LaLa's Laughably Silly Random Banter Thread - RB #158

[Teddy]

I went to bed. Slept 10 hours. Watched a movie.

11 hours later.

RB is still on the same page, what madness is this?

Now it isn't.

But, yeah, time flows strangely around these parts. There's no idea in trying to predict it.

ION:
Yesterday's weather was promised to be bad but turned out really good. Today's weather was promised to be bad and turned out to be... bad. Sigh...

[AtlanteanTroll]

Actually, right now a large part of the Internet is watching it, it's not just here. 4chan went crazy over it.

Sadly, this explains why my Senior friends are going nuts. I want to hit them over the head with a club.

[LaZodiac]

The good news, Atlantean, is that ponies are replacing zombies and vampires now. Which is good, they were getting REALLY overplayed.

[AtlanteanTroll]

The good news, Atlantean, is that ponies are replacing zombies and vampires now. Which is good, they were getting REALLY overplayed.

Ehh, IDC. I still enjoy L4D2. Twilight doesn't count as a Vampire ... story.

[Teddy]

The weather went better in the afternoon, and the clouds even managed to break up enough for some bright and warm sunlight to shine through for a short time. Also, while I was out, I saw a little girl on a tricycle stubbornly kicking her legs backward while shouting "Faster!", whereupon the tricycle promptly stopped. Again and again.

[Zaydos]

Oh yeah, missed stating this yesterday.

Ran 5k. Got 1st place in age group. Was only person in age group though

A man makes a code
That act makes the differences
Between man and beast

[Perenelle]

Oh yeah, missed stating this yesterday.

Ran 5k. Got 1st place in age group. Was only person in age group though

A man makes a code
That act makes the differences
Between man and beast

Yay!
Pfff, It's still first, just don't tell anyone how many people were in your age group.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Rassa frassin' rassa rassum academia.
So there's this dude, John Gower, born and wrote his most famous stuff in the fourteenth-century. Everyone knows his Confessio, but this week is a 'Write On Something That Isn't His Confessio Week', so I choose his Mirour de l'Omme, also known as the Speculum Meditantis, and thank someone I don't have to read it in Anglo-Norman!
However, there's a dearth of writing on said poem. Just typing Mirour de l'Omme into JSTOR gives me a measly 130 results.
Let's compare that with the Confessio Amantis: 1272.
. . .
Yah.
Seriously, academia?
Just because something's The Work of someone, doesn't mean you should ignore the rest of his stuff. By the by, much of the stuff returned after typing in Mirour de l'Omme is either reviews or a throwaway reference to said poem in an essay about Spenser or CHaucer or Whoever.

And I like his Mirour de l'Omme. Shame the translation's about £65 on amazon. I'd actually by this poem. Actually, all this dude's work is hard to find a cheap copy of online.
[/crankiness over lack of resources]

And that's without narrowing my search down to the topic I want in particular.

[MoonCat]

Actually, right now a large part of the Internet is watching it, it's not just here. 4chan went crazy over it.

Why? As far as I can see, it's some silly little animation with unrealistic ponies that get over romanticized. It sounds AWFUL.

[factotum]

So there's this dude, John Gower, born and wrote his most famous stuff in the fourteenth-century. Everyone knows his Confessio, but this week is a 'Write On Something That Isn't His Confessio Week', so I choose his Mirour de l'Omme, also known as the Speculum Meditantis, and thank someone I don't have to read it in Anglo-Norman!

And they say the syllabus is getting easier...? I don't recall doing anything like that in my day!

[ZombyWoof]

I do have to say that poetry is my least favorite form of literature. But hey to each their own, right?

[CurlyKitGirl]

And they say the syllabus is getting easier...? I don't recall doing anything like that in my day!

Weeeeell, I am in unimaversity. And doing a pretty hard course which is actually a subdivision of my degree field.
And technically I could read it in Anglo-Norman if I wanted. Kind of. It's a mix of Norman French and Middle English, so it's not exactly evil.
And I do want to take a Medieval French option next year . . .

Point is! Is that everyone's all het up on his one 30 000 line poem, so they forget his other two massive poems. Because they're in Latin and Anglo-Norman.
And in all fairness, it's only for one essay. Not like I'm doing an entire paper on this one poem.
Ugh.
I hate not being able to cite things.
And to make it worse, those six pages of results on JSTOR? Many of them (roughly two-thirds of the results) are reviews, nothing relevant or lists of front and back matter!
Excuse me while I go headdesk a wall.

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

Point is! Is that everyone's all het up on his one 30 000 line poem, so they forget his other two massive poems. Because they're in Latin and Anglo-Norman.
And in all fairness, it's only for one essay. Not like I'm doing an entire paper on this one poem.
Ugh.
I hate not being able to cite things.
And to make it worse, those six pages of results on JSTOR? Many of them (roughly two-thirds of the results) are reviews, nothing relevant or lists of front and back matter!
Excuse me while I go headdesk a wall.

Can't you raid a library or two? They must have something in Oxford somewhere.

[Heliomance]

Why? As far as I can see, it's some silly little animation with unrealistic ponies that get over romanticized. It sounds AWFUL.

See, that's what I thought. Then I started watching it. Yes, it's cheesy. That's to be expected, it's written for preteen girls primarily. However, it's also self aware and utterly hilarious. Apparent;y, one of the stated design goals was to make a young girls' show with strong female protagonists who aren't obsessed with boys and fashion, and that males and grownups can watch without wanting to shoot themselves. They succeeded admirably.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Can't you raid a library or two? They must have something in Oxford somewhere.

Kind-of but nope!
See, for the students of Oxcamfordbridge you can access only a few libraries out of the seventy or so each university has.
You can access your college library(ies), your faculty library, the Bod (or the equivalent) and a few general/all purpose/language libraries.
So let's go as follows:
My main college library has about ten shelves for Chaucer and Chaucer criticism; about three or so shelves of Langland and Langland criticism, and a whole seven books on Gower. The four volume Complete Works and three Selections from Gower's Works.
My faculty library has about three bookcases for Chaucer and criticism thereof; three-quarters of a bookcase for Langland etc; and three and a bit shelves for Gower. Several of these books are entirely in German or French (and in one case Japanese . . . ?), many of the critical works are either concordances, annotations for said concordances or actual useful things.
For the Confessio. Or love.
While there are useful books, they're also often taken out early. Or there's maybe half a useful chapter in the midst of the book, and the essay title listed in the contents page isn't all that clear.
The faculty library also closes early on weekends.
The Bod is a reference only library. Which doesn't fetch books from the stacks/salt mines on weekends. And closes at five on Sundays.

Eh. I'll do fine. A good third of an essay analysing structural division and balance for the Mirour, a smallish comparison to the very similar (in terms of structure) Confessio; link the structural division to the division of the World amongst the Vices, and the division/unity of man.
That's what? Two-thirds of an essay perhaps?
And at least I do have a few things I found online just now at not-JSTOR.

[ZombyWoof]

CRACKOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
GOOD LUCK TODAY!
*giggles and squees*

[Vonriel]

Okay, what is JSTOR? And your woes about poetry are lost upon this engineer. I'm gonna go back to figuring out how to create something to blow up what the civil engineer friend of mine is gonna design.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is produced by the same people who did Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and The Powerpuff Girls. Now, both of those are incredibly strong credentials for a cartoon, and while the description of the show doesn't make it sound too good, I thought it was pretty awesome. I don't watch it religiously, but it reminds me of the awesome cartoons of the '90s.

Edit: Oops, forgot.

I am the terror that flaps in the night!

Spoiler

Show

This is the best thing I've seen all week.

[MoonCat]

See, that's what I thought. Then I started watching it. Yes, it's cheesy. That's to be expected, it's written for preteen girls primarily. However, it's also self aware and utterly hilarious. Apparent;y, one of the stated design goals was to make a young girls' show with strong female protagonists who aren't obsessed with boys and fashion, and that males and grownups can watch without wanting to shoot themselves. They succeeded admirably.

Meh. I hate cheese.

[ZombyWoof]

Why? As far as I can see, it's some silly little animation with unrealistic ponies that get over romanticized. It sounds AWFUL.

Yeah it sounds awful but the characters are cleverly designed and some of the moments are chock full of metahumor.

EDIT: Just watch an episode. Then you can hate it. but if you hate it before hand that's called prejudice Don't judge a cover by its book!

[Fifty-Eyed Fred]

Okay, what is JSTOR?

An online collection of academic journals, and a useful source indeed for niggly bits of criticism in English. I use it quite often.
There are of course other online resources to be used, which Curly apparently has: "not-JSTOR" to be precise.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Okay, what is JSTOR? And your woes about poetry are lost upon this engineer. I'm gonna go back to figuring out how to create something to blow up what the civil engineer friend of mine is gonna design.

This place. Many, many, many academic articles in every discipline.
Oh, sometimes I envy you scientific types with your lazors and your blowing things up.
I just get to read lots.

An online collection of academic journals, and a useful source indeed for niggly bits of criticism in English. I use it quite often.
There are of course other online resources to be used, which Curly apparently has: "not-JSTOR" to be precise.

Uhuh.
Google Books and Google Scholar are surprisingly good actually. As is Springerlink, and a few other places. TEAMs for one.
But JSTOR's literally the go-to site.
I think I'll aim for 1600 minimum this week. Wish I had more quotations. Never enough time.
Still, can work on the morrow also. For little bit.

[ZombyWoof]

No more lightning and/or thunder.

[Vonriel]

Good grief, that place reminds me of a government website, so many acronyms. So.. many.. acronyms...

You know, you say that like getting to read lots is a bad thing. Also, we don't just blow things up and use lazors, we also set things on fire, set things on fire with lazors, blow things up with fire, blow things up with lazors, and use lazors to start fires to blow things up.

[HalfTangible]

Some musing from the myriad macrocosm of my mind...

How would time travel affect copyright laws?

[Pentachoron]

This place. Many, many, many academic articles in every discipline.
Oh, sometimes I envy you scientific types with your lazors and your blowing things up.
I just get to read lots.

Don't envy us too much, I had a course in Molecular Genetics that was just reading every published piece of the primary literature in the subject and then being tested over the information contained therein. Once you get above the 300 level (do other countries use the course number system? If not, the 300 level is about where a second year university student should be), there's a significant amount of reading involved.

[LaZodiac]

Some musing from the myriad macrocosm of my mind...

How would time travel affect copyright laws?

Depends on what you mean by affect. If you wonder if you can go back in time and copyright something before it gets copyrighted, it doesn't affect anything because it was going to be copyrighted anyway. If you bring it back further then the day it was supposed tobe copy righted, you'll return to a time period where that item in quesion was copyrighted earlier then you remember, and any changes that would bring would then happen.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Good grief, that place reminds me of a government website, so many acronyms. So.. many.. acronyms...

It's a weird site that in other ways too; you can find journals going back to the late nineteenth-century or earlier in some fields.
And yes, the acronyms tend to annoy one even if they do generally signify good things. PMLA for one. Lovely journal that.

You know, you say that like getting to read lots is a bad thing. Also, we don't just blow things up and use lazors, we also set things on fire, set things on fire with lazors, blow things up with fire, blow things up with lazors, and use lazors to start fires to blow things up.

So no blowing lazors up while they're on fire to start even larger fires to make more things blow up?
My conceptions of science are ruined.

Don't envy us too much, I had a course in Molecular Genetics that was just reading every published piece of the primary literature in the subject and then being tested over the information contained therein. Once you get above the 300 level (do other countries use the course number system? If not, the 300 level is about where a second year university student should be), there's a significant amount of reading involved.

(Britland's an odd place when it comes to university education, some of the older universities ignore how the younger ones list their modules (or if they number them like that), so as far as I know, most universities don't do the number system.
For me at least, you have stuff you can do in your first year (Prelims/Mods), which can later be taken as options in your final two or three years (Honours Mods Finals), and then there's stuff you can take for your Finals. And as each term tends to be a new paper option (exam for Finals) it's only the writing experience that bumps up.
Unless of course one of your later options further specialises on top of one you've already done in a way that doesn't break exam regulations)
Well, Molecular Genetics is a more theoretical, less explodey science in general.
Probably you could splice genes together to create UNHOLY DEMONS THE LIKES OF WHICH MAN HAS NEVER BEFORE SEEN!!!!! if you tried really hard though. Right?
It's just that my most sciencey friend hasn't even opened either of the two textbooks he bought at the start of his first year (we're finishing our second at the mo') and he spends most of his time doing equations and playing with lazors.
Or liquid nitrogen.
He once speculated about putting his right hand into said substance. And yes, he is right-handed.
Luckily my friends and I quickly disabused him of that idea.

[Pentachoron]

(Britland's an odd place when it comes to university education, some of the older universities ignore how the younger ones list their modules (or if they number them like that), so as far as I know, most universities don't do the number system.
For me at least, you have stuff you can do in your first year (Prelims/Mods), which can later be taken as options in your final two or three years (Honours Mods Finals), and then there's stuff you can take for your Finals. And as each term tends to be a new paper option (exam for Finals) it's only the writing experience that bumps up.
Unless of course one of your later options further specialises on top of one you've already done in a way that doesn't break exam regulations)

Interesting, I was looking at studying over in the UK at one point, but the interest didn't last long enough to even really look at their educational system.

Probably you could splice genes together to create UNHOLY DEMONS THE LIKES OF WHICH MAN HAS NEVER BEFORE SEEN!!!!! if you tried really hard though. Right?

Nah, they don't really teach you that until you go to post-grad school. I'm just a few semesters from a bachelors though. I have made E. coli that glows in the dark though. Unfortunately the bachelors will have to wait until I've gotten money from the US Air Force so I can afford to finish that degree (and probably go ahead and pick up the second one in either mechanical or electrical engineering that I want, since they will be giving more money for college than I need.)

It's just that my most sciencey friend hasn't even opened either of the two textbooks he bought at the start of his first year (we're finishing our second at the mo') and he spends most of his time doing equations and playing with lazors.
Or liquid nitrogen.
He once speculated about putting his right hand into said substance. And yes, he is right-handed.
Luckily my friends and I quickly disabused him of that idea.

True, the first couple years aren't very reading intensive, mostly lab work. Give him another year or so, though. He'll still have the same amount of lab work to do, but he'll also have to read constantly, or at least go over his notes. Plus the papers, My second year I did a 20 page paper on MRSA.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Interesting, I was looking at studying over in the UK at one point, but the interest didn't last long enough to even really look at their educational system.

I blame history myself. The two oldest universities have enough clout and tradition they can pretty much do what they want as far as courses and course structure go. And university structure for that matter.
All the other universities are veritable upstarts! Especially those ghastly former polytechnics. Look at them, sneaking into our private parties, acting as if they have the right to be there dressed in jeans of all things! JEANS!
Nothing like a wee bit of elitist snobbery to confuse people looking to study here.

Nah, they don't really teach you that until you go to post-grad school. I'm just a few semesters from a bachelors though. I have made E. coli that glows in the dark though. Unfortunately the bachelors will have to wait until I've gotten money from the US Air Force so I can afford to finish that degree (and probably go ahead and pick up the second one in either mechanical or electrical engineering that I want, since they will be giving more money for college than I need.)

Well, glow in the dark bacteria are pretty neat. I think one of my biology friends did that this year. Last year? I forget. Not important anyway. You get to tamper with the DNA of living things for your own amusement (theoretically).
Eh?
How can you stop doing a degree? Didn't know such a thing was even possible. And wow, you get money that you don't have to pay back? And enough to do a second degree?!
Allow me to express the emotion of envy.
. . .
Argh.
I need to start researching my post-grad and post-grad funding too. Now I'm sad.
And based on the opinion of an utter stranger, Electrical Engineering sounds fun; give that a go.
That, combined with your experience in perverting the laws of biology means you'll be in great shape during the inevitable Mad Scientist phase.

True, the first couple years aren't very reading intensive, mostly lab work. Give him another year or so, though. He'll still have the same amount of lab work to do, but he'll also have to read constantly, or at least go over his notes. Plus the papers, My second year I did a 20 page paper on MRSA.

I think I'll enjoy that when it happens. I think he's out of practice with reading.
I do pity his workload though, he has about six to eight problem sheets a week for each tutorial he does; and he doesn't like problem sheets.
Verra' tricky and involve many Greek letters.
Just looking at them make me phase out.
Heh. Reminds me of last year when we were sitting out Mods. We're allowed to take out exam papers with us, so I had a shufty at his. I played a game with it actually.
How Many Words Into A Question Can I Get Before I'm Lost?
Anywhere between two words and an entire sentence. not that I ever actually comprehend the sentence I just read, but still.
And at least he could read and understand every question in my paper. And even have a few vague ideas about how to answer as well.
Long story short, and way too late, the sciencey things are extremely exclusive, whereas at least you can stab wildly in the late afternoon sun at my subject. Usually.
Getting back in track though; that sounds like fun actually. That paper you wrote. I don't know he'll have to do that though, he's a Physics student. Probably some project work though. From scratch.

[Pentachoron]

Eh?
How can you stop doing a degree? Didn't know such a thing was even possible. And wow, you get money that you don't have to pay back? And enough to do a second degree?!
Allow me to express the emotion of envy.

Well you stop doing a degree because the school pulls your financial aid, for having been in university too long, and you can't afford to pay for it yourself.

And yeah if you do 4 years in the US military you get what's called the post-9/11 GI Bill which gives me 4 years of coverage up to the cost of the most expensive state funded university. Normally that would only be enough for one degree, but because of the amount of coursework I have completed, I can complete my Molecular Biology one in less than a year, and I have all the general education and math requirements needed for an engineering one already done, so I could get that done in the remaining time as I'd only have to take the major courses. My history with university is...complicated. There's been a lot of changes of major/course of study.