Chengyu (Wikipedia)

“Chengyu (traditional Chinese: 成語; simplified Chinese: 成语; pinyin: chéngyǔ; trans. “set phrase”) are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions, most of which consist of four Chinese characters. Chengyu were widely used in Literary Chinese and are still common in written vernacular Chinese writing and in the spoken language today. According to the most stringent definition, there are about 5,000 chengyu in the Chinese language, though some dictionaries list over... [More]”

I was pleasantly surprised at this 23-minute video even though, as I outline below, I don’t think it went far enough.

Critic Stephanie Lange EXPOSES Disturbing Teen Plastic Surgery Trend by Glenn Greenwald (YouTube)

“I don’t think that fillers, especially, were half as popular, as they are now, if it weren’t for Kylie Jenner. She has had such a huge influence, especially for the younger generation. And people want to look like the Kardashians because they basically epitomize the beauty standard right now. They’ve got the big bum, the tiny waist, the big boobs, the perfect faces that look... [More]”

A good friend of mine sent this link to me. I hadn’t listened to an interview since Tim Dillon and Alex Jones and Ira Glasser, former head of the ACLU way back in the spring of 2021. I’ve had fun with this friends links before (see Robert Edward Grant: King of Gobbledygook), so I gave it chance. I couldn’t recommend that anyone else listen to these three hours … but YMMV. It has 26M views and almost 500K likes on YouTube. Check out my notes below and decide for yourself.

Joe Rogan Experience #2111 − Katt Williams by Joe Rogan (YouTube)

I’m almost an hour... [More]

There are just some notes I made for a recent documentation review.

• A shepherd named Shepard shepherds data parameters

• Use “said” when you’re referring back to one or more items that you don’t want to list again. It’s a sort of fancy neutral pronoun to refer to the subject. E.g., say you have the sentence

  “The parameters A, B, C, and D are shown to the user; after the user has chosen values for them, the application submits them.”

  Here, we’ve used “them” twice, which feels a touch awkward.... [More]

I was sent this article by my vast network of correspondents: Chicago gangs clash with Venezuelan Tren de Aragua members: ‘Blacks against migrants’ by Michael Lee (FOX News).

Let’s do some fun and quick and pretty easy analysis here.

The title slug is pretty provocative: “GANGS CLASH”.

Did they, though? Clash?

Let’s see what the article has to say! They spent time writing it, so let’s do them the honor of reading it.

Don’t worry, we don’t have to read far.

The very first paragraph writes,

“Venezuelan migrants... [More]”

The article Bang-and-Whimper by James Howard Kunstler (Clusterfuck Nation) from a few months ago outlined the mindless and morally unhinged argument promulgated by people all across the political spectrum in the U.S. and Europe.

“The Woke-Marxist college kids are wailing over the actions of Israel in Gaza — as they will for anyone within their dumb-ass equation of victims-and-oppressors, especially involving brown and white people. It is a brutal operation in Gaza, for sure, but so was the Hamas act-of-war on October 7 that many want to... [More]”

I’ve written about the author a few times because of the extremely sharp turn he took on October 7th, 2023. See Losing the plot completely on November 1, 2023, Some commentators are still MIA on November 6, 2023, Moar unhinged commentary on November 23, 2023, and Strawman battles: rape is never OK! on December 30, 2023. Just in case you think I’m picking on him, here’s part of his last post of 2023 Inflection Point 2023 by Scott H. Greenfield (Simple Justice).

“[…] the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th and its ensuing war in Gaza has bubbled up the fundamental differences between a liberal democratic nation... [More]”

I’ve listened to This is Hell! for at least 20 years. When I worked in Chicago a few times for a client, I tried to get up to Evanston to the bar—Cary’s Lounge—under what is now the studio, but was never able to meet Chuck.

I haven’t listened to it as religiously this year as other years, but started walking with podcasts a lot more this winter and stumbled on the “best of 2023” series they’ve got going. It’s awesome! Their listeners chose really, really good interviews! They cover all of... [More]

For what felt like the millionth time, I angrily muttered “were” under my breath, as I read someone use “was” for what was clearly a subjunctive intent. Always willing to improve, I looked the damned thing up, to see whether I was shouting into the wind, as I do on so many other topics.

The article Getting in the (Subjunctive) Mood (Merriam Webster) explains quite well what the subjunctive mood is and how to formulate it. But, it does so in a nearly wholly capitulatory fashion to descriptivism over... [More]

The article The Russel Brand Conspiracy by Tony McKenna (CounterPunch) writes the following about the allegations against Russell Brand,

“The allegations made against him by the Panorama program seem highly credible. They range from sexual harassment to rape. One victim alleged that Brand raped her against a wall of his house. This allegation pertains to 2012. The evidence to support the allegation consists of a text message she sent him telling him following the assault just how frightened she’d been, that ‘no means... [More]”

I recently read the headline Vacuum suction-mounted wireless TV zip lines off faulty walls to safety by Scharon Harding (Ars Technica). What an incredible crash blossom. The author used one hyphen but more punctuation would have been better.

How about:

Original

Vacuum suction-mounted wireless TV zip lines off faulty walls to safety

Add punctuation

Vacuum-suction-mounted, wireless TV zip-lines off faulty walls to safety.

Remove redundancy

Vacuum-Suction-mounted, wireless TV zip-lines off faulty walls to safety.

Restore phrase... [More]

The interview The Great Reorganization of Sexuality and Gender by Hugh Ryan (This is Hell!) is quite an interesting discussion, which ranged over some absolutely terrible characterizations of what the concerns of so-called right-wingers are, as well as seemingly obstinately refusing to acknowledge the modern-day use of the word snowflake, instead clinging to a 19th-century definition, as well as completely misdefining the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and misusing “strawman argument” for good measure. Then he uses the phrase... [More]

A good friend of mine sent the following video to me, telling me “just lean back, relax, and let it flow over you.” Excellent advice, my friend.

Robert Edward Grant: NEW EVIDENCE! Mysterious Inscriptions & Encodings INSIDE the Pyramids! by Next Level Soul Podcast (YouTube)

The following are some notes and comments I sent to him as I was watching it.

(A) Um, OK. Some interesting stuff, but WHOA. (B) You’re right; just let it flow over you. (C) Terrified that this is how I sound to other people.

“The Great Pyramid is 11/7, which is the base to the height. So 117 and 11.7 squared is 137 and that’s the number of times the... [More]”

I had the following video in my queue recently,

Why is it overflowing? by Google Chrome Developers: Una Kravets & Adam Argyle (YouTube)

The following is not a comment on the usefulness of the information in these videos, but on the presentation, which I found so distracting as to make me stop watching. If the poster for it has changed, then here’s what it used to look like.

I dunno, it’s just too many colors and too much extra content and … too much stuff before I get to find out the answer to the question posed in the title.

The backgrounds of Una and Adam’s offices look... [More]

I watched the first round of the semifinals but didn’t take notes. I was inspired to take notes for the second semifinals. It was a dumpster fire.

The legend

• 👎 = Go Home
• 🫳 = Could be identified as music
• 👍 = Grudgingly granted to a couple of bands

Second semifinals

There were 16 contestants, but I’ve only reviewed fifteen below. Sue me.

Denmark 🇩🇰

Jesus fucking Christ go home. What was that? A 13-year-old waif with a stupid voice; just him on stage. Denmark is embarrassing... [More]

The article Found through Google, bought with Visa and Mastercard: Inside the deepfake porn economy by Kat Tenbarge (NBC News) described something I’d been only vaguely aware of.

“Most deepfake videos are of female celebrities, but creators now also offer to make videos of anyone. A creator offered on Discord to make a 5-minute deepfake of a “personal girl,” meaning anyone with fewer than 2 million Instagram followers, for $65.”

Customized porn of anyone is novel to me. I’d never read it hypothesized in any of the... [More]

Why This Art Is In Every Hair Salon by Nerdwriter (YouTube)

Near the end, he shows a matrix of Nagel’s artwork, showing 25 skinny white women and then says

“They give the impression of real people—chic, fashionable, independent people—but still leave enough space for you to place yourself in them. For salons, Nagel-women served as aspirational images, though it has to be said that these women, all being of one complexion, it’s likely they were only aspirational for a certain segment of the population. This speaks to the warped priorities of 1980s... [More]”

Would you like to buy a used Mercedes with 558HP for only CHF130K?

This car was sitting on a tiny, used-car lot near our home. They usually have only 3-5 cars on offer, usually more high-end stuff. This was much, much higher-end than usual, but I’m sure it will be snatched up by some eager young man who needs 558HP to get around town.

Whenever I think that I can reach anybody with the power of my arguments and evidence, with my sophistry, with my charm ,.. I will now think of this guy.

If it has tits or tires, I can make it squeal

I received a request to interview for a job in wealth-management some time back. I’ve been responding to every request, just to be polite (recruiters are people, man), and usually I send a boilerplate text. Usually “the job sounds like it would be a great fit, but I’m not looking” is honest enough, but for this position, that wasn’t true. So I wrote the following instead,

Instead of just writing “No”, I’ll give you my reasons.

1. I am very happy with my current position.
2. I am not interested in... [More]

Recently, we’ve heard that Ukraine is getting a lot of weapons from all over the world, primarily from NATO. NATO weapons are industrial machines that have to be configured and maintained over time. They almost certainly leave some room for interpretation. They require training and experience to use efficiently and to be able to actually configure a working machine.

The instructions are in English.

If you don’t speak another language, then you probably assume, hey, sure, they speak English.... [More]

The DevOps AnalemmaI received an invitation to interview for a DevOps position at a large, well-known Swiss firm that was very well-written and also happened to describe what I do at Uster Technologies quite well. As a few colleagues with whom I’ve spoken about what I do have said: “that sounds like much more than standard DevOps.”

My job certainly is more than what most people would consider to be standard DevOps—but I think that might be because most people think of the implementors of DevOps rather than the... [More]

The article The European Union Is Deliberately Leaving Migrants Abandoned at Sea recounts some horrifying behavior on the part of the people tasked with patrolling the EU borders, especially the southern maritime border in the Mediterranean. According to a surviving witness,

“[…] the waves were generated deliberately, thrown up by the maneuvering wake of a Greek coast guard boat at the borders of the European Union (EU). “They intended to kill us,” says Jeancy. Even in the most generous... [More]”

The U.S. mid-term elections are coming up next Tuesday, on November 8th. Of course it’s being called the most important election. The U.S. is more poorly run and broken each time there’s an election, but I’m not sure whether that makes each one more important because there’s more to fix or less important because it’s obvious that it doesn’t really matter who gets elected.

I’m not even going to bother naming any of the issues because this article is not about that. Instead, it was inspired by... [More]

Whenever I see an article about Chinese tonality or stress, I usually think about whether it also applies to my mother tongue, English.[1]

The article The importance of stress in Chinese utterances by Victor Mair (Language Log) describes a “a single sentence of seven morphosyllables spoken in seven different ways according to what the speaker wishes to emphasize.”

“Wǒ méi shuō tā tōu wǒ qián.

“我沒說她偷我錢。

““I didn’t say that she stole my money”.”

The article lists all of the ways that you can change stress... [More]

The article Europe Commits Suicide-by-Sanctions by Ron Paul (Antiwar.com) contains a perfect example of the quality of reporting you get when someone reports on a country they know little about.

“According to the Swiss newspaper Blick, those who violate the 66 degree heating limit could face as many as three years in prison!”

The Blick is about as reliable as The New York Post: sometimes, but not nearly always. There is no prison sentence for heating your apartment.

He gets all wound up:

“Prison time for heating your... [More]”

The video Intentionally knocking over water to impress friends shows a group of tween or teen girls assaulting a mascot at a theme park by dousing them with water. A friend sent it to me in a group chat. I wrote back:

I would have to work much harder than I’m willing to do right now to express my disdain for nearly everyone in that video. Those girls with their stupid phones in the air, each starring in their own movie, are just older versions of the 8- or 9-year-old kid I saw on the train... [More]

I sent the following quote to a friend:

The less useful the media is for finding out the truth, the less likely it is to be censored.

I noticed that Trevor Noah gave the White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech this year. I only watched a minute of it, the portion that had been posted somewhere to demonstrate how amazing his support of journalism was. He spoke of how tough it was for journalists in Ukraine or Russia, where they are being persecuted and hounded for publishing unpleasant truths. This is unlike the States where you... [More]

According to the article, Verdi’s Macbeth at La Scala in Milan: The opera of the year—an inspirational experience for millions of viewers , the Opera is made for viewing via video:

“Even more significant is the fact that the director employed pioneering multimedia technology to bring the topicality of Verdi’s Macbeth to life and turn it into an inspiring experience for millions via cinema and television outlets.”

In fact, they claim that video is better:

“Only the “distant” audience... [More]”