bit of green chili left, so gotta make the compliment

Dan Grossman

Ampelmännchen

(, pl. Ampelmännchen) is the symbolic person shown on traffic lights at pedestrian crossings in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR - East Germany). Prior to the German reunification in 1990, the two German states had different forms for the Ampelmännchen, with a generic human figure in West Germany, and a generally male figure wearing a hat in the east. The Ampelmännchen is a beloved symbol in Eastern Germany, "enjoy[ing] the privileged status of being one of the few features of communist East Germany to have survived the end of the Iron Curtain with his popularity unscathed." A...

radp

yuxiyou.net/open

drachenstern

Voltaire was a badass

@TimStone oh that does sound good tonight, sadly, no cornbread anything at our house, so after shopping

Josh

@drachenstern I am watching rsync. it's so fun

drachenstern

12:14 AM

@DanGrossman the associated article on this is neat.

Thanks @DanGrossman for killing at least 30 minutes of productivity while I wikipedia :( :p

2

Josh

it's counting files to transfer. it's the most productive I've been all week!

mootinator

@DanGrossman Strangely, I wondered to myself how universal the hand and generic walking dude symbol is last night.

Dan Grossman

> NASA'S Kepler Mission Discovers Its First Rocky Planet

nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/rocky_planet.html

Josh

@mootinator You need a programming project apparently :-)

Kev

any of you folks played with those netduino .NET MF boards?

Dan Grossman

12:16 AM

►

Josh

Hey there @Pollyanna, how are you this evening?

Pollyanna

@Josh I am ambulatory and cogitating. And you?

drachenstern

@Pollyanna you're doing one better than me atm ... (someone posted me a new-to-me wikipedia link and now my next half hour is shot :p )

Josh

@Pollyanna I am sedentary and pensive...

Pollyanna

@Kev - I'm been thinking about getting one, but too many projects on my plate already. Plus, as nice as c# is, it's kinda overkill for microcontroller work.

Dan Grossman

12:19 AM

oh reddit...

Josh

That's not really the right word... to English.SE!

drachenstern

@Josh which word?

Josh

@drachenstern pensive

drachenstern

@Josh what did you intend to imply?

Dan Grossman

You are a paid member of the "lame stream media" you're always referring to, mom. Fire all of your ghost writers and tweet for yourself :(

Tweeted by Bristol_Palin on January 9, 2011 at 6:47 PM

Kev

12:21 AM

@Pollyanna i have the nd plus and the adafruit motor control board arriving this week. the kids lego technic is getting an upgrade :)

Josh

@drachenstern that I'm sitting here, anxiously awaiting the results of my server migration and thinking of my next move

@DanGrossman LOL!

Pollyanna

@DanGrossman - hehehe.

drachenstern

@Josh then anxious? fretful?

Pollyanna

@kev - That sounds like a bit of fun! You'll have to report back on it. I think it's great that all these electronic kits are coming out aimed at a primarily programming audience.

drachenstern

@Josh next move in a game or for the servers?

Dan Grossman

12:24 AM

I still need to watch that Arduino documentary...

Pollyanna

@drachenstern I'm eagerly waiting for his post on english.se so I can answer it...

Josh

@drachenstern in the game of my servers, LOL

@Pollyanna Haha, I was kidding, but now that you mention it maybe I should, LOL

drachenstern

@Pollyanna I've got his account on E.SE pulled up as well, I just hit refresh a moment ago ;)

Pollyanna

@Josh Alright, you've got two people ready to go! Which answer will you choose? Who will be defeated!

Dan Grossman

Wow, witnessing the creation of a new island funzug.com/index.php/nature/…

Kev

12:26 AM

@Pollyanna defo...hopefully the young lad will get interested

Dan Grossman

List of common misconceptions

This list of common or popular misconceptions describes documented, widespread ideas and beliefs which are fallacious, misleading, or otherwise flawed. History Ancient to Early Modern history * In ancient Rome, Romans did not build rooms called vomitoria in which to purge themselves after a meal. Vomitoria were tunnels underneath the seats of a stadium, through which crowds entered and exited. * There is no evidence that Vikings wore horns on their helmets. * There is no evidence that Iron maidens were invented in the Middle Ages or even used for torture, despite being shown so in so...

Kev

@DanGrossman what documentary was that? you got a link?

Dan Grossman

arduinothedocumentary.org

Pollyanna

@Kev yeah, kids are funny. Sometimes they couldn't care less, other times they are completely engrossed. Good luck!

drachenstern

@Pollyanna bah, he's normally one of those "I answered it by phrasing the question" types :p

Dan Grossman

12:26 AM

scroll down for the videos

Josh

0

Q: What's a better word for "pensive" in this situation?

I just used the word "pensive" to describe the feeling of a system administrator's current state, but I don't think that's the right word. I am trying to describe the feeling of waiting for the results of a task; a feeling of anxious anticipation, hoping things will work out for the best but plan...

word-choice

radp

@Josh 'worried'

Josh

it's more complicated than worried...

Kev

@Pollyanna I know, I keep asking him how he's getting on with his Python for Kids book and he somehow wiggles into a new subject...but you can only try

radp

@Josh I know. That's why I replied here and not on the site.

Josh

12:29 AM

ah ok :-)

radp

"freehanded circledly worried"

Pollyanna

@Josh Pensive is a perfectly cromulent word to use in this situation.

Josh

@radp that's it!

@Pollyanna OK, thanks. I edited because I am not trying to convey sadness. not yet anyway ;-)

I'll be conveying sadness if the rsync fails, that's for sure!

sadness and... other emotions ;-)

radp

Discouraged yet hopeful?

Kev

@Josh do you have the feeling of embiggening doom?

Pollyanna

12:33 AM

@Josh - it implies anxiety, which some associate with negative feelings, and so there are those that think of it as sadness, or "soon to be sadness" but technically it's meant only to imply fixed thought on the outcome of a situation now outside one's control.

Josh

@Kev it's cPanel. So yes I have the feeling of embiggening doom... ;-)

@Pollyanna ok, great, I was correct in my [word-choice] then, thanks!

drachenstern

Oh Adam you should use Pollyanna more :p

Dan Grossman

►

drachenstern

It's a disconcerting switchup :p

Pollyanna

@Josh Don't hand out the thanks yet, some real english professor may slap me down.

3

radp

12:36 AM

frank skepticism

Josh

@Pollyanna HAHA ok :-)

Pollyanna

@drachenstern hehehe. I only chose pollyanna for the meta site because there are a few people who think I'm harming SO because I don't ever downvote.

Josh

Pollyanna

Pollyanna is a best-selling 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter that is now considered a classic of children's literature, with the title character's name becoming a popular term for someone with the same optimistic outlook. The book was such a success, that Porter soon produced a sequel, Pollyanna Grows Up (1915). Eleven more Pollyanna sequels, known as "Glad Books", were later published, most of them written by Elizabeth Borton or Harriet Lummis Smith. Further sequels followed, including Pollyanna Plays the Game by Colleen L. Reece, published in 1997. Pollyanna has been adapted for film ...

drachenstern

@Pollyanna haha, I know, I hear a few more stories just by hanging in the tavern, but still, it's disconcerting :p

Josh

> Pollyanna's philosophy of life centers on what she calls "The Glad Game", an optimistic attitude she learned from her father.

there's a better quote than that but I can't find it now

I remember seeing the same thing over a year ago and wondering where Adam's name came from :-)

here it is:

> The novel's success brought the term "Pollyanna" (along with the adjective "pollyannaish" and the noun "Pollyannaism") into the language to describe someone who seems always to be able to find something to be "glad" about no matter what circumstances arise.

right @Pollyanna?

Pollyanna

12:39 AM

@Josh - Ayup, that'd be the definition.

Is it just me, or does the english.se site feel wrong? The question title is connected to the page header, which is obviously shadowed to the page, so it's separate, thus the title seems to be part of the header, and not part of the question? Does that make any sense?

drachenstern

Is it odd of us to go to such lengths to try to figure out the right word to use here? :p

@Pollyanna actually I like it better than I do SO </blaspheme>

radp

@drachenstern SO does that to people.

Josh

@Pollyanna That's a very good call

@drachenstern I flagged this as offensive

@drachenstern I caved into peer pressure, to be honest ;-)

drachenstern

@Josh lol, thanks I appreciate that

Pollyanna

@drachenstern no, not at all. I've been trying to strengthen my own vocabulary. I don't have as much time to read as I did many moons ago, and I can actually feel my vocabulary becoming smaller. It's annoying.

Josh

12:43 AM

@Pollyanna I can relate to that feeling

drachenstern

@Pollyanna <insert something about "Shakespeare's vocabulary">

Pollyanna

Ah, I see the problem. The title has a nice boundary, but the boundary top is hidden behind the page header. Therefore I feel like there's more page content I'm missing because I'm only seeing part of the implied full boundary box around the page title.

@drachenstern I'll admit, it is very pretty. It would take some getting used to, though.

radp

@Pollyanna btw is was made by commission

Josh

@Jin! @Pollyanna has a complaint! ;-)

Pollyanna

I'm going to post on the meta.english and let the people school me in web design and good taste. It's not a big deal, but it bothers me, so...

radp

12:45 AM

check the relevant meta question

later

drachenstern

@Pollyanna quotations.about.com/b/2006/04/22/…

Pollyanna

@radp - bye

drachenstern

@Pollyanna I actually expected someone to insert a [Citation Needed] because it's generally regarded that way

Josh

@radp have a good one!

my pensivity may be changing into full blown anxiety, looks like I may have a looooong night ahead:

[root@df04 home]# time rsync -av --progress -x --exclude OLDACCTS 172.16.130.15:/home/ ./
receiving file list ...
777000 files...

mootinator

status-citation-needed

drachenstern

12:50 AM

0

A: Do we want questions to be migrated from SO to DBA while in beta?

It is not allowed to migrate questions to a site that is in beta, so no.

what does Jeff mean in the comments, why not?

Dan Grossman

Maybe because the beta can be closed, and you'd have to figure out where to move everything back?

Michael Mrozek

@drachenstern Probably because you're still defining what's on-topic, and if you end up folding you dragged those questions down with you

It used to be impossible; now mods can do it, but I imagine he'd get mad if they did

drachenstern

@MichaelMrozek that's what I figured

I worry sometimes that he'll remember my username and be all <smite>drachenstern</smite> :p

Michael Mrozek

Oh, me too; I'm quite annoying on meta

radp

@drachenstern *burninate

Pollyanna

12:54 AM

@Josh I almost feel sorry for you, but I did my time as a sysadmin. Suck it up, and be a man!

4

Josh

LOL

@Pollyanna Don't feel sorry for me. Just wish me luck ;-)

Pollyanna

@Josh Good luck!

0

Q: The title border is partially hidden by the page header

I'm exposed to the interface for the first time, and I have this strange feeling that the page is incomplete somehow. After scratching my head and considering the layout and design, I realized that the question title border is partly hidden by the drop-shadowed page header. It looks incomplete...