English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room - 2022-05-24

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12:00 AM

@tchrist They will be tried as war criminals. Because Putin wants revenge for his war criminals being charged and convicted.

12:36 AM

@Robusto What's the war crime?

> The signals coming from Russia are concerning for Ukraine.

"Nazi criminals should not be exchanged," the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said on Tuesday. "We should do everything to ensure they are put on trial."

Another senior politician, Leonid Slutsky, went further, calling the evacuated combatants "animals in human form" and saying they should be executed.

And the Donetsk separatist leader, Denis Pushilin, suggested that Ukrainians who are found to be "neo-Nazi war criminals" should face an international tribunal.

@tchrist Russian sentenced to life in Ukraine’s 1st war crimes trial.

I see no international tribunal. I see only violations of the Geneva Conventions on treatment of POWs.

Do you think that makes any difference at all to Vladimir Putin?

You almost never get to try POWs. Certainly there's no possible way to mass-try 2,000 of them just for being on the other side, as this is a privilege of a uniformed soldier.

Nevertheless, that is what will happen.

I mean, what else could he be planning?

12:39 AM

Nazis.

Same difference.

Whatever he does will be a lie and a sham.

Yes.

I think I'll change the subject to something more cheerful. Does this quotation from the New York Times parse correctly for you?

> And because we’re trying to turn around a long human history in which violence against a sexual partner wasn’t seen as serious as violence against anybody else.

If that doesn't parse, which of these would you elect as the fix?

1. ...violence against a sexual partner wasn’t seen as as serious as violence against anybody else.
2. ...violence against a sexual partner wasn’t seen as a matter as serious as violence against anybody else was seen as.
3. ...violence against a sexual partner wasn’t seen as so serious a matter as violence against anybody else was seen as.
4. ...violence against a sexual partner wasn’t considered as serious a matter as violence against anybody else was considered.

I think something erroneously squiggle-lined #1 and so they struck out one of the two instances of "as" and broke it.

One cannot ever "see violence serious".

Which is what the original would mean.

Maybe #3?

Haha that was my first choice, but I deliberately scrambled the order to hide it!

Well, the mistake, I think, is that someone's brain failed to flag the overloading of the first as there. Logically, it's meant to be a double instead of a single, but that would be awkward, so your substitution of so makes it all neat and tidy.

A one-word fix is almost always preferable.

You know. Like when you can fix some code with a one-line fix.

12:56 AM

@CowperKettle Maybe this time around we can keep Prague if we just give Russia Bratislava, eh? :)

Except Slovakia is nearly as angry about all this as Czechia is.

@Robusto Peep hole optimizers can sometimes be too teeny to do smart things globally.

I had many Western Tanagers today, simultaneously, including a bright male in full breeding plumage. It's still cold and rainy.

Is the snow gone yet?

@CowperKettle I wonder why Austin made the announcement.

@Robusto Yes.

Good for the birds.

At least way down here at 5635.

But the tanagers want ponderosa forests, and those are still ensnowed. No insects in their canopies.

I may still get an irruptive flock of them out of this.

The tanagers were all eating the grape jelly from the oriole feeders.

They'll also eat suet, but they love the jelly.

It's been overcast all day, and windy. Haven't seen or heard the birds.

1:02 AM

It's full of orioles and hummers right now.

Yes, overcast and windy and cold and sprinkly.

I wish we had sprinkles here.

We need water.

I know.

All my violas are kinda waterlogged.

But they laughed at the snow and the cold.

Violets endure the winter, after all.

bright breeding male oriole and bright breeding male tanager here together now!

And a squadron of hummers trying to go to sleep with fully bellies so that they don't die in their sleep.

Yeah, we won't be getting more hummingbirds until the trumpet vines bloom, probably.

They were all over the purple-robe locust blossoms, though, as were the bees.

The cold has driven them down from higher elevations.

But I live on the edge of undeveloped land stretching west up to the Divide. So they find me.

Hummers cruise the edges.

Between meadow and neighborhood. Because they know people grow tasty flowers? I dunno. But people put feeders out there for them. They were on my tall salvia and my cuphea today both.

One of the cuphea hybrids is branded as "Hummingbird's Lunch" I kid you not.

I also got some bat-faced cuphea this year that I'm eager to have grow out so they can find.

I'm not capitalizing the genus Cuphea for the same reason I'm not setting in italics as I should: too lazy.

Hummingbirds are the unlaziest of birds.

1:13 AM

And the fiercest.

Give them something tubular and all other blossoms are as dirt to them.

It's in the upper 40s, just under 50, but feels colder.

So like 20 degrees below the average for this date. Something like that.

Average is like 73 or 76.

It's 66 here and that feels cool.

When I rode yesterday it was 60 when i started out and that felt chilly.

The orioles nest down around my lake. I am not sure where the tanagers nest. Up the hill in the ponderosas maybe.

When the sun peaked out and it was 60, it felt warm without the wind. At this altitude and azimuth, it always does.

But strike the sun and kick up the breeze, and it spits in your face.

Don't know where the small birds are right now.

Had a couple of the black-capped chickadees and one white-breasted nuthatch, but that's it. None of the other chickadee or other nuthatches, or any finches.

Let alone a sparrow.

Do you have sloughs near you? The shore birds have pretty much moved through here now, and should be on their way to you.

I tried going out to some wetlands a couple hours ago, but just ended up driving not walking because it decided to rain just then.

I did see white pelicans and osprey from the car, though.

Didn't get down to the shoreline to find shore birds. Or even plovers.

The house finches I just went and found. They're across from the driveway in the honeysuckle blooming around the tennis courts and pool.

1:30 AM

We saw an osprey in the Bosque on our ride last week. A majestic bird.

Driving around town the streets are lined with immense piles of fallen branches.

Like every 10 or 20 yards, another brush pile. Everywhere.

I saw "brush" but some of these "branches" are bigger across than your thigh.

Hmm, technically NM is not part of the osprey's range. But my friend Greg is an avid birder and he said that's what it was.

I have no doubt.

user image

From here.

Ah, so it's a migration route. Just like the shore birds'.

The sightings map is pretty hot around you: allaboutbirds.org/guide/Osprey/maps-sightings

user image

I'm sure they enjoy the Bosque as much as any water bird.

1:37 AM

Looks like they breed in a little spot around Abiquiú or farther north.

I saw that.

Oh I see why. There's water there.

Yup.

user image

West of Tierra Amarilla.

Ah, Chama.

Yeah, that explains it.

All the toponyms are in Mejicano. :)

1:40 AM

Por supuesto.

It's like how driving through west-central Iowa there are two little circles where peregrines breed.

But don't look for mountains or skyscrapers. I don't know why they're there. But I've seen them sitting on a fencepost plain as day.

You see a lot of hawks down here. Usually too high for me to make out their markings.

Unless you're up on a mountain, and then they are fairly close, zooming right over your head.

Seeing ospreys and peregrines and eagles never ceases to uplift me.

Same here. Birds have that effect on me in general.

Especially their song.

I'm excited by red tails and Cooper's hawks and great-horned owls too, but it isn't quite the same as those other great birds.

It's not like the peregrin is even as big as a red tail or great horn, either. That's not it.

I think it might be because I cannot forget how close we came to losing the osprey and peregrines and eagles. They were of old a truly rare sight.

1:47 AM

A Cooper's hawk once attacked my helmet on a ride. I thought I had hit a low-hanging branch, because I was going under a tree, but Greg said it was a Cooper's. I wonder what I did to piss it off.

I remember seeing a bald eagle in the outskirts of Lake Geneva at age 4, over near Lake Como where it's wet. Mom said how in her grandfather's youth he said you could see them every day, but that now once a year was the best you could hope for.

Here I can see them every day if I look for them.

Nice.

And often enough even when I do not.

Gosh.

2 hours later…

3:25 AM

> Mr. Bondarev said that what had most disturbed him at his workplace since the invasion was the nonchalance with which some of his fellow Russian diplomats chatted about possible nuclear strikes against the West — even though they worked in arms control. On Russian state television, commentators have raised the specter of nuclear conflict with increasing frequency while casting the fighting in Ukraine as a proxy war of the West against Russia.

“They think that if you hit some village in America with a nuclear strike, then the Americans will immediately get scared and run to beg for mercy …

From here.

Bondarev is in effect saying that Putin's war exists to counter an existential threat. But it's not a threat to Russia's existence, only Putin's own.

3 hours later…

6:22 AM

@CowperKettle most of these are rather mild. The most common ones involve individuals you might hear have "sensitive GI tracts", that contract food poisoning really easily or get squeamish often. There are also rare SCIDs (Severe Combined Immunodeficiencies) that are also things you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, if that enemy is a neonate

It depends on how 'high' in the differentiation ladder is your mutation. It might affect just a specific class of unimportant antibodies, or it could affect multiple categories of immune cells, or even blood cells

@ConGovDeIn Hi! There's quite a bit to unpack here. Isoniazid (INH) and other first-line anti-TB drugs are very closely monitored by a physician, and he or she is the best person to look for medical advice, or to provide accurate medical history in case of a referral. I can tell you about some general principles, but they could never replace professional medical advice. So caveat emptor and all that. So, having said that,

1. "Liver injury" is a broad term that may or may not have lasting implications. It can range from an increase in "liver enzymes" in the blood, indicating that some liver cells (hepatocytes) have died, to liver failure caused by so many of these cells dying that has induced fibrous "scar" tissue to replace specialized liver tissue, called cirrhosis. Liver damage can manifest itself in a variety of visible signs, or have none (be asymptomatic). For severe cases of liver damage,

. . . the Child-Pugh score can be used to determine treatment protocols by the physician:

user image

This is for very severe cases by various causes, like a viral infection (by hepatitis viruses, for example). As I said, what happens first in liver damage and can be monitored with a simple blood test is liver enzyme levels (e.g. aminotransferases like ALT and AST). This is often asymptomatic, and the individual carries on with their life. Note that there is some liver damage, but liver function continues as normal. As the damage progresses, as you can see from the chart,

6:55 AM

. . . several important things happen, because liver function is affected: Increased serum billirubin, because your hepatocytes no longer get rid of billirubin by secreting it into the bile, decreased albumin, an abundant and very important protein in your blood, and proteins that help your blood clot due to injuries, because they don't make enough of these, and increased ammonia, because they can't break down proteins properly, which causes brain damage.

Thankfully, in 99% of the cases, INH hepatotoxicity (liver toxicity but we like big words) is fully reversible once the drug is stopped. If the patient is continuing therapy with INH, it's because it's a very effective drug and the liver damage is under control. The best judge of that is the physician administering the drug and monitoring treatment and toxicity. Discontinuation after treatment restores full liver function and lowers enzyme levels.

In 1%, especially in vulnerable patients, such as individuals with cirrhosis caused by other reasons, it may worsen the condition and lead to liver failure and necessitate liver transplantation. Isoniazid would be discontinued and replaced with another drug, although unfortunately most anti-TB drugs are hepatotoxic. There are no official guidelines for adjustment of treatment protocol for cirrhotic patients, but there are some recommendations, like in here:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3940527

As for protein consumption, if the damage to the organ is high, and protein metabolism is hampered, patients were in the past recommended to decrease their protein intake. However, they followed the advice too diligently, and got malnourished, which made their condition worse. The current recommendations are to ensure a minimum amount of protein intake, and, well, to be nourished, which is easy enough to follow. They should just not go crazy on the protein.

Eating 'healthy' tends to be recommended a lot. Avoid too much red meat. Avoid processed foods. Avoid salty and oily foods, and replace animal fat with vegetable oil.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4267851

2 hours later…

8:45 AM

@M.A.R. Thanks for such a detailed explanation.

I have noted down your point that in most cases it has been found that once Isoniazid is stopped liver starts recovering the damage.

And you mentioned that *if the damage to the organ is high* then protein intake must be properly balanced, but there are some out there who say that bile (the enzyme released by liver) has no role in protein digestion, so do they mean liver damage won't have any effect on protein digestion?

2 hours later…

10:54 AM

@ConGovDeIn your mature red blood cells live for 120 days. Thus, every day, billions of RBCs die and billions mature so the RBC supply is replenished. The ones that die are digested by immune cells in the blood and liver. Hemoglobin is a protein. It's ultimately digested into bilirubin, and excreted.

An increase in bilirubin levels in blood means either of two things: Hepatocytes cannot effectively excrete bilirubin, because they've died off, or due to some toxin, or because a lot of red blood cells have died in a short time span. Protein metabolism imbalances would affect albumin and other proteins (like collagen, which is the most abundant protein in the body) way more noticeably than hemoglobin.

@CowperKettle ALT and AST, yeah. They indicate liver damage whose cause must immediately be identified. They don't indicate liver function.

BBL

11:27 AM

@ConGovDeIn as I said, protein digestion is impacted by severe liver damage, which is the sort of damage that will definitely alert the physician monitoring the therapy to do something about it.

Also, bile is not an enzyme. I have used the term "digestion" loosely, by which I have meant "metabolism" so far. Digestion of lipids in the gastrointestinal tract is dependent on bile, because it 'emulsifies' the fat in the food, which means it turns it into very small droplets dispersed in the 'juice', so that enzymes (which are water soluble) can act on the lipids and break them, so intestinal cells can absorb them and send them on their way to the liver.

Bile does not impact protein digestion. The amount of enzyme in the stomach and the stomach acid which activates this enzyme impact protein digestion in the GI tract. Proteins need to be broken into polypeptides, then peptides, and then amino acids so they can be absorbed.

Which is why people using PPIs (Proton Pump Inhibitors), such as omeprazole and pantoprazole, may suffer from indigestion after having huge protein-rich meals.

You can just push a button and I keep singing

11:59 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Username similar to website in answer (68): Structure and usage of the construction - BE of‭ by worklifeenglish‭ on english.SE

12:54 PM

#Worldle #123 3/6 (100%)
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜➡️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬇️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

1:09 PM

#Worldle #123 X/6 (95%)
🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜⬅️
🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬇️
🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜➡️
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜↘️
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜↙️
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

I was lost... They look like melted down and misplaced Sicilia & Corsica.

I've been getting Poland for two days straight

Today's English Wordle was fun

1:26 PM

@jlliagre Yeah. When they're doing tiny island groups it's the worst. I got lucky, but I really was just tossing out names, given the general locations.

Wordle 339 4/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Not very easy today.

Wordle 339 4/6

⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟨🟨🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

2 hours later…

3:08 PM

Wordle (ES) #138 5/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟨⬜⬜🟩
🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

https://wordle.danielfrg.com/

3:28 PM

> Valeri gave him the fig-sign, which is the Russian equivalent of the finger.

@CowperKettle: ^

Is this true, and if so, what is the "fig-sign"?

Ah, OK. So it's not really equivalent to a middle finger here.

Also, what is that sign called in Russian?

Pokazats figu.

Noted. Thanks.

And if he gave the middle finger, that would be time for teacher intervention.

> Rob Reiner has offered a satirical response to being banned from Russia by Putin.
The veteran filmmaker, who was a surprise inclusion on a list published by Russia over the weekend, quipped to us: “No comment. Except to say that I’m heartbroken and will have to live with the disappointment.”
...
All are accused of spreading “Russophobia,” per a release that pulled the welcome mat. Notably absent from the ban is Donald Trump.

*gesture

@CowperKettle It's wonderful that our cultural artifacts can be spread so far and wide. ^_^

@jlliagre All islands are alike; each non-island is a non-island in its own way.

@Mitch No Tolstoy impressions in chat.

@Robusto It was the worst of islands; it was the best of islands

@CowperKettle Yeah. I watch TV shows in other languages, and it's surprising how often the English "Fuck you" appears, in English.

3:44 PM

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single island in possession of an unrecognizable coastline, must be in want of a recognizable one.

@CowperKettle Once upon an Ireland beery, while I wondered, leaking bleary, over many a quaint and curious items in a liquor store ...

In Xanadu, did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree, where Alph the sacred river, through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless island.

Who can try to understand the New York Times effect on islands?

Shall I compare thee to an island fair?
Thou art more petulant, and more temperamental.

Holy crap islands are the worst in Worldle. The outlines all look the same and the portions are too small.

So why doesn't Putin just ban all Ukrainians from visiting Russia? Certainly if there any Russophobes out there, the Ukrainians have stood up to be counted.

3:51 PM

checks list

That could be his face-saving device. "Fuck you, you're all banned. We're leaving, and you won't get to come to our country."

@Robusto "FINE"

"FINE TO YOU"

@CowperKettle Putin is a wolf in shepherd's clothing.

Richard "Putin" Cory

We can only wish.

@Mitch "NOU"

> When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou
say'st,
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty,"—that is all
Ye know on this island with an indistinguishable coastline, and all ye need to know.

He urned that one.

4:04 PM

> Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða īeglandas ellen fremedon.

> Je veux te raconter, ô molle enchanteresse!
Les diverses beautés qui parent ta jeunesse;
Je veux te peindre ta beauté,
Où l'enfance s'allie à l'île.

@CowperKettle What?

I always read that as a nasally annoyed 'what?'

What? We gardeners in garden gum? Who do you think we are?

@CowperKettle Indeed.

@Mitch It means "Spear Danes" ...

@CowperKettle In modern America we would say "Hey, listen up!" instead.

My OE prof said the mead halls where OE poetry was recited were tumultuous places, and they needed to get people's attention.

@Robusto That doesn't make sense in context. It is more likely 'Garden gnomes'.

...

i'm just stating facts

For smaller values of fact.

4:17 PM

Garden gnomes are getting bigger by the year

Soon they'll just be called 'gardens'

Pink Floyd - The Gnome (Official Audio)

Grimble-grumble, what a pal.

@Robusto Whatever happened to those guys? I hope they stopped smoking dope and got a good job.

They all went to the dark side of the moon.

Music these days just isn't that good. Nobody is even trying.

Think up some lyrics about how you yelled a lot when you broke up. four chords I, V, VI IV

done

make a million dollars

I mean once in a while use a mandolin

or use the neapolitan 6th

(I still don't know what that is)

Wish You Were Here

4:27 PM

Dean Martin - Napoli (1955)

@Mitch It's a major chord in first inversion built on the flat second scale step (first inversion because it avoids parallel fifths), which usually resolves to a V or V7 chord prior to resolving to the tonic.

Example in C: F-Ab-Db -> F-G-B -> E-G-C

Play it on the piano. You'll get the idea.

5:35 PM

@Robusto Just plugged it in. Where is the 'neapolitan sixth' button?

@Robusto got it... wikipedia has some clips of it so now I have an idea of what it sounds like.

That name is really misleading...it took me a while to figure out that it's not a sixth chord, but a (flat) two chord (superdominant?) that has a minor sixth interval in it because of the first inversion.

This is so techie sounding, like rigging a sailboat with all the bowlines and hard-to-lee and halyard cleats and hemi-unibal spherical rod ends and high speed taper shank spiral flute reamers.

6:01 PM

@Mitch You're confusing a sixth chord with a VI chord.

A VI chord is a chord built on the sixth note of the diatonic scale (vi in minor). A sixth chord is a chord in first inversion (the third is in the bass). Second inversion is a 6-4 chord (the fifth is in the bass).

Sorry, I got the VI chords backwards. The vi (minor chord) is the six chord in the major key, the VI (major chord) is the six chord in the minor key. Stupid brain. Stupid fingers.

2 hours later…

8:02 PM

No EMACS chord fanboy here?

@jlliagre That was me 30 years ago. But I haven't been using Emacs for several decades now. @tchrist is the one who stuck with it to the point of apotheosis.

> Wordle 340 3/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Beat that

@CowperKettle poets are hawt

8:26 PM

@M.A.R. I'll have to wait till tomorrow. But good job.

2 hours later…

10:03 PM

@M.A.R.

Wordle 340 3/6

⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

10:27 PM

#Worldle #124 4/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜↖️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨➡️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨↖️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

@Robusto No, vi for me.

vi vs emacs: Et le combat cessa, faute de combattants

@jlliagre Clearly you don't work at my company. :)

Uh oh, the Ghost of Diplomacy Past has bomb(shell)ed Davos.

> Speaking at a conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Kissinger urged the United States and the West to not seek an embarrassing defeat for Russia in Ukraine, warning it could worsen Europe’s long-term stability.

> “Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome. Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante,” said Kissinger, 98, according to the Daily Telegraph. “Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself.”

Ante? How far ante, auntie?

From washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/24/…

11:16 PM

@tchrist I don't indeed. Most people I see use IDEs and the mouse and consider people like me doing almost everything from the command line like dinosaurs. I still see a few vi users although often not very fluent with it and I haven't seen an emacs user for a while.

Anyway, I know it's pointless to try to convince anyone to switch to vi or whatever. It's like trying to convince an American to use the metric system, an Englishman to drive on the right side of the road, or a Frenchman to say septante, huitante and nonante instead of soixante-dix, quatre-vingt and quatre-vingt-dix ;-)

11:45 PM

@tchrist Haha, bullshit!

You're really a pico man, right?

Just kidding.

@tchrist Yeah, because he was so right about Vietnam and all that. I see. One war criminal wants to let another one off the hook is all this is.

@jlliagre Quatre-vingt-dix-huit, s'il vous plait.

@Robusto nonante-huit!

But I really did love emacs. And then the world changed out from under me. It just became easier to use this or that IDE, wherever I happened to be.

@jlliagre You get them to change. Go ahead, we'll wait.

@tchrist Wow, he is still alive and sharp.

Alive, and yet somehow dead inside.

@tchrist Yeah this is an important question.

There is something to be said for not repeating 1919, though.

11:54 PM

How about Russia back to its borders, Crimea back to Ukraine?

> The “status quo ante” mentioned by Kissinger, who was secretary of state to Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford, refers to restoring a situation in which Russia formally controlled Crimea and informally controlled Ukraine’s two easternmost regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has emphasized that part of his conditions for entering peace talks with Russia would include a restoration of preinvasion borders.

So the status he means is the one of 2021.

Not enough.

Which Zelensky seemed to agree with.

The occupied Donbas may have become hostile to Ukraine since 2014.

And the majority in the Crimea came out several times in favour of joining Russia, I believe, before 2014.

So it's just "boys will be boys" and let's forget all the dead Ukrainians?

Countries cannot always behave like people, morally.

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