Zompist Bboard Again

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 8:37 pm I previously stated i'm optimistic about other european cuisines but i have so far been given no contradictory evidence that german cuisine isn't UK tier other than schnitzel.

for a long time, that'd've been taken as a good thing.

Even then i'm concerned the schnitzel was overtly anglofied like every piece of chinese food i've eaten outside of singapore

umm...not sure whether to point out Singapore is part of the Anglosphere as well as the Sinosphere...or to ask if you think its a bad thing for something to be treated like non-Singaporean Chinese food.

so i'm going to a german restaurant some time in the near future.

I also don't like sausages because i detest minced meat (but not fish).

Also the sauerkrat i had was terrible due to its lack of sourness.

I do hope thats not the evidence for it being "overtly anglofied".

(hang on...I've heard of overly...but wouldn't overtly mean that it was deliberately made to appeal to Anglophone taste buds?)

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 12:15 am Notes about the food i had on my recent holiday.

based on the recent posts...I'm going to guess you had fun?

In Singapore i had more authentic chinese cuisine which tasted a lot like the chinese food you can get in australia.

*using a Mel Brooks voice* "Its good to be an affluent country." /Mel Brooks voice.
(sorry)

In Vietnam the best meals i had were a rather Authentic Italian restaurant (but note most of their offering was not anything like i could get at and Italian pizza place here)

I cannot think of why that could possibly be.

Margherita pizza and pasta carbonara (with dessert i can't remember which btw)

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 8:08 pm

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Apr 15, 2023 5:12 pm Just had a great dinner consisting of sausages, sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes. And now I feel like such a stereotype.

I see nothing to be ashamed in that - that sounds like a good meal!

Seconded. Babcia’s kielbasa and sauerkraut with mashed potatoes is such a good memory for me.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 8:08 pm
I see nothing to be ashamed in that - that sounds like a good meal!

More embarrassed than ashamed.

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:54 pm People who have hadn't played typing games as a kid how well can you type? I can type without looking because i know instinctively the place of keys and i type fairly quickly much faster then i write.

I had a typing class in 6th grade, but I played flash games whenever the teacher wasn't looking, so I feel like it's safe to say I didn't actually learn anything there. I eventually memorized the layout of QWERTY keyboards subconsciously, and can type without looking at ~60 WPM, although I would struggle to tell you where each key was if you asked.

Also, it takes me a few days to get used to a new keyboard if the size of the keys is even slightly different...

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:54 pm People who have hadn't played typing games as a kid how well can you type? I can type without looking because i know instinctively the place of keys and i type fairly quickly much faster then i write.

Not well at all. I type with one and a half fingers - one for typing, one for pressing shift when needed - and I think most of the time, I look.

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 8:56 am

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Thu Apr 20, 2023 7:54 pm People who have hadn't played typing games as a kid how well can you type? I can type without looking because i know instinctively the place of keys and i type fairly quickly much faster then i write.

Not well at all. I type with one and a half fingers - one for typing, one for pressing shift when needed - and I think most of the time, I look.

Fingers? We used to type with our noses, holding down t'shift key with our tongues!!!

alice wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 9:07 am
Fingers? We used to type with our noses, holding down t'shift key with our tongues!!!

Given the state of my keyboard, I think I don't really want to do that.

I touch type, and while I took a typing class in grade school I am largely self-taught. I remember as hunting-and-pecking as a kid, but at some point (I do not remember when) I came to touch type, but not the way they teach you in school (e.g. I will move my hands around the keyboard rather than constantly reaching from the home row as you supposedly are supposed to).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Fri Apr 21, 2023 10:47 am I touch type, and while I took a typing class in grade school I am largely self-taught. I remember as hunting-and-pecking as a kid, but at some point (I do not remember when) I came to touch type, but not the way they teach you in school (e.g. I will move my hands around the keyboard rather than constantly reaching from the home row as you supposedly are supposed to).

I used about 2 fingers on each hand, which I'm sure is not how you're supposed to it. It's just the system I developed from being given a keyboard and wanting to type fast.

I also use ~2 fingers on each hand. But I type very fast (people have previously remarked on my typing speed, although I can’t give an exact number just right now) and without looking at the keyboard, so I guess it qualifies as ‘touch typing’ even if it’s not the ‘recommended’ way to do things. (And in fact I have some issues around finger strength, so the ‘recommended’ method is actually very difficult for me to use.)

However, I did do a typing game in school, so this doesn’t really answer the original question.

I remember doing some typing games in school, but very informally, so my teaching myself typing was actually self-taught. The funny thing is that my brother and I* type quite differently: I type with all fingers, so it's close to touch-typing, though my typing speed is actually pretty slow (maybe 30-40 WPM, max?), so I'm actually faster when writing by longhand than when I type. (Though I got strange comments when I worked in France about typing quite quickly, especially compared to the teachers I worked with!)

My brother, on the other hand, hunts-and-pecks, though semi-quickly, so I think ultimately our typing speeds aren't so different, with me being a bit faster.

This reminds me, I forgot to ask: what exactly are "typing games"?

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Apr 22, 2023 12:48 am This reminds me, I forgot to ask: what exactly are "typing games"?

Games where you input certain letter keys as the goal. Basically any game is a typing game with a mouse but these lack abstraction. You press Q+U+E+E+N because that is what the game tells you to do and not because that unlocks a combo.

foxcatdog wrote: ↑Sat Apr 22, 2023 12:51 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Apr 22, 2023 12:48 am This reminds me, I forgot to ask: what exactly are "typing games"?

Games where you input certain letter keys as the goal. Basically any game is a typing game with a mouse but these lack abstraction.

Ah, thank you!

i do about 95 wpm in english, i don't think i'm must faster in spanish. oddly enough i was never taught to type that I remember, and still got to the type of typing where you don't look at the keyboard at all. but my technique is very different from what's taught in typography classes: someone who used to be in this board and had formal typing education once remarked that, even though we type at about the same speed, the techniques were really realy different, including whether or not we used the thumb for pushing space, and the fact that my pinkies have no role in my typing other than pressing the backspace, as well as something about the angle of the hands (I'm like this / \ but apparently he was taught to type like this | | , which i can't imagine is very comfortable at all)

Apparently in german and dutch fish dishes you can actually "taste the fish in them" unlike sushi. I'm scared to know what that means.

A general thought I had a while ago:

People in politics, domestic and global, often get accused of being other people's puppets.

But I think in life in general, it's fairly rare for anyone to be anyone's *complete* puppet. Someone might be very dependent on you, might owe you a lot, might be generally in line with you - but the connection might still break if you drive them too far, or say or do the wrong thing.

Thoughts?

Raphael wrote: ↑Thu May 04, 2023 10:42 am A general thought I had a while ago:

People in politics, domestic and global, often get accused of being other people's puppets.

But I think in life in general, it's fairly rare for anyone to be anyone's *complete* puppet. Someone might be very dependent on you, might owe you a lot, might be generally in line with you - but the connection might still break if you drive them too far, or say or do the wrong thing.

Thoughts?

No, politicians have access to more powerful levers than we ordinary folks do

To take an exemple from recent news... A politician may owe millions (or more) in campaign money to a Russian bank. Or Putin may have some pretty bad kompromat on them.
The French Communist party defended the USSR no matter what, sometimes taking it to absurd levels. This cost them a lot of votes.. .but they had little choice; most of their funding came from the Soviets.

Less dramatically, some politicians in the West were pretty clearly Russian puppets. Most of them took their distances -- everyone has a breaking point -- after the invasion of Ukraine; but they're still doing an uneasy little dance -- they owe the Russian quite a bit of money.

In real life, well, if we owe a huge sum of money, it's a mortgage and the bank doesn't really care what you do; and you can assume nobody has high-definition videos of you cheating on your wife with call girls.