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12:01 AM
Still looks like Boris and Natasha in drag to me.
 
TIL: in many AAVE dialects, "He been sick since last week" is grammatical if "been" is unstressed, but ungrammatical if "been" is stressed (see page 6)
 
Why do people become instantly enraged while driving? A taxi driver yesterday was all gregarious and chatting, and as a car intruded ahead of us (at a crawling speed, approaching a toll booth at the train station parking lot) he was all rage. There must be some ancient driver rage circuit in the brain. Checkmate, evolutionists.
> The mind-blowingly hot global sea-surface temperatures are somehow continuing to go up even higher into uncharted territory, on April 1, 2 reaching 21.1°C (70.0°F) for the first time.
latest CO2 reading is the highest ever reported at Mauna Loa.
Daily CO2
Apr. 2, 2023 = 422.54 ppm
Apr. 2, 2022 = 420.86 ppm
 
 
1 hour later…
1:30 AM
@Mitch at least it seems to have color besides gray.
 
1:47 AM
Video recording showing the Russian army digging trenches using a Soviet machine.
It can apparently dig as fast as 800 m per hour.
 
2:24 AM
Cultivator No. 6 was the code name of a military trench-digging machine developed by the British Royal Navy at the beginning of World War II. The machine was originally known as White Rabbit Number Six; this code name was never officially recognised, but it was said to be derived from Churchill's metaphorical ability to pull ideas out of a hat. The codename was changed to the less suggestive Cultivator Number Six to conceal its identity. The name was later changed to N.L.E. Tractors. Winston Churchill sometimes referred to the machine as his mole and the prototype machine was dubbed Nellie. It...
> Churchill explained what he had in mind to Stanley Goodall, who was then Director of Naval Construction. In October 1939, the project was handed over to J.H. Hopkins.[11] Hopkins, who had had a distinguished career in ship design, was given the temporary rank of assistant director and was tasked with bringing together a team of designers who would make Churchill's machine – his mole as he sometimes called it – a reality.
 
How fast could it dig, and was it reliable?
 
2:47 AM
I don't recall. I remember it from Churchill's book, or from Beaver's book, or from something else, I have gigabytes of books on WWII
I also liked this idea of his
Project Habakkuk or Habbakuk (spelling varies) was a plan by the British during the Second World War to construct an aircraft carrier out of pykrete (a mixture of wood pulp and ice) for use against German U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, which were beyond the flight range of land-based planes at that time. The plan was to create what would have been the largest ship ever at 600 metres (2,000 ft) long, which would have been much bigger than even USS Enterprise, the largest naval vessel ever, at 342 metres (1,122 ft) long. The idea came from Geoffrey Pyke, who worked for Combined Operations Headquarters...
 
3:16 AM
> She: I like sandwiches with tea.
Me, trying to impress her:
> Are you winning, son?
Dad, that accident happened 12 years ago. Let it go already, and start living.
 
3:39 AM
@CowperKettle "and thus said the Lord to his faithful, unleash thee righteous fury if you shall steer a carriage."
@Mitch I can neither confirm, nor deny, utter, speculate about, explore the possibility of, rehearse, sing, nor preach that.
 
> The Russian army has captured the administration building in the center of Bakhmut, and is pushing west.
Finally, after 7 months, one can say that technically the town is in Russian hands.
 
A very strategic building. They should put bureaucrats and tax collectors there ASAP
Next stop: the village besides Bakhmut?
In the Iran-Iraq war, we had our own Bakhmut, in the sense of one relatively unimportant city becoming the center of attention: Khorramshahr
("Khorram" = green and prosperous, "shahr" = city)
Winning back that city was a pivotal moment in the war
 
4:11 AM
Yes, I read about that war. Horrible. As a young kid, I read some story in a newspaper about child soldiers who were given "plastic keys to Heaven"
It was a Soviet newspaper, so I don't know whether it was true.
 
4:33 AM
@CowperKettle I sometimes become angry when someone is not following driving rules and put my own vehicle at risk. But I don't speak anything. I just say words like "idiot" in my mind. It's probably because we know road accidents can be terrible and fatal and may not give another chance to go on road again.
But I don't think it's totally wrong if I actually yell "idiot" to them if they are the ones making mistakes. However I don't say it because you never know you may have to physically fight him if it eecalates 🤣
Auto driver says "are you blind, dick?" in Hindi.
 
5:13 AM
@CowperKettle how else for a battered, disorganized army with outdated tech and inept higher ups to win against Saddam's modernized army? It was and is a holy war for them.
The most common name for it in Farsi is "defa'e moghaddas". The holy defense.
Right up to the name of the course the turbans make us study.
Personally, and we've probably had this discussion before, Iraq was the clear aggressor and the side committing egregious war crimes like chemical warfare against civilians and such. I feel like that tends to get ignored a lot as the admittedly crazy atmosphere of the war on the Iranian side is the center of attention
 
5:48 AM
@Vikas Nice! I would rather have such auto than a bike, because the frame provides some degree of protection :)
@M.A.R. Interesting, it's close to English defense
Noun: دِفَاع • (difāʕ) m
  1. verbal noun of دَافَعَ‎ (dāfaʕa) (form III)
  2. defence
  3. دفاع • (difā́ҁ) f
  4. defense, protection
  5. دفاع • (defâ')
(4 more not shown…)
@M.A.R. I think that in Russia almost nobody knows that such a war even took place..
Maybe some guys over 40 years old.
 
6:04 AM
In the city of Nizhny Tagil, a woman did not allow her daughter go outside, so the schoolgirl made a rope of bed linen and tried to climb down from the 5th floor. She fell, and her leg got hit or stuck upon some obstuction while she was falling, so that she landed without a part of her leg.
 
6:57 AM
Turns out the surname Moghaddam means 'leading, preceding'. from a Persian spelling of the Arabic title muqaddam (from the root qdm 'to be in front of') denoting various civil or religious officials (literally 'someone placed in the forefront or at the head of something').
 
7:17 AM
@CowperKettle Proved here: youtu.be/zcKSe-MdVpI?t=74
Similar vehicle and how he escaped people following him 🤣
A four wheeler could hit that bicycle or motorcycle but he managed to avoid it.
 
7:47 AM
Wordle 654 3/6

🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
 
8:04 AM
Daily Octordle #435
6️⃣5️⃣
🔟9️⃣
🕚7️⃣
🕛8️⃣
Score: 68
 
 
1 hour later…
9:28 AM
@Vikas A great chase!
Phrase of the day: primrose path
> But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
 
 
1 hour later…
10:55 AM
> Gorgone macarea is a moth found in the Amazon jungle, whose whole diet consists of drinking the tears of sleeping birds.
Mayor of Yekaterinburg has signed a decree on holding civil defense drills, maintaining bomb shelters. and updating population/company evacuation plans. e1.ru/text/gorod/2023/04/04/72190433
 
@CowperKettle Primrose path: Stairway to Heaven or Highway to Hell? The primrose way to the everlasting bonfire...
 
11:12 AM
Putin is preparing us for a primrose path, judging by the fact that being 2000 km from Ukraine we will renovate bomb shelters.
 
 
2 hours later…
1:35 PM
@CowperKettle It has been titled "Grand Theft Auto Punjab" in Indian meme world. (Punjab is an Indian state where it apparently took place).
 
I had thought to have let in some of all
professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting
bonfire.
Primula Baggins was a Hobbit of the Shire, the mother of Frodo Baggins, who was one of the many bearers of the Ring, and the cousin of Bilbo Baggins.
She was also Pippin's great-aunt and Merry's first cousin twice removed.
She's a primrose.
My primroses are ever of the evening, a different family altogether.
> It flowers in early spring, one of the earliest spring flowers in much of Europe. ("Primrose" is ultimately from Old French primerose or medieval Latin prima rosa, meaning first "rose".)
Oenothera is a genus of about 145 species of herbaceous flowering plants native to the Americas. It is the type genus of the family Onagraceae. Common names include evening primrose, suncups, and sundrops. They are not closely related to the true primroses (genus Primula). == Description == The species vary in size from small alpine plants 10 centimeters tall, such as O. acaulis from Chile, to vigorous lowland species growing to 3 meters, such as O. stubbei from Mexico. The leaves form a basal rosette at ground level and spiral up to the flowering stems. The blades are dentate or deeply lobed...
Oenotherae are pretty plants.
> The modern name Oenothera was published by Carolus Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae. Its etymology is uncertain, but it is believed to be derived from the Greek words οίνος θήρα (oinos thera) 'wine seeker'.
I had a fine Oenothera macrocarpa plant but the plumbers destroyed it when they dug up my sewer line to the street.
@CowperKettle I have heavy snow this morning.
 
1:56 PM
> A child is born with no state of mind, blind to the ways of mankind
@jlliagre The Road to Ruin? The Boulevard of Broken Dreams? It's a long way to Tipperary.
@Vikas Same here. I add a few adjectives to 'idiot' though.
@M.A.R. True, but the cat pic has more of a vibe.
It is my red hot take that dogs are much much smarter than cats (by smart, I mean able to adapt and figure out things). But what they put that smarts to is trying to please humans which comes across as subservient, lacking will.
@CowperKettle I'm convinced
... of not buying peanut butter from this guy. He's already tampered with the bottle, breaking the seal. Who knows what he's put in there, Tylenol?
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at end of answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (63): Antonym of "Crying Wolf too much"‭ by Mirana‭ on english.SE
 
2:40 PM
@Vikas Yes, I know, "the land of five rivers" :)
 
Sur la route = on the way
On the way to Louvier (with subtitles)
> Old French parole, from Late Latin parabola (“speech”), from Ancient Greek παραβολή (parabolḗ).
Wow. Parole is cognate with parabole.
Vis et apprend.
> From παραβάλλω (parabállō, “to set side by side”) +‎ -η (-ē).
In Russian, the word parol' (пароль) means "password, passphrase".
> A prearranged reply to the challenge of a sentry or a guard; a password or signal by which friends can be known from enemies.
 
In the Parole Parole song, the Italian parole (words, i.e. bullshit) is used, not mots. In French, parole means lyrics.
@Mitch Yes, on the road again!
 
@jlliagre That didn't end as well as I hoped.
 
Parole means also the ability to speak.
@Mitch Did you expect a car crash?
 
@CowperKettle 'para' = around, along, 'ballein' = to throw (> ballistic), but also to dance > ballet, ballerina
So speaking in French is dancing around things.
@jlliagre I have fond memories of learning the manifold nuances of the differences between parole and langue, or rather I have fond memories of those memories but not the memories themselves, so I really don't know any more.
I've never actually heard that song as a song like on the radio. I've only ever heard people say it when the get in a car at the start of a long trip.
 
3:13 PM
@jlliagre so in Italian, 'parole' has a pejorative meaning?
 
@Mitch No, in the song it does.
The context is everything.
 
@jlliagre Well, that would be dark also, but at least the cantonnier would get a good laugh at the expense of the rich lady.
Or... maybe the nice lady would give him a ride? I don't know. I'm still very curious about what's in Louviers.
@jlliagre Ohhhh.. Celine Dijon. Alon Delain. Got it.
 
@Mitch These is also a Sur la route de Dijon :-)
 
@jlliagre With the Claude Lalouch drive through Paris, I was a bit concerned for his safety. A number of times going through red lights and going around the back of garbage trucks backing up.
 
@Mitch Ouch, Plastic Bertrand. Funny but a somewhat phony.
 
3:25 PM
@jlliagre A flash in the pan
@jlliagre Is that a kid's song? Also is 'diguedon' someone from Dijon? or is it some kind of nonsense word?
 
@Mitch The camera was fixed to the front of a car close to the ground, which accentuates the effect of speed. There were a few people there to watch the dangerous crossing points but we learned later that the car crossed the Rue de Rivoli without any visibility believing that the lane was clear but the driver was just lucky, the person in charge of watching was not ready for some reason.
 
@jlliagre Where did you first see that? On TV? as a short before some movie in the movie theater?
 
@Mitch Kid song indeed, although many (most) of them have a "bawdy" double sens (what you call double entendre.) Diguedon is a nonsense word, although close to Ding dong (a bell sound). Several other songs have digue or digue dondaine in their lyrics.
@Mitch I don't remember exactly when I first saw that short movie but I don't believe that was in a movie theater. Possibly on a VCR...
Ha ha, the driver had his licence taken away... for a few minutes. Après le tournage, convoqué par le préfet de police, ce dernier lui a retiré son permis de conduire (on voit dans le film que Lelouch a brûlé plus d'une dizaine de feux rouges et n'a pas respecté autant de priorités à droite) pour le lui rendre quelques instants après : « Je m'étais engagé à vous le retirer » me dit-il. « Mais je n'ai pas précisé pour combien de temps »
 
 
1 hour later…
4:53 PM
The subtitles are Cyrillic... but is that Russian? Or Bulgarian?
 
5:06 PM
@Mitch Google Translate thinks it's Bulgarian. If you translate "Дълго си мислех че в действителност той е италианска вдовица" as Russian, it comes up with "For a long time, I don’t think she’s really an Italian widow" although the dialogue (and the Bulgarian translation) says "For years, I thought he was an Italian widow".
...Which may seem odd, but I guess a priest in a cassock might be misidentified.
 
6:06 PM
@Mitch Like ducking idiot?
 
6:45 PM
@Vikas Yes. Like that.
 
Oh ducking chickens are just the worst, well maybe except tossing acoms at ducking turkeys and those honking goose homs.
It's DST: time to dean the docks!
 
> Luque, 44, is one of the most prolific scientists in Spain. He has published some 700 studies, mainly in the field of so-called green chemistry, which aims to synthesize products such as drugs and fuels while generating less waste. So far this year, Luque has published 58 studies at a rate of one every 37 hours.
 
blames translation errors :)
 
@Mitch It's clearly Bulgarian
 
Despite having linked to youtube clips of that movie here, I've never

1) seen that movie

2) heard of that movie outside of links here in chat.
which is to say... sorry Woody Allen, If people asked me to list your movies... every time I would leave that one out.
 
6:53 PM
And his sons Sliver and Splinter.
 
@tchrist He did eventually become a real boy, having all the wanton desires of one too
 
Familiarity expands space and contracts time - in the Hippocampus journal, 2016.
> We asked international students, who had lived at a college in London for 9 months, to sketch a south-up map of their college district, estimate travel-time to destinations within the area, and mark their everyday walking routes. We found that while estimates for sketched space were expanded with familiarity, estimates of the time to travel through the space were contracted with familiarity.
 
I have no idea what to do with that information
 
@M.A.R. You could use to get really lost in London.
 
Did you know that hippocampus are one of the most dangerous animals in the world
 
7:08 PM
@CowperKettle That's not only hard for the scientist to do, but it is also a lot of extra work for reviewers and editors and publishers to process all that.
@M.A.R. Go on...
 
If you ever saw one, don't stare
 
Hippocampi have the dentate gyrus. If you stay away from that gyrus, it's okay.
If you get too close to that gyrus, you may become part of the granular cell layer.
 
@M.A.R. Whoa dude, if that hippocampu is staring at me, you damn sure I ain't backing down.
 
Melania: "Here, take your toothbrush with just in case there's a cavity search."
 
The dentate gyrus (DG) is part of the hippocampal formation in the temporal lobe of the brain, which also includes the hippocampus and the subiculum. The dentate gyrus is part of the hippocampal trisynaptic circuit and is thought to contribute to the formation of new episodic memories, the spontaneous exploration of novel environments and other functions.It is notable as being one of a select few brain structures which may have significant rates of adult neurogenesis in many species of mammals, from rodents to primates. Other sites of adult neurogenesis may include the subventricular zone, the...
> The dentate gyrus may also have a functional role in stress and depression. For instance, in the rat, neurogenesis has been found to increase in response to chronic treatment with antidepressants.
 
7:12 PM
@Mitch see, that's the sort of attitude that'll get you in trouble. Mother nature is the baddest gangsta of them all
@CowperKettle look at those teeth
 
@M.A.R. looks more like a tongue
 
@tchrist you have been waiting a long time for this
 
@M.A.R. a lot of people have
 
Says dentate not tonguette
 
@M.A.R. Why do we have to be so deferential to animal's moods? Sometimes I want to take a selfie with a hippo, his mouth wide open and my head right in there. Maybe he should relax.
@M.A.R. Says dentate but looks lingual.
 
7:19 PM
@Mitch I would be okay with hippos if they didn't shit so much in the water they killed aquatic life within a 40-mile radius
 
Ew
 
Said the fish
 
7:31 PM
> God, why is everybody so damn stupid?!
All Universes are just reflection of you.
 
@CowperKettle God is smiling as only customer support would
 
I strongly recommend replacing the analphabetic representations in your answer with words. Otherwise nobody knows whether the O is silent in nought dot five and one over two and such. It's something that can be very confusing 24 inners. — tchrist ♦ 3 mins ago
Speaking of cavity searches.
 
7:55 PM
Long story short: say what you mean.
"Half" uses the least number of words.
 
@user85795 If you're doing STEM writing (or speaking) then 'zero point five' is what you want to say.
or 'one half'... I'm partial to finitistic infinite precision mathematics.
ie prefer not floating point, not fixed point, but lowest terms finite fractions and named constants.
 
I'm partial to terseness :)
 
Exact answers only.
@user85795 I'm partial to correctness.
and brevity
I can't find a shorter version
shortness?
tininess?
unlength?
 
Ask witty Polonius.
 
@tchrist Can you ask him for me?
 
8:10 PM
@Mitch Sorry, I'm occupied with country matters.
 
He has no soul.
 
Reading Shakespeare to toddlers?
 
Only jejune ones.
Toddlers of great jejunosity.
 
Better yet, teach them to read it.
 
I saw a good tweet this morning, saved the image, but not the tweet. now I cant find the source.
Googling and search tweets doesn't bring up anything. but neither search is that good.
Like all questionnaires, it is thinly veiled polemics.
(I agree with a lot of the polemics but still, presumtpive wording irks me)
:63313674 It was about people's opinion of some of the terminology in AI.
But that quiz doesn't seem playable.
But if it were I'd like to see the stats.
 
8:19 PM
Was it a Twitter pole?
 
@user85795 No. It was some commentary with links and the image above.
 
8:42 PM
I thought the above questionnaire would be an example to @Cerberus of a presumably legitimate questionnaire, as opposed to the horoscopic 'Which countries national character am I most like?'
@user85795 Twitter polls are as unscientific as they come. They people who see the poll are 1) your followers -if- they happen to be reading twitter that day 2) possibly followers of followers 3) if the tweet gets lots of views (goes 'viral') then lots of others but the 'algorithm' is opaque, and even if not opaque, hard to figure out behavior).
And then of those who -view- the poll, who actually take it. And then of who take it, did they read it the way the tweeter expected (given the little context available to write in the tweet).
 
9:11 PM
@tchrist Je me mangerais bien zéro virgule cinq pizza. :-)
 
@Mitch It is indeed anoroscopic.
As you say, it does seem to have an agenda.
Do you agree with its agenda?
 
9:33 PM
There are enough items that are well-formed and then unbiased where one could reasonably have differences such that it may have multiple agendas or, more charitably, it is trying to find out the distribution rather than force it.
But two questions are horribly intertwined: is AGI meaningful? and Should people try to create AGI?
 
@jlliagre I was indeed thinking of those very cases!
 
@tchrist avec de la mozzarella di bufala!
 
bis
on
mange
 
𝜋/2 𝜋zza
zéro virgule vingt cinq
 
@Mitch Hmm it seems clear to me that the composers believe artificial intelligence is dangerous?
 
 
1 hour later…
10:49 PM
@Cerberus I can see how one might think that, but a lot of the recent press has been hyperventilating about AI danger, and this quiz could just be tryna ng to asses that.
 
@Mitch Quite possibly.
But you're still not...afraid?
 
A good quiz (or rather mental assessment) will ask many of similar questions to check variability/inconsistency. But that can also be seen as redundancy.
 
Yeah those similar questions are immediately noticeable.
 
@Cerberus afraid is not the word I would use.
Concerned
 
"I've already answered this, why do they ask the same thing in different words? I'll try to be consistent."
 
10:52 PM
But not about the things most people/the press is concerned about
 
You're more concerned about how it might look to aliens?
 
@Cerberus for actual scientifically validated personality tests, you assume the person taking the quixlz isn't just doing it for laughs
@Cerberus haha no the aliens couldn't care less. They're trying to harvest the biomass in ants. So much less trouble and faster.growing
From what I hear
Uh imagine
No alien has ever told.me this
People seem afraid of terminator/Frankenstein style science fiction outcomes where an AI is someone like us but much more powerful and doesn't care about us
 
@Mitch Yes, but it makes me think less of its makers, if they really think I wouldn't notice.
 
I am concerned about individual humans in positions of corporations implementing small slightly stupid things that dupe individuals into doing dumb things.
 
@Mitch Oh, from what you hear.
@Mitch That is also a grave concern, but I would say it is less existential?
What I am afraid of is artificial intelligence as a computer virus.
 
10:59 PM
BREAKING: Donald Trump has converted to Islam while in prison
 
Multiplying, spreading, perverting everything.
@CowperKettle Again?
 
He was already a Muslim?
Oh.
 
He converted then reverted.
 

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