Re: Parsing

1

He made smaller objects, like robots fashioned from vegetable steamers that gravitated to sound and light.

If he had a day job, a home in the 'burbs, and a webpage, the most doing that kind of thing would get him is a mention on slashdot.

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2

Yes, but they would have worshipped him on slashdot.

Thanks for the link. You're right about that lady in the background. Wonder what they were vowing about up there that irked her. Notice also, in the background, that they made everyone sit on the floor. The cold, wooden, loft floor. They couldn't spring for chairs? Are chairs oppressive too?

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3

Bruised Bum = Clear Mind.

Or so Baba Ram Dass taught me.

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4

That's cave verisimilitude, no matter how much your ass hurts.

Or so I've been told.

At the Mineshaft.

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5

That's cave verisimilitude, no matter how much your ass hurts.

Or so I've been told.

At the Mineshaft.

This sounds like a lost lyric to Big Bottom.

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6

Dude, chairs contribute to the "high"/"low" dichotomy, and are just another means of enforcing power relationships! In the glorious future of Deborah and Joel, we shall all be equals—in the mud!

(Actually, it looks like sone people are seated at tables. It's hard to tell because of the monochrome background, but look about half an inch to the right of Deborah's chin—that's clearly a table. And the frowny woman's glass of wine is on a level that suggests she's at a table, though the way she's hugging her knees suggests otherwise.)

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7

Ben, I'm pretty sure those people are on the floor, with little tables for their drinks.

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8

Comment 5 showcases a problem with the behavior of tags in the comments: specifically, <em>, when enclosing multiple lines, only effects the first.

This image more clearly demonstrates that Deborah and Joel are interested in perpetuating class division. It also demonstrates that if Joel had facial hair, he could plausibly be mistaken for George Harrison from a distance.

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9

MT does that even to regular posts, and it's a feature, since it's a result of the translation of carriage returns into line breaks, and saves us having to put in <p> tags all over the place.

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10

Eh. I shoulda previewed.

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11

not
exactly
.

The preceding was written as: "<em>not<br />exactly</em>.", yet the emphasis continues.

Now acknowledge that I was write about the tables, bitch.

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12

If, by "seated at tables" you meant "seated near a table," then you were right. But, given that you seem to think that "hugging her knees," which is something one does when seated on the floor, but not in a chair, is incompatible with being seated at a table, you were pretty clearly wrong.

And I don't know what your "not exactly" proves. Put a <p> tag in there, and see.

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13

"Now acknowledge that I was write about the tables, bitch."

Deliberate, surely? I'm also going to bust you on "effects" in #8. "Sone" in #6 is too low-hanging to bother with.

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14

Oh, saves us having to put in <p> tags. I managed to overlook that part of your comment. It would be much cooler if it were smart enough to realize when wrapping individual lines in <p>-</p> pairs would result in an invalid structure, and just replace the newline with <br/> instead.

And when I wrote "it looks like sone people are seated at tables", I meant "it looks like some people are seated at tables". The first group of people—the chin-people—are sitting in chairs, at tables. The knee-hugging woman, maybe not.

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15

Wow, I missed all those, Matt. I'll pay Wolfson the honor of wondering if we're dealing with an impostor.

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16

Wow, I suck. All of those were, in fact, accidental. My only defense: I've gotten much less sleep over the past few days than I'm accustomed, which has had deleterious effect on my ability to do anything competently.

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17

"Deleterious" and "competently" were just showing off. Anyway, I typomonger because I love.

Only a few people seem to be seated at chairs at tables, though more are squatting on the ground near drink tables. So Zach, while literally wrong, was correct in spirit. Everyone wins!

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18

It just occurred to me that it might not have been ordinary vanity and deep-seated heterosexual norms that inspired them to seek to get their banns published in the Times, but perhaps a nobler purpose altogether: freaking the squares!


Note to Matt: I know that banns are published before a marriage, and not after.

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19

I'd never heard of banns.

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20

Not a Wodehouse reader, ogged? Pity.

Somewhere I read an interesting account about how the requirement of reading banns in a church was part of the modernization of marriage. Something like, marriage began as a contract between wealthy families, but something or other led to members of the wealthy families getting secretly married to servants which queered the contract, so the requirement of reading banns prevented secret marriages, and somehow in the end this led to marriage becoming official to all people. I regret that I am unable to remember any of the details. Also somehow this seems incompatible with the sacramental role of marriage, now that I've typed it out. Surely one of our kind lurkers will know what I'm talking about it.

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21

Poop. Omit the final "it."

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22

Matt, do we have to do all your work for you? Banns

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23

I'll go back to lurking now.

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24

Yebbut, that doesn't have all that cool stuff I made up, unless it is contained in the bit about preventing invalid or illicit marriages. I want the cool stuff I made up to be fleshed out!

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25

Oh, and "old woman" on the left? She looks like 50.

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26

Tio each his own, Matt.

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27

Matt, I think that was this New Yorker article.

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28

Damn, that couple lives somewhere frighteningly near me. There goes the neighborhood.

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29

Ben, thanks for the link. That isn't exactly what I was thinking of--there really was a bit about banns, and about their social function--I think I read it more recently, and I also think that article may have appeared when I was in between NYer subscriptions.

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30

Oh. I didn't reread that article before providing the link, and if there isn't a mention of banns in it, and marrying servants, and the like, then it might not be the one I was thinking of, either.

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31

I forgot to mention that it does mention some of the relevant facts. But yeah, no banns; some discussion of the marriage patterns of servants but not so much to the upper class.

OK, it's this one. Good ol' dinosaur blog.

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