FriendOfDeSoto

@FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In languages which use complex written characters (such as Chinese's logographs), is there an equivalent to English's "text speak" shorthand?⁩ ⁨⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s difficult 2 transpose what u can do in English just 2 other languages written in the Latin alphabet for centuries. English has a remarkable and quite confusing amount of homophones that is absent from other indoeuropean languages. The apostrophe as a letter skipped marker is fairly universal. But beyond that it’s already a different ball game in other more similar languages. 2 to too, 4 for, r u - that’s very English only.

  Simplified Chinese characters are a hint at what they did on the Chinese mainland to cut down on writing time. Beyond that (and I don’t speak the language so 🧂) there are single character abbreviations for countries. 美国 is America and 美 suffices as shorthand, which means beauty otherwise. Your example phrase is “R u coming 2nite?” In English we use the present progressive tense here, which doesn’t exist like that in Mandarin. It would be phrased as “Come tonight?” The question mark could be replaced with the character that functions as a question marker by itself. And I think you can do this in 3-4 characters and I think they might just beat you to it in a bilingual texting competition in terms of speed.

  The mainland population may also be more adept to obfuscate their speech especially online. So similarly pronounced character combinations take over the meaning of a term the censors are actively looking for.

  The Japanese like shortening stuff, mostly loanwords, to unrecognizable words. The word for part time work is アルバイト (arubaito) taken from the German for work (Arbeit). Cool kids have whittled it down to baito. A remote control has become a リモコン (rimokon) in normal parlance. Overly long Chinese character combos like 自動販売機 for a vending machine get shortened to 自販機 dropping characters that can be inferred (if you speak it).

  I also want to add that text speak is heavily influenced by restrictions on text length and charges for each text. Non Latin script characters take up more than one Latin character per Chinese character for instance. It’s probably 5+ in decoding per character. So you reach 160 letters quite quickly and that’s why SMS in China was very cheap and quickly adopted a system where message threads would be sent and put back together on the recipient’s phone. In Japan they used email from the start, even in dumb phone T9 texting days. They had no Twitter-like restrictions on text length so they didn’t need to be shorter than what their thumbs could successfully fumble together.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Found a 2009 YouTube video about a green, healthy looking fir tree growing inside a man's lung. CNN video shows a surgeon and the patient being interviewed.. was it a hoax?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I think what you’re not picking up on is the whole Ms. Moos vibe on CNN. She is basically satire. She always jumps on the most outrageous stories and narrates them in that annoying pseudo journalistic voice and has done for decades. The stories may be actually true but you should never assume that they are. They are a knock knock joke for people who watch 24h news channels.

  I don’t know anything about this case more than having watched the CNN video. Mr. Fir-lung and his doctor needn’t be actors. He could’ve really had it in his lung but played up the “haha, maybe I breathed in a seed” line because it got him attention on TV and paid interviews. And he doesn’t mention how he was in a landslide being chased by a bear 5 years ago and that’s when he accidentally inhaled the debris. The doctor may just have mentioned in a subordinate clause that it looked as if the sprig was growing in the lung but never actually claimed it did. Or he also believes in homeopathy. Or he also got paid for the interview. There are a thousand explanations why we get presented the story like that. But the biggest red flag remains that Jeanne Moos was reporting on it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Are you getting inundated with JFK was anti Israel posits and hot takes? Because I sure aren’t.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why doesn't the US government just tax illegal immigrants a little bit more than the Average american? Then use those funds to fix infastructure or a new WPA of the 21st century?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  If illegal immigrants were possible to be identified easily by the IRS, ICE would have taken them over already.

  The problem is two-fold. A lot of the immigrants who fall into this “illegal” category are not on the books, they get a brown envelope, and pay little to no taxes at all. And the more “sophisticated” ones look just like your average American. So if you taxed them more, you’d be affecting a lot of the “legal” population as well.

  Also, the American economy is full of jobs that no “non-deportable” would like to do. Agricultural jobs come to mind. The current regime’s idea of eradicating all illegal immigrants runs contrary to a lot of economic interests (and I read that they’ve done a lot less deporting on the farms recently. Curious …) Even if you could just tax them more, you’d still mess with those interests as well.

  And while I’m not a tax lawyer, I’m gonna go out in a limb here and say it’s not going to be easy to make a tax law like that that isn’t going to be heavily scrutinized in the courts because it is unabashedly discriminatory.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨US Politicians praying inside the House of Representatives⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s because these are people with the power to do more than thoughts and prayers. But they just stick with that while also taking health care off veterans and giving tax breaks to the rich.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a term for something like Imposter Syndrome, but instead feeling like it’s other people conspiring to give you an illusory taste of success with intent to pull it away and screw you over?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Gaslighting

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the canonical version of STVI?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Who thought it is a good idea to let George Lucas edit Trek? It’s like an Odo shot first kind of situation. And I think Odo never used a phaser.

  Is this is the guy that Scotty shoots in the end? If so, I’ve only ever seen the version with that scene and the bad Mission: Impossible face mask reveal. And I owned this movie as a VHS bought in Europe as part of a set released before VII came out…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the canonical version of STVI?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  II, IV, and VI are all worth a watch. They are a good movie, an entertaining movie, and a surprisingly good movie respectively.

  I’ll watch the odd numbered ones as well but I’m a fan and I know I is too long, III is mostly not good, and I enjoy V for its craziness.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If government hackers can infiltrate big companies, why not hack normal people?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the Sony hack is not a great example because there is a very good chance it was more politically motivated than financially. It’s one of those cases where we might never know but there is a good chance it was orchestrated by North Korea in response to a Sony movie that made Kim III not look very divine. NK is most likely connected to other hacks as well that were really just a way to get hard currency/to evade sanctions.

  Effort and reward are like supply and demand. If I want to steal your credit card number to go shopping, it might take me a long time to get to it. And then it turns out there is only $500 left on it. Too much effort for not enough reward. That’s why phishing, Nigerian princes, texted IRS/DMV fines, missed FedEx deliveries, and all that jazz happens. Low effort to throw a net out and then catch the dumbest of the fish. If you are a person of interest to me though the math if different. Maybe I’m a stalker (look behind you, I’m there right now). Or maybe horny me is looking for your (perfectly legal) sexting thread. Or you’re a pedo, a socialist, a cult leader, or all of the above. Private people get hacked. But it rarely makes a splash in the news like the Sony hack.

  Also, hacker ≠ hacker. There are good guys who hack stuff to show what needs fixing or to hold people to account. There are bad guys who do it for money or because they like it. There are those with one foot on either side of that fence. Motivations differ wildly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is this clock icon in my phone status bar?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you let your network set the time or did you do it manually? Could be a hint that you’re off by a minute or so (considering you’ve checked all the other reasonable things already).

  Any other apps installed that may want to set alarms? Maybe a sideload? Calendar app you’ve tried and not uninstalled?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  If you want you get a good idea about the complexity, there is a sci-fi novel called “Three Body Problem” by Liu Cixin. It lays out a situation with 3 suns and it’s very messy (not a spoiler).

  The details are important. How big are the suns, how do they revolve around each other? I’m not going to pretend to be able to do the math if I had the details. But it throws into question if life on earth would have developed at all. And it it did it would be very different. Our planet has won the lottery. It got an atmosphere, is far enough from the sun but not too far away to benefit from its energy. A stable orbit gives us four seasons. A lot of life on this planet has developed around that and around one moon giving us predictable tides. All of that would be messed up, a livable earth would probably need to be further out from the bi-suns. The slow process of evolution likes relative stability. Two suns pulling on everything would provide the opposite. That’s why I would lean towards no life actually. Greater mass at the center of the bisolar system would also raise the odds of getting hit by a rock. The moons might be slamming into each other and then the planet.

  What I’m saying is it’s not a good idea…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨To what extent has Smartphones replaced Computers? Has Smartphones replaced Computers for you or people you know? Will Phones and Computers eventually merge into one device?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I see from my own behavior that more and more stuff is done on my cell phone and less stuff on a PC. I think eventually everything will be merged into a single device. But I wouldn’t bet on the form factor yet. Whether it will be AR/VR headsets or a form of tablet or a tech yet to amaze us - IDK.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I get scared of a girl who approached me⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think you did anything wrong. I hate people striking up a conversation like that as well.

  You can train yourself not to panic, deep breaths, focusing on something in the middle distance, closing your eyes, counting to ten - whatever works for you. And then you can ride a situation like this out. Either by masking your discomfort or giving very curt replies. You can also just say “I’m very sorry, I’m not in the mood for a chat.” But you mustn’t worry that you made an extrovert sad. She’ll get over it and maybe learn from this experience as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What will be the future of "Social Media Investigations"? Is every country gonna start checking for social media posts before permitting entry?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I fear this has the potential of becoming the copied standard unfortunately. Fear of terrorism is like think of the children. All it will do is force people who need visas into having squeaky clean innocuous public profiles and operating anonymous accounts with actual opinions. Terrorists will do the same. So this privacy infringement will only catch really dumb people.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is flirting redundant?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, it isn’t. They may already like you but how will they know you care if you don’t offer an array of easy to misunderstand signals?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft is is bed with Google now, in a worse, more OS-integrated way than Mozilla was. This timeline sucks.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If these two companies are in bed with each other, they are hate-fucking each other though. Carnal pleasure but no love lost.

  I don’t find this that infuriating. And you have choices to run a different browser. Granted, most of them are chromium based. Edge’s only use case is to download a Firefox fork and/or a better chromium that is neither Edge nor Chrome.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the progress pride flag so poorly designed (especially the intersex progress pride flag)? Will it be redesigned?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You are judging work by somebody who doesn’t feel compelled to follow guidelines made by other people with those very same guidelines. Those other people looked much more closely at flags for geographical entities, not movements, to come up with their guidelines. No one is required to follow them or retroactively abide by them. They are a great style guide but not the law.

  Every flag serves a purpose. This flag’s purpose is to show representation by color and design for everyone in the community. It’s was the point to be busy.

  Why don’t they just stick with the rainbow flag? Because the idea of the rainbow encompassing everyone was made at a time when gay and lesbians came out with pride but many of the letters that abbreviate that community today were still marginalized more harshly, maybe even within homosexual circles. They weren’t all suddenly anthropists and free from discriminatory points of view. Development of ideas and communities takes time. And that’s why an artist took ideas from many different flags that were created over time and combined them into one. It is eye catchy and instantly recognizable, even at a medium distance still.

  I don’t find the result aesthetically pleasing either. But I recognize a) that wasn’t the point of it and b) I’m not a member of the LGBTQ+ community. If from within that community a movement rises to change the flag into something else, by all means. Other than that my design opinions - and I suspect many other ones in this thread - are largely academic and frankly irrelevant.

  Good flag bad flag is not the gospel. Take it as a starting point for new designs but don’t scrutinize all existing flags by it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you think early humans survived without water bottles? Did they just live next to water sources all the time?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Dehydration is but a secondary concern as you’re being chased by a sabertooth tiger.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure what point that is. My inkling is that OP doesn’t live in the States.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, you’re not overreacting. You know you and you can point at serious consequences now. Keep the license valid if you can - you don’t know what life still has in store for you and you want to keep your options open. But by all means toss the keys to somebody else.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think both Apple and fictitious closed Android would be way more interchangeable and data from within would be more portable. Developers would get more of a cut. The saving grace for Google in the real world is that they can do Apple shenanigans while pointing at the open-source availability of Android and not get dumped in hotter antitrust water. If we only had two OSs and both were closed especially regulators in Europe would hit both of them much harder. And like tougher environmental restrictions on cars became the de facto US standard for everyone, the forced equal playing field (the EU guys LOVE an equal playing field) would over time make shit better for all users everywhere.

  If there was no Android I think we would have a long list of failed attempts to build one that all fail because every company wanted to build their own walled gardens, and didn’t get enough traction. iOS probably would have succeeded thanks to Apple marketing budgets and their somewhat cultish follower base. But I suspect it would have followed more the initial Steve Jobs idea of doing most stuff in browser; the app revolution wouldn’t have happened. So there would be a big iOS share and then the lower 30% or so would be fractured into other walled gardens for poor people. One result of that would be an earlier agreement on a RCS-like texting solution and not just in the States but everywhere. Because more players would have a stake in seamless communication because stuff like WhatsApp (a reaction to high texting rates, mostly in Europe) and blue/green bubblr iMessage did not happen.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We know nothing about your kid. We don’t know if he’s an angel or a little shit.

  Without knowing more I think the bedtime rules are alright. Structure is good. If he doesn’t throw bucketloads of ice water on him still snoozing 6:01I don’t see a huge problem.

  As for smartphone and screen time, every kid is different. These restrictions strike me more as he’s been a little shit punitive. If he’s never known different and doesn’t mercilessly gets teased for it in school, it might be okay. Our opinion doesn’t really matter as much as yours and you asked the question. So I’m sensing you may be dissatisfied with both these rules and perhaps their unilateral implementation. I would just advise you not to talk to hubby like hey I asked a bunch of strangers on the internet about your rules and here’s what they thought.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The music industry has a problem. Only the cream of the crop earn any significant money from streaming. Not enough people buy to own music. Lily Allen famously said she earns more money from here foot pictures on OnlyFans than her music on streaming. The only thing artists can earn a bit of money from is concerts. Be it tours or rich people gigs (incl. corporate ones). There are plenty of big budgets available in the top 5%.

  And it’s not a new phenomenon. Artists have gotten into how water for performing for Gaddafi’s son, the Chechen strongman, or at the Indian richest guy daughter’s wedding. These stories bubble up and down because there’s controversy. A kpop band performing for the daughter of a run of the mill millionaire is causing yawns in the newsrooms. Now, if he was an arms dealer we’d be in business.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you charge an electric car without a credit card?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If you have a garage, at home. You might want you drop more details to get better answers. E.g. location.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hello, non-Americans, do you have any Chinese language classes in your education system?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m criticizing the use of the phrase “new global language.” And I’ve laid out my reasons why I think that’s wrong. I didn’t think I was grilling OP, just the perception of Mandarin being the new global language. So I’m a little taken aback that you read it that way; that wasn’t my intention.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hello, non-Americans, do you have any Chinese language classes in your education system?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  … how pervasive the new Global Language already is …

  I’m going to challenge you on this point. First of all, what’s Chinese? I’m guessing you refer to Putonghua aka Mandarin, the erstwhile variant of Beijingnese prescribed for official use within the PRC by their political leadership.

  And second, how “global” is it? It’s useful primarily in one contiguous area of the world. Even there a large chunk of people kind of learn it as a first semi-foreign language because they speak something different at home. Cantonese, Shanghainese, or a language that cannot be written in Chinese characters.

  Which brings me to my third point: a language that requires study of a script this idiosyncratic will not rise to a global language. Vietnam has gotten rid of hanzi, Korean pretty much as well. Ironically, the north has already completely abandoned it. By comparison, the Latin alphabet was spread by cavalry and cannon boat into all parts of the world for centuries. It spread so far that it is now used to teach pinyin to PRC schoolchildren. And while it is not without its own problems, the simplicity and adaptability of this phonetic alphabet to any language makes it far more useful than Chinese characters. And I’m not shitting on the cultural value of them: that’s unimpeachable. It’s just too complicated.

  The alphabet spread with English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese all over the world. I’m not saying that’s a good thing but it’s already happened. Mandarin cannot have a similar success today unless the PRC starts colonizing at gunpoint fast.

  Most Chinese as a foreign language speakers outside the PRC learned it for economic reasons. Economic ties have become somewhat dicey. If anything I suspect interest in learning Mandarin to wane.

  There is also the tonal aspect. Any atonal-native language learner is going to have a much harder time than trying to remember the non-sensical English orthography.

  More people on this planet learn English as their first and possibly only foreign language - if they learn one at all. The forum you asked this question on is in English. The internet cements the use of the alphabet.

  I’m in Japan where foreign language education is notoriously sub-par overall. English is the first foreign language. Some private high schools offer Mandarin as an optional, I haven’t seen anything substantial in state-run schools. At college level, most people chose between French and German as a second foreign language. Like we’re still in the Meiji Era. I’m a big proponent that they abandon this tradition in favor of Russian, Korean, and Mandarin. It always helps to learn the language of your neighbors. Language schools advertize k-pop-trendy Korean more.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨where are worker rights parades? why are we focusing on very limited issues?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You ask a lot of legitimate questions there, causes that you and I could come to an agreement over. I would erase the starting point though. Pride movements and workers movements might both look like similar demonstrations. They are borne out of very different motivations. People might look down on manual laborers but you wouldn’t have to fear for your safety in certain parts of your city for being one. LGBTQ+ folks can’t say the same. Pride movements bring awareness that we have discriminated or are still discriminating against whole swaths of the population - mostly for silly reasons. That’s different from a disagreement about how exploitative capitalism should be permitted to be.

  Another negative connotation is that this “why are there LGBTQ+ pride parades but not …?” is the leading question of people who think straight people need to have a pride parade as well. Like you couldn’t live a heteronormative life every day without fear of retribution. And I’m hoping that you don’t think along those lines and therefore would not want to be this close to that argumentative train of thought.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What would it take to make Gemini suitable to be president of the world?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Extinction of the human race.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The absolute worst airports to navigate are all in the US. Fort Worth, Atlanta, just to shame two.

  Most other airports are easy to navigate, even on your first trip. It’s basically walking to a door with a number following huge signs with arrows and numbers. If you need help, you just ask staff working there. The Lufthansa people will be delighted to take a biz class passenger by the hand. Make sure your suitcase gets sent to Korea directly, pick a seat you like (aisle is better if you ask me), and don’t forget your passport. You’ll be fine!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come most news shows say a person got hit by a car? And they are in decent condition. While the same networks says the same thing about someone who got "ranover"⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Dictionary definition to run over:

  1 : to go over, examine, repeat, or rehearse quickly 2 : to collide with, knock down, and often drive over

  IIRC “attack” used to be originally a charge by the cavalry. And now terrorists and air forces also attack. Meanings shift. The victim needn’t see the undercarriage in person to classify as being run over. Language is literally imprecise.