English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

> However, taking all of this into account, not many countries are officially recognized as being self-sufficient in food. The list includes Canada, Australia, Russia, and the United States. In Europe, only one country manages to qualify, and that is France.

The problem is, there are no standard criteria among all these estimates.

Cerberus

Yeah, Europe as a whole is self sufficient enough.

But you won't get every single food item you're used to, when all intercontinental food trade is shut down.

It's a bit annoying how they count in value, not in number of people fed.

Europe exports lots of expensive stuff, but I don't know how many mouths she feeds on different continents.

Robusto

Yeah, the metrics are always different in some way.

Cerberus

12:47 AM

> After Russia, the world's leading [wheat] exporter, the European Union vies closely with the United States and Canada on the export market. These three cereal powers sold between 24 and 25 million tonnes each in 2020. France (39 million tonnes produced in 2020, half of which was sold outside Europe) is the driving force behind the European power. Its wheat mainly supplies the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

So France alone sells 19 million tonnes of wheat outside Europe yearly.

Robusto

@Cerberus There is definitely a correlation between food exports and amount of arable land.

Cerberus

Sure.

In tonnes.

But not really in euros.

But consider how much arable land the EU has versus Russia.

Robusto

But looking at wheat alone doesn't say anything except about wheat.

Cerberus

Of course.

Robusto

I'm pretty sure a huge amount of US production is in corn. Which is livestock feed and used for ethanol.

Soybeans are also large.

Cerberus

12:56 AM

This is arable land.

Robusto

Ah.

Cerberus

I think India's production is far less efficient than that of rich countries.

Robusto

Yes. But Canada is the little giant in that list They have only 1/16 of the population but about 25% of the US arable land.

Cerberus

Indeed.

It seems the E. U. had 1,637,507 km² arable land in 2018.

Which is actually more than India or America.

I didn't know it was more.

And the amount has gone down.

Probably because of reforestation?

Mitch

So are the elections over?

Who won?

Cerberus

1:05 AM

Huh but I also get this.

The source of the other graph should also be the World Bank.

I give up.

Too confusing.

Mitch

Ukraine won!

UK 2nd place

Robusto

1:19 AM

@Cerberus It's gone down because urban expanse has gone up, I should think.

Cerberus

Urban areas are only a small fraction of the land.

And they don't go up very fast either.

Even in Holland, densely populated as it is, built-up areas are about 7% of the land, forests 22%.

The large majority is agriculture.

Including croplands and pastures.

> at 10¹⁶ kcal, the world agricultural system produces enough kcal to feed 10 billion persons

> In 2013, the world produced 5,935 kilocalories of crops per person per day that could be consumed by humans, and an additional 3,812 kcal of vegetable matter produced to be eaten by animals.

The dietary energy supply – the food actually available for human consumption after taking out food waste and loss, non-food utilisation such as animal feed and industrial use as well as changes in stocks, is much lower. In 2016 -18 a global average of 2,908 kcal were available for daily human consumption, up from 2,330 kcal fifty years earlier and 2,792 kcal ten years before.

globalagriculture.org/transformation-of-our-food-systems/book/…

We produce so much edible food.

But most of it is used for other purposes or lost after harvest.

Robusto

1:35 AM

2900 kcal is a lot of food.

Cerberus

Yes, a lot remains even after that.

Even in Africa, there is enough food available.

Robusto

I don't even eat that much in a day, even at my exercise level.

Cerberus

Only on a smaller scale are their imbalances.

Robusto

@Cerberus Yes. Getting it to the people that need it, though, can be problematic.

Cerberus

> 8.9 percent of the world’s population are undernourished – this means they have a caloric intake below minimum energy requirements.
663 million people globally are undernourished.

Although slight unernourishment is not a problem.

Or when it for a short time.

But calories are not the whole story.

Cerberus

2:02 AM

> wheat is the basis of all food security and accounts for a quarter of the caloric intake of humans.

tchrist

2:24 AM

Plus two countries bordering on the once and future Soviet Union who've today declared they'll join NATO, and soon.

> 1926 was the year of Emperor Hirohito's accession to the throne.

Why is that accession instead of ascension?

2

A: Question about 'ascending to the throne' for other titles

You accede to a position of nobility. Accession is used to indicate the inheritance of a title or position of some authority. It implies agreement to undertake the responsibities of office, the word is also used to describe the act of agreeing to another's requirements. The word can also be us...

He "acceded" to the throne instead of "ascending" to it?

But accede simply means agree to.

Stupid twisty-turny Latin words, all alike.

"Why yes, I should be delighted to be your absolute ruler forevermore."

I don't think that took a whole lot of giving in.

Cerberus

Hmm somehow it sounds OK to me.

You can succeed or accede to the throne, I think.

Ascend is perhaps more metaphorical?

tchrist

2:40 AM

I honestly always believed that one ascended to the throne. :( As, apparently, did the asker.

Cerberus

Perhaps ascend to is a contamination of ascend and accede to?

That would be the most obvious pattern.

tchrist

Like acceding to the kidnappers' ransom note?

Cerberus

One accedes to the throne (neutral) or one ascends the throne (more playful / metaphorical).

@tchrist I would say that's a different sense of accede?

tchrist

Don't they both mean consent to, give in to?

Apparently I don't have enough experience with thrones.

Cerberus

I would say accede can simply mean to go to.

Accedo typically means go towards.

tchrist

2:45 AM

I think I've confused it with assent.

Cerberus

So many words.

tchrist

Because somehow I didn't think it had a /ks/ in it.

Cerberus

Cedo can meand "go", but also "give way", whence English cede.

Ahh.

tchrist

Certainly.

Or maybe with ascent. Yes, too many words.

Cerberus

But I bet you don't pronounce the verb a seed.

tchrist

2:47 AM

I may well have.

Cerberus

A sent, a send, and ak seed.

tchrist

Accent.

Cerberus

Yes, like accent and accessory.

Which is also from accedo.

Something that comes in addition.

tchrist

I definitely do not regularly use this verb.

Cerberus

But you are used to succeeding to the throne.

tchrist

2:50 AM

> During a joint press conference, President Trump expressed support for the eventual ascension of Brazil into NATO.[262] France however has rejected the proposal claiming Article 10 of the treaty limits geography of membership to European countries.[263]

Is that wrong?

Enlargement of NATO

NATO is a military alliance of twenty-eight European and two North American countries that constitutes a system of collective defense. The process of joining the alliance is governed by Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which allows for the invitation of "other European States" only, and by subsequent agreements. Countries wishing to join must meet certain requirements and complete a multi-step process involving political dialogue and military integration. The accession process is overseen by the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body. NATO formed in 1949 with twelve founding members...

It's from there.

> for the eventual ascension of Brazil into NATO

That's what started all this puzzlement.

Cerberus

Haha that sounds very wrong.

NATO is not goodhood.

Accession to.

tchrist

No staircase to ascend?

blames Trump

Cerberus

No, you just walk towards it.

It's interesting that Trump should have proposed Brazil.

tchrist

Well, it used to be a European country. :)

Cerberus

But I imagine people have been confusing these verbs for centuries.

Just a colony!

Though the capital of Portugal was there.

tchrist

2:55 AM

Indeed.

And is not Portugal a European country? Q.E.D. :)

@Cerberus Or more.

That oneboxing of Wikipedia has an animated GIF; it's moving!

Cerberus

@tchrist Not then!

> Around 200 BC, the Romans took the Iberian Peninsula from the Carthaginians during the Second Punic War. In the process they conquered Cale [now Porto], renaming it Portus Cale ("Port of Cale") and incorporating it in the province of Gaellicia with its capital in Bracara Augusta (modern day Braga, Portugal).

tchrist

That or I've unwittingly consumed ergot mold.

@Cerberus So it was African before then? Or given that Carthage was Phoenician, Asian? :)

> It is an error of geography to have assigned Spain to Europe; it belongs to Africa: blood, manners, language, the way of life and making war, in Spain everything is African. The two nations have been mixed up for too long–the Carthaginians who came from Africa to Spain, the Vandals who left Spain for Africa, the Moors who stayed in Spain for 700 years–for such a long cohabitation not to have confused the race and customs of the two countries. If the Spaniard were Mohammedan, he would be completely African; it is religion that has kept it in Europe.

I think he's the one who said that Europe ends at the Pyrenees. It was either him, or Roland after Roncesvalles.

tchrist

3:13 AM

Bed.

Cerberus

@tchrist I suppose so!

> In 1807, as Napoleon's army closed in on Lisbon, João VI of Portugal, the Prince Regent, transferred his court to Brazil and established Rio de Janeiro as the capital of the Portuguese Empire. In 1815, Brazil was declared a Kingdom and the Kingdom of Portugal was united with it, forming a pluricontinental state, the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.

As a result of the change in its status and the arrival of the Portuguese royal family, Brazilian administrative, civic, economical, military, educational, and scientific apparatus were expanded and highly modernized. Portu…

Robusto

3:36 AM

Cloudy here. But the eclipse is eclipsing.

The eclipse is total here at the moment.

After it was more than half covered, my camera wouldn't shoot a photo. Too dark.

Vikas

@Robusto Nice. You can see it with naked eyes right?

It's not visible here.

Robusto

@Vikas Yes.

Vikas

@CowperKettle Like Hubble?

Robusto

3:52 AM

@CowperKettle Eclipses are cool. They don't have to be pushing back the frontiers of knowledge to simply demonstrate what they do.

Vikas

@CowperKettle It would be better than Hubble?

Robusto

@Vikas In some ways better.

Greater resolution, infrared imaging.

Better instruments.

But Hubble is still colossal.

Vikas

Ok

Robusto

JWT will see more stars from longer ago because of the infrared imaging.

Vikas

Good

Robusto

3:56 AM

My wife and I stood outside and watched the eclipse in its entirety, and it was just a peaceful, beautiful, awesome moment.

Well, half an hour.

I'll probably watch it as it uncovers as well.

Vikas

I probably saw this 3 years ago.

It was some special blood moon. Maybe it appeared larger than normal blood moon. Happens in decades.

Robusto

@Vikas This one is a blood moon.

Vikas

But weather was rainy and cloudy. So I didn't have much time to see it fully.

I planned to take good photo. But clouds ruined the dream. I had to wake up till late midnight.

I read in news that this appeared probably more red or more bigger for some reason.

I want to own a DSLR some day.

So I can take photos of moon.

Robusto

You can take pretty good shots of the full moon, but the eclipsed moon is too dark.

Vikas

Yeah. Need more powerful camera I think.

And those zooming lenses.

Robusto

4:08 AM

These pictures were taken with a DSLR, 300 mm lens.

But it is somewhat cloudy here, so not quite the clarity I would like.

Vikas

Nice

Maybe you didn't use tripod?

Robusto

I used a tripod.

I always do for shots like that.

Vikas

I have a small point and shoot camera. It makes a difference in photos when I use it with tripod.

Without tripod, its zooming is waste. You can't keep your hands still.

Robusto

That's one I took last year.

Vikas

Yeah this looks nice.

Robusto

4:13 AM

And another one from last year.

Vikas

Wow

This looks from another planet

Robusto

That's what a zoom lens does.

Vikas

Yeah it appears bigger so more unique.

Robusto

You shoot a moonrise against a horizon. Always an awesome shot.

Vikas

I once took this. No tripod so blurry and too bright

Robusto

4:17 AM

The too bright is because it's overexposed.

Vikas

Yeah. I had just bought the camera at that time.

Was just practicing.

Was trying to shoot anything I could see nearby me XD

Moon is not nearby BTW

Robusto

To shoot a full moon you should use ISO 100, F-11, and ~1/125 seconds.

Vikas

My camera has minimum 125 ISO

Robusto

Close enough.

Vikas

But all settings are automatic. You can't change anything except ISO

Robusto

4:18 AM

That's an odd minimum ISO, though.

Vikas

Yeah

Robusto

Well, when you get a DSLR you can do all that stuff.

Also get yourself an imaging program. If you had one of those you could dial back the brightness.

Vikas

My camera. It looks like DSLR but nowhere near DSLR

Takes nice photos during daylight.

Robusto

I tweaked your photo a bit.

There's a bit more definition, but there's really not much to work with there.

Remember, you almost always need to post-process photos. It's not cheating. The great Ansel Adams himself said he was an indifferent photographer, but a great print maker. That's because he tweaked his photos in the darkroom.

Our digital darkroom is Photoshop (if you can afford it) or Gimp if you prefer free.

Vikas

4:42 AM

@Robusto Yeah

I asked this question for same reason 3 years ago:

10

Q: Is it moral to remove/hide certain parts of a photo, as a photographer?

This question came to my mind when I asked this question. Kindly have a look on it and the accepted answer there. You'll see: Photo is cropped A white vertical bar thing is hidden A pipe nearby the leaf is hidden (right bottom corner) Background is blurred I like all of those changes. It...

I received many good answers. So I couldn't accept any of them at that time.

NVZ

6:57 AM

@Vikas coincidence. It's my edit on that question.

Vikas

7:14 AM

@NVZ Yeah I also noticed your name there today.

jlliagre

7:33 AM

Wordle 331 6/6

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Two attempts without even a single hit...

Vikas

10:44 AM

@jlliagre Very poor for you.

Let me try now and I'll do better than you!

I should laugh BTW what you even tried to enter in 1st two guesses 😆

Wordle 331 6/6

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I started sweating in last guess. Took my time and shot an arrow without any aim. It hit the spot!

I think I have rarely read about that word.

#Worldle #115 X/6 (96%)
🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜➡️
🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨↙️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬇️
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜↙️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨↙️
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Such a shame I didn't know this one 😑

I targeted the wrong area in map in my mind.

tchrist

11:05 AM

@Vikas No, you don't need a zoom lens. You need a long lens.

Vikas

@tchrist Uhm that long lens will basically zoom in? Like wild shooting cameras.

tchrist

No, it doesn't "zoom in".

The magnification is a factor of the focal length of the lens.

Vikas

So it must be by default giving close view of the subject.

tchrist

Well, it's not a macro lens.

A "zoom lens" is an objective with more than one focal length.

Vikas

It's not that easy to understand these concepts.

tchrist

11:09 AM

Pretty simple stuff, really.

Vikas

@tchrist Yeah I understand it.

@tchrist Once you get used to it only then I think. I cleared these concepts some time ago, but never used in practical so I forgot them.

tchrist

However, you also have to think about how closely your lens can focus down to.

Vikas

Long-focus lens

In photography, a long-focus lens is a camera lens which has a focal length that is longer than the diagonal measure of the film or sensor that receives its image. It is used to make distant objects appear magnified with magnification increasing as longer focal length lenses are used. A long-focus lens is one of three basic photographic lens types classified by relative focal length, the other two being a normal lens and a wide-angle lens. As with other types of camera lenses, the focal length is usually expressed in a millimeter value written on the lens, for example: a 500 mm lens. The most...

tchrist

You can have one 105mm lens that focuses to 14 feet away, another to 4 feet away, and a third to 4 inches away. Only the last will provide a one-to-one magnification.

Vikas

> It is used to make distant objects appear magnified with magnification increasing as longer focal length lenses are used.

tchrist

11:12 AM

As I said, you don't need a "zoom" lens. You need a long lens.

Vikas

Yeah. Also zoom lenses have little low quality.

tchrist

What does that mean?

Vikas

I've read it. Like prime lenses are better than zoom lenses.

Because of quality

For example at 18-250 zoom lens

tchrist

You can't optimize for a single focal length when your "zoom" can provide many of them.

Vikas

Does Russia manufacture anything well known other than aircrafts and weapons?

tchrist

11:18 AM

And MacDonalds is selling.

Vikas

Are those same as JCB? We probably call them JCB here.

It's a brand name but we made it noun.

These look different machine. Different from JCBs.

Interesting.

Walking excavator ЭШ 6/45

►

Haha it's literally walking

But speed is slow.

Vikas

11:50 AM

Last I saw most was this: stackexchange.com/users/52616/t-j-crowder?tab=accounts

He is also very experienced.

@CowperKettle Is it English SE?

9 answers per day is very impressive.

Almost 1 answer per hour during a day.

13 years old flower!

I saved it in this notebook. I really liked this notebook so I never used it. I saved it along with flower.

It's very crisp now.

Cerberus

Lovely!

Vikas

It was around 2009 I think.

Yeah. It was launched in 2011 as I can check.

tchrist

12:22 PM

@Robusto Mother Nature is about to laugh at everyone who disregarded their grandmother's advice and put their tomatoes in before Memorial Day: they're calling for freezing rain and snow this coming Friday night here on May 20th.

M.A.R.

@Vikas wow, that's pretty . . . Nice. Like a movie

jlliagre

1:03 PM

@Vikas I didn't know the last two words I tried. I just submitted everything that was pronouncable until Wordle stopped rejecting it.

#Worldle #115 1/6 (100%)
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https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Robusto

1:24 PM

@tchrist Yeah. It's the mountains. In the '40s, before the interstate system, my parents were moving from Chicago to LA and got snowed in in June at Rabbit Ears Pass.

tchrist

1:36 PM

Boulder County's average number of new Covid cases has increased by 86% over the past two weeks. WE're getting a couple hundred a day again now. All the counties in the Denver metroplex are shooting up: Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Douglas.

And yet other states have it worse.

Robusto

@tchrist We're on the upslope of the roller coaster again too.

tchrist

I wonder what accounts for all this. Waning protection from shots?

> The virus continues to spread at an alarming pace nationwide, with daily reports of new cases increasing threefold since the start of April.
Cases are rising in nearly every U.S. state, but the Northeast and Midwest have been especially hard hit. In much of those two regions, daily case reports are higher today than they were at the peak of last summer's Delta surge.
The full impact of this surge is believed to be even greater than these numbers suggest. Since many infections go uncounted in official case reports, the cases currently announced each day likely capture only a portion of the…

Robusto

#Worldle #115 2/6 (100%)
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https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

@tchrist The new Omicron variant, I suspect.

tchrist

@Robusto You speak French since when? :)

Robusto

The site is in English.

But I have a familiarity with French. Enough to mumble my way to success when in France.

For smaller values of success.

tchrist

1:46 PM

Drollery.

You still have bad air down there?!

Robusto

East of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

17 hours ago, by Robusto

tchrist

Bloody Sangres.

Robusto

Wordle 331 3/6

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@tchrist But even though the air is mainly transparent here, I did smell smoke on the wind when I stepped outside this morning.

tchrist

@Robusto I'm so glad that didn't happen to me; pollen allergies are rough enough.

Vikas

@M.A.R. Thanks. Like a movie?

@jlliagre Same here :P

tchrist

2:00 PM

@Robusto Estar constipado means to be stuffed up in Spanish, not to have trouble with bowel shifting.

Robusto

Noted.

Different orifice. Same principle.

tchrist

And the principle behind buying preservativos at the farmacia? :)

Robusto

@tchrist They facilitate incontinence?

jlliagre

This Italian sentence is very funny to French ears: non vado a sciare, sono constipato

tchrist

@Robusto No, it's the Every Sperm Is Sacred kind of preservative.

@jlliagre That's funny!

I think Portuguese and Italian admit both senses.

I don't think Spanish and Galician do, though.

But still, the first thing that comes to mind is that you have qq gripe.

costipato

Adjective: costipato (feminine costipata, masculine plural costipati, feminine plural costipate)

constipated
bunged up (with a bad cold)

!¿bunged up!?

Robusto

2:11 PM

@tchrist I was using incontinence in its religious sense.

tchrist

I never think of bunged up but that your butt is plugged up with solid poop immobile.

Robusto

@CowperKettle A bung is a stopper in a cask of some beverage, like ale or beer.

tchrist

@CowperKettle I don't know that we commonly use bunged up that way in North America. Unclear.

Because it's that what your bung hole is for?

Robusto

Yes.

tchrist

@CowperKettle That's not our language. :)

Remember these are the people who call their preservativos rubbers and their rubbers wellies.

It's not North American slang, and here would likely be misunderstood to mean something rather different.

Sigh. People shouldn't put definitions into Wikipedia that use slang in their definitions.

@CowperKettle Lazy Doliddle and Lizzy Axalot.

Robusto

2:19 PM

tchrist

@Robusto Why power companies hate solar energy. The Guardian: Solar pushback: How US power firms try to make people pay for going green. In states like Kansas, energy companies want to impose charges on people who produce their own power with rooftop arrays.

Robusto

@tchrist Yes. I read that one. As always, it's about penalizing those who don't fatten the fat.

tchrist

Given their climate, I shouldn't imagine perfidious Albion to suffer a surfeit of solar energy.

Cerberus

2:42 PM

Isn't Bastiat the one with the broken windows?

tchrist

The nordic nations have gained five-way banding against the bully. Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, said: “Together with Denmark and Iceland, Norway stands ready to assist its Nordic neighbours by all means necessary should they be the victim of aggression on their territory before obtaining Nato membership.”

Perhaps this will make a difference, given that I don't recall Iceland or Greenland or the Faroe Islands coming to Finland's aid any of the other times that the arctic bear bore down on them during all the other Russo-Finnish wars.

Robusto

Wordle (ES) #130 4/6

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https://wordle.danielfrg.com/

@tchrist Russia doesn't have the forces or the morale for an invasion of Scandinavia.

tchrist

Not a happy face, that.

@CowperKettle I had heard that.

Vikas

Also Finland is a developed country. Anyone will think twice before thinking of invading.

Same Sweden.

Cerberus

@tchrist I think there was no NATO then.

Now, NATO all but surrounds Russia.

I was just going to say, will Japan join NATO in the intermediate future? And Korea?

Robusto

2:59 PM

@Cerberus If so, they'll have to change the name.

Cerberus

Indeed!

Perhaps they already should have, when Turkey joined.

NRSTO.

> North-Russiasurrounding Treaty Organisation.

Then China and Kazakhstan can do the South Organisation.

Vikas

@Cerberus South Korea you mean :P

Cerberus

Yeah.

Usually, context makes it clear which Korea is meant.

Vikas

lol

Are you making fun of North Korea

Robusto

@Cerberus FPWHL ... Fuck Putin Where He Lives

tchrist

3:06 PM

@Cerberus Putin said the Baltic Sea would become just another NATO lake if the rest of Scandinavia joins. Has he forgotten to mention the Arctic Ocean also becoming a NATO lake? :)

Cerberus

Hah.

@tchrist The Arctic Ocean already is, Sweden and Finland won't change that!

tchrist

"AE"?

Cerberus

Although I suppose now it becomes easier for Sweden and Denmark to close the Sound.

And NATO can trap the Russian Baltic and Black Sea fleets.

America, Canada, and Denmark can block exit from the Arctic except via the Norwegian Sea.

The Russian east coast, though, cannot be blocked north of Japan.

But it could still be threatened by Japan.

tchrist