2014.04.27 01:00 - This Sunday Morning

The Guardian for this meeting was No Self. The comments are by No Self.

Alessa Tzal: Good moaning :)
Wol Euler: hello qt, alessa
Qt Core: Hi Wol, Alessa
Alessa Tzal: Hiya QT
Wol Euler: how are we all this Sunday morning?
Alessa Tzal: Fiddling with FS it's playing silly buggers again
Qt Core: Quite good, you, WOl ?
Alessa Tzal: Lady in red
Wol Euler: making tea (no coffee in the house :(
Alessa Tzal: Oh my
Alessa Tzal: This is a first
Wol Euler: well, my usual supplier has either moved to an undisclosed location or simply closed down
Alessa Tzal: I'm just drinking mine
Alessa Tzal: Oh dear
Wol Euler: and I don't feel like buying any old packaged crap from a supermarket
Wol Euler: but I don't know where to go for non-crap coffee
Alessa Tzal: Did they say they were moving?
Wol Euler: no
Alessa Tzal: How about a non crap coffee shop?
Wol Euler: and there's no sign in the shop window (which stands empty)
Alessa Tzal: Weird
Wol Euler: non-crap coffee shop is indeed the desired outcome, but strangely enough there is no such category in the Yellow Pages
Alessa Tzal: Really?
Wol Euler nods.
Wol Euler: hard to belive, what?
Alessa Tzal: I'm schocked
Alessa Tzal: And shocked too
Alessa Tzal: (German version maybe)
Wol Euler smiles.
Qt Core: they have some weird categories but not the basic needs of life ones
Qt Core: ;-)
Alessa Tzal: So is there a general shortage of coffee houses in Stutt?
Wol Euler: there is a shortage, or at least a well-hidden-ness, of places selling coffee powder for making one's own coffee at home. There is an abundance of places to sit and drink same readymade
Qt Core: (yesterday i was at a fair with a few stands with dozen of different coffee/tea types
Alessa Tzal: You could have taken the laptop along and done it from there :p
Wol Euler: this is true, an I have done that in the past :)
Wol Euler: but the nearest one with wifi is twenty minutes away on foot
Alessa Tzal: Depends how bad you need the coffee I guess

--BELL--

Alessa Tzal: Well you have my sincere condolences in your plight
Wol Euler: thank you :)
Alessa Tzal: YW
Alessa Tzal: How's Milan today QT?
Qt Core: a little cloudy
Alessa Tzal: Yes, here too
Wol Euler: here three
Alessa Tzal: Hm, must be all over Europe
Alessa Tzal: Big cloud
Wol Euler: we've had one long thunderstorm, from Friday afternoon until midnight last night
Alessa Tzal: Wow
Wol Euler: mostly just noise, but occasional very intense downpours
Qt Core: luckily it is like that in Rome too, or people would be quite unconfortable after the long celebration
Alessa Tzal: It rained all day here Friday, awful
Qt Core: here it was a gorgeous sunny day
Alessa Tzal: Tou mean easter QT?
Qt Core: no, they are celebrating the late John XXIII and John Paul II today they are going to be "nominated" saints
Alessa Tzal: Oh great
Wol Euler: ah
Alessa Tzal: John XXIII was early 60s I think?
Alessa Tzal: The Vatican II bloke?
Qt Core: as as the ex-ope is present too they are calling this celebration "Two pope for two saints"
Qt Core: yes
Wol Euler: Ex-Pope Ratzinger dares to show his face?
Wol Euler: I thought he was going to retire and go away?
Alessa Tzal: Think was the same year I was born :p
Qt Core: yes, i believe it is the second time he's left (publicy) his new resdence
Alessa Tzal: Well if the prophecies of St Malachi are to be believed the present pope will be the last :p
Alessa Tzal: Was he a saint or just a monk now I think about it...dunno
Qt Core: well, he may be bold enough to decide they will be no more called popes but president of the vatican episcopal assembly (as the head of national churches are)
Wol Euler: I don't particularly wish him evil, but I hope people throw bananas at him. The rule of retiring is that you don't get to go back to work again. If you want the prestige and the fame, you have to do the job.
Qt Core: he is not celebrating, just attending (lazy too ;-) )
Wol Euler: mmkay
Alessa Tzal: Actually has any cardinal ever been elected and turned the job down?
Wol Euler: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_the_Popes
Alessa Tzal: Yep that's the one

--BELL--

Alessa Tzal: What I thought was particularly amusing is he calls this pope Peter the Roman, which when you think about it could apply to every pope ;-)
Qt Core: Al-Qaeda going for the pope and finding it easyer to blow away the entire city of Rome ? MAny italian would like that as italian politician are there too
Alessa Tzal: Hehe
Qt Core: no plurals today...
Wol Euler smiles.
Alessa Tzal: Many languages don't bother with them anyway :p
Qt Core: or with gender everywhere
Alessa Tzal: Oh don't start me on grammatical gender, how did such silliness ever come about
Wol Euler: Did you know that Pope Adrian IV (1154–1159) was born in St. Albans?
Alessa Tzal: Like a child is neuter in Scandinavian languages and table is female in French!
Qt Core: nay i enlighten you of the niceties of that, like egg in italian, it is male at singular and female when plurals ? ;-)
Alessa Tzal: Eh? Oh yes
Alessa Tzal: Good grief
Alessa Tzal: The only English pope that I know of
Wol Euler: fascinating
Wol Euler: there are some rules that appear to have a kind of logic
Alessa Tzal: Only appear to tho
Wol Euler: things that are never found alone are almost always feminine in German (fingers, walls)
Alessa Tzal: Testicles? :p
Wol Euler: there is a different (masculine) word for solitary walls, like between fields
Alessa Tzal: Aha
Qt Core: fingers, again, masculine at singular and feminine at plural here ;-)
Wol Euler: hmmmm
Alessa Tzal: They do it just to confuse us
Qt Core: we mostly follow the last letter rule, a/e = feminine i/o masculine, u is rare as an ending
Alessa Tzal nods
Wol Euler: sometimes it seems more metaphorical, active is masculine and passive is feminine
Qt Core: but as we don't have a neuter gender in italian every word is
Wol Euler: so a deck-chair that you lie down on is feminine, but the shooting-gallery position where you stand is masculine
Qt Core: so philosophy is deminine
Qt Core: *f
Alessa Tzal: Think Italian uses the old Latin nominative form, where French and Spanish used the accusative in-s
Qt Core: yes, mostly
Alessa Tzal: Old English had lots of different plural forms too (like german), only became standardised to -s in medieval times
Alessa Tzal: Maybe under French influence
Alessa Tzal: Well, Norman
Wol Euler: the case of children is odd in German. Babies are neutral gender.
Alessa Tzal: Yes
Wol Euler: Kids are masculine if boys and neutral (!) if girls
Wol Euler: up until puberty, then girls become feminine
Qt Core: until able to procreate they are useless, it seems...
Wol Euler: actually, no, that's not quite right. In the past girls were neutral until they *married*
Alessa Tzal: Aren't all diminutives in -chen neuter?
Qt Core: procreation before marriage, unthinkable!
Wol Euler: yes
Alessa Tzal: Like mädchen
Qt Core: ;-)
Alessa Tzal grins
Wol Euler: the Swabian -le ending is neutral too, but that's dialect / informal

--BELL--

Alessa Tzal: What is -le used for?
Wol Euler: it makes things cuddly :)
Wol Euler: can be applied to anything, really
Alessa Tzal: Wolle? ;)
Wol Euler: häusle, bergle
Wol Euler: "our little X"
Wol Euler: would be a good description
Alessa Tzal: Interesting
Wol Euler: it's like gathering the thing into your arms and hugging it
Alessa Tzal: Exactly :)
Alessa Tzal: Wolle hehe
Wol Euler: there's a strong sense of community and tied-to-place here, and the dialect expresses that
Wol Euler: heheheh
Alessa Tzal grins
Alessa Tzal: Swabia is south west Germany?
Wol Euler: mmhmm
Qt Core: i often thought about how easier is for english female/male singers to sing song thought for male/female singer, in italian with the gender in each world is hard at the best and weird if they don't change it
Wol Euler: and also in Berlin :) apparently there's a large and active Swabian community there now, and they are annoying the Berliners by being earnest and hard-working
Alessa Tzal: Ha
Wol Euler: true, qt, very few English songs can't be sung to eihter gender by changing one or two words
Alessa Tzal: Does Prussia still exist officially? Or did hey abolish it?
Alessa Tzal: they*
Wol Euler: the state does, yes
Alessa Tzal nods
Alessa Tzal: Most of it disappeared into Poland during the 20th century of course
Wol Euler: well, borders come and go ...
Alessa Tzal nods
Alessa Tzal: Accordiang to the whims of politicians, not the wishes of the local inhabitants :p
Alessa Tzal: -a
Wol Euler: indeed
Wol Euler: politicians think of "local inhabitants" in the same way that carpenters think of trees
Alessa Tzal: Mm
Alessa Tzal: 'They can always move if they don't like it'
Qt Core: in this case ostracism isn't a bad idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism
Qt Core: the old Athenian idea, that is
Alessa Tzal: Ah ostraka yes

--BELL--

Alessa Tzal: Another neuter plural ;-)
Qt Core: masculine here as "ostracismo"
Wol Euler: fascinating article :)
Alessa Tzal nods
Qt Core: this is fun (from the article): A similar modern practice is the recall election, in which the electoral body removes its representation from an elected officer. It is interesting to note that unlike under modern voting procedures, the Athenians did not have to adhere to a strict format for the inscribing of ostraka. Many extant ostraka show that it was possible to write expletives, short epigrams or cryptic injunctions beside the name of the candidate without invalidating the vote.[18] For example:
Alessa Tzal: 0.0
Qt Core: Kallixenes, son of Aristonimos, "the traitor". Archen, "lover of foreigners". Agasias, "the donkey". Megacles, "the adulterer".
Alessa Tzal: They knew how to do it in those days
Wol Euler smiles.
Qt Core: it would be ncie doing that now, with the best one to be published ;-)
Wol Euler chuckles.
Alessa Tzal: Think they used ostraka when they voted for the death penalty too
Wol Euler: doesn't the INternet fill that role?
Qt Core: what role internet doesn't fill ?
Alessa Tzal: They would inscribe theta (initial letter of thanatos = death) on it
Alessa Tzal: One thing about it, it certainly saved paper
Wol Euler: yes, that caught my eye too aggers
Qt Core: as it was costly, imported papyrus at the times, yes
Wol Euler: they used clay-pot shards because these were plentiful
Wol Euler: whereas in our society paper is basically free and broken chinaware is almost unknown
Alessa Tzal: And could presumably be recycled?
Qt Core: for the same reason the article say that in Siracusa (sicily) they used olive leafs
Wol Euler: I believe not, aggers, I think clay can only be baked once
Alessa Tzal: Aww
Wol Euler: and I doubt they'd have been able to grind the shards to dust for reuse in another material
Qt Core: but basic clay should ave been really cheap as it was like plastic for us now
Alessa Tzal: Shame
Wol Euler: besides which: if htey had recycled them we wouldn't know about the practice
Alessa Tzal: Come to think of it, I'm not sure what he process of firing ceramics actually entails
Alessa Tzal: How it would affect the constituent chemistry
Qt Core: some for of "gassification" i presume
Alessa Tzal: Hm, yes
Alessa Tzal: Vitrified
Wol Euler: the chemical (atomic) bonds are reformed, atoms merge
Alessa Tzal: Something to do with silica maybe?
Alessa Tzal nods
Wol Euler: my dears, I have to start getting ready for work
Alessa Tzal: Aww
Wol Euler: please stay and explore the topic in full
Alessa Tzal: And I have to hit the shops
Wol Euler: enjoy your Sundays
Qt Core: and i the stove
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: take care
Alessa Tzal: Hope your search for coffee goes well
Alessa Tzal: Ciao QT
Qt Core: have fun. both of you
Wol Euler: no searching today, everything is shut in Germany on Sunday