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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 5h

J. R. R. Tolkien was a hard act to follow.

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 8h

Video or it didn't happen! 😀

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 14h

"A/an" is a matter of euphony--that's why it depends on the sound, not the letter, beginning the next word. "H" is "historic" is in between voiced and silent, so "a" and "an" both work.

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 14h

It's a reasonable issue of euphony, and tongue effort. But, personal judgement. The "h" in "historic" is only lightly aspirated. "A historic" is like "a elephant" ("the corn is as high as a elephant's eye:") you can say it, but "an historic" and "an elephant" feel and sound a little smoother.

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 14h

"apps and algorithms" and having the hero of some TV show segue seamlessly into a pitch, in an authoritative, commanding hero/teacher/parent-type voice, telling the kids why they needed Quaker Puffed Rice. Or (Howdy Doody) why they needed to go to Sunday school.

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 14h

Same screens, different day. I remember my folks putting their feet down when my brother and I said that we wanted to watch ALL of "Wonderama," a Saturday-morning childrens' TV program that ran for THREE HOURS... starring Sandy Becker, I still remember. There isn't THAT much difference between

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 15h

Has there ever been a better title than "What the Frog's Eye Tells the Frog's Brain," by Lettvin & al?

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 15h

like the ones that fired the National Nuclear Security Agency because they had no idea these people worked on nuclear security. Mike Johnson has told us that all of the decisions about what departments would be fired were being made personally by Russell Vought, so it's all directly on Vought.

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 15h

I can only imagine the chaos that the "reinstated" workers encounter, trying to unlock their office door, log in to their email, re-enroll in their health insurance. They "reversed course" because they're not only cruel but incompetent,

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 16h

If he GETS the Nobel Peace Prize he'll complain that it isn't big enough.

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 16h

Remember when he didn't want to allow a cruise ship with 700 Covid cases to dock, because "I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault?"

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 16h

As always, the unanswerable question: when he said "if we didn't test, we wouldn't have cases," was he making a joke? Or is he so dumb that he heard an aide's cynical joke and thought it was real?

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks!

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

Putting a statue on a pedestal is never about "history," it is always about "veneration."

dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

That's what connect the "discovery" of "America" to the killing and mistreatment of the indigenous Americans.

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

annexing of two continents to Christendom, and forcibly "converting" the indigenous peoples to Catholicism as moral cover for enslaving them and taking all their gold. Shamefully, the Doctrine of Discovery was formally endorsed by the US Supreme Court in 1823 to justify stealing Indian land.

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

belongs to European Catholic monarchs. The Pope wanted to settle disputes when more than one European Catholic monarch claimed the same land, by awarding it to whichever one "discovered" it by landing there first. It isn't celebrating "discovery" in the normal sense. It's celebrating the

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

The problem is what "discovery" means in context. It isn't "discovering" in the sense of discovering Neptune or discovering the Pythagorean Theorem. It isn't discovering the EXISTENCE of the Americas. It's a reference to two decrees by the Pope, and the doctrine that all the land in the world

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

An online acquaintance insists that when ChatGPT gives me false information, it's my fault for not knowing how to compose a good prompt. But I think his complicated prompts are mostly his putting a rabbit into the hat before he pulls it out.

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

The Queen took
The butter
And brought it to
His Majesty;
The King said,
"Butter, eh?"
And bounced out of bed.
"Nobody," he said,
As he kissed her
Tenderly,
"Nobody,
My darling,
Could call me
A fussy man -
BUT
I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!"
"The King's Breakfast," A. A. Milne

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

Visited it in 2017. Intellectually stunning. Of course, it was hard to grasp directly. Like atoms or planet orbits, you had to trust the models the archeologists made from their digs and deductions. Extremely worth a visit, in fact on our return journey we stopped there to visit it a second time.

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

During my brief stint trying to program Windows, much of the documentation was wrong or ambiguous. And all the Windows folks were like "Oh, we never use the documentation, just follow the sample code."

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

But when citizens say to ICE "I'm a citizen, here are my papers," ICE won't even look at them.

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

Serious question. They read in the papers or hear through the grapevine that their firings were "rescinded." Can they unlock their office door? Does their email still work? IS THEIR HEALTH INSURANCE STILL IN FORCE? Or is it all "can't do a thing while the government is shut down?"

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dpbsmith.bsky.social @dpbsmith.bsky.social · 1d

Probably a very, very good navigator, too.

Re crazy, when he reached the outflow of the Orinoco River, he thought he had discovered the literal Biblical Garden of Eden.