Bananas. Diesel. Armadillos. The square root of 1,364.
Continue the randomness here….
Home » Forums » The Loveland Arms – pub chat » The Random Thread: The Next Generation
Apropos of nothing in particular, here’s a brilliant short thread on what constitutes biological sex.
Friendly neighborhood biologist here. I see a lot of people are talking about biological sexes and gender right now. Lots of folks make biological sex sex seem really simple. Well, since it’s so simple, let’s find the biological roots, shall we? Let’s talk about sex…[a thread]
— Open Ocean Exploration (@RebeccaRHelm) December 20, 2019
placing the numbers on top of each other and carrying the one
When I do adding in my head, that’s the way I do it. I guess I’m just an old man stuck in his ways. And I didn’t learn the new way.
Doesn’t everybody do it that way?
I mean, I would never do that on paper, but in my head that’s pretty much always how I work.
Why do we call them red onions when they are obviously purple?
Why do we call them red onions when they are obviously purple?
I don’t know if this is the reason, but I watched an interesting video on YT yesterday about how blue isn’t given a word in most, if not all, languages until well after black, white, red, yellow and green, because it wasn’t as necessary to distinguish from other colours verbally. It tended to get treated as a shade of green, and there are secluded tribes around the world that still don’t have a word for it and thus can’t as easily distinguish it from green. The same is true of other colours, like pink, and so presumably purple when red onions were originally named. Purple just wasn’t a “thing” at the time, it was just an extension of red. Same really with red squirrels and other orange things.
Doesn’t everybody do it that way?
Clearly not since I explained I CREATED THE NEW MATHS!
I don’t know if this is the reason, but I watched an interesting video on YT yesterday about how blue isn’t given a word in most, if not all, languages until well after black, white, red, yellow and green, because it wasn’t as necessary to distinguish from other colours verbally. It tended to get treated as a shade of green, and there are secluded tribes around the world that still don’t have a word for it and thus can’t as easily distinguish it from green. The same is true of other colours, like pink, and so presumably purple when red onions were originally named. Purple just wasn’t a “thing” at the time, it was just an extension of red. Same really with red squirrels and other orange things.
Nice try, Martin, but I’m not going to accept this explanation until our resident language expert @KalmanL comes on this thread and confirms it.
there are secluded tribes around the world that still don’t have a word for it and thus can’t as easily distinguish it from green.
Actually, research with these language communities have shown that they are able to distinguish between different colours as well as we do, even if they don’t have words for it (in specific experiments when asked about the differences), but are less well able to remember them. So Whorf-Sapir still kinda holds true, to an extent.
I found out that I was doing parts of the ‘new math’ by accident most of my life. At least in basic arithmetic.
Despite being taught the traditional way, my way of thinking has always done it this way, which I find easier.
I found the old way of placing the numbers on top of each other and carrying the one very difficult to do when not on paper
The method you’ve shown here is the column method (ie stacking numbers) done in rows instead.
The method you’ve shown here is the column method (ie stacking members) done in rows instead.
I saw a few math test problems for college admissions ie. 8 to the third power and another number 2 to the second. Basically the solution involves rewriting 8 to 2 to the third so that both numbers have the same base of 2 and take it from there.
Mind you this form of “creativity” is not formally taught in class. In class, it is just the formal times tables, algebraic equations, etc. straightforward things. The “tricks” and “shortcuts” to learn for the college test like above are from private tutoring which is the barrier as not everyone can afford private tutoring.
While not exactly a routine question it is a fairly straight forward one if you have a solid understanding of indices Al. It was actually something I was doing forward prep for and looking for resources for the other day. It’s quite unfair to paint all teacher with the same brush of mediocrity.
I wasn’t being unfair, just highlighting the difference between formal public schooling and the tricks and shortcuts learned from private schools and tutoring. Not all have a “solid understanding of indices” and have the intuition to rewrite the given problem.
As a tutor, I used to tell my students to develop test taking skills, to reinterpret test questions and simplify if possible.
Bruce, you are in Europe and I am in the States. That is another difference.
I don’t know if this is the reason, but I watched an interesting video on YT yesterday about how blue isn’t given a word in most, if not all, languages until well after black, white, red, yellow and green, because it wasn’t as necessary to distinguish from other colours verbally. It tended to get treated as a shade of green, and there are secluded tribes around the world that still don’t have a word for it and thus can’t as easily distinguish it from green. The same is true of other colours, like pink, and so presumably purple when red onions were originally named. Purple just wasn’t a “thing” at the time, it was just an extension of red. Same really with red squirrels and other orange things.
Nice try, Martin, but I’m not going to accept this explanation until our resident language expert @KalmanL comes on this thread and confirms it.
Kind of right. Christian has the more accurate version, so I’ll confirm his modification.
I think it is really important to waste your life a little in your early twenties. It’s good for you. It helps grow character, and not have a complete breakdown in your forties.
Forgot that I really wanted to respond to this.
Yes! I can recite a few that were wrongly pushed into things (apprenticeships not completed, property ownership ending in foreclosure, marriages over in less than two years).
You can look at your wasted years and try to guide a younger person to a quicker path.
But you went through that, we all did. Pushing it on an almost-eighteen-year-old and wanting them to be a homeowner and on a successful career path is too much.
Was going down this path, but it is separate from your point of ‘a complete breakdown in your forties’.
I’ve seen that in people married too young and had children too young.
Easy for me to say. Also bullshit for me to say. I never had kids.
I should point out that the late ’80’s was me in a union job, helper in a steel fabrication shop (okay, so my dad just became the supervisor and got me in, but that was like one year).
Things change, money not as good in non-union, but when the door is opened again, I wake-up and am serious (and it wasn’t even that job, but get noticed and people help/push) get apprenticeship (steel fab).
Things change again, multiple times. But who you are deep down when you are challenged means a lot.
Anyways, I became the supervisor of my department about 5 years earlier than my dad did (same trade) and no one would have said that about me in my late teens or early twenties.
So yes, you have to get the ‘Ya-ya’s out. Firm believer in that.
Just have to have something to show for those wasted years.
Which means Sex, and lots of it. Almost like me, just not the word ‘lots’…
https://www.instagram.com/p/CIZfs7BjsLC/
A website that shows you the locations of gritting trucks in Scotland. The best part is the names of the trucks such as Gritney Spears, Licence to Chill and my personal favourite, Spready Mercury.
#OnThisDay 1971: Nationwide got lost in Rothbury, with its perfectly logical address system. pic.twitter.com/j2eEVzEfo1
— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) December 9, 2020
This was quite a funny little window into the wild times of pre-postcode Britain.
Mind you, my street’s not much better currently. It’s a sprawling, branching cul-de-sac where the house numbering bleeds into what anyone would reasonably assume are parts of the streets either side. I live in the odd-20s but I honestly couldn’t tell you where the even-20s are.
Mind you, my street’s not much better currently. It’s a sprawling, branching cul-de-sac where the house numbering bleeds into what anyone would reasonably assume are parts of the streets either side. I live in the odd-20s but I honestly couldn’t tell you where the even-20s are.
I live on a road with several number 4’s. I’m at 4 (something) Lane, but there is also 4 (something) Cottages and 4 (something) Terrace, all of which are on (something) Lane. The postman knows the difference, but it confuses the heck out of other people making deliveries.
(No it’s not actually “something” Lane but I thought better of putting my actual address on here.)
I did a fly-drive holiday to New Zealand and one night we were staying at a ‘farmstay’ outside Rotorua. The address was something like number 1486 on this long rural road. We couldn’t make any sense of the numbering as when we could see number signs they were going 875, then jumping to 936, 1027 etc between houses.
The owners revealed it actually signifies the number of metres from the start of the road so it’s easy for emergency services to find them, in pre GPS times they’d reset their journey kilometre counter as they entered the road so knew when the house was coming up.
I can’t say that would be particularly useful in a British terraced street like in the video but it made sense there as most of the properties were set back from the road.
Why?
BECAUSE I CAN!!!
Can you though?
If I read a book and leave it on the table, and then you come along and pick up the book and read it, is it still the same book?
If I read a book and leave it on the table, and then you come along and pick up the book and read it, is it still the same book?
No. It won’t even be the same book if you read it again.
If I read a book and leave it on the table, and then you come along and pick up the book and read it, is it still the same book?
According to Parmenides yes, according to Herakleitos no.
If I read a book and leave it on the table, and then you come along and pick up the book and read it, is it still the same book?
According to Schroedinger, the book is dead AND alive until you open the box.
If I read a book and leave it on the table, and then you come along and pick up the book and read it, is it still the same book?
You can read?
The last thing I ordered for Christmas just arrived – some earrings for my girlfriend – so I wrapped them and put them with the rest of her presents, and I realised there’s a present there that I have no clue what it is. Feels like a book, but…
I was just skimming the headlines and I read “Pfizer” as “pizza” and now I want to join the pizza vaccine trials.
Wouldn’t that mean you would become immune to pizza cravings?
I realised there’s a present there that I have no clue what it is
That’s the one you bought for me, Steve. I’ll PM you my address; Cheers!
Noah Cyrus
How is Huawei pronounced in the US and the UK. I’ve heard it pronounced Hoo-Wa-Why here.
I’d imagine Hwah-Way.
Wah-way.
I think “hwa way” is the correct Chinese one. Dutchies just mess it up.
I hate when I get those strange looks on certain words from the uneducated.
Do you mean “Keen-wah”? – No, I mean “Quinn-OA”. Check the spelling, dumbass!
Do you mean “Key-Oat-EE”? – No, I don’t even know what that is. I mean “Quicks-oat”
Do you mean “Draft”? – We’re not talking about the next generation of hockey players here, I’m talking “Drot” beer
__________________________________________________________
Okay, seriously though, I did get the pronunciation of Sherbet correct
Oh, and Steve is correct (how sensible!). Huawei is pronounced “Wah-Way” as it’s been on the news here for a long time.
The U.S. asked Canada to imprison Meng Wanzhou (and our agreement with the U.S. demands that we do).
China retaliated by detaining 2 Canadians and charging them with treason.
No one is sure how those 2 Canadians are being treated for 2 years inside a jail cell, but we do know that bitch is under house arrest in Vancouver allowed to move between 2 mansions, and the court house.
Fuck China (and of course I mean the Government).
Having Joe Biden as U.S. President should mean a concerted effort with all like-minded nations.
Trump forced our hand and left us to deal with a pile of shit.
Whoops! I could go on and on, but realized I only meant to type the first sentence. Plus wrong thread for that.
I think “hwa way” is the correct Chinese one. Dutchies just mess it up.
Here you go, I saw this ad yesterday:
The company itself is agreeing with JR and you with the H pronounced at the start and my wife who speaks Chinese says so too. Case closed.
Plus wrong thread for that.
There is no “wrong” in the random thread!
Also, I didn’t know about this. Interesting!
I think “hwa way” is the correct Chinese one. Dutchies just mess it up.
Here you go, I saw this ad yesterday:
The company itself is agreeing with JR and you with the H pronounced at the start and my wife who speaks Chinese says so too. Case closed.
You’d think that’s conclusive, but counter point: Nutella insist that their product/company is pronounced “new-tella” despite that making no sense and being an affront to god.
You’d think that’s conclusive, but counter point: Nutella insist that their product/company is pronounced “new-tella” despite that making no sense and being an affront to god.
See also “GIF.”
See also “GIF.”
Shut up, Laurel.
Never ridicule someone for pronouncing a word incorrectly. It just means they learned it from a book instead of from the TV.
(I say quin-oh-a even though I know it’s wrong. Just because )
(I also say Eye-Biz-ah, because I believe that it is the only correct way for an English speaker to pronounce Ibiza.)
It’s I-beef-uh, David.
(I say quin-oh-a even though I know it’s wrong. Just because )
I say Quin-oh-ah largely to annoy people
being an affront to god.
Incidentally, this is my number 1 hobby.
being an affront to god.
Incidentally, this is my number 1 hobby.
And you do it so well!
(Chef’s kiss)
For years, I referred to Miqque as “The Ancient One”. I wonder, who will be the new Ancient One? I’m thinking Don. Suggestions?
Is this a thing where somebody has to take on the mantle or the world will spin out of balance? Like with Morpheus and Daniel?
Is this a thing where somebody has to take on the mantle or the world will spin out of balance? Like with Morpheus and Daniel?
Yes, it’s both an honorary title and a job description. Not entirely unlike “Sorcerer Supreme”. I’m not sure the board can do another year without an ancient one.
Maybe we should flip it and give the title to the board’s YOUNGEST member. Be all edgy and go against expectations.
I appreciate the thought but I would defer to Jerry in terms of unruly eyebrows and ear-hair.
Fixed that for you, Don. By the way, how old are you? I’m six days shy of 62.
I’m six days shy of 62.
That’s right! And I also remember that Mark Millar is on the 24th!
I used to ask the question of people who have birthdays so close to Xmas if they get twice the presents.
I got my answer so I won’t ask this year…
2/29
YOU ARE NINETY-ONE YEARS OLD!?
That picture of the guy walking with his girlfriend and then he looks at another woman walking by… So many people put their own texts on each of the three and what they represent.
Now it is getting to the point where just about every picture you see has a text of the characters representing something.
Ha ha…
It is also different memes as well.
Ha ha…
It is also different memes as well.
The fuck is this madness?
I was listening to a podcast that’s done by a history professor in the north of England who specialises in the history of football. Football in this case covering every code that came out of what was once one game in the mid 1800s and turned into soccer, rugby, American and Canadian football, Aussie rules and Gaelic football.
Anyway it went into the tradition of playing football games on Christmas Day which mostly ended in the 1960s and had a few revelations in it I never knew. In the UK at Christmas now virtually everything stops, even petrol stations shut their doors, only pubs open for a few hours and the odd family run convenience store (usually run by an Asian family of Muslim or Hindu faith). I always assumed that’s a tradition centuries old but in fact it only started just before I was born in the early 70s.
In Scotland especially it was barely celebrated or marked at all until the 1960s due a presbyterian dislike of marking specific dates (not sure if that is related to the similar belief of Jehova’s Witnesses). All over the UK though a lot of stuff carried on as normal, postal deliveries went on as normal, milk rounds didn’t stop and shops were open. The idea of Christmas being a time at home for the family is barely 50 years old and driven by the popularity of television and more women entering work. TV provided specials and big movies to watch and he explained that until the mid 1960s men would go out and watch the ‘football’ match and drink with their friends in the pub all day, which became less acceptable after women were also working and roles had to be shared more.
The football and rugby games then moved to Boxing Day, a little more slowly in Scotland where it wasn’t even a public holiday until 1974.
Which makes it interesting that a lot of period dramas and the like are basically lying to us. Shows set from Victorian times to the 1950s all tend to portray the modern experience of a family day at home with empty high streets which didn’t actually exist. In fact they are selling us an image that they largely created.
Are you sure that’s not a little overstated? In the original Christmas Carol, Scrooge is made out to be a bit of a dick for not giving Bob the day off for Christmas, and when the ghost of Christmas present shows him what’s happening on Christmas day, Bob is shown as having the day off to have a family meal together, and Scrooge’s nephew is having a party with friends etc. Even going back into the past, Fezziwig’s business stops to have a big Christmas party.
Looking into it further, it seems that A Christmas Carol was a little more cutting-edge that I realised, and rather than reflecting existing long-held traditions it was on the cusp of a change in attitudes towards Christmas (and actually played quite a big role in popularising some of these ideas that we think of as part of a traditional Christmas celebration.)
So if not quite as recent as the last 50 years, these cultural changes were as recent as mid-19th-century. (Christmas Carol was first published in 1843.)
When is Christams celebrated where you’re at? This is not (just) a response to the above posts, but an open question.
We celebrate today. 24th. Family gathered, the christmas dinner, presents and all that. That’s tonight. The 25th, tomorrow, is reserved for hangovers, getting drunk again (especially going to your old regular pub/club/bar in your hometown where you likely celebrate but don’t live) and going to church. Albeit not in that order.
I think we may be the only outlier but I’m not sure.
I am pretty sure I must’ve asked this before though.
Typically most of the celebrations here are reserved for Christmas day, but depending on how religious you are there are ceremonies that begin on Christmas Eve (midnight mass etc.).
In normal times family gatherings will often happen on Christmas Eve so that everyone is in one place for Christmas morning, but it’s equally common for people to gather on Christmas day itself or the days after for family celebrations.
Essentially though, the 25th is the big day.
We swedes are a weird bunch.
(Did you know: Mickey Mouse is not the face of Disney in Sweden – Donald Duck is.)
Maybe my ‘a lot of stuff carried on as normal’ could be read a bit further as a normal weekday than I intended it to.
It was a holiday since the 1830s but a lot less stopped than it did today and the huge attendances are there for the football and rugby matches which in those days would have been exclusively attended by men and the written accounts have them staying out the rest of the day. So I’m not saying they didn’t open presents and have a family meal at home (although Scotland may have been different as it only became a public holiday there in 1958 which was also surprising) but there was also a lot more going out and doing other things.
My impression was always that the ‘dead stop’ of most activity at Christmas had always been around and I probably got that from the way Sundays were that way but have gradually become more open over my lifetime.
In something like a Call The Midwife type show at Christmas they don’t tend to portray deliveries still going on and the men leaving straight after lunch. I’m trying to recall any period things like that set in Scotland but can only think of contemporary shows.
It’s the same in Germany though, Christmas Eve is the big day with the presents and whatnot.
I think we may be the only outlier but I’m not sure.
I don’t think you are. I was in my kid’s class last year and the parents were asked about Christmas traditions and as a Brit I was the only one with the emphasis on Christmas Day. I remember one parent was Finnish and it was all Christmas Eve for them.
In fact when I first celebrated Christmas with my wife’s family (who are all Catholics) they had Christmas dinner at night and exchanged gifts on the 24th. It’s me as the dirty foreigner that has changed them to coming to our place, opening present in the morning and a big lunch on the 25th.
Maybe my ‘a lot of stuff carried on as normal’ could be read a bit further as a normal weekday than I intended it to.
I was thinking more of the idea that it has only been seen as a time of family togetherness for barely 50 years – I think that goes back to that mid-1800s era but I think the more recent changes you’re talking about are probably as much to do with our changing ideas of what family time means and how it is observed. Which is connected to this:
It was a holiday since the 1830s but a lot less stopped than it did today and the huge attendances are there for the football and rugby matches which in those days would have been exclusively attended by men and the written accounts have them staying out the rest of the day. So I’m not saying they didn’t open presents and have a family meal at home (although Scotland may have been different as it only became a public holiday there in 1958 which was also surprising) but there was also a lot more going out and doing other things.
I think that’s probably true, and like you said earlier it’s probably as much to do with changes in gender equality as our changing perception of Christmas. The stereotype of a working man as the head of a family with a housewife at home looking after the kids might seem dated now but certainly it’s still a relatively recent reality that’s still in living memory for a lot of people. And with that often came a more absent father figure who left the mother to look after the family and was quite happy to spend evenings and weekends at the pub (or the football) with friends.
I think you’re probably right that cost period fiction is too much shaped by modern traditions and customs, and doesn’t go far enough in reflecting how different family dynamics were back then, even at Christmas.
It’s the same in Germany though, Christmas Eve is the big day with the presents and whatnot.
I think there’s also a bigger emphasis on Christmas Eve in France, with present-giving and traditional food taking place on that day moreso as much as Christmas Day itself.
It’s also true that Epiphany/King’s Day is marked and celebrated far more in other countries than it is in the UK, certainly in continental Europe.
January 6th is essentially just a normal day in the UK, you wouldn’t know there was anything special about it at all and most people probably wouldn’t even be able to tell you the name of it.
I remember having holidays in Spain around new year in the past and being surprised that shops, airports etc. were so empty on that day.
In fact when I first celebrated Christmas with my wife’s family (who are all Catholics) they had Christmas dinner at night and exchanged gifts on the 24th. It’s me as the dirty foreigner that has changed them to coming to our place, opening present in the morning and a big lunch on the 25th.
My mum comes from a staunch catholic northern family and in her childhood I think the 24th was a big deal for them too, going off to church late in the evening and then coming back and opening presents before going to bed.
Epiphany/King’s Day
The what?
We have Trettondagen (=the thirteen day) which is thirteen days after christmas and I have no idea what it is and Tjugondag Knut (=Twentyday Knut) which is twenty days after christmas when you throw out the christmas tree.
We have a Kings day but that is the Kings birthday.
Also my birthday, yay!
The what
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_(holiday)
Three Kings Day is the best known alternate name I think.
as a Brit I was the only one with the emphasis on Christmas Day.
This alone is justification for Brexit! Bloody furriners and yer Christmas Eve gift-giving. Heathens, the lot of ya!
Bloody furriners and yer Christmas Eve gift-giving. Heathens, the lot of ya!
furriners
Oh thank god, I thought it said furries.
Heathens
Why thank you, that’s the nicest thing someone said to me all week!
as a Brit I was the only one with the emphasis on Christmas Day.
This alone is justification for Brexit! Bloody furriners and yer Christmas Eve gift-giving. Heathens, the lot of ya!
To be honest my behaviour is very much in the spirit of Brexit. I’ve come over and got everyone to do it the British way. Not just the timing but that first meal was all rice and noodles, tomorrow it’ll be roast turkey, gravy and even sprouts.
The biggest irony being I’m the only bastard in the family who doesn’t go to church, in fact that’s where they all are now while I’m farting about on the internet.
The sheer level of entitlement plus added hypocrisy could elevate me to the new Farage.
The sheer level of entitlement plus added hypocrisy could elevate me to the new Farage.
In spirit but not in flesh. I’ve seen pictures of you, you’re not horrendously hideous.