English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

> The first specimens of Utahraptor were found in 1975 by Jim Jensen in the Dalton Wells Quarry in east-central Utah, near the town of Moab, but did not receive much attention. With all the good rock music still appearing in 1975, all attention was distracted away from raptors.

emptier, septier but septuor

@CowperKettle I know Moab.

> The Biblical name Moab refers to an area of land located on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Some historians believe the city in Utah came to use this name because of William Andrew Peirce, the first postmaster, believing that the biblical Moab and this part of Utah were both "the far country".

East of Eden it lies.

I believe it was Stephen Fry's washpot.

Moab Is My Washpot

Moab Is My Washpot (published 1997) is Stephen Fry's autobiography, covering the first 20 years of his life. In the book, Fry is candid about his past indiscretions, including stealing, cheating and lying. The book covers some of the same ground as in Fry's first novel, The Liar, published in 1991. In that work, public schoolboy Adrian Healey falls in love with a boy called Hugo Cartwright; in the autobiography, 14-year-old Fry becomes besotted with 13-year-old "Matthew Osborne". Fry also writes about his older brother Roger, Bunce (the new boy at his prep school, Stouts Hill), Jo Wood (his best...

Monotheism: Moses, an early adopter, and Jesus, an adapter.

12:53 AM

It lies at the confluence of the Rivers Green and Red. The latter we only speak of in Spanish: río Colorado.

@CowperKettle Christianity seen as a Jewish cult that went viral.

I thought "Colorado" meant multicolor, full of color

@tchrist Because Ancient Romans were anti-maskers.

@CowperKettle It can, and usually does, but not here. Here it's a synonym for rojo.

For the rocks are red, red, red.

The sense as "red" is the eldest.

Del lat. colorātus, de colorāre 'colorar'.

1. adj. rojo. Tonos colorados. Tierra colorada. Apl. a color, u. t. c. s. m.

2. adj. Dicho de una cosa: Que se funda en alguna apariencia de razón o de justicia.

3. adj. R. Dom. Tostado por el sol.

4. adj. desus. verde (‖ indecente, erótico).

"Tierra colorada" is a great way to describe Moab's Red Rocks country.

> "Colorado" is the Spanish adjective meaning "ruddy", the color of the red sandstone prevalent along much of the course of the Colorado River.

Notice how for the obsolete sense 4 meaning indecent or erotic they gloss it as green.

Amazing. I thought it meant colorful the whole time.

12:57 AM

It's funny that colors "mean" different things in different languages.

> Displaced English blee, Middle English blee (“color”), from Old English blēo. Also partially replaced Old English hīew (“color”) and its descendants, which is less often used in this sense.

The Painted Desert is full of colors because of the petrified rocks there, but the red sandstone of the Colorado Plateau dominates everywhere else.

Of course, you also have the White Rim.

And the Black Canyon.

> From earlier colōs (genitive colōris), from Proto-Italic *kelōs, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to hide, conceal”).

This is logical. Color conceals the surface.

All in that same place. The layers change colors as you descend to the most ancient of rocks.

> 'I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.

' "I liked white better," I said.

' "White! " he sneered. "It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken."

' "In which case it is no longer white," said I. "And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

Your many colored cloak conceals nothing of your nature, Saruman.

Tolkien knew his Latin (and his Greek) extremely well.

> A white well
In a black cave;
A bright shell
In a dark wave.

A white rose
Black brambles hood;
Smooth bright snows
In a dark wood.

> In the 1950s Moab became the so-called "Uranium Capital of the World" after geologist Charles Steen found a rich deposit of uranium ore south of the city.

> In 1949, Western movie director John Ford was persuaded to use the area for the movie Wagon Master.

> Most contemporary critics appear to concur with Gallagher's view that Wagon Master is a major masterpiece.

I never heard of this film.

1:10 AM

Oh yes.

> The geology of the area is fascinating. The Vermillion Cliffs is just one of many layers of sedimentary rock that create the Grand Staircase along the Colorado Plateau.

Stretching north from the Grand Canyon to Bryce National Park and the Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument, the Grand Staircase consists of five major rock layers. Each stripe corresponds to a different era in earth’s history and is a unique color. The Vermillion layer, specifically, forms the second step in the Grand Staircase.

Unfortunately, vermilion is "supposed" to have just one L.

Vermilion border

The vermilion border (sometimes spelled vermillion border), also called margin or zone, is the normally sharp demarcation between the lip and the adjacent normal skin. It represents the change in the epidermis from highly keratinized external skin to less keratinized internal skin. It has no sebaceous glands, sweat glands, or facial hair.It has a prominence on the face, creating a focus for cosmetics (it is where lipstick is sometimes applied) and is also a location for several skin diseases. Its functional properties, however, remain unknown. == Structure == The lips are composed wholly of soft...

Vermilion Cliffs National Monument

Aye. It's hard to remember.

Vermilion Cliffs National Monument is located in northern Coconino County, Arizona, United States, immediately south of the Utah state line. This national monument, 293,689 acres (118,852 ha) in area, protects the Paria Plateau, Vermilion Cliffs, Coyote Buttes, and Paria Canyon. Elevations in the monument range from 3,100 feet to 6,500 feet above sea level (944 to 1,981 meters). == Creation and designation == Established on November 9, 2000 by a presidential proclamation by President Bill Clinton, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument was carved from existing lands already under the management of...

Look, they've got coyote butts!

Portuguese uses vermelho as their normal word for "red".

vermelho

Noun: vermelho m (plural vermelhos)

reintegrationist spelling of vermello
vermelho m (plural vermelhos)
red (color)
red (socialist or communist)

Adjective: vermelho (feminine vermelha, masculine plural vermelhos, feminine plural vermelhas)

red (having red as its color)
red (socialist or communist)

> From Old Portuguese vermello (“red”), from Vulgar Latin *vermiclus, from Latin vermiculus (“little worm”), from vermis (“worm”), ultimately in reference to Kermes vermilio, a type of scale insect used to make a crimson dye.

Cognate with Galician vermello, Spanish bermejo, Asturian bermeyu, Catalan vermell, Occitan vermelh, French vermeil and Italian vermiglio. Also related to English vermilion. Compare also Portuguese vermículo, which is a borrowed doublet.

SmokeDetector

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in answer, potentially bad ip for hostname in answer (95): What's a word for fake politeness?‭ by Harper Fernandez‭ on english.SE

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) was shot in Moab.

Also Fade In (1968), the first Hollywood made film to show someone taking a contraception pill.

@CowperKettle That makes sense.

I've probably been there 50 times or more.

1:25 AM

It has a nice weather right now. Only +11°C

I wish.

We have wintry weather moving in right now. It was "cold" (about that temp, or a little cooler) and windy all day. The animals know the weather's coming. We may get five inches overnight.

Here, it's minus 20 C, so I have avoided jogging to spare my eye.

OUr high of +11C we reached this morning at 10:30, and it's been falling since then.

In East Ukraine, it will hit the freezing temperature by week-end.

Thus, next week battles will resurge.

Right now it's plunging fast. Just a little above freezing now, and the night is young.

1:28 AM

The worst part of the war, with both sides exhausted.

It will be colder still by New Year's.

A person I know is going to visit Kazakhstan for a week, to assess the situation, I suspect. Because there are rumors that mobilization will reactivate on December 10, or in early January.

We'll hit +16F tonight, they say.

So 16 degrees below freezing.

Minus 16 C! It's cool

Just -9C.

1:31 AM

A relative of mine stayed in Turkey until the coast was clear. I told him that mobilization is not over yet.

5/9 of 16, however that works out.

@CowperKettle That's sound advice.

Not even the wise can see all ends.

He said, "when we arrived, we used to go to a cafe. After awhile, we visited it again, and it had a Russian crew of refugees".

And I don't know anyone who can foresee how this ends.

Did you know that the world’s largest active volcano has started to erupt for the first time in nearly four decades?

Hawaii’s Mauna Loa.

No. It must be beautiful.

theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/28/…

1:35 AM

I was busy reading psychiatry news. A great study came out that showed that some people with resistant depression, who do not respond to antidepressants at all, might have interesting metabolic disorders. This means that at least some of them may be helped by currently existing drugs. To get out of their depression, or ease it.

Metabolomic disorders: confirmed presence of potentially treatable abnormalities in patients with treatment refractory depression and suicidal behavior

> "None of the conventional clinical or research diagnostic or therapeutic approaches would have identified the source of these patients' difficulties, nor would they have suggested the subsequent successful treatment strategies."

The authors used an analysis currently not used anywhere in psychiatry.

But some 1% of depressed patients might have these treatable metabolic defects.

If this study is confirmed by replication, it would be great.

@tchrist Nice!

With all the new drones, it will be great for scientists to study and take good videos.

BRB

@tchrist Four decades? Three or four years ago there was an eruption and lava flow that jeopardized some of our club's members as they did a bike tour around the big island.

Ohhh, that one was Kilauea.

I have it in my head that there's one big volcano on the big island, but obviously that's not the case.

Cerberus

1:52 AM

@tchrist Who is that, Augustine or something?

2:04 AM

The Hidden Melodies of Subways Around the World

Thomas à Kempis

Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380 – 25 July 1471; German: Thomas von Kempen; Dutch: Thomas van Kempen) was a German-Dutch canon regular of the late medieval period and the author of The Imitation of Christ, published anonymously in Latin in the Netherlands c. 1418–1427, one of the most popular and best known Christian devotional books. His name means "Thomas of Kempen", Kempen being his home town. He was a member of the Modern Devotion, a spiritual movement during the late medieval period, and a follower of Geert Groote and Florens Radewyns, the founders of the Brethren of the Common Life. == Life == Thomas...

He also wrote, In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro.

mazeppist.blogspot.com/2013/11/imitatio-christi.html

> There is something miraculous about the effect of the Imitatio. The thinker does not captivate us with his power or elan, as for example, Augustine, or by flowering prose, as St. Bernard, nor with the depth or fullness of his thought. Everything is even and melancholy, everything is kept in a minor key. There is only peace, calm, a quiet, resigned expectation, and solace.

@Cerberus I read it first here, outside the Dutch context that birthed it:

> Est ubi gloria nunc Babylonia? Dove sono le nevi di un tempo? La terra danza la danza di Macabré, mi sembra a tratti che il Danubio sia percorso da battelli carichi di folli che vanno verso un luogo oscuro.

Non mi rimane che tacere. O quam salubre, quam iucundum et suave est sedere in solitudine et tacere et loqui cum Deo! Tra poco mi ricongiungerò col mio principio, e non credo più che sia il Dio di gloria di cui mi avevano parlato gli abati del mio ordine, o di gioia, come credevano i minoriti di allora, forse neppure di pietà. Gott ist ein lautes Nichts, ihn rührt kein Nun noch Hier.…

Obviously he also pinched from François Villon, as you can see in the second sentence. Only steal from the best. :)

You can get a three-language parallel version of it here.

@Robusto ^^^ Get that. You'll want it, too.

Cerberus

2:34 AM

@tchrist This one I think I have heard before.

2:58 AM

Notice how there are two paragraphs missing from the William Weaver translation in the middle. I wonder whyever for.

There are other such instances in the dialogues, where Weaver leaves out a paragraph or two. I'm perplexed because I know Eco, who was fluent in English, proofread the translation.

> “Oc! Bestiola parvissima est, più lunga alguna cosa che ‘l topo, et odiala ‘l topo muchissimo. E assì la serpe et la botta. Et quando loro la mordono, la bellula corre alla fenicula o a la circerbita et ne dentecchia, et redet ad bellum. Et dicunt che ingenera per li oculi, ma li più dicono ch’elli dicono falso.”

Gli chiesi cosa facesse con un basilisco e disse che erano affari suoi.

Hah.

> “Ma non c’è nessuno che parla così!”

“Fortunatamente. Ma erano tempi in cui, per dimenticare un mondo cattivo, i grammatici si dilettavano di astruse questioni.

It's really a very funny book.

More darned gaps in the English. Gee.

It's quite frustrating. I now feel compelled to reread it to read the parts I didn't read.

I have a paperback of the Italian, which I got quite a long time after having read the English translation. But you never know what you didn't see.

But not tonight.

4:01 AM

@tchrist "I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone".

4:13 AM

Word of the day: discalced ( Latin discalceātus, from dis (apart, away) + calceātus (shod), from calceāre (to provide with shoes), from calceus (shoe), from calx (heel).)

I first thought discalced meant a CPU without a floating-point unit.

Discalced Carmelites

The Discalced Carmelites, known officially as the Order of the Discalced Carmelites of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (Latin: Ordo Fratrum Carmelitarum Discalceatorum Beatae Mariae Virginis de Monte Carmelo) or the Order of Discalced Carmelites (Latin: Ordo Carmelitarum Discalceatorum; abbrev.: OCD), is a Catholic mendicant order with roots in the eremitic tradition of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. The order was established in the 16th century, pursuant to the reform of the Carmelite Order by two Spanish saints, Saint Teresa of Ávila (foundress) and Saint John of the Cross (co-founder...

> The "dark night" of St. Paul of the Cross in the 18th century endured 45 years, from which he ultimately recovered. The dark night of Mother Teresa, whose own name in religion she selected in honor of Thérèse of Lisieux, "may be the most extensive such case on record", having endured from 1948 almost until her death in 1997, with only brief interludes of relief, according to her letters.

Cerberus

5:31 AM

> ...the Pentagon was considering a proposal from Boeing to supply Ukraine with cheap, small precision bombs fitted on to abundantly available rockets, allowing Kyiv to strike far behind Russian lines as the west struggles to meet demand for more arms.

Stow-aways travelled like this from Nigeria to the Canary Islands, which is 11 days.

Sitting on the rudder of an oil tanker.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle I thought it's some bone disorder

The discalced Carmelites ate a lot of caramel and no milk

A: What is the minimum amount of water per day to survive?

6:02 AM

@Cerberus Amazing. One would need at least 11 liters of water, I guess, not to die over 11 days. And some food.

8

According to NAP.edu, the minimal (obligatory) daily water loss for an adult is at least 1 liter (~1 quart), which includes losses by the urine, feces, insensible perspiration and breathing (but not sweating). So, if you are sweating minimally, you would need to drink about 1 liter of water per d...

Okay, for food one could use pure sugar with some pure fat, to pack calories denser. But water is an absolute must.

7:40 AM

They were, according to the news wires, “moderately dehydrated.” Perhaps condensation on the hull provided some moisture.

7:54 AM

I hope so.

8:07 AM

The only place where Russia is winning is in Indian media. They will exaggerate a thing ten times. Also bring a months old small fact and exaggerate it and make it latest news.

8:26 AM

Wordle 528 4/6

⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟨🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

India has splendid opportunities. China is in trouble with Covid and the distrust of the West,

. . .Its surveillance state is seen as threatening. India has an understanding of British/American law, a large labor force, cheap Russian oil, Western investors seeking alternatives to China, a man of Indian ancestry as PM of the UK (what delicious irony). All it needs to do is overcome its resentment of colonialism enough to take advantage of the be efits with

Sorry . . . of the residual benefits. China and Russia are not the future. Go with the West, Australia, Japan, South Korea. It just seems so obvious, doesn’t it?

I see China as surely future. They are far better in technology than India.

8:59 AM

@Vikas This is odd. Are Indian media independent from the state?

Maybe they are independent, but they just channel the people's mood. Maybe Indians are sympathetic to Russia because they think that it is "against the West".

Confusing Putin's regime and the Russian people..

Nobody knows the future, we are at a unique time in humanity's history.

Technology is changing the world in ways that nobody can predict.

Daily Octordle #309
🕛5️⃣
6️⃣🕚
🔟7️⃣
9️⃣8️⃣
Score: 68
octordle.comm

Mot too bad.

Not, rather.

9:22 AM

@CowperKettle I don't know much about that. But I think government does not control them. They get influenced by government though.

@CowperKettle Yes.

Daily Octordle #309
7️⃣9️⃣
🟥🕛
5️⃣2️⃣
🕐🟥
Score: 76
octordle.com
Not too good.

@tchrist Can you identify which language is that?

> Nascite in le Regno Unite in le seculo 18, le football es un sport collective que se joca con un balla. On joca in un campo de herba con un goal in cata latere curte e cata equipa (de 11 jocatores) debe mandar le balla in le goal del adversario. Le tracto distinguente de isto joco es que le jocatores (excepte le goalkeeper) non pote usar su manos o bracios.
> Le partito se joca in duo "medie tempores" de 45 minutas. Le football es le sport le plus popular del mundo, e le maxime evento mundial del football es le Cuppa del mundo, le evento sportive le plus viste del mundo.

I could guess the meaning of some words. Thanks to my obsession with etymology, perhaps.

9:50 AM

I can translate almost all of it, and probably guess right at the rest. It’s not quite Spanish or Italian.

10:15 AM

I’d guess Spanish, though.

10:50 AM

Ten minutes of aerobic exercise with exposure therapy found to reduce PTSD symptoms

@Xanne Spanish would be Nacido en el Reino Unido en el siglo XX, el fútbol es un deporte colectivo que se juega con un balón. Se juega en un campo de hierba con una portería en cada lado corto y cada equipo (de 11 jugadores) tiene que introducir el balón en la portería del adversario.

So you”d go with Portuguese?

11:09 AM

11:31 AM

@jlliagre So what language is it? Mixed romance?

11:42 AM

Universal vulgar Latin?

12:33 PM

@Xanne Yes, kind of.

Interlingua

Interlingua (; ISO 639 language codes ia, ina) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the most widely used IALs and is the most widely used naturalistic IAL – in other words, those IALs whose vocabulary, grammar, and other characteristics are derived from natural languages, rather than being centrally planned. Interlingua literature maintains that (written) Interlingua is comprehensible to the hundreds of millions of people who speak Romance languages, though it is actively...

1:01 PM

#Worldle #312 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

🌎 Nov 29, 2022 🌍
🔥 90 | Avg. Guesses: 5.48
⬜🟨🟥🟩 = 4

#globle

Wordle 528 4/6

⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟨⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

@CowperKettle Not currently, no. Previously somewhat, but still not that much.

#Worldle #312 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

It's rare for a country's MSM to be independent of the state. Most of the time they parrot the govt line.

And the poorer the country, the more likely that is to be the case.

1:19 PM

Daily Quordle 309
6️⃣4️⃣
8️⃣7️⃣
quordle.com

Daily Octordle #309
🟥8️⃣
4️⃣7️⃣
🕛🟥
5️⃣🟥
Score: 78
octordle.com

Terrible.

Couldn't get out of my own way on that one.

Daily Quordle 309
8️⃣6️⃣
5️⃣9️⃣
quordle.com

@Vikas You need to click on "Play bonus round" to get stars:

@jlliagre I told him that yesterday. I'm not sure he understands.

1:36 PM

#Worldle #312 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

¡Es pan comido!

Easy-peasy. I even got the flag on the first try, since I've always thought it one of the most beautiful.

🌎 Nov 29, 2022 🌍
🔥 2 | Avg. Guesses: 6.66
🟨🟧🟧🟩 = 4

#globle

1:55 PM

@jlliagre Yeah I noticed that button today 😅 I progressed to one more round then lost. I think Flag round comes in the end. I still didn't see that.

@Vikas, yes 1: country, 2: neighbors, 3: capital city, 4: flag

2:17 PM

Flags are the one thing you don't get just by staring at maps.

2:36 PM

@Robusto But if you cannot recall the one used in the USSR, that's a red flag.

@Robusto If I were twenty years old I would cram them all.

@CowperKettle rimshot

And now Russia has the good old red, white, and blue!

@jlliagre I reached 3.

@tchrist You know me man

But it's like people -force- the words to be truth, do everything they can to fill in the logical gaps to make sense of some story some guy just made up or hallucinated while walking through the desert.

@CowperKettle Totally. Like Switzerland is a pretty great country by itself but its flag is a big plus.

@FaheemMitha There can be a direct line (government officials communicate directly with the TV or newspaper news room executives) or the media executives can just be implicitly doing what is expected without direct intervention.

@CowperKettle Can you read that?

2:50 PM

eg some Fox news executives spoke directly with TFG, but that was very unprecedented for the US.

> Jan Pavel II stoji prěd vratami k nebu.
Svety Petr: — A vy kto?
— Ja jesm Karol Vojtyla, Jan Pavel II, papež, prědstavitelj Boga na zemji.
— Ne znaju, iměl by li šef na zemji prědstavitelja. Trěba bude go zapytati.
On ide k Bogu, ktory takože ne znaje o ničem. Zato oni idut k Isusu. Toj ide do nebskyh vrat, že by lično razvezal problem. Poslě hvilje vračaje se, imajuči očevidno dobro nastrojenje:
— Vy pomnite, že ja onogda, prěd okolo dva tysečami lětami, osnoval jesm taku družinu rybakov? Sejčas ja slyšu, že ona funkcionuje do dnes!

@jlliagre 😂

I spoke too soon. I don't get it.

I only get the proper nouns...

It's gotta be a 'St Peter at the pearly gates joke' and the pope does something and they talk to God and .... 'it functions today'?

Yes, what language does it look to you?

3:03 PM

@Mitch I sent this meme about Switzerland to my longtime friend, who moved and lives there. She stopped communicating, then unfriended and blocked me on Facebook.

@jlliagre Several words I did not get, but yes, it's legible in Russian ))

It's a good joke))

@CowperKettle Friends will help you move. Really good friends will help you move a body. True friends will groan at your puns, but then use them later.

I think it's some Eastern European Slavic language.

@CowperKettle Google translate lost something in the translation.

It says it is Slovenian.

Wow, it's very close to Russian in its lexics

It's similar to interlingua, but for the slavic languages.

Interslavic

Interslavic (Medžuslovjansky / Меджусловјанскы) is a pan-Slavic auxiliary language. Its purpose is to facilitate communication between speakers of various Slavic languages, as well as to allow people who do not speak a Slavic language to communicate with Slavic speakers by being mutually intelligible with most, if not all, Slavic languages. For Slavs and non-Slavs, it can fulfil an educational role as well. Interslavic can be classified as a semi-constructed language. It is essentially a modern continuation of Old Church Slavonic, but also draws on the various improvised language forms Slavs have...

3:09 PM

Ah, it's Interslavic, that's why I could understand almost everything. Some word roots were from Ukrainian, but I have memorized several dozens of them during the last years.

zapytati is Ukrainian for ask; in Russian that would be sprosit'

Ukrainian has retained the final vowels there, which makes it very melodic in songs.

In Russian pytat is to torture, actually. Probably because torture was used to obtain information.

So "zapytati" sounds odd to a Russian year, if unprepared. It sounds like "torture to death", because of the prefix za-

Sprosit seems an invite to drink! :-)

In Ukrainian, to torture is katuvaty, and a torturer is kat. Hence many memes about Kit-Kat, because kit in Ukrainian means cat. And Kit-Kat would mean "The Torturer Cat"

"This country needs a Kit-Kat"

Ukrainian meme

Train & Subway Door Closing Announcements, Beeps, & Chimes

@Cerberus Granted I had to look it up but 'bookshelves' is definitely a synonym of 'book case' (given that a book case is literally a set of shelves for books). But I was unsure. Bookshelves is a literal bit broader than book case. and the thing I wanted to count was book cases but I couldn't think of that word. I blame society.

And the thing I wanted to count was book cases but I couldn't think of that word. I blame society.

3:28 PM

Blame Canada!

> With all their beady little eyes
And flappin' heads so full of lies

The Prince of Canada has messed with @Mitch's mind?

Monarchy of Canada

The monarchy of Canada is Canada's form of government embodied by the Canadian sovereign and head of state. It is at the core of Canada's constitutional federal structure and Westminster-style parliamentary democracy. The monarchy is the foundation of the executive (King-in-Council), legislative (King-in-Parliament), and judicial (King-on-the-Bench) branches of both federal and provincial jurisdictions. The king of Canada since 8 September 2022 has been Charles III.Although the person of the sovereign is shared with 14 other independent countries within the Commonwealth of Nations, each country...

South Park: Stan vs. The Canadian Devil

Satan Explaines Naturalism

[ML News] GPT-4 Rumors | AI Mind Reading | Neuron Interaction Solved | AI Theorem Proving

Oh, there's a whole channel with news about Machine Learning. Only I don't understand anything he says.

Could be gibberish, for all I know.

4:07 PM

1) there's -lot's- of ML things out there including lots of YouTube channels.

2) I've never heard of this guy (but scanning his videos, I have looked at one in the past) but there are -lots- of people that I haven't heard of that are probably very important or well known by the community it's just that there are so many people in it now.

@CowperKettle listening to the first part of this TLDR not gibberish (ie he's using the vocabulary in a coherent manner).

Also it's this one guy as a filter for the claims of these many reports from papers or press releases or speculation by others. So it feels like any hype or misuse of vocab will probably come from his source rather than from him (at least that's my first impression.

I've heard the 'GPT-4 is coming' trope lately... I think the reality is that they (OpenAI) may release it in late spring/early summer 2023.

It's a highly anticipated thing because GPT-3 was a very very good progress over GPT-2 (also hyped unreasonably and shown to have a lot of problems with reasoning (which of course it was not designed to do but some reasoning features sort of popped out as a side result)). GPT-4 is supposed to prove the promises of 'scaling' (ie the claim that the best architecture has been found and now all is needed is scale/lots more data input)

As to 'mind reading', yes that is at the same time a breakthrough -and- way overhyped. It's not reading your deep dark secrets about what you really think about your mother. But it is able to do some correlation between an fMRI of your brain (an extremely tenuous proxy for your inner thoughts) and pictures that we, on the outside of your brain, can interpret.

Getting reliable detailed info from an fMRI (more refined than just 'Brodmann area 54 has slightly more activity when shown a penguin') I think is going to be difficult, so if this paper shows it is possible then that would be amazing.

But also holy crap that thing is long for just a week of news. There's a lot going on but really 40 minutes?

4:24 PM

@Mitch Yes, either or both.

Elon Musk Is An Idiot (and so are Zuck and SBF)

6:30 PM

Commercials Have a Hidden Agenda

6:58 PM

@Robusto ruthless

He was great with 'Adam Ruins Everything'

7:27 PM

@Mitch Yeah, he took the gloves off for this one. By the way, where in the hell is Ruth?

@Mitch See if you can tell where that sundial is.

8:02 PM

@Robusto Can youtube remove this video?

@Vikas I don't know. Why don't you ask them?

@Robusto They won't reply.

If someone criticized some well known leader in this tone in India it would have been removed by now.

@Vikas That's the difference between the two countries. One of them, anyway.

8:25 PM

"Crypto is fully shit" Is it true?

8:36 PM

@Vikas I wouldn't touch it.

BTW, it would be "Crypto is full of shit," not "fully shit." Pronounced like it's "fulla shit."

9:21 PM

@Vikas If you are thinking of investing in crypto, don't.

The chance of any positive outcome from a crypto investment is remote.

1) none of those three are leaders (elected government officials)
2) in the US you can say the same things about a leader as you can about someone not in government.
3) In the US, if what you say is considered slander/libel/calling for violence, you can be sued/prosecuted.
4) non-governmental media sites don't follow the same rules as the government or each other so presumably Youtube -could- have policies about defaming government officials. Twitter, since it has been bought by Musk, looks like it has had some deletion of negative statements about the new owner.

All that said, I suppose US and India aren't that different, but saying in particular that "X is an idiot" is just more tolerable in the US.

@Robusto I don't recognize the sundial at all, but I totally recognize the building and curb shape... it's the Wang Ambulatory Center at MGH

Oh haha it says it right there on the blue flag

@Mitch Ding!

I'm surprised anything is named after Wang these days.

The sundial must be new where 'new' - < 8 yrs -or- sometimes you just miss little details that you see all the time.

yes. I know. it's not a little detail.

Haven't they been OOB for like 30 years now?

@Robusto What did Mr. Wang do?

9:35 PM

Dedicated word-processing systems.

Oh...really... it's named after the company?

Or the owner.

right. I never made the connection.

Wang Laboratories

Wang Laboratories was a US computer company founded in 1951 by An Wang and G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1954–1963), Tewksbury, Massachusetts (1963–1976), and finally in Lowell, Massachusetts (1976–1997). At its peak in the 1980s, Wang Laboratories had annual revenues of US$3 billion and employed over 33,000 people. It was one of the leading companies during the time of the Massachusetts Miracle.The company was directed by An Wang, who was described as an "indispensable leader" and played a personal role in setting business and product strategy...

> Wang donated $4 million to Massachusetts General Hospital's ambulatory care center, which was renamed to the Wang Building.

An Wang

An Wang (Chinese: 王安; pinyin: Wáng Ān; February 7, 1920 – March 24, 1990) was a Chinese–American computer engineer and inventor, and cofounder of computer company Wang Laboratories, which was known primarily for its dedicated word processing machines. Wang was an important contributor to the development of magnetic-core memory. == Early life and career == A native of Kunshan County in Suzhou (Soochow) Prefecture, he was born in Shanghai, China. His father taught English at an elementary school outside Shanghai, while his mother Zen Wan (Chien) Wang was a homemaker. He graduated from Shanghai Jiao...

@Robusto is that a random internet picture or were you there?

Yawkey is the other outpatient building... his name was removed from the street in front of Fenway a few years ago for being a racist... but MGH didn't do the change to its own building.

To be sure, the street is not currently nameless...that would be an organizational crime against the postal systems and GPS location software of the world.

Oh...what is the name? Danged if I know. My not knowing the name has no connection whatsoever with whether it has a name.

OK that's not entirely true, because if it did not have a name I couldn't know it. That's logic.

Also, I lied, I actually do know it because I glanced at that article. It's 4 Jersey Way.

But what is interesting is that the article says that before they changed it tp Yawkey way in 1977, the previous address was -24- Jersey Way.

It's not like a number here or there makes a difference as long as no other location gets that same street and number. But it does make me squint a little.

I mean if you punch in 4 or 24 Jersey Way into your GPS you'll be searching all over for the door with either number on it for ages wondering how they fit a little house exactly somewhere right where the baseball park is.

10:39 PM

@Mitch I just saw it on Atlas Obscura. I used to do lunch walks that would go that far afield, but not since that sundial has been in place.

@Mitch Thank you for the explanation!

The design of the sundial bothered me. They need to
1) title it by the latitude to get better accuracy
2) allow it twist one hour for DST

11:02 PM

@Mitch DST is a construct. It should always show "true" noon correctly.

She Noticed A Strange Smell On Her Husband. Ten Years Later, He Was Dead.

Reminded me of High Noon, a great Western movie in both incarnations (1950s, 2000s)

> John Wayne told an interviewer that he considered High Noon "the most un-American thing I've ever seen in my whole life,"[33] and later teamed with director Howard Hawks to make Rio Bravo in response. "I made Rio Bravo because I didn't like High Noon," Hawks explained.

Ah. There was no incarnation in the 2000s. I mixed it up with 3:10 to Yuma, also a great movie, shot in the 50s and the 00s. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3:10_to_Yuma_(2007_film)

Although in the 2000s it was sometimes like The Matrix. Bullets flying as thickly as if a whole company of shooters is involved.