Zompist Bboard Again

True enough, but the continents had very different positions then and that would have undoubtedly impacted climate in various ways. Not quite, the continents were by-and-large in their current positions , with some exceptions, but of course the sea level was much higher (no land ice) so there was a...

One hurdle with this sort of approach is that places getting warmer is only a minor effect of climate change. (...) Point is, you're not going to find a place that's very cold now that's going to be temperate after climate change. It's a fact that Antarctica had, in at least part of the Mesozoic, a...

hwhatting wrote: ↑Wed Oct 14, 2026 1:49 ammost of my books are far away in Germany anyway.

Off-topic, but you're no longer in Germany?


JAL

An old friend of mine has died. Mi a kway fo yu. Mi fil yu - tu ye pas, wan a mi ol fwen day, folo sahjari afta swok. Im ste de Taylan, so mi in di ebl atan fi krimecm. I'm so sorry. I can relate - two ears ago, an old friend of mine died, following surgery afte a stroke. He lived in Thailand, so I...

Travis B. wrote: ↑Thu Oct 08, 2026 8:20 amHere higher education indicates education beyond high school, e.g. universities, community colleges, trade schools, etc.

Yes, that's exactly what I mean. We don't have a "high school" as such, our "hogeschool" is like a community college I think.


JAL

Note that here in the US internships are commonly combined with college education, e.g. oftentimes people will do internships in the summer between semesters at a university. In the Netherlands, internships ("stages") are part of higher education (higher as in, past middle school), with t...

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2026 10:13 amWell, I think there are limits to the analogy.

All analogies have limits, I'd say :). Back when apprenticeships existed, there was no practical higher education - if you wanted to have a certain job, you needed to become an apprentice.


JAL

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Oct 07, 2026 7:38 amIs there an equivalent Dutch term?

I'd say it's mostly just translated with "leerling", "student".


JAL

To me as a non-native speaker, "apprentice" either refers to the Trump show, but more typical mediaeval fantasy, especially a wizard apprentice.


JAL

"The active instantiations of the mega-predator entities' (kaenae) realized destructive operational vectors directed straight at our phenomenal experience are evaluated as an absolute non-good / systemic anti-state." Dis won nacural tahn pas dis. This needs a more natural translation than...

Imralu wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2026 4:13 amHumans are the most dangerous animal.

Dem yuman u me-me denja, oba denja bis u mos mos taym denja.
Humans are potentially dangerous, while dangerous animals are dangerous most of the time.


JAL

It's a bogus article anyway. No serious scientist would write a conclusion that includes "reveal": Our findings reveal that the transition from prehistoric foragers to contemporary societies has had an impact on the human speech apparatus, and therefore on our species’ main mode of communi...

I do wonder about rogue agents hacking into stuff, though. That's a good thing, as it shows how vulnerable our critical infrastructure is. If AI agents can do it, hackers can do it (even without AI to help them). We also mustn't forget that all these "rogue agents" stories are about "...

zompist wrote: ↑Sat Sep 26, 2026 3:40 pmAll the independently invented writing systems started by representing syllables.

Korean didn't? Or isn't it independently invented?


JAL

zompist wrote: ↑Fri Sep 25, 2026 4:01 pmExcellent post, except this line. A lot of people have to deal with poorly written LLM output and they hate it.

Thanks, I stand corrected.


JAL

Ares Land wrote: ↑Fri Sep 25, 2026 8:26 amThis is meant to be insulting, I suppose, but I'm afraid I don't follow Ed Sheeran-related scandals, or indeed Ed Sheeran at all.

Lol, do you follow the news at all? Ed Sheeran was heavily criticized for not taking a stance when his support act was cancelled for supporting Palestine.


JAL

I love AI FWIW. I do hate the AI industry. Those are one and the same, you cannot separate them. My own position on AI is decidedly contrarian. I don't think it's an important issue one way or another. Ok Ed Sheeran. AI has legitimate and useful applications, such as predicting which way a protein ...

I was *about* to make a "theory" that there were two branches of PIE (p-PIE and q-PIE, so to say), and it could theoretically explain p-Italic and p-Celtic (and PU *peni), but I realized I don't think the sound changes would work out quite well Let's stay scientific and call it a "hy...

I also love the aesthetics of the script, though I'm wondering if it could come about naturally. In which I mean that logographic scripts start out with, well, logos, recognizable pictures. Over time they become abstract (as we've seen with cuneiform, Chinese and Egyptian), but they then lose most o...

Raphael wrote: ↑Wed Sep 23, 2026 1:49 pmThank you!

Thank you too, it's always fun to google a bit for etymologies :).


JAL