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PLL

 Discussion on question by Tran Khanh:…

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PLL
Jul 22 11:20
@Lambie: A big component of second-language learning and teaching is helping people hear and make distinctions they didn’t before. It’s often tricky, but there are lots of ways that good explanations can help.
 

 Discussion on question by Coala: Cree…

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PLL
Jun 10 07:52
@Traveller: I’m pretty sure the main reason online platforms discourage booking directly with hosts is because they don’t get a cut that way. They may well claim it’s for guest safety, but they would say that, wouldn’t they.
 

 Discussion on answer by Raffzahn: Did…

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PLL
Feb 17 22:49
This answer well addresses the third fallback question, “any arguments for or against plausibility of the claim?” But the main question was “Did dates default to 1875… Is there any hard evidence?”, and so it would be helpful to be clearer upfront that the answer is making no claims regarding that. I think confusion over that is causing the dissatisfaction in comments — this comes across as implicitly giving an affirmative answer to the main question, and as such, it would need sources.
 

 Discussion on answer by Buffy: Is it …

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PLL
Oct 11, 2024 22:19
I agree with your overall argument, but I think it’s not true that “[students] are unlikely to even see such a page” — In my experience students are often just as likely to look for study resources by googling (leading potentially to the instructor’s public-facing page) as by going through the official course website.
 

 Discussion on answer by Bumble: Can i…

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PLL
Aug 7, 2024 18:49
“we would have to change our rules and make them unnecessarily fiddly for most purposes” — this is a big overstatement. The required change (annotating inference judgements with a context of variables) is a small bit of extra work upfront, but far from making things fiddlier, it simplifies many aspects of the logic down the line. It’s also required anyway for many other generalisations (e.g. multi-sorted logics). Early approaches to free logic certainly added significant complication; but modern treatments really require just a slight, and very natural, tweak.
2
 

 Discussion on answer by Anixx: Thomso…

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PLL
Aug 2, 2024 16:37
Another of the (many) problems with this claimed resolution: It presumes that the “initial state” of the lamp was “on”, and depends essentially on this assumption. But $t = 0$ is an essentially arbitrary point. The same argument looking from just $t=1$ onwards would see the initial state as “off”, and suggest the lamp should end up off. Or conversely, we might learn that at $t=0$ the lamp had only just been switched on, having previously been off (perhaps forever) — the original setup specifies nothing about the state at earlier times — so again, $t=0$ need not be the “initial state”.
 

 Discussion on answer by Dan Romik: In…

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PLL
Feb 20, 2024 03:41
The second paragraph is a very flimsy excuse for the standard. In my experience, 19 times out of 20 a dept has clear transitions from “all applications are under consideration” to “we are inviting a shortlist to interview” to “we have now filled the position(s)” (sometimes without the middle step). The department certainly has something to update the rejected candidates on. If the rejection isn’t absolutely final, this can be reflected in the wording — “We do not expect to hire any further candidates from this search” — and it is still very helpful for candidates to be informed.
 

 Discussion on answer by Jpe61: What's…

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PLL
Jan 11, 2024 22:04
@JonathanReez: Many of the real-world, big-picture competences involved (maturity, responsibility) are difficult or impossible to directly test for. Age is a useful partial proxy for them, here as in many other things in life.
 

 Discussion on question by PoliteShark…

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PLL
Oct 1, 2023 11:16
@EarlGrey: Perhaps I’d say, HR is never exactly your friend (in the sense of caring about you for your own sake) but it can be a very good ally (it will help you when your interests are aligned, and they often are).
 

 Discussion on answer by Ben: How to m…

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PLL
Sep 29, 2023 03:53
@Servaes: “No, the quote illustrates that they do consider the option.” — OP wrote that sentence as part of their delineation of how serious the complaint was. It shows OP considers dismissing the TA would be an option for some related kinds of offence (which surely we all agree with — e.g. if a TA was using strong racist slurs to students) but doesn’t at all suggest OP thinks it’s a reasonable option for this specific complaint.
 

 Discussion on question by licheng: Th…

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PLL
Sep 23, 2023 07:55
@Mari-LouA: Examples like @ mcalex’s seem completely idiomatic to me — what makes it normal is an (explicitly or implicitly) contrastive context. You can find many examples in the wild, formal and casual, by searching “or you can not”. One instance from the literary prose of a masterful stylist, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall: “There’s a feeling of power in reserve […] like the shiver you sense in the shaft of an ax when you take it into your hand. You can strike, or you can not strike, and if you choose to hold back the blow, you can still feel inside you the resonance of the omitted thing.”
 

 Discussion on answer by Divizna: dmit…

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PLL
Jul 22, 2023 08:45
@j4nd3r53n: I guess your last comment was meant in reply to LarsH’s rather than mine? I wasn’t at all suggesting that Russians pronounce Dmitrij with a vowel inserted. I am tempted to give a more detailed reply to LarsH’s comment, but since this is Music Stackexchange not Linguistics, I will refrain…
PLL
Jul 22, 2023 08:45
@j4nd3r53n: That’s part of the story, but not all. The Russian name Дмитрий Dmitrij is originally from Greek Demetrios — it lost the first vowel specifically in Russian and other East Slavic languages. So Dimitri and similar forms exist as common names in other Slavic languages; and that, together with the foreignness of the initial cluster dm-, led to Western European languages traditionally having Dimitri as a standard romanised form, which was then used also for Russians, like how Borodin was traditionally Alexander or Aléxandre rather than Aleksandr.
 

 Discussion on question by WarpPrime: …

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PLL
Jul 11, 2023 02:44
“boxes would be the easiest to manufacture” [citation needed] — you take this as given, but it depends on many variables. For centuries, glass was most easily manufactured as bottles or flasks; flat plate-glass was much harder. And boxes may have terrible structural stability — a pure box might be easy, but a box that doesn’t collapse under its own weight not so much. There are all sorts of reasons why boxes might not be the easiest form to manufacture at all.
 

 Discussion on answer by Pertti Ruismä…

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PLL
May 19, 2023 07:48
@ PerttiRuismäki: The question is a bit ambiguous — would any chessboard rolling down this hill come out with the words “bishop to e4”, or would a chessboard with a different position come out with whatever is the best move for that position? Your answer fits the former reading; I think @GCon and most other commenters/answers are assuming the latter. That seems to be the core of your disagreement here.
 

 Discussion on answer by causative: Wh…

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PLL
Apr 27, 2023 16:53
The premise of this answer seems to be that OP’s rejection of the square-cube law implies taking this different quantitative scaling law instead. But rejecting square-cube means losing quantitative consistency anyway — so I don’t see why we should read OP’s intention as implying this scaling law rather than either some other law or combination of laws, or (more simply) a traditional intuitive approach as seen in lots of folklore, literature, and art about tiny people over the centuries.
 

 Discussion on answer by nvoigt: Are v…

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PLL
Apr 8, 2023 04:51
–1 for claiming that a subjective position as an absolute truth. I personally hate voicemails, and agree with all this answer’s arguments against them — but a significant number of people clearly feel differently, and have reasons for their preferences. Pretending our anti-voicemail position is the only one does us no favours.
 

 Discussion on answer by Robert Rapple…

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PLL
Mar 20, 2023 19:20
@RobertRapplean: fair enough; but still I’d be interested to know how, and when, you’re suggesting that people started using time-measurement devices to help aim their trebuchets, or anything similar. I’ve not heard of their use in ballistics from earlier than the 18th century (similar to your other example of astrogation chronometers), and I’d be shocked if it predates Tartaglia.
PLL
Mar 20, 2023 19:20
@RobertRapplean: How on earth do you suggest that early siege engineers were using time-measurement with their trebuchets? Trebuchets date back to 4th century BC in China and 6th century AD in Europe (according to Wikipedia); the very earliest mathematical ballistics was Tartaglia in the 16th century. You certainly don’t need calculation to take advantage of the increased accuracy of trebuchets over catapults — think how a marksman just needs practice and experience to shoot much more accurately with a rifle than a shotgun.
 

 Discussion on answer by Robert Rapple…

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PLL
Dec 2, 2022 04:18
@Lemming: Indeed — some meats (e.g. pork liver) have plenty of vitamin C. If I remember right, some early arctic expeditions got enough vitamin C from their tinned meats plus fresh seal-meat to avoid scurvy. On the other hand, such a meat-rich diet would usually be difficult to sustain as a lone survivalist (depending on the ecosystem, of course).
 

 Discussion on answer by SpaceWolf1701…

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PLL
Nov 9, 2022 05:29
@AncientSwordRage: I think this answer is still a big part of the answer to your question, though: It shows that the donkey character is like Shrek or Princess Fiona, not like the gingerbread man: it comes proximately from the book, and certainly draws on a fairy-tale archetype, but there’s no reason to expect it to come from a specific fairy-tale.
 

 Discussion on answer by cag51: Gradin…

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PLL
May 9, 2022 13:38
@DikranMarsupial: You sound like you’re thinking of a very harsh version of the policy, where a student who loses a semi-colon gets an irrevocable zero. That’s not what I’m advocating — I agree, that’d be unfair. I’d treat the lost semi-colon like a student who had internet difficulties and wasn’t able to upload their assignment, or had LaTeX errors that mangled their pdf: I’d typically allow resubmissions to fix the technical issues, and (if necessary) offer help fixing them. But there is a baseline expectation of how assignments should be submitted before they can be graded.
PLL
May 9, 2022 13:38
@DikranMarsupial: Of course, it depends on the course. But when I use the criterion, I don’t view or present it as a penalty — it’s just part of the submission procedure. Just like how for a written assignment, students have to produce a readable pdf file, and upload it successfully through the course website, and until they do that, the assignment doesn’t get graded. It’s not part of the assignment content, and I’d always be forgiving for technical difficulties (allow resubmissions etc) — but it’s a reasonable baseline expectation, and not unduly burdensome to ask.
PLL
May 9, 2022 13:38
@BobBrown: “Non-compiling assignments score zero” is a reasonable and widely-used policy (I’ve been both a student and instructor in such courses) — but it needs to be very clearly specified, and with consideration that students from some backgrounds may find it a big surprise.
 

 Discussion on question by Roy: Is it …

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PLL
Apr 15, 2022 08:15
@Anton: Imaging from the perspectives of the students who are unlucky — especially repeatedly so. Wouldn’t you find it frustrating and demoralising, however much you appreciate the practical advantages?
 

 Discussion on answer by Daniel B: Wha…

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PLL
Feb 14, 2022 17:56
Thank you! To be clear, my question was meant just as curiosity, not skepticism — I was just interested to know, not doubting the authenticity at all. It’s a fascinating picture!
PLL
Feb 14, 2022 17:56
@DanielB: Can you give a source + description for that wonderful last photo? It’s too interesting to leave as a mystery!
 

 Discussion on answer by Chris: Are fu…

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PLL
Oct 2, 2021 14:49
@Peter-ReinstateMonica: The widely used 2-week quarantine isn’t intended to be an absolute guarantee against transmission — it’s a compromise, greatly reducing contagion while keeping the imposition/disruption individually and socially bearable. The few places seriously pursuing elimination strategies do impose PCR tests for all potentially exposed individuals, rather than just relying on the quarantine.
 

 Discussion on answer by Dale M: What …

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PLL
Aug 20, 2021 04:15
@gnasher729: Also, even someone who does believe gay sex is seriously immoral, may also believe that the general constitutional protection of privacy (or some other similar principle) is important enough to prevail in this specific case.
 

 Discussion on answer by Ben Crowell: …

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PLL
Jul 21, 2021 13:30
@vsz: I agree that the answer would be slightly better if written in a politically neutral way — but the only change needed is to preface the politically debatable content with “In the opinion of many Poles…” (and I’ve proposed an edit doing that). The political content itself is not irrelevant at all: whether you agree with it or not, it’s an explanation of what many Poles do believe, and of what has motivated them to leave the church, which is exactly what the question asks for.
 

 Discussion on answer by Always Confus…

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PLL
Apr 28, 2021 12:01
Being respectful and accommodating of the possibility of autism or similar situations is a good reason not to punish the student for their inappropriate expectations and tone — not to hold it against them. However, it’s not ableist at all to explain to the student why their expectations and tone are inappropriate, and to respond to their requests as promptly (no more, no less) as one does to other students.
 

 Discussion on question by Robert Spen…

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PLL
Jan 20, 2021 03:48
@VLAZ: Indeed: for illustration, a burn site is very different from a fire place!
 

 Discussion on question by Ralff: Is s…

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PLL
Jan 3, 2021 12:40
@freakish: That seems like saying “as long as the food is tasty, nobody will care about the cooking”. Questions about cooking are about how to make tasty food*; questions about whether something is good/acceptable writing are about how to make a paper easy to read and understand.
 

 Discussion on answer by Russell Borog…

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PLL
Dec 9, 2020 19:58
@J... Really, it’s #1 and #3 together. The benefit of the detour would be infinitesimal, and the cost of it would be vast.x
 

 Discussion on answer by Ash: Is it mo…

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PLL
Dec 3, 2020 17:03
@DanielR.Collins: “a large ship is feasible in OP’s universe” doesn’t in any way invalidate AlexP’s point. Optimisation is very rarely a sudden cutoff — “bigger is much more efficient up to size X, which is the maximum we can build”. It’s almost always a gradual tipping point: “bigger is more efficient until about size X; as you approach X, the negative effects of size start to become significant, and beyond X they outweigh it; the maximum we could build is somewhere beyond X, but we don’t because it’s not worth it by then”.
 

 Discussion on answer by Ash: Why does…

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PLL
Oct 23, 2020 14:43
@user4012: Most other answers aren’t “proving” their claims either — they’re presenting their claims as facts, but that doesn’t make them any more objective or authoritative than this one presenting its claims through illustrative anecdote. Anecdote is no substitute for research and statistics, but it’s not worse than nothing.
 

 Discussion on answer by jakebeal: Are…

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PLL
Oct 2, 2020 16:16
@MaciejPiechotka: I agree with you, and with this answer, that such laws are illiberal, difficult to enforce, and often counterproductive. However, as Davon’s comment points out, none of that implies they don’t exist. It would be good if the answer focused a bit more explicitly on what is the case, not just on the argument about what should be the case.
 

 Discussion on answer by Ertai87: Is i…

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Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine
Sep 2, 2020 13:15
In a situation like this, while the client probably isn’t expecting OP to be waiting on constant standby, they are still expecting OP to work on the project within the original planned timeline. So the OP still has to budget time for this project in their weekly schedule — it’s still taking extra time and overhead work for the OP to manage around. Not as much as if they were waiting on standby the whole time, but certainly some time.
 

 Discussion on answer by Meg: How can …

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Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine
Aug 15, 2020 21:53
@ArthurHavlicek: This answer isn’t prescribing what the compromise should be. The main point is to communicate your reasonable desires and concerns clearly, and then involve your partner in finding the compromise. “You eat what you want” and “you don’t have too great a burden of cooking” are both extremely reasonable desires — it’s very reasonable to expect that if he wants to eat different things, raising the burden of cooking, then he takes a more even share of that work. But it’s still important to talk to him and involve him in finding the compromise.
 

 Discussion on answer by Old Brixtonia…

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Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine
Aug 15, 2020 18:09
This answer makes a good key point, but I think it overstates it. You certainly don’t need to learn instruments to orchestrate well. But learning instruments and playing them can be very useful. It’s not essential by any means, but in combination with the other things you list, it can be a good way to get know the orchestra and the instruments — I certainly wouldn’t discourage it.
 

 Discussion on answer by O. R. Mapper:…

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Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine
Jun 4, 2020 20:34
@Dilworth: Re your first comment, “[a department] does not necessarily work together, rather is a collective of intellectuals who contribute separately” — A department like that sounds horribly dysfunctional to me. It’s essential that members of a department can work together for shared endeavours like teaching, administration, etc; and for research, it may not be essential, but it is (in my experience) much more conducive to fruitful and high-quality research if people can work together rather than in isolation.
 

 Discussion on answer by DrSheldon: Is…

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PLL
Apr 13, 2020 13:34
@Mark: If you take “payload mass” to be just the eventual actual payload — not including any of the stages — as this answer does, then the rocket equation provides a theoretical bound regardless of the staging. The “final mass” isn’t reduced by discarding stages, because they were never included in it to begin with.
PLL
Apr 13, 2020 13:34
@Mark: Multiple stages don’t get around the rocket equation. The rocket equation gives a theoretical bound on what any rocket-propelled system with a specified exhaust velocity can achieve; multi-stage rockets get closer to achieving that bound than single-stage rockets, but they’re still subject to the theoretical bound.
 

 Discussion on question by stevebaros:…

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PLL
Mar 19, 2020 14:52
@Andrew: When you describe what “believing in God” or being a “theist” means for you, you give a good and clear explanation of why it’s not just the very simplistic “100% trust in the existence of God” that some people might say it should be. That’s a reasonable and nuanced position. So isn’t it reasonable that atheists have a similarly nuanced understanding of what “atheist” and “disbelieving in god” means? It’s not a play on words — it’s very analogous to you explaining what “belief” means to you.
 

 Discussion on question by John: How t…

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PLL
Feb 16, 2020 09:49
That “happy birthday” music is ABSOLUTELY incompetently written! Besides problems already mentioned, the barlines are in the wrong place — the notes on the second beat of each bar (as written there) are the ones that should be on the first beat of the bar. This is basic middle-school music lessons level stuff.
 

 Discussion on answer by miep: What to…

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PLL
Jan 21, 2020 08:19
Thankyou for this extremely helpful checklist! Could you elaborate a bit more on step 0, finding the official translator? Do you hire the translator independently, and if so, how do you find someone suitably “official”? Or do you get the translator assigned through some government agency?
 

 Discussion on answer by quiet flyer: …

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PLL
Jul 29, 2019 18:09
@quietflyer: Interesting; looking it up, the meaning you give is listed as a US usage (which I’d not come across before) and the meaning I described is listed as the British usage.
PLL
Jul 29, 2019 18:09
@WalterMitty: At least here in the UK (not sure about the US) it’s not just highways — almost all roads have a bit of banking built into their turns. This banking is called called the camber, and is thought of as a basic aspect of road construction, and fairly common knowledge.
 

 Discussion on answer by Mori: If Swed…

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PLL
May 30, 2019 13:03
@Chronocidal: Refractivity of the atmosphere is a great point which changes the answer substantially, and which no other answers currently address! Why not make it an answer?
 

 Discussion on answer by DigitalBlade9…

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PLL
Feb 26, 2019 06:27
@UKMonkey: Depends on the company policies/practices, which can reasonably vary. Especially for small companies, assuming that in-house options are always more secure than using third-party services can be the fastest way to get your data lost or stolen.