Select “Other” and type in “0”. Sometimes that’s the only option I find.

Is that the new, “If you do it, you’ll go blind”?

I hear either one can be used to break bones, so there’s really no wrong answer.

I feel like I’d have more fun with the stick, though. Carrying around a rock just feels like carrying around extra weight. Carrying around a stick can feel like carrying a sword, can help with walking on hikes, can be used to point out things in the distance, can be a makeshift flag staff, or a barrier if you need to block someone or something. Then if it breaks, it can still be used as kindling in a fire.

So yeah, I’ll say Team Stick.

Bojack Horseman called it. Just gotta buy some stock in What Time Is It Right Now.

Every little bit of engagement helps Lemmy grow, so welcome!

Here’s your complementary Lemmy starter gift tote bags, complete with a Linux guide book, German memes, a shark plushie (courtesy of Blåhaj), an introductory book in leftist political theory, and a T-shirt celebrating neurodivergence (long sleeve and no-sleeve options available) - 🛍️

That movie is so relatable

Aspiration depends on position in a word in English and doesn’t hold any semantic or grammatical meaning, but in other languages, an aspirated consonant can completely change the meaning of a word.

It reminds me of how Hindi/Urdu use v and w. Which sound is produced depends on where it is in a word, but to native speakers, both v and w may sound the same. That’s why Hindustani ESL speakers tend to switch between the two in ways that don’t make sense to native English speakers.

It helps me wrap my mind around it to think of how English has two different ways of pronouncing L - there’s “light” L at the beginning of words (love, listen, like.) Then there’s “dark” L used at the end or sometimes in the middle (full, ball, visible.) The word “little” provides an example of both types (and if you pronounce it with a glottal stop for the “tt”, such as in a Cockney accent, the word is basically “light L, glottal stop, dark L.”)

Of course, aspiration itself also works as a way to understand it, since aspirated sounds make a difference in Hindustani, but English spelling treats them interchangeably. However, that difference is too hard for many of us to distinguish, so I find that comparing L sounds is easier for English speakers to recognize as a comparison.

The more I learn other languages, the more annoyed I get at the Great Vowel Shift in English. We could’ve been aligned with so many other languages, but no, we just had to be different.

It’s wild, since English has such a vast vowel inventory that we can pronounce a lot of words in other languages, but since we read letters differently, many people end up with accents that don’t need to exist. Consider people pronouncing Spanish words with English vowels, even though all standard Spanish vowel sounds are already part of the standard English repertoire.

Which makes it funny when I hear fellow English speakers knock on French spelling. At least I can reasonably assume what a written French word is supposed to sound like. English doesn’t give us that luxury.

“Apples, I love not”

It’s funny how learning different grammar can change the way you think. I read this and think, “Ah yes, perfectly normal Japanese word order. Topic first, with verb + negation at the end.”

I have to be careful when I talk sometimes, because my mental grammar structure is all over the place now.

Or ‘left’, which can mean remaining (“I only have three left”) or departing (“They left.”)

I remember learning Spanish in school. Discovering the difference between “dejar” and “irse” drove this home for me. Dejar - to leave [a thing somewhere.] Irse - to leave [a place.] (“Salir” also works for the latter meaning, but it can mean more of “to go out.”)

“Ella se fue y dejó el libro en la mesa.” (“She left and left the book on the table.”)

Speaking of “driving (a point) home,” I’d say one of the weirdest/most interesting quirks of English is how many idioms we rely on.

Republicans are doubling-down on the brain-drain, I see.

If I were a student in that state, I’d make it crystal clear why I’m transferring out by referencing this bullshit. Loudly. To everyone - my classmates, those in charge of the college, the legislators behind it all, and any social media I had access to.

I know this is the cats community, but my old dog was similar. Sometimes I’d be looking for something on the ground, like a four-leaf clover or something I dropped. She didn’t know what I was looking for, but she’d come by with intense interest in whatever I was sifting through. If I were to start digging, she would have started digging, too.

It was funny when it snowed and I’d get the snow shovel. She’d follow me and start digging at piles of snow without any clear direction or goal.

Depends on what I’m doing. It’s usually one voice, but if I’m trying to think through something or if my ADHD is turned up, I get what I call “the committee.” For thinking through something, different perspectives all chime in, and I like to imagine it like some kind of round table debate. I “talk” with myself through ideas, and sometimes I change my mind about what I do because ultimately I know the most sensible talking point is the right one.

If my ADHD is behind it, though, then it’s more like a room full of people all pointing out different things at the same time. One’s complaining that the noise outside is too loud. Another’s distracted by the birds out the window. Another voice is debating what I should eat next (even if I’m not hungry.) Yet another is trying to remember the lyrics to a random song. Then the “responsible adult” of the group is trying to get everyone else to STFU and focus on the task at hand.

I find that caffeine goes a long way in getting the committee to chill and listen to each other. It’s not too surprising that stimulants get them all in line, but it’s still interesting to experience.

The ringtone is a great idea. Classic operant conditioning.

The question then is whether to scale back the third meal bit-by-bit, or to switch straight to a twice a day feeding schedule.

Your comment got me curious to look up more information. (For anyone curious, I found an article with more info here.) He also drove 10 kilometers before the accident.

I’m glad he wasn’t doing this maliciously, but wow, this kid’s going to need some intense therapy to get through this.

Man, this sucks all around. What an awful end for the monks, and now this kid is going to forever have their deaths on his conscience all for a stupid decision.

If not worse. But the worse projections made people sadder, so they were ignored even harder.

Too bad, because we are well passed the “best case scenario.” The projections of the past will seem mild compared to reality.

I can’t help but wonder how much the rise of Scantron contributed to some of the pitfalls American education ended up with, from the rise of widespread standardized testing, to the decline of critical thinking. (Yes, I know politics play a role. I’m not going into that, but I will touch on it briefly. This is more about the test format itself.)

Multiple choice tests allow better “gaming of the system” than essay-style tests. Whereas writing an essay requires recalling specific information from memory, a multiple choice test essentially gives prompts - one of which is the right answer. If you can connect a given detail to a given topic, simply seeing the option that’s most familiar to you can lead you to the right answer. Given a test on the same topic, but in essay form, means the student has to remember not just key words that are associated with each other, but must actually have some understanding of the topic at hand. As a result, many of us skated by on multiple choice tests simply through word association or basic logic - not by actually understanding the material.

Scantrons were the golden rule by the time I got to middle school. It was at that time that George W Bush got elected and decided standardized testing was the way to go. Surprise surprise, such tests (in my schooling experience, at least) used Scantrons. Now we were full-on teaching to the test, a test which only cares about receptive identification of information instead of in-depth knowledge.

I get that it’s far easier to grade with these and other multiple choice tests, but if students aren’t challenged to actually know what they’re being taught, it’s a huge disservice to both them and the future. Multiple choices test have their places, but to truly know if a student is learning, it takes really probing their knowledge - which can be through an essay, a presentation, or even just a conversation. It’s no small wonder so many Americans struggle with critical thinking, even to back up their own arguments - we were barely taught to sit with our brains and actually come up with our own thoughts. Rather, we were taught to pick the answer that “feels” right. And now we’re here.

Maybe this would’ve happened without Scantron technology, but I imagine the rise in multiple choice testing accelerated this decline.

Meanwhile, at my parents’ old house, I had painted a bedroom so each wall represented a different season, complete with a mural of a colorful tree losing leaves for the autumn side (since it’s my favorite season.)

When a couple bought it last year, they fell in love with it. My old “seasons” room is being turned into a nursery. My mom recently shared a post by the buyer with me, where she said something along the lines of, “Spending our first summer in our dream house!”

Thank goodness no “flippers” ever got their hands on it.