English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

12:22 AM

@M.A.R. MRI has the added advantage of not irradiating you.

CowperKettle

3:13 AM

@FaheemMitha I also did not know that some drugs of this type mess with eyesight.

@M.A.R. "Awakenings" is one of the best movies.

L-DOPA is still used in medicine, now it's used with some peripheral conversion blockers, to diminish peripheral side effects that occur when it converts into dopamine

CowperKettle

3:36 AM

> Russian rapper Ivan Petunin, known as Walkie, committed suicide in order to avoid going to Ukraine.

Xanne

4:32 AM

That is truly sad.

I solved Redactle Unlimited in 32 guesses with an accuracy of 93.75% and a time of 00:14:31. Play at redactle-unlimited.com #177

CowperKettle

5:40 AM

@Xanne Yes. I've read that he had a stay in a psych hospital prior to that. So probably the news of mobilization made his depression worse.

HippoSawrUs

@FaheemMitha The military retiree regime for colonoscopy is every 10 years beginning at age 50, if there is no reason to begin earlier or occur more frequently (such as risk factors or abnormal results). That is also the civilian regime, I'm told. But ours are free, or included, and all expensive tests are readily available if you have a civilian doctor (vs. a PA who thinks he's one). My darling boy became an Army PA and an instant a-hole, overnight; it could happen to anybody.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Are you at all familiar with NMS? Neuroleptic malignant syndrome?

@HippoSawrUs Thank you for the feedback, though I didn't follow the last sentence.

HippoSawrUs

6:03 AM

@FaheemMitha Yes, it's confusing. The army has a shortage of doctors (and nurses, dentists, specialists…), so for years and years, they convinced PAs (physician assistants) that they were doctors, so they just winged it, and that takes a great deal of arrogance, with so many lives at stake. But that didn't work out, who knew, so we can have real docs, even civilian specialists, as PCMs now. Thank goodness.

CowperKettle

7:08 AM

> very excited to share our paper on reconstructing language from non-invasive brain recordings! we introduce a decoder that takes in fMRI recordings and generates continuous language descriptions of perceived speech, imagined speech, and possibly much more twitter.com/jerryptang/status/1575846939543076865

Xanne

7:37 AM

Wordle 469 5/6

🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Xanne

8:06 AM

#Worldle #253 3/6 (100%)
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜➡️
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜↘️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Russia had no right to run a referendum in Ukraine. What if the U.S. decided to run a referendum in Greenland?

si-LV-er and b-LA-ck

8:18 AM

would it be renamed the green state-land? :-)

and join Washington as one of the evergreen states

CowperKettle

9:05 AM

Word of the day: butte -- an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top

/bjuːt/

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle carbidopa, yes

@FaheemMitha well, I know some introductory level pharmacology and pharmacotherapy regarding NMS. I've never seen a hospitalized individual with NMS.

A related problem is serotonin syndrome, though if I recall correctly the pattern of muscle contractions contributing to hyperthermia is different

Phew, I think I'm content dealing with compounds. Dealing with people is scary.

M.A.R.

9:33 AM

@CowperKettle your butte has been the word of the day half a dozen times already

Faheem Mitha

9:52 AM

@M.A.R. Apparently NMS is quite rare. But it happened to my sister in 2016. Unfortunately.

Is there any knowhow about what drugs are more or less likely to cause NMS?

@M.A.R. Have you ever worked in a hospital?

M.A.R.

10:22 AM

@FaheemMitha I think so, but having an experienced doctor or clinical pharmacist to sternly warn the patient or their caretakers never to discontinue a drug, for example, is different.

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Sorry, I don't understand what you are trying to say.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha not seriously, no. Well, it's kinda complicated. I've been well-acquainted with hospitals long before I knew of my condition

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. OK. Kidney transplant, if I recall correctly. Unless I'm confusing you with someone else.

There's also someone on U&L in AU who had kidney transplants.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha here, something like this might happen: The patient is taking several drugs for a chronic illness, and something happens and they're admitted to the hospital. After the painful initial bureaucracy to be admitted to one of the wards, which can take several hours, the nurses are eventually notified of the patient's drug history. An expert is eventually consulted, and some drugs are discontinued, at least for the duration of the stay, and some aren't. Then the nurse eventually

. . . drops by the hospital pharmacy to collect those drugs. And then the patient will eventually get their medications, almost certainly not on-time

@FaheemMitha yep

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Are we still talking about NMS? I'm confused.

M.A.R.

10:28 AM

@FaheemMitha I'm trying to explain how these things happen.

Faheem Mitha

My original question was

35 mins ago, by Faheem Mitha

Is there any knowhow about what drugs are more or less likely to cause NMS?

M.A.R.

It's often not even malpractice

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Drug related problems?

@M.A.R. I wasn't suggesting it was. You may be misunderstanding what I'm trying to ask.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha yep.

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha Sorry to hear that!

Faheem Mitha

10:29 AM

Perhaps a little more detail/context would help.

@CowperKettle Thank you. Yes, it was bad.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha in this scenario, an abrupt withdrawal of dopaminergic drugs can cause NMS

Faheem Mitha

So, my sister was admitted in 2016 with NMS and had her drugs changed at the time. She eventually got better, though her kidneys were shut down for a while. It was scary.

But since then I've been too scared to tinker with her drugs, though she clearly needs different drugs, hopefully better drugs than the ones she is on.

M.A.R.

Some unintentional delay, in a vulnerable patient, can cause such withdrawal symptoms. Not to mention the possibility of a mistake at every step of the way

Faheem Mitha

Mostly because I've afraid the NMS thing might happen again.

@M.A.R. Is NMS caused by withdrawal?

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha yes, sometimes. Other times, it's caused by dopamine antagonists, rarely.

Faheem Mitha

10:32 AM

In my sister's case, it's unclear what precipitated it. She had been on the same drugs for years. There was a minor adjustment in one of the drugs in 2015. The year before the NMS happened.

@M.A.R. So something is understood about the causes?

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha quite a lot I think, so I'm just explaining how it still happens

Faheem Mitha

To be clear, there had been no significant changes to her drugs prior to the NMS, as far as I know.

I heard changing the drugs can give rise to it. Presumably for the sorts of reasons you have mentioned.

CowperKettle

Sometimes anti-NMDAr encephalitis can mimic NMS, but anti-NDMAr encephalitis is as rare as hen's teeth, and deadly.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha I think, but I'm not sure, that it can happen at any time

CowperKettle

As to the causes of NMS, I would google on Google Scholar scholar.google.ru/…

M.A.R.

10:35 AM

Some side effects are like that. Often the ones involving a hypersensitivity reaction.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Well, my sister had something like encephalitis (or possibly meningitis) when around age 3.

CowperKettle

My uncle was on antipsychotics for decades, and never had NMS

Faheem Mitha

Which gave rise to this whole mess. But is seems unlikely to be related.

@CowperKettle OK.

M.A.R.

A patient may inject heparin for decades, suddenly, without previous warning, they get HIT

CowperKettle

The brain is so complex, that there might be different causes for it.

Faheem Mitha

10:37 AM

@CowperKettle Well, it's supposedly quite rare. My sister had been on antipsychotics for decades and it happened to her for the first time in 2016. Of course, it's possible the doctors misdiagnosed it and it was something else. But the symptoms matched. I was there.

CowperKettle

I only tried antipsychotics once, Quetiapine. It made me utterly sleepy, so after a couple weeks, I ditched it.

Faheem Mitha

Specifically, the muscle fiber shedding. There is some way of measuring that. Her's was sky-high.

M.A.R.

Or a patient may use a sulfonamide drug for a long time before a sudden Stevens-Johnson (Don't google that)

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Yes, antipsychotics are nasty things with severe side-effects.

Not as bad as cancer drugs, but bad enough.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Quetiapine is administered like candy here, and I'm sure everywhere

Faheem Mitha

10:39 AM

@M.A.R. Why not? :-)

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. Probably because it's sedating.

I just tried it out by myself, without prescription.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Yes, I think that's the one my sister currently takes. When she doesn't throw it on the floor. It doesn't seem to have much effect on her.

And if it is sedating, that's not very visible.

CowperKettle

It's quite mild. And the sedation goes away, they say, if you take it long enough

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle yes, most of the drugs that affect CNS exert multiple effects, it's a very difficult challenge to come up with a drug that just alters glutamate receptors, for example

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Yes, Is ee.

M.A.R.

10:41 AM

Quetiapine has strong anticholinergic effects

CowperKettle

The only unique antipsychotic is closapine, because it sometimes works in cases where all others don't.

But it has a life-threatening side effect, agranulocytosis.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha in SJS, the skin dies and peels off . . .

@CowperKettle that's British, the American spelling is clozapine

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Yikes.

M.A.R.

Yeah that's one weird drug. It's like a narwhal in the midst of dolphins. Just . . . weird

CowperKettle

And there are a couple of novel antipsychotics in the development pipeline that don't act directly on the D2 receptor. Keeping fingers crossed. If they turn out efficient, it will be a minor revolution.

M.A.R.

10:44 AM

Meh

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. closapine?

M.A.R.

They'll most likely add to our chaotic arsenal of antipsychotics

@FaheemMitha yeah, clozapine

Seriously, it's Z. I'm triggered

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Huh?

CowperKettle

Xanomeline

Xanomeline (LY-246,708; Lumeron, Memcor) is a small molecule muscarinic acetylcholine receptor agonist that was first synthesized in a collaboration between Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk as an investigational therapeutic being studied for the treatment of central nervous system disorders.Its pharmacological action is mediated primarily through stimulation of central nervous system muscarinic M1 and M4 receptor subtypes. Xanomeline is currently being developed as a combination drug (Kar-XT; xanomeline + trospium) by Karuna Therapeutics. Trospium is a non-CNS penetrant non-selective muscarinic antagonist...

This one, and another one, whose name I forgot

They don't act directly on the D2.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha I'm just being pedantic

CowperKettle

10:46 AM

They act on the M4 muscarinic receptor, and only indirectly affect the D2 receptor.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle oh IIRC this one is mostly for dementia

CowperKettle

> Karuna Therapeutics Announces Positive Results from Phase 3 EMERGENT-2 Trial of KarXT in Schizophrenia

For schizophrenia too, although I don't know how strongly it suppresses psychoses.

Faheem Mitha

So, I'm wondering how hard it would be to find something that works for my sister and doesn't send her to the hospital.

M.A.R.

Best case scenario is it's gonna become another favorite for neurologists, alongside quetiapine and arpiprazole

CowperKettle

The more drugs, the better. In the long future, they will use gene manipulation to treat such disorders.

Faheem Mitha

10:49 AM

The doctors here are lousy people to work with. Mostly they don't care and don't pay attention.

M.A.R.

I guess that's the hardest part? Finding a doctor that's louse-free

After that, slow, monitored discontinuation of her current medication and replacing it with another agent shouldn't be that hard to pull off, except for your sister, because it could mean months of trial and error until something works

CowperKettle

I have a friend who has akathisia in the nights. She thinks it might be from one of the antidepressants she had been taking previously.

So she wakes up and moves about the room, and then gets to sleep again.

M.A.R.

Well I do that and I'm not on any drugs! No relevant ones anyway

CowperKettle

Hehe

M.A.R.

Anyway I've been reading about photosynthesis lately and it's really fascinating stuff

CowperKettle

10:54 AM

I read about it last time in 2009. Yes, it was very interesting.

M.A.R.

How the plant modifies its thylakoids to adjust to different intensities of light throughout the day or season

CowperKettle

In a large biology textbook.

M.A.R.

Or theamount of ATP:NADPH it needs

@CowperKettle they're always large aren't they? And they only make you curiouser

It's a really hopeless endeavor to try to understand a tiny fraction of what's going on in the world

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. When the NMS (or something like it) is the most worrying thing.

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha Does your sister have psychosis?

Faheem Mitha

10:58 AM

Being hospitalized here is horrific. It's very expensive and at the mercy of people who can do what they want.

CowperKettle

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Can you define it for me, informally?

CowperKettle

Here's the textbook

Faheem Mitha

I'm not really a medical person.

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha Psychosis is when one thinks that somebody is trying to get to them, or is placing their thoughts inside your head, or stealing your thoughts, etc.

M.A.R.

10:59 AM

@FaheemMitha get your salt shaker and fill it with table salt but even though it was a horrible experience I don't think you need to worry about it much

CowperKettle

Sometimes in psychosis you hear voices (hallucinations)

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha the technical definition of psychosis is when your sensorium is working, i.e. you naturally receive input from the environment, with your sensory organs, but the processing is botched up.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Hmm. None of that sounds like an exact fit. She does a variety of bizarre things. But I've seen no signs that she thinks voices are talking to her. But she does say things like "four people came up here and beat me with iron rods". Does that qualify?

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha That might qualify, although I'm not a psychiatrist.

M.A.R.

It's not a disease, it's a state.

Faheem Mitha

11:01 AM

@M.A.R. Oh, her processing is definitely botched up. She regularly talks about things that didn't happen for example. Making up events or conversations.

@M.A.R. Psychosis?

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha yes

Faheem Mitha

Like one time she talked about how it had been raining torrentially. But it had been bone dry for weeks.

CowperKettle

I met a guy who thought that Russia's FSB was trying to manipulate him, and was watching over him. That was psychosis.

M.A.R.

Schizophrenia is probably several dozen mental conditions that we can't satisfactory tell apart

CowperKettle

nods

This guy, he bought a ticket to the Olympic Games in Sochi, and went there, to tell foreign journalists that the FSB is trying to manipulate him.

The first journalist he talked to, referred him to the police and he was hospitalized and brought back to the Urals.

M.A.R.

11:05 AM

Some virus from the Coronaviridae can infect your respiratory pathways, and we'd call your sickness a cold. Its manifestations would be fever, malaise, runny nose, that sort of thing. Schizophrenia is the former, psychosis is the latter

CowperKettle

And despite the drugs, he still believed that the FSB was after him. But at the same time he made some smart jokes while watching TV.

M.A.R.

If you catch a cold, killing the virus with drugs is difficult. We instead treat your runny nose so you'd feel less miserable. Likewise, we treat the symptoms of schizophrenia, but we haven't the slightest clue how to fix the underlying cause.

My issue with myself is that I keep switching pronouns when explaining something, so it's not clear what we or you or one did

Anyway, as I was saying, if someone suffers a hemorrhagic stroke, we do know how to treat the underlying cause. We don't give them a drug for their droopy eyes or slurred speech, we fix the underlying problem that's causing that

CowperKettle

When you're under stress, your brain kind of ramps up some dopamine connections in an effort to overcome your problems. And if your brain networks are not optimally tuned, and some connections between neurons are wrongly wired, this excessive dopamine activity makes you assign importance to external stimuli at random.

This hypothesis is called "Psychosis as a state of aberrant salience", with salience being a fancy word for "assigning importance to some piece of information by a neural network"

Dopamine and the aberrant salience hypothesis of schizophrenia

> This could lead to the world seeming pregnant with significance, generating feelings of apprehension and a sense that the world has changed in some as yet uncertain way.

> These experiences are characteristic of the prodromal phase of schizophrenia2, 3. Jaspers10 referred to this as the delusional atmosphere, in which “there is some change which envelops everything with a subtle, pervasive and strangely uncertain light”.

M.A.R.

OMG these hypotheses drive me nuts

CowperKettle

Shitij Kapur

Shitij Kapur FMedSci, has served as the 21st President and Principal of King's College London since 1 June 2021. Previously, he was the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences and Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Health) of the University of Melbourne from 2016 to 2020.Kapur's research has made major contributions to the understanding of psychosis and antipsychotic treatment. From 2010-2015 he co-lead NEWMEDS, an international consortium of scientists from 19 institutions from 9 EU countries, NEWMEDS, one the largest academic-industry research collaboration projects to find new...

One of the scientists who developed this hypothesis

M.A.R.

11:18 AM

3

A: Which countries do have both a motive and a capability of disrupting Nord Stream?

I will try not to name single countries in this answer but rather only discuss capabilities and possible motives. The question of capability clearly depends on the way the sabotaging act was done (if it was one and not just an unfortunate coincidence). If some explosive devices have been attached...

Why not speculate about Nordstream instead

Some moron escalated the war by blowing up empty pipelines

CowperKettle

My guess is that it's Russia who blew it up. Firstly, to avoid paying fines for not supplying gas. Secondly, to provide a warning to the West: we can blow up your undersea communications too.

I just can't imagine a Western state making it.

Some whistleblower would blow a whistle in such a case.

My second-best guess is that it was Greta Thunberg.

And that's all. I have no third guess.

Faheem Mitha

11:40 AM

@CowperKettle Yes, that sounds a bit like my sister. Her brain is definitely not properly wired.

(Sorry, I dropped off a bit there. Thank you for the input, @CowperKettle and @M.A.R.)

Among other things, she often comes across as a bit paranoid. She keeps talking about being killed or being thrown out onto the street. Stuff like that.

CowperKettle

My uncle thought that some people followed him into our city, when he came to visit us.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle I assume that was not true.

This is the actual drug my sister takes. By Sun Pharma.

1mg.com/drugs/qutipin-25-tablet-139639

But not the strength. She takes 300mg daily, 150mg morning (or afternoon) and 150mg evening.

Like I said, it doesn't seem to have much effect.

And that's in theory. Sometimes she throws it on the floor and stuff.

If we know she did that we try giving it again. But we don't always know.

CowperKettle

11:59 AM

@FaheemMitha Yes, it was not true, it was just his fears

But there are people who actually pray on psychiatric patients, forcing them to give up their apartments, for instance.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle So your uncle had some mental problems?

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha Yes, officially schizophrenia, but nobody really knows, all diagnoses are approximate

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle True. Those things are just convenient labels.

CowperKettle

He was given insulin shock therapy, and felt much worse after it.

Insulin shock therapy

Insulin shock therapy or insulin coma therapy was a form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to produce daily comas over several weeks. It was introduced in 1927 by Austrian-American psychiatrist Manfred Sakel and used extensively in the 1940s and 1950s, mainly for schizophrenia, before falling out of favour and being replaced by neuroleptic drugs in the 1960s.It was one of a number of physical treatments introduced into psychiatry in the first four decades of the 20th century. These included the convulsive therapies (card...

Thankfully, it's no longer practiced

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Salt shaker and salt? I don't follow. Is that an idiom?

@CowperKettle People prey on normal people too. I posted a horrific link about online scams some time ago. Of course, if you have mental problems you are that much vulnerable.

CowperKettle

12:05 PM

In the Urals, a woman psychiatrist swindled her patients out of their apartments.

I remember reading news about it.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle How horrible.

In India, lawyers tend to rob their clients. It's non uncommon, I hear.

@M.A.R. @CowperKettle Hypothetically, if the quetiapine does wasn't doing much, would it make sense to increase it? Because a psychiatrist suggested that once.

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha My psychiatrist friend would say "try finding a good psychiatrist and adjust or change the drug", but it's hard to find a good psychiatrist.

A good psychiatrist would need to read the medical history and to see the patient in person, in order to make decisions.

For Russia, there's a list of good psychiatrists I picked up in Telegram. But for India, I have no idea if such lists exists.

Maybe there are some web-forums or Telegram channels maintained by Indian patients and relatives, where they would give an advice about good psychiatrists in this or that city.

Robusto

12:44 PM

#Worldle #253 2/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜➡️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

144

A: Is "Just a friendly advice" grammatical?

If you use an article with advice you have to use a counter: A friendly piece of advice. A friendly bit of advice. No one who is fluent in English (AmE or BrE) would say A friendly advice. [Wrong!] To omit the article, those speakers would say Some friendly advice.

🌎 Oct 1, 2022 🌍
🔥 31 | Avg. Guesses: 6.1
⬜🟧🟥🟥🟩 = 5

#globle

CowperKettle

@FaheemMitha I mean, I'm not competent to give advice

I can only experiment with my own body))

Doramad Radioactive Toothpaste

Doramad Radioactive Toothpaste (Doramad Radioaktive Zahncreme) was a brand of toothpaste produced in Germany by Auergesellschaft of Berlin from the 1920s through World War II. It was known for containing thorium, a radioactive metal, and is an example of radioactive quackery. == Development == The toothpaste was slightly radioactive because it contained small amounts of thorium obtained from monazite sands. Auergesellschaft used thorium and rare-earth elements in making industrial products including mantles for gas lanterns; the toothpaste was produced as a byproduct. Its radioactive content was...

Robusto

1:18 PM

Wordle 469 4/6

🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

M.A.R.

2:12 PM

@CowperKettle my guess is it was Gandhi

It's the ones you least suspect

@FaheemMitha I'm trying to change "taking something with a grain of salt" so I don't sound clichéd

Robusto

@M.A.R. "I'm trying to change" is kinda clichéd, dontcha think?

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha before every drug is released to the market, its therapeutic window (lethal dose/therapeutic dose) is determined, and so is the dose where the maximum therapeutic effect is achieved, so moving beyond that is not thought to improve anything, while potentially increasing the adverse effects

@Robusto sobs THEY MADE ME DO IT

Robusto

This is what you get for "choosing" a totalitarian regime.

I hear the riots are making their way throughout the entire country now, btw.

M.A.R.

IIRC antipsychotics, unlike anxiolytic drugs, are rarely lethal in very high doses. Diazepam can easily send people into a stupor or coma in case of an overdose. Antipsychotic drugs just exacerbate extrapyramidal effects. (Most of which are Parkinson-like syndromes)

@Robusto they've been doing that for a week, but it feels like an inflamed tissue. Eventually they'll die down, and nobody will get any justice for murdering a women in custody

Robusto

2:27 PM

No surprise there.

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

No surprise here also.

Robusto

Welcome back, skullpatrol.

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

Re: "I Can't Breathe"

thnx pal

M.A.R.

Today, there was supposed to be a sit-in, and only we (around 20 people out of at least the 200 that promised) showed up. We were swept like yesterday's dirt

Robusto

You got kicked out by police?

M.A.R.

2:31 PM

Because after all the chest-thumping (is that the word?) and angry yells, I'm skeptical many people believe in whatever they believe in

@Robusto just security, nothing violent, and it was never supposed to be.

tchrist

Mortality police.

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

next comes thought police

Robusto

@M.A.R. So on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being a flash mob performance, 10 being a violent, successful revolution, where would you place the current unrest?

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

Rational numbers only please.

tchrist

All questions of grammatical correctness are matters of opinion. You either have your own opinion or you follow someone else's. In matters dealing with comparatives, the syntax is so complex that just about any usage can be found examples of, somewhere. Which is to say, no it's not ungrammatical. It's normal and understandable; it's just that it's not archaic, and there are those who find anything outside their opinion to be Wrong. Use it if you want. — John Lawler 20 hours ago

Robusto

2:34 PM

@si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck Integers are rational numbers.

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

Indeed they are. But we are dealing with irrational people.

CowperKettle

Word of the day: human wine decanting

jlliagre

3:18 PM

Companion word of the day: tastevin.

Robusto

@jlliagre You see those in high-class restaurants. Classy enough to have a sommelier, anyway.

jlliagre

@Robusto I have never seen a human wine decanter in a restaurant or anywhere else :-)

Robusto

I thought was what a sommelier did.

CowperKettle

On a beach in Crimea

jlliagre

@Robusto Some wines need to be chambrés, but that method seems excessive...

Robusto

3:30 PM

@jlliagre It would need to be a very expensive wine for that to even make sense.

CowperKettle

chambres de vessie

Robusto

I've had some high-year Grand Cru wines in my time, like Chateaus Lafitte-Rothschild, Margaux, Haut-Brion, and on one occasion a restaurant put the bottle of Margaux in a decanter after the wine steward showed it around to his fellow servers.

CowperKettle

A video surfaced of a random missile that landed in an apartment block in Crimea, probably launched from the large ammunition explosion on the photo.

I'm not a wine connouseur, but I tried Chianti a couple times, it was nice.

Rhyme-as-reason effect

The rhyme-as-reason effect, or Eaton-Rosen phenomenon, is a cognitive bias whereupon a saying or aphorism is judged as more accurate or truthful when it is rewritten to rhyme. In experiments, subjects judged variations of sayings which did and did not rhyme, and tended to evaluate those that rhymed as more truthful (controlled for meaning). For example, the saying "What sobriety conceals, alcohol reveals" was judged more accurate on average than: "What sobriety conceals, alcohol unmasks", sampling across separate groups of subjects (who each assessed the accuracy of only one of these statements...

Robusto

3:51 PM

@CowperKettle Cf. the O. J. Simpson defense about the bloody gloves: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."

> A dark leather glove became an important piece of evidence in the O. J. Simpson murder case. Simpson's defense counsel famously quipped "if it doesn't fit, you must acquit". The glove presented as evidence shrank from having been soaked in blood, according to some analysis.

CowperKettle

Oh, I remember that trial being reported on Russian TV

Faheem Mitha

@M.A.R. Not sounding cliched while risking incomprehensibility.

@M.A.R. Yes, I hear you. I wasn't suggesting increasing the dose unilaterally. But even with a psychiatrist's recommendation I tend to hesitate. The people here don't inspire confidence.

@M.A.R. Well, my sister has shown symptoms of something called tardive dyskinesia. Which oddly was described in a sf book I was reading. And then I saw my sister doing it.

The book being "Reflex" by Steven Gould, in case anyone cases.

cases -> cares. Sorry.

tchrist

4:16 PM

> The Russian Defense Ministry says its troops had withdrawn from the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman “due to the threat of encirclement” — a day after the Kremlin illegally annexed that region. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, called for “more drastic measures” that could include “the use of low-yield nuclear weapons” after the Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had retreated from Lyman.

Glow Worm - The Mills Brothers (Lyrics in Description)

►

> Thou aeronautical boll weevil
Illuminate yon woods primeval
See how the shadows deep and darken
You and your chick should get to sparkin'

M.A.R.

@Robusto 2, maybe 3, for almost everyone. 5 for a small minority of "hotheads", easily doxxed and labelled looters and imprisoned

jlliagre

@Robusto Not sure if you read CowperKettle's article. I wouldn't expect this particular method to do anything but spoiling a wine. I wouldn't drink it anyway. Real carafes à décanter yes, this is rare but used in some places.

tchrist

The murmuring pines and the hemlocks summoning death glows in Lyman.

M.A.R.

@FaheemMitha well, I'd say one has no other choice but to trust the doctor. If a clear protocol is followed, you could more easily point out what went wrong or why, and that's assuming trusting them is just as bad as not trusting them

@FaheemMitha it's a predictable side effect of her medication, it may or may not be possible to mitigate it. Most side effects fit into two broad categories: Some are 'extensions' of the pharmacologic actions of the drug, e.g. aspirin is indicated to prevent thrombotic events, so bleeding for longer periods is a predictable but unpleasant and sometimes dangerous side effect of aspirin. Other side effects are referred to as idiosyncratic, they often have little or nothing to do with the drug's

jlliagre

4:31 PM

M.A.R.

. . . actions, tend to be more severe, and unpredictable.

We have a wide variety of antipsychotic drugs, and the ones that have a higher ratio of dopamine:serotonin blockade often cause more extrapyramidal effects, a subset of which is Parkinson-like syndromes, such as tardive dyskinesia.

jlliagre

@Robusto Pisse-dru translates to something like Thick peeing... I guess that's the idea.

M.A.R.

Switching to an agent that impacts serotonin pathways more may help alleviate tardive dyskinesia, assuming there aren't any complications regarding this switch

tchrist

Bilious peevers are always ill humored.

It's really quite galling.

M.A.R.

I'm turning yellow from all these puns you're making

CowperKettle

4:39 PM

Who watched the movie Us (2019)?

tchrist

Damocles was a social engineer.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Is it that Spike Lee movie?

tchrist

Or the objectified version of Zamyatin’s We?

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. No, it's by Jordan Peele.

M.A.R.

Oh, Jordan Peele, my mistake. I know I chose not to watch it

CowperKettle

4:41 PM

It's not a masterpiece, but for a horror movie, it's nice.

M.A.R.

@tchrist a sequel to I, robot after Will Smith found lots of metallic friends

@CowperKettle yeah I know he wouldn't miss the mark, and if I have a problem with his movies, it's usually not on the surface

When the characters are like pawns for the filmmaker to express their opinion on something, I much rather prefer they be very stylish about it

tchrist

So many deceptive cadences here, so many leading-tone terminals.

M.A.R.

You mean Cadence Owens? She is indeed deceptive

tchrist

Social problems of youth unchaperoned by steadier hands and keener eyes.

@StuartF If Jack resents the way Jill says shibboleth and Jill resents Jack’s resentment, then how many of Jack and Jill’s social problems can ELU solve for them? — tchrist ♦ 1 hour ago

How many pails of water can we expect them to fetch us?

PAILS!? IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE BUCKETS YOU NIMROD YOU!

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

Shhh, please

tchrist

4:53 PM

Calamitatis et miseriae.

Dies irae.

Dies thirsty but still peeving.

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

they'll always beat you with more experience

tchrist

Whips are more effective.

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

My name is not Toby

tchrist

Nor not?

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

it is Kunta

and I can't breathe

tchrist

4:57 PM

Better be than nettle sting.

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

A bee can only sting once.

tchrist

Only if mellifera honey.

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

Btw, my purchase request for Life Is So Good by George Dawson was approved by the library, they are ordering two copies

22 years late, but better than never

si-LV-er_and_b-LA-ck

5:27 PM

c-span.org/video/?160150-1/life-good

warning: he's 102 years old at the time of this interview

Robusto

6:13 PM

@jlliagre I didn't see it, and I still don't. But the decanter they poured the Margaux in was like the top half of an hourglass with a valve at the bottom. Which meant the sediment would be sure to be the first thing decanted once it settled. I was kinda pissed at this, but someone else had bought the wine so I didn't say anything.

jlliagre

6:45 PM

@Robusto Kinda pissed is the appropriate expression.

Faheem Mitha

@CowperKettle Yes, it's hard to find a good psychiatrist. It's hard to even find a psychiatrist who will have a proper conversation with you.

@CowperKettle It's possible, but I don't know of anything like that. I do look at Practo, which has some reviews, and appears to be actually written by actual patients. Supposedly one can only review a doctor if one has actually seen that doctor, which is a start. But there aren't a lot of doctors listed there.

Faheem Mitha

7:04 PM

@CowperKettle How was that list compiled, and is it reliable?

tchrist

7:34 PM

> How's a chicken like an egg?
How's a beetle taste in water?
How's a bird like a blossom?
How's a pony smell my daughter?

Fresh and with its tongue, times four.

No foul similes were violated in this text.

Robusto

8:28 PM

@tchrist I'm reading Stephen King's new horror show, Fairy Tale. It's pretty good, actually. Really, it's an homage toward the non-Disney fairy tales of Grimm, Andersen, even Lovecraft, etc. And done quite well.

tchrist

@Robusto Oh thanks!

jlliagre

8:42 PM

Wordle 469 4/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟨⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Robusto

9:07 PM

Russian Mobilisation - what does it mean for the war in Ukraine?

►

Robusto

11:57 PM

In Iran, Raw Fury Is in the Air If the demonstrations have one theme, it seems to be sheer hatred of the regime.

>
Rallies have turned progressively more violent. Videos captured on cellphone cameras show nightly scenes of terrifying bravery: women tearing off their veils and screaming at advancing lines of riot police. Dozens of protesters have been killed, and in some cities they have struck back, burning down police stations and killing the paramilitary thugs sent to suppress them.

> This time, raw fury is in the air, a sense that protesters are girding themselves for war rather than liberation. Their chants suggest a new spirit of intransigence: “We will fight, we will die, we will get Iran back.”
The protesters don’t seem to have illusions about their country blooming into democracy; this is not an Iranian spring. They are not inclined toward politics as a vehicle for change, and that in itself is a troubling sign. If the protests have one theme, it seems to be sheer hatred of the Iranian regime.

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…