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00:00 - 17:0017:00 - 00:00

00:09
Got almost another foot. Still falling pretty good too. Kids are out on the lake playing games on the ice. More skiers than hikers out on the trails. Only birds are ones at my own feeders.
Nice crisp weather
Google Translate still fails at guessing context
It translates "another foot" literally "еще одна нога"
"yet one more foot" (using the word for a human foot)
Instead of using the word for the measure unit, фут
DeepL is better, it uses фут
And it translates the last sentence much better, although it needs some fine-tuning.
00:34
@CowperKettle Yes, it's feet of snow.
@CowperKettle Yes, I like this weather. Often you and I have similarly cold temperatures during winters. I think yours are a little cooler than mine. But you don't have my hot summers.
Please explain this.

When I left little Lorin was lying across the heavy metal heating register that even I can have trouble prying out. When I got back I found this, and both cats up on my bed.

No one else has been in the house.

I cannot figure it out.
Those January averages are not from THIS January, that's for damned sure.
And they cannot mean rain-rain. It "never" rains in January. It snows. I'm sure it's normally the same in Yekaterinburg.
They must mean days with precipitation?
I'm sorry it didn't choose my locale preference in kelvins for you.
@tchrist They are super cats.
Now I'm really going to bed, teeth are brushed.
@tchrist Cats just get into shit. What can you say but that?
00:51
I wonder if I have gremlins. Lorin looks like a gremlin. Maybe he went outside after dark and got wet, and went through the resulting transformations typical of that kind.
He's a long-haired cat. A bit of walking around in deep freshfallen snow at ten or twelve degrees doesn't phase him.
But he is not superman!
He's small. He looks bigger than he is because of the fluff. You can juggle him. He barely weighs ten pounds.
He sits beside me on the piano bench when I play, at least when he wants me to come to bed and cuddle.
He DOES do that thing Maine Coons do and use almost opposable digits when he wants to. I sure hope he hasn't started to use tools. I'll never have any sanity.
It's like that scifi short story about bears discovering fire. Scary is what I call the entire notion.
01:10
Gremlins from the Kremlin
@CowperKettle I LOVE THAT!!!!
 
1 hour later…
03:04
@alphabet LOL! That's the best line ever… How long do raccoons live, on average?
03:40
@tchrist Southern birds who "lay out" in the sun regularly and don't wrinkle much…started out with a little olive, undertone, to begin with, but don't realize that because some of them are racists, gone far beyond golden because they're more native than Irish or whatever they tell themselves about their DNA and miraculous tanning products.
@HippoSawrUs A few years. The vehicular homicide crisis has worsened things.
From a live update in the Times:
> Trump dismisses the idea that he would bring in his “own people” as inspector generals.
The truth hurts. But sometimes you have to air the laundry.
I hate to be prescriptive and pedantic, but NO.
Bad NYT. Bad.
One rank above the inspector colonels?
@alphabet USA Today uses inspectors general today. Headline: Donald Trump fires independent inspectors general at 17 federal agencies
I just don't have a problem with USA Today. Since the '80s, who needs a daily paper? Nobody.
@tchrist I have to read some Walt Whitman before I die. On the bucket list.
But I watched Murdertown and now I feel like hot air ballooning over Bath is optional.
I mean, what if I see thousands of blowflies converging on one specific area in the woodline right beside the disappearing spot?
Would that make me a suspect or soothsayer or what?
I can't point out the obvious on vacay; they'll just get mad and not bring me ice or something.
04:15
@HippoSawrUs Yes. The Times usually does also; I'm guessing those live updates aren't proofread.
@alphabet So much is not proofread. Sometimes I'm writing an answer and realize my source sentence is flawed. Like, 'Here, believe this flawed mess.'
@HippoSawrUs Better than the ChatGPT output, which is immaculately written but factually inaccurate, seducing the unlearned masses from the truth.
I just can't. My litmus test is 'Could a 4th grader, before smartphones, have written this better?
If so, I disregard whatever it was. Who can't copy the AP correctly? Isn't that all they do now? IDK.
@HippoSawrUs Before or after they decided to teach reading by pointing at words with pictures next to them and saying "See, get it?"
Yeah, IDK if I could've ever gotten phonics or whatever all those symbols mean.
I missed that learning curve.
I look up phonetic spellings b/c Mitch or somebody will correct them if not. Haha, really.
04:30
@HippoSawrUs The problem is that they gave up teaching phonics in favor of the pointing-at-things approach
I can't pronounce unfamiliar words.
Imagine being able to teach kids one of those languages where you just have to know what sound each letter makes.
My peers had a good handle on phonics, we thought, until they moved up north or somewhere with more vowel sounds, evidently.
Instead of having to teach people to spell toe and tow differently because of a sound change that happened a few hundred years ago and now affects everyone...*except* a handful of people in some corner of England, of course.
I suppose they are quite grateful that we've all preserved a spelling system that works for them and nobody else.
Though this is the problem with proposed spelling reforms: you'll never find one that works equally well for all accents.
You hafta decide which minority accents are common enough to be worth preserving.
That's the problem
Every language is in its majority
04:41
Though this is an excellent opportunity to screw over the British by putting a consonant letter in "oar" and not in "awe."
@alphabet So you only show your true self when I am asleep.
Hey, I have a dozen ELU questions from watching Murdertown (UK towns).
Or when you think I am asleep.
But they would just get riled up
@Cerberus Thing is: this isn't one of those rules that somebody made up a few decades ago and is now followed only by authors whose talent extends no further than checking items off the list of Good Writing Rules.
04:46
Like, 'Everyone says WTHever to mean WTFever.'
@alphabet Why not?
Good night
This is just a common typo. You'd be dumb to object to it in a text message, but from the Times one can expect better.
Nor is this a feature of some nonstandard dialect meriting defense or preservation. This is just like writing "would of" for "would have."
But most people would write it the wrong way.
By far.
05:06
Bah! Ngrams says "inspectors general" is much more common. More if you can filter out things like "The inspector's general impressions."
I should make one exception: our current President says "inspector generals." But--not to defend him--he isn't writing for the Times.
@alphabet But people publishing books don't represent the general public.
At all.
@Cerberus Yes. It's fine when the general public does it. But in the Times it is generally avoided.
You can find a handful of other examples from the Times. Biden says it also, but I won't make fun of the cognitively impaired.
@alphabet Why should the paper not write like the average person?
05:22
@Cerberus They certainly could choose to write in a different register than their current one. But, unless they do so, one can expect some degree of internal consistency.
Can I ask, what drives the emotion in you, when you see that mistake? What is the reason why you dislike it?
@Cerberus The irksome inconsistency with the rule they generally follow.
If they always used "inspector generals," it'd surely be much less objectionable. But it's annoying when they almost always follow this pattern and then suddenly break it.
@alphabet But then it would still be a bit objectionable.
Like when all the tiles on a floor line up and follow a pattern, except for two of them that don't.
I agree that consistency is a very important element of style.
05:34
@Cerberus At most slightly, and then only because they'd be writing unlike most other news sources for no obvious reason.
Of course, if writing it "inspector generals" made it more accurate--e.g. if they actually held the military rank--I'd be outright endorsing it. Priorities.
So I am seeing two criteria of stylistic displeasure here:
1. Inconsistency, internal or external.
2. Inaccuracy, not matching reality or the truth.
I'm convicting the Times of (1).
Obviously "inspector generals" is violating (2) only if it misleads people into thinking that these people hold (say) a military rank. But I don't think that most people are misled in that respect.
Maybe I'm overestimating people and they actually do end up with misconceptions when they see "attorney generals." But those people may also get confused when they see the irregular "attorneys general." Dunno.
05:50
This sounds like a normal perception of style.
Some classic principles.
Thanks?
We raccoons have impeccable style, you know.
Memento principiorum!
OK I slept for 1.44 hours, now going to try for more.
Oh wow. That's...not good.
I can barely function on less than 6 hours of sleep.
Yeah I need a lot more.
But I couldn't.
I forgot I had tea, finishing it now.
Have you seen a doctor? Hopefully it doesn't happen too often.
06:04
We don't see a doctor for the flu here. There isn't much he could do.
Normally it doesn't, but I also had it last summer.
Ah, sorry, I thought this was regular insomnia; I didn't know you had the flu.
Feel better!
Or else!
Yeah it's probably a combination of regular insomnia and the flu.
Gratias.
06:36
Connections
Puzzle #595
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
Wordle 1,317 4/6

⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
06:53
Strands #329
“Ore so they say”
🔵🔵💡🔵
🔵💡🔵🟡
🔵
@Cerberus Have you ruled out Covid?
07:11
@alphabet Same.
07:52
Wordle 1,316 3/6

⬛🟩⬛🟩⬛
🟨🟩🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 1,317 3/6

⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Strands #329
“Ore so they say”
🟡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🔵🔵
08:12
Connections
Puzzle #595
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
 
2 hours later…
10:40
Connections
Puzzle #595
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟪🟪🟪
11:06
@alphabet Donald Duck is still my favorite cartoon ever. Love the realistic drawing, the music, the anthropomorphic representation, the projection of emotions into facial and bodily movements, and the satire. Cartoon is the best medium for it.
 
1 hour later…
12:22
@Xanne @Cerberus Agree with Xanne; if it's worse than usual, may want to use that home rapid test kit, or go to the doctor for a covid / RIDT (flu) test. If you test positive, early administration of Paxlovid would help. Which reminds me that mine is probably expired, so I need to grab fresh ones from the pharmacy, but it seems in Canada there is no longer federal inventory as of Oct 1 last year, so I may not stock it at home anymore.
12:45
@alphabet Just to clarify, NYT should have written "Trump dismisses the idea that he would bring in his “own people” as "inspector generals" (sic)." to both be accurate at his mistake and at what it should be to educate those portion of readers who are not familiar with the term (like me)?
Which leads me to this English grammar / morphology (?) question: What is the rule for constructing the plural form of an "inspector general" as an employee of the Office of Inspector General to be "inspectors general" not "inspector generals"? My guess is that the pluralizing needs to happen at the primary noun word? (Pardon my illiteracy when it comes to grammar terms)
I would think the same rule applies to pluralizing an "attorney general" to be "attorneys general"?
13:39
Wordle 1,317 4/6

⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛🟨🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 1,317 4/6

⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛🟨🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
@GratefulDisciple Really, since the NYT didn't put "inspector generals" in quotation marks, they didn't need to repeat his mistake; they could've just written inspectors general instead.
@GratefulDisciple Yes, it's because general is a postpositive adjective, possible here only because the term is French-derived. There are a few other terms like this, e.g. "notary public."
13:55
@alphabet Thanks. Let's say I'm an ESL teacher. Can I say to my students (who only needs the minimum grammatical terms): "to pluralize a noun that has a postpositive adjective, you pluralize the main word, not the adjective".
14:21
@alphabet I guess after explaining the concept of "postpositive adjective", a 21st century ESL teacher can simply points to a relevant Wikipedia section for the details.
It's interesting that sometimes the adjective gets a pluralizing morpheme too like "agents provocateurs", "faits accomplis", "idées fixes". Really frustrating for ESL student like me that there are always exceptions.
Language is messy, as is life.
14:43
Strands #329
“Ore so they say”
🔵🔵🔵🔵
🔵🟡🔵
Heh, the category is a lie.
Daily Octordle #1098
7️⃣8️⃣
5️⃣🔟
3️⃣6️⃣
9️⃣🕚
Score: 59
@Cerberus Do you take antibiotics? Is your throat sore?
@GratefulDisciple Yes, since adjectives don't have plural forms, like how the plural of "The building ablaze" is "The buildings ablaze," not "The building ablazes"
As a culinary application of what I just learned this morning is this: when I go to a restaurant and order Eggs benedict, if they serve me with just one piece, can I demand that they have false advertising, that they should have put on the menu "Egg benedict"?
Daily Extreme Octordle #1098
5️⃣🕚
8️⃣3️⃣
7️⃣9️⃣
🔟6️⃣
Score: 59
@GratefulDisciple With these fixed expressions (with adjectives that aren't normally postpositive) you do see the "wrong" version quite often (like "attorney generals")--especially because "general" is itself a title (in the military)
But in more formal writing it's generally best to follow the rule
14:55
@alphabet Or "mother-in-laws" especially.
@Robusto To me, that thankfully sounds wrong. I instinctively would have written "mothers-in-law", which I hope is the correct one.
@Robusto Yes, it depends on just how bound together the words are.
Sometimes this happens even in compound nouns, e.g. the plural of "manservant" is supposed to be "menservants," but this is uncommon
Daily Sequence Octordle #1098
6️⃣7️⃣
8️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
🕐⓮
Score: 81
@GratefulDisciple Yes, I suppose, technically.
@GratefulDisciple I've always had two eggs with eggs benedict. YMMV.
And that's no yolk!
15:05
And of course the plural of "he-bear" is "he-bears," not "they-bears," presumably only because that would defeat the purpose of adding the prefix in the first place.
@alphabet Bears have gender names: boar and sow.
Why do we say "My pronouns are he/him" instead of "I am a he-human"?
@alphabet In Britspeak, evidently.
@Robusto Other dictionaries don't say it's restricted that way. I've certainly seen it.
"He-man" is a similar amalgam, but it's more complicated, not referring to all men.
15:12
That "he-/she-" prefix is, I believe, the only correct way of forming new sex-specific, species-specific animal terms, e.g. "he-raccoon." (Google tells me a male raccoon can be called a "boar," but that isn't species-specific.)
Hmm, I wonder who pronounces the /l/ in "yolk" ... also in "folk" ...
@alphabet That's really ... boaring ... ;-D
@Robusto Sowing discord, are we?
Every chants I get.
Well now you're just kitting around.
@Robusto Probably Polkahontas.
15:16
@tchrist I didn't know she was Polish.
For the live-action remake, they decided it was more acceptable to mock Poles than Native Americans, so they had to change the name.
And the title character. And most of the plot.
I suppose the areas around 0° latitude are called "pole-ish" ...
Polarhontas, the little-know story of Roald Amundsen abducting an Inuit.
@alphabet Wrong Pole. Also wrong pole.
@Robusto Amundsen visited both!
15:21
But you left the door open for ambiguity.
Well, yes, but one would assume that abducting an Inuit is more likely on one pole than the other.
He said icily.
@Robusto How easily a minute can that car go two miles!
Is that today's Jumble?
I'm trying to be compassionate: at least I didn't strand the preposition a at the end, eh?
15:26
@tchrist Small mercies.
Minute easily can that car go two miles a.
For more fun, use a hundred twenty miles an hour and strand an. :)
D'oh! I mistyped 90.
CORRECTION: I suppose the areas around 90° latitude are called "pole-ish" ...
Nature always sides with the hidden flaw, innit?
One of those is the East Pole whose antipodes is the West Pole.
He needs more antipodes to fight the infection with.
@tchrist To contradict that assertion would require antipathy.
Lay off Aunt Patty!
She needs to stay home and clean the kitchen.
15:31
@tchrist Did you mean "Antipodes needs he the infection to fight with more"?
I avoid Moorish combat.
Moor's the pity.
A pitiless law his.
Same as frogs.
OK, my ride beckons, so I'm must away.
@Robusto I HAD SIX DEGREES AT DAWN!
But thankfully no pistols.
15:35
Add 20 to that for our current temp. Should be above freezing ere long.
Because it's too cold for flowers.
But not for showers!
@Robusto Yes, and the sun will warm you greatly.
It always does.
OK laterz ...
Also Kevin Bacon had six degrees.
Obviously he spent too long at school.
I bet he's fried.
@Xanne Yes, I took a test. But does it really matter, these days, whether it is corona or another virus?
@GratefulDisciple Umm nobody here would ever give anyone antivirals unless he were in a serious condition. Does that really happen in your country? NIRMATRELVIR/RITONAVIR costs €1.065 per week, probably because it is burdened by patent.
@CowperKettle Influenza is a virus, and antibiotics only work against bacteria.
@Cerberus Not very expensive then?
15:55
Hah.
Imagine if everyone who had the flu cost the state €1000 each time.
@Cerberus We usually take antibiotics just to make sure
By descriptions, a good book. I'll download it for listening..
@Cerberus Imagine if everyone who had obesity cost the nation $1000 each month.
Nice tool for downloading YouTube audio
Antivirals for influenza typically require that it be caught very early.
@CowperKettle But that is not good, it results in antibiotic resistance, while there is no benefit.
@tchrist Why would you compare obesity and the flu?
@tchrist There is that, too.
And then it will lessen the effect, to a lesser or greater degree.
16:08
@Cerberus I know, but how does make sure there are no bacteria joining into the bout of cold?
@CowperKettle One doesn't need to make sure.
If your infection is dangerous, then they may do that.
@tchrist Explain? Obesity is a far more serious disease than the flu, except for the weak, who will get their anti-virals if needed.
Taking antibacterials for viral infections is why we're running out.
And the use of antibiotics in the creation of luxury products...
@Cerberus The round number was the same one that they're saying that our country can't afford to pay monthly for all the people who are obese.
@Cerberus They use antibiotics to make Porches or Armani cologne? :)
16:12
@tchrist But it would make much more sense to spend that money on obesity, wouldn't it?
@tchrist Huge amounts to make meat.
Now, I eat meat, so I'm not judging anyone.
@Cerberus Of course. But when we pay 10x more than what you pay, it's insulting.
@Cerberus I don't think catch-and-release counts.
@tchrist I don't actually know what we pay for that...
@tchrist I know
Can look it up.
This is the use of antibiotics in America.
@Cerberus $100 a month.
The global flesh hunger will be the death of us all.
16:21
@tchrist You are talking about the anti-obesity medicine?
I have to go chop veggies for my Sunday pot of vegetable soup. I'll be avoiding cutting myself if I can.
Do you have those gloves?
@Cerberus Yes. It's 10x in our country what it is in yours. But so our many health-related costs.
@Cerberus Not the ones thick enough to stop my knife.
16:22
@tchrist I wonder how that happens. You'd think a big country would have a stronger position to negotiate.
I cut myself every two or three times I cut up a lot of vegetables.
Be careful, then!
@Cerberus Forbidden by law.
Until very very recently.
It is my least favourite taste in cooking.
What is forbidden?
It's an insane thing that you don't even want to try to start to understand.
16:23
The government can't negotiate?
Correct.
Must have required expensive lobbying.
> Scientists propose making AI suffer to see if it's sentient
And even if and when and where they could or can, how would that help anybody who isn't on government care?
People could buy the drugs via the government maybe?
I bet Bernie Sanders has been telling the people all this.
16:24
Only the extremely poor, the extremely old, and the extremely sick are covered by the government system. Everybody else is fucked.
Noun: cut and come again (uncountable)
  1. A situation where one possesses plenty of wealth or resources.
  2. (horticulture) An approach to growing lettuces, etc. where one harvests only the outer leaves, leaving the inner part of the plant to grow replacements that can be harvested later.
  3. (food) A type of English fruitcake.
@Cerberus Of course he is.
Maybe they need a new party who is anti-immigration and anti-big-company...
Health care is something like a $5T industry in America. There is so much money tied up in it that it is simply impossible to get anything done.
I know it's terribly inefficient.
16:28
In their last week, the Biden Administration did put semaglutide on the list of the 15 drugs the government will legally be allowed to bargain for this year in payments made to drug companies for treatment in the extremely old. But that bargaining will have to take place under Orange Julius.
Too bad Biden was also under the spell of the big companies.
Plus ça change.
It is impossible not to be.
Because if you are not, then your rivals have infinite money power and you have none.
At which point you die.
It is too bad that the winner-take-all election system doesn't allow any party to gain a small foothold, ever.
Even the Clintons and Obamas knew that no sane solution can exist except for single-payer. And both realized that it was impossible to achieve.
From today's Guardian comes ‘It’s a death sentence’: US health insurance system is failing, say doctors. It doesn't matter: nothing ever changes. People die, or are ruined. This has nothing to do with political parties. All this has to do with is the immense amount of money behind everything.
Single payer?
16:34
Single-payer healthcare is a type of universal healthcare, in which the costs of essential healthcare for all residents are covered by a single public system (hence "single-payer"). Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from private organizations (as is the case in Canada) or may own and employ healthcare resources and personnel (as is the case in the United Kingdom). "Single-payer" describes the mechanism by which healthcare is paid for by a single public authority, not a private authority, nor a mix of both. == Description == Within single-payer healthcare systems, a single...
Right.
That system makes sense for essential government tasks.
The current regime is doing everything it can to destroy the federal government from within. The Project 25 is to get rid of everything, one way or the other.
Look at how they now want to remove the Federal Emergency Management Agency and force each community to handle its own disasters.
Same as they wish to do with every single federal agency, department, and program. They want anything federal gone.
Hurricane and wildfire and pandemic disasters cannot be managed by anything less endowed and coordinated than the feds. The rest will never have resources.
Flood and fire and plague: you're on your own.
> Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.
Reindeer in Rome? Oh my!
Your doom-filled narration reminded me of this poem
I memorized only the last stanza when I first read it in 2014.
16:45
> Caesar's double-bed is warm
To think that Auden should have predicted Orange Julius!
A book about suicidal depression, by an author who died by suicide several years after writing the book.
@CowperKettle I'm fighting an infuriating four-figure dispute with my health insurance company that's strictly a bureaucratic "coding" error that should never have happened but which they claim they can't retroactively correct because their hands are too tied to their pearl necklaces to rewrite the past. It's left me, and my doctors, completely outraged. My annual physical didn't get coded right, so they charged me for bloodwork and such that should have all been 100% free of cost.
@tchrist I hope it can be rebuilt after they have gone.
@Cerberus As do we all. But the suffering we'll have to endure is unimaginable.
@tchrist That's horrible. Do you think you will need to go to court?
@tchrist Might this suffering awaken some voters?
16:52
@Cerberus Courts would cost me not four figures but five or six.
That's crazy.
@tchrist I'm very sorry!
Four figures!
@CowperKettle Who is this?
@Cerberus a parody on the "American Gothic" painting
Oh I don't know it.
16:53
American Gothic is a 1930 oil on beaverwood painting by the American Regionalist artist Grant Wood. Depicting a Midwestern farmer and his daughter standing in front of their Carpenter Gothic style home, American Gothic is one of the most famous American paintings of the 20th century and is frequently referenced in popular culture. Wood was inspired to paint what is now known as the American Gothic House in Eldon, Iowa, along with "the kind of people [he] fancied should live in that house". The figures were modeled after Wood's sister Nan Wood Graham and Byron McKeeby, the Wood family's dentist...
@Cerberus Does. Not. Matter. Voters do not vote for national laws. Only people powered by the oligarchs' infinite treasure pile can vote for national laws.
I wonder what would happen if Democrats became strongly anti-immigration, that seems to have been a major issue on which the majority side with Republicans?
I'm burned out on politics. Today I glanced at the news, because today is a Sunday. I only take a look once a week (not counting neuroscience news; I read them every day).
It is good that you do not look when it is hopeless.
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