Random Thread

[Moose-tache]

Ah, crap. I saw the elections thread and figured that wasn't the appropriate place, but I completely missed the thread specifically about this issue. I would delete my post, but it's too late.

As a change of topic, how does everybody feel about Tik Tok? I'm still not sure what it is. So far, I have been told a) it's for porn, and b) it's for kids.

[Kuchigakatai]

A simple article from 2017 about the association of CSS into the renderable HTML DOM tree in Firefox:
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/08/insid ... aka-stylo/
And better yet, a follow-up article, also from 2017, about the rendering of the DOM tree into pixels for the screen:
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/10/the-w ... d-of-jank/

As a change of topic, how does everybody feel about Tik Tok? I'm still not sure what it is. So far, I have been told a) it's for porn, and b) it's for kids.

With the caveat that I've never actually used the thing, I see that it's mostly used by very young users (let's say typically around 9 and above until people in their early 20s), who post extremely short edited videos (only a few seconds long) called tiktoks. These sometimes have some sort of multilayer or parallel layer composition of videos, some sort of effects/distortion and/or some coordination between audio and video (notably as dancing or simpler rhythmic movements). On the app you see plenty of creative ways users combine composition, effects and audio-video coordination to achieve a certain result.

Explicit nude and gore violent content is banned, but as always in any large website some of it gets through sometimes for a while until it's banned. There's plenty of erotic/suggestive stuff though, say, lightly-clothed women twerking, or layered videos combined to make female users look like they're doing something sexual, hence the comments you've seen over its "porn" (and articles from concerned parents, etc.). There are also tiktoks of users playing knives, doing suggestive things with them, and the like.

You can find plenty of compilations of the better sorts of tiktoks on YouTube. TikTok is owned by a company in China. Unlike WeChat, where users from China and outside China can interact, the Chinese TikTok (Douyin) is completely separate from the outside-of-China version.

[Birdlang]

I learned I have some cousins who are Iranian, Filipino and Taiwanese out of mostly people who are of Irish, British, and German descent. I kinda want to learn Tagalog or Mandarin now, or even Cebuano.

[Moose-tache]

If my experience holds, they will all refuse to speak any language but English with you, because you are their American cousin and they speak English anyway.

[Pabappa]

vegetarians can eat tuna:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tuna#Etymology_2

[Raphael]

I just read a claim that back in the past, in addition to all the things they still oppose, the Catholic Church also used to oppose cesarean sections. I tried to do web searches on the matter, but all I got was websites on the Catholic Church's position on contraception and abortion, which I already more or less know, and apologetics websites, which might not be completely reliable, and other dodgy websites. So, does anyone here know anything about that?

[Ares Land]

The French Wikipedia has a section on that:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9sa ... ite_ref-35

L'Église approuve la césarienne sur femme morte, afin d'assurer le salut de l'enfant par le baptême33, mais dans un premier temps, elle s'oppose absolument à l'incision de la femme encore vivante, car si le choix consiste en l'une des deux vies, ce choix ne relève pas des hommes, mais de Dieu34.
(...)
Au cours du XVIIIe siècle, l'Église assouplit sa position, la césarienne sur une femme vivante est tolérée, mais l'enfant à baptiser reste prioritaire

The Church sanctions caesarean sections on dead women, for the salvation of the child through baptims's sake, but at first, it strictly condemned operation on a woman still alive, for if there is a choice to be made between two lives, it is not for men to take, but for God.
(..)
During the XVIIIth century, the Church relaxes its positon, caesarian sections on living women are tolerated, but the child to be baptised remains a priority.

All citations on the topic refer to an essay by Jacques Gélis, who's an anthropologist specializing in childbirth.

Now I don't have access to the book, but I believe this refers to the Renaissance - Early Modern era, a time when C-sections would be particularly dangerous. Besides the appeal to divine authority, I suppose the real concern was to avoid unnecessary risk?

[Raphael]

Oh, thank you, that's very helpful!

[Linguoboy]

I got a random friend request the other day from a sketchy-looking user, which I normally would have just deleted, but in his profile, he said he was "Learning Azerbaijani" so I decided to have some fun. The conversation went like this:

"Niyə azərbaycan dilini öyrənirsən?" ("Why are you learning Azerbaijani?")
"English."
"Sən yalançısan." (You're a liar.")

Now his reply has been replaced with a message saying "the sender's account requires verification".

[kodé]

I got a random friend request the other day from a sketchy-looking user, which I normally would have just deleted, but in his profile, he said he was "Learning Azerbaijani" so I decided to have some fun. The conversation went like this:

"Niyə azərbaycan dilini öyrənirsən?" ("Why are you learning Azerbaijani?")
"English."
"Sən yalançısan." (You're a liar.")

Now his reply has been replaced with a message saying "the sender's account requires verification".

Is “yalançi” (can’t find dotless i on my tablet) ‘liar’? I’m wondering if that’s related to the word “yalanchi” [jalantSi] we use in Western Armenian for ‘cold, vegetarian stuffed grape leaf’— “yalanchi” has always sounded Turkic to me, and Western Armenian has a butt-ton of Turkish loans.

[Linguoboy]

Is “yalançi” (can’t find dotless i on my tablet) ‘liar’? I’m wondering if that’s related to the word “yalanchi” [jalantSi] we use in Western Armenian for ‘cold, vegetarian stuffed grape leaf’— “yalanchi” has always sounded Turkic to me, and Western Armenian has a butt-ton of Turkish loans.

Yeah, it’s yalan “lie” with the agentive suffix.

What would the semantic motivation be? It’s “lying” to you by being filled with vegetables and not meat?

[Hallow XIII]

Yes, exactly. A yalancı dolma is one not filled with meat.

EDIT: To be clear, this phrase is in use in Turkish, and the Armenian word is thus a straightforward loan. The question of semantic motivation is thus one Turkish phraseology, but I would wager that linguoboy is spot on. Certainly many kinds of vegetarian dishes that look like ones with meat in other countries are called "false".

[cedh]

What would the semantic motivation be? It’s “lying” to you by being filled with vegetables and not meat?

You know Swabian German, right? There's a Swabian dish called Maultaschen, which has an alternative name based on a very similar metaphor, just the other way around: Herrgottsbscheißerle, lit. "small God-cheaters", because they do contain meat but hide it under a pasta wrapping so they can be eaten during Lent...

[Pabappa]

academic research these days ....

https://twitter.com/JHelminthology

The Journal of Helminthology published by Cambridge University Press is a well-respected journal ... but their Twitter account is half memes and meme-styled images like this and this. I even checked to make sure i was really looking at the correct twitter account and not just the acct of someone who works there ... but yes, its featured on the Cambridge University Press website so it is definitely real.

[Ryusenshi]

I somehow managed to confuse Matthew Yglesias with Milo Yiannopoulos. No wonder the article I was reading made little sense...

[Ares Land]

academic research these days ....

https://twitter.com/JHelminthology

The Journal of Helminthology published by Cambridge University Press is a well-respected journal ... but their Twitter account is half memes and meme-styled images like this and this. I even checked to make sure i was really looking at the correct twitter account and not just the acct of someone who works there ... but yes, its featured on the Cambridge University Press website so it is definitely real.

To their defense, the subject of parasitic flatworms was in desperate need of comic relief...

More seriously, though, the strategy works. I have no interest in worms whatsoever, parasitic or not, but just from following your links, I learned about helminthology (I'd never heard the word before) and also what cercariae and trematodes are (I'm still not interested, but I learned a bit about them anyway).

[zompist]

I somehow managed to confuse Matthew Yglesias with Milo Yiannopoulos. No wonder the article I was reading made little sense...

That's OK, if you ask Left Twitter, they can't tell the difference either.

[Moose-tache]

academic research these days ....

https://twitter.com/JHelminthology

The Journal of Helminthology published by Cambridge University Press is a well-respected journal ... but their Twitter account is half memes and meme-styled images like this and this. I even checked to make sure i was really looking at the correct twitter account and not just the acct of someone who works there ... but yes, its featured on the Cambridge University Press website so it is definitely real.

To their defense, the subject of parasitic flatworms was in desperate need of comic relief...

More seriously, though, the strategy works. I have no interest in worms whatsoever, parasitic or not, but just from following your links, I learned about helminthology (I'd never heard the word before) and also what cercariae and trematodes are (I'm still not interested, but I learned a bit about them anyway).

Whoever is in charge of their social media is a wizard. Not because of the memes, everyone knows how to make memes. The hard part is convincing the professors to shut up and let you do your job. When I did communications for a research lab, my day was this on a loop:
"Why is our content so unengaging? We need more community interest in our research."
"Well, we can't do that! It doesn't match the dignity and seriousness of our research."
"Why does no one care about our content? They just don't seem interested in our great work at all!"
"Here, do it this way; I have opinions about how to show people that our research is very professional and accurate."
etc.
etc.
Anyone who can convince a professor to leave other people's jobs to other people deserves a medal of some kind, probably with a shiba inu on it.

[masako]

He spews nonsensical poo as easily as others breathe.

[Moose-tache]

He spews nonsensical poo as easily as others breathe.

???