firespeaker.org

(01:22:06) sushain: ah who needs grad students

(01:22:09) sushain: if you have 2TB of RAM

(00:15:16) alexr: ... but it's looking like -- and this is kind of interesting -- using an HMM is actually slightly worse than always just taking the most-frequent-translation.

(00:16:04) [jonathan]: HMM?

(00:16:08) alexr: hidden markov model.

(00:16:36) [jonathan]: ah

(00:17:14) [jonathan]: hrm

(00:17:17) alexr: No, hmm.

(01:41:16) Aaron B: they are like, the crappiest, lowest quality, processed horribleness

(01:41:19) Aaron B: but they are so good

(01:41:33) Aaron B: you know what i mean

(01:41:36) jonorthwash: yes

(01:41:41) jonorthwash: I'm a grad student too you know

(17:30:52) spectie: you know, ((we) = you) could write a better bashkir grammar than the one in TTL

(17:30:55) spectie: in a week

(17:31:31) firespeaker: I'm aware, but I don't know bashqort

(17:31:47) spectie: neither do the people writing the grammar!

(10:55:17) spectie: it's saturday

(10:55:29) spectie: i am permitted to eat breakfast of blinnchiki and nutella after 4pm

(21:24:01) [redacted]: ok, time for operation "holy crap my sink is so full of dishes it might be a breeding ground for new forms of life so i'd better do something about it"

(21:24:15) [redacted]: (good operation names are SO hard to come up with these days)

(21:43:46) Aaron B: and H&R are like "um, you got peanut butter in my chocolate; NO, you got CHOCOLATE in my peanut butter"

(21:43:51) Aaron B: except they don't like Reese's

(21:44:04) Aaron B: so they're grumpy about it

(21:44:19) Aaron B: basically they're like "phono is a completely arbitrary, abstract computation system; anything else = lame"

...

(21:46:37) Aaron B: lol, sorry

(21:46:50) Aaron B: sometimes i need to anthropomorphize complex theoretical issues

(23:41:30) [redacted]: i have to present 30-40 min on "the status of your qualifying paper" for our qual paper workshop

(23:41:44) [anon]: the status of my QP is "ummmmmmmmm"

(23:41:51) [anon]: it's hard to hold that out for 30-40 min

(01:06:43) kesuari: (there's some people who manage to study the psycholinguistics of generative grammar, but i think that's like studying the physics of alchemy)

(01:03:16) kesuari: it's very difficult to say "psycholinguistics" differently from "psycho linguistics", and a lot of people think that's an apt description of me/what i do

(15:56:08) Aaron B: being a syntactician for the year is messing up my brain

(03:00:00) Аймона: i was sort of writing this cover letter. i mean, why on earth you would need a cover letter for fin. aid from the person who comes from KG

(03:00:05) Аймона: KG speaks for itself

(00:57:37) Hannah: i don't understand why people can't pay me to cook and listen to music.

(21:58:30) Hannah: dude, i get nutrition. not when i eat mac&cheese, though :P

(22:50:20) Aaron B: i'm trying to right the wrongs committed to the world with my undergrad thesis

(22:50:32) Aaron B: by writing something that actually makes sense, on basically the same topic

(23:14:35) Aaron B: i was at the dept from 9-6, had ice cream for dinner, and have been working since, excluding a few minutes when i fell afk (=asleep face-on keyboard)

…

(23:16:10) [me]: ooh though, ice cream

(23:16:18) Aaron B: yeah, i know, right?

(23:16:38) Aaron B: cookie dough

(23:17:05) [me]: I have mint chocolate chip

(23:17:17) Aaron B: but does yours have peanut butter in it?

(23:17:22) Aaron B: mine didn't, until it did

(23:17:28) Aaron B: but then it became better than yours

(23:18:40) [me]: that would make me so sick

(23:18:54) Aaron B: i feel sick right now, but that's the only reason i'm not laying down --

(23:18:59) Aaron B: because if i did, i'd barf

(23:19:07) Aaron B: it's me keep-working mechanism ;)

(23:19:14) Aaron B: (not really, but it sounded too good to pass up that story)

(17:23:23) [me]: "More data would have to be gathered to determine what the underlying cause of these dichotomies is"

(17:23:37) [me]: (is there anything you'd change with that?)

(17:24:31) kesuari: (yes, of course i would; i find academic written language and the spoken language that is essentially its read version incredibly hard to understand)

(17:24:49) kesuari: (but unfortunately making it just normal english wouldn't be thesis-like enough)

(17:24:50) syljwesandhr: (so what would you change?)

(17:25:11) kesuari: "if we want to work out what actually causing these differences, we'll have to get more data"

(13:31:11) Aaron B: i've taken to calling lots of things adventures now

(13:31:17) Aaron B: like, if i get lost -- that's an adventure

(13:31:30) Aaron B: forgot to buy something at the grocery and have to go back -- an adventure

(13:31:35) Aaron B: it makes me feel like my life is exciting

(13:31:57) Aaron B: i haven't yet gotten so desperate that i need to "adventure" to the living room

(13:32:00) Aaron B: but that day may come

(23:21:17) Michael: i have to actually start writing the journal paper version of my thesis soon

(23:21:33) Michael: before i forget what i did

(12:17:30) Michael: although crazy professors are pretty cool

(12:17:35) Michael: i think you'd make a pretty good crazy prof

(22:43:31) Colum: you know, I think professors are scary.

(23:23:16) Sarah: My brain is going in circles right now. Thesis ---> Cleaning ---> Teaching ---> Thesis ---> Repeat

(23:24:22) Sarah: Oh, and throw music popping in randomly.

(23:25:04) Sarah: I'm silly to the point of serenading cans of hair mousse.

(23:27:24) Sarah: What's sad is I'm not joking.

(23:30:47) Sarah: I serenade and dance with the cats too.

(23:33:54) Sarah: Is it bad that this is what keeps me sane?

(20:44:48) Michael: man.. that'll suck when computational linguists have to start getting AI subjects approval

(20:45:21) Michael: "I didn't mean to unplug my computer!! honest!"

(15:15:12) [anon1]: no CIA for you. better finish the PhD

(15:15:27) [anon2]: why do you keep denying me the government jobs?

(15:15:35) [anon2]: they must have a pretty interesting file on me already

(15:16:16) [anon1]: on me too i would imagine

(15:16:48) [anon1]: if we ever applied we would fail the background check -- they wouldn't have the energy to complete it! :)

(02:17:23) Aaron B: i wish i was the sky god

(02:17:32) Aaron B: i'd get tenure real fast

(02:17:45) Aaron B: "it says here on your CV that you're the Sky God?"

(02:17:49) Aaron B: "yeah, that's correct"

(02:17:53) Aaron B: BAM

(02:17:57) Aaron B: Tenure

(22:29:20) Michael: she has some best friends from HS that she hasn't told yet 'cause they are really busy

(22:29:37) [me]: but not busy enough to not be on facebook

(22:30:23) Michael: no.

(22:30:29) Michael: who is that busy, honestly :)

(22:30:39) Michael: i was only that busy maybe 2 days this quarter

(13:06:16) Derek: I wanted to say thanks for speaking Kazakh (etc) around me all the time

(13:06:41) Derek: I think it's giving me a big edge in my Uighur class right now

(13:07:28) Derek: Turkic seems familiar to me instead of something strange, which is something the other students I would say definitely lack ;)

(21:26:54) [Sarah]: The students in here were like,"Can you convince him to let us go early?" I was like,"I don't get to go early with my class with him so y'all don't get to go early."

(21:28:30) [Sarah]: They were like,"You have classes???"

(21:43) Tristan: you realise of course that what you're doing here is filing bugreports for linguistic theories, which are kind of like computer programs

(21:43) Tristan: so the "maintainers" are probably going to call you mad

me: "Yeah, it's Low Germanic, but not Northern."

Derek: "Huh? Is it a language named after some city or something?"

me: "Nope, it's named after a continent."

Derek: "A continent?!"

me: "Yep. Go back to your room, continue grading, and in 30 seconds you'll figure it out and be like ‘Dammit!’"

(16:51:22) Derek: LOL

(16:51:24) Derek: you bastard

(16:52:04) [me]: told you :-P

(16:52:22) Derek: *shaking fist*

(00:42:03) Derek: I found a way to explain language change to our students

(00:42:31) Derek: Languages start out cool and get less cool with time, unless the change involves gaining velars or uvulars

(05:34:00) kesuari: yeah. i get really bored when i’ve nothing to do; i simply can’t procrastinate from *nothing*

(05:34:13) kesuari: soon as you give me work, then *bamn* i’m not doing it

(00:31:27) [me]: btw, safeway's website claims that this one is 24hours

(00:31:32) [me]: is it sketchy to go there at 1am?

(00:31:39) Derek: yes

(00:31:47) Derek: you're probably a crack dealer

(17:44:13) Jade Solitude: Looks like something only a Linguist, Anthropologist, or Folklorist would be interested in. =þ

(17:44:49) [me]: or any other scientist ;)

(03:28:52) [me]: mkay, yeah, I need to pack

(03:29:03) Derek: psh

(03:29:04) Derek: whatever

(03:29:10) Derek: just throw it all in a ball

(03:29:14) Derek: duct tape it up

(03:29:19) Derek: and roll it on the plane

(03:29:30) Derek: if you tell them its a bomb, they work faster you know

(02:00:05) Colum: well I did study for the final but I didn't know what I was studying so I don't consider that as "having studied"

(00:32:14) Colum: [...] I like the super abstract it-is-there-because-chomsky-says-it-is-there syntax.

21:00:07 [Aaron]: can i just skip from now 'til when i have tenure?

22:05:17 [Jess]: guess what i learned today

22:05:26 [Jonathan]: what?

22:05:36 [Jess]: the difference between competence and performance~!!!

…

22:05:53 [Jonathan]: so what's the difference?

22:06:29 [Jess]: narrow-minded wanna-be scientist linguists and bullshitty humanitarian science-doesn't-exist anthropologists?

23:07:44 [Aaron] (Autoreply): the library made noises at me, so i'm in shapiro doing work.

14:50:30 [sn withheld]: is it bad when I'm bored enough that getting to use the word 'efficacious' - in a hyphenated appositive no less - makes me happy? (as does using a hyphenated appositive to note the use of a hyphenated appositive)

18:03:03 [anon]: hell, I think I got more action in high school than at brandeis

20:09:20 [oberon]: You have sun dials because you hope the sun will show up. Without sun, sun dials don't work.

20:09:28 [oberon]: You have universities because you hope 18 year old women will show up.

20:09:31 [oberon]: Same basic argument.

04:29:42 [Tristan]: stupid 10 am is a time that shouldn't be allowed to exist.

18:05:22 [Tristan]: "songs about diachronic OT phonology"? you're mad.

06:11:54 [Aaron]: does this make sense:

06:11:55 [Aaron]: For the sake of differentiating between participants in the pre-recorded conversation (e.g. those who sat in the recording studio and conversed) and users who have downloaded and listened to the audio file via a technological media, the terms “participants” and “users” will be used throughout this paper, respectively.

06:12:48 [me]: yes, that's perfectly clear [to me]

06:13:00 [Aaron]: shit

06:13:03 [Aaron]: if it's clear to you

06:13:07 [Aaron]: then nobody else has a chance...

01:33:23 [me]: the commercial right before that one just now was a girl with a perfectly standard my-generation american accent, and I was admiring her very clear vowels. Enough so that I downloaded Praat.

01:34:11 [Tristan]: you're kidding me?

01:36:01 [Tristan]: "check out this girl's formants!"

02:26:13 [me]: meh. I'll do this later

02:26:29 [me]: more food

02:26:43 [Tristan]: food's always good

02:27:01 [Tristan]: that's why people spelt "food" and "good" with mostly the same letters, even tho they don't rhyme

02:27:23 [Tristan]: this nonsense about "phonetic drift" and "irregular splits" is just that.

16:02:46 devnullpenguin: they really shoulda called it phonology phest tho

(21:46:21) [me]: (yes, linguistics is science—it's predictive)

(21:46:50) [Aladnsane]: Then tell me how my ancestors will say 'indifferent' 500 years from now.

[02:50] Aaron B: well, by "famous" i mean "famous within the field"

[02:50] Aaron B: aka "my research funding hasn't been cut more than 70%"

[02:35] Aaron B: you finished your hw?

[02:35] Aaron B: you're all caught up?

[02:35] Aaron B: hold on, i need to look out my window

[02:35] Aaron B: nope, i don't see any pigs flying...

[02:35] Aaron B: maybe hell froze over?

[17:03] Aaron B: *dork*

[17:03] Aaron B: not that that's a bad thing, mind you

[17:03] Aaron B: given, i heard a radio ad and thought about phonological queues

(04:10:01) [me]: you mind/want your name cited?

(04:10:23) [me]: (by default, I'll say "Examples from personal communication with Christian Thalmann, 19 April, 2005.")

(04:11:17) Qatharsis: Cool. :)

(04:12:05) Qatharsis: Though "Christian 'm4st0r of teh univers' Thalmann" would be more proper. ;)

(05:04:45) Jess: no one's as bad as you

(05:04:58) [me]: yeah, I think I might even hold records

(05:05:13) [me]: one paper due in february turned in the day grades were due in may

(05:05:29) [me]: another final paper turned in early the next semester

(05:06:06) Jess: yep

(05:06:15) Jess: you get the procrastinator award

(01:26:33) Aaron B: let's focus here

(01:26:38) Aaron B: ihop

(01:26:43) Aaron B: we need to get a car

(01:26:56) Jonor Thwash: we could steal and hotwire one?

(01:27:09) Aaron B: yes!

(01:27:11) Aaron B: oh wait

(01:27:14) Aaron B: that's a "bad" idea

(21:14:08) Cem: dude im soo sleepy

(21:14:23) Cem: im like writing half of this shit in spanish for all i know

(16:28) Kesuari: i hate my uni. every time i find a journal article that might be vaguely useful, i get told that the library doesn't have that journal. stupid library

(16:28) [me]: typical, yeah

that's all unis + murhpey's law

which makes another law I guess

(16:29) Kesuari: mcleay's law? :)

(02:26:38) [me]: you staying up all night?

(02:28:22) Оберон: Probably

(02:28:24) Оберон: Bring cheese

(02:28:26) Оберон: I've got chocolate

(02:28:28) Оберон: oh, and bring root beer

(02:28:48) Оберон: Hell, bring whatever the fuck you want ;)

(02:28:54) Оберон: We can even boil some water and put it in my freezer

(02:29:01) Оберон: that should make it safe to drink when it cools

(04:02:52) [me]: well, it works in french, so I'll just italicise it and call it english

(22:14:23) Adam F: el mamut se murio

(22:14:25) Adam F: thats so sad lol

(22:14:40) [me]: yeah, I mean, he got aids and he did 10 lines of coke...

(22:14:50) [me]: what else was he going to do afterwards?

(22:14:52) [me]: get a Ph.D.?

(22:15:04) Adam F: well he could go to brandeis

(04:17:24) Kesuari: o ... kay... i have come to the conclusion that you, sir, are insane, and forget the difference between yourself and the rest of the world :)

(05:24:51) Aarón: you know you should stop working on a paper when you write:

(05:24:53) Aarón: Had Schwarzenegger been an author rather than a film-star, those who were literate might have been more likely to vote for him than those who could not read.

(23:39:00) Mark: I always wanted to be a toy monkey. such a carefree life

(23:39:02) Mark: no homework

(23:39:19) Mark: get to see all sorts of exotic tourist destinations

(16:50:20) Оберон: in the past two days I've eaten...a muffin

(16:50:24) Оберон: maybe that's why I feel tired.

(16:50:31) Оберон: half a muffin, really

(16:50:56) Оберон: now that I think about it, it's odd I passed max300 on a 36 hour caloric intake of probably about 500 C

(02:22:15) Mark: what kind of pizza is cheeseless pizza?

(02:22:22) [me]: what Kathryn eats

(02:22:32) [me]: I've had sauceless pizza... it's pretty good I guess

(02:22:48) Mark: yeah i wouldnt want to eat non real pizza

(02:23:28) Mark: Non-real pizza is defined as (pizza)i where i=sqrt(-1), or the (-cheese) factor

(15:45:32) Qatharsis: I'm pessimistic about electrodynamics.

(22:22:26) VerdanTForesT: ok, time for some histizzorical linguistissizin'

(13:28:38) Kathryn: well, i'm going to shower so i can reconstruct proto-romance

[21:09:30] Verdant Forest: ooh i want to go to the mentality of apes too

(05:52:06) [me]: you sleeping at all?

(05:52:46) [me]: well, whatever, I'm gonna get two hours or so in.. night

(07:51:14) [oberon]: lol

(07:51:14) [me] : Away: asleep

(07:51:14) [oberon]: yeah

(07:51:17) [oberon]: I was asleep

(08:35:23) [me]: then you should've put up an away message

(08:35:23) [oberon] : Class? At this hour?

(08:35:36) [me]: no, not for another half an hour!

(13:13:47) [oberon]: wasn't feeling well

(13:13:53) [oberon]: probably from sleep deprivation

(13:14:06) [oberon]: but definitely wasn't going to sit through russian with satan playing the bongos in my head.

(13:45:54) [oberon] logged out.

(02:30:41) Luna Camilla: i'm gonna go to sleep so i don't forget the psych i never learned during the exam tomorrow