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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 5th, 2023

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  • Depends on your needs. There are a whole lot of great games for the PS5 (my partner finished Blood of Dawnwalker just a few days ago) and most of them run really well but let’s be honest, 95% of what you want to play is also available on PC.

    If you are looking for something to just plug into your TV, sit back and play a game, go ahead, buy a classic or slim PS5 they are great. I wouldn’t recommend the PS5 Pro. Sure, it has a bit more power but so far I haven’t encountered any game that would have needed it and I doubt many will come out before the end of this generation. If you have enough budget for a PS5 Pro, you probably have enough budget for a Steam Machine instead.



  • This is part of an ongoing fan comic, so you might be missing a bit of context. See this archive for a link to the post that inspired it and all 13 comic strips so far.

    The characters are Calvin and Susie from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, imagined as adults. Notice Hobbes in stuffed animal form in some of the panels. Calvin now uses the name Panthera and identifies as neither male nor female, using fae/faer pronouns, which are rather unusual, even for non-binary people. It started as a joke that Calvin hates being normal so much that if he ever transitioned, he wouldn’t just be a girl (whom he has always found gross) but something as far outside the norm as possible.


  • Okay, let me break it down step by step.

    • When Susie sees Panthera, she notices faer boobs and assumes Calvin has transitioned to being a girl.
    • Panthera explains the band name which doesn’t fit Susie’s assumption so she remarks “But… you’re a girl!”, hoping to get an explanation.
    • Panthera in typical Panthera/Calvin fashion doesn’t give a clear answer but a flippant “What gave you that idea?” which Susie interprets as a no.
    • Being accustomed to binary genders, Susie sees only one other option and tries to confirm “Then you’re still [a boy]?” but gets cut off.
    • Now, Susie is completely confused and apparently can’t think of a third option besides male and female. In her confusion she circles back to the one thing she can be sure about: the person in front of her has boobs. She asks about that.
    • Panthera still doesn’t give a clear answer to what fae identifies as, prompting Susie to spell it out: “Well, what do I call you then?”
    • When presented with the business card, Susie accepts the name and pronouns but still struggles with the concept.

    So in short: Susie is familiar with the concept transgender people but still thinks in binary genders and can’t quite get her head around Panthera being non-binary. Hope that helps.






  • Statistical models are not technically algorithms

    Which makes “opt out of algorithms” even more wrong.

    They should define a bare minimum baseline of data points that should be made available to users to control the content they want to see

    I’m not a fan of specifying too much here. Many platforms don’t track location while other fields that we can’t think of in advance might be useful. Finding a more general rule that still gets the intent across might be hard but I’d rather have it a bit under-specified than suddenly requiring a social media site to track my location every time I post because someone wasn’t careful enough when writing the text of a law.

    Other than that, I agree 100%.



  • I think OP misunderstood it because the first few sentences mention Trump multiple times, then switch to “The White House”. If they are not familiar with the concept of using “the White House” as a synonym for “the president (+staff)” or if they are not a native speaker, that might seem like the White House might be a separate entity able to comment on the president’s actions.







  • Most movies are mixed for a theater surround sound system. Remixing them for tv speakers is usually not worth the effort. Dialogue usually sits on the center channel while effects and music are spread across left, right and surround channels. A tv with stereo speakers can‘t do much except mix all of that together and that makes it hard to hear the quieter parts.

    If you watch a lot of movies, I recommend a soundbar or even better a 5.1 system. It’s expensive but it mostly solves those mixing problems.


  • I’d argue that shortened names aren’t pronouns. Like, “Bob” isn’t a pronoun after all. But that’s a cool idea nonetheless.

    Counter-argument: the only two reasons why “Bob” isn’t a pronoun are a) because English has other pronouns and b) because not every name has a form that’s short enough to use in place of pronouns.

    I would say it’s fully plausible that a language develops proper pronouns (with case markings and everything else you would expect) based on a rule that works with any name. As an arbitrary example, a Robert, Robin, Ronald and Rocinante might all use roki for the nominative case, ros for the genitive case and ron for the accusative case. In the absence of other pronoun systems, that would be indistinguishable from what you imagine as pronouns. Add a few centuries of sound shifts and you get something really interesting.


  • I assume we are talking about third person pronouns, mostly singular, possibly plural (like in French which has gendered ils/elles). First and second person (I, you, we) aren’t gendered in (most?) western languages anyway.

    It could go multiple ways:

    • Just one set of third person pronouns for everyone, equivalent to English they/them. The fewer different pronouns you have, the harder it is to talk about multiple people at once but in principle, it works. After all, nobody keeps you from talking about five men who all use he/him in English, you just have to add more specifiers or names to differentiate.
    • A distinction based on proximity. One set of pronouns for a person near the speaker, one for a person near the listener and one for a person somewhere else. Japanese does something similar for things (これ kore, それ sore, あれ are) but as far as I know, not for people. For an example in English, imagine equivalents to this and that which are personal pronouns instead of demonstratives.
    • A distinction based on age. Different pronouns for children, adults, elderly or relative to the speaker’s age.
    • A distinction based on familiarity. One set of pronouns to refer to close friends and family, one for acquaintances, one for strangers.
    • A distinction based on status and respect. A bit similar to what Japanese does with honorific name suffixes but in pronoun form.
    • One of the conlangs I’m occasionally working on has pronouns based on the shortened form of names: the first syllable of the person’s name plus a suffix. Plus one set of pronouns for if you don’t know (or don’t want to mention) a person’s name.

  • Disclaimer to others: the comment I’m replying to has been almost completely rewritten while I was typing my reply so I’m quoting things that are no longer there. I will still leave my reply as it is.

    In Germany, every EU citizen pays next to nothing. Doesn’t matter which university or what grades. As long as you qualify for university (i.e. you have finished high school), you are able to get a degree if you want. No “if”, no “I wouldn’t have to worry”, no “top student”, no “cheap”. There is no tuition, period. Most universities ask for a small administrative fee of less than 200€, most of which finances additional benefits that cannot legally be paid with taxes, such as a student council.

    As mentioned, for non-EU students, there is a fixed tuition of at most 1050€ per semester. Again, no “if”, no “you wouldn’t have to worry”, no “top student”.

    Also note, that I never, not even once complained about American tuition fees. If you re-read my comments, you will only find the stated fact that the tuition for non-EU students is lower than “most US tuition fees”. Which, by your own admission, is true. I never claimed that it is lower than the lowest possible US tuition, I never said anything about this being good or bad.

    So please stop projecting your own rage onto something I have never said and stop insulting people. You are entitled to your opinion and I will gladly fight for your right to state it. What you are not entitled to is being rude to strangers. For that, I will downvote and possibly report you.