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CowperKettle
CowperKettle
12:34 AM
@Robusto Good music
 
Robusto
Robusto
@CowperKettle 👍
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@Robusto Reminded me of Supertramp
Roughly the same era
 
Robusto
Robusto
Roughly.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
 
Robusto
Robusto
Randy Newman is a satirist, though.
@CowperKettle Yep, I know that one.
 
tchrist
tchrist
1:37 AM
The New York Times says that The Economist is saying histrionic things!
> Yet to many in elite enclaves, the problem feels far bigger than this — so big that it’s tempting to reach for dramatic historical analogies to describe it. The Economist compared today’s progressive cultural vanguard to the state churches of the 1600s. “In Restoration England, Oxford University burned the works of Hobbes and Milton in the great quad next to the Bodleian Library,” it said. “Today academics put trigger warnings on books, alerting students to the dangers of reading them. Young publishers try to get controversial books ‘canceled.’”
> This is so histrionic that it suggests the usually sober Economist is in the grips of extremely strong emotions.
heh
They're commenting on this text:
> Yet something extraordinary is happening in the West: a new generation of progressives is reviving methods that uncannily resemble those of the confessional state, with modern versions of loyalty oaths and blasphemy laws. And this effort is being spearheaded in the heartland of Anglo-Saxon liberalism—often by people who call themselves liberals. Here is how the old tactics are being revived.

Imposing orthodoxy. Today’s orthodoxy is sustained by an intellectual elite instead of a spiritual one. Their natural home is the university. Some 70-80% of right-leaning academics and doctoral stude…
The Times writer said: "Many people I know over 40 — maybe 35 — resent new social mores that demand outsized sensitivity to causing harm." That's certainly something I could have written. But did not.
> Imposing orthodoxy
Left-wing activists are using old tactics in a new assault on liberalism
It is possible to detect eerie echoes of the confessional state of yore
Curious title.
I'm sure that "Left-wing activists ... new assault on liberalism" is unparsable to Americans. :)
Because they'll parse it as saying "liberals assault liberalism".
 
 
2 hours later…
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
3:26 AM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Offensive title detected, potentially bad keyword in title (55): (potentially offensive title -- see MS for details) by Arturo Muñoz on english.SE
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
32.2% of Russia have received one or more covid shots. Good. Almost one in three persons.
Furthermore, a second Russian company started producing the AstraZeneca vaccine inside Russia. All output is exported, since the vaccine is not registered domestically, but it's good to know that the world's output is increasing with our help.
Word of the day: colexification
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
3:48 AM
> For example, it has been shown that languages spoken in cold climates are more likely to have separate words for “ice” and “snow”, whereas languages in warmer climates often have just one word.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:25 AM
I wonder if artificial headwind can be created at an airport to reduce plane takeoff length
 
 
2 hours later…
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
6:44 AM
@CowperKettle That seems low.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
7:08 AM
@FaheemMitha Only 35% of Russians actively want a vaccine
And 55% said they'd rather not.
Some 35% said they will avoid a vaccine even if forced to vaccinate.
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
@CowperKettle Those are alarmingly low numbers.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
7:43 AM
The Bell Street in Yekaterinburg
Kolokolnaya Ulitsa (Колокольная улица)
Kolokol is "bell" in Russian
 
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
8:43 AM
@Robusto thank you. Yes, that's the soprano recorder alright, and sounding as such in the MIDI. Soprano is notated an octave down, there's the 8 above the clef, which for tenor wouldn't be there. So that middle C is indeed a C5 actually.
Tenor would not work as you say, and not only because it wouldn't be heard, but because the counterpoint is not invertible at the octave and so would just fall apart.
 
 
2 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
10:27 AM
> Why can't you drive faster? Nobody is looking.
My religious views forbid this.
What religion?
The atheist religion.
 
 
4 hours later…
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
2:07 PM
 
Robusto
Robusto
2:19 PM
@RegDwigнt Yeah, my old eyes didn't notice the 8 atop the treble clef sign at that point size.
 
Mitch
Mitch
3:10 PM
> To the person who stole my place in the queue - I’m after you now.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
I read the headline thrice and understood nothing. Had to actually follow the link.
> The Aeson total artificial heart was implanted into a 57-year-old Kentucky woman with severe biventricular heart failure during an eight-hour surgery -- medicalxpress.com/news/2021-09-woman-artificial-heart.html
Maybe by 2030 getting an artifical heart will be a common procedure. Thousands of lives to be saved.
 
Matt E. Эллен
Matt E. Эллен
3:29 PM
@Mitch you garden pathed me good
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:20 PM
Graduate, postgraduate, undergraduate.. clumsy. I always have to look up what that means.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:36 PM
> What inspires you?
- ?
What makes you get out of bed in the mornings?
- Ah, I see! Pissing inspires me!
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
5:00 PM
@CowperKettle Same here.
Those terms make little sense to me.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
5:52 PM
Word of the day: reservoir computing
Another incomprehensible notion.
Another incomprehensible news item.
 
Robusto
Robusto
6:26 PM
@CowperKettle Interesting. If true, that's exactly the opposite of how we process spoken language, in which we hear a stream of sound, collecting recognizable phonemes, then post-processing them into the tiny jackpot of an intelligible utterance, then move on to the next string..
 
 
1 hour later…
Mitch
Mitch
7:29 PM
@MattE.Эллен If only I were responsible I'd take credit.
That said, it was totally comprehensible to me. even though the multiple hidden negation words do make it a little hard.
I think it takes practice. Or not thinking about it at all, like the centipede thinking too hard about how to walk.
@CowperKettle I don't know what post-graduate means. Undergraduate means someone in college/at uni who hasn't graduated yet. Postgraduate means nothing to me or rather I can't settle on what is ever intended by that. A graduate -student- is someone who is attending a uni for a graduate degree (MS or PhD) but not a law or medicine degree. I don't know what to call such in France/Spain because they have a finer set of hurdles to jump.
@Cerberus what are the labels for academic degrees there after secondary school up to PhD (or whatever it is the highest there)?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Nowadays, the only newly awarded degrees are bachelor's and master's.
The only ones with any legal status, at least.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@CowperKettle There were artificial hearts in the 70's (with I'm sure much lower rate of success). I would suspect that prevalence of use of artificial hearts would not increase dramatically in that time frame, just incrementally.
@Cerberus There's no such thing as a PhD? (or does a 'master's' correspond to a PhD?)
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch You said up to...
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus Also are people running around brandishing concealed illegal PhD's?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
After master's, it's doctorate (PhD).
 
Mitch
Mitch
7:38 PM
@Cerberus 'upto' means 'including' for me
unless it doesn't in some other instance.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch PhDs don't kill people. The Antrax in the envelope kills people.
@Mitch Hmm.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus so like the UK/US, bachelor's/master's/PhD in sequence?
@Cerberus It's opening the envelope that kills them
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Yes.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Do you know what Germany does?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
The old system was thus: propaedeuse, candidaats, doctoraal, doctoraat.
But propaedeuse and candidaats were insignificant. Doctoraal corresponded with current master's.
 
Mitch
Mitch
7:41 PM
I don't even know what France does except that it is more complex. Like every other year ofter the bac there's another degree with a bunch of letters but you can skip some times, and ...
well
you can skip a masters I suppose
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Most probably very similar.
But all of Europe had to switch to the Anglo-Saxon system.
 
Mitch
Mitch
and frankly I've heard of people who've skipped both and wnt straight to a phd but that seems very rare and likewise old-fashioned (19th c?)
@Cerberus Anglos rock
@Cerberus Did that happen one particular date or was it an unnoticeable boiling of the frog kind of thing?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch You can always be an "externe promovendus" (a PhD outside of the university), if you can find a professor willing to assist you with your research/thesis. It basically means you can take as long as you like and you need to pay for everything yourself, no salary or anything.
@Mitch A specific date, I think. I think it is called the Bologna system or something.
Bologna Process
The Bologna Process is a series of ministerial meetings and agreements between European countries to ensure comparability in the standards and quality of higher-education qualifications. The process has created the European Higher Education Area under the Lisbon Recognition Convention. It is named after the University of Bologna, where the Bologna declaration was signed by education ministers from 29 European countries in 1999. The process was opened to other countries in the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe, and governmental meetings have been held in Prague (2001), Berlin...
 
Mitch
Mitch
@CowperKettle I don't know how much this says about me, but that is an entirely new concept to me. It could be horseshit or it could be a very reasonable tech. Quantum neural networks sound like horseshit too but the little I know about it, it is a reasonable use of quantum computing (but I doubt that quantum computing will become anything beyond a very niche tech).
@Cerberus It looks similar to the Anglo system but I didn't see anything in there saying 'patterned after the UK' or the like.
But the section on France confirmed my vague memories of the French system
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Of course not!! France would not have that.
 
Mitch
Mitch
7:56 PM
@Cerberus all they have to do is add Eurovision and Nato to that and we'll have world peace.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Indeed!
Do you think China will join?
The Eurasian Union?
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus I could make compelling arguments for that
... once Russia joins
by compelling I mean eerily reminiscent of 'intriguingly inventive science-fiction'
more importantly, it's taken me realize that 'woah' is overtaking 'whoa' in acceptance.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch A triumph for illiteracy.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto IKR!
but... and this is where the abomination is truly shown...
 
Robusto
Robusto
Wake me when teh overtakes the ...
 
Mitch
Mitch
8:02 PM
google books vs twitter
twitter is more... vernacular?
people can barely get out more than a grunt on Instagram or Youtube comments
@Robusto That's what is hilarious about my 'complaint'.
'whoa' is not a standard thing so probably not in any dictionary ever. But that's the way it was always spelled.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch I beg to differ. Every English dictionary I have access to lists whoa. None yet list woah.
 
Mitch
Mitch
and now these immature gen-Xers or whatever they call these unnaturally young people under fifty nowadays, they spell things any old way and then expect us normal people to follow their idiotic and uneducated mistakes.
@Robusto Well those dictionaries didn't anticipate my being blissfully unaware of every little details of theirs.
They should have spelled that out in their newsletter of 'new words'
 
Robusto
Robusto
You have access to most of them. You lack only the will to investigate.
 
Mitch
Mitch
which I would have deleted without opening.
@Robusto You speak of lack of will like will is something actually desirable.
I lack the will to investigate sitting in my chair when the refrigerator is whispering my name... "Mitch ... oh Mitch ... leftovers... leftovers..."
 
Robusto
Robusto
My refrigerator is louder than yours. It only shouts, never whispers.
 
Mitch
Mitch
8:09 PM
@Robusto I gotta get a new refrigerator
 
Robusto
Robusto
You couldn't handle the pressure.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Oh yeah. Yeah I could.
By handle you mean I could handle opening the fridge whenever called right?
I could totally do that.
BBIAS
 
Robusto
Robusto
I was talking about resisting the siren call of leftovers, but I guess we are at cross purposes here.
 
Mitch
Mitch
I'm back
I just gave my fridge a hug
I mean it has a bunch of food and gives out crushed ice
 
Robusto
Robusto
Did it hug you back?
 
Mitch
Mitch
8:13 PM
@Robusto I'm not crazy. Do your cats talk to you back? I mean sure they stare you down menacingly and while you're petting them and they're purring loudly they turn and bite the shit out of you just because. But no my fridge did not 'hug back'.
maybe metaphorically it did
it has its ways
@Robusto first result on 'definition whoa' gives the alternate spelling 'woah'
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch Of course my cats talk back to me. They say things like "Fuck that, I'm going to do what I want."
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto Oh
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch Get a better dictionary.
 
Mitch
Mitch
 
Robusto
Robusto
2 mins ago, by Robusto
@Mitch Get a better dictionary.
 
Mitch
Mitch
8:21 PM
but I'll point out your 'get a better dictionary' post again
MW for the win
they're obviously not looking at what people actually write nowadays. where people who bother to say ...
that word...
will only spell it 'woah'.
also in barely related news, my local library, where I'd get free on line access to the OED, has -dropped- their subscription to them, so I can no longer ...
I was going to say 'no longer sound smart' but stop right there, I'm not going to allow you to respond with "no longer?"
I can no longer -use- the OED for references.
 
Robusto
Robusto
8:41 PM
@Mitch woah dude LMAO that teh rong thin 4 u
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Indeed!
What were the three empires again in 1984?
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus East Asia, West Asia, and Oceanography?
 
Robusto
Robusto
Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Where does Africa fit in to all this?
At the moment, I feel like China is helping out so much in Africa that they sort of own it by debt.
Belt and Road Initiative
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, or B&R), known in Chinese and formerly in English as One Belt One Road (Chinese: 一带一路) or OBOR for short, is a global infrastructure development strategy adopted by the Chinese government in 2013 to invest in nearly 70 countries and international organizations. It is considered a centerpiece of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) general secretary and Chinese leader Xi Jinping's foreign policy. The BRI forms a central component of Xi Jinping's "Major Country Diplomacy" (Chinese: 大国外交) strategy, which calls for China to assume a greater leadership role for global affairs...
 
Robusto
Robusto
9:01 PM
@Mitch Ask Eric Blair.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:20 PM
@Mitch I'm sure that was it.
@Mitch That is their plan.
China is playing a classic Shylock.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus Is that what the Shylock reference is?
He'll build you a bridge and you'll be i debt over it for a while? Wasn't that the same strategy the US and the Soviet Union took?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Probably!
 
Mitch
Mitch
I don't know. Current events was not even a class available to me and there are not enough pictures in the newspaper to keep my interest
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
They will build the current, semi-corrupt government a completely useless road, from which no doubt the latter's friends and family profited a great deal. Later they demand that the loans should be paid back—loans unbearable for the economy of the poor country. They graciously accept huge tracts of land, ports, support in the UN, etc., to delay payments.
> One of the world’s most expensive roads slices through the mountains of Montenegro, soaring over deep gorges on towering bridges, before reaching its destination: a muddy field outside a hamlet with a few dozen houses, many of them empty.
> The Montenegrin leader says that an almost $1 billion Chinese-built highway approved by his predecessor has badly strained the country’s finances.
> Montenegro is now saddled with debts to China that total more than a third of the government’s annual budget.
The Chinese have used the same trick to extract huge concessions from e.g. Sri Lanka, Djibouti and Mongolia.
 
Mitch
Mitch
9:54 PM
@Cerberus There's gotta be a lot of Montenegrins in that chain of planning that can see that the road obviously leads nowhere (and also to anybody looking at the finished map).
Maybe there are plans to develop those few villages?
(there are a lot of villages like that in China still I bet)
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
10:29 PM
@Mitch There were plans to continue the road.
They wanted to do this stretch first.
But of course it was never possible to finish the road to its real destination.
And, even if it were finished, I doubt whether it would be worth it at all.
 

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