6061 pts · September 7, 2018
I would argue no, tho it can take some time and effort to find a compatible group if that's what you're looking for. I can only speak to FFXIV, not WoW, but although strategy guides do appear fairly shortly after the raid releases, you can still find groups who explicitly opt for blind prog. (Also, FFXIV doesn't do public test realms like WoW does, so early strategy guides are written by or based on week-1 raiders who _have_ to go in blind.)
[citation needed]The story I've always heard is that it was built as an observation tower for the 1962 World's Fair; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Needle
Astroturfing is artificial grassroots: on the surface, it looks like genuine public opinion, but if you dig deeper it turns out to be influenced/encouraged/bankrolled by powerful figures who have an agenda of their own but want to make it look like it's not just them talking.
Friendly reminder that the plural of anecdote is not data.
The relevant scene from the SkyOne TV adaptation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPS5Yw_YsHA
#5 Yes, Pratchett did write this, in Hogfather. However, context is crucial. Immediately after the quote: "'Yes, but people have *got* to believe that, or what's the *point*--' 'MY POINT EXACTLY.'" And a bit later on: "YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY *BECOME*?" In context, the quote is a whole lot more hopeful than it appears on its own. (Conversation between Death, in all caps and in the original quote, and his granddaughter Susan.)
"Alum" is not original Latin, neuter or otherwise; it's just a modern abbreviation of alumnus/alumna that has the added convenience of being gender-neutral, since it's lost the original gender marker. The original Latin word alumnus is an adjective often used as a noun; the (nominative) neuter forms were alumnum in the singular and alumna in the plural. With very rare exceptions, nominative/accusative neuter plurals always end in -a; -es is a M/F 3rd-declension plural ending.
I mean, given how well the northern hemisphere countries have done at running things, I’m not sure I see a downside.
While I normally follow the principle of "never attributing to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence," I suspect that there's a very high chance that, if the posts are legit, Musk deliberately misspelled Mamdani's name as an attack. It's about as sophisticated and mature an attack as something I'd expect to hear from a 2nd-grader, but that's generally consistent with Musk's behavior.
Indeed, that was part of the simplification; I didn't really feel like getting into that in a 500-character text box. :-D But you're absolutely right, religious morality is certainly a component of this.
It's the dark side of the Protestant work ethic, which says, roughly, that self-reliance and hard work lead to success. (Yes, I'm oversimplifying.) Sounds good, but that's equivalent to saying that if you haven't succeeded, you must therefore be lazy and mooch off of everyone else. (Pls note: not my opinion.) Some people find this *very* attractive, as they can use it to justify having no obligations to the less well-off, as their suffering is clearly their own fault.
True, but how many people are going to follow the link?
Indeed! It's still important to figure out what happened, but at least he & his family are safe.
Hey, @OP, could you update the post with a note letting folks know that he and his family were able to depart safely? https://bsky.app/profile/mark-bray.bsky.social/post/3m2sgs7rmek2z I don't think a comment alone is going to have enough visibility. (Full disclosure: I find the possibility that someone abused their power to cancel his family's reservations quite frightening, but folks should know the whole story before reacting.)
Also worth pointing out that there are valid critiques of his work, and yes, left-wing authoritarianism also exists, though it is not the current problem in the US. 2/2
It's not that Americans hate being told what to do. It's that many of us hate being told what to do by the Wrong Sort of Person but will fight for the right to be told what to do by the Right Sort of Person. The problem isn't limited to Americans, of course; you can find this kind of person elsewhere as well. Bob Altemeyer did a lot of research on this a while back; look up "right-wing authoritarianism." 1/
Alternative take: Vance knows it's satire, he's just framing it as mimicry because that's what his base wants to hear. IOW, he's lying through his teeth, but that's nothing new.
I think that's the point? AFAICT, a lot of Trump's supporters are motivated primarily by a desire to be as nasty as possible to anyone who isn't like them.
I'm curious: how is this different from the thing someone at IBM(?) said several decades ago, about how computers cannot be held accountable, therefore they must not be permitted to make decisions with consequences? Identifying cancerous cells has consequences, but if the pigeon/AI is acting in an advisory role, or doing initial screenings that a human later checks, those consequences are much less severe. Evaluating hiring candidates, tho, unambiguously has consequences.
I like Pratchett's take on this from Hogfather. I'm paraphrasing, but as Death says to Susan, "Humans need to believe in things that aren't true [like justice and mercy]. How else can they become?"
I'd argue that learning _any_ foreign language is going to teach skills that make it easier to think systematically about English. Latin is great, and I'm glad I studied it, but I don't think it's particularly special in this respect, with the possible exception of the substantial amount of Latinate and Latin-influenced vocabulary that English has adopted, particularly in specialist fields.
Man, that makes my vocal cords hurt just listening to him scream. I'd be hoarse for days if I did that.
Ah! Makes perfect sense; thanks for the info!
What's the purpose of the metal object they insert into the open bunghole before rolling the barrel? (Genuine question, pls.)
At a guess? If the inside of the car is hotter than the outside temperature, it'll work, but it'll only cool the car down as far as the outside temp. Beyond that you'll need to wait for the AC.
That's fair, but there could also be a lot of stress and anxiety over the ability to provide for oneself independent of the feelings of self worth. I guess my point is that I suspect that the causes of drug use are more complicated than the original video makes it sound, although the video's aim of getting people to look past the moralizing explanation ("oh, they do drugs, they must be a Bad Person") is a necessary first step to working with that complexity.
Very ready to admit that the chemical is a symptom and not the problem itself. Not convinced that discomfort with one's own self is always the underlying cause, however. In particular, this doesn't seem to fully explain why deaths of despair (ODs, suicides) have spiked in recent decades among communities facing substantial economic hardship (loss of jobs & industries, etc.).
This is correct. While there’s a lot of political BS said about the debt (usually people trying to weaponize it to support their own agendas), the US Govt has, in a very real sense, borrowed money from people, in the form of issuing bonds, and the obligation to repay that debt is real.
Some critical thinking might be useful here. Having trouble falling asleep can lead to feeling tired all the time; insomnia has many causes. Are the same people complaining about being constantly hungry and having acid reflux, or are different people suffering from different conditions? Are you maybe taking "nothing gets accomplished" a little too literally?
Yeah, so that 3rd word is apparently actually 'pharaten', so we conveniently dropped a vowel. Also, is that leading 'ph' pronounced as 'f' or as an aspirated 'p' in Hindi? The corresponding Devanagari letter फ was an aspirated P in classical Sanskrit, but that was ~2500 yrs ago, and I'm not sure whether/how pronunciation and orthography have changed since.
I would argue no, tho it can take some time and effort to find a compatible group if that's what you're looking for. I can only speak to FFXIV, not WoW, but although strategy guides do appear fairly shortly after the raid releases, you can still find groups who explicitly opt for blind prog. (Also, FFXIV doesn't do public test realms like WoW does, so early strategy guides are written by or based on week-1 raiders who _have_ to go in blind.)
[citation needed]
The story I've always heard is that it was built as an observation tower for the 1962 World's Fair; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Needle
Astroturfing is artificial grassroots: on the surface, it looks like genuine public opinion, but if you dig deeper it turns out to be influenced/encouraged/bankrolled by powerful figures who have an agenda of their own but want to make it look like it's not just them talking.
Friendly reminder that the plural of anecdote is not data.
The relevant scene from the SkyOne TV adaptation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPS5Yw_YsHA
#5 Yes, Pratchett did write this, in Hogfather. However, context is crucial. Immediately after the quote: "'Yes, but people have *got* to believe that, or what's the *point*--' 'MY POINT EXACTLY.'" And a bit later on: "YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY *BECOME*?" In context, the quote is a whole lot more hopeful than it appears on its own. (Conversation between Death, in all caps and in the original quote, and his granddaughter Susan.)
"Alum" is not original Latin, neuter or otherwise; it's just a modern abbreviation of alumnus/alumna that has the added convenience of being gender-neutral, since it's lost the original gender marker. The original Latin word alumnus is an adjective often used as a noun; the (nominative) neuter forms were alumnum in the singular and alumna in the plural. With very rare exceptions, nominative/accusative neuter plurals always end in -a; -es is a M/F 3rd-declension plural ending.
I mean, given how well the northern hemisphere countries have done at running things, I’m not sure I see a downside.
While I normally follow the principle of "never attributing to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence," I suspect that there's a very high chance that, if the posts are legit, Musk deliberately misspelled Mamdani's name as an attack. It's about as sophisticated and mature an attack as something I'd expect to hear from a 2nd-grader, but that's generally consistent with Musk's behavior.
Indeed, that was part of the simplification; I didn't really feel like getting into that in a 500-character text box. :-D But you're absolutely right, religious morality is certainly a component of this.
It's the dark side of the Protestant work ethic, which says, roughly, that self-reliance and hard work lead to success. (Yes, I'm oversimplifying.) Sounds good, but that's equivalent to saying that if you haven't succeeded, you must therefore be lazy and mooch off of everyone else. (Pls note: not my opinion.) Some people find this *very* attractive, as they can use it to justify having no obligations to the less well-off, as their suffering is clearly their own fault.
True, but how many people are going to follow the link?
Indeed! It's still important to figure out what happened, but at least he & his family are safe.
Hey, @OP, could you update the post with a note letting folks know that he and his family were able to depart safely? https://bsky.app/profile/mark-bray.bsky.social/post/3m2sgs7rmek2z I don't think a comment alone is going to have enough visibility. (Full disclosure: I find the possibility that someone abused their power to cancel his family's reservations quite frightening, but folks should know the whole story before reacting.)
Also worth pointing out that there are valid critiques of his work, and yes, left-wing authoritarianism also exists, though it is not the current problem in the US. 2/2
It's not that Americans hate being told what to do. It's that many of us hate being told what to do by the Wrong Sort of Person but will fight for the right to be told what to do by the Right Sort of Person. The problem isn't limited to Americans, of course; you can find this kind of person elsewhere as well. Bob Altemeyer did a lot of research on this a while back; look up "right-wing authoritarianism." 1/
Alternative take: Vance knows it's satire, he's just framing it as mimicry because that's what his base wants to hear. IOW, he's lying through his teeth, but that's nothing new.
I think that's the point? AFAICT, a lot of Trump's supporters are motivated primarily by a desire to be as nasty as possible to anyone who isn't like them.
I'm curious: how is this different from the thing someone at IBM(?) said several decades ago, about how computers cannot be held accountable, therefore they must not be permitted to make decisions with consequences? Identifying cancerous cells has consequences, but if the pigeon/AI is acting in an advisory role, or doing initial screenings that a human later checks, those consequences are much less severe. Evaluating hiring candidates, tho, unambiguously has consequences.
I like Pratchett's take on this from Hogfather. I'm paraphrasing, but as Death says to Susan, "Humans need to believe in things that aren't true [like justice and mercy]. How else can they become?"
I'd argue that learning _any_ foreign language is going to teach skills that make it easier to think systematically about English. Latin is great, and I'm glad I studied it, but I don't think it's particularly special in this respect, with the possible exception of the substantial amount of Latinate and Latin-influenced vocabulary that English has adopted, particularly in specialist fields.
Man, that makes my vocal cords hurt just listening to him scream. I'd be hoarse for days if I did that.
Ah! Makes perfect sense; thanks for the info!
What's the purpose of the metal object they insert into the open bunghole before rolling the barrel? (Genuine question, pls.)
At a guess? If the inside of the car is hotter than the outside temperature, it'll work, but it'll only cool the car down as far as the outside temp. Beyond that you'll need to wait for the AC.
That's fair, but there could also be a lot of stress and anxiety over the ability to provide for oneself independent of the feelings of self worth. I guess my point is that I suspect that the causes of drug use are more complicated than the original video makes it sound, although the video's aim of getting people to look past the moralizing explanation ("oh, they do drugs, they must be a Bad Person") is a necessary first step to working with that complexity.
Very ready to admit that the chemical is a symptom and not the problem itself. Not convinced that discomfort with one's own self is always the underlying cause, however. In particular, this doesn't seem to fully explain why deaths of despair (ODs, suicides) have spiked in recent decades among communities facing substantial economic hardship (loss of jobs & industries, etc.).
This is correct. While there’s a lot of political BS said about the debt (usually people trying to weaponize it to support their own agendas), the US Govt has, in a very real sense, borrowed money from people, in the form of issuing bonds, and the obligation to repay that debt is real.
Some critical thinking might be useful here. Having trouble falling asleep can lead to feeling tired all the time; insomnia has many causes. Are the same people complaining about being constantly hungry and having acid reflux, or are different people suffering from different conditions? Are you maybe taking "nothing gets accomplished" a little too literally?
Yeah, so that 3rd word is apparently actually 'pharaten', so we conveniently dropped a vowel. Also, is that leading 'ph' pronounced as 'f' or as an aspirated 'p' in Hindi? The corresponding Devanagari letter फ was an aspirated P in classical Sanskrit, but that was ~2500 yrs ago, and I'm not sure whether/how pronunciation and orthography have changed since.