ToaKraka
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User ID: 108
ToaKraka
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11d ago
I don't know about "best", but I can say that I (not tall and skinny, but medium-height and fat) have felt very comfortable in the WorkPro 12000 that I bought for 415 $ four years ago. That specific product is no longer sold, but the WorkPro Momentum appears to offer basically the same features for 470 $, except that its seat is cloth rather than mesh. The FlexiSpot C7 (380 $), the RealSpace Radano (300 $), and an Alpha Home chair (normally 330 $, currently on sale for 187 $) also seem similar to the WorkPro 12000.
ToaKraka
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11d ago
You accidentally posted this in the Wellness Wednesday thread rather than in the Small Questions Sunday thread.
ToaKraka
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13d ago
This dissertation is concerned with an investigation of palatalization which covers a majority of the above-mentioned processes. I will refer to two types of palatalization: in one case the consonant shifts its primary place and often its manner of articulation while moving toward the palatal region of the vocal tract, as in (1), and in the other it is co-articulated with a following palatal offglide, as in (2).
(1) Full Palatalization
k, t → tʃ /dont ju/ → [dontʃju] 'don't you' (English)
(2) Secondary palatalization
t, d → tj, dj
/yamati/ → [yamatji] 'a person' (Watjarri, W. Pama Nyungan; Douglas 1981)
Finally in (5c) we see a change that has been adopted into the English lexicon, thimble, where the lip closure for [m] and the velic opening for [l] overlap and cause the perception of a voiced bilabial stop. This is a case of 'stop intrusion' between a nasal and a fricative/continuant that has been proposed as the transitional element between the two distinct sounds (Clements 1987). Another well known example from English where stop intrusion occurs is in the pronunciation of prince, where a [t] is perceived between the nasal and [s], [prɪnts]. The release of the alveolar nasal [n] and the transition into the [s] gesture produce the acoustic effect of an alveolar stop [t] (see also Yoo & Blankenship 2003). Arvaniti, Kilpatrick and Shosted (submitted) tested the perception of epenthetic and underlying [t] in the same [n_s] context as in prince vs. prints, and found that American English speakers could not distinguish reliably between epenthetic and underlying [t], which suggests that the [nts] and [ns] alternation is moving toward complete neutralization.
Further support for perceptual epenthesis is provided by Davidson (2004) who presents experimental evidence showing that native speakers of English do not repair illegal onset clusters such as [zb], [zd], and [zg] by epenthesizing schwa, as is typically assumed. Davidson claims that the English speakers, not having experience coordinating the gestures of the consonants in these clusters, instead pull them apart, mistiming the gestures, which leads to the perception of an epenthesized schwa. This schwa, however, is qualitatively different from other schwa sounds that are normally produced during speech (lexical schwas; see Hall (2006) for additional evidence of perceived schwas resulting from gestural overlap).
i_know_some_of_these_words.gif
ToaKraka
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14d ago
It seems like a pretty reasonable reaction to being accused of racism by two different moderators for absolutely zero reason that I can see.
ToaKraka
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14d ago
I think this is the first time I have ever been utterly confused and disgusted by a moderation action on this forum.
ToaKraka
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14d ago
tl;dr: 4.5 stars for books 1 and 2, 4 stars for books 3 to 9, 3.5 stars for book 10
Several other reviews say that the story falls off after the first antagonist is introduced in book 3, and I'm inclined to agree with them. For me, the first tipping point is in chapter 122 (halfway through book 3), when the protagonist, who previously made a big deal of keeping his word, rather egregiously breaks a promise.
Specifically: In chapter 121, he promises a reward of 100,000 points to whoever snitches on a traitor. But in chapter 122 he decides to pay only the first installment of that reward before having the snitch secretly killed. In chapter 128, it is confirmed that the snitch has been killed. Compare that to chapter 70 in book 2 ("I don't lie. My word is my currency.") and chapter 46 in book 1 ("A deal is a deal. I always keep my word. I may be a murdering asshole, but I don't lie.").The second tipping point occurs in chapter 463 (early in book 10), when the protagonist imposes a "Kafkaesque" punishment on an antagonist who cannot be killed. Maybe I'm overreacting, but it reminds me too much of the Sasuke poop incident in Chunin Exam Day, which was a definite marker of that story's downturn. So I've stopped reading there.
(As part of the English problems, I guess I should also mention that the protagonist's dialog is written rather weirdly. My mental image of him always is a bearded Russian in his 40s, rather than the clean-shaven American in his 30s that he's supposed to be. But that's a minor issue.)
ToaKraka
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14d ago
You accidentally posted this in the Sunday Small Questions Thread rather than in the Friday Fun Thread.
ToaKraka
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15d ago
Not New York! Not Philadelphia! """Proud""" to be New J*rsey! (electronic riff) New J*rsey One-Oh-One Point Five!
ToaKraka
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15d ago
Checking IRS Publication 334, I see a section called De Minimis Safe Harbor for Tangible Property that indicates a limit of 5 k$ per item for such write-offs in the US.
ToaKraka
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15d ago
the Army's newest multibillion-dollar boondoggle
I feel obligated to draw your attention to the Billion-Dollar Boondoggle Act.
The bill requires OMB (the Office of Management and Budget) to issue guidance directing federal agencies to annually submit specified information to OMB regarding certain federally funded projects that (1) are more than five years behind schedule, or (2) have expenditures that are at least $1 billion more than the original cost estimate for the project.
The bill also requires OMB to submit an annual report to Congress containing the information submitted by the agencies and post the report on the OMB website.
It was reported out of committee a month ago, so it actually has a chance of becoming law.
ToaKraka
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15d ago
Without knowing anything about the relevant law
The text of the law is what makes the difference. The text of Pennsylvania's abuse-of-corpse law criminalizes only "treatment" of a corpse, which a layman would interpret as applying only to acts, not to omissions of acts.
Except as authorized by law, a person who treats a corpse in a way that he knows would outrage ordinary family sensibilities commits a misdemeanor of the second degree.
This stands in stark contrast to the definition of child abuse, which specifically criminalizes omissions of acts.
Child abuse.—The term "child abuse" shall mean intentionally, knowingly or recklessly doing any of the following:
(1) Causing bodily injury to a child through any recent act or failure to act.
(7) Causing serious physical neglect of a child.
"Serious physical neglect." Any of the following when committed by a perpetrator that endangers a child's life or health, threatens a child's well-being, causes bodily injury or impairs a child's health, development or functioning:
(1) A repeated, prolonged or egregious failure to supervise a child in a manner that is appropriate considering the child's developmental age and abilities.
(2) The failure to provide a child with adequate essentials of life, including food, shelter or medical care.
ToaKraka
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16d ago
Some users primarily browse this website, not by clicking on posts and reading the comments below those posts, but by reading the page that lists all comments in chronological order regardless of post, sometimes called the "firehose" view.
ToaKraka
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16d ago
Are there any rationalist discords/meetups etc in NYC?
The semiannual Astral Codex Ten meetup list has just been posted. It indicates that there are meetups in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Long Island, and Newark.
@Southkraut: Are there any in southern Germany?
There are meetups in Erlangen, Freiburg, Mannheim, München, and Stuttgart.
ToaKraka
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16d ago
I was specifically thinking of this New Jersey case, which actually doesn't fit your pattern.
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A man lets his friend do drugs in the passenger seat of his work van while he delivers mattresses.
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The friend overdoses on fentanyl-laced heroin and dies. Rather than calling 911, the man finishes his workday with the corpse in the passenger seat, and then dumps the corpse on the side of "a dark, rural road", where it is found a few hours later.
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The man is convicted of desecration of human remains and is sentenced to eight years in prison. The appeals panel affirms.
ToaKraka
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16d ago
I post cases that are interesting and cases that are funny. This case is interesting for the following reasons.
(1) It is highly likely that a person will deal with a funeral home at least once in his life. It's worth knowing how a funeral home—even one led by the president of the <del>state</del><ins>county</ins> funeral directors' association—can be derelict in its duty.
(2) The legal issue of whether a person can be guilty of abuse of a corpse by simply leaving it alone (rather than a more typical situation of fucking a corpse or dumping a corpse out of the back of a van) is unintuitive. I would not have expected it to come out this way after reading the statute.
Over the past week I saw only three cases worth posting (two interesting and one funny), and this is the best one.
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On August 31: A person dies; his brother contacts a funeral home and requests a direct cremation, with no embalming; and the corpse is brought to the funeral home. On September 2, the brother signs a contract for cremation at a price of 3.4 k$, and the corpse is transferred to a crematory.
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On September 7: The brother signs a contract with a different funeral home for cremation at a price of just 1 k$. The corpse is transported from the crematory back to the first funeral home. When the second funeral director arrives at the first funeral home to pick up the corpse, she is astonished to discover that the first funeral home failed to refrigerate the corpse because its corpse refrigerator was out of order! After sitting at 56 °F (11 °C) for three days before being transferred to the crematory, the corpse has generated "fluid seepage, maggot infestation, and unbearable decay and stench". Since then the broken fridge has been replaced, but the damage already has been done. The second funeral director reports the situation to the brother.
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On September 10, the second funeral home has the corpse cremated. However, before cremation, the brother insists on seeing the corpse one last time. He is appalled at its condition, and reports the situation to the police. The first funeral director—who also is the president of the
<del>state</del><ins>county</del>funeral directors' association!—is charged with abuse of a corpse, is convicted, and is sentenced to a year of probation. "If the President of the Funeral Directors' Association conducts business in this manner, who is to say what is happening at any other funeral home behind a family's back?" -
The convicted funeral director appeals. He argues that the crime of abuse of a corpse is reserved for (1) acts, while he only omitted an act, and (2) treatment that the actor "knows would outrage ordinary family sensibilities", while he had no such knowledge. But the appeals panel affirms. (1) "The purpose of drafting the abuse-of-corpse statute in very broad and general language was to ensure that offenses such as concealing a corpse came under the purview of the statute." It is precedent that failing to notify authorities of a person's death and allowing that person's corpse to rot counts as abuse of a corpse, even though it is merely the omission of an act rather than an act in itself. (2) "Even if there were no initial expectation that the family would ever see Decedent's body again, any person, funeral director or otherwise, would understand that family sensibilities would be offended if a corpse were allowed to decompose for days."
ToaKraka
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17d ago
ToaKraka
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17d ago
Sports betting, OnlyFans (etc.), and addiction level of marijuana use are, to me, the three horsemen of tolerated social degeneration.
Can anyone comment on the status of prostitution as a fourth horseman in places where it's legal (Germany, Australia, the UK, etc.)?
ToaKraka
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17d ago
When my parents made me go on a trip to Chile in the summer after my freshman year of college, approximately my only enjoyable experience was looking down on the container port of Valparaíso from the hills above it.
Volokh Conspiracy on this topic
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