ToaKraka
Dislikes you
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User ID: 108
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
10hr ago
My gut says he's probably a PRC nationalist
Direct quote:
Yes, the government of the PRC is bad, very bad. I am currently in the US which already proofs it. But there are more colors than just black and white in this world.
Re disliking Chiang Kai-shek... that's a tough one since AIUI he wasn't a very sympathetic character.
To clarify, IIRC his position is something like "Chiang/the ROC should have admitted defeat like Robert E. Lee/the CSA and permitted the country to be reunited, rather than retreating to Taiwan and permanently dividing people". But I may be misremembering/misinterpreting his opinion.
Here's a direct quote:
ToaKraka: In the video game Hearts of Iron 3, you can play as the PRC and capture/execute Jiang Jieshi rather than allying with him against Japan. ¶ (at the Xi'an Incident)
Coworker: Allying with him was the only option. Different in political affiliation does not make him an enemy of China. Japan was the ultimate enemy. ¶ His sin is that he splits the country into two.
So effectively no real use of Hanja there either.
I'll point out that error to him tomorrow.
Now I'm even more confused.
Well, maybe I'm misremembering. I asked him about his views on Mandarin and Cantonese today, but we discussed Japanese many months ago. I'll ask him about Japanese again tomorrow. But he may just reiterate that I can't properly understand the situation without learning Chinese, as he told me today when I tried comparing Serbo-Croatian (a speech-first language with two different writing systems that may eventually diverge into two different languages) to Chinese (a writing-first language with two different speech systems that may eventually diverge into two different languages).
Tomorrow edit: Direct quote: (exasperated but smiling) "Stop discussing things that you don't even know what it means!" [sic]
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
22hr ago
Does your coworker speak Mandarin as his first language? Is he from the northern PRC?
Cantonese is his first language. He's from Guangzhou, in the south.
Is he a nationalist?
I don't know. He has expressed thorough dislike of both the PRC government and Chiang Kai-Shek. He considers "zhonghua ren" to be significantly preferable to "Chinese person" as a moniker, I think since "Chinese" too easily implies "zhongguo".
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
23hr ago
Hanja use in modern Korean rounds to zero
He said was referring specifically to the Koreans who live in China. The Wikipedia pages for them (English, Chinese, Korean) don't mention whether they use hanja, but I guess he thinks they do.
Japanese use of Kanji
I didn't say anything about Japanese. He doesn't think that Japanese counts as using the same writing system as Chinese.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
The characters are used very differently grammatically.
He has claimed previously that grammar isn't really a thing in Chinese.
You could write English nouns with Chinese characters, that doesn't make English Chinese.
I think he would disagree, if I'm understanding his position corrrectly.
Is your coworker perhaps a Han supremacist?
I have no idea.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
I genuinely don't understand why your coworker put spoken Korean and spoken Chinese in the same bubble, they're mutually unintelligible and come from different language families, even if they used the same writing system for a long period.
His position is that a particular speech can be part of multiple languages depending on how it is written. The exact same hanzi/hanja passage of writing can be understood by speakers of Mandarin, Cantonese, and Korean, so they are dialects of the same language, regardless of mutual intelligibility between the three speeches—but Korean speech also forms part of the Korean language when used with hangul.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
Who wrote this and what languages does this person know?
I drew this diagram in an attempt to understand my coworker's opinions, not necessarily as an endorsement of those opinions.
I am fluent in English and know a fair amount of Latin. He is fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin and mostly intelligible in English.
The inclusion of Korean speech in the bubble of Chinese language is already highly suspect.
The "Chinese language" is essentially like creating an entity called the "Romance language", of which Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. are "dialects". After all, they also use a shared writing system just with more variation.
My coworker's argument is that the Romance languages would be dialects of Latin if they all used the same speech-independent writing system (as they used to when they were called Vulgar Latin)—but they use phonetic writing systems, so they're languages instead.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
My Chinese coworker says that this image is a reasonable representation of the controversy over whether Mandarin and Cantonese are dialects or languages. What is your opinion on the topic?
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
If you're a Gundam fan, you should be playing Gundam Battle Operation 2!!! In what other game can you play an RGC-80 GM Cannon (1 2) and have an ultra-fun battle against an RX-78-1 Prototype Gundam (1 2) in the middle of an abandoned city? Or beat down an MSN-02 Zeong (1 2) with an AMX-011P Zaku III Psycommu Type (1 2) as you dodge and weave between asteroids?
Example pulse-pounding gameplay:
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Low-power: Maria Shield Co. GM II on ground, Psycommu System Zaku in space, Dozle Zabi's Zaku II in space
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Mid-power: Zaku III on ground, Perfect Gundam on ground, Engage Gundam Incom Type in space
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High-power: Crossbone Gundam X-1 Kai on ground, Gundam F91 on ground, Gundam Tristan Failnaught in space
The game can be played FOR FREE on PC (try to play during hours when the playercount is high), PS4, and PS5. Some MSes are available only through a gacha system, but the game definitely isn't pay-to-win, and even the gacha-only suits can be purchased with non-premium currency after a few months.
In-game power levels range from 100 (e. g., level 1 GM) to 750 (level 4 Zeta Gundam or level 1 Gundam F91) in theory, but in practice matches don't go lower than 250 or 300. Personally, I'm not a big fan of high-power battles and space battles, and stick to ground battles in approximately the 400–550 range, with occasional forays into 250–350 and 600 if no other matches are available. My most-used MSes are Guncannon Heavy Type D, Jegan Heavy Equipment Type, GM Cannon, and Galluss-K. (Yes, I love shoulder cannons, how could you tell?)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
1d ago
Note that these "alt codes" work only with a numpad, not with the row of number keys at the top of your keyboard. (Many people who never use the numpad are willing to pay extra money to save desk space with a "tenkeyless" keyboard that has no numpad.)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
2d ago
Markdown supports HTML named character references. "& mdash;" without the space becomes "—".
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Historically: In 1924, Oswald Mosley was a member of the Labour Party, and stood for reelection to the House of Commons, but lost by a hair's breadth (0.28 percent). In 1926, he returned to Parliament. In 1929, he was made a minister without portfolio, but was not able to get any of his radical policies implemented because the prime minister and the chancellor of the exchequer disagreed with them. In 1930, he resigned his cabinet post in disgust, and submitted to the Labour Party Conference a policy memorandum that was defeated by a relatively narrow margin (8.9 percent). In 1931, he left Labour and founded the fascist New Party.
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In this alternate-history book: He wins the 1924 election, and is able to build up more support within the Labour Party. In 1931 his policy memorandum is defeated by an even narrower margin (3.2 percent), and he sticks with Labour rather than turning fascist.
Shadow of Montreux: Historically, Mussolini declared that fascism was "no export article", and the various fascist movements of Europe developed largely independent of one another. In this alternate-history book, in 1929 he changes his mind and organizes a Fascist International, akin to the USSR's Communist International (Comintern).
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3d ago
Upper middle (civil engineer with salary just barely in six figures) → undefined? (early retiree)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
4d ago
Volokh on the caselaw regarding firing government employees for speech
Generally speaking, the government may discipline an employee based on the employee's speech if:
(1) The speech is said by the employee as part of the employee's job duties (Garcetti v. Ceballos);
(2) The speech is not on a matter of public concern (Connick v. Myers); or
(3) The damage caused by the speech to the efficiency of the government agency's operation outweighs the value of the speech to the employee and the public (Pickering v. Bd. of Ed.).
When the government is administering the criminal law or civil liability, such a "heckler's veto" is generally not allowed: The government generally can't shut down a speaker, for instance, because his listeners are getting offended or even threatening violence because they're offended. But in the employment context the Pickering balance often allows government to fire employees because their speech sufficiently offends coworkers or members of the public. (The analysis may differ for public university professors, though it's not clear how much; see this post for more.)
That's a bigass bathroom.
A while ago I figured out that the smallest permissible "type B" bathroom under ICC A117.1 seemed to be 5 ft × 10 ft. Here, I just rotated that design by 90 degrees and expanded the 5 ft to 8 ft. I agree that those dimensions are a bit large, but I don't think that a smaller design is possible within the "type B" accessibility constraints.
How can you fit a queen bed into 8 feet? That leaves just 1.5 feet at either side of it.
Whoops, I forgot that a queen bed is supposed to be accessible on two sides rather than just on one side. Ignore that and use the twin XL dimensions, then.
I remain unhealthily obsessed with designing houses. How large do you think a bedroom should be? (Reminder: 1 ft ≈ 0.305 m and 10 ft2 ≈ 0.93 m2.)
Under the IPMC, which is binding in many US jurisdictions, the minimum is 70 ft2 for one person or 50 ft2 per person for two or more people. But no actual rationale is given for these numbers.
The Architectural Graphic Standards for Residential Construction suggest an 8 ft × 2 ft closet "for adults". Obviously, that can be replaced with two 4 ft × 2 ft wardrobes or shelving units. But is that intended to be for a single person or a couple? It isn't clear from the text.
Let's imagine that the typical person wants his own desk, wardrobe, and shelving unit. Each of those items is 4 ft × 2 ft, to which we will add a 4-ft aisle in front. (The AGSRC minimum for the chair in front of the desk is 3 ft, but we want to accommodate a 3-ft door to the bathroom, plus 0.5 ft on each side of the door.) We can arrange these furniture items on opposite sides of the 4-ft aisle, for a total room width of 8 ft. Then, at the end of our 4-ft aisle and perpendicular to it, we add a 7 ft × 3.5 ft twin XL bed or a 7 ft × 5 ft queen bed, with up to three bunks, plus another 4 ft of circulation space in front of the bed. (The IBC minimum for an aisle is 2.5 ft, but we want to accommodate a 3-ft door to the corridor or the dining/living room, plus 0.5 ft on each side of the door.) Voila—we have a bedroom of 8 ft × 13.5/19.5/25.5 ft (108/156/204 ft2) with a twin XL bed or 8 ft × 15/21/27 ft (120/168/216 ft2) with a queen bed. (I'm assuming that a shelving unit can be split in half to fix the unevenness of the furniture in a one-person or three-person bedroom.) This can be paired with an 8 ft × 10 ft bathroom to form a suite.
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In 2007, a municipal "construction official" issues a notice that a particular building is "unsafe", since a water-line rupture has caused it to lose electrical power. In 2011, the construction official issues a second notice, noting that the roof and walls have begun to deteriorate. In 2017, a third notice points out that the roof is full of holes and the walls are failing. But the owner does absolutely nothing to fix the building.
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In 2019 the construction official finally files a complaint in municipal court, charging the owner with the administrative offense of maintaining an unsafe structure. The municipal judge finds the owner guilty. No fines are imposed, but the owner is given a week to prove that he has 50 k$ for repairing the building. The owner fails to come up with the money, so the judge orders that the building be demolished. The owner's lawyer fails to file the appeal properly, so the stay pending appeal expires and the demolition is completed before the appeals panel issues its ruling.
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The appeals panel finds this situation to be a comedy of errors. (1) The owner should have appealed the municipal construction official's unsafe-structure notices to the county's "construction board of appeals". Since he failed to do so, he had no right to a trial in the first place. So, at first glance, the municipal judge's order should be affirmed. However, (2) the municipal construction official should have filed the complaint in the state's full-fledged "superior court", not in municipal court, whose very limited jurisdiction does not encompass ordering the demolition of a building. So the municipal judge's order cannot be affirmed, and instead the complaint must be dismissed. (It may be that the building posed sufficient danger of imminent collapse that the construction official was empowered to order demolition on his own, without resorting to the judicial system at all. But that question is beyond the scope of this appeal.)
New Jersey's judges have been slacking lately. They released only four nonprecedential appellate decisions in this entire week! Maybe they're busy with some mandatory training.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
5d ago
There's apparently a video going around of the attack, but I haven't a desire to see it.
Mildly interesting article from the Associated Press: Graphic video of Kirk shooting was everywhere online, showing how media gatekeeper role has changed (original title "Graphic Charlie Kirk video spread fast, showing media’s fading grip")
Traditional news organizations were cautious in their midafternoon coverage of Charlie Kirk’s assassination Wednesday not to depict the moment he was shot, instead showing video of him tossing a hat to his audience moments before, and panicked onlookers scattering wildly in the moments after.
In practical terms, though, it mattered little. Gory video of the shooting was available almost instantly online, from several angles, in slow-motion and real-time speed. Millions of people watched.
On X, there was a video showing a direct view of Kirk being shot, his body recoiling and blood gushing from a wound. One video was a loop showing the moment of impact in slow-motion, stopping before blood is seen. Another, taken from Kirk’s left, included audio that suggested Kirk was talking about gun violence at the moment he was shot.
For more than 150 years, news organizations like newspapers and television networks have long been accustomed to “gatekeeping” when it comes to explicit content—making editorial decisions around violent events to decide what images and words appear on their platforms for their readers or viewers. But in the fragmented era of social media, smartphones and instant video uploads, editorial decisions by legacy media are less impactful than ever.
Across the country in Ithaca, New York, college professor Sarah Kreps’ teenage sons texted her about Kirk’s assassination shortly after school was dismissed and they could access their phones.
No, she told them. He was shot, but there were no reports that he had died. Her son answered: Have you seen the video? There’s no way he could have survived that.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
6d ago
Fun excerpt from GURPS Martial Arts:
On any neck hit with a cutting, impaling, piercing, or tight-beam burning attack, roll 1d. On a 1, it hits a vein/artery.
A fighter with a cutting, impaling, piercing, or tight-beam burning weapon can target a major blood vessel in the neck (jugular vein or carotid artery), arm (brachial artery), or leg (femoral artery). The attack has an extra −3: −5 for a limb, −8 for the neck. The sudden blood loss increases the wounding modifier for that hit location by 0.5; e. g., a cutting attack gets ×2 instead of ×1.5 against a limb, or ×2.5 instead of ×2 for the neck. Since the intent is to start bleeding—not to destroy bone and muscle—ignore crippling effects and damage limits for limbs. Realistically, such injuries can cause almost instant unconsciousness, with death coming in seconds. The GM may rule that Mortal Wounds doesn’t apply and that any failed HT roll to avoid death means the victim collapses and bleeds out messily. This is a “special effect” of dying from a vein or artery hit. A miss by 1 hits the neck, arm, or leg, as appropriate.
(insert Chinese laughter onomatopoeia here)
If you type "Windows+.", Windows also has an "emoji panel" that includes a symbol tab.
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