BillyClark

Note that grand juries typically only hear the prosecution’s arguments. The prosecution has immense power in grand juries as a result. That’s why there’s a famous saying that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.

The fact that so many grand juries have declined to indict major cases brought by the DOJ is a major embarrassment. It means that even an average person off the street can immediately see through their bullshit.

The problem with infinite monkeys, even in the best case, is that you have to search through all of the bad manuscripts to find any good ones. It’s way more effort than just writing what you want yourself.

There was a Mythbusters episode where they tested how music affects plant growth, and IIRC, their tests indicated that plants preferred loud music with bass over normal classical music.

I’m not sure that you can boil down an old philosophical matter so easily, regardless.

I like to bring up the zombie thought experiment in these situations.

As a person with a long history of intermittent insomnia, I had this bad feeling last night that I’d not be able to go to sleep no matter what.

So, I did what I normally do in those situations, which is probably not the right thing, by the way. I stayed up and tried to distract myself until I forgot about that thought. It usually eventually works, but last night, I couldn’t seem to forget the thought, and at about 4:30 am, I was so tired that I thought I should be able to fall asleep, regardless.

And I did fall asleep, but I think it was around 6. In retrospect, I should have just taken some medicine at midnight.

Three thoughts about Troi.

One is that this is her area of expertise, and she’s had a lot of experience with Data, so she shouldn’t be so confidently saying something like this, which very likely either leads down the path that Data isn’t a person, or that people aren’t people.

Two is that as an empath, she may be unconsciously bigoted against those whose emotions she cannot sense.

Three may be her actual defense, which is that she’s a counselor who is actively counseling a patient. So, it’s possible that a counselor may have to say false things to a patient if those things are the things that will help the patient the most.

The style of interface invented at Xerox PARC in 1973 (and almost certainly used by you if you’re viewing this on a Linux computer) is called WIMP, for “Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer.” Microsoft just stole the name.

it’s important to have verifiable studies to cite in arguments for policy, law, etc.

It’s also important to have for its own merit. Sometimes, people have strong intuitions about “obvious” things, and they’re completely wrong. Without science studying things, it’s “obvious” that the sun goes around the Earth, for example.

I don’t need a formal study to tell me that drinking 12 cans of soda a day is bad for my health.

Without those studies, you cannot know whether it’s bad for your health. You can assume it’s bad for your health. You can believe it’s bad for your health. But you cannot know. These aren’t bad assumptions or harmful beliefs, by the way. But the thing is, you simply cannot know without testing.

Even if it’s a husband trying to be cute, there might be some negative effect where she initially sees the accepted subject and gets excited, only to have it be a fake message, after all.

I guess it depends on her personality, and her husband would probably know better than me.

I’m pretty sure I’ve smelled a dead fly before, but not like Lee Mack.

One of the things that’s generally effective when I feel nausea is to wipe my face with a cool cloth. I imagine that spraying water on your face might do similar.

Although I speak some Japanese, I am not an expert in Japanese. I have never heard anybody say nii-kun. It’s a common failing of people in my situation to think that because they personally haven’t heard it, that it doesn’t exist, so I’m not going to say that, but even if it does exist, I don’t think -kun would be used.

“-kun” like you said indicates closeness and familiarity, but it also is commonly used for a business subordinate. Like, if you were at work, your boss might refer to you as “pivot-kun”, even if you weren’t that close. I don’t think Big Brother could ever be seen as a subordinate.

With my limited knowledge, if they wanted to use a Japanese word and not an English loanword, I think they’d use aniki or maybe ani-ue (although I’ve only heard these words in anime, I think people might actually still use aniki? It sounds like a Yakuza sort of word to me). These convey a respect that I think would be necessary for the mental image of Big Brother.

The primary reason that I’d put forward is that Japanese people place a lot of importance on social hierarchy, to the point that even between twins, it’s important to know which is the older sibling. Because it’s used in everyday conversation and in referring to one another (although not quite as much with twins, I just brought that up for emphasis).

The point is that the Japanese version of these words are used a lot more and have a lot of extra meaning compared to the English phrase “Big Brother”. So, it’s actually a worse fit. Japanese people use enough English loanwords that they probably understand the English phrase, anyways. So, the meaning gets through without the extra unintended baggage from the translation.

It’s one of the many pitfalls of translation. Often, there are words that mean “the same thing”, but they still aren’t the right words because either the extra connotations in the original language or the extra connotations in the target language can throw off the translation.

I think the Japanese translation is fortunate that, in this case, the Japanese language already has so many English loanwords… although I’m not sure whether that was exactly the same case when the book was first translated. It was published in 1948, I think. My recollection is that the English loanword boom started after WW2, so that would be somewhat contemporary.

The King excels at short thrusting motions.

If anything, even what the King does would be too much, as it is enough to kill the person next to him.

On second thought, maybe I don’t want tastebuds just inside my asshole.

“-chan” is a diminutive suffix that indicates affection when used. These two factors mean it would never be used in the context of Big Brother.

Even with little knowledge, you should at least come up with alternatives like nii-san, onii-san, onii, nii-sama, etc. Those still wouldn’t work well. I’d think that a lot of people would also think of aniki, which is getting closer. But it’s definitely the best option to just to what they actually did and just use the English “big brother” like a loan word.

Without universal healthcare, even if you save millions, it can all be wiped out with a single illness.

Ooh, the headline is slightly misleading. It should say, “A desperate nobody who sees his misguided startup failing starts a self-promotion campaign to try to get money from rich people.”

I have been following British media a bit and unless I am mistaken, this Mandelson chap ran afoul of his Epstein conduct back in September, which was before the DOJ even started releasing the Epstein files as part of the Epstein act, which hadn’t passed at the time. The subsequent release and redactions seem to have exposed even more, but his goose was cooked before that.

Current allegations are that Mandelson handed Epstein extremely sensitive government information. I forget what Brits call it, but we’d say it was classified.

And it currently seems like PM Kier Starmer is probably going to fall with him, since he apparently knew about Mendelson’s continuing association with post-conviction Epstein.

Anyways, that one particularly seems somewhat unrelated to the redaction choices.

There are a lot of vegans and vegetarians who don’t make it their raison d’etre, so I’m sure there have been some who climbed Everest in the past, even if we don’t know about it.