colloydi (u/colloydi)

colloydi commented on New earplugs won't amplify the sound of your own voice scientificamerican.com/ar... · Posted by u/sohkamyung

colloydi · 2 years ago

>New Earplugs Won’t Amplify the Sound of Your Own Voice

I think part of it is that most of us speak more loudly to others when we can't hear them very well, e.g. when wearing headphones or on a mobile in a train

colloydi commented on The Birth of Parquet sympathetic.ink/2024/01/2... · Posted by u/whinvik

colloydi · 2 years ago

Tangential to the topic but regarding the supposed Snowball Effect there is in real life no such thing. I have pushed large 'snowballs' down slopes --in reality they are snow cylinders as shown in the photo-- and they invariably do not get far. The reason being that when one side of the cylinder randomly thickens slightly with respect to the other side this causes the whole thing to turn in the opposite direction.

For example, if the RHS of your cylinder has a slightly larger radius than the LHS the cylinder will commence turning to the left.

The upshot is the thick side picks up more snow than the thin side and the disparity in radii increases more rapidly still. The cylinder becomes a truncated cone which turns sideways and halts!

colloydi commented on North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england... · Posted by u/IMSAI8080

swores · 2 years ago

I agree it's not consistent, but who ever accused English of being that?!

My point isn't that all business names are treated that way, just that the ones that are the reason is grammatical tradition not (for the most part) people who incorrectly think the shop is called "Tesco's" or whatever.

colloydi · 2 years ago

I agree swores. Your comment did say 'traditional' and my comment was facetious.

There's been an historical transition from small chains owned by individuals (e.g. the Victorian Mr John Sainsbury) to big brands (e.g. Superdrug), hasn't there.

The possessive apostrophe was appropriate for the former but surely less so nowadays. I would guess "Sainsbury's" was a rebrand intended to reflect tradition.

colloydi commented on North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england... · Posted by u/IMSAI8080

swores · 2 years ago

That's because you're not going to Tesco the registered company, you're going to (one of) Tesco's (shops). It's just traditional and logical grammar, not misnaming.

colloydi · 2 years ago

Thank you, I'll remember that next time I pay a visit to Sainbury's's!

colloydi commented on North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england... · Posted by u/IMSAI8080

devsda · 2 years ago

BS in "BS 7666" stands for British Standard and not anything else.

If the standard restricts street names to those certain characters, may be it really is BS.

colloydi · 2 years ago

The '666' portion doesn't inspire confidence either.

We love apostrophes so much we have them on our supermarkets. If they're not there we add them.

e.g. I'm going to Sainbury's

e.g. I'm going to Tesco's

...despite the fact that it's real name is plain old Tesco.

colloydi commented on Long Reviled as 'Ugly,' Sea Lampreys Get Some Respect (2023) e360.yale.edu/features/se... · Posted by u/quercusa

colloydi · 2 years ago

Beautiful: humans, flowers, orchids, bumble bees, butterflies, ladybirds, birds of paradise, big cats...

Ugly: most other insects, maggots, spiders, deep sea fish, proboscis monkeys, lampreys...

Thinking that some ugly creatures aren't ugly, or that beauty isn't real and objective, is part of of the aesthetic inversion of our time. It's the same phenomenon which put toilets and unmade beds into art galleries.

None of this implies that we can't disagree about specific cases, or that beauty is easy to define, or that we shouldn't treat animals well!

colloydi commented on Yes, social media is a cause of the epidemic of teenage mental illness afterbabel.com/p/phone-ba... · Posted by u/throwup238

worldsayshi · 2 years ago

This is touching on something very important but I feel there's a lot more to it. There's a lot of mystery around this for me. Like why is social media inspiring us to such hostile nit picking on behaviour and ideals?

colloydi · 2 years ago

I think it's because when we get to know other people IRL what they say is of secondary importance to how we perceive their intentions and motives. These determine how we feel about a person. They're subjective and hard to ascertain on the basis of written text alone.

So as a matter of caution we tend to impute bad motives to people we can't 'feel' clearly which means any textual claims made are subject to unnaturally high levels of scrutiny and demands for evidence/documentation.

Also the internet is forever whilst IRL conversation is throwaway.

colloydi commented on Pinnacle – a modern tribute to the 1986 classic, The Sentinel viperfish.com.au/games/pi... · Posted by u/sandebert

colloydi · 2 years ago

Pardon my ignorance...is it safe to install on Windows? It wants to bypass defender. Would very much like to try it.

colloydi · 2 years ago

OK I'm playing it now and it's brilliant. This is the way The Sentinel was meant to be!

colloydi commented on Pinnacle – a modern tribute to the 1986 classic, The Sentinel viperfish.com.au/games/pi... · Posted by u/sandebert

colloydi · 2 years ago

Pardon my ignorance...is it safe to install on Windows? It wants to bypass defender. Would very much like to try it.

colloydi commented on Vasopressin deficiency: driver of social impairment and fluid imbalance in ASD? [pdf] med.stanford.edu/content/... · Posted by u/jbotz

marginalia_nu · 2 years ago

Nominative Determinism is a hell of a thing.

colloydi · 2 years ago

...and so is Selection Bias.

u/colloydi

KarmaCake day18March 15, 2024View Original