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Month: March 2017
What makes you wish you understood Russian?
Odd you’d ask me, Habib le toubib! Russian actually is a language I wish I understood. There’s a little bit of Byzantine literature published in Russia, and it’d be useful to access the literature. There’s a bit more Russian writing on Balkan linguistics: ditto. Much more so: Mariupolitan Greek, spoken in the Ukraine, is substantially […]
The Decalogue of Nick #7: I play the mandolin badly and the violin worse
For Victoria Weaver. Music came early to me. Soaking up the multiple musical traditions of Greece while living there, from 8–12. (Or to be more precise, the musical traditions that Greek State TV allowed through. Crete was in by then, but no violins, only lyras, by an ahistorical metric of authenticity—I was living in violin […]
I thought I was over not becoming an academic…
… but this comment triggered me, I guess. I have written on this before as an answer. Yasin Karahan: Well, f**k…the thing is: Wouldn’t it suffice to excell at what one does? With all due modesty: I’m pretty f’ing good at what I do and my professor agrees. Might be a tough nut to crack, […]
If you were trapped in an elevator with a trans woman who obviously doesn’t pass, would you feel awkward talking to her?
Heavens, a lot of righteousness in this thread. I’m going to… well, I’m going to answer this the way I would. I saw the answer before OP clarified, and I’m giving the same answer I would before, but maybe with a bit more details. I am cis het, and present as such. I’m also middle-aged, […]
What would a conversation between planets of our solar system be like?
Originally asked as: What would a conversation between heavenly bodies be like? Downtown at Brazzers HQ: —Hey stranger! Woah! Nice sixpack, dude! —Yeah, gotta work out when I can. Hey, you’ve healed up nice! —Yeah, you like? I went with the single Ds. Better match for my frame. —Awesome. So. Standard set of positions in […]
How do you know that you are doing your job well? I’m looking for specific examples.
Interesting. I’ve been in a series of jobs and/or avocations where it is very hard to know, because there haven’t been straightforward quantitative metrics. A lot of what I’ve been doing has been government sponsored culture change (promoting IT interoperability), and that is slow. Writing policy papers: well, I dunno, I write the papers, the […]
How do I write sonnets?
Read about the sonnet: Sonnet – Wikipedia Read lots of sonnets. Get comfortable with writing in metre. Start with blank verse. Get a rhyming dictionary. Pick a sonnet scheme. The sonnet scheme determines the structure of the argument you’re going to be making in the sonnet. In the Italian sonnet (the Petrarchan), the octet (first […]
For you, what are femininity and masculinity?
For me, the words are very meaningful, and I do care if a person is feminine or masculine. But then, noone would confuse me with anyone who’s answered the opposite. I am also very much aware of the contingency and cultural specificity of femininity and masculinity as constructs. I am aware that there are plenty […]
Can you write a sonnet about Quora?
https://www.quora.com/Can-you-write-a-limerick-about-Quora This my 2000th answer could exultin all the friends on Quora’s paths well met.(A well trod trope, that I will sing out yet.) This my 2000th answer could resultin lists of lore here learned, by god and cult:Kleio, Euterpe, Hermes, Baphomet. This my 2000th answer could besetills I’ve beheld, and insults I insult:dull aediles, […]
What are some common beginner mistakes in Go programming?
They’re minor things, but they’re things I keep slipping up on: Sometimes Golang hides the difference between a type and the pointer to the type. That doesn’t mean the asterisk is decorative. Most of the time, Golang doesn’t hide the difference, and you do need to put that asterisk in. It is idiomatic to assign […]