Zompist Bboard Again

I echo what the others have said here. That situation certainly sucked, but this is not PTSD. Things like this tend to last for a bit, but get better over time. I'll add my voice to this too. I've had encounters like this, and they're scary at first but you do recover. Learning not to panic is also...

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/10/ukraines-drones-knock-out-ai-data-center-belonging-to-russias-google/ So, Russia's equivalent to Google, Yandex, has had its data centers hit. Apparently, it's knocked multiple Russian bots online . Do you really mean "knocked ... offline"? Or perha...

I suppose there might be exceptions in certain legal contexts: "The conlang shall have 42 (FORTY-TWO) phonemes", and such like.

... and alice was enlightened. Thanks!

This thread reminded me of a question which crossed my mind recently. I'm sure it's been asked before, but if it hasn't, here it is: Has anyone tried to do a conlang which is what English might have become without French or (much) Norse influence? Obviously there are a number of ways it could go; i...

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Sat Oct 10, 2026 10:02 am I am not a native English speaker, but Zulu traditions seems like the most correct form to me.

I am a native English speaker, and this seems the most correct to me too.

Had an interesting idea for a satirical villain: a Calvinist teacher who decides at the beginning of the school year who will pass and fail and deliberately sabotages students to ensure they fail despite their best efforts. I passed this along to someone I know elsewhere who I regularly discuss Chr...

The fact that they are even trying suggests that they have good reason to expect that it will pass. Don’t underestimate the ability of humans to expend staggering amounts of time and effort in hopeless causes. Exactly. If you've ever seen an interview at a parliamentary election where the candidate...

Man discovers his parents’ coffee machine used 1TB of data in 10 days Why does a coffee maker even need an internet connection in the first place? It feels like the tech industry is obsessed with colonizing every aspect of society. So that somebody, somewhere, can make a lot of money from it, and s...

I’m not North American, but I think for me the idiomatic term would be a café . As far as I can tell, round here "café", "coffee shop", and "tea shop" mean much the same thing. Although "coffee shop" can also be somewhere which sells different types of coffee...

"Apprentice" comes before "journeyman", does not it?

Well, L. Ron Hubbard said that the operating frequency of a thetan was 10^69 Hz, so presumably it's nothing more than the desire to inspire awe with Very BIg Numbers. That's way shorter than Planck time! Irrefutable proof that LRH's science is far in advance of anything anyone else has been remotel...

It really is worth asking why I feel so much personal investment in issues that belong to other people and whether it really makes sense. I know a few people like this, and I used to be one myself. The trick is to know when and how much it is reasonable to care, and the Serenity Prayer can come in ...

jcb wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2026 9:21 am Behold! The techbros' latest glorious idea: Uber, but for drug trafficking.
- https://x.com/superalbs/status/2081291778116747611

And, presumably, bitcoins?

The point of my somewhat contentious post earler was that, when I see quite a few stories like this, the definition and meaning of "winning" are not totally clear.

All four outstanding songs now have workable arangements. This means that not much remains beyond merely playing the bits over and over again until they sound right. That’s great! Any chance of hearing them, or are these private enterprises? 🙂 Err... part of me would like them to stay private unles...

Well, L. Ron Hubbard said that the operating frequency of a thetan was 10^69 Hz, so presumably it's nothing more than the desire to inspire awe with Very BIg Numbers.

All four outstanding songs now have workable arangements. This means that not much remains beyond merely playing the bits over and over again until they sound right.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Thu Oct 01, 2026 5:50 am Apparently, who made that map confused Austria and Australia

And forgot about Patagonian and Nova Scotian, among others.

I wonder how the residents of (the unfortunate Ukrainian cities which are currently under more or less constant bombardment by Russian missiles) feel about their country "winning", however. What do you think the Ukrainians feel about their country being invaded by a fascist power? War is,...