English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

Xanne

00:11

The new US Secretary of HHS has, ironically, his first challenge with the measels outbreak in Texas.

Cerberus

#WhenTaken #356 (17.02.2025)

I scored 815/1000🏅

1️⃣📍327 m - 🗓️20 yrs - 🥈155/200
2️⃣📍177 km - 🗓️29 yrs - 🥉112/200
3️⃣📍1.5K km - 🗓️8 yrs - 🥈150/200
4️⃣📍1.1 km - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥇199/200
5️⃣📍965 m - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥇199/200

https://whentaken.com

CowperKettle

🔥
(o.o)/
<) )
/ \

Skillet Lickers

The Skillet Lickers were an old-time band from Georgia, United States. When Gid Tanner teamed up with blind guitarist Riley Puckett and signed to Columbia in 1924, they created the label's earliest so-called "hillbilly" recording. Gid Tanner formed The Skillet Lickers in 1926. The first line-up was Gid Tanner, Riley Puckett, Clayton McMichen and Fate Norris. Between 1926 and 1931 they recorded 88 sides for Columbia, with 82 of them commercially issued. Later members were Lowe Stokes, Bert Layne, Hoke Rice, Arthur Tanner and Hoyt "Slim" Bryant. Their best-selling single was "Down Yonder", a hillbilly...

Good name for a band

Robusto

01:56

> In 1485, a Dominican friar and inquisitor called Heinrich Kramer embarked on a witch-hunting expedition in another Alpine region—the Austrian Tyrol. Kramer was a fervent convert to the new belief in a global satanic conspiracy.[70] He also seems to have been mentally unhinged, and his accusations of satanic witchcraft were colored by rabid misogyny and odd sexual fixations. Local church authorities, led by the bishop of Brixen, were skeptical of Kramer’s accusations and alarmed by his activities. They stopped his inquisition, released the suspects he arrested, and expelled him from the ar…

Harari, Yuval Noah. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (pp. 94-101). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

CowperKettle

02:19

Kramer means "salesman", from "Kram" - goods, stuff

In Ukrainian, the word kramnytsa means "shop", along with the word magazin

Krämer

Noun: Krämer m (strong, genitive Krämers, plural Krämer, feminine Krämerin)

shopkeeper (person who sells miscellaneous inexpensive goods)

Kram

Noun: Kram m (strong, genitive Krames or Krams, no plural)

(colloquial, derogatory) stuff
Synonyms: Krempel, Zeug; see also Thesaurus:Zeug
(archaic) little shop; booth; stall

institor

Noun: īnstitor m (genitive īnstitōris); third declension

shopkeeper, broker
huckster, hawker, peddler, salesman

Kramer vs. Kramer

Kramer vs. Kramer is a 1979 American legal drama film written and directed by Robert Benton, based on Avery Corman's 1977 novel. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Justin Henry and Jane Alexander. It tells the story of a couple's divorce, its impact on their young son, and the subsequent evolution of their relationship and views on parenting. Kramer vs. Kramer explores the psychology and fallout of divorce, and touches on emerging and prevailing social issues such as gender roles, fathers' rights, work-life balance, and single parents. Kramer vs. Kramer was theatrically released December...

Mitch

@CowperKettle Mamma always tol' me, spit in the skillet first. If it sizzles, it's ok to lick the skillet.

CowperKettle

@Mitch It's good that she did not say "it's okay to touch the skillet", or we would have been left without your jokes in chat

Mitch

@CowperKettle a lil burnt tongue won't mess with typing

CowperKettle

A Russian guy on a psychiatry forum wrote that he takes oxiracetam

Oxiracetam

Oxiracetam (developmental code name ISF 2522) is a nootropic drug of the racetam family and a very mild stimulant. Several studies suggest that the substance is safe even when high doses are consumed for a long period of time. However, the mechanism of action of the racetam drug family is still a matter of research. Oxiracetam is not approved by Food and Drug Administration for any medical use in the United States. == Clinical findings == Oxiracetam has been studied to determine if it has an effect on symptoms of dementia, but no consistent results were obtained in patients with Alzheimer...

Cerberus

@Robusto Yeah, good times.

Mitch

02:32

If this were voice chat, if be mostly quiet anyway.

CowperKettle

Looks like it shows results in mice.

@Mitch :)

Cerberus

It teaches us how dangerous people can be who act on unfounded beliefs.

Mitch

@Cerberus I'm sure if they're motivated, they could find some founded beliefs.

Robusto

@CowperKettle I think you missed the point of the sermon.

CowperKettle

> Дочка просила у мамы конфетку.
Мама сказала: «Сунь пальчик в розетку!».
Быстро обуглились детские кости.
Долго смеялись над шуткою гости.

Cerberus

02:34

@Mitch Such as?

It should also remind of how much better our own time is.

Robusto

@Cerberus But for how long?

Mitch

@Cerberus I'm not the crazy one.

Any excuse for a tyrant.

Robusto

@Mitch Stop trying to gaslight us.

Mitch

A crazy clock is right..well not twice a.day.but randomly.

@Robusto if I admit I am crazy, then you must believe my advice

@Cerberus yeah...however bad it is now, the past was not so great.

Cerberus

@Robusto I don't think the torture and execution of ten-year-old innocent boys will ever become mainstream again in the world.

@Mitch Exactly.

Robusto

02:39

@Cerberus Let''s hope not.

Mitch

@CowperKettle that was dark. At least the Google translation was.

Cerberus

@Robusto Nobody advocates that stuff.

Mitch

> The daughter asked her mother for a candy.
The mother said: "Put your finger in the socket!"
The children's bones quickly charred.
The guests laughed at the joke for a long time.

Sounds weird.

Robusto

@Cerberus Well, I think we are on the cusp of another religious war here in the UJS. Look at what the MAGA people believe about QAnon and all that.

Mitch

Requesting candy, while greedy, doesn't deserve electrocution.

2

At least not right away

@Robusto between which religions?

Robusto

02:46

@Mitch Christianity and not.

Mitch

@Robusto not all christians

Robusto

Enough, though.

Marjorie Taylor Greene and her ilk.

Mitch

And also, not all non-christians

Robusto

You're so cheery

I'm glad we had this talk.

CowperKettle

@Mitch It's dark humor verses, popular in Russia

Садистские стишки

Садистские стишки — жанр современного русского «черного» юмористического фольклора. Стишки представляют собой четверостишия с попарно рифмующимися строчками (реже — двустишия), чаще всего в дактиле, в которых рассказывается о гибели или получении увечий главным персонажем, причём обычно в результате некоего техногенного воздействия. По своей форме и своему содержанию эти стишки (жанр, близкий к прозаическим «страшилкам»), появившиеся в 70-х годах XX века, принципиально отличаются от обычных анекдотов. Как и частушки, они имеют стихотворную форму и целиком укладываются в четыре, а реже — в две строки...

Mitch

02:48

@Robusto you're the one who brought up religious wars.

And reality

CowperKettle

Here are some dark humor verses:

ru.wikisource.org/wiki/…

Mitch

sobs quietly in hands

Robusto

my bad, sorry.

Mitch

@CowperKettle naw I get it. Putting the dark humor alongside something that sounds like the start of a nursery rhyme but s unexpected.

Though of course 'Ring around the rosie' the children's rhyme/dance is about the black death?

I think?

Cerberus

@Robusto They do no propose to torture and execute children.

Robusto

02:54

@Cerberus I don't think the Inquisition started out selling it like that.

But one thing led to another and ... I mean, they're only human, right? How could they go back on their beliefs in witches?

Cerberus

@Robusto The Inquisition was brutal and murderous from the beginning, torture was normal.

It is really unhealthy to compare modern America to Early Modern Europe.

(I don't know about the capitals.)

Mitch

@CowperKettle yes very dark.

There's a whole series of 'dead baby' jokes that similarly awful.

Google for that

@Robusto also they're doing a public service. Nobody likes witches.

In other news I'm feeling my age creep up on me.

I realized I prefer Richard Osman as sidekick on 'Pointless'

Robusto

@Cerberus In recent memory we have seen the napalm bombing of civilians and other forms of horror. I don't see that it's a giant leap from that to other abominations.

Cerberus

@Robusto It is not the same thing.

It is quite different.

But, yes, that is also horrific.

Mitch

Pointless

Pointless is a British television quiz show produced by Banijay subsidiary Remarkable Entertainment for the BBC hosted by Alexander Armstrong. In each episode, four teams of two contestants attempt to find correct but obscure answers to four rounds of general knowledge questions, with the winning team eligible to compete for the show's cash jackpot. Pointless debuted on BBC Two on 23 August 2009. The success of the first three series led the BBC to move it to BBC One from 2011. As of August 2023, the programme is airing Series 30 and has had peak audience figures of over 7 million viewers. ...

Old people, in addition to loving hard candy, also love Richard Osman.

Robusto

03:21

> The history of print and witch-hunting indicates that an unregulated information market doesn’t necessarily lead people to identify and correct their errors, because it may well prioritize outrage over truth. For truth to win, it is necessary to establish curation institutions that have the power to tilt the balance in favor of the facts. However, as the history of the Catholic Church indicates, such institutions might use their curation power to quash any criticism of themselves, labeling all alternative views erroneous and preventing the institution’s own errors from being exposed and c…

4

alphabet

Incidentally, the Inquisition condemned the Malleus Maleficarum.

Mitch

@alphabet they didn't like the competition

alphabet

Because it was seen as inconsistent with Catholic doctrine. The book was, unfortunately, most popular among judges and political leadership; as I recall, it had less influence within the Church itself.

Cerberus

@alphabet Rob's quotation says that the Church eventually adopted it fully and appointed its author to a high position in the Inquisition.

alphabet

@Cerberus Yes, many Church leaders did end up adopting it.

The author of the Malleus did, though, fraudulently claim that the Pope and a bunch of theologians had endorsed his work, when the Church's actual reaction was...complicated and not altogether positive.

Cerberus

03:45

@alphabet The quotation suggests, first negative, later positive, probably because of public opinion.

alphabet

@Cerberus Exactly. But you do hear a version of history according to which witch hunts were the direct result of the Church and its superstitions, when it was really more of a...grassroots movement.

Cerberus

@alphabet Hmm I would say the superstitions of the Church and its brutal Inquisition were related to it?

The Church did to heretics what was done to witches too.

alphabet

04:11

@Cerberus The Church's theological views certainly helped enable it, but the Church hierarchy wasn't directly responsible for inciting it.

It was more like a much, much larger version of the 1980s Satanic abuse panic in the US: a moral panic among the general public driven by shoddy empirical and testimonial "evidence," together with credulous authors getting famous by fanning the flames.

Cerberus

@alphabet Yes, that is consistent with the quotation, isn't it?

@alphabet But the Church had been feeding such superstitions for a millennium.

And had shown by example how to prosecute civilians on a massive scale.

So the Church was startled by the new explosion of violence this time not initiated by herself.

alphabet

@Cerberus The mass witch trials were new and not really analogous to anything preceding them.

Cerberus

Why would you say that?

The Church and religious-inspired secular rules prosecuted and killed a great many heretics and heathens throughout the Christian Age.

Thank God it has ended.

alphabet

@Cerberus That's just...the generally accepted historical account? There really was zero precedent for that sort of thing. There were towns where nearly every woman was tried and convicted of witchcraft. Nothing like that had happened before and nothing like it has happened in the West since.

@Cerberus The human failings that caused those persecutions and murders have not changed. They just find non-religious outlets.

Cerberus

> The Cathars were denounced as a heretical sect by the Catholic Church. Its followers were attacked first by the Albigensian Crusade and later by the Medieval Inquisition, which eradicated the sect by 1350. Many thousands were slaughtered,[4][5] hanged, or burnt at the stake,[6] sometimes without regard for age or sex.[4]

Of course no two phaenomena are ever exactly the same.

alphabet

04:26

@Cerberus The main difference being that the Cathars, unlike the witches, actually existed.

Cerberus

But I would say how the Mediaeval Inqusition and the Crusades tortured and slaughtered heretics and heathens bears some similarity to the witch hunts?

@alphabet But the harms they were said to cause did not.

And pogroms were also hardly new in Christian countries.

And of course plenty of people were burned at the stake at the mere suspicion of heresy.

So what I meant is that the Church already has a history of spreading hatred towards minorities who caused no harm, and also of brutal persecution.

alphabet

@Cerberus Maybe the Inquisition does in a few respects. The Crusades were a completely unrelated phenomenon, except insofar as they involved Christians killing people for not being Christians.

Cerberus

If the Church had not normalised this type of persecution of civilians, perhaps the witch hunts would not have caught on so easily.

@alphabet Not being Christians? Many of the persecuted considered themselves Christians.

Why would you say it was "completely unrelated"?

alphabet

@Cerberus Sorry, I should have said that even in that respect they were dissimilar.

Cerberus

I don't follow.

alphabet

04:33

In Christian times, people find Christian reasons to commit mass murder and persecution. In secular times, people find secular, rational, enlightened reasons to do the same things.

Cerberus

You could be executed as an heretic in a manner similar to how you could be executed as a witch or as a Protestant.

@alphabet To some extent; even so, I can't imagine the Cathars being massacred without the Church's hatred.

Religion is not only a stick with which bad people hit others; its doctrines full of hatred have an intrinsic effect as well.

alphabet

@Cerberus I'm skeptical. Religion has been used for good and bad ends; it's had both positive and negative effects in different times and places. You can't exactly add these up and compute it; I'm not sure what one can say about its total net effect.

Cerberus

@alphabet That is a different question, I would say.

My point is that a case can be made for holding the doctrines and practices of the Church partly responsible for the fertile soil in which fell the Hammer of Witches.

alphabet

@Cerberus That highly qualified claim I do not dispute.

Cerberus

Well, it is what I said from the beginning.

The witch hunts were not completely dissimilar from various other prosecutions instigated by the Church that were known at the time, nor were they completely unrelated to the superstitions spread by the Church.

Kramer used many existing hateful superstitions and existing brutal practices of persecution.

Robusto

05:33

> For example, the Catholic Church is an institution with relatively weak self-correcting mechanisms. Since it claims infallibility, it cannot admit institutional mistakes. It is occasionally willing to acknowledge that some of its members have erred or sinned, but the institution itself allegedly remains perfect. For example, in the Second Vatican Council in 1964, the Catholic Church acknowledged that “Christ summons the Church to continual reformation as she sojourns here on earth. The Church is always in need of this, insofar as she is an institution of men here on earth. Thus if, in var…

> This admission sounds promising, but the devil is in the details, specifically in the refusal to countenance the possibility of any deficiency in “the deposit of faith.” In Catholic dogma “the deposit of faith” refers to the body of revealed truth that the church has received from scriptures and from its sacred tradition of interpreting scripture. The Catholic Church acknowledges that priests are fallible humans who can sin and can also make mistakes in the way they formulate church teachings. However, the holy book itself can never err. What does this imply about the entire church as an …

> According to Catholic dogma, biblical infallibility and divine guidance trump human corruption, so even though individual members of the church may err and sin, the Catholic Church as an institution is never wrong.

Harari, Yuval Noah. Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (p. 106). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

M.A.R.

@Robusto replace "Catholic church" with "the government of IRI" and you have the past half a century in Iran play out. Except they're as accountable as the church was in 1600, not today

That's why Mahsa Amini must have been another CIA spy who clumsily got herself beaten to death. The government can't be wrong in enforcing Sharia.

Robusto

05:51

@M.A.R. Yes, Harari mentions Islam and Judaism as well for being unable to admit error.

Cerberus

@M.A.R. Oh, how very clumsily.

Robusto

Yes, it was her error, of course.

Cerberus

@Robusto I wonder to what extent Zoroastrianism considered itself infallible.

Robusto

@Cerberus I think it was pretty much all black and white with them, wasn't it?

Or light and darkness, if you will.

Cerberus

@Robusto Quite so, but how infallible were their priests?

GratefulDisciple

09:06

@Robusto "Is it possible to establish better curation institutions that use their power to further the pursuit of truth rather than to accumulate more power for themselves?" How about Wikipedia? Academic peer reviewed journals?

SmokeDetector

11:40

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Manually reported answer (94): Is the opposite of 'within', 'without'?‭ by Pond‭ on english.SE

CowperKettle

12:51

95% of new power generation in the US in 2024 was from solar, wind and battery storage. This is nearly 50% higher than the prior year.

CowperKettle

13:52

o

Robert Petkoff

Robert Petkoff is an American stage actor known for his work in Shakespearean productions and more recently on the New York City musical theater stage. Petkoff has performed on Broadway, the West End, regional theatre, and done work in film and television. Petkoff was featured as "Perchik" in the Tony award-nominated 2004 revival cast of Fiddler on the Roof but is perhaps best known for his role as "Tateh" in the 2009 revival of Ragtime on Broadway. Petkoff has also provided the voices for over two dozen audiobooks, winning awards for his reading of Michael Koryta's So Cold the River. Married to...

The guy who narrates The Sinner and the Saint, an audiobook about Dostoyevsky.

Both the book and the narrator are superb.

Now I want to get ahold of all books he has narrated.

Robusto

14:33

@GratefulDisciple Sure, which is why Musk has such a hard-on to get rid of Wikipedia.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto Sigh. Does he? I don't even want to know. I hope by now Wikipedia is established enough that most people can see it as a objectivity-measuring stick, even MAGA people.

All I can do is to carry the torch and teach objectivity to the next generation, where I can find them.

Cerberus

15:01

@CowperKettle Hmm are the batteries in electric cars?

No, if it says "utility"?

Then I am surprised at those batteries, where/what are they?

Robusto

15:48

#WhenTaken #356 (17.02.2025)

I scored 825/1000🏅

1️⃣📍674 m - 🗓️11 yrs - 🥇182/200
2️⃣📍16.7K km - 🗓️4 yrs - 🥉96/200
3️⃣📍747 km - 🗓️13 yrs - 🥈154/200
4️⃣📍140 km - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥇194/200
5️⃣📍429 m - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥇199/200

https://whentaken.com

Wordle 1,339 3/6

⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
🟨⬛🟨🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
.

Robusto

16:08

Connections
Puzzle #617
🟦🟦🟩🟦
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪

Strands #351
“Sun shade”
💡🔵💡🔵
🔵🔵🟡🔵
🔵
This one faked me out.

Cerberus

16:30

#WhenTaken #356 (17.02.2025)

I scored 815/1000🏅

1️⃣📍327 m - 🗓️20 yrs - 🥈155/200
2️⃣📍177 km - 🗓️29 yrs - 🥉112/200
3️⃣📍1.5K km - 🗓️8 yrs - 🥈150/200
4️⃣📍1.1 km - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥇199/200
5️⃣📍965 m - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥇199/200

https://whentaken.com

@Robusto Well done.

I kind of did it with a friend.

But I also kind of wasn't concentrating and was under pressure to finish it fast with him.

Robusto

@Cerberus Yeah, I hate being rushed too.

Cerberus

Exactly.

But it's fun to talk about the photo together.

Speculate.

Just not good for your score.

I mean, I was 29 years off on the second one. I'm sure I could have done better there.

Oh but you were 16,000 km off, that is also quite a feat.

Robusto

@Cerberus Yeah. I hate those, when you're half a world away.

Cerberus

@Robusto But that is more like 60% of the world, how is that even possible?

Robusto

@Cerberus Fuck if I know. WhenTaken is a good game, but it has some serious flaws.

Cerberus

16:40

Err I said it wrong, it's more like 40%.

And 50% is the max, half of the world's circumference off.

Robusto

Yes.

Cerberus

So it is possible. But extreme.

Was that the Lycée?

Robusto

Yes.

So screw France too, with all their worldly possessions.

If you see France and palm trees it could be anywhere.

Cerberus

Yeah.

@Robusto Oh, did you pick ~~SPOILER~~?

Robusto

Of course.

GratefulDisciple

16:44

@Robusto Do you spoiler? I got stumped on the blue.

Robusto

@GratefulDisciple No, but it's part of the culture so I have a bit of knowledge about it.

GratefulDisciple

@Robusto Learn something new every day.

Cerberus

@Robusto I suppose it makes sense, I didn't even think of that.

M.A.R.

@Cerberus they executed quite a few 'prophets' so they at least didn't appreciate competition

And the theocrats at the end of Sassanid rule were notoriously corrupt

Cerberus

17:11

@M.A.R. That makes perfect sense.

@M.A.R. Whaaat, theocrats, corrupt??

Connections
Puzzle #617
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟪🟦🟦
🟦🟦🟦🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪

But I must admit I had hovered over Grateful's spoiler.

So I knew what category to expect for one.

Robusto

17:24

Daily Octordle #1120
🕛🕐
5️⃣3️⃣
🔟6️⃣
8️⃣9️⃣
Score: 66

Daily Sequence Octordle #1120
4️⃣5️⃣
6️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕚🕛
Score: 65

Daily Extreme Octordle #1120
🕚7️⃣
8️⃣🟥
9️⃣4️⃣
6️⃣🕛
Score: 70
Not my day.

@Cerberus Tsk tsk.

Cerberus

I thought it might be for yesterday's game.

CowperKettle

18:51

@Cerberus Specialized batteries to support smooth power output in the hours when the demand is high and there is a lack of wind and sun

Cerberus

19:18

@CowperKettle OK but those are very expensive, usually their capacity is small compared to the total generation of energy?

misk94555

@CowperKettle On what scale: a household, or a town ?

CowperKettle

19:51

GratefulDisciple

@CowperKettle Better picture (from here)

More religion-themed cartoon from cuyler black.

jlliagre

20:26

#WhenTaken #356 (17.02.2025)

I scored 901/1000👑

1️⃣📍516 m - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥇200/200
2️⃣📍188 km - 🗓️20 yrs - 🥈148/200
3️⃣📍646 km - 🗓️6 yrs - 🥈174/200
4️⃣📍654 m - 🗓️3 yrs - 🥇197/200
5️⃣📍13.8 m - 🗓️11 yrs - 🥇182/200

https://whentaken.com

Wordle 1,339 3/6

⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨
⬛🟩⬛🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Daily Octordle #1120
🕚5️⃣
🔟4️⃣
9️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
Score: 60

Daily Sequence Octordle #1120
5️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
🔟🕚
⓮⓯
Score: 76

Daily Extreme Octordle #1120
8️⃣🕛
5️⃣9️⃣
6️⃣🟥
🟥🕚
Score: 77

jlliagre

21:03

Connections
Puzzle #617
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟪🟦🟦
🟦🟦🟦🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪

MetaEd

22:07

Wordle 1,339 3/6

🟨🟩⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Cerberus

@jlliagre Well done!

MetaEd

Strands #351
“Sun shade”
🟡🔵🔵🔵
🔵🔵🔵

Conrado

22:37

Quote of the day: "I choose not to draw vast conclusions from half vast data." (Jerry Ehman, c. 1997, about the Wow! signal [SETI warning])

Sorry Grateful, I didn't mean to ping you. This is completely un-related to anything in chat, just a qotd.

MetaEd

22:52

Connections
Puzzle #617
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩

Transcript for

English Language & Usage: Multi-Layer…