palordrolap

@palordrolap@fedia.io

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I love it⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Knee-leeks and spear-leeks. Delicious.

  Etymology time!

  1. Knee-leeks is basically what onions were called before we adopted (or were made to adopt) a version the French word

  2. the old English name for "spear" was "gar"*. "Garlic" is literally just a modern interpretation of "gar-leek".

  What about regular leeks? They're just, well, leeks.

  * Spear(wielding) Danes are mentioned as "Gardena" in the third word of the commonly seen image of the first page of Beowulf.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are there so many Christmas songs, yet hardly any New Year's ones?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the point is when it came to secular things pertaining to Christmas, the church would have said "No", and the state would have gone along with that, even if most people weren't religious.

  The same happens everywhere, regardless of religion or how prominent it is. If you attempt to do something that the elders of a religion say are offensive to that religion, the state will discourage it, and so people don't bother in the first place.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are there so many Christmas songs, yet hardly any New Year's ones?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  In Britain, especially from the 1970s to 2000s, there was always a race to be the #1 charting song at Christmas, and songs with a Christmas theme often won out, even if they were otherwise secular pop songs. This means that over the years, we've ended up with probably a hundred of them ranging in quality from terrible to great.

  America have followed suit. Or else, they might argue they started it with songs like "White Christmas" and "Silver Bells".

  This is largely down to the more permissive secular and Protestant Christian societies where irreverence is tolerated if not encouraged.

  The Catholic and Orthodox churches are less tolerant of those sorts of things, so people in countries with heavy influence from those churches - like yourself - won't have had anything like it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it a bad idea to learn Russian because of everything?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, the Celts got distracted by the influx of Germanic tribes and as such had more immediate things to worry about and hate than the Romans, but I figure if the Franks, Saxons, Vikings, et. al. decided to stay home, the modern Britons would still grumble about the Romans occasionally.

  I mean, the Germanic invasions started over a millennium ago and dislike of that's still on a low boil, so I figure two millennia isn't out of the question.

  On the other hand, the Romans did go home. The Saxons, not so much.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sooo... This is happening on Imgur⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Explain please. All the ones I see in the image are shaped like four adjoined letter L's which is the same way around that the Nazis used. Or are you referring to the fact that most of them aren't stood on a corner, diamond-wise?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨should I go back to my old job now that several people, some of them more knowledgeable than me have told me they don't understand my decision to quit it?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Your former colleagues see your potential but do not see, or choose not to see, the rest of you. The rest of you that's messy. The rest of you that cannot operate at a high level for long periods. The rest of you that's just f--king done.

  Your former colleagues have stamina in spades - or at least, more than you do - and imagine a perfect individual that combines their stamina with your enviable potential.

  But, that person does not exist. Or at least, if they do, that person isn't you.

  There's no point running yourself into the ground trying to meet an ideal that only exists in the minds of other people.

  Don't buy into their idealism. At least, not until you're sure you can be the person they think you can be.

  Source: I was in a similar situation, but kept going, burned out and am not OK.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you sleep at night? Please respond with a number⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  List is incomplete. It seems to assume a relatively warm climate or expensive use of night-time home heating.

  Thus: Long sleeves. Underwear under long trousers perhaps for sanitary purposes, but possibly for comfort.

  There's probably also a few people who have socks they wear to bed if not also blindfolds or old-timey nightcaps, but I get why those things aren't in this graphic. Lack of long sleeves is more of a head-scratcher.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why don't compasses have just two Cardinal directions (North, East, -North, -East)?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Right next to Clorida.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  All forms of ampersand are based on "Et", Latin for "and", so cheat and use the backwards 3 (for E) forms.

  The simplest puts a vertical bar through the backwards 3 like a relative of the dollar sign, and the other adds a t to it so that the middle point and the bottom line of the backwards 3 join up with the crossbar and base of the t. Bonus points for drawing that latter one without lifting your pen, but you're doing well if you still have to extend the t's crossbar after the fact.

  Or really cheat and use the plus sign. That's just the t from "Et", but in the right context, most people instinctively understand it + will know what you mean.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How long after starting Vitamin D supplements should you notice results?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, you're right, the downvote was a bit harsh considering that I didn't do a deep dive on the matter.

  I can't undo the bandwagon, but I can undo mine.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How long after starting Vitamin D supplements should you notice results?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well for whatever it's worth, you're welcome.

  That "feeling adrift" sounds a little bit how depersonalisation and/or derealisation were described to me when I was trying to get diagnoses. I didn't feel like they fit my experience of mental illness at all (everything feels real enough (maybe too much), and I've never felt adrift), and I'm not a doctor so I'd be the last person to try to diagnose either in someone else, but they might be things for you to look into.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are non-binary and asexual flags Wario and Waluigi colored, respectively?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don't think this is sexuality, it's politics. Wario is clearly a UKIP supporter and Waluigi is UKIP / Tory coded.

  (all in jest of course. Or is it?)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How does "DNS" work on the dark web?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The NSA and GCHQ have both run their own TOR nodes and presumably already have an excellent understanding of how it works, so there's bound to be at least one person, if not an entire department, at the FBI who already understands TOR better than most of the people reading this comment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How long after starting Vitamin D supplements should you notice results?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I can't say they improved my mood much, so there wasn't a great deal to notice, but I have noticed a distinct lack in extreme lows since I started taking it.

  The trouble with mood-altering and mood-stabilising medications (and behaviours if you count things like exercise) is that they can affect perception not only in the present, but about past thoughts and behaviours too, so spotting any obvious change might require some effort.

  Case in point, it took me a long while to notice that I haven't been having the crushing lows, and part of me still believes that it's not the Vitamin D that's responsible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How long after starting Vitamin D supplements should you notice results?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Best as I can tell there's no evidence that Vitamin D and kidney stones have anything to do with each other, and in fact, there may even be scientific papers in existence that suggest the opposite is true, i.e. Vitamin D may help reduce the risk of kidney stones.

  Caveat: This was based on a quick web search, not deep research, and everyone's biology is different. If you're getting kidney stones, check with an actual doctor.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hey man, the line's gotta be somewhere, right? :p

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  we're 9 billion people

  Either you're a time traveller, you like heavy rounding up or you know something the easily accessible parts of the Internet don't. Averaging the first three sites* that turned up in a search puts it around 8.25 billion at the time of writing

  * Worldometer ~8.26b, The World Counts ~8.11b and Country Meters ~8.34b

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do languages sometimes have letters which don't have consistent pronunciations?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There's a reason kids in Spelling Bee competitions are allowed to ask for the language of origin of a word.

  It can often give a hint that a certain sound is spelled an unusual way. The "Ch" of "Chemistry" comes through Greek where it's spelled with their letter "chi", which for reasons I won't get into, looks like our X.

  Kids in a spelling bee wouldn't need to ask about "Chemistry", of course, but there may be other examples where that would be useful.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  OP seemed to suggest that these dreams are, or quickly get to being, beyond their control. Nonetheless, even daydreaming at the wrong time can be perilous.

  I say this as someone who has never had good attention control.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Frankly, I'm torn on this one. I have a few fantasies that I like to pretend are real because I think they prevent me from falling off the edge into the chasm of complete insanity, while at the same time recognising that it's not strictly sane to maintain the fantasy in the first place.

  But this is something I consciously maintain. There are no elements completely beyond my control like visual hallucination.

  The closest I get is the occasional flash of something I've been doing for a while if I close my eyes (basically the Tetris effect ), and maybe the occasional auditory equivalent if it goes quiet.

  And yet, in my dreams I've had full blown conversations with people where I haven't expected what they're going to say next, so I suppose if all the above combined into one, I might have a similar experience to you, OP... but then I'd have to strongly considering contacting a medical or psychological professional.

  Lapsing uncontrolled into a dream - however comforting that dream might be - when out in the world, could be dangerous for you or people around you. Imagine if you're driving. Or controlling some other form of machinery. Or heck, even pushing a shopping cart.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Native Americans?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You're confusing two things.

  The aboriginal peoples of North and South America (the continents) are descendents of Asiatic people who crossed the Bering Strait from Asia during the last ice age. That was over 10,000 years ago.

  These include, but aren't limited to, the Canadian First Nations - both inland and Inuit, many nations of Native Americans in North America, and in South America, the peoples of the Amazon, the Maya (who still exist), the Incas, Aztecs and so on.

  Then, from roughly 500 years ago and then for a century or three, there was a significant amount of admixture both genetically and culturally with Hispanic colonists that came over the Atlantic from Europe.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨what is the best fruit to leave in a fridge?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Left field answer: Any dried or dessicated fruit, e.g. sultanas, raisins, currants, cranberries, candied peel, etc.

  ... I did not intend those to be in reverse alphabetical order, but that's how they came out.

  Wasteful consumer answer: Tinned (in juice) or those fruit cup things.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If animals could speak English in what foreign accent do you think that a certain species would certainly have ?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Ask the British (and apparently Australians too) about that and we might say meerkats are Russian on account of a very popular set of insurance TV advertisements.

  That said, I haven't watched TV in earnest for a few years at this point, specifically before Russia fell from favour, so I'm not sure whether that's affected their popularity or not.

  And I have no idea what we might have said prior to the ad campaign.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it weird to simultaneously feel love and hatred towards parents?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  As I have said at least a couple of times in the past, I love my parents but I can't live with them. Small doses are fine, even pleasant. Heck, I visit most weeks, but long term? Nope.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there an anti- sleep-paralysis device?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Try to take deep breaths. If it's low blood oxygen as others say, that could help.

  Alternative if your brain/body won't allow it: Try holding your breath. You might have control over that. The aim is to hold long enough trigger a gasp reflex which will, hopefully, shake you awake.

  The hard part is finding the presence of mind to remember things to try when you're in an altered state of consciousness.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do deaf people know they have a deaf accent when speaking?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Deaf people will almost unavoidably copy the mouth shapes they've seen when other people have spoken. This means that how they sound will be at least somewhat informed by any hearing people they observe as well as indirectly through other deaf people who have also learned from hearing folks.

  So yes, aspects of voice accent do carry over to deaf people.

  There's also the concept of "accent" within sign language too. How people move between signs, carry themselves and act when expressing an emotion, which is usually exaggerated for the sake of clear communication, can vary from community to community, even if the base sign language is the same.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Aight. Let's be honest. How many of you dress for yourselves, and how many dress for others?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If I'm going out, I change from cosy indoor clothing to tidier clothing so that I don't look like I'm wandering around in public in my pyjamas, so I guess I'm fitting to a societal expectation, and thus dressing for other people in that regard.

  That said, I wouldn't want to sully my indoor clothing with the outdoors anyway, and I don't like going out as a rule, so I think I prefer to be dressed for myself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For a while Microsoft was the King of PC stuff. How come they didn't just cozy up to the PC but had to do the XBOX and pretty much lose their ass with all the cash grabs?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Xbox was an indication of what Microsoft have always really wanted to do, what Apple have always done, and what Microsoft have tried to do with the Win 11 roll out:

  A narrowing of the technical specification and focus in order to minimise support and required testing. That costs money.

  Cost bad. CEO mad.

  Each Xbox release has been a release of a bunch of clones. Yes, they are based on PC hardware, but it's one set of identical hardware to support across tens of thousands of instances, as opposed to hundreds of thousands of actual PCs, barely any two alike.

  Then note that many people don't want to use a computer at home. Computers remind them of work. They want to play games and goof off in their spare time. A games console is ideal.

  And if that console happens to be based on PC hardware, the games can eventually be ported to the myriad actual PC options. But they can get the game out and running quickly on that one well-supported platform and cash in quick.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do boycotts work?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ouch. AMD and Intel are both US based. Intel was easy enough, but I'd have to do a lot of soul searching and research to give up AMD, their graphics cards and the x86 architecture.

  And this is from someone in Britain, where ARM - probably the next best alternative - is based. (As in located, not the new sense of based. Though they might actually be that too.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Warm freshly baked white bread is 10/10 for a bread lover.*

  Supermarket own-brand plain white sliced loaf is generally ordinary, basic and inexpensive, but nonetheless acceptable. 5/10.

  This knowledge may raise more questions than answers, but it may help narrow the scope.

  * Scale may extend past 10 for sufficiently exotic bread. Ask the continental Europeans offended by that 10/10 rating.