English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

alphabet

00:00

@M.A.R. I think that they use some sort of idiosyncratic system for transliterating Arabic; they have a lot of odd spellings.

M.A.R.

I'm not sure they ever will. It's rumored that some high-ups in the ministry of technology can't even create an email

@alphabet ah yeah. These people love saying they're special

alphabet

It's real, I was there. I was the man among the Jews.

M.A.R.

The juice?

CowperKettle

Well, if you go on a milk-only diet, you will excrete ice-cream through your nostrils.

M.A.R.

BTW how likely is it that a Jew would never see a baptism their whole life?

I'm asking because of that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode

CowperKettle

00:07

Baptisms are done in churches. It's totally possible not to see any

Robusto

I don't think I've ever seen one, and I'm not Jewish. I'm sure I didn't see my own, although I was the subject of that particular exercise.

A waste of good water, if you ask me.

Also of everyone's time. I mean, look at me now.

M.A.R.

It's supposed to wash away sins? Like the Christian belief that babies are sinners and they need to be cleansed?

alphabet

Yes, though the details depend on the denomination.

Robusto

@M.A.R. Yes.

M.A.R.

Well, sounds as pointless as our rituals. I mean either sinful babies are of such significance that some 5-minute ritual wouldn't cleanse anything much or they're really not sinful

Robusto

00:12

Yes. Like youth, baptism is wasted on the young.

M.A.R.

I suppose it's an excuse for exclusion mostly. Just like ours; "he hasn't said the words so sadly he will burn in hell"

CowperKettle

All religions grow massive and full of rituals. You can't get away from that.

It's like bloatware.

M.A.R.

To be fair ours doesn't have a risk of drowning

Robusto

Which is why I don't partake.

alphabet

Same idea. According to most denominations (I think?), unbaptized infants still have original sin so would end up in Hell.

Robusto

00:14

@M.A.R. You have plenty of other risks to make up for that.

@alphabet In Roman Catholicism we were told they end up in Limbo. Whatever that is.

alphabet

IslamQA is always perversely entertaining (it's run by some Salafi imams who issue fatwas by Internet)

Robusto

Do they ever issue thinwas?

I mean, fatwas may be too rich for my diet.

M.A.R.

Can I choose my hell, because I want the oblivious lotus eater hell

alphabet

Apparently, while men in Paradise get (at least) two wives, women only get one husband: islamqa.info/en/answers/149336/…

Robusto

Daily Sequence Octordle #589
5️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🔟
🕛🕐
Score: 70

alphabet

00:18

But it's fine, because the man will be able to have sex with all of them

M.A.R.

It's fine up to a 100. But he might not be able to satisfy the 101st

alphabet

Apparently scholars are divided about the number and nature of wives/concubines, and on the relevance of the number seventy-two: islamqa.info/en/answers/257509/…

M.A.R.

I do like 72 though. 2^3 * 3^2

alphabet

They really missed an opportunity to make it 69

Robusto

69 is less fun than people who have never done it may imagine.

Caveat fornicator.

Mitch

00:25

@Robusto I've been listening to all music ever since I was born. I'm up to 1993 now.

Looking forward to this new 'grunge' music?

Is it any good?

Robusto

@Mitch Did you mean AllMusic?

AllMusic

AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. == History == AllMusic was launched as All Music Guide by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix,...

If so, I surmise that you are now 32 years of age.

Mitch

@Robusto if I had ever heard of that, I might have meant it. But as I haven't, I didn't.

@Robusto calculates

on fingers

Hm

Maybe I missed a finger somewhere

Wait no

I could have been born any time before 93, right?

Laurel

00:43

I'm as worried as ever about our question closure stats. Over a 14 day period, we've closed more questions than were asked... That's not OK

alphabet

@Laurel Some of this may be my fault. I've been going through old unanswered questions and trying to either answer or close as many as possible, which likely increased closure rates.

Laurel

Yeah, I saw that. I think it's more important to focus on giving great answers to questions than the percent of answered questions

alphabet

I've also answered an absurd number of questions over the past couple weeks, for the same reason

Laurel

I want to make a pretty drastic change to how we do close voting, and I have enough mod support behind that, but it's going to need at least a good chunk of the community to also back it

jlliagre

Daily Octordle #589
🕚🕛
7️⃣5️⃣
6️⃣🔟
8️⃣4️⃣
Score: 63

Daily Sequence Octordle #589
4️⃣5️⃣
7️⃣8️⃣
9️⃣🕚
🕐⓮
Score: 71

alphabet

00:48

Fair enough. I can stop answering/closing old questions if you'd like. I just w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶p̶u̶t̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ like seeing the number of unanswered questions decrease.

Laurel

It's not a problem to be answering old questions as long as the answers are good. Some of yours looked short, so you'd probably benefit from padding them out with references, etc. (I have moar rep than you so you better listen :p)

alphabet

OK. I will do so, i.e. only answering complicated old questions and not voting to close them.

When my answers are short, it's usually because the question is simple but there's no technical reason to close it.

Some of my "answers" are just repeating answers posted as comments, though I mark those as community wikis to m̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶r̶e̶p̶-̶h̶u̶n̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶l̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶o̶b̶v̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ be a good citizen.

Cerberus

@Laurel What is this change?

And is it practicable?

Laurel

Well, I've been drafting it up in near secrecy (except the ELU mod chat) but it would probably make me feel better to share it here. I want us to only use the "research" close reason when the answer can be looked up in a reputable source, which means a dictionary or (realistically speaking) etymonline.

2

alphabet

You have the raccoon vote.

I am in support.

Laurel

00:57

While it's pretty clear that I don't have the energy to moderate individual voting habits, I do have a plan. The practicable part of it is that the text of the close reason is going to change to reflect this

I'm thinking I'll also be able to get support from the people who are more on the fringes of the community too (which for us even includes people with thousands of rep). A lot of other sites are run differently, where bad questions are downvoted instead of closed and I think it works better than what we have here.

alphabet

I have a feeling some people will say "This is going to mean people get lots of rep for answering easy questions, whereas I earned my rep by answering difficult ones"

Laurel

@alphabet Remember to act surprised when I post it on meta :p

alphabet

@Laurel I will.

Laurel

@alphabet I mean, that's a pretty big lie for most people. I've seen what passed for answers in the olden days of the site. If people are getting reputation for bad answers, that's a flaw in the voting system. (And yes, I do know it happens to this day. I saw an answer recently at +25 that basically said option A is correct because option B makes no sense with no further explanation or whatnot.)

alphabet

@Laurel I think a couple people will be annoyed that low-effort answers will result in people getting as much reputation as high-effort ones, since high-effort answers often aren't interesting enough to attract extra upvotes.

To be clear: I think they'll be wrong, and I think you should make this change anyway.

Laurel

01:05

I realized at some point, this is how I was personally voting, so it just feels like the right thing for us all to do

alphabet

I spent like two hours going down a rabbit hole to answer this one, with one upvote: english.stackexchange.com/a/604276/470858

I spent 1 minute on this one, and it was my most upvoted answer ever: english.stackexchange.com/a/607473/470858

Obviously, if "easier" questions get onto the site, then people will be able to gain reputation by answering only the easy ones. Which will make the people who spend time answering the hard ones envious.

I think, honestly, that this is why some people are so quick to hit the close button

They don't want anyone to get credit for answering them

It's a rather insidious form of gatekeeping

Laurel

@alphabet It's exacerbated by the HNQ. There's no equivalent mechanism for promoting long, slow answers (except maybe bounties, but it feels bad that you basically have to pay for something the system should do automatically)

I've been dropping hints on meta that we need something that will help these old answers but the chance of something happening seems slim

Cerberus

@Laurel I'm 100% for.

It used to be like this.

Would you consider adding, "...or if it is easy to look up in a beginner's textbook"?

Laurel

@Cerberus I want to keep it to sources where a link can be provided where the answer is. Do you know any that are freely available?

alphabet

How many people own grammar textbooks? I think most non-native speakers do, but most native speakers don't.

I would suggest downvoting them rather than closing them, but IDK.

Cerberus

01:13

@Laurel I don't.

I'll vote for the proposal as it is.

Laurel

I think Cambridge (or Collins? I get them confused) has something online but then there's the issue of searching for the answer. It's not as simple as looking something up in a dictionary

alphabet

I am also 100% for. The announcement will probably make a few people on Meta butthurt, but I support it.

Laurel

Yeah well, I can just ignore all the meta downvotes assuming the question has a net positive score

alphabet

The issue is that the Cambridge Dictionary's online grammar is the sort of "traditional grammar" that the CGEL fans think is worthless trash. (CGEL has nothing in common with the dictionary other than the word "Cambridge" in the name.)

Laurel

And I think it's pretty promising that I'm predicting a lot of the comments you're making, but then again this crowd cannot be as harsh as meta lol

alphabet

01:17

I would point out that, if you tell people to do their own research about grammar, they're going to end up believing in "noun clauses." That might win over some of the CGEL fans /s

Laurel

You know, I see these grammar arguments happening, and I still don't understand why they get so heated. You people are worse than the tabs vs spaces people :p

Robusto

@Laurel So ... it's the way you would do it so it's got to be good for everybody?

@Laurel Wait, tabs vs. spaces is settled science.

Laurel

@Robusto I do think that highly of myself, yes :p

Robusto

Tabs are definitely better, except when you have to use different editors that treat tabs in wildly different ways.

Laurel

I am here to listen if you have any comments, except for the tabs thing. I can't believe you would say that! Tabs are always so inconsistent

alphabet

01:23

@Robusto I write one line with tabs, then one line with spaces, then one line with tabs again. I think it's a good compromise.

Robusto

Tabs versus Spaces

►

The funniest few minutes in that whole show.

Dannyu NDos

Never use tabs in codes. A good IDE should've already replaced each tab with some spaces.

alphabet

It's called "alternate-line indentation" and it's the new trend in the JavaScript world

For harmonious code, indent it with BEL characters

Robusto

@alphabet Compromise? You're the one who's getting compromised! Yikes!

alphabet

I prefer reverse indentation:

dammit SE chat can't format code properly?!

// correct indentation:
     if(x) {
  if(y) {
z;
  }
     }

The conditionals are less important so they go on the right, duh

I made a fork of CPython that adds support. Hoping to get it upstreamed so that we can have properly-formatted Python code

Robusto

01:38

So I presume CPython is Python with C syntax?

alphabet

It's the Python interpreter (as opposed to the language)

There are multiple Python interpreters, but CPython is (a) by far the most common and (b) the reference implementation

Dannyu NDos

CPython is Python that is interpreted using C.

Laurel

Is it not called Cython or is that the opposite?

alphabet

Nope: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPython

Yeah, don't confuse it with Cython

Laurel

At least there's not much room to confuse it with Jython

alphabet

01:41

Then there's PyPy, not to be confused with PyPI

Robusto

I've gotten used to Python's whitespace scope, for better or worse. But I hate how different editors and IDEs handle tabs.

Are you listening, Visual Studio?

And you, IntelliJ?

And you, Active State?

Now I can't remember the name of the one I used to hate the most. I've apparently put it out of my mind since I retired.

It come to me now: Eclipse.

Talk about bloatware. Geezis.

alphabet

Eclipse is pure evil

Robusto

Absolutely.

alphabet

I use Vim because I'm one of those people

And I have a 1000 line vimrc that mostly kinda works

tmux + vim + zsh because I'm one of the cool kids

Robusto

I used to use emacs. I loved it.

Tom is an emacs maven. I had to give it up when I had to use a company-sanctioned IDE. And then another, and so on.

jlliagre

01:52

^X^C That's the only emacs command I ever used.

alphabet

apt nuke-from-orbit emacs

Laurel

I use Visual Studio Code (or nano if I don't want to go through the hassle of setting up VSC). I feel so vanilla

Cerberus

@alphabet By the way, if you post the link the to the page, rather than the image, it will one-box just the same, but you also get the hover text.

Robusto

@jlliagre That's the most common one, IIRC.

jlliagre

02:08

@Robusto ZZ

Robusto

@jlliagre Top?

jlliagre

@Robusto Not these ones, vi's ZZ = emacs' ^X^C

Robusto

Ah. OK. I forgot all about vi. Just as well.

jlliagre

:q!

Robusto

Then there's nano. Don't forget that one.

jlliagre

02:14

Unix version 7 ed was cool.

jlliagre

02:26

"the most user-hostile editor ever created" :-)

alphabet

Plan for my new bio:

> As a male raccoon, my pronouns are he/him/his or it/it/its, with certain contexts favoring or requiring one or the other.

Cerberus

Only so few?

And why do you need him/his when you already have he?

alphabet

There seems to be an arbitrary convention of listing 3 forms for the sake of the extremely small number of people who use invented pronouns of some sort. Hence "my pronouns" instead of "my pronoun."

Of course, we really need five he/him/his/his/himself, they/them/their/theirs/themself, etc.

Dannyu NDos

That said... Am I the only one insisting that "they is" is grammatically correct when "they" is the 3rd-person gender-neutral pronoun?

alphabet

@DannyuNDos Yes. When "you" got extended to the singular, we kept saying "you are," we didn't start saying "you is."

Robusto

02:37

My pronouns are nouns that have achieved professional status.

alphabet

So "they are" is more consistent even when it's used in the singular.

Dannyu NDos

We should let "thou" revive.

Robusto

Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep”—the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.

And so to bed. Night all.

Laurel

02:57

@alphabet Pronouns are so wild. For the longest time I didn't believe that anyone wanted to be referred to as "it" in English but there are people out there like that

alphabet

@Laurel I've read some survey where they polled people who use neopronouns (things like ze or xe). 99% of them also used they/them. So the number of people who insist on pronouns other than he, she, or they is vanishingly small.

Anyway I fear that my raccoon persona is a gateway to becoming a furry

Cerberus

03:23

@alphabet Even if some titles would require mention of special genitive and accusative forms, that doesn't explain why ordinary pronouns should?

alphabet

@Cerberus Why not? English pronouns are irregular. If you happen to use some made-up set of pronouns (as a very, very small group of people do) then you do need to list all of the forms.

Cerberus

@alphabet It doesn't explain why he would require mention of its cases.

Or mention at all.

alphabet

@Cerberus It seems to be the convention to do so. Despite being kinda pointless.

Cerberus

OK.

It sounds almost like...religion! Odd honorifics.

alphabet

A chart that includes the invented ones.

Cerberus

03:28

I'm erasing that from my browser.

If I can censor my own reading, I don't need to censor anyone else.

Meanwhile, why are men so fickle?

alphabet

@Cerberus In what respect?

Cerberus

As in, failing to respond when arranging a get-together.

After expressing enthusiasm.

Oh, but I shouldn't complain.

alphabet

@Cerberus Ah. Are you a man? I can't tell people's gender over the internet.

Cerberus

Yes.

I suppose maybe women can be just as bad.

Mankind, then!

alphabet

Let's Generalize About Men - "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"

►

Cerberus

03:37

Haha, exactly.

It's fine, though.

Just very minor irritation but you happen to be here.

Fit Hot Guys Have Problems Too - 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend'

►

Linked thence.

alphabet

Indeed. Such fickleness is often a problem on apps that need not be named.

Cerberus

Quite.

But it's fine.

alphabet

Are you also One Of The Gays?

Cerberus

I might.

Hehe.

alphabet

Ah. Then you do indeed understand the problem under discussion.

Cerberus

03:44

Yeah but I'd call it less than a problem!

alphabet

How so?

Cerberus

Well, when it's nothing serious, there is no real emotional burden.

Or?

alphabet

Ah. I just meant the problem of people randomly flaking out.

Cerberus

I mean, if it's a Very Serious Romantic Date, that could be awful.

But less so when it is something semi-spontaneous.

alphabet

Well, yeah, but who has those?

I should call it more of an annoyance than a problem.

It is irksome. I am irked.

Cerberus

03:48

Yeah, irked.

@alphabet If you're open to it, why not?

I mean, that's how I met my boyfriend.

alphabet

@Cerberus I'm looking. One of these days.

I do have (waves hand) mental problems that have proven to be obstacles.

Cerberus

@alphabet No hurry.

Yeah, if these issues affect romantic dating, I understand your hesitation.

Though perhaps there are still enough people who could be a good match even with those issues?

But it will depend on the exact issues.

alphabet

Someday I will determine where boyfriends come from and how they are obtained. Such things perplex me.

Cerberus

For me, it has been gay student parties, and said application.

Though I've only had a single really long one, now.

Do you enjoy the company of more ephemeral acquaintances?

alphabet

04:06

Ah. I have sensory issues that make parties and the like difficult. And general issues with social interaction that are much less obvious in chatrooms than elsewhere.

May I propose we talk about something that doesn't make me sad?

Cerberus

Certainly.

The more ephemeral type also makes you sad?

alphabet

I just meant this topic in general.

Another time.

Anyway, I need to go to sleep. Need to wake up early while the trash cans are out. (Isn't it like 6AM where you are?)

Cerberus

Sure.

How about The Orville, have you seen it?

Yes, it is 6.

Sleep well!

CowperKettle

05:55

Word of the day: 26+6=1 en.wiktionary.org/wiki/26%2B6%3D1

CowperKettle

06:12

> The hyperactivity disorder, usually referred to as ADHD, is an independent risk factor for several common and serious mental health issues, finds research published in the open access journal BMJ Mental Health. medicalxpress.com/news/…

No wonder. It's such a mishmash, the whole idea of classifying mental disorders based on outwards symptoms only.

Cerberus

@CowperKettle Hmm that doesn't sound good.

@CowperKettle I suppose that is true.

Vikas

06:59

Did China put pressure or threatened UK to give it to them when Hong Kong was a colony? Or they just peacefully agreed to give control to China?

Xanne

07:13

Wordle 809 5/6

🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Another hard one.

Vikas

07:28

One more.

Xanne

One more whar?

Vikas

It someone is trying to prove Bharat is a better word it doesn't make sense. The comparison is invalid. It's not a good sign if they want to prioritize one over the other.

Xanne

what, that is

Vikas

@Xanne Recently they have been using India's Hindi name 'Bharat' in similar documents.

Xanne

Oh, Indonesia has? Why do they do that?

Vikas

07:31

> The reference to PM Modi as "Prime Minister of Bharat" has been made amid rumours the Centre is planning to change the country's name from India to Bharat. On Tuesday, controversy erupted after invites to a G20 summit dinner hosted at the Rashtrapati Bhawan had 'President of Bharat' inscribed on them instead of the customary 'President of India'.

@Xanne Not sure fully yet.

> The special session of the Parliament is scheduled to take place from September 18 to 22. The Modi government is likely to bring a fresh resolution during the Special Session of Parliament to rename India as Bharat, sources told Times Now. The opposition slammed the government over the dinner invite.

It seems like more serious than I thought yesterday.

Xanne

Is someone or some organization trying to get everyone upset? Who benefits from civil unrest in India?

Vikas

That I also don't know much. But 2024 is the election year. It might be politically motivated.

I think it won't cause civil unrest though.

CowperKettle

08:38

Word of the day: ground elder (In Russian: snyt' / сныть), a plant whose leaves were used in 1942-43 in preparation of food, out of a lack of vegetables.

Saint Seraphim Sarovsky reportedly spent some time eating only its leaves. I don't think one can survive for a lot of time on that, though

jlliagre

When Bharat and Bharatnesia have completed their name identity adjustment, I wonder if the backport should also include Bharatchina, West Bharaties and (Americans) Bharatians.

Amerbharatians

Dannyu NDos

09:24

Is "who" categorized as a pronoun? who/whom/whose?

Laurel

09:53

@alphabet "96% of LBGTQ youth in our sample used pronouns that are familiar to most people by using either a combination of he/him, she/her, or they/them or one of these pronoun sets exclusively"—Trevor Project

I have a bunch of answers about pronouns but this is probably the best:

42

A: Why does English use singular they instead of making up a new word for this?

People have created new gender-neutral pronouns. They are known as neopronouns. (A good list of currently used ones can be found on Wikipedia.) Furthermore, the move to create gender-neutral pronouns in English is quite old. However, none of these pronouns were ever very successful. Few people ar...

@alphabet They don't usually list all the forms tho and sometimes they only list one form. Idk what they expect, people to just act like it's a regular noun with a -self reflexive?

@alphabet Nooooo, don't be sad! Anyway I just wanted to give one suggestion because it's not fair I was asleep when this all was happening: Meetup.com

@DannyuNDos It is, but it's not a personal pronoun. Which is also a pronoun (ha, that kinda makes sense without the italics too)

CowperKettle

11:18

> The attorneys general in all 50 states are calling on Congress to look into how artificial intelligence (AI) can exploit children through pornography and put forward legislation to address it. “We are engaged in a race against time to protect the children of our country from the dangers of AI,” the prosecutors wrote in a Tuesday letter to Congressional leadership. “Indeed, the proverbial walls of the city have already been breached. Now is the time to act.”

thehill.com/policy/technology/…

jlliagre

#Worldle #593 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐🏙️🪙
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Robusto

13:10

#Worldle #593 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐🏙️🪙
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Flagged again.

🌎 Sep 6, 2023 🌍
🔥 22 | Avg. Guesses: 4.34
🟨🟥🟥🟩 = 4

globle-game.com
#globle

Wordle 809 4/6

🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟨⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle thankfully porn exists as the convenient enemy of the legislator. How does AI facilitate child porn?

@jlliagre Ed, Edd and Eddy?

@Vikas if nationalists can pretend something was their idea, they will

Robusto

@M.A.R. I think there's enough "real" porn on the Web that such a thing would just be a superfluity.

Daily Quordle 590
9️⃣6️⃣
8️⃣3️⃣
m-w.com/games/quordle/

M.A.R.

13:27

@Robusto right? If anyone uses StableDiffusion to make erotic pictures of, I dunno, some character in an anime that's also a kid, it's merely adopting tons of content already out there

And besides, I dunno how AI is making pork any more accessible

Lol autocorrect

Robusto

Leave it.

You're obviously cot in the porn/pork merger.

M.A.R.

I mean, I'm cynical because this is exactly the sort of freakout I expect from our Bearded Ones, usually followed by immediate censorship

@Laurel what the pronoun folks need is some decent writer writing a decent novel that also explores made-up pronouns. That's usually what gives some organization to these disorganized movements

Robusto

Daily Octordle #590
9️⃣3️⃣
8️⃣6️⃣
🔟4️⃣
🕛7️⃣
Score: 59

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle are you even a saint if you're not malnourished?

Robusto

@M.A.R. We have plenty of those, only sans beard.

M.A.R.

13:36

@jlliagre the United States of Bharat

Robusto

We should start calling India Bharat[suffix of your choice]. That will take the stink off of calling Native Americans Indians.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle research keeps finding and losing that it seems. I think research has ADHD

Laurel

@M.A.R. A quick search gives this list. I don't know of anything prominent, and I'm also not sure if the general public is ready for anything more than Star Trek alien neopronouns

M.A.R.

@Laurel I think only a couple of those names vaguely ring a bell, but I'm no bookworm

Laurel

@Robusto This is a pretty great idea. Bharatux? Bharatparazzi?

M.A.R.

13:42

Uh, librarian? Fantasy nerd?

Bhindurat? Bharatistan?

@Laurel oh I feel part of an inner circle now

With great power comes great responsibility

jlliagre

@M.A.R. No, ed, ex and vi. A different lineage.

Laurel

@M.A.R. No, Bharatistan has to be the name of the place, assuming we don't go with Bharatdagascar

Bharatisia to remind us that it's a country in Asia?

Vikas

It's a special nomenclature operation.

jlliagre

13:57

@Robusto We'd rather be consistent and call them Bharatians (I mean the Native Americans too).

jlliagre

14:14

Wordle 809 5/6

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Daily Quordle 590
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m-w.com/games/quordle/

CowperKettle

jlliagre

Daily Octordle #590
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Score: 73

CowperKettle

15:09

> ... when people watch videos that violate their expectations of typical event structure, they show a bias to later recall the videos as if they had ended at a predictable event boundary, exhibiting event extension or the omission of details depending on where the original video was interrupted. psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2024-03333-001.html

Those neural nets have had hallucination issues for millions of years.

Mitch

15:22

@M.A.R. Some christians do it when you're one week old just to be extra extra cautious. Some do it when you're an adult so there's some actual stuff to wash away.

I've seen lots of baptisms on TV. I've never seen a bris on TV or live. I've never seen a live baptism.

I would totally go to one if there's cake afterwards.

M.A.R.

They'd have to cleanse the cake in water too

Mitch

@CowperKettle Artificial neural nets are 'stacked activation functions with back propagation to converge to minimal error of a loss function', which is mostly matrix multiplications and hill-climbing algorithms.

Actual networks of neurons... there is -some- thresholding going on and one might model it with converging error, but the mechanism is nothing like matrix multiplication or hill climbing, and frankly it's not very well understood how the neurons work individually or together.

Just being pedantic. (artificial) neural nets are nothing like animal neural tissue.

Of course, their external behavior may have some superficial similarities.

@Laurel And people from there are called Bharawegian.

@M.A.R. OK then. Pass.

Did you also know that some Christians have this ritural where... I hesitate to bring it up because it is pretty wild and probably I would be flagged for even mentioning it out loud, but they take a cracker and some wine and...before they eat it, a shaman then does a magic spell and transforms the cracker and wine into... nah I can't say it, it's pretty horrible.

Also their religious symbol which they display as the centerpiece of everything (churches, altars, decoration, jewlery etc etc) is an ancient torture device.

It's almost like having a wedding ritual where you kick a puppy.

But worse.

I mean while the Aztecs were literally ripping out the hearts of people, at least it wasn't somebody they knew.

Curio

15:39

Guys, I'm writing some lines for my game, but as a non-native speaker, I don't know if they sound natural or weird. Would you give me a hand? I'll be really grateful to you. Many thanks for considering my request.
Here are the lines:
"It’s such a joy for me to find you here. You are the only being on Earth who decided to attend this Gay Pride at the North Pole. What a devotion. What respect towards the LGBT+ community. What an activist you are. I’m so impressed. But above all… I’m really surprised! I didn’t know you were gay!"

jlliagre

15:59

15

Q: Do Catholics believe that they are actually eating the body of Christ? Does this make them cannibals?

The Roman Catholic celebrates the Holy Eucharist in commemoration of the Last Supper in which during the celebration, Catholics believed that bread and wine are transformed into blood and body of Christ. Now. What is the stand of the Catholic Church for eating the blood and body of Christ in the ...

M.A.R.

16:22

Christianity.SE is censored.

. . .

I suppose it makes more sense than censoring Google Scholar

Laurel

16:45

We've lost something great:

5

Q: Sunsetting Winter/Summer Bash: Rationale and Next Steps

This year, we made the difficult decision to sunset Winter/Summer Bash. Winter Bash has been an annual event on Stack Exchange each December for the past decade. What are the origin and goals of Winter Bash? Winter Bash, in its original conception, was an event that was there for fun at the end o...

discussion featured winter-bash announcements

Mitch

16:56

@Laurel Summer Bash? I don't remember ever seeing that!

Laurel

You could switch the theme last year. It was like dark mode for people who like it hot

Cerberus

17:50

@M.A.R. Hilarious.

What other SE sites are censored?

M.A.R.

@Laurel shame

@Cerberus Mi Yodeya obviously. Buddhism has been on and off. I don't think there are other examples

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