English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

00:01

> "The exact moment of the beginning of the April Fools' War, also known as the Third World War, has been notoriously hard to pinpoint, because the conflict resulted in massive destruction of archives across the globe, but most historians are content with the conventional dating, which specifies 1 April 2024, the day when an airstrike by Israel destroyed an Iranian consulate annex building in Syria, as the starting date." (Encyclopedia Galactica)

CowperKettle

00:12

@M.A.R. - Scientists have figured out the molecular mechanism underpinning the action of corticoids

> "Here's the most interesting bit: GCs only suppressed inflammation if the TCA cycle and itaconate were in tact, but this was mostly independent of GR's broad transcriptional response - suggesting that the TCA/itaconate pathway is predominant"

> "... so if we had more precise drugs, which exploit the itaconate response but spare the GR response, this could decouple the beneficial (anti-inflammatory) effects of steroids from the negatives"

CowperKettle

00:29

What if Dario Amodei Is Right About A.I.?

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> He and his colleagues decided to study it, and they found that the A.I. didn’t just get better with more data; it got better exponentially. The curve of the A.I.’s capabilities rose slowly at first and then shot up like a hockey stick.

Xander Henderson

That isn't super surprising. I think that the LLMs that are au courant right now are training on the relationships between linguistic element in the corpora they are studying. The number of such relationships should increase exponentially with the size of a corpus, so it is not surprising (in retrospect) that the models would improve exponentially with relation to the size of its training corpus.

At least, that feels like a plausible explanation to me.

Dannyu NDos

They still mess up math, don't they?

Xander Henderson

Yup.

CowperKettle

It's beyond my mental capacity to even begin to understand how these LLMs actually work.

Xander Henderson

@CowperKettle I suspect that is true of everyone. I don't think that a single human being in the world actually understands how these things work. They are black boxes.

CowperKettle

00:36

I only know that in my building's elevator, some 90% of ads pasted on the wall have AI-generated graphics. It's so obvious - the "picture quality" has increased a lot, but "logic quality" errors can be seen sometimes easily.

Xander Henderson

Heh.

CowperKettle

There's a funny ad of a local firm that "Provides spare parts for more than 15 brands of Chinese cars". It has a funny fat Chinese guy, smiling, showing a gold tooth. He has a car mechanic's attire, with a blue bib overall, but the bib's straps stop short of his shoulders and seemingly lead nowhere.

The designer was not paid enough to edit the picture.

But the face of the Chinese mechanic is nice, photographic quality.

I expect that a gazillion of ad jingles will arrive since Suno showed that generating short musical pieces is now so easy.

I did a dozen of different pieces to have fun.

Ah! I should try out Udio now that I've tried Suno

Trying it out now...

udio.com/songs/iZBt6JEBiudFNpa4DcGUoF

> Fridgeward he pressed, his famishment to sate,
But soon drew back, afraid of Overweight.
O, Overweight! How many gallant gluttons
For fear of you forbear their spicy muttons.

A jocular verse I wrote when I discovered the noun "overweight" - I had thought it was used in adjective sense only

1

A: Is the word "overweight" used incorrectly in this sentence?

Several months ago I was also amazed to discover that overweight is used as a noun - especially in scientific and medical literature. I've composed a poem, "The Battle with Overweight", haha Fridgeward he pressed, his famishment to sate, But soon drew back, afraid of Overweight. O, Overwe...

udio.com/songs/eAfJir7j7hnnD6NBn8cUUk

Nice

MetaEd

Wordle 1,029 3/6

🟩🟨⬛⬛🟨
🟩🟩⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

M.A.R.

00:55

@CowperKettle nice. I don't see what's particularly revolutionary about it, but nice.

CowperKettle

I also don't know whether it's revolutionary. I don't know much about GC's action

"The Town is Overcast with Snow" udio.com/songs/v1xNq5u63qje7V88qGdJAE

I was jogging in the center, along the embankment, and it was covered thick with snow, and there was a heavy snowfall, so romantic, so I wrote the verse upon returning home.

To a Stranger by Walt Whitman, rap/hip-hop udio.com/songs/inXp8beC9xk6Ty54VjVfbV

Mangled a tad

It topped the charts briefly in the 1870s

Robusto

01:24

Deep Intel on Iran's Imminent Strike on Israel

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Thanks for the heads-up.

CowperKettle

J.C. Ransom, rapcore, February 1924 udio.com/songs/b3kohhTFP9abPTRoSugajU

Dannyu NDos

01:40

Dang it. I don't even have a quarter in my debit card.

Though, if it were a credit card, I would become a credit deliquent.

Robusto

This Guitarist Changed Everything, But Nobody Admits It.

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CowperKettle

@DannyuNDos I have 3100 rubles to last me until Friday

USD 33

Michael Rybkin

01:55

@alphabet Thank you.

@Robusto Thank you very much for this valuable clarifying remark.

CowperKettle

@DannyuNDos I wrote an article in the Russian Wikipedia about that song in December 2008 :)

Марш полковника Боги

Марш полковника Боуги (англ. Colonel Bogey March) — популярный военный марш, сочинённый в 1914 году британским лейтенантом Фредриком Рикетсом (1881—1945), дирижёром ансамбля Королевских Морпехов в Плимуте. Поскольку в тот период военнослужащим не рекомендовалось выполнять работу за пределами служебных обязанностей, Рикетс опубликовал «Полковника», как и другие свои сочинения, под псевдонимом «Кеннет Элфорд». Продажи нотной записи превысили миллион экземпляров, а сам марш был впоследствии неоднократно использован в аудиозаписях и кинофильмах и продолжает исполняться до сих пор, являясь также...

CowperKettle

02:32

> In particular, Toxoplasma-positive individuals demonstrated lower scores on Machiavellianism, and Toxoplasma-positive women scored lower on narcissism. psypost.org/…

So, having cats decreases your narcissism

alphabet

03:23

@CowperKettle Only if you're a woman. (Why do I suspect that they just did 1000 analyses on this data, then picked out the few correlations that happened by random chance to have p<0.05?)

M.A.R.

> sometimes insidious

Shut up Psypost

> The study’s cross-sectional nature limits the ability to draw causal inferences from the data.

Thank you. Could've said that in the beginning so we could go on about our daily lives without the notion that 'research suggests women infected with T. gondii are selfless volunteers at a soup kitchen'.

Cerberus

Oh, oh, oh.

alphabet

05:15

Wildlife Rehabilitator Rescues Baby Raccoon - 1496621

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Michael Rybkin

05:26

Please tell me if this sentence sounds fine to your native speaker ears?

It enables investors to convert their futures positions into an actual ownership of the commodity, bypassing the settlement process.

SmokeDetector

05:38

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in body (94): Getting to Know Shienslots‭ by rtp shienslot‭ on english.SE

I don't know who I am.

06:22

Hello, everyone. Which dictionary is good for letting us know about grammatical functions in the sentence and also that may give us grammar explanations?

Cerberus

06:36

It would be better to get a beginner's grammar book?

M.A.R.

@Cerberus one 'oh' for each head?

@Robusto I'm hoping beyond hope that this is treated as another one of Iran's temper tantrums

I guess, trying my best to remain impartial, leaving the Damascus attack without a response would have made IRGC look weak. And they don't mind looking evil, or cruel, or fanatical, but weak? Never.

The worst thing about all of this is it only takes once for things to spiral out of control.

I can't help but wonder that a more decent American president would have been able to defuse this situation before it even got this far.

An option Americans don't seem to have.

CowperKettle

06:53

M.A.R.

Between the antivaxxer evil Tom Hanks, the mortal manifestation of the seven sins, and mildly genocidal grandpa, the latter still seems to be the sanest option.

CowperKettle

I made this photo during my run today.

I don't know who I am.

Hello, @M.A.R. Where is uncle?

M.A.R.

Hi @Idon'tknowwhoIam.

Uncle who?

I don't know who I am.

I forgot his name starts with (F).

Flumger like this...

M.A.R.

06:54

That's not very specific

Whose uncle is he?

@CowperKettle AI art is getting out of hand

CowperKettle

LOL

I don't know who I am.

Your old name was (Mars).😅

So, now you changed it.

M.A.R.

Been quite a while since I last changed my name, yeah

I don't know who I am.

Perhaps you forgot me, Mars..

But you used to be with a man whose DP was about orange.

M.A.R.

Nothing personal, I forget what I had for lunch yesterday

I don't know who I am.

06:56

Lol! But I miss that uncle.

We used to chat in a single room.

M.A.R.

But you I vaguely recall.

I don't know who I am.

I don't remember his name now.

M.A.R.

A participant in the long-dead ELL chat, may God rest its soul

I don't know who I am.

Yes. In that room.

Where is he now?

Stoney was also with us there.

M.A.R.

Other participants in chat, well, Damkerng vanished one day, never really found out why.

Snailboat just got tired and moved on, basically.

I don't know who I am.

06:58

Yes, Snailboat was also with us.

And there was alo Catija?

Also*

M.A.R.

@Cowp is eternal, he would never leave

I don't know who I am.

Catija was also there.

M.A.R.

@Idon'tknowwhoIam. foof, she's had quite the saga since then. She became a mod in several sites, then got hired by SE, then couple of months ago got unceremoniously fired, which everyone hated, and now she only occasionally visits the meta.SE chat

I don't know who I am.

Oh!🥰 She was a nice girl and I missed her too.

But I think Stony passed away. 😭

I don't see him anywhere now. Also Khan was a brilliant participant.

M.A.R.

Damkerng?

Or some other Khan?

I don't know who I am.

07:02

Other KHAN from Karachi, Pakistan.

Damkerng was with us there.

M.A.R.

Oh! That guy. Wait.

I don't know who I am.

Yeah.

M.A.R.

There were a couple of people from Pakistan

Which one do you mean?

I don't know who I am.

Khan was the one who used to clear up my simple grammatical questions. His explanations were simple for me because my level wasn't mature at that time.

M.A.R.

One guy from Pakistan we had an odd, abrupt and dramatic falling out with. Old wounds. Both on ELL chat, and even worse here, on ELU chat

I don't know who I am.

07:04

So, he treated me the way I wanted because I was also from Pakistan.

M.A.R.

Because of him like half the ELU chat regulars quit

I don't know who I am.

Oh!

M.A.R.

But maybe you mean another guy

There was this user on ELL called just 'Khan', I don't remember much my few interactions with him

I don't know who I am.

Well, his explanations must be available on my old posts, but I have not visited my old posts yet..

Yes, Khan was his name there.

Well, why do people leave suddenly?

M.A.R.

There's nothing anchoring people to staying in chat besides other people they hang out with.

I don't know who I am.

07:08

I see. Well, how are you doing? It has been long since we talked before.

M.A.R.

There's no gamification. So if the relationship gets stale, or if ties are severed during a chat fight, well, people move on.

I don't know who I am.

Moving on is the best option. But you're still here with us. Lol!😃

M.A.R.

@Idon'tknowwhoIam. been doing well, all things considered. How about you?

I don't know who I am.

It means you haven't moved yet like others.

I am in the pink, thanks for asking.

M.A.R.

Well I stay because of @Mitch's awful puns and @Cowp's harrowing news

I don't know who I am.

07:10

Oh, that's great. But I don't know if you get irritated by their puns and news.

M.A.R.

Oh I'm just having fun. Everyone in this chat rocks

I don't know who I am.

Wonderful! So, do you have other chat rooms where we can also chat in English to improve language and grammar?

Well, where is Rocccon?

Raccoon 🦝*😃🦝

M.A.R.

Well, this has been the longest I've chatted in a while. These days I'm often too busy to chat for a decent amount of time.

And beyond a certain point, you should read something more substantial than a chat log to improve your English

CowperKettle

07:46

Dead Internet theory

The dead Internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts that the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content manipulated by algorithmic curation, minimising organic human activity to manipulate the population. Proponents of the theory believe these bots were created intentionally to help manipulate algorithms and boost search results in order to manipulate consumers. Some proponents of the theory accuse government agencies of using bots to manipulate public perception. The date given for this "death" was generally around 2016 or 2017.The dead Internet...

I don't know who I am.

08:01

@M.A.R.I see. Okay, thanks for your incredible advice.

CowperKettle

11:29

Sean Carroll, Daniel Dennett, & Steven Pinker: AI, Parapsychology, Panpsychism, & Physics Violations

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Trump, Himmler, Putin and 'Atheist Christianity' | Slavoj Žižek's plot to save the West

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CowperKettle

12:14

There was still some snow here and there, but generally it was the greatest morning jog in a long time.

Sunny and relatively warm at about +2°C

Some men were discussing their preparations for the Kazan Marathon, to take place on 12 May timerman.org/event/KazanMarathon2024

Like where they are going to stay - at a hotel or in a friend's apartment

alphabet

12:58

@M.A.R. Indeed. Fortunately Biden doesn't seem inclined to use this as a pretense to go to war,

CowperKettle

I've gotten used to consuming 2700-3300 kcal per day while doing delivery work, and now I'm continuing at it, despite taking a hiatus till Thursday. I should somehow scale back. It's only 18:00 and I've already consumed 2300 kcal

I got used to taking dates with me, to use them as snacks

I think they are more healthy than the stuff that some other delivery couriers use

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle as a large language model, I can neither confirm nor deny that

CowperKettle

By the way, I'm ordering dates via the Internet from Iran

The latest shipment I received, on 10 April, contained 2 kg of Iranian dates, a cheap bicycle light, and batteries for the same

The page for the dates: ozon.ru/product/…

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle one potential problem is the way dates are packaged here is very substandard, to put it mildly. As long as you're happy with the product you're getting I guess.

CowperKettle

They also have a brand non-felicitously named Mazafati ozon.ru/t/q74Awrk

And non-felicitously it costs almost twice the brand I'm bying

M.A.R.

13:06

Too late I saw that.

Confirmed, Cowp is a brain-eating zombie

CowperKettle

LOL

Mazafati

Mazafati (Persian: مضافتی; or mozafati and Bam date; also called muzati in Balochi) is a cultivar of the palm date. It is a dark, soft, fleshy and sweet date of medium size, about 2.5–4.5 cm (1–2 in) with a relatively high moisture content of between 32 and 35%, varying with the time of harvest and the location of the grove. == Areas of cultivation == It is grown in the region of southern Iran, mainly in Bam, Jiroft, Kahnuj (in Kerman province), Saravan, Nikshahr, Haji Abad, and Iranshahr (in Sistan-o-Baluchestan province), Panjgur, Parom and Buleda in Pakistani province of Balochistan. As one...

> It is grown in the region of southern Iran, mainly in Bam, Jiroft, Kahnuj (in Kerman province), Saravan, Nikshahr, Haji Abad, and Iranshahr (in Sistan-o-Baluchestan province)

Iranians are true Mazafatars

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle more often than not it's just a marketing buzzword

CowperKettle

(Pardon my Farsi)

Robusto

@M.A.R. What is a president to do? He's already at odds with (and publicly rebuked) Netanyahu, as are a great number of Americans and a large faction of Israelis themselves. I'm not saying Biden is a genius, but when it comes to global politics nobody is.

alphabet

@M.A.R. "Mildly genocidal grandpa" is gonna be my new nickname for Biden. Some Trump advisers have proposed that Gaza's population be expelled into neighboring Arab countries, which makes Biden seem almost like a half-decent human being.

M.A.R.

13:12

@CowperKettle it kinda means like "it's good enough for you to put in front of guests at a party"

@Robusto I can't help but feel that Obama (well, can't find anyone more decent than that in recent American history) would've handled it more sternly

And would no doubt have been criticized more for it

Robusto

@M.A.R. Probably. I don't have any solutions. I will say that being the US president is like being a parent with a billion toddlers to appease. I don't know how any well-meaning person could want that job.

Only the power-hungry and vainglorious ever apply. In my entire enfranchised life I have never voted for any but the lesser of two evils.

CowperKettle

13:34

@M.A.R. Ah! I thought it was just the name of some location, like Burgundy

Real Mazafati dates come from the Mazafati region, others are just sparkling crabapples

Robusto

Wordle 1,030 4/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
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CowperKettle

A 92 yo dedushka who has the characteristics of a fit 40 yo

journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/japplphysiol.00698.2023

Exercising since the age of 72, having been sedentary and non-athletic prior

I should add this to my Anki dictionary, never came across it before: dumbbell lunge

Robusto

I’m Jewish, and I’ve covered wars. I know war crimes when I see them.

3

> Millions of Jews in America feel connected to Israel’s creation. Maybe our ancestors gave or raised money, maybe they went and fought, maybe they donated to Zionist organizations. What’s a Jew to do now? Everyone makes their own choices, but my experience of war crimes taught me that being Jewish means standing against any nation that commits war crimes. ANY.

CowperKettle

13:53

> François Chollet (French: [fʁɑ̃swa ʃoˈlɛ]; born 20 October 1989) is a French software engineer and artificial intelligence researcher currently working at Google. Chollet is the creator of the Keras deep-learning library, released in 2015, and a main contributor to the TensorFlow machine learning framework.

Hm. An expert on AI who is working at Google is tweeting of the upcoming Butlerian Jihad.

François Chollet

François Chollet (French: [fʁɑ̃swa ʃoˈlɛ]; born 20 October 1989) is a French software engineer and artificial intelligence researcher currently working at Google. Chollet is the creator of the Keras deep-learning library, released in 2015, and a main contributor to the TensorFlow machine learning framework. His research focuses on computer vision, the application of machine learning to formal reasoning, abstraction, and how to achieve greater generality in artificial intelligence. == Education and career == In 2012, Chollet graduated with a Master of Engineering from ENSTA Paris, a school of the...

alphabet

Have you seen this photo of an Israeli soldier? His inability to see the irony would be hilarious if it weren't tragic.

In other news: Israeli soldiers play with Gaza women's underwear in online posts

CowperKettle

14:09

Xander Henderson

@alphabet That isn't surprising. You send young men to war, and a certain percentage are going to misbehave. There are jackasses everywhere. The question is how the Israeli military will react---will these soldiers be disciplined in any way?

CowperKettle

14:48

Introducing Taichi - a large-scale photonic chiplet empowers 160-TOPS/W artificial general intelligence

The Chinese have announced a chip for AI that uses light instead of electrons

I have no idea how a chip can use light, and how versatile it is.

Can it do all the things that a usual CPU can?

jlliagre

#WhenTaken #47 (14.04.2024)

I scored 786/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 3 km - 🗓️ 1 yrs - ⚡ 199 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 15 km - 🗓️ 3 yrs - ⚡ 196 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 4012 km - 🗓️ 2 yrs - ⚡ 128 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 17065 km - 🗓️ 1 yrs - ⚡ 99 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 53 km - 🗓️ 16 yrs - ⚡ 164 / 200
https://whentaken.com/

Cerberus

15:06

@CowperKettle Very nice.

She may be right.

Xander Henderson

#WhenTaken #47 (14.04.2024)

I scored 908/1000 🎉

1️⃣ 📍 7 km - 🗓️ 2 yrs - ⚡ 198 / 200
2️⃣ 📍 13 km - 🗓️ 2 yrs - ⚡ 197 / 200
3️⃣ 📍 969 km - 🗓️ 2 yrs - ⚡ 169 / 200
4️⃣ 📍 1224 km - 🗓️ 2 yrs - ⚡ 164 / 200
5️⃣ 📍 406 km - 🗓️ 6 yrs - ⚡ 180 / 200

https://whentaken.com

I feel like a sucked on the geography throughout, but getting close on the time seems to count for a lot more. I cheated a bit on 3---it was easy to narrow down the time, but I Googled to determine the capital of the country I thought it was and verified that the flag was what I thought it was.

CowperKettle

Allopurinol is a medication used to decrease high blood uric acid levels, thus helping to treat gout; it can also reduce aggression in some psychiatric patients, presumably by rerouting the metabolism towards higher production of adenosine.

Amazing.

Adenosine works at the shortest time scales to dampen down excess neuronal activity.

It's all so intertwined.

CowperKettle

15:49

> Use of AMs was associated with a reduced risk of psychiatric rehospitalization on drug class level (HR 0.74, 95% CI 0.65–0.84, P < 0.0001), as well as on the level of individual drugs (allopurinol HR 0.82, 95% CI 0.70–0.97, P = 0.02; dipyridamole HR 0.65, 95% CI 0.55–0.77, P < 0.0001).

Wow. It also decreases rates of hospitalization in schizophrenia by some 20% nature.com/articles/s41537-020-00135-y

CowperKettle

16:00

1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg

A mass sighting of celestial phenomena or unidentified flying objects (UFO) occurred in 1561 above Nuremberg (then a Free Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire). Ufologists have speculated that these phenomena may have been extraterrestrial spacecraft. Skeptics assert that the phenomenon was likely to have been another atmospheric phenomena, such as a sun dog. although the engraving doesn't fit the usual classic description of the phenomena. == History == A broadsheet news article printed in April 1561 describes a mass sighting of celestial phenomena. The broadsheet, illustrated with a woodcut...

SmokeDetector

16:47

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword in link text in answer (81): What is a word for battery "longevity"? ✏️‭ by S.A.‭ on english.SE

M.A.R.

17:06

@CowperKettle interesting

So that's why I'm such a mellow person myself

The modern idiom in Farsi for bragging is "he opens a can of soda for himself"

> Ufologists have speculated that these phenomena may have been extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Those are some big words.

I just kinda wish I'd witness a space fight myself so it'd rekindle my faith like it did the Nurembergians

Mitch

18:00

@M.A.R. not recommended. Brains are very high in cholesterol, LDL.

All those zombies are walking around with atherosclerosis enough to block the aorta

@CowperKettle 1) one of many experts. 2) He is mostly rational with papers to back up (but he's not an academic but associates with them)

3) keras is awesome but PyTorch is taking over as the preferred Deep Neural Network platform/API

4) I'm not sure about a Butlerian Jihad/Luddite movement smashing all the AI production. I think his tweet/pronouncement is just anxiety (not fear mongering, just anxiety)

Most anti-tech movements aren't revolutionary. Nuclear power took years to be considered 'bad' (regular people didn't care)

Think the more likely scenario of an AI downfall is an extreme market crash of proposed AI products in the next couple years when people realize that the products can't do what they claim to do.

Once the AI techniques overcome these failings (yes, I know I've left the features and failings unsaid), people will actually like them better. People will accept the tech just fine once it talks to them like the boyfriend/girlfriend they want.

And all the people AI puts in jail wrongly -looked- guilty and will be in jail so most people won't care.

@M.A.R. what kind of person -shares- a soda?

@CowperKettle what's AM?

@alphabet 10/07 in Israel is considered their 9/11. (And is in many ways worse). Not an excuse for what they're doing or plan to do. But it -is- an explanation.

I kinda don't get the animus towards Biden in this. Israel is the US's main ally in the region. Yes his attempts at persuading Israel seem tepid (yes I agree he should be trying much much harder) but he's not the one doing the genociding.

And one point that no one wants to say is that the hostages have been dead for awhile.

Ok that was depressing. I'm sorry

@CowperKettle components of their chip are traditional transistor stuff, but some parts are light interference parts

My superficial understanding is that, like quantum computers, their chip will not be very good for general purpose computations but will be awesome for very particular operations (like matrix multiplications?) I'll have to look into that to check.

@CowperKettle what's a dedushka? The mom of a babushka?

@M.A.R. I heard that

If it's any consolation to myself, few of those puns, and none of the good ones, are written by me.

alphabet

18:52

@Mitch I see very little evidence that the US government is even capable of persuading the Israeli government to change the nature of its military campaign, except by restricting the flow of military aid.

In an ideal world, we could give military aid to Israel and have confidence that they would use it responsibly and reasonably to protect Israeli citizens. But that isn't the world we live in, and it's wrong to provide that military aid knowing how it will actually be used.

Mitch

Yeah, I agree.

Cerberus

20:22

@M.A.R. Yes, yes, yes.

Xander Henderson

@alphabet In an ideal world, a group of terrorists, supported by the Iranian government, wouldn't advocate genocide and attack Israeli civilians, then hide behind the civilians that they claim to be advocating on behalf of. Which is not to say that the actions of the Israeli government are the actions of saints, but rather that situation is incredibly f*ck*d up on all sides.

M.A.R.

@XanderHenderson FWIW Israel's recent actions have handed Iran a much bigger victory than the missiles launched yesterday

Xander Henderson

@M.A.R. Possibly. We'll see.

Dannyu NDos

21:08

I cannot say much about the other end of the continent, but they say Iran is friendlier to South Korea more than to North Korea.

Heck, if both Koreas insisted there is only one Korea, like both Chinas do...

That said, I'm quite ridiculed by that North Korea doesn't admit there are two Koreas, despite that they've given up unification.

Though, I can easily guess the reason. Though South Korea has never declared a war to them, South Korean cultures has always invaded them. Kim Jong-un doesn't want that.

jlliagre

Wordle 1 030 4/6

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Dannyu NDos

By "cultures" I mean, K-pop, K-drama, K-movies, and such entertainment stuffs.

North Korea destroyed the "traditional" cultures, such as the eastern zodiac, but they just cannot isolate themselves from "new" cultures, it seems.

alphabet

@XanderHenderson To be fair, if the US were giving billions in military aid to Hamas, I would oppose that also.

M.A.R.

@DannyuNDos not a very high bar to be friendlier to SK than NK

Robusto

Daily Octordle #811
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Why is it that in a 4/5 fill I always choose that one correct letter last?

M.A.R.

21:23

@DannyuNDos despots don't like culture, it's distracting. But I wouldn't go as far as "destroyed", merely "suppressed"

Robusto

Daily Sequence Octordle #811
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@M.A.R. Despots are usually reactionary and insist on no growth in art and music. Look at Stalin and Hitler.

Dannyu NDos

@M.A.R. I mean, I heard an episode. In the Korean language, the "eastern zodiac" sounds exactly the same to "belt". One refugee from North Korea was asked "My zodiac is the tiger. What's yours?" The refugee couldn't quite understand it, and responded "I put on the belt made from cow leather."

Xander Henderson

21:39

@alphabet I'm just not sure what you expect Israel to do in response to a bunch of genocidal maniacs. It isn't like the Palestinians themselves haven't had decades to crack down on Hamas...

M.A.R.

Certainly not mow down everyone in fighting age

Cerberus

@XanderHenderson What Palestinians, though?

It is hard to do anything about Hamas, I think?

M.A.R.

And can we agree that "it's the Palestinian's fault their babies are starving" is victim blaming?

Whoa whoa wait, spoilers

Cerberus

I think nothing can be done to improve the conflict between Israel and Palestine, from the outside.

Xander Henderson

@Cerberus That's pretty much the long and short of it.

Cerberus

21:48

Alas.

It has been the same way for many decades.

Robusto

@Cerberus I think it's all been done. Just about every president has had both sides to Camp David and trumpeted a solution, with both sides getting Nobel Prizes for Peace, and yet here we still are.

Cerberus

Exactly.

Maybe if the Americans and Europeans had pushed Israel harder decades ago, it could have been better.

But now it is too late, Israel won't listen any more.

M.A.R.

Daily Octordle #812
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Not my best performance

Robusto

@Cerberus And it's Palestine's misfortune that they can't do anything about Hamas. There are faults on both sides, which seem only to be getting worse.

Xander Henderson

@Cerberus Why is only Israel being blamed here? What about the rest of the Arabic world, which has pretty much given the Palestinians the cold shoulder since the 1960, except when it is politically convenient to point out how evil Israel is?

alphabet

21:52

@XanderHenderson I don't see any way that the present campaign could result in greater long-term security for Israeli civilians; this seems more like an act of collective punishment driven by a desire for revenge.

Xander Henderson

In the same way that evangelicals in the US support Israel out of some misbegotten belief about the end times, I think that much of the Arab world pretends to support the Palestinians not out of a genuine desire to see the lives of those people improved, but because they want to see Israel wiped from the face of the Earth, and these people are convenient pawns.

alphabet

It does seem relevant that, in the present conflict, one side has killed at least twenty times more civilians than the other.

Xander Henderson

@alphabet Hamas has embedded themselves into civilian populations. For many Israelis, the alternative is to accept their own genocide, since Hamas has made it virtually impossible to attack them without also causing harm to civilian populations.

M.A.R.

IDF doesn't even try to isolate and target Hamas recruits with minimal 'collateral damage' AFAICT

alphabet

@XanderHenderson Israel's strategy has been to bomb Hamas fighters in their family residences when they are, of course, in residential neighborhoods surrounded by civilians.

Robusto

21:59

How the Palestinian Authority Failed Its People

> Hamas saw a political opportunity in the PA’s troubles. In 2006, the newly elected PA President Mahmoud Abbas called elections, and Hamas ran an effective campaign focusing on the PA’s corruption and promising clean governance. With that messaging and a well-organized political machine, Hamas won the elections. A year later, it clashed with the PA old guard in Gaza.
The latter’s security forces were fractured, riddled with internal rivalries. A victorious Hamas was able to expel the PA from Gaza, and has since been firmly in control of the coastal strip.

There's the problem. Hamas wants to provoke Israel into overreactions, atrocities, and—yes—war crimes. They have no incentive to stop, since they really don't care about the Palestinians. Every dead Palestinian at Israel's hands is seen as a victory.

alphabet

It is also worth noting that the Israeli military accepts rates of civilian casualties far higher than the American military does.

Robusto

> In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, Hamas’s initial popularity has evaporated—today 72 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza believe that Hamas is corrupt—but the group maintains its power through fear and brutality, not the consent of the governed.

Cerberus

@XanderHenderson Being blamed, for what, exactly? And by whom?

alphabet

Of course, if this campaign were aimed at, or likely to, lead to greater long-term security for Israeli civilians, and if this were the only way to achieve that goal, and if it were likely to save more lives than it costs, then one could make a case for it.

user 85795

@Robusto agreed 💯

Self-regulated learning is a very, very deep rabbit hole.

CowperKettle

22:14

Word of 03:14 am: necrophoresis (The term was introduced in 1958 by E.O. Wilson and his colleagues.[1] The behaviour was however known from before with Pliny making the claim that ants were the only animals other than humans to bury their dead.[2])

alphabet

@Robusto Not to mention the fact that Israel itself has been propping up Hamas for the past decade.

Cerberus

@Robusto When was that?

I remember from during the present war that most Gazans still supported Hamas.

I don't know what that means so no haha.

user 85795

22:29

:D

M.A.R.

@Cerberus out of choice? Probably not. Probably just as vengefuls as Israelis are right now.

Cerberus

@M.A.R. Probably because they felt Hamas was the only party taking action against Israel.

M.A.R.

Yeah exactly

Cerberus

But they can still feel that Hamas is correct at the same time, as Robusto suggested.

alphabet

@Cerberus I'd predict that the war will lead to a massive rise in support for Hamas within Gaza. After all, who do you think most people would side with: the ones dropping bombs on their family members, or the ones fighting against them? Of course, Hamas started the current conflict, but given the preexisting levels of anger against Israel within Gaza, I doubt many Gazans would blame Hamas for the Israeli invasion.

M.A.R.

22:31

Which is why the recent genocide only benefits people who want to fuel this hatred.

Hamas, Iran, Netanyahu.

Cerberus

@alphabet Well I think that has been the case for a long time now.

"Massive rise" I have not seen thus far.

CowperKettle

Word of 03:31 am: really interesting new gene 1A

Cerberus

@M.A.R. What is your definition of genocide?

CowperKettle

> Polycomb repressive complex 1 is a multisubunit protein complex, containing really interesting new gene 1A (RING1A) or really interesting new gene 1B (RING1B) with one of the six polycomb group RING finger 1‐6 (PCGF1‐6) paralogs, which catalyzes mono‐ubiquitination of histone H2A lysine 119 (H2AK119ub).

alphabet

@Cerberus Yeah, I just mean that, if Hamas had (say) 40% support before the war, I assume they'll have 90% support by the time the war ends.

M.A.R.

22:32

@CowperKettle probably coined at a 3:31 a.m. too

CowperKettle

LOL

Cerberus

@alphabet So from what I read it was not as dramatic as that.

Just slightly risen support.

M.A.R.

@Cerberus not really sure. Taking deliberate actions to wipe out a people, targeting also people incapable of fighting.

alphabet

@Cerberus We'll see. I don't think polls in Gaza right now are likely to be fairly reliable; I'm not sure how you'd poll an area with no cell phone coverage and no safe roads to the outside world.

M.A.R.

Probably too broad, there must be a narrower definition for it.

Cerberus

22:34

@M.A.R. How do you define "wipe out a people"?

@alphabet Don't they have intermittent Internet access?

M.A.R.

@Cerberus mostly just killing them.

alphabet

@Cerberus Dunno. We won't really know how this war affected Gazan public opinion until it's over.

Cerberus

@M.A.R. I'm not seeing a very praecise definition.

M.A.R.

I mean, IDF did tell people to move to Rafah, then bombed Rafah too, I think?

Cerberus

@alphabet I don't know whether you are correct. Polls may be reliable enough, I just don't know.

@M.A.R. By IDF you mean the Israeli army? Why use an abbreviation?

M.A.R.

22:36

@Cerberus it isn't. I used it out of spite. "Too inhumane to find the precise word for" is wordy.

Cerberus

I think it is not my preferred use of the word genocide.

M.A.R.

@Cerberus sorta outta habit. Same reason I avoid typing out 'Israel'. My messages timeout for no discernible reason.

Cerberus

Perhaps the dwarves behind SE chat hate the name Israel so much.

M.A.R.

Doesn't seem to be an issue today.

@Cerberus I was thinking some bored bearded Basiji this side of the pond

But I admit it's a bit conspiracy-minded

alphabet

@M.A.R. You may also recall that they created conditions that would lead to a famine, then bombed a convoy of aid workers trying to help. Don't worry, though, that bombing was an "accident."

Cerberus

22:40

@M.A.R. Could be!

The Little Satan, then?

alphabet

Of course, it may well have been unintentional, but it does suggest a reckless disregard being used when deciding what to target.

M.A.R.

@alphabet yeah, too many of these innocuous mistakes. It seems to be more like they don't particularly care who they're killing.

@Cerberus there are so many Satans I've lost count

Cerberus

I see.

CowperKettle

Biden will help out everyone

Cerberus

@alphabet The army said it was a mistake, some major thought he saw guns.

M.A.R.

22:43

@CowperKettle the man can't even help himself

I'm really not looking forward to four more years of Cheeto

alphabet

@Cerberus Armies involved in an active conflict are usually not reliable sources. I'm not saying it was deliberate--though that is hard to rule out--but it certainly suggests that they aren't being very selective when picking targets.

Cerberus

Just offering the only theory I know about.

CowperKettle

alphabet

Don't worry! Biden's big floating pier will fix everything. Of course, Israel could just open more land routes, but no! Big floating pier!

M.A.R.

Blossom Puzzle, April 15
Letters: C E H R M O S
My score: 349 points
My longest word: 11 letters
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CowperKettle

23:14

tchrist

@Robusto Was easy to tell sight unseen that that wasn't coming from David Brooks.

Robusto

23:53

Blossom Puzzle, April 14
Letters: A G I T N O R
My score: 351 points
My longest word: 12 letters
🌼 🌻 🌷 🌺 🌸 🌹 💮 💐 🏵 🌼 🌻 🌷

@M.A.R. Wait, you're playing tomorrow's game.

alphabet

@CowperKettle Why is he giving Clinton a "hover hand"?

It's a gesture that says "I don't know what that stain on your suit is from, but I ain't gonna risk touching it."

Robusto

@alphabet He's in the middle of a clap on the back. You're giving the worst possible interpretation of the gesture.

alphabet

@Robusto You know I was making a joke, right?

Robusto

Obviously not.

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