Mushguffler
1yr ago
I edit highly technical documents, fixing grammar and spelling, and I've long thought a bot would eventually do my job. One of the companies I work for even uses a bot, sends us the bot-fixed papers, and then we double-check the bot, fixing its mistakes. Despite this going on for years, they are no closer to replacing us, in part because the standards keep getting raised. Like a recent update to the style guide suggests we should be using wherein in appropriate spots. Using where to mean in which has been normal in English for like forever, but it seems now that the bots are doing the easy stuff, we're expected to do the harder stuff too.
Mushguffler
1yr ago
She's upset at her own work being "interrupted", but of course her own work "interrupted" the day of the people who went to her seminar. Urgency is only a problem when people are not being urgent about her.
Mushguffler
1yr ago
In the recent Memphis police shooting case, some have noted that, aside from the actual assaulting officers, several others were apparently standing by and not intervening. That is a violation of Memphis PD policy and may be a criminal act.
In most (all?) states, people in mandatory-reporting professions, such as teachers, are required to report certain kinds of wrongdoing.
My understanding is that it is widely accepted that teachers et al do report mere suspicions of wrongdoing even against their coworkers. But cops seem to rarely do so. Do you think that's inherent to the us v them nature of policing? It forces people to a side more intensely than teachers and such? Or is that the law requires teachers to report any suspicion but the Memphis PD are only supposed to report the things they witness (I think)? But this recent incident clearly goes well beyond a suspicion...
Just curious what others think.
Mushguffler
1yr ago
Do you use one of those self-control applications to stop you from e.g. wasting time on Facebook or reddit? I've been using one for a couple years, and I've noticed something. I usually keep the timer at a particular duration until I have a reason to change it, so right now it's at four hours and 17 minutes, it has been there for months. I set it a couple times a day.
I've noticed the time almost always runs out within a minute or two of me going to bed. I often seen it pop up (because it's done) literally as I'm getting up to to leave. Other times I check it just before going to bed and see it has like two minutes left.
I am curious if this happens to other people. Am I subconsciously timing my bedtime to sync up with the end of my blocking software's timer?
Mushguffler
1yr ago
In D&D a long time ago, I mentioned that you could estimate the time by using the width of your fingers to measure the distance between the sun and the horizon. My friends pooh-poohed this and mentioned it for years as an example of me being stupid and believing in dumb shit.
Until Johnny Depp did it in a Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Then they accepted that it was real. No amount of me googling it, finding good sources or even literally doing it so they could see it was real would help. They had to see Johnny Depp do it.
Mushguffler
1yr ago
I do it all, I think the SK stuff is mostly agronomy, engineering and public health, at least lately. Poland I think is #2 in my experience. I find French authors to be pretty sloppy IMHO.
Mushguffler
1yr ago
Yeah, exactly. I get a lot of sentences like:
Though Treatment A showcased a reduction of cholesterol, Treatment B inclined levels of cholesterol's diminishing trends.
Treatment C's effects on decreasing cholesterol were lessened than the lowerings of Treatment C.
Verbs of increase aren't as confusing, I guess because there are fewer of them. Basically just increase, raise and rise in most cases (maybe soar if you're being dramatic), and a lot of ESL speakers use "arise", but they mean "rise". A lot of them think "augment" = "increase" for some reason, which I guess it kinda does but not in like 99% of the cases it's used in.
The other biggies I see a lot of misuse:
by/with/through/via
way/route/method/means (seriously, scientists, "way" is rarely correct in journal articles, just don't use it)
tool/equipment/kit
discuss/interview/survey (and talk/speak/say though that doesn't come up too much in my articles)
I also always think it's funny when they have obviously looked up synonyms of a common English word and chose something unreasonably archaic, like using "gelid" for "cold".
Anyway, the AI sometimes tries to fix these, but often doesn't fix them right or even fixes correct ones sometimes.
Mushguffler
1yr ago
Their English is often near-perfect. It's usually better than the papers from English-speaking countries.
I edit scientific journal articles and one of the companies I work for has a pretty sophisticated AI that does a first pass, I'm just cleaning up and fixing the things the AI fails at. Their AI has gotten good at the basics of grammar and capitalization, n-dashes and hyphens, that kind of thing. But it remains utterly hopeless at fixing non-English speakers' incorrect use of words, which is a huge part of what I do. Stuff like the difference between "go down", "decline", "reduce", "lessen", "lower", "decrease" and "diminish", for example, which you pretty much have to be a native English speaker or South Korean to get.
Mushguffler
1yr ago
The main competitor to Amazon for ebooks is Smashwords, who pay authors a bit more. We'd appreciate off-Amazon sales, if you want to give them a try.
Mushguffler
1yr ago
I would assume escorts who don't use condoms are more likely to be desperate, drug-addicted, homeless, etc, and less likely to fill out surveys.
Mushguffler
1yr ago
I always think about that regarding the Ferengi in Star Trek too. They're supposed to have stolen all their tech, but still, how could a civilization who glorifies treachery ever create and maintain a space program at all? Or even a power plant? Two brothers can't even cooperate long enough to hold a poker game.
Mushguffler
1yr ago
Lol, I only got 8/12, I suck. I don't think I got a single woman right either. Honestly I suspect most of the ones I got right were gay men who were left-wingers. I'm gay myself, I think I just have good gaydar.
Verdict: Women are an enigma wrapped in a mystery, covered in... something I have no interest in.
Mushguffler
1yr ago
If they refused to go to work, would they be arrested?
Mushguffler
2yr ago
Could it be a pangolin?
Mushguffler
2yr ago
Until Trump, Republicans had been consistently voting for the prior runner-up in presidential nominations. IIRC Romney, McCain, Dubya, Dole, HW, Reagan and Nixon were all nominated after being in second-place in the prior primary.
Mushguffler
2yr ago
I don't even think Dems needed to lie about their intentions or beliefs. They put up ads like "Cox is too consistently conservative for Maryland", which they really believed (and the recent election suggests they were correct to believe that). There's nothing wrong with advertising your beliefs.
Mushguffler
2yr ago
Everyone knows the government can't make sure inflation is 0, so instead they try to make inflation be about 2%, so even if they mess up and miss that goal by a little at least it's better than deflation.
If inflation were zero, it would amount to deflation over time as productivity and population increases. You have to have a little inflation to keep up with growth.
Mushguffler
2yr ago
Ontario's leader is under heavy fire for playing hardball and preventing educational workers from getting large raises. I don't know the details well, but couldn't one argue this is what fighting inflation looks like?
Only if those raises would otherwise come from new currency (i.e. the Canadian central bank prints new money), which I would assume is not the case. I don't think that has any connection to inflation.
Mushguffler
2yr ago
Seems to me you have it exactly backwards. A bunch of stealthy fires approximating a mass layoff over time means no one will know when the layoffs will end. Musk said he was going to lay off a bunch of people, then he did. Those who remain should be, and I would wager are, confident that they are not also on the verge of being laidoff.
I don't think shitposting matters in the long run. I also am dubious Musk's plans will lead to profitability.
Mushguffler
2yr ago
There are definitely gay guys who are more into crazy hobos than handsome escorts.
Mushguffler
2yr ago
Honestly if I had heard of that movie before its release, I would have assumed "Bros" meant like frat brothers, I'd guess it was an American Pie-like comedy.
Mushguffler
2yr ago
That's a lotta folks smoking joints in national parks.
Mushguffler
2yr ago
I think it would be good if there were seven weekly posts like the Culture War Round-Up. That would help with user retention, I think. Like there could be one for economics, since that's not necessarily "culture war" per se.
I have a Puerto Rican friend whose daughter has terrible taste in men. Every time I see him, he brings up out of the blue like "You know, Peruvians are all retarded and they fuck dogs", and I'll say "your daughter's dating a Peruvian guy huh?" He's got a reason to dislike every Spanish-speaking nationality. Colombians beat their wives and are all gay, Venezuelans are poor and smell like trash, Salvadorans are miniature gangsters, Mexicans are morons, etc. She's had a lot of boyfriends.
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