[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 4 days ago

could you say that town is homelessnessless?

Has. The word is legit, but it would be an adjective because of the last -less there, so:

  • That town has homelessnessless.
  • That homelessnessless town is nice.

You could convert it back into a noun, through zero derivation; for example "homeless" is an adjective too, but people can say "the homeless are hungry", as if it was a noun. But it sounds weird in this situation, I don't know why.

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 7 points 4 days ago

Because English is half a dozen languages wrapped in a trenchcoat?

A language is not its vocabulary; that's like pretending that the critter is just its fur.

English vocabulary is from multiple sources, but that is not exactly unique or special.

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 5 days ago

Ah, got it.

The relevant root is Proto-Germanic *walhaz. If I got it right it was used by PG speakers first to refer to a specific Celtic tribe, then other non-Germanic Europeans. (Proto-Slavic borrowed the word but changed the meaning - from "any speaker of a foreign language" to "Latin/Romance speaker".)

Latin never borrowed that root because they simply called any non-Roman "barbarus".

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 1 points 5 days ago

He's talking about the name Wallace, or rather its etymology.

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 5 points 5 days ago

They're mostly safe. Don't taunt them, don't get too close to them (specially not to veals and bulls), and eventually they'll see you as "safe to ignore".

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 5 days ago

Yup.

The post and the comments make me glad that I never bothered with Less Wrong. It makes HN and Reddit look smart in comparison.

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

By "the 'w' foreigner word" do you mean Wallace, or words with W in general?

If Wallace: I could've rendered his name by sound; in Classical pronunciation Valis [wɐɫɪs] would be really close. But then I'd need to do the same with Brett (Bres?) and Jules (Diules? Ziuls?) and it would be a pain.

If you mean words with W in general: yup. Long story short ⟨W⟩ wasn't used in Latin itself; it started out as a digraph, ⟨VV⟩, for Germanic [w] in the Early Middle Ages. Because by then Latin already shifted its own native [w] into [β]→[v], so if you wrote ⟨V⟩ down people would read it wrong.

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 44 points 6 days ago

Here's a link to the original formulation of Roko's Basilisk. The text that it refers to (Altruist's Burden) is this one.

You know, I've seen plenty variations of Pascal's Wager. But this is probably the first one that makes me say "it's even dumber than the original".

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 23 points 6 days ago

I've seen worse stuff. I've caused worse stuff.

In my Chemistry uni times, I already prepared limoncello at home (vodka infused with lemon peels). Nothing weird, right. I even brought some to the uni parties, people loved that stuff.

And in the Organics lab one of the practical tasks was to synthesise isoamyl acetate, also known as banana oil. It's completely safe as food/drink flavouring, but it has a clearly artificial banana flavour.

Then there's that muppet connecting both things. He took inspiration of my limoncello, but he wanted to do things "like a chemist". So he prepared a batch of isoamyl acetate, and used it to flavour vodka. He also used a buttload of sugar and yellow food dye. And he brought that to a uni party.

He called it "bananacello". Everyone else, including me, called it "banana de plástico" (plastic banana). We still drunk it to the end, because "a good chemist likes alcohol" was our motto back then.

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 187 points 3 months ago

From the same author:

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 142 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

This is one of those rare cases where what is being said is less interesting than who says it.

What: Reddit stock is junk, the IPO will fail hard, and anyone investing on it is begging to lose money. I believe that most people discussing this in Lemmy already know that, so the info isn't new here.

Who: Forbes. Forbes' target audience is investors; greedy vulture capitalists love it. So if Forbes says "it'll sink!", investors are less eager to buy stock, and that sinks the stonks even further. So what Forbes says is often a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm glad that Forbes is doing it. I want to see Reddit die.

EDIT: as other posters are correctly highlighting, I derped - the article is from a "contributor", and it has basically no impact or visibility.

Damn - now I want Forbes shitting on the IPO!

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 210 points 5 months ago

I think that governments should be tackling both Edge and Chrome at the same time. One of them for underhanded tactics, another for being a monopoly. Tackling only one of them is not enough.

I also think that Microsoft's strategy is worse than just underhanded - it stinks stupidity from a distance. It's clearly backfiring - this is not the first Browser Wars any more, people nowadays have a good grasp on what a browser is supposed to be. And while some pressure might convert a few users, too much pressure is bound to create resistance, even on users that would be otherwise inclined to follow you like cattle.

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