Some middle-aged guy on the Internet. Seen a lot of it, occasionally regurgitating it, trying to be amusing and informative.

Lurked Digg until v4. Commented on Reddit (same username) until it went full Musk.

Was on kbin.social (dying/dead) and kbin.run (mysteriously vanished). Now here on fedia.io.

Really hoping he hasn’t brought the jinx with him.

Other Adjectives: Neurodivergent; Nerd; Broken; British; Ally; Leftish

  • 1 Post
  • 621 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: August 13th, 2024

help-circle


  • Fun fact: In one episode, they talk about how a leap has to be completed in a certain amount of time in order to guarantee the ability to leap home. They say that the amount of time that each leap must be completed within falls by a certain percentage each time. I did the calculation once. Sam was still within the threshold even after all the many seasons. He should have leaped home.

    And it would have been to the alt-timeline where Al and Ziggy were replaced by St.John and Alpha, the one which showed up when Sam previously leapt into Al and temporarily changed history.

    All the pieces were there.

    (If this feels familiar, I have posted this online before.)





  • In my book, that puts Bean Bunny in the role of Darko, just so there’s a reversal of the “Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?” jibe and counter-jibe.

    I mean, Muppet Christmas Carol kept Fozzie out of the rest of the movie just so they could make a Fezziwig/Fozziwig pun, so such a massive cast decision for the sake of one gag isn’t out of the question.

    Now, there are other rabbits in the Muppet cast, but I think Bean is the best known, and probably has the most range to go from cute to creepy without it being too obvious from his appearance.

    The firing of Bean’s voice actor (Steve Whitmire) makes this somewhat less likely, but I think they could recast Bean’s voice more easily than for Rizzo “ain’t comin’ back until Steve does” Rat or Kermit, and they weren’t all that picky about Kermit.


  • As others have said, if a patient has next of kin or emergency contact details listed somewhere accessible to the hospital, they may call if the contact can provide information that the patient can’t, especially if the patient is unconscious or delirious.

    Of course, if the patient is otherwise aware and apparently of sound mind, then the patient can literally say “please do not contact my family / next of kin”. The hospital might say they weren’t going to, but no harm in asking. And if they do so anyway once they’ve been told not to, that’d be risking a lawsuit.

    Anecdotally, I’ve always carried a next-of-kin card in my wallet, and it has come to my aid at least once.

    The person or people on such a card don’t have to be parents either. A trusted friend or sibling might be preferable for people who don’t get along with, or no longer have, their parents.








  • Are you sure? They’re both unvoiced th, which is what thorn is for if you intend to distinguish.

    I can’t tell whether Old English used eth for those words early on - though the unvoiced quality in modern English makes that seem unlikely. Did we also devoice them? Eth died out fairly quickly in favour of thorn in all cases, voiced or not. Possibly because its name is “eþ” not “eð”. It doesn’t even use itself. (Though, ironically, ‘w’ also doesn’t and it replaced ƿynn, which does.)

    There was another commenter - actually might have been the same guy, I’m not all that sure - who did use eth for voiced instances, to similar controversial effect in comment sections.


  • We have a diacritic in English text already. Rather than above or below, it goes to the right of the letter it modifies and looks an awful lot like a letter h.

    And if you don’t quite buy that, remember that a lot of diacritics started life as letters that were eventually moved above a preceding letter and then simplified. The tilde on ñ was an n itself; the ring on å was another a; and in at least some cases the umlaut was an e.

    Modifying-h may only be stuck where it is because technology did away with the need for economical scribes before they had a chance to start messing with it.


  • Once I’ve been through the recommended deep breathing exercises, I lay still for as long as possible, and then, if I’ve not fallen asleep, I get up, turn on the computer and do something mindless in Minecraft until I’m tired. I might watch videos online. I have Redshift installed which reddens the screen at night, so I don’t get too much blue light.

    It usually takes an hour or three and then I’m ready to try sleeping again.

    Or at least, that was the case until I got on new medication which helps with falling and staying asleep. Now, if I do wake up with mind spinning, it’s usually three or four hours before I get up anyway, so I do all the above but don’t go back to bed at the end of it. I just have something for breakfast and then carry on a normal day.

    I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve felt the need for a depression nap since I’ve been on them. Doesn’t mean my depression is cured, but I’m almost never tired enough during the day to want to take one.




  • Deaf people will almost unavoidably copy the mouth shapes they’ve seen when other people have spoken. This means that how they sound will be at least somewhat informed by any hearing people they observe as well as indirectly through other deaf people who have also learned from hearing folks.

    So yes, aspects of voice accent do carry over to deaf people.

    There’s also the concept of “accent” within sign language too. How people move between signs, carry themselves and act when expressing an emotion, which is usually exaggerated for the sake of clear communication, can vary from community to community, even if the base sign language is the same.