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Bradd Szonye

 The Awkward Silence

Welcome to The Awkward Silence! Here, you can find the general...
3
Bradd Szonye
Aug 22, 2017 00:46
later!
Bradd Szonye
Aug 22, 2017 00:37
my favorite thing is when I see "stop being so sensitive" coming from some dude whose avatar is a screencap of some babe from GoT/Buffy/Andromeda/Dollhouse or other source of popular nerd cheesecake
Bradd Szonye
Aug 22, 2017 00:34
especially if the post hits the megacollider
Bradd Szonye
Aug 22, 2017 00:34
I have seen the same kind of thing on Workplace, where somebody has problems with a racist/sexist/horrible coworker, and they get some good advice, but they also get advice to stop being so sensitive, rationalizing horrible behavior, etc.
Bradd Szonye
Aug 22, 2017 00:33
I hope so.
Bradd Szonye
Aug 22, 2017 00:27
heh, is Denmark where red herring comes from? or just rotten things?
Bradd Szonye
Aug 22, 2017 00:24
like the "Check your Privilege" post, which is full of oppressive jargon (social justice warrior, blue pill, etc.) and undermining the vulnerable
Bradd Szonye
Aug 22, 2017 00:21
There's another group, which I also see attracted to certain topics on Workplace and Academia, that seems devoted to maintaining certain problematic social constructs
Bradd Szonye
Aug 21, 2017 23:56
my first impression so far is that this site is “Interpersonal Skills, as interpreted by the murkier corners of Reddit”
Bradd Szonye
Aug 21, 2017 23:56
I don’t think I have ever raised as many flags in my first week on a site, as on this one :(
 

 Discussion on question by Kaito Kid: …

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Bradd Szonye
Jul 13, 2017 04:41
@whrrgarbl How was your transcript in play at the interview stage? I can’t recall whether I’ve ever even had an employer request a transcript, but if they did it was part of background checks after the job offer.
 

 Discussion on answer by user4012: Why…

Imported from a comment discussion on politics.stackexchange.c...
Bradd Szonye
Jun 13, 2017 08:17
Yeah, that's what anti-Semites say too.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 13, 2017 08:17
You’re kidding yourself if you don’t recognize that anti-Muslim sentiment is deeply enmeshed with anti-Arabic, anti-African, and anti-Asian racism. Anti-Semitism is likewise generally accepted as racist even though Judaism the religion is not itself a race.
 

 Discussion on question by code ninja:…

Imported from a comment discussion on travel.stackexchange.com...
Bradd Szonye
Mar 28, 2017 07:34
There are roads in California where you can drive 111mph for hours with no other cars in sight, although some of them run through speed traps, as the OP discovered. California is a big place. It’s 300 miles from SF to LA and much of it desert.
 

 Discussion on question by Kflo: How t…

Imported from a comment discussion on academia.stackexchange.c...
Bradd Szonye
Mar 14, 2017 23:17
That’s what I mean, you seem to be shouting down everyone who feels uncomfortable with the potential sexism of the situation, while exhibiting some evidence of casual sexism yourself. Check your privilege maybe?
Bradd Szonye
Mar 14, 2017 22:17
@LightnessRacesinOrbit You protest a bit much about sexism for a dude using a pseudonym and a beautiful woman’s portrait as your avatar
 

 Discussion on answer by tchrist: Why …

Imported from a comment discussion on english.stackexchange.co...
Bradd Szonye
Feb 26, 2017 16:29
Likewise, and fascinating point about writer/rider there. I realized after giving unto/into as an example that it depends on sentence stress: some dialects merge them into /ənˈtu/ [nˈtʰʉ] but in mine the u in unto remains unreduced /ʌnˈtu/ [ɐnˈtʰʉ]. (Actually, because the abbot/rabbit merger is incomplete in my dialect, into sometimes also remains unreduced instead of becoming a syllabic n.)
Bradd Szonye
Feb 26, 2017 16:29
And a near-minimal pair: medium/median. (I wonder whether the vowels are more distinct in nasal or syllabic consonant pairs? Also, my particular Detroit dialect might have more minimal pairs than General American though. We also distinguish the diphthongs in writer/rider through Canadian raising, for example.) Anyway, I agree with your general point that phonetics and phonemics are different, I just find it jarring to see /ɐ/ merged with /ə/, especially after learning a bit of French.
Bradd Szonye
Feb 26, 2017 16:29
Minimal pairs: unto/into, undoer/endure
Bradd Szonye
Feb 26, 2017 16:29
Aha, thanks! In my dialect, the /ə/ in the is phonetically distinct from the /ɐ/ in cut (often written /ʌ/ for historical reasons). The distinction is mostly unstressed versus stressed but the u is also a bit lower than the e.
Bradd Szonye
Feb 26, 2017 16:29
Is that high+back+lax vowel the u in book or buck? And where is the other u?
 

 Discussion on question by Lembik: Why…

Imported from a comment discussion on academia.stackexchange.c...
Bradd Szonye
Feb 18, 2017 01:54
As written, the question still appears to be asking us to rationalize discrimination against disabled people, rather than solving a problem in academia.
 

 The Practice Room

General discussion for music.stackexchange.com
2
Bradd Szonye
Feb 14, 2017 02:51
Hey howdy
Bradd Szonye
Jan 10, 2017 02:02
And that’s not even getting into trills. My impression is that Mozart would’ve expected a trill to begin on the upper note and end with a turn. But the trill in “Alla Turca” is surrounded by figures that look redundant with those conventions.
Bradd Szonye
Jan 10, 2017 01:58
Sometimes, musical notation is just ambiguous. Like, I started learning “Alla Turca” recently. It’s full of appogiaturas. Half of them are to indicate a passing tone that falls on the beat, while the other half indicate grace notes that fall before the beat. Normally I’d expect the latter to be written as accaciaturas, but nope not here. Maybe there’s a reason for it, maybe it’s just standard notation from an older era. Maybe I should ask a question about it?
 

 Discussion on question by Anon: I've …

Imported from a comment discussion on workplace.stackexchange....
Bradd Szonye
Feb 11, 2017 05:32
Good answer to the question, by the way!
Bradd Szonye
Feb 11, 2017 05:30
@Erik When somebody acts far enough out of your social norms, you don’t just say, “Hey man that’s out of line.” The OP is so insensitive to social and workplace norms and the coworkers’ feelings that I don’t fully trust the account of events. I suspect there was a moment of shock, or perhaps just “back away slowly from the crazy dude and ignore him from now on.”
 

 Discussion on question by Super Query…

Imported from a comment discussion on music.stackexchange.com/...
Bradd Szonye
Jan 8, 2017 23:10
The piano’s dynamics vary quite a bit too (thus the name pianoforte) but it still has the timbre of a hammer hitting a string, just louder. Compare that to the timbral range of a violin, which has entirely different timbre with and without bow, or even between legato, tremolo, and spiccato.
Bradd Szonye
Jan 8, 2017 23:10
The piano has an especially wide range of pitch but a very limited range of timbre, so I am really not sure what you mean by your question.
 

 Discussion on question by Dave Farrin…

Imported from a comment discussion on parenting.stackexchange....
Bradd Szonye
Dec 13, 2016 02:34
It’s a very, very bad idea for somebody to cross state or international borders to have sex with a minor in California, doubly so if the other girl’s parents disapprove.
Bradd Szonye
Dec 13, 2016 02:33
Despite having a reputation for being sexually liberal, California is quite uptight about the age of consent, which is 18 here. As others have noted, there is no close-in-age exception here unless both parties are under 18, and even then it’s still a criminal offense, just a lesser one.
 

 Discussion on answer by Iszi: How to …

Imported from a comment discussion on security.stackexchange.c...
Bradd Szonye
Jun 19, 2015 10:22
@Ajedi32 On some phone networks, the call doesn’t fully disconnect until both parties hang up, which thieves have occasionally used for impersonation in exactly this way.
 

 Discussion on answer by doppelgreener…

Imported from a comment discussion on rpg.stackexchange.com/qu...
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:25
So I think it’s good advice to say, you don’t need to go that far to get a good taste of sandboxing.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:24
Based on some of his remarks (“If I stick to the sandbox GMing advice I've read before and simply portray the world as it is, this will be a TPK”), I don’t think he’s a hardcore sandboxer either, but instead just trying it on for fit.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:22
One other thing that might be helpful in answering this question is that the DM sounds like he has zero confidence that his players want a hardcore sandbox.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:21
I generally like the moderation on RPG.SE but occasionally it rubs me the wrong way by coming across as too suppressive.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:20
@doppelgreener Yeah and that’s cool. On first read I took that as ”and so Bradd should stop talking” but I may be reading too much into that.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:17
And I don’t really understand the desire to shut down that conversation.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:16
In particular, I wanted to affirm that he had grounds for his reading of what “sandbox” means, and that it was more than just what moderators here were telling him it must mean.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:15
@mxyzplk Actually, I wanted to have a conversation with doppelgreener about it, as he might appreciate a different perspective.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:14
(Even the widest wide-open sandbox games like Elder Scrolls tend to tailor the game to the player’s actions and abilities.)
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:13
@doppelgreener Right. For example, I would expect a lot of gamers to use “sandbox” in the way that video games do, which is a bit different from that answer.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:12
Agreed.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:11
But you don’t need strict adherence to revealed-world simulationism to respect the guy’s main constraint.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:10
Although it could probably be improved in that respect.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:10
He has said that his main concerns are undermining player agency, and the answer seems sensitive to that.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:09
The DM hasn’t said that he’s playing “super hardcore sandboxer,” and given how very few people do, I don’t see it as a frame challenge to assume that he isn’t.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:07
I don’t however see him saying that he is committed to my-guying his plans though.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:06
In the question under discussion, I do see the GM not wanting to dissuade his players from a particular course of action, as he doesn’t want to undermine agency.
Bradd Szonye
Jun 16, 2015 23:06
I’m not sure what accepted answer you’re referring to, but it doesn’t establish a one true way of playing sandbox for anybody.