Trajecient

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@Jakra @MercG @spinopsys But would it though?

If the opposition has an approach acting in bad faith, I'm not sure doing it first by legislation would have stopped the 'questions'.

An opposition so minded could say going beyond what was legislated raises questions about 'where things could go' and be 'unnecessarily divisive' if legislation was enough to 'reasonable people'.

Could perhaps have helped such an approach to work less well on the public though.

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@allisonwyss That in-between space makes me think of magical realism.

Partly because the 'magic' of magical realism, as opposed to in fantasy, is so clearly tied to spirituality and religious belief. It is sometimes unclear the extent to which a thing truly occurred or is more a manifestation of belief.

Like a kind of unreliable narrator where the unreliability emerges from a different worldview.

(Separate to also being in a different in-between space between 'miracle' and 'magic'.)

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@allisonwyss It in part would depend on whether such a manifestation is observable to others as well, across worldviews, or whether the reality is more conditional.

I think of how Wide Sargasso Sea was intentionally based on Jane Eyre but applied a totally different lens.

If a totally different lens were to be applied to the same events of a magical realist text, what happens to the magic?

I guess I used 'manifestation' as other words felt like they may be too dismissive of such worldviews.

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@allisonwyss I meant manifestation like 'expression' or 'extension' but they felt like conveying a real vs in a person's imagination binary whereas what I am attempt to express is more alone the lines of there being possible foundations of a perceived reality that can come from within that isn't 'imagined' but something deeper and more real but at the same time may not correspond to the truth translated by other... foundational frameworks?

There is a metaphysical materiality to it I guess...?

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@allisonwyss First-hand, actually.

Twice I've vividly relived memories before returning to the 'real world' to discover they had happened essentially in the blink of an eye.

More generally, although there may not be anything materially or externally 'real' to near-death experiences, they are real enough to the people who experienced them.

Trajecient, 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

@allisonwyss The distinction between whether something is true of the world vs a character's perception, given that the experience of the reader is filtered through the perception of one or more characters/narrators is, I think, part of the core of the ambiguity as to exactly how real a reality in a text may be.

Less so, perhaps, when the narration is clearly of a personal nature and more so if the narrator is less visible and at least seems more omniscient.

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@unormal I don't yet know the full details of what has been going on, but it makes me glad I have been going down the Godot route rather that Unity route as a ...developing... developer.

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@lowqualityfacts After the death of a particularly unliked crow (or human), sometimes one can make out being crowed out the tune of 'Another One Bites The Dust.'

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@lowqualityfacts You just know if Elon Musk owned Netflix this would absolutely be true.

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@Richard_Littler Once when I was stuck in a waiting room without anything to read or doing something with, (it was night), I occupied myself by trying to tilt and angle my head without moving from my sitting position to see if it were possible to make it so that that the nearby blinds completely covered all of the visible stars.

It did the job in that it killed something like 15 minutes of time and in the end, discovered it was possible with a very specific head position.

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@speedata It just depends on the font metrics. Some style guides require that the use of an em dash have a space or thin space on either side.

This is one of the most common real-life uses of a thin space and so it is good design for the thin space to be of a width that gives an 'open em dash' the right amount of space between the em dash and the other letters or punctuation marks. Likewise, some writers prefer to use thin spaces with the en dash as a space feels too much.

(1/2)

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@speedata Both The thin space and especially hair space are commonly used by typesetters to fix spacing issues, like when a font has uneven spacing for a specific combination and there is a need to just ever-so-slightly increase the spacing.

It is a lot easier to use thin spaces and hair spaces for this than messing around with tracking or other adjustments.

The general guidelines are good enough to use and then adjust from there if needed, but there is no one-size-fits-all rule.

(2/2)

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@Ex_spurt @geordie And even though there hasn't been an actual war over Hong Kong, China's actions there have been imperialistic and in clear violation of international treaty.

China argues they are justified as in their view Hong Kong is a part of One China.

Hong Kongers argue that such a basis to justify overriding a right to self-determination and personal freedoms related to seeking or discussing such self-determination is the very essence of imperialism.

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@owenhollands @geordie
In terms of soft power China is very active in Africa and elsewhere, but projection of soft power is different from hard power as the US has used.

I think part of the fear of China is not direct conflict, but how they may set norms and standards to prioritise China's economic position.

But the broader point I think the OP makes is that good grounds to critique China may not be the real reason/s why policies are a certain way and that the real motives can be critiqued.

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@lowqualityfacts For anyone wanting to explore the facts here in higher quality, look up 'pangrams'.

It is quite interesting if you want to rap in deliciously cringe-worthy ways.

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@lowqualityfacts This is why toothpaste doesn't come with a roller mechanism at the bottom to squeeze out the rest of the toothpaste when it gets low.

By making it less convenient to fully use toothpaste, more toothpaste gets bought.

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@lowqualityfacts Way too much truth here.

Trajecient, 8 months ago

@queerscifi The one I can't stand is infinite multiverses that cover every kind of minor to major variation. Makes me care less about the stakes if apparently all outcomes are happening anyway but just somewhere else. Also not liking the free will implications.

Favourite trope? Androids/holograms overcoming programming and gaining or retaining sentience and morality. Something about the character development of it all.

Trajecient, 9 months ago

@lowqualityfacts Had to see another post to confirm this was no joke and not this account expanding to low quality fakes.

Trajecient, 9 months ago

@lowqualityfacts Money well spent.

Trajecient, 9 months ago

@eWalthert @triple @clauseggers @davelab6 At one point the ownership of FontSpring changed hands. One of the attendant changes was to substantially increase their cut of any sales and their past marketing is less reflective of their present operations.

Trajecient, 9 months ago

@allisonwyss @knbrindle @falxcerebri

That policy if applied in certain contexts would be culturally insensitive.

It is very common for people from certain backgrounds to have an 'English' name and their birth name as their birth name is either harder for English-speakers to pronounce and/or as having too foreign a name can be a magnet for at least implicit bias.

In those cases, different people (such as overseas family) really do use a different name for the same person.

Trajecient, 9 months ago

@dendroica @allisonwyss Don't know if this inspired the choice or is totally unrelated, but capitalisation for emphasis used to be a common practice in English.

Trajecient, 9 months ago

@queerscifi The weakest point of short stories for me is when they have characters that are unengaging and they do not become engaging in time to care about the story.

The strongest point of short stories for me is that they can fixate on an interesting scenario and have the resolution focus around this. It doesn't have to be diluted by inclusion in a longer work that has other elements and developments.

Trajecient, 9 months ago

@luminousworks How did this happen? There's all that empty space on the other side.

Is it obscure symbolism? Incompetence? Or the person who did it implying maladministration having not been paid well enough or something and the university just leaving the result?