English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Robusto

7:04 PM

It's been that way for days.

I suppose whatever Walmart-employee kissass Trump put in charge of this decided coronavirus info was fake news.

Faheem Mitha

7:24 PM

@Cerberus Does knowing maths count as a minority?

Mitch

@Cerberus Of course it applies to the individual. What about the individual who is in the oppressed group?

As to 1001 groups, sure, that complicates things considerably. But that doesn't mean "it's too complicated so let's not bother trying to fix something"

Robusto

7:39 PM

I've decided Schweizerdeutsch is not a real language.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto it only took the most powerful country on Earth a year to follow Belarus's example and just get rid of the virus altogether!

Robusto

When you're right, you're right.

Roger Knobel ( A-12) SR-71 Blackbird Giant Remote Control Turbine Jet

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@Reg, can you make sense of what the guy on the PA is saying?

RegDwigнt

Sec, just watching this to the end:

Schweizerdeutsch für Anfänger #1

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Robusto

I catch a couple words here and there, but it's in Switzerland.

RegDwigнt

That bird is so loud, I wouldn't understand my mom talking over it.

Robusto

7:43 PM

Yeah, and there's a lot of static too.

RegDwigнt

Yeah where it's turning I can understand basically everything.

Robusto

Anyway, those hobbyists have way too much time on their hands, way too much disposable income, and too much access to high-tech machine shops.

RegDwigнt

But then again I'm in the South myself. It's closer to Mosel-Franconian, which is what I'm reasonably fluent in, than, say, to the Hamburg dialect.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt I catch all the Hochdeutsch in that video, but the Schweizerdeutsch is utterly opaque. I don't even register the phonemes.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto I watched a bunch of model A380 videos and whatnot a couple months ago. Sometimes it's fun when you're so first-world you can just go and do that shit.

Robusto

7:46 PM

@RegDwigнt Agreed. Part of my objection is jealousy.

RegDwigнt

@Robusto the phonemes are all the same, they just all sit in the throat where it's warmer. What with all the snow on all the mountains all year round.

Robusto

@RegDwigнt Someone built an Antonov for that.

M.A.R.

Randomly ran into this: journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003591572601901702

Relevant advice for today:

> "It is true that regimen is better than medicine. It is true that for a very long time out
of a hundred doctors ninety-eight were charlatans. It is true that Moliere was right in
making fun of them. . . . It is none the less true that there are a hundred occasions on
which a good doctor can save life and restore us the use of our limbs. If a man has an
apoplectic stroke an infantry captain or a court councillor will not cure him. Cataracts form
in my eyes and the lady next door will not remove them. I make no distinction here between

Robusto

@RegDwigнt So it's like cows chewing their cud?

I'll have to ruminate on that.

RegDwigнt

On a totally unrelated note, two weeks ago YouTube proposed that I watch this:

Russian Homemade Helicopter

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Which I did.

Robusto

7:48 PM

That looks like a gyrocopter.

Not a helicopter.

RegDwigнt

You sound like my dad.

Robusto

I could be wrong.

But I'm pretty sure I'm not your dad.

RegDwigнt

I also doubt it's very Russian, the people speak with an accent that might as well be Ukrainian.

It's probably not homemade either, but made out in the open.

Robusto

Not a gyrocopter, I see finally.

RegDwigнt

Other than that, 100% accurate title.

@Robusto no it's the real thing alright, except he mostly uses it to fly through streets one foot above ground. Later in the video.

You might as well just wear high heels for all the difference it makes.

Robusto

7:51 PM

@RegDwigнt Yeah, but would you fly it at lethal height?

RegDwigнt

Ask me again when I'm as drunk as the onlookers who won't shut their gobs.

Robusto

Actually, I'm rather impressed.

RegDwigнt

They'd probably go fly it at lethal height grabbing it from underneath.

Robusto

That is not an easy thing to pull off.

RegDwigнt

It's Russia.

I saw videos of homemade trains that were no less impressive little though as they flew.

Robusto

7:53 PM

Hovering a Helicopter is Hilariously Hard - Smarter Every Day 145

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Sep 13 '13 at 20:50, by Robusto

There was a strong wind that day, and the pilot had to be like the best helicopter ace ever, because he did one 360 around the dome, rose to the right height, and brought that statue down to exactly the right spot and held position motionless for about 10 minutes while the workmen hooked it up.

Sep 13 '13 at 20:49, by Robusto

Back in 1994 (I think it was) I took my son to D.C. and we saw them putting the statue back on top of the Capitol building, using that helicopter.

RegDwigнt

Hovering is only the second-hardest thing. The first-hardest thing is to not randomly be killed by a power line that suddenly just hangs out in the middle of complete nowhere like it forgot where it lives.

Robusto

That is true of lots of flying, not just helicopters.

I used to fly gliders, and power lines were something absolutely to avoid, since you couldn't just power your way over them in a pinch.

RegDwigнt

Not many Blackbird pilots get killed by bits of wire. Not even many Cessnas.

But helicopter pilots die to power lines like it's fucking absurd.

Robusto

There are other ways to kill an SR-71 pilot.

RegDwigнt

It's like 50% of all deaths or some crazy shit like that.

Robusto

7:58 PM

Here in ABQ they have the Balloon Festival, and you'd better believe those pilots have power lines in mind all the time.

RegDwigнt

Yeah balloons are not for me. For something called hot air, the air is actually fucking freezing.

Robusto

I don't care for them at all.

RegDwigнt

But the pictchures are so pweddy!

You can put them on a motivational poster.

Robusto

I also would never parachute out of an airplane, which is another motivational poster topic.

RegDwigнt

I saw a couple hot air balloons in Bavaria once. Then I decided that the nearby cow was much more interesting.

Robusto

8:01 PM

For me to jump out of an airplane it would have to be on fire. And over a lake.

And then maybe I'd jump.

RegDwigнt

Yeah, and why would you board an airplane that's on fire in the first place.

Robusto

All good questions.

Faheem Mitha

@RegDwigнt They're not usually on fire when you board. They might catch on fire later.

RegDwigнt

I see. Well, the airplanes that I board are just not on fire now or later.

YMMV

Robusto

9:19 PM

Folge 7: Warum hat der Pianist Glenn Gould Mozart so verachtet?

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A rebuttal. I find it interesting that he does talk about Gould's excessive tempi in the Mozart sonatas.

That they weren't really intended to be played like that occurred to me, and gave the impression that he was racing through them to get them out of the way.

And of course in comparison to Mozart's operas and string quartets and piano concerti the late piano sonatas may be excused for seeming a tad pedestrian.

They're just simpler pieces. Mozart was looking to put his energies into pieces that were simply more interesting to him.

It's like Gould is saying, "Hey, Mozart, you fucking slacker, everything you write should be as brilliant as the best things you ever wrote."

And Mozart simply replies, "I'm pacing myself, Glenn. Lighten the fuck up."

And I like the point he makes about the students being perhaps in his mind when he composed the sonatas.

Faheem Mitha

9:41 PM

@Robusto The string quintets are good too.

Færd

10:19 PM

@Mitch Yes, you read it right. And the darker parts in the middle do include Qom. But that's not because every cleric comes from Qom: many Islamic students from all around the country migrate to Qom to study in the prominent seminaries there.

But normally most cabinet members are not clerics. Clerics are more likely to be employed in other (official and nonofficial) branches of the regime.

@Mitch What the maps broadly show is that many populous areas (including some of those peoples you mentioned) are not proportionally represented in the executive.

Whether this is a good measure of power distribution and popular representation is another matter, since the executive is not independently elected and doesn't execute things on its own terms. It largely ruber-stamps orders from above.

@Cerberus Very well then!

RegDwigнt

10:40 PM

@Robusto haha you're a fucking wizard now or what. I watched that exact video earlier. Then three other videos from the same series.

It's not as much a rebuttal as he doesn't seem to be familiar with Gould's point that you and I are now familiar with.

As well he shouldn't, he didn't have YouTube back then, and German TV had three channels and none of them were PBL.

He argues some points that can be considered opposing, and he argues them well. But ultimately they stay on an orthogonal plane to Gould.

@Robusto yeah well. It's not entirely unlike our own plaints all the time. And not just about Mozart but, like, everything.

If you can be great, why be a slacker even for a minute. There's enough people who've taken on that task.

I think we should push for heavy unionization of slacking.

The point about students was interesting, if only because this was the first time I heard that Mozart had any.

Who studied under Mozart? Other than Constanze, that is.

Kategorie:Schüler von Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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I've heard of two of these people. And of only one have I heard the works.

Cerberus

11:09 PM

@Robusto Why would that be the most obvious and common? I don't think it is, certainly not here.

@FaheemMitha Well, I think this policy would only be meant for minorities who are regularly discriminated against.

@Mitch Are you proposing to sacrifice the happiness of some people for that of others, neither being guilty of anything? That is what I call introducing new mass injustice: does the end justify the means here?

@Mitch Well, if you do not account for all relevant groups, it becomes even more unjust, favouring some groups over other, equally relevant groups. It is a significant problem, in my opinion.

I think a positive approach, helping those groups without actively disadvantaging a large number of other individual people, is best.

I think it is never a good idea to disadvantage an individual person just because he is part of a group; no matter what group it is, the individual person can't help being in it (of course I am only talking about groups which ought to be irrelevant to the job).

Færd

11:27 PM

I'm not well-rounded in the topic of positive discrimination. I think things of this sort have been tried numerous times and there should be loads of data on how the results turn out?

Maybe the ideal situation is to strive to pave everybody's way to succeed in their own way: provide education, healthcare, minimum wage, etc (to the extent that a society can afford these things). But to directly appoint people in places, I'm not sure.

2

Of course in administrative committees and councils where proportionate representation is the point, apportioning seats to minorities is perfectly justified. But I'm not really sure about tweaking with university enrolments and processing of job applications.

Cerberus

@Færd I agree.

Færd

What about the structural discriminations at the point of employment/enrolment etc, you might ask. Like the fact that being a male can increase your chance of employment on its own, or having a brown-sounding name could decrease it. I think in some of these situations methods could be devised to prevent discrimination, like having applications be processed without a picture or a name.

In short, I'm not sure. I think we need a lot of data to get an idea of the depth of those discriminations and the supposed necessity of positive discrimination policies and the outcomes in various conditions. Then we may be able to judge better.

Cerberus

@Færd Yes, we're experimenting with those.

Musicians apply from behind a screen, so you can't tell what they look like; before that, it turned out women were hired less than men, which surprised me, considering the supposedly enlightened environment of classical orchestras.

I'm not entirely sure whether that is in Holland or elsewhere, though.

Færd

Interesting!

Cerberus

Some government organisations censor the names of applicants to the assessors.

So Mohammed stands an equal chance of being invited to the first round.

Færd

11:36 PM

Yeah I've heard of such regulations.

I've got a Mohammad in my name, so I agree with those policies completely!

Cerberus

Haha.

Middle names can be abbreviated anyway.

> ...de gemeente Den Haag, die in 2015 begon met het onleesbaar maken van naam en geboorteplaats. Den Haag noemde de proef na een jaar een ‘groot succes’. Het aantal mensen met een migratieachtergrond dat een brief schreef, was namelijk gestegen van 24 naar 31 procent.

Het aantal allochtonen dat op gesprek werd uitgenodigd nam echter nauwelijks toe, van 7 naar 8 procent.

Færd

But fortunately there aren't any discrimination against Mohammads where I currently live.

Ah.

Cerberus

"The city of The Hague decided to censor name and place of birth."

Færd

It's kinda strange to me to look at a society with deep inequalities at the most basic levels (housing, primary education, healthcare) and then decide to solve those problems at the most surface levels (like the point of employment).

I may be wrong.

@Cerberus I see.

Cerberus

"The proportion of people with a foreign background who applied increased from 24 to 31 percent."

Færd

11:41 PM

That's good! Shows there had indeed been some biases going on.

Cerberus

"But the proportion among those who were invited to come and talk only increased from 7 percent to 8 percent."

Færd

Hmm.

Cerberus

So the effect was rather small.

Færd

Yeah.

Cerberus

In the only part of the procedure where it could have mattered.

Besides, this was part of a larger campaign to reach out to minorities in job applications.

So the other elements of the campaign may have been more effective.

Færd

11:43 PM

Maybe!

Cerberus

It is interesting, though, that more people applied when they heard their name would be censored.

Færd

Maybe that was a passing rush.

Cerberus

But the censoring itself was cancelled after a couple of years, also in other cities, because it didn't have a substantial effect anywhere.

> Van de mensen die het tot een gesprek schopten, werden wel flink meer mensen met een niet-westerse achtergrond aangenomen.

"Of those who were invited for a talk, a larger proportion was hired."

Færd

Of those with foreign names?

Cerberus

So the other elements in the campaign, i.e. making people more aware of bias and discrimination, did have a substantial effect.

@Færd Yes.

Err, no.

"Among those who are invited for a talk, a certain number are hired. The proportion of people with a foreign background amongst those who were hired did increase substantially", is how I read it.

Færd

11:49 PM

Ah. I thought that number only increased marginally.

Oh no.

That was the number of those who were invited, not hired.

If so, then the policy did have an effect on the final results.

Cerberus

@Færd Well, not really: censoring only helps before you see someone.

As soon as you talk to him, you know his background.

Because of accent, dress, manners, etc.

Færd

So how come the proportion of those with a foreign background who were hired increased?