English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

TURN! TURN! TURN! (Lyrics) - THE BYRDS

1:24 AM

> I grew up in a home in which pie was spoken fluently. As a child, I assumed that pie appeared on everyone’s table, as it did year-round on mine. Looking back, I seem not so much to have traveled the circle of the sun as it inched through the seasons but around the rim of a pie tin: Lemon meringue to sour cherry, sour cherry to purple raspberry, purple raspberry to peach, then onward to apple and, finally, to holiday pumpkin and pecan.

I always have birthday pies instead of birthday cakes.

She left out rhubarb.

My wife bakes legit cherry pie. My favorite.

In Colorado, the Front Range is good at growing "pie" cherries (meaning sour cherries) and not so good at growing sweet cherries. Out on the Western Slope, it's exactly the other way around.

Just 10 degrees or so difference, and zap.

Here the sweet cherries get frozen too often to prosper. There it doesn't get quite cold enough to keep the pie cherry trees happy.

The Lake Geneva Pie Company is actually great.

2:12 AM

> Having mastered the crust, American cooks then started, like jazz musicians, to play variations. As novel ingredients such as bananas became more widely available, and refrigeration more common, cooks added the iconic cream pies to their repertoire; with the advent of cheap and reliable gelatin, they began making airy chiffon pies. Not all their inventions were a good idea — you wouldn’t believe, or eat, what some of them got up to with marshmallows.

> Soon, these technologies were joined by the real magic dust of its era: cheap, reliable powdered gelatin. The Jell-O mold is a joke to foodies today, but before the invention of granulated gelatin, a molded dessert or salad meant some expensive, daunting and laborious process, such as clarifying and straining calf’s foot jelly.

> Cake had once taken more time and labor than pie, which might be why Americans liked to say something simple was “easy as pie.” Today, with sufficient instructions and the right equipment, even an unskilled cook can turn out a decent mousse, custard or layer cake in a few hours — most of which is spent waiting for the thing to bake or set. But pie still takes all day, a good deal of mess and a bit of muscle. No wonder we stopped making so much of it.

> Unlike most traditional recipes, you can’t know in advance exactly how much water you will need. That depends on your flour, the ambient humidity and, I believe, whether the pie gods are feeling vengeful. So you must add water a little bit at a time until it looks and feels right.

> Those last steps cannot be subcontracted out to children, as my mother once assigned me to measure the flour and my sister to work the mixer for her cakes. Pie crusts require the judgment of an experienced pastry-maker, because they can’t be precisely timed or measured. It’s all in the cook’s hands — literally. They work by feel at least as much as by eye.

My father's mother was renowned for her skill with bread and desserts, particularly anything involving pastry. Her father was a German immigrant. His profession? Pastry chef.

2:42 AM

> Canada’s government is to legislate for a national freeze on handgun ownership that would prevent people buying and selling them anywhere in the country.

“The day this legislation goes into effect it will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns in Canada,” said the prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

The government will also require long-gun magazines to be permanently altered so they can never hold more than five rounds, and will ban the sale and transfer of large capacity magazines.

@Robusto I sure wish Canada were warmer.

Or New Zealand closer.

Yeah.

> The new legislation, Bill C-21, also proposes taking away the firearms licences of those involved in acts of domestic violence or criminal harassment, such as stalking.

They just seem so sane in comparison to our perpetual madness.

NB: "licences".

They have licences.

@tchrist Yes.

Спецоперация закончилась и началась третья мировая война - Скабеева

This is an excerpt from yesterday's Russia One TV program

Whatever happened to the "well-regulated" qualifier in the 2nd Amendment? There is no regulation at all right now.

2:49 AM

I'm not risking here, because it's just the most official of all official TV programs.

2:59 AM

That's comforting rhetoric.

Human Brain and Neurons Turn Out To Be Even More Complex Than We Thought

> In 2018, both teams showed that Arc can form itself into a capsid shell similar to a virus’s, and carry RNA genetic information between cells.

The human brain has a gene that produces a "viral capsid" that travels between cells. chemistryworld.com/features/…

I came across a mention in this video. The author, Anton Petrov, usually speaks about space research.

3:21 AM

@CowperKettle Hmm but this woman is always very radical, isn't she?

But apparently she is allowed to say that by the Kremlin.

I think she has been saying similar things for a while?

But perhaps I should not ask you these things.

Have you considered creating a new SE account specially for chatting, by the way?

One not linked to anything else.

3:51 AM

@Cerberus I'd better just avoid politics until it's safe

Word of the day: enanthem (From Ancient Greek ἐνανθέω (enanthéō), from ἐν (en) (intensive) +‎ ανθέω (anthéō, “to blossom”))

I think Wiktionary might be wrong here.

Does en really mean intensive?

4:08 AM

Thomas Insel recently published a book in which he says that a large portion of the US prison population really should be in mental facilities and recieve psychiatric help, but the system shunts them into jails.

Even the guy who played young Anakin Skywalker, when he developed schizophrenia, was only transferred to a mental clinic after several months of jail.

@CowperKettle This is true. Except we don't have any reliable numbers on China, so ...

Yes, China might be the real number one.

Vikas

4:56 AM

@CowperKettle India can have a bigger number if law and police work efficiently and honestly.

6:54 AM

> The 76MWp Nellai solar power plant (pictured) is in the southern state of Tamil Nadu and is expected to generate renewable energy equal to the annual power consumption of more than 500,000 Indian homes. renews.biz/78155/statkraft-opens-its-first-indian-solar-plant

A new solar plant was launched in India yesterday

8:15 AM

> The Russian Imperial Army had 40 thousand officers in 1914, and 273 thousand in 1917. 53% of pre-war officers were nobles. By 1917, 60% of new infantry officers were peasants.

11:43 AM

@CowperKettle Great, now they only need about 30,000 more like it.

#Worldle #130 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Easy-peasy.

Wordle 346 3/6

🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Not bad.

11:58 AM

Wordle (ES) #145 3/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

https://wordle.danielfrg.com/

Not bad for pre-coffee.

Christopher Hitchens warns about Vladimir Putin

1:05 PM

1:16 PM

> It shows that there has been a great Russian chauvinist resentment ever since the events of 1989, the feeling that they are on the losing side and that they're becoming a victim country. This, I think, is incalculably dangerous.

@Robusto yeah victim mentality is what drives most of our conservatives too.

Whatever we do or don't doesn't matter, because we're victims and America bad.

Charlottesville: Race and Terror – VICE News Tonight (HBO)

That's what drives the American right these days. It's what "replacement theory" is all about.

"We are victims of immigrants and non-whites!"

"You will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!" they scream. Literally, they scream that.

Well, I dunno how thankful I am that my country's alt-right isn't that pathetic.

We instead blame the weather on I*rael

Yes, that is obviously the case. And if a meteor strikes Iran, you know it was sent by the cabal.

No, not "cabal". We like few word. "I*rael. Their babies are geniuses, you know. It's the people you least suspect

1:30 PM

@M.A.R. To be fair, the weather does tend to come from the west in your latitudes.

@M.A.R. Wait, I thought the Jews ate babies.

It's the age-old practice of demonizing one's perceived enemy. Which is also a way of stirring up your own side.

Only the tasty ones

Yeah, but what if you can't afford the tasty ones?

Then you convert

@Mitch What about nor'easters?

1:32 PM

@Robusto Anyway, point is, ours aren't getting crazier, yours seem to be.

Well, yes. Thanks to the outrage machine propagated by those wonderful folks at Faux News and their cohorts.

The weather thing was a few years ago. Recently they're too preoccupied with justifying the Syrian proxy war and helping a guy who to most people doesn't seem like a nice guy stay in power

We don't even use horse paste.

Horse paste?

The word 'orc' is cognate with 'ogre' which is from 'orcus' which is Latin for Hades, which is the same process as turning the enemies gods into your own demons.

We're still just as racist towards Arabs, but it's rarely because of wars and SA being a jerk and whatever and more about considering them to be . . . Inferior? No idea. Maybe we're jealous they drive Lamborghinis.

@Robusto Ivermectin. Our charlatans popularized some bogus herbal placebos but eventually almost everyone vaccinated and the antivax have shut up for now

1:36 PM

@Robusto That's obviously sporadic Canadian perfidy..

On the whole weather systems tend to move from west to east in the temperate zones

@Mitch The Canadians have a lot to answer for.

Now they are planning to ban handguns, obviously just to shame us into giving up our God-given right to kill anyone at any time.

Oh that. Honestly, to this day I haven't understood why having guns is a big deal, or why it should be so difficult for 'professionals' to get one in other countries

Near-universal gun ownership works in Switzerland. Here it is a nightmare.

@Robusto I expect that that won't work.

Because shame doesn't work on us.

1:40 PM

@Robusto that comes up a lot too. Do they own assault rifles a lot in Switzerland as well?

Because the Switzerland thing could easily be interpreted as pro-gun, rather, pro-military gear

@M.A.R. Absolutely. Ex-military are required to own and keep assault rifles in their homes, for national defense in case anyone is dumb enough to attack Switzerland.

@Robusto You use it to put horses back together

@Robusto huh. So what is going on there?

Switzerland: So Many Guns, No Mass Shootings | The Daily Show Throwback

yesterday, by Robusto

@Robusto OK I looked it up

1:44 PM

@Mitch That's just like Wikipedia, always trying to let Canada off the hook.

If wikipedia is to be believed, and I suppose with weather science it has a low incentive to mislead intentionally..

that I can tell...

I sense a conspiracy.

nor'easters go from southwest to northeast

I think

I mean...

it's a clash of air masses of different temps

So that means Canada can't be involved? I think you underestimate them, my friend.

coming from differing directions

but the precipitation part of it moves up the east coast.

so still primarily in an west to east direction , with a little northerly part to it

so actually quite a bit like hurricanes

1:46 PM

Some of my friends say that Russians should be allowed to have handguns for self-defense. I am against it.

except noreasters start in lower New England

Some US citizens believe that gun ownership is a kind of vaccine against a possible slide to authoritarianism. I don't know how to test this theory though.

@CowperKettle I bet you could get Kalashnikovs cheap.

@Mitch That's right, blame the victim.

and hurricanes are much stabler, starting off the coast of West Africa, head west m then swing north and then back east.

@Robusto Yes, one can easily get a sawn-off gun. But if you are found, you will go to jail for the mere fact of having it.

After the WWII, guns, pistols, machine guns were widespread in the Soviet black market. That did not topple the authoritarian system. It stood firm.

1:50 PM

@CowperKettle That belief is the standard interpretation of the intention of the 2nd amendment. It was motivated by suppression of arms in local American colonists by the British government. It was meant to give the locals some power against abuse by the (distant) government.

Of course, that is a very weak argument at the moment.

I still don't understand why the states got separated. The UK was the most democratic nation on Earth.

but a test? testing whether local armed militias are ... a good thing against the armed forces? I'd prefer not to have that test occur.

But it may come to that if local 'gun enthusiasts' disrupt 'businesses' (ie kill people) and the national guard (not the armed forces which are for outside the US I think) is called in to control these 'enthusiasts' (my word).

@CowperKettle nah that's just some mindless reverse slippery slope fallacy by people who know one single ammendment

@Robusto well look at that. A system that makes sense.

@CowperKettle That's kind of a lot to explain. 'most democratic at the time' does not imply the populace is comparison shopping, or that it is a good level of democracy (best does not equal good)

Treating guns as tools not as girlfriends.

1:57 PM

Treat girfriends as guns not as tools.

Treat tools..

@CowperKettle What I remember from American history class is that of the colonist population in the soon to be US, 1/3 were for separation, 1/3 were against (loyalists), and 1/3 were in between. Also a lot of revolutions can come from local unrest, but a lot of the American Revolution was a self-selected group of intellectuals.

And then there's a list of economic and military events in the 1760's and 70's (Stamp Act, Tea Act, Boston Massacre etc)

I'm not sure that all that is in any way convincing (to you or to me or to people in the 1770's North America).

I mean, to your point, it's not like Haiti vs France or India vs UK. (I really couldn't say what the reasons were for the Latin countries vs Spain/Portugal)

@M.A.R. Amazing, huh?

@CowperKettle The states were colonies of the UK, who were expected to provide raw materials to England and then to buy back finished goods at exorbitant prices, which included generous taxes for the English. It's the way of colonialism everywhere, whether the masters be England, France, Spain, whoever.

2:19 PM

@M.A.R. Lamborghini are just the mini me version of Lamburgers.

I enjoy the silence of the Lambos.

2:32 PM

Word of the day: oculomics (research of eye-based biomarkers of non-ophthalmological pathology)

Ah, I believe some algorisms exist which do that?

> In schizophrenia, thinning and volume loss in retinal neural layers have been observed, and are associated with illness progression, brain volume loss, and cognitive impairment. Retinal microvascular changes have also been observed. Abnormal pupil responses and corneal nerve disintegration are related to aspects of brain function and structure in schizophrenia. academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/advance-article-abstract/…

Ex-marine firearms instructor rants about loose gun policies in US

He has a great pronunciation. I can crisply understand every word, every letter.

Christopher Hitchens is an interesting guy, judging by Wikipedia.

Yes, he was.

2:46 PM

A Marxist who was pro-Iraq war.

Yeah. And he hated the Clintons.

> His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind", and his friend Ian McEwan described him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.

Hitchens Gives Bill Maher's Audience the Finger

He used to go onto talk shows with a drink in his hand, and if he said something the audience found unpopular he would give them the finger.

3:01 PM

How crude.

🌎 Nasa Live Stream - Earth From Space : Live Views from the ISS

This is rather mesmerizing.

@Cerberus And yet he was vastly intelligent and one of the most cogent, articulate speakers I've ever seen. But he did not suffer fools gladly.

That's no excuse!

3:19 PM

@Cerberus There's a lot of research into diagnosing diabetes from blood vessel problems in the retina. (especially with AI/vision). But that's almost expected... @CowperKettle's schizophrenia is a new one to me and unexpected.

@Cerberus He's kind of abrasive. Also he brought that on himself by insulting the audience (say that they would applaud anything, which got the boos which got him to give them the finger).

But supposedly he's smart.

@Mitch Or was that Parkinson's?

@tchrist I was referring to Cowp's post...

45 mins ago, by CowperKettle

> In schizophrenia, thinning and volume loss in retinal neural layers have been observed, and are associated with illness progression, brain volume loss, and cognitive impairment. Retinal microvascular changes have also been observed. Abnormal pupil responses and corneal nerve disintegration are related to aspects of brain function and structure in schizophrenia. https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/schbul/sbac050/6594379

If you are referring to my first sentence I am referring to detecting diabetic retinopathy from retinal images.

There may well be something in the eye that is a marker of Parkinson's but I have no idea. That would be super interesting since I think like its confusing neighbor Alzheimer's it is hard to diagnosis without brain biopsy. Which is usually contraindicated. Because brain.

4:11 PM

> Who is in favor of bringing Roman numerals back into use? I for one.

groooooooooaaaaaaannnnnnnnn

4:27 PM

@Mitch Why are you playing these X-games?

7:19 PM

@CowperKettle pro-Iraq war? What was his justification for that?

@tchrist I'm sorry, I don't speak Burger

@CowperKettle treat tools like girlfriend guns

Shoot your exes towards your enemies. Sounds like a solution 👍

7:32 PM

> One reason was his hatred of religion. September 11, 2001, put Hitchens in touch with the molten anti-clericalism that was one of his elemental passions. It burned so hot that he turned it without a second thought at a secular, totalitarian Iraqi dictator. 9/11 gave Hitchens a sense of purpose like nothing since that early intimation, the Rushdie fatwa. It propelled him straight through the last, most productive, most visible decade of his life.

The second reason is a little murkier. He was, by his own lights and that of his admirers, a thoroughgoing contrarian. (One of his lesser known …

It's a bit depressing when what I assume to be very thought-provoking arguments lead to the same conclusion.

If I can be blinded by hate, and he could be blinded by hate, how much does it matter if he could practically think of my counterarguments for his arguments and debunk them at the same time?

@M.A.R. There's a New Yorker-ism for you: "bien-pensant liberals."

I should have said, "There's a New Yorker .. frisson for you."

@Robusto eh well, rightists always assume someone coming towards their side had an epiphany

@M.A.R. No, what it suggests is more like "well-meaning liberals" ... a step back from "do-gooders."

The term in current vogue is "virtue signaling": people who want to appear to have the "correct line" about whatever issue is at issue.

@Robusto I figured, which is why I said they like this sort of name-calling. Any liberal who agrees with them on something has divine light shone on them

Any leftist, really. Except some crazy ones

@M.A.R. I guess I mean it's more like "self-righteous liberals."

7:46 PM

Hmm

There was this other leftist intellectual who also hated Islam so much he hated Muslims. I forget, Harris?

It's a blessing they occupy so little of my mind I suppose. Not much space for hating when my mind is too busy absorbing information

8:04 PM

@M.A.R. Yeah. Nice to have distractions when there's so much hatred going around.

Some people prefer yoga, I prefer memorizing ever-changing algorithms about treating hypertension in African-Americans who don't have much of an existence in Iran

@M.A.R. I always preferred writing code. Nothing takes my mind off the world like getting ass-deep in coding.

Coding is awesome, yeah

Had started learning Python, would spend hours playing with turtles

Well, I suppose playing music is the same for me. And when I'm upset it's always there, like an old friend.

9:03 PM

Ray of hope in a troubled world: Bottling the Sun

2

Faheem Mitha

9:21 PM

@Robusto I read at least one article that said nuclear fusion produced plenty of radioactive waste too.

But I don't know what the facts are. It's probably complicated.

@FaheemMitha Read the article. It talks about that. Apparently there's no long-lasting nuclear waste.

9:59 PM

@Robusto Mimic mild civic vim.

MMM?

@Robusto "soi-disant 'bien-pensant' liberals'? So gauche!

Cripes, I should have figured out how to put a ~~umlaut~~ ~~diaeresis~~ diæresis in there.

@M.A.R. Bill Maher? Richard Dawkins?

oh of course. It's all of them.

But I wouldn't say that they (necessarily) hated Islam. I think what ever they're saying about Islam is of the same nature as what they say about Christianity (that the mystical part is no better than magic, and maybe they say some political things like some bad rulers use the name of their religion to do some bad things.

Four Horsemen of atheism Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett.

Poor Maher is not included.

It hasn't gotten over 45 here today. All grey, raining constantly.