There's something perverse in a theorist getting voluntold by a TA to help teach soldering.

Classes are fun, life goes decently OK barring grandfather's funeral and inheritance proceedings. I joke that I wish he didn't leave, so that we don't have to deal with all this paperwork, but I hope nobody thinks for a second I don't miss him. Stellar guy, smartass to end all smartasses, taught me more than I can say. I wish we didn't spend the last couple of years letting the tempers flair up.

Why destroy liver over guys who'd bitch-out of apprenticeship faster than from equally fetishized BUD/S? Come to think of it, it's basically the same demographic: people slightly too pathetic to bully imagining themselves doing a 'manly' thing from the comforts of warm bed.

I'm pretty skeptical of modern philosophers in general.

Hijacking the thread: are there any worth reading? I'm not entirely uninterested in modern phil, but when it comes to being recommended 'big names', I'm suspicious if anyone has ever finished Zizek (which reminds me of this asinine aside-to-an-aside that combines misremembered Hegel, the Simpsons, and some obscure moment in the Second Pizdziszewo Revolution) or read the likes of Scruton for reasons beyond "fails at information theory as hard as he makes libertarians jizz in their pants." Not to mention work-related quantum bullshit.. What would y'all recommend?

Starting computer engineering next month, they thankfully will not make me repeat calc 1 or intro physics or that kind of shit. I also got to test out of things like Intro to Measurements, since, you know, common fucking sense for the win today.

Doing fine in general. Something something ru🗲🗲ian drones over Poland. I've been somewhat tired lately, but don't know if it's some flu going around or just a couple of unusually draining days.

There's a lot of it in Greek writing, though it's also clear that they were pretty self-aware in that style. Iliad is chock-full of exaggeration-by-convention, Thucydides stresses at key places basically going "no, guys, I'm not saying this for effect like other writers usually do, it happened like that" and counts on reader not being gullible in that regard, and Aristotle disses on authors overusing these modes as immature and lacking. IIRC dissing on Aristophanes', since that was his thing. Plutarch often juxtaposes contemporary hearsay with plausible causes/effects, emphasizing a couple of times how the style of other (sometimes lost) authors muddled the events.

It's kinda like how 'silver age' of Latin gets the rep of no substance and all-style, but that's because imperial absolute ruler changed the purpose of rhetorics from discourse to entertainment. They were aware what's being said when nothing is being told -- which Seneca corroborates in his writing while under banishment -- we're just left guessing what those nothings are about exactly. We typically read Greek tall-tales and think they were swallowing it whole, which I doubt they took too literally themselves.

"the sunchoke problem"

I don't know, sometimes the novelty of it is enough? Then again, I do admit to having rather plain palette, willing to favour texture to flavour.

The flesh of the ground-strawberry1 is very different to that of the arbute-tree,2 which is of a kindred kind: indeed, this is the only instance in which we find a similar fruit growing upon a tree and on the ground. The tree is tufted and bushy; the fruit takes a year to ripen, the blossoms of the young fruit flowering while that of the preceding year is arriving at maturity. Whether it is the male tree or the female that is unproductive, authors are not generally agreed.

This is a fruit held in no esteem, in proof of which it has gained its name of "unedo,"3 [3 He suggests that it is so called from "unum edo," "I eat but one;" a rather fanciful etymology, it would seem.] people being generally content with eating but one. The Greeks, however, have found for it two names—"comaron" and "memecylon," from which it would appear4 that there are two varieties. It has also with us another name besides that of "unedo," being known also as the "arbutus." Juba states that in Arabia this tree attains the height of fifty cubits.

- Natural History, Pliny the Elder.

The biggest problem with Pliny is that he can go from "astute and correct according to modern science" to "Herodotus-grade gossip" three times within a single page. Unless I mixed up my classics, he also described things like the water cycle with remarkable detail only to conclude with "unless the Mars is visible, then everything is wet!" or some such. It's a wild ride.

More on topic, a lot of these 'forgotten plants' were hardy enough to survive without refrigeration and just nutritious enough to be tolerated over the lenten months. I had a couple through renfair people, like skirret and salsify, that I could maybe see make a comeback, but a lot of them are an acquired taste to say the least.

I've been annoyed with AI-generated code so many times I don't even bother any more. It's basically:

1. Feed an idea.

2. Be given someone's mangled github repo that's somewhat similar to your idea.

3. Recognise a deep problem with the code, assuming it'll run without corrections.

4. Realise you can either correct that code and work around its weak points, or write it yourself after being made aware of easy fuckups.

5. Notice how it took more time to do all of that than to write a design document draft.

6. "Huh, turns out I can do that by feeding ffmpeg/awk/LabView/establishedToolOfChoice output into these 10 lines of Python."

Something something and an email with a list of fallacies and a quote from Yudkovsky's libertarian refutations on AInobelievers. Begone! I'm done wasting time on midwits with neologism addiction.

I like how llms can usually tighten my documentation, tho.

Vice President of Population Health

Can't lose aiming high. Fingers crossed and all that jazz.

As to weddings, It's hardly my place, but I've been to ones ranging from "350 people in a literal palace rented for three days" to "12 friends and family served a nice three-course dinner after a ceremony at the registry office" and the cheaper end of the scale seems to be universally more enjoyed by everyone involved.

Are US trains notably cheaper or more convenient than airlines or buses? Are they seen as this rustic freighter of the past that ended the era of cattle drives you may indulge in Dollywood? I'm asking because for us EU folk, the answers are unsurprising "yes, and I use them daily" and "no, they feel more modern and 'civilised' than most of the planes I flew."

The truth is that I needed teachers and professors to get me to understand electrodynamics, but for the most part, I grokked Bleak House because I read a ton of books before it that weren't part of my educational curriculum.

It'd be easy to grokk CED if the Poynting vector was as easily experienced as classism or poverty or long-winded descriptions of weather.

And indeed, to their credit, they don’t pretend that they know how to bring the “problematic” readers up to proficiency.

Don't stigmatise the reading of not-so-great books? I'll admit to smirking when told I don't read that much by comparison, only to hear a litany of YA novels that'd make Eragon read like Zamyatin... but don't put folks down for choosing to read for pleasure. Reading utter crap won't boost your vocab, but it's leagues (or would 'miles' be more appropriate for the modern reader?) better for you than vegetating in front of a screen.

As the students read, they must translate what they read into modern English, explaining what each passage means.

This isn't easy; going from academic to vernacular register is on par with translating from a foreign language, effort-wise. Doubly so for Dickens, who takes a page to say a sentence.

veen's mention of a vocabulary percentage is on point, as reading (in a foreign language) with comprehension is painful below 90-98%, especially if the goal is for the reader to acquire new vocabulary. It's why comprehensible input is so huge in classical languages these days (and historically, before German school reforms grammaticised it): Latin isn't difficult to read if you start with an introductory text (Orberg: Roma in Italia est. Italia in Europa est. Graecia in Europa est. Italia et Graecia in Europa sunt.) rather than introductory author (Caesar: Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur).