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12:00 AM
I like my dough dry, thank you very much.
Whether it be cake or some shortcrust pastry.
 
With those little angelfood cuplets you can buy anywhere.
 
Baba is not really a sponge cake. More substantial, at least the ones I've had.
 
All right, but it is soaked.
 
Of course. In liquor.
 
Those ones.
"Strawberry shortcake", with little angelfood cubes. Probably no booze.
 
12:02 AM
I'll have that if the cake is dry.
But I'd still prefer any kind of pastry over sponge cake.
 
It is.
Less drunken than trifle.
 
12:20 AM
@tchrist So why do users get "removed"?
 
@Robusto Depends.
 
Is it because they've been inactive for a certain period of time?
 
No.
Usually they self-request deletion.
Occasionally it's a spammer we ourselves destroy.
 
Oh. So it's always a deliberate deletion.
 
Yes.
There are other cases, though. Socks.
 
12:22 AM
Oh, right.
Well, I've never had a sock puppet. But today I was told I got -64 rep score because "a user was removed."
Usually it's onesies-twosies.
 
That could be anything, really.
Oh I see.
 
You see what?
 
Was that the same dude as my -64?
Or do you have no way of knowing?
 
I probably do not.
 
12:27 AM
The bouba/kiki effect is a non-arbitrary mapping between speech sounds and the visual shape of objects. It was first documented by Wolfgang Köhler in 1929 using nonsense words. The effect has been observed in American university students, Tamil speakers in India, young children, and infants, and has also been shown to occur with familiar names. It is absent in individuals who are congenitally blind and reduced in autistic individuals. The effect was investigated using fMRI in 2018. The bouba/kiki effect is one form of sound symbolism. == Research == === Discovery === The bouba/kiki effe...
 
Now and then you can figure things out, but usually not.
 
I think our biggest sock puppet promoter was the late Josh[whatever].
 
You'd be surprised.
 
Oh? He was the one who had profited most from that, unless I'm making a faulty inference.
 
We delete socks all the time.
 
12:31 AM
Not of that magnitude.
> In 2001, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Edward Hubbard repeated Köhler's experiment using the words "kiki" and "bouba" and asked American college undergraduates and Tamil speakers in India "Which of these shapes is bouba and which is kiki?" In both groups, 95% to 98% selected the curvy shape as "bouba" and the jagged one as "kiki", suggesting that the human brain somehow attaches abstract meanings to the shapes and sounds in a consistent way.
 
It's not unusual to find someone running 5 or 10, sometimes more. Here. But on Stack Overflow it's far worse.
There can be quite elaborate voting rings.
 
@tchrist Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. SO is probably much too big to be effectively managed.
 
They try.
 
I haven't answered a question on SO in years.
 
But often by the time you unravel a pattern, it has grown large.
 
12:36 AM
The whole rep-for-research paradigm is rather played out at this point. At least for me.
Ten years ago it was exciting. Now it's just a yawn.
Also, ten years ago I needed distractions while compiling. Now I don't.
Now I'm just waiting for the rapture.
 
@Robusto You and I seem to be in a lull while the rest of the country is awful: fire.airnow.gov/#
 
Today was quite clear here. Clearest in weeks.
 
Yes, I got a sudden inch of rain yesterday afternoon.
All at once, or so.
 
12:51 AM
This was a rain storm that I saw on my ride yesterday.
Never hit me, though. Spent its time (and moisture) over the Santa Ana pueblo.
 
Mine was quite fierce. With sustained 35mph winds gusting to 55, and with hail.
 
@tchrist We had one of those a couple weeks ago.
Horizontal rain, with lots of hail.
 
Yes, that. Pretty localized. Friends in Denver didn't get more than a spot of wind.
But the field behind me remains green. Unheard of so late in the season.
 
That was from our hailstorm.
Most of it had already melted by the time the picture was taken.
But yeah, everything is unusually green for this time of year. I'm not complaining, mind.
BTW, the above was more frozen precipitation than we got all winter.
 
I spent some time consoling and distracting the cats.
 
12:58 AM
Our cats have a little more sang-froid. They don't get upset at storms, unless there is very close lightning with wall-shaking thunder.
 
I hadn't locked the bedroom windows, so they were howling/whistling through the tiny openings.
It was quite loud.
 
1:10 AM
This was yesterday.
But I am without cats now, back home.
 
Whenever a cat enters the picture, the plot thickens.
 
I actually think nothing happened after this scene.
The brother just continued his walk, and his sister remained under the curtain.
 
@tchrist We apparently have moderate ozone here. That's the one you can't see.
 
1:24 AM
@Robusto Here also.
Randy just waltzed in from the back garden where I've been sprinkling. He's soaked. He was lying in wait for birds near the birdbath, and has been out there at least 10 minutes putting up with it, all the better to eat you with.
 
> We see higher ground-level ozone amounts most often in summer, due to increased amounts of UV radiation during the longer days.
@tchrist So your birdbath is a decoy for murder cats?
 
Well, I watch them. I had seen him slip into the underbrush, so I went out and turned on the sprinkler. He failed to appear, so I thought him gone. Nope. Deep cover, apparently. Lorin ran to the front of the house when he merely heard the sprinkler even though it would not have come anywhere near him on the back deck where he was lounging.
Usually witches melt if you sprinkle them.
I was glad to get him in before the gullywasher. He's not sufficiently water-averse for his own good sometimes.
 
@tchrist That's my observation.
Our cats don't mind the rain. They might go under the foliage in one of the terrace planters, but they don't bolt for the shelter of the overhang, nor do they clamor to come back in.
 
Lovely family of orioles, and rather extended family of towhees seemingly everywhere. Pygmy and white-breasted nuthatches, many chickadees. Female hairy woodpecker and a pair of flickers.
I think Lorin doesn't like to have to clean the rain from his long hair.
 
Our trumpet vines have been attracting quite the coterie of hummingbirds.
 
1:32 AM
Mine too. But they like my salvia and cuphea even more.
Finally lots of them. They were AWOL in June.
Not sure where they decamp to, but they're here in spades now.
 
When our locust was flowering it was fairly buzzing with them. Bees too.
A steady thrum of nectar-feeders.
 
One of the young female orioles was gleaning bugs from the native perennial sunflowers (Maximilian) and she was getting a bit low for my tastes. That's when Randy slinked off to the thicket. Hence the witch-repellant.
 
I have wrapped sheet metal around the trunk of the locust so Bosco can't climb up and A) savage the hummingbirds, or B) scratch the bark off the tree with his claws.
 
Dogs actually like those tanned pig ears as a snack. That's like a Geneva convention violation
 
If you didn't want him in the trees you wouldn't have named him Bosque.
What is this insane British entitlement where they think they DESERVE and MUST leave the country for a month every summer? What's wrong with them? Why do they hate Britain so much? The only Americans I know like that are insufferable richie-rich kids who've never grown up, nor ever worked for a penny.
 
1:46 AM
Hmm our cats never liked rain.
They would usually stay home.
 
@tchrist "Why do they hate Britain so much?" The weather?
 
@tchrist It's not British, I'm afraid. It's standard for the petty bourgeoisie in non-huge, rich countries.
 
@Mitch You made your own bed, now sleep in it, child.
 
Perhaps it is slightly better in tourist countries like the Mediterranean ones.
But it certainly is no better here.
 
But at least you have...
hm
what -do- you have?
 
1:49 AM
This "I must leave my country" thing is fucking weird.
 
Every Dutchwoman MUST visit a different country in summer, and neighbouring ones don't count.
You can't drive to Germany and call it a proper summer vacation.
 
That's because they don't have a proper summer.
 
It must be France or Iceland or Thailand.
 
Just nuts.
 
The exotic Luxembourg
 
1:50 AM
No, it's just not exotic enough for the neighbours.
What will they think.
At least 'aeroplane shame' will cure this habit, give it ten more years.
Amongst left-wingers, aeroplane shame is already fairly wide spread, and somewhat effective.
 
I really can't see any reason ever to leave the Rockies in the summer.
 
Nor I.
But people are pathetic.
 
@Cerberus What's wrong with Indonesia? Isn't that where your forefathers got their start in the spice trade?
 
@tchrist Lyme disease?
 
@Robusto Oh, sure, it can be Bali.
 
1:51 AM
@Mitch Not worried about rickets.
 
Very popular along with Thailand.
 
Those other places are all deathly sticky and buggy and full of people.
 
Spitzbergen?
 
And of course the more 'original', the better, if you are trying to rise to middle-middle class.
@Mitch Yes, people actually do that, and they will let you know. Incessantly.
 
Also, too flat to find a safe haven in the heights.
 
1:53 AM
It's only a grapefruit spoon away from the lower Upper-middle class
 
Iceland is quite popular now.
 
@Cerberus It's something to talk about
 
@Mitch Well, you'll need something less treaded for that...
 
Only for the nonce. Try it again in six months.
 
"The blubber there was just not as good as in Iceland"
 
1:54 AM
This is probably disrespectful.
 
To whales?
 
But I feel people are trying to replace an emptiness in their lives or in their minds.
 
@Cerberus What they won't export their fermented shark so people have to go there to gorge themselves on it?
@Cerberus Yes.
 
@tchrist Yes, and post pictures of bare mountains online.
 
@Cerberus Go far without traveling
 
1:56 AM
They need to wander powerless in the wilderness for a few weeks.
 
Know all without...
 
@Mitch That sounds like...Dune!
The navigators?
 
what is it....seeing?
 
Move without moving, what was it?
 
1:56 AM
@Robusto I liked that one.
 
@Cerberus huh.
really?
 
@Cerberus That shall be in Venice.
 
The movie is not coming out for months
 
A fitting place for a desert epic, no?
Untrue.
 
@tchrist They will pretend to. It's called 'backpacking'. Of course they are treading in the steps of a million similar tourists who 'backpack' along the same route.
@tchrist Poor Venice.
 
1:57 AM
@Cerberus They shouldn't be able to post pictures if they're in the wilderness. There is no power. No cell towers.
 
They can post the pictures once they reach civilisation.
 
La Mostra internazionale d'arte cinematografica è il festival cinematografico che si svolge annualmente a Venezia, Italia (solitamente tra la fine del mese di agosto e l'inizio di settembre), nello storico Palazzo del Cinema sul lungomare Marconi (ed in altri edifici vicini o non lontani), al Lido di Venezia e nel resto della laguna. Dopo l'Oscar, è la manifestazione cinematografica più antica al mondo: la prima edizione si tenne tra il 6 e il 21 agosto 1932 (mentre l'Academy Award si svolge dal 1930, in serata unica). La mostra si inquadra nella più vasta attività della Biennale di Venezia...
 
@Cerberus Are you the teenage son in La Nausée?
all those phonies
 
'Twill premier there.
 
@Mitch Is that Racine or something?
But, teenage son, I'll take that.
 
2:00 AM
There are laws in some countries.
 
What laws?
 
@Cerberus El Cid?
 
I guess you could have a teenage son, but you will have been precocious.
 
Ô rage,ô something, ô desespoir?
 
@Cerberus Laws against kidnapping teenage sons!
 
2:04 AM
@tchrist Really?
I'm 38.
28 is a bit young to have a son, but it's not quite extraordinary.
 
@Cerberus How well I know!
 
28 young?
 
@tchrist I thought I was the teenage son, as per Mitch's question.
 
So ok.
 
these days maybe
 
2:06 AM
@Cerberus Nice to get carded, isn't it?
 
@Cerberus metaphorically. 38 is towards the upper end of teenager
 
If he's vigesimal.
18 = Deux vingts moins deux
Sorry, your fault for your Ô thingies.
 
On n'est past serieux quand on a dix-sept ans. Or 18 or 19 really
 
@tchrist Whatted?
 
@Cerberus Carded.
 
2:12 AM
@Mitch What if I behave very childishly.
@tchrist Oh, carded.
J'avais oublié simplement
que j'avais deux fois dix-huit ans.
 
@Cerberus a child at heart
 
Quite so.
 
or puerile
there's lots of choices
 
Or puppyesque.
 
@Cerberus Mais non, t'as deux fois dix-neuf.
 
2:18 AM
Moi, oui.
 
@Cerberus I feel somewhat uncomfortable.
 
Mais, non.
 
@Cerberus mais elle...
@tchrist It took me a while too. also listening to the song
 
Elle avait quarante ans en fait...
 
Quelle scandale
et le petit chien
 
2:28 AM
@Robusto That would actually make sense.
That is, I have never watched Star Wars, because it always seemed so unappealing.
In retrospect, perhaps it seemed too childish.
 
@Cerberus you'd be surprised
it's more childish than you think
 
I saw a few fragments as boyfriend was watching some Star Wars film.
Quite unappealing.
@Mitch Oh, good.
 
like presque dix-huit ans
 
Demi?
 
but you don't go to see a movie like that because you want to be adult
 
2:30 AM
Perhaps I am a child in various respects.
But I think not in my taste for stories.
 
what's an adult story really?
 
I liked Lord of the Rings much better than the Hobbit, in primary school.
 
Don't answer that.
 
I'm sure you can find one.
 
@Cerberus That's exactly the difference
The Hobbit was written as a kid's story, LotR was written as an epic, and the Silmarillion was written as an academic exercise for old men to analyse.
Beatrix Potter is pretty good.
Old Mr Bunny didn't give a shit about cats.
Squirrel Nutkin on the other hand... what was up with that guy?
Riddles n shit.
I mean something was just not right about him.
 
2:40 AM
@Robusto Oh, there is a new film coming this year?
Pretty cool.
Even though I liked Lynch's film.
@Mitch Ohh we loved Potter.
Did your mother read those stories to you, too?
 
@Mitch That depends whether you mean the Silmarillion or The Silmarillion.
Read “Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin” in Unfinished Tales to see what might have been, and should have been.
The published book was cobbled together by CRRT. It was not his father's arrangement.
And the sack of Doriath was all fils, no père.
 
That was sad.
Melian was sad.
Such a waste.
 
There was no version that matched where Tolkien had been going. It didn't match up. So Chris had to invent something that did.
 
2:55 AM
Where would Tolkien sr have been going?
 
@Cerberus It is a fair tale, though it is sad, as are all the tales of Middle-earth, and yet it may lift up your hearts.
 
The fall of Doriath did no such thing!
But, yes, most tales are saddening.
 
No, that is the tale of Tinúviel. I am quoting Strider.
 
I think my favourite tale from the Sil is Gondolin's.
Books could and should be written around it.
@tchrist Oh, I see.
What tale was that, then?
 
Lúthien.
 
3:00 AM
OK.
Honestly, not my favourite.
 
They were long gone ere Doriath fell.
 
I should think so.
I have always been fascinated with cities as the subjects of novels.
 
If you have only read the Silmarillion, then there are other important writings of Gondolin.
The most polished I mentioned above.
 
My favourite book in primary school was about a moving city on Mercury. It must always be at dawn.
@tchrist I think I once read an earlier one.
But I think I preferred the one in the Silmarillion.
 
Reminds me of Jack of Shadows, where the animate stone figure of Morningstar perched forever upon the terminator line of an Earth that no longer rotated.
 
3:03 AM
Even though so much more could have been done with Gondolin.
 
@tchrist My. eyes saw every letter of that book but I couldn't tell you what happened. I was bored. I didn't have the patience any more.
 
@Cerberus The very much older one is from the Book of Lost Tales, not from Unfinished Tales. The former is ancient, and was written in his "archaic" mode. It did not grab you; it was like reading annals. The latter was written years after the Lord of the Rings, and does so.
 
@tchrist Do you recommend this book?
 
@Cerberus Certainly.
Zelazny.
 
Noted.
 
3:06 AM
@Cerberus She must have because we had a couple of those little tiny books around. But frankly I can't remember being read to. I remember reading Dr Seuss and such, but just nt someone else reading to me.
 
Oh, this was the book.
So much fun.
I think you're supposed to be looking at the belly of the walking city.
@Mitch Hmm.
I remember being read to, about the rabbit that hid in a sack or something. It was fun.
 
I think I was too old to be read to by the time I started having memories
One of my first memories is a story I haven't told yet.
Another time.
It's already too late at the moment
I can barely read the screen or type
@Cerberus that does sound familiar
 
He wrote the original Fall of Gondolin in 1917 during sick-leave from the Somme, although sometimes he gave the date as 1916 and 1917. The brief summary version in the printed version of the Silmarillion he wrote between 1926 and 1930. The longer but incomplete version in Unfinished Tales he very likely wrote in 1951, so after the Lord of the Rings was finished. His gift for writing prose evolved greatly over those long decades.
 
0
A: Subordinate clauses headed by "With"

Cerberus_Reinstate_MonicaOne reason to avoid such a with phrase is that it is, itself, used to avoid absolute constructions, by authors who either deem their audience unworthy, or who fail to think of them at all. And so it is sometimes felt to be a less literate substitute. Note: with phrases can be used to great effect...

@Mitch Really? I didn't know it had been translated.
 
@Cerberus Thank you.
 
3:15 AM
@tchrist Honestly, I felt those snarky comments were rather unwelcoming.
This is what other people complain to me about, whenever EL&U is mentioned.
 
The problem is that you can always find something on the internet that tells you to do something or not to do something.
 
Highly respectable people. Such as a Latin PhD I know.
 
The question was posed as though this position were from some Authority.
But it was just some guy on the internet.
 
I just think the snarkiness from high-reps in comments needs to go.
We delete such comments on Latin.
We even send mod messages to repeat offenders.
 
This is not a native speaker. So they don't know what to believe. And they've been a member for five years.
Certainly I can purge all the comments, or whichever ones you would see gone. It still doesn't help this person understand that a blog post on the internet isn't a matter of right and wrong.
Language learners are conditioned to believe in right and wrong because they take tests and every question on the test will be marked right or wrong.
 
3:21 AM
I think it is an excellent question.
It would have received a warm welcome in 2010.
 
I didn't downvote it, nor close it, etc.
 
Fine.
That user is as good as new, only posted one other question, in 2016.
Oh, well.
I repeat myself again.
 
Did you read the link? Its very first sentence is "Sentences (and clauses) that begin with with are doomed to be weak." Do you believe that must always be true?
 
@Robusto No, I'm trying to break my dependence from Strava. I'm still running about 32 km per week ))
I switched by Strava account to invisible
 
That's why I don't think much of the writer.
 
3:26 AM
 
There are plenty of perfectly wonderful sentences that begin with the word with. The ones he selected are unusual because of how they involve clauses.
 
@tchrist Of course not, but that would be taking it too literally.
In philosophy and rhetoric, the principle of charity or charitable interpretation requires interpreting a speaker's statements in the most rational way possible and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation. In its narrowest sense, the goal of this methodological principle is to avoid attributing irrationality, logical fallacies, or falsehoods to the others' statements, when a coherent, rational interpretation of the statements is available. According to Simon Blackburn "it constrains the interpreter to maximize the truth or rationality in the subject...
 
How else are we to read it ithen?
 
Contextually.
But it is half past five now.
Half six, as we say.
 
With someone like him helping, it should be easy.
Please sleep.
 
3:37 AM
How do you like your own sentence?
When I use the with construction, I usually feel...lazy.
 
4:54 AM
An old Tajik man in Samarkand, January 1907.
@M.A.R. Yes, but it could be part not only of schizophrenia, but may appear in anxiety, for instance. The Soviet psychiatric school was notorious for labeling almost any patient as schizophrenic, just in case. So it's hard to tell.
 
 
1 hour later…
6:28 AM
 
 
2 hours later…
8:49 AM
Jacques Littlefield (November 21, 1949 – January 7, 2009) was the founder of the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation (MVTF), also called the Littlefield Collection. == Collection == Jacques Littlefield collected many vintage military vehicles including a Panther tank, several M4 Sherman tanks and an SS-1 Scud launcher. He had over 220 military vehicles to his name. == Biography == Littlefield was born on November 21, 1949 in San Francisco, California. He was the son of Edmund Wattis Littlefield and Jeannik Méquet Littlefield. His father was CEO of Utah Construction Company, his mother is a...
I think the Germans are being a little mean. This stuff is long-since army surplus. Jacques’ quite remarkable collection was established at a museum in Massachusetts some years ago. You can drive one!
 
9:26 AM
 
 
1 hour later…
10:54 AM
July 27 marks one of the most important days in diabetes treatment history. 100 years ago today, Dr. Frederick Banting, a Canadian surgeon and Charles Best, a medical student, successfully isolated the hormone insulin for the first time
 
11:29 AM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in body, pattern-matching website in body (195): What are the factors driving the growth of household vacuum cleaners' market? by Himanshi Arya on english.SE
 
12:21 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Link at beginning of body (40): unlimited free supper vpn - vpn pro by Muhammad Afzal on english.SE
 
12:41 PM
@CowperKettle Ah. Well, glad you're not injured.
 
1:18 PM
@CowperKettle It's crazy how recent these are compared to the advances in physics
 
2:09 PM
@Cerberus Because it is one of the few corpora I have easy electronic access to, I searched through Tolkien's legendarium for examples of this construction, and found them to be strikingly rare. Perhaps its scarcity itself says something. Here, though, is one, from an unpublished tale he wrote after finishing the Lord of the Rings:
> With this thought growing in him, so that at length he felt rather as a man who goes to greet friends and kinsmen than as one who creeps out to spy on dangerous foes, he passed unhurt through the shadow-wood, and came to the shore-hills, and began to climb.
 
2:20 PM
@tchrist It would be a bit awkward as an absolute.
Perhaps he used with because the thought is a kind of instrument or companion to the protagonist?
 
@Cerberus Maybe with the instead of this? "The thought growing in him,..."
 
@tchrist Better.
But you kind of lose the conexion with the previous sentence.
 
Yeah.
I wonder how switching from the present participle to the past participle might change the advice.
"[With] the rebellion quelled, ..."
With the cupcakes frosted, she moved on to deviling the eggs.
 
I don't think with is ever truly wrong.
 
This seems to be the language equivalent of standing over a tool chest and trying to decide which tools are inappropriate for any purpose.
 
2:35 PM
I mean, those examples are unexceptional.
But I do think it is a good idea to pause when you're about to use it.
Especially if you're a bad writer, but then...
 
@Cerberus I don't understand your objection to using with to introduce a clause.
 
I don't know, it often looks a bit clumsy, as in the examples from the question?
 
Clumsy writers will use it clumsily.
 
Dangling no participle before the main clause, Tom Swiftly contradicted himself.
 
Hah.
No, indeed.
 
2:43 PM
Unexceptional and unexceptionable, I would say.
 
I think usually a conjunction is better and clearer.
With is inexpressive.
 
Not every word has to be expressive. Some just perform a simple introductory or linking function.
Not every actor in a play or film is featured on the marquee.
 
3:35 PM
 
3:59 PM
@Robusto Thank you! I just noticed that I was spending a lot of time on Strava, just giving away likes and comments, and feeling bad because others are running more, riding more, walking more etc.
I need to shake this FOMO feeling.
Before Strava, I just timed my runs, and marked my progress in a big copy-book. I only knew the time spent running, so I just summarized the time.
I will try doing that again.
 
Much better.
Also better for your privacy.
 
4:21 PM
Beautiful. I need to watch Miserables.
I started reading the book 5 years ago, in English, but only went through the first 100 pages
 
 
1 hour later…
5:49 PM
@Robusto This is well informed.
I also seem to be seeing a shift of vin into vent.
But they do not seem to mention it.
 
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