Zompist Bboard Again

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Mar 17, 2026 3:30 pm Exaggerating abilities is not, to my mind, fraud, because it's subjective and also near-universal— cf. the Dunning-Kruger effect.

It should be noted that there is also the reverse Dunning-Kruger effect, also known as impostor syndrome, where highly competent people significant underrate their own abilities despite evidence to the contrary; this is also very common.

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Mar 17, 2026 3:30 pm "Fraud" has a legal sense, and also a more general sense of "impostor", as in "That guy says he can bend metal with his mind, but he's a fraud."

In the legal sense, you'd have to ask a lawyer, but I'd say it would require lying about checkable facts. E.g. if the dude is saying he went to Oxford and he didn't, or that he worked for Google and he didn't, those are lies and could be called fraud.

In the impostor sense, if he says he's a CPA but is actually a receptionist, you could say he's a fraud, though it sounds a little overblown if we're talking about office work. But if he says he's a CPA and he is a CPA, but does bad work, that's not fraud, just incompetence.

Exaggerating abilities is not, to my mind, fraud, because it's subjective and also near-universal— cf. the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Thank you for that thoughtful reply. I ask because a few weeks ago, I stumbled (don't worry, just by accident, not because I would have been looking for what they had to offer) on someone on the internet who offered paid writing advice to writers despite the fact that the few snippets they themselves had written that I got to see contained glaring grammar, spelling, and stylistic mistakes.

A few weeks ago I helped mum move house. It was very exhausting and took longer than any of us hoped.

The new house has a lot more space. I think Lazuli is enjoying all the space, lots of room to run around and be a cat. Nikita would have liked it too.

This closet space was where Nikita had passed away... in that little corner between mum's clothes.

I found something... symbolic... in us leaving that place.

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We've been having awful winds the past few days. Yesterday morning--it being just after midnight here--I heard a particularly strong gust hit the house. My mother, it transpired, heard the same thing I did and thought I had fallen out of bed (I have been having a medical thing going on the past few days, so it is a reasonable idea). It was a meteor. (It broke up before running into anything on the ground, so it wasn't that our house was it, to be perfectly clear.)

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Mar 17, 2026 11:06 pm We've been having awful winds the past few days. Yesterday morning--it being just after midnight here--I heard a particularly strong gust hit the house. My mother, it transpired, heard the same thing I did and thought I had fallen out of bed (I have been having a medical thing going on the past few days, so it is a reasonable idea). It was a meteor. (It broke up before running into anything on the ground, so it wasn't that our house was it, to be perfectly clear.)

Wow. Spooky.

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Mar 17, 2026 11:06 pm We've been having awful winds the past few days. Yesterday morning--it being just after midnight here--I heard a particularly strong gust hit the house. My mother, it transpired, heard the same thing I did and thought I had fallen out of bed (I have been having a medical thing going on the past few days, so it is a reasonable idea). It was a meteor. (It broke up before running into anything on the ground, so it wasn't that our house was it, to be perfectly clear.)

I had heard about that, yeah. that's pretty cool that you were close enough to hear it!

Man in Space wrote: ↑Sun Feb 01, 2026 10:37 pm > ku
ERROR! THIS IS A PATSAK PLANET, YOU ARE A CHATLIAN
> sudo ku
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
| 1 _ _ | _ _ _ | _ _ _ |
| _ _ _ | _ 3 _ | _ _ _ |
| _ _ _ | _ _ _ | 6 _ _ |
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
| _ _ _ | _ _ 8 | _ _ _ |
| _ 2 _ | _ _ _ | _ _ _ |
| _ _ _ | _ _ _ | _ 4 _ |
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
| _ _ _ | 9 _ _ | _ _ _ |
| _ _ _ | _ _ _ | _ _ 5 |
| _ _ 7 | _ _ _ | _ _ _ |
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

are these bass guitar tabs?

Starbeam wrote: ↑Wed Mar 18, 2026 3:58 pmare these bass guitar tabs?

Negative, this is a sudoku board.

To spoil the pun:

Perhaps a somewhat mean and cynical question: Do I get this right that Chinese jingoists used to be very proud of their country's 3000 years of history, until they learned that Egypt has 5000 years of history, at which point they suddenly discovered that China has 5000 years of history, too?

And yes, I know that, if your standard is "For how long have human beings lived there?", both countries have much longer history than that.

Raphael wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 9:20 am Perhaps a somewhat mean and cynical question: Do I get this right that Chinese jingoists used to be very proud of their country's 3000 years of history, until they learned that Egypt has 5000 years of history, at which point they suddenly discovered that China has 5000 years of history, too?

And yes, I know that, if your standard is "For how long have human beings lived there?", both countries have much longer history than that.

Apparently China's "5000 years of history" is definitely a Chinese jingoist meme (incidentally originally thought up by Jesuits, mind you) that took hold during the Qing and then the Republican eras. The thing is that, depending on how one defines "civilization", China has either 3000, 3700, or 8000 (if one counts neolithic China) years of history, but not 5000 years of history.

Not one of the dryers at my apartment complex was working today. I am trying my best to dry my clothes by hand but it's looking quite difficult. While searching for a dryer that would work, I gashed my arm horribly on the corners of one. Minor problem in the grand scheme of things, but just so tired of everything big and small in my life going wrong.

I want to work on my internet conversational writing and i need some advice. I'm trying to be more concise, more professional, and less awkward. In particular, i notice i write conjunctions all the time. I was taught not to start sentences with conjunctions when i was young, and even tho i know it's not really a rule, i would still like to adhere to the occasional style guide. It's like every sentence i write has a comma and then a conjunction either supporting or contradicting its following clause. I've tried reframing my sentences and cutting out excess information, but i still feel off. What do you all suggest?

And yes, i know i write with lowercase "i" as the pronoun and other simplified/ regularized spellings. I'm more focused on the grammar right now, since i can always turn those quirks off when i want to. I just happen to not want to.

Starbeam wrote: ↑Mon Mar 23, 2026 10:47 am It's like every sentence i write has a comma and then a conjunction either supporting or contradicting its following clause.

It'd help if you give some examples of the pattern you're trying to avoid. The description is pretty vague-- <S> <conj> <S> is not wrong in itself.

OK, I'm feeling a bit cranky right now.

Does anyone else have the impression that for all too many political positions, you could easily come up with arguments in favor of the positions that are better than the arguments most commonly used by the positions' own supporters?

Planning on attending a No Kings protest this weekend and just need to decide what my sign should say. I think something simple and specific like "No war with Iran".

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2026 6:11 pm OK, I'm feeling a bit cranky right now.

Does anyone else have the impression that for all too many political positions, you could easily come up with arguments in favor of the positions that are better than the arguments most commonly used by the positions' own supporters?

Yes. For one example, the latest-but-one outrage cycle over here is happening because some Muslims dared to put on an ‘open iftar’ event that included praying within sight of a Tory shadow minister¹, who promptly declared it an act of ‘domination,’² after which various Tories³ tried to find less racist ways of saying this⁴, to explain why he wasn't sacked⁵. Now I've suffered through enough technically-not-enforced Christianity⁶⁷ to be quite receptive to the idea that certain religions have too much influence in public life, but if all religions could constrain themselves to ‘occasional public events explicitly open to all of which religious devotion is a small part’ I'd be a lot happier.

¹ Nick Timothy, shadow justice secretary
² The fact that many religions have occasional public events in Trafalgar Square seems not to annoy him so much, which leads to doubts as to his motives.
³ The only exception I'm aware of is the deputy Tory leader on the London assembly. The cynic in me wonders if this is an early bid for Mayor of London
⁴ Usually objecting to gender segregation during the prayer
⁵ The real reason is probably because he'd defect to Reform
⁶ Which the Right Honourable Nick Timothy has no objection to
⁷ You have a right to opt out of the legally required Christian⁸ worship at schools, but almost noöne knows about it, and I didn't until after I left primary school and my secondary school broke the law by not having any
⁸ If the school has no religious character, it must put on daily Christian-ish worship, get special permission not to, or break the law. Of course religious schools, most of which are Christian, need no encouragement to do this

Raphael wrote: ↑Tue Mar 24, 2026 6:11 pm Does anyone else have the impression that for all too many political positions, you could easily come up with arguments in favor of the positions that are better than the arguments most commonly used by the positions' own supporters?

My first reaction would be that this feeling shouldn't be too surprising. Persuasion is an art, and few people are good at it. It requires an ability to understand where the audience is coming from, what values or propositions are shared, what approaches are good and which are counter-productive. The surer one is in one's own ideology, the harder these skills are.

The most persuasive people are, I reckon, the ones who have themselves come from outside, and still remember what it was like.

Lērisama wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2026 3:18 am ⁸ If the school has no religious character, it must put on daily Christian-ish worship, get special permission not to, or break the law.

Seriously??

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2026 6:32 am

Lērisama wrote: ↑Wed Mar 25, 2026 3:18 am ⁸ If the school has no religious character, it must put on daily Christian-ish worship, get special permission not to, or break the law.

Seriously??

Well, I don't recall the requirement being repealed for England.