CONLOQVIVM

cmw

00:33

@Adam Did you buy it? I don't! I should do one, though. I didn't keep track of them, but instead just mentioned them as I was teaching.

Adam

@cmw I did! I'm amassing a collection for the apocalypse

cmw

@Adam I mean, I guess burning them will keep you warm during the nuclear winter.

But optime!

Perhaps I'll do the same and go through it, too.

Adam

@cmw I'm going to need plenty of books to read by the subtle glow of atomic waste when there's no more electricity

cmw

@Adam Ah, right, forgot about the atomic glow.

Adam

If I'm lucky I'll mutate to have an extended lifespan that will be long enough to actually become properly fluent

cmw

00:45

@Adam Yes, but your eyesight will worsen, and you'll break your glasses in a freak accident.

Adam

01:02

@cmw I guess my copy of L&S will become a bookend because it's got some tiny-ass text.

cmw

@Adam You know this, right? youtube.com/watch?v=oLoNGRVeC7Y

Adam

Haha

I think I've actually watched that episode

it was actually very pleasing to flip through the book, though

I'm a nerd, though

cmw

@Adam You had time for an episode!?

@Adam I think we all have to be to participate here.

bbiab, food run

Adam

@cmw Enjoy (the food, not the journey to get it)

@cmw If you do I will be very thankful

cmw

01:21

I can't be soon, as I'm just way too busy lately.

Adam

01:47

@cmw That's ok - if I spend a lot of time on it I bet a lot of them get sussed out when I'm confused and ask questions on the site.

cmw

@Adam Will you dive in right away?

And yes, feel free to ask questions on the site and even tag it with latin-via-ovid.

Adam

@cmw I might! I'm going through the first 10 chapters-ish in LLPSI at the moment; I'm trying to pace everything together a bit.

I didn't know there was a tag for that - thanks!

cmw

02:02

@Adam I don't think there is yet, you'll have to create it.

Adam

@cmw Oh, well I may very well end up doing that

I just got to this point in LLSPI and had exactly the same question that I asked two years ago, lol

Cerberus

Latin Wordle 45 5/6

⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟨🟨⬜⬜🟨
🟨🟩🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

This one was difficult.

I somehow didn't think of a certain consonantal cluster.

Adam

I bombed it if it's the same word I had earlier. But, I learned a new word. :D

cmw

@Cerberus There's another word minus one letter that I guessed first.

Cerberus

@cmw Hmm not sure what that means.

cmw

02:15

@Cerberus Instead of ABCDE I guess ABFDE

Latin Wordle 45 5/6

⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Cerberus

Ah, nice pattern.

Meanwhile, today's Semantle seems to be very difficult for me:

semantle.novalis.org

cmw

oh hm never heard of this

Cerberus

Ugh, this one took me 149 tries...

Good luck haha.

It took me 34 attempts to get a word in the 1000 closest words.

cmw

02:33

@Cerberus I'm in the 40s and still cold

no, 50s

Cerberus

@cmw You'll get there!

Try to increment in small steps from your top words.

And try something entirely different occasionally.

If you screenshot what you have so far, that might be interesting for me!

Of course I don't want to spoil it for you and give you hints.

Maybe read all the tips/FAQ on the site as well.

cmw

I'll screenshot at the end

I'm losing steam on it

My closest word after 100 guesses is only 19.90

I did get that after 21 tries, but everything I can think of to build on that only takes me further away.

124 I finally got into the top 1000!

cmw

03:00

I've hit 190 already

158 was 36.25, but I can't break that now.

Got a bunch in the 30s though.

Adam

This sounds punishing

cmw

I'm definitely hitting a wall.

Adam

04:34

I'm at 23 guesses and 20% similarity

Adam

04:55

So I asked my wife Elisabeth and she got it at 80.

cmw

@Adam That's better that me!

@Adam And now I'm embarrassed.

Adam

lol

Elisabeth has a magical way with semantics

cmw

05:13

I thought I did. But I'm misssing something to get me to the final level I think.

I did post a lot of random guesses, but that would only account for about 30-40 of them.

But I still can't get beyond 966 or so.

So kudos to Elisabeth.

Adam

966 is close, knowing the answer I can see how the words in that range relate semantically to the answer

I asked Elisabeth because she often thinks differently than other people and can make leaps from one topic to another in ways that I can't

cmw

06:54

Latin Wordle 46 4/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
⬜🟨🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Adam

12:32

Latin Wordle 46 X/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟨🟨⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩
⬜⬜🟨🟩🟩
🟨🟨⬜🟩🟩

Didn't get it but better than my first attempt

Cerberus

13:49

@Adam Wow!

@cmw Then you're close!

What are your top 10 now?

@Adam I just love these little pointillist drawings.

Latin Wordle 46 4/6

⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟨⬜🟩⬜🟨
⬜🟨🟩🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

cmw

Latin Wordle 46 4/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
⬜🟨🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

@Cerberus Stipend, pay, fee, allowance, payment, income, rate, paycheck, salary, and subsidy

Stipend is at 36.25

Or 964/1000

Adam

Ahh, I can see why that one is close

Cerberus

14:11

@cmw I was stuck with salary and employment for 50 turns or so!

Try to think more of vaguer associations, words that often occur together.

Not necessarily ones that are closest in meaning.

Adam

words that often appear together with those you've already tried

cmw

I tried words like deposit, earn, savings

Cerberus

Also remember that the word could be highly abstract, or a different part of speech (I'm not saying that's the case here!).

@Adam Yeah, you say it more clearly.

Adam

yea, like an adjective, adverb, etc

I'm resisting the urge to give clues

cmw

I've tried adjectives and adverbs, all were cold.

the highest adjective I have is profitable at 20.05

so not that close

Cerberus

14:16

So suppose the word were "previous" or "improve". Then you might be stuck at the words you have (not saying these are anything like the word).

cmw

ooooh

I just got a new one: regular

Cerberus

Good!

cmw

986/1000

Cerberus

Close!

That's higher than the words you had, isn't it?

Even though it seems less related to the "semantic cloud" of your top words.

Or semantic field, I should say, perhaps.

cmw

Yes, it's the highest now

Cerberus

14:18

I think you'll get it.

cmw

GOT IT

Cerberus

Hah!

So fast!

cmw

d'oh

regular -> biweekly -> the answer

Cerberus

Semantle just takes some getting used to.

Nice.

Too bad we don't have spoiler tags here.

cmw

We'll have a new one soon enough anyway.

Cerberus

14:19

Yeah.

cmw

Thing that kills me is that stuff like lunar is way cold.

Cerberus

Yeah, it's really not super accurate.

Adam

Yea

Cerberus

So you could say, Semantle isn't really what you'd expect it to be.

Adam

periodical was closer than calendar

both were close, but I'm surprised the one was closer than the other

Cerberus

14:21

Right, if you count part of speech more heavily?

cmw

It's probably due to the corpus.

It's all newspaper reports.

Cerberus

And the algorisms.

Ah, I see.

Adam

I bet word frequency matters, too

cmw

I'll stick with Latin wordle. ;P

But it's interesting nonetheless.

Adam

I like the 'mystery' or 'puzzle' aspect of this

Cerberus

14:24

Yeah.

Have we already done Worldle here?

Where you see the outline of a country or territory?

worldle.teuteuf.fr

This one took me 6 tries.

Adam

My first guess wiwth that is 73%

Cerberus

So close!

What was your first guess?

Mine was on a different continent...

Adam

Guyana

Given what looked like the coast, I figured it was South America

cmw

Worldle is great, but I'm very familiar with world maps, so I knew this one. Yesterday's I missed by one - just one country over.

Cerberus

Ah, but Guyana was yesterday's??

@cmw Which one was that?

Adam

14:27

was it? This is my first time doing this

Cerberus

I got Guyana on my first try.

cmw

I guessed Suriname first, couldn't remember which one was which. :S

Cerberus

cmw

(For yesterday's)

Cerberus

Ah, OK.

As for today, I got very close on my second try, but I must admit I always confuse a bunch of countries in that region...

Adam

14:28

is the percentage saying how close it is geographically or by actual spelling?

Cerberus

I think distance!

Not sure, though.

I just looked at the kms.

Adam

I can't remember the names of other countries in that immediate vicinity

Cerberus

Haha understandable.

@cmw There was a game, Placespotting, which showed you some cut-out from Google Maps, without any text.

You had to guess where it was.

People would create these cut-outs, so it was crowd-made.

And the maps were all over the place qua zoom levels.

We could play that game here, manually?

Where is this?

Adam

I got it, but I cheated and looked at a map at countries that looked about 5k away

Cerberus

Without looking at Google Earth.

@Adam Heh understandable.

And this one is easier.

Cheating is allowed, but then you can't say your guess here!

cmw

14:38

The second one is definitely NZ.

Cerberus

Ding!

cmw

I'm not sure of the first one.

Cerberus

Yeah it's not an easy one.

You can buy a clue, which will be the scale.

cmw

I need something else for it, I think.

Cerberus

A little bit zoomed out, and with the scale.

Further hints can be zooming out some more.

But I'm afraid it will suddenly become very easy.

Multiple guesses are allowed, you can't fail.

Adam

14:42

it looks like part of Asia I think

Cerberus

Warm!

Adam

not india but maybe further east

Cerberus

Maybe!

Adam

Trying to recall which southeast Asian countries border the ocean

Cambodia

Vietnam

Cerberus

Ding!

Well done

cmw

14:45

What part of Vietnam is this?

Cerberus

Southern tip of Indochina.

cmw

Oh I see it now

Even looking at it on my computer I couldn't quite see it, but I do now.

Cerberus

I tried to make it hard.

earth.google.com/web/…

I make these at Google Earth.

cmw

You did indeed.

Cerberus

Go to menu, Map Style, pick Clean look.

To get rid of the labels/borders.

Let me know when you want another one, and how hard you want it to be.

Or make one yourself.

cmw

14:49

Carry on, gamemaster, I'm half-working. :)

Cerberus

Heh OK.

cmw

hmmmm

I think that's way too zoomed in haha

Adam

Mightily zoomed in

New york?

Cerberus

@Adam Ding!

You see the Statue of Liberty?

cmw

I lived there and I still didn't get it.

Cerberus

15:00

Heh.

I didn't want to make it too easy...

cmw

You can see my old work and I didn't get it.

Cerberus

Where do you live now?

cmw

Boston

But that's antarctica.

Cerberus

Ah, not too far away.

Correct!

What part?

cmw

@Cerberus Yeah, about a 4 hour train ride away.

I don't know the name of it, but it's the peninsula that juts out south of Argentina

@Cerberus Assuming you mean what part of Antarctica?

Cerberus

15:02

@cmw Ding!

Yes, that's what I wanted to hear.

I don't know its name either.

cmw

Let's look it up: Antarctic Peninsula hahaha

Looks like that applies to the whole thing, the region where the peninsula joins the continent is called Palmer's Land.

At least saith the map on Wikipedia.

Cerberus

Haha.

Good to know.

The first clue will be a slight expansion of the cut-out.

cmw

Not making that mistake again! Rome! Tiber Island!

Cerberus

Ding! Ding!

What was your mistake?

cmw

An easy one for a Classicist.

@Cerberus I should have gotten NYC by paying attention to the island!

Cerberus

15:06

I hoped it might be.

Haha no comment.

Islands are fun.

cmw

I think it was one of those things where I just didn't expect it to be home, so I thought of everything else it could be.

Former* home.

Cerberus

Makes sense.

No idea how hard or easy this one is.

cmw

The grid-like system makes me think it's a newer city.

.I'm not good at these!

Cerberus

15:51

@cmw Clue: my house in in there.

So the larger semi-circle you see is the pattern of the 17th century.

Within the semi-circle, the pattern is mostly Mediaeval.

cmw

@Cerberus You know, I was going to guess Netherlands, but I wouldn't have thought the streets would be so regular and concentric. Guess by the 17th century had good city planners.

I would have thought it would look more like Antwerp's layout or something.

Cerberus

@cmw I think the canal ring of Amsterdam may have been a bit of an exception.

The ring was all planned in one go.

Though construction only finished much later.

The late-Mediaeval city.

cmw

Still more geometric than Venice.

Cerberus

Quite!

The old inner city, in which I live, was basically strips of land along the river Amstel, on either side.

Then expanded with parallel strips, with canals in between for drainage and supply ships.

cmw

16:06

That's a truly rapid expansion!

Cerberus

Yeah, most of it was all planned in the early 17th century, though only completed later.

cmw

Truly a Dutch Golden Age.

Cerberus

And the darkest orange part was partly destroyed when the big expansion plan came.

Yeah, there was money.

Though it took quite some time for all of those new neighbourhoods to be filled with houses.

cmw

Right, of course.

Cerberus

When growth stagnated, part was made into a zoo.

It is where the canal ring kind of stopped.

The zoo is still there.

cmw

16:09

By the way, do you know the Youtube channel Not Just Bikes?

Cerberus

Part of the semi-circle.

I do!

I've been watching it for many years haha.

cmw

I was introduced to it at the beginning of the Pandemic with the video on stroads.

Cerberus

It's always nice to hear praise of one's city...

Ah, yes, his stroads.

cmw

Very eye opening! I can now articulate what exactly I hate about most American cities.

Cerberus

Ah, you hated them before the videos?

cmw

16:10

And why I find cities like New York and Boston so appealing.

I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but yes, living in a stroad-infested city for many years you learn to hate certain types of roads.

Cerberus

Yeah, those seem much more lively, their residential neighbourhoods.

cmw

My two car accidents were on stroads.

Cerberus

But there is progress!

Oh, dear.

Were they serious?

cmw

No, but the totaled the car.

Cerberus

Ouch.

Adam

16:13

googles stroad

cmw

Adam: youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM

Adam

Ahh yes, I'm always nervous driving on a stroad

Because it's a good idea to let cars drive 45 to 65 mph on a thoroughfare that has driveways and such on it

stoplights? more like speed-through lights

Another vehicular device that I absolutely hate.

cmw

I find that they're used too sporadically and in illogical places in the US.

Adam

16:31

I feel like they are all but designed to cause an accident

cmw

16:48

@Adam Europeans seem to love them.

Canned Man

I was just studying some passages in the Aeneid, and I came across 8.342–344, where the Lupercalian cliffs are mentioned. Are these the origins of the Lupercalian priesthood that Cicero references in Phil. 2.84 and .87?

Cerberus

@Adam Roundabout are very popular here: they come instead of traffic lights, so you never need to stop!

And I believe they came out as much safer.

What do you hate about them?

Canned Man

Oh, there is no doubt about that:

Roundabouts are safer, more efficient, cost less to run and produce less pollution.

Cerberus

I only know about the Lupercalia!

@CannedMan Makes sense.

Perhaps there is a particular kind of roundabout that Adam hates?

Or they are implemented poorly?

Oh, and of course there is the Lupercal!

Lupercal

The Lupercal (from Latin lupa "female wolf") was a cave at the southwest foot of the Palatine Hill in Rome, located somewhere between the temple of Magna Mater and the Sant'Anastasia al Palatino. In the legend of the founding of Rome, Romulus and Remus were found there by the she-wolf who suckled them until they were rescued by the shepherd Faustulus. Luperci, the priests of Faunus, celebrated certain ceremonies of the Lupercalia at the cave, from the earliest days of the City until at least 494 AD. == Modern discovery == In January 2007, Italian archaeologist Irene Iacopi announced that she had...

I've not been to Rome since its rediscovery.

This treasure was recently found near where my ancestors are from.

It is around 1400 years old.

Though my genealogy does not go back so far.

I'd have loved to find it in my garden!

Canned Man

17:04

@Cerberus Unfortunately, all the links to the story are dead. :-/

Cerberus

@CannedMan Oh, that is unfortunate.

The Internet Archive doesn't have them either?

cmw

@Cerberus This is likely the case for a lot of midwestern US. In SF when I lived there, I only remember them for decorative purposes.

Not sure about the rest of California.

Cerberus

Hah.

That's odd.

I mean, any city will have a department of infrastructure with researchers and stuff?

cmw

@Cerberus You put too much faith Kansas.

Cerberus

Hah.

cmw

17:16

But I say do away with cars completely inside cities.

Completely unnecessary.

Cerberus

I would seem odd to build infrastructure without using the knowledge that exists already. The national government must be able to distribute such knowledge, too.

@cmw I think this is already happening, partly.

Parking spaces are being removed here by the thousands.

And you see those mini-cars multiplying rapidly.

Or have we already talked about those?

cmw

@Cerberus States tend to do their own thing.

Cerberus

I believe Jason from Not Just Bikes also has a video about them.

cmw

@Cerberus Which ones?

I'll take a look.

Cerberus

The Miniature Microcars of Amsterdam

►

cmw

17:18

In NYC (not so much in Boston, to my chagrin), e-bikes are super popular. Scooters, too.

I might buy an e-bike. My commute to work would be cut down to about 10 minutes.

Canned Man

@cmw I am not opposed to that idea. Were it up to me, cars would be parked outside the city, and all passanger transport would be via electric trams, trains and if need be small buses, not to mention bicycles, ståhjulingar (‘stand-wheelers’: Segways), rollerskates and skateboards, and small, personal EVs.

Cerberus

@cmw Same here!

Those are good, too, but microcars provide almost as much comfort as a real car.

While taking up a small fraction of the space.

@CannedMan Yeah that's what we're moving towards.

cmw

@Cerberus Yes, if one must have a car, it's a good option.

Cerberus

I think parking is now €7.50 per hour here, and many parking-spaces are being removed. It is being discouraged heavily. And the environmental zones are becoming stricter each year: you cannot enter the city with many, more polluting cars any more.

cmw

Good.

Adam

17:27

That thing is dinky

Although I see the benefit in a city.

parallel parking is a breeze!

Cerberus

@Adam Exactly!

The main problem they solve is that of scarcity of space.

Which is a big problem here, but probably less so in cities designed for cars.

cmw

@Cerberus There's still a scarcity of space, just in different ways.

Cerberus

@cmw Hmm in what ways?

cmw

With suburban sprawl, we're killing wildlife. To feed such a large population, we resort to pesticides that have decimated insect populations.

And when you build a concrete city without respect to basic facts of the earth, you get disasters, like in Houston when a million cars were wiped out by Hurricane Harvey.

Adam

or New Orleans being below sea level, yet directly adjacent to the sea

what could go wrong?

Or San Francisco being partially built atop what amounts to garbage.

cmw

17:39

@CannedMan I think you have the grammar wrong on that: the Lupercal is sub rupe.

@Adam If done right, building into the sea is not the worst idea. And floods have been a problem for 5000+ years, so that's not going away any time soon.

The problem is when these things are done wrong.

Usually erosion from depletion is a major culprit.

Adam

Yea, or look at dust bowl

cmw

Exactly.

Adam

One of the worst tragedies to happen to humanity is the politicization of climate change

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