This is only partially true. Very early on, this was the case - Chinese characters started as pictograms representing objects and concepts. But this was fairly limiting in how much complexity you could capture without creating an unmanageably large set of unique pictograms. So the system evolved to use compound characters (characters made up of 2 or more components) incorporating phonetic (i.e. pronunciation) information into the writing system.

Most Chinese characters used in past 2000 years are made up of parts related to their meaning or category of meaning, and parts related to the pronunciation of the spoken word they represent (at least at some point in time, typically in Old Chinese) - these are called phono-semantic compound characters. The first comprehensive dictionary of Chinese characters that was created almost 2000 years ago already classified over 80% of all characters as phono-semantic compounds. This percentage also went up over time in later dictionaries as new compound characters were still being added.

As an example the character for book (書) - is made up of 2 parts, the semantic part is 聿 (brush - in its original form a literal picture of a hand holding a brush) on top (so the word is related to writing or painting), and 者 on the bottom (the meaning of 者 is not important here (it was a picture of a mouth eating sugarcane originally, but lost this meaning long time ago), but 者 in Old Chinese was pronounced similar to the Old Chinese spoken word for book, so it serves a purely phonetic function here)

When Chinese writing was adopted in Japan, it wasn’t really used to write Japanese - it was used to write Classical Chinese. Literate people would translate from Japanese to Chinese (which they would have been fluent in) and write it down in Classical Chinese grammar and vocabulary, not spoken Japanese grammar. They could also read it back and translate on the fly into spoken Japanese for Japanese speaking audience. They also brought in the Chinese pronunciation of the Characters into Japanese (in fact several different versions of this over time - see Go-on, Kan-on, etc.) so the phonetic hints in the characters were still useful when learning the system.

Attempting to write spoken Japanese using Chinese characters was difficult, initially they would actually use Chinese characters stripped of their meaning to represent Japanese syllables. These were later simplified to become modern kana

Spoken Chinese itself evolved beyond the monosyllabic written Classical Chinese (which remained quite rigid), so for a long time, Chinese also wrote essentially in a different language from how they spoke. It was only fairly recently that vernacular Chinese began to be written (rather than Classical Chinese) with it’s polysyllabic words (most words in modern Chinese have 2 or more syllables, and require 2 or more characters to write, further distancing modern words from the original simple pictogram meanings)

So while the idea of some kind of universal abstract concept representation divorced from phonetics sounds intriguing, in practice it is a poor way to capture the complexity and nuance of spoken languages, and all languages (including Chinese) that attempted to adopt it ended up having to build various phonetic hints and workarounds to make the system actually useful and practical for writing.

It’s the Infinite Improbability Drive though, not Probability, that makes no sense :)

+1 for MoCA

I switched from powerline to MoCA about 10 years ago, and it was a huge step up. Even though it’s half duplex, since MoCA version 2.5, there is enough total bandwidth available to sustain 1 Gbps in 2 directions simultaneously, so it is functionally almost equivalent to full duplex 1 gig Ethernet (except for few ms of extra latency)

For many (most ?) people who learn to like durian, a switch happens inside the brain, and the smell becomes appetizing. The first few times I encountered durian, I thought the smell was vile - but I’ve become a durian lover eventually, and they smell delicious to me now.

Funny enough I also like stinky cheeses, but still find them stinky (even though I like the taste) - for some reason it’s different with fruit.

I had my first durian at 35, and it has become one of my favorite things ever.

I’ve managed to convert at least one person as well - friend of mine (we were mid 40s at the time) didn’t like it at first, but the second time he came around, and now loves it as well.

Sometimes I order the unique varieties from Year of the Durian - the diversity of durian flavors is mind blowing honestly, it’s not all Monthong or Musang King, there are some crazy durians out there.

To differentiate it from O - making 0 narrow is a common way to do that

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The #1 best show is Twin Peaks: The Return of course :)

The last Bolt model year was 2023 - you can’t really find new ones at dealer lots anymore. There is supposed to be a new version coming at some point, but no official details or timeframe yet.

Plenty of countries have national parks btw. Many of them had them before America.

Well not really though ? Yellowstone established in 1872 is generally considered the first national park, in the modern sense of the term*, and inspired others to follow in the next couple of decades in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. It wasn’t until the 1900s that the first national park was established in Europe.

* there are a couple of other places that also claim this distinction, depending on how exactly you define what a national park is, but not many

Calling national parks “America’s best idea” is a quote from historian and environmentalist Wallace Stegner - I think the point of it is not to toot some US exceptionalism horn - in context it’s more of an acknowledgment that America deserves a lot of criticism - saying that national parks are America’s best idea is actually putting a bit of shade on other American exceptionalism claims, especially during the Reagan “shining city upon a hill” era.

According to CBP’s own stats they conducted 42725 basic and 4322 advanced searches of electronic devices at US ports of entry last year (so before any new policies of the current administration took effect)

“Under a basic search, a border agent physically inspects your phone and reviews what they can, while an advanced search means the agent can potentially download all of your files using an external device.”

This is true, however you can still be targeted for extra checks by both customs and immigration if they have a reason to suspect you, even when departing the US. Both CBP and ICE have access to departing passenger lists.

For example you are required to declare larger sums of cash being carried out of the country (over $10k). You are supposed to go to customs and fill out a form, but many people do not know this, often legal immigrant workers taking cash back to their home countries. CBP uses dogs trained to smell cash and patrols departure lounges in airports, and if they pick you out, you can be searched, and any undeclared cash will simply be seized if found.

It’s easy to imagine with the current administration they could start targeting people based on social media posts or some kind of previously compiled political profile or “enemies” list or whatever, if they aren’t already.

photography might be an area where digital hasn’t caught up, since film’s resolution is down to the molecular level

Film resolution is limited by the size of the silver halide crystals that make up the light sensitive layer of the film. Crystals can come in different sizes, but their sensitivity to light depends on their size - generally you need pretty large crystals for usable photographic film, somewhere between 0.1 and 10 microns (depending on the film ISO rating) - about 3-5 orders of magnitude larger than what you would consider molecular scale.

When the film is developed the crystals are visible as film grain limiting the resolution in some ways similar to pixel size of a digital camera (although there are differences, since the crystal size is not completely uniform but rather has a specific distribution, creating a more random effect than the regular pixel grid of digital cameras)

The pixel sizes on modern high resolution digital camera sensors are actually similar, down to 0.5 micron. It’s hard to make an exact comparison, but I have seen estimates that you need a full frame digital sensor of somewhere between 10 to 50 megapixels to equal the resolution of 35mm ISO 100 film.

And modern sensors are much more light sensitive than film, which allows you to shoot more optimally and give you more flexibility (less exposure time, potentially higher f-stop with better lens resolution, lower ISO, less light, etc.) and therefore achieve potentially better results in more conditions. Add to that the hassle and costs of working with film, and most professional photo work is now done in digital as well. Film is generally only used for stylistic purposes, by purists who are not satisfied with digital simulation.

Meeting [redacted] on the [redacted] was such an unexpected and powerful moment for me as well. I don’t even usually get into lore that much in games, but Outer Wilds is so well done I nearly cried in that moment.

I do understand the sentiment. I am a bit old and have seen words and phrases shift meanings in my lifetime and feel occasional irritation due to it (although I try to care less and less about it :)

I do find it harder to get worked up about a word that acquired additional meanings in the 14th century though - that ship has truly sailed :) Like who am I to school Mark Twain on the meaning of words.

I also find the ability of English to use the same word with different meanings and the power of context quite interesting (the fact that individual words exist in English with 100s of distinct meanings is really quite mind blowing.)

Ideas and concepts can sometimes be fuzzy as well with large overlaps, and insisting on too much specificity, precision and delineation in the language can be counterproductive to effective communication just as much as allowing too much flexibility can - but yeah, I guess there will always be some tension there and differences of opinion.

Language is often messy, but always fascinating. (And btw, I never said good or bad or right or wrong - I don’t feel it’s really my place to place such judgements)

Is it really a modern thing ? Somehow we got from Beowulf to Shakespeare, and from Latin to French in the past. I feel like the concept of “freezing” language in some fixed form is the more modern and academic ideal - and quite a quixotic one at that - people on the street will do with the language what they will as they always have.

Majority of the time when someone says they’re jealous of something they absolutely mean envious.

Isn’t this how language works ? If majority of the time people use the word in certain way, than that becomes one of its accepted meanings. In fact dictionaries list one of the meanings of “jealous” to be “envious” (with citations of this usage going back to 14th century, including works by Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain that are over 100 years old)

I am not sure you were as wrong as you think - see definitions 2 and 3 here

Usage of words shifts and sometimes expands over time.

More references here or here

I would personally definitely interpret “apparently” and “plainly” differently - “apparently” to me is “the evidence so far does seem to point this way, but I am not necessarily convinced, or have strong feelings either way” vs “plainly” is “the evidence is clear, I am convinced, and so should you be” - although obviously context would matter as well and could alter this interpretation.

Edit: even your example usage “I’ve been trying to get myself out of that habit, but even judging from my comment history, it’s apparently pretty hard” - to me the usage of “apparently” here indicates similar tension and/or contradiction, in this case between belief/intent (I am trying to stop the habit) and evidence (but my comment history shows otherwise) - it wouldn’t work quite as well with “plainly”

It would work with “evidently” but carry more of a connotation of confirmation and shift the emphasis (I am trying to, but it’s hard as confirmed by evidence) rather than contradiction (I would like to think I am doing it, but evidence shows otherwise) - of course you might have meant it either way (or even neither) - I am just saying how it reads to me.

But your citation gives both statements:

“In fact, the monkey would almost surely type every possible finite text an infinite number of times.”

and

“The theorem can be generalized to state that any sequence of events that has a non-zero probability of happening will almost certainly occur an infinite number of times, given an infinite amount of time or a universe that is infinite in size.”

So when you say the number of times is “unknowable” the actual answer is “almost surely an infinite number of times” no ? Since the probability of that can be calculated as 100%. The mindfuck part is that it is still possible that no monkey at all will type a particular text, even though the probability of that is 0.

The probability that only 2 monkeys will type the text is also still 0, same as 3 monkeys, 4 monkeys, etc. - in fact the probability of any specific finite number of monkeys only typing out the text is still 0 - only the probability of an infinite number of monkeys typing it out is 100% (the probabilities of all possible outcomes, even when infinite, have to sum up to 1 after all)

We just know that it will almost surely happen, but that doesn’t mean it will happen an infinite amount of occurrences.

Basically, if we know “it will almost surely happen” then we also know just as surely (p=1) that it will also happen an infinite number of times (but it might also never happen, although with p=0)

Ok, this is interesting, so thanks for pointing me to it. I think it’s still safe to say “almost surely an infinite number of monkeys” as opposed to “almost surely at least one”, since the probability of both cases is still 100% (can their probability even be quantitatively compared ? is one 100% more likely than another 100% in this case ?)

The idea that something with probability of 0 can happen in an infinite set is still a bit of a mindfuck - although I understand why this is necessary (e.g. picking a random marble from an infinite set of marbles where 1 is blue and all others red for example - the probability of picking the blue marble is 0, but it is obviously still possible)