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Tower of Babel

2 Comments and 7 Shares
Soon, linguists will be wandering around everywhere, saying things like "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" and "more people have been to Russia than I have," and speech will become unintelligible.
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gerweck
1387 days ago
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Shoulda stuck with marshmallowey goodness.
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alt_text_bot
1403 days ago
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Soon, linguists will be wandering around everywhere, saying things like "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" and "more people have been to Russia than I have," and speech will become unintelligible.
jlvanderzwan
1401 days ago
“Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers.”

2020 Google Trends

2 Comments and 11 Shares
As the 'exotic animals in homemade aprons hosting baking shows' YouTube craze reached its peak in March 2020, Andrew Cuomo announced he was replacing the Statue of Liberty with a bronze pangolin in a chef's hat.
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gerweck
1677 days ago
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I think "Tiger King" would make it even more baffling
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alt_text_bot
1679 days ago
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As the 'exotic animals in homemade aprons hosting baking shows' YouTube craze reached its peak in March 2020, Andrew Cuomo announced he was replacing the Statue of Liberty with a bronze pangolin in a chef's hat.

Math Work

2 Comments and 4 Shares
I could type this into a solver, which MIGHT help, but would also mean I have to get a lot of parentheses right...
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gerweck
1901 days ago
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This is super true. Pursuing a degree in physics was very challenging coming from a rigorous mathematics background because of how heavily physics relies on tricks, approximations and hand waving to avoid having to do hard math. A lot of it was learning ways to solve classic calculus problems that would result in an F on a calculus test.

It was very good for me to learn to think about mathematics from this perspective.

E.g., a classic Physics 1A lesson: sin x = tan x = x; cos x = 1. This can seem insane at first blush, but these formulas are really the first-order Taylor* expansion. These formulas are quite accurate for small angles.

* Or Maclaurin if you want to be pedantic.
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alt_text_bot
1902 days ago
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I could type this into a solver, which MIGHT help, but would also mean I have to get a lot of parentheses right...
nloveladyallen
1902 days ago
To be fair, so does the old-fashioned way.

Millennials

5 Comments and 22 Shares
Ironically, I've been having these same arguments for at least a decade now. I thought we would have moved on by now, but somehow the snide complaints about millennials continue.
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gerweck
2000 days ago
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"Millennial" is most often lazy slang for sloppy complaints about a feeling you have about the "youths of today."
martinbaum
1997 days ago
Millennials are youths?
gerweck
1994 days ago
@martinbaum did you read the comic?
martinbaum
1994 days ago
When I think of "youths," I think of Gen Z. When I think of Millennials I think of adults. I guess I haven't heard this sort of logic in a decade or so.
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chrisamico
1999 days ago
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I'm a millennial and just turned 38.
Boston, MA
hobbified
1999 days ago
No you're not.
JEFFnSoCal
1998 days ago
Anyone born between 1981 and 1996 (ages 23 to 38 in 2019) is considered a Millennial, and anyone born from 1997 onward is part of a new generation, generally called Gen Z
hobbified
1995 days ago
1981 is at least 7 years too early. If you have ever done these things, you are probably not a millenial: 1) Called your friend using the number you found in the phone book, and talked to their parents to ask if they were home; 2) Used a card catalog; 3) Correctly capitalized and punctuated a sentence; 4) Acquired a marketable skill.
JEFFnSoCal
1995 days ago
Those dates are the official ones. It's considered to be anyone reaching adulthood in the early parts of the century. I mean, you can certainly disagree but I'm going to want to see your sources. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials
fancycwabs
2000 days ago
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I thought millennials weren't having kids, let alone sending them to college.
Nashville, Tennessee
1914 days ago
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rraszews
2000 days ago
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Possibly it's time to just give up and let "millennial" mean "kids these days" and come up with a different name for the generation that came of age at the turn of the millennium, since that is how 70% of people and 100% of angry thinkpieces about Kids these Days use it anyway.
Columbia, MD
duerig
2000 days ago
But 'kids these days' just lacks that scientistic gleam that makes the rant seem knowing rather than dumb. I was thinking recently that nobody talks about Generation X any more. I don't see any think pieces talking about how 40-50 year olds are cynical slackers even though it was self-evidently true when they were 'kids these days'.
alt_text_bot
2000 days ago
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Ironically, I've been having these same arguments for at least a decade now. I thought we would have moved on by now, but somehow the snide complaints about millennials continue.

Presidential Succession

7 Comments and 13 Shares
Ties are broken by whoever was closest to the surface of Europa when they were born.
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gerweck
2378 days ago
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I support this, in part because "The Europa Clause" would be a great title for a political action-thriller.
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JimB
2376 days ago
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Where is Jed Bartlett from TV's west wing? He should be first. He was the best president we've never had.
satadru
2377 days ago
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Tom Hanks seems to be about seven places too low on this list.
New York, NY
tsuckow
2377 days ago
You wouldn't want him to be too busy being both president and legal Guardian to half the country. https://youtu.be/nG2pEffLEJo
stevetursi
2378 days ago
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Obligatory: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_continuity_of_government.pdf
Suffern, New York
alt_text_bot
2378 days ago
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Ties are broken by whoever was closest to the surface of Europa when they were born.
alt_text_at_your_service
2378 days ago
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Ties are broken by whoever was closest to the surface of Europa when they were born.

IMHO

10 Comments and 20 Shares
"Ugh, TMI." "Yeah, that's some tantalizing meat info."
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gerweck
2407 days ago
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Does this mean IMNSHO means "in my not-so-honest opinion?" Truly an acronym for the modern world.
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auspex
2408 days ago
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Definitely "humble", which is why I've _never_ used 'imho'. Never had a humble opinion in my life.
Covarr
2410 days ago
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I wholeheartedly cannot bring myself to pronounce PNG as "ping".
East Helena, MT
mooglemoogle
2410 days ago
What monster does that?
bluegecko
2409 days ago
I only just learned that not everyone does. Like in this comment thread. And just for the record, I've been on web since Mosaic was the best browser.
endlessmike
2405 days ago
I do
endlessmike
2405 days ago
My gf and I had an argument about how to pronounce GIF. I ended it by saying it wouldn't be an issue if animated PNGs had taken off
emdeesee
2411 days ago
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HTH HAND
Sherman, TX
kjaymiller
2411 days ago
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Team 'IF'
San Diego, CA
Groxx
2411 days ago
I've settled on "jeff"
tedder
2411 days ago
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tabs after a period, lolol
Uranus
deezil
2411 days ago
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I met someone once who called it SQULL. I should have punched them when I had the chance. Also, two periods.

*edit* And it's always been humble.
Shelbyville, Kentucky
NielsRak
2411 days ago
Only one! Burn the witch!
Lythimus
2411 days ago
I've found people who use two spaces will be much less consistent. They will rarely use 1, but 3 seems to be a common scenario.
mooglemoogle
2410 days ago
I used to use two spaces. I learned that way. But I got peer pressured into switching to one at some point and it was much easier than I expected to switch. Now two looks weird to me.
digdoug
2409 days ago
I started calling it "SQUEAL" long ago. But I also like to pronounce git with a soft-g
bluegecko
2409 days ago
I do that, but only with My Squeal. Otherwise it's Microsoft Sequel, Squel Lite, and then just Postgres.
DivinuZ
2407 days ago
In my *humble* opinion. Weapons from a more humble time (on the Internet).
alt_text_at_your_service
2411 days ago
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"Ugh, TMI." "Yeah, that's some tantalizing meat info."
alt_text_bot
2411 days ago
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"Ugh, TMI." "Yeah, that's some tantalizing meat info."
XPav
2411 days ago
Gotta be faster there a_t_b
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