"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
liberal japonicus by liberal japonicus The previous thread is getting creaky, so I have a separate thread in mind to write after this, but I (and I'm not sure if this is a great idea) am going to put up this thread about Ta-Nehisi Coates' new book, The Message. While the book follows in the footsteps of … Read more
by liberal japonicus Folks who have been here awhile might now that I've written a few times about my parents, and how people are formed by their parents is something that I take a great interest in. Here's probably the post that is closest to this (with some links to other things I wrote in … Read more
by liberal japonicus The last thread on the VP debate didn't take off, and I don't blame you, I threw up in my mouth a little to hear Vance lay out his plans for Lebensraum. But rather than talk about that, I wanted to talk a bit about another topic, health insurance. I read somewhere … Read more
by liberal japonicus I've heard that there was a debate happening somewhere, so this is a thread for it.
by liberal japonicus Another open thread, the other seems to be I/P and vaccinations, but I'm listening to some things and these two prompted the question above This first one is an interview of/discussion with Emily Jashinsky by Ezra Kleinhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXTjqaTQpYg&t=2509s One comment that sums up my take "This lady keeps saying things are 'rooted in … Read more
by liberal japonicus Harris is sitting down for an interview with MSNBC (preview here) which seems like as good a reason as any for an open thread. I'm still waiting for Harris to go on Hot Wings though…
by liberal japonicus I recently read this substack piece by Jay Kuo, Donald Trump is a stochastic terrorist, which baffled me a bit, because it seemed to me that terrorism, by it's very definition, is stochastic. A group or person commits an act or acts that are aimed at instilling fear in a larger group … Read more
by liberal japonicus Feel free to continue to chat about the debate, this post is about what may happen from this point. I can't speak for others, but it's been like watching a great sports game where you watch the highlights again and again and then watching commentators talk about those highlights. Oh, and your … Read more
by liberal japonicus I imagine everyone will have their own take about the debate that is about to finish, so I'll crack this thread open. Have at it.
by liberal japonicus I think that everyone gets their info and news from other sources, ObWi was never really going to be a place to post hot takes or red meat, but this is one of those things where I really fear for my sanity. The NYTimes podcasts have been interesting, Ezra Klein interviewed Tim … Read more
by liberal japonicus Thought that we need the space. A few things that have been rattling around my head. -GftNC has some questions about the rallying cry "Not going back". I think, because Americans have such a glossy memory of previous times, it works perfectly for USaians. I mean, it covers people who love Reagan, … Read more
by liberal japonicus The report that Politico was given documents from the Trump campaign that were hacked by Iran, including a 270 page(!) dossier on JD Vance has me retell this joke: A: Ask me how I became the greatest Iranian comedian? B: Ok, how did you become… A: Timing! The Politico article reports that … Read more
by liberal japonicus As everyone is probably aware, Governor Tim Walz is Harris' VP pick so a thread about that. Here is his first speech, in Philadephia (starts at 32:39). A few observations/questions in order to put up a quick post. Listening to Shapiro's introduction speech, I'm glad they chose Walz. Not that the speech … Read more
by liberal japonicus This started as thinking about pundits but has overflowed into a lot of other news. I had in mind the categories fellow travelers and useful idiots. These are pretty radioactive terms, and I welcome some alternatives, but absent any substitutes, I have to trudge on. As I understand it, fellow traveler was … Read more
by liberal japonicus The title is lifted from a comment by Pete that had GftNC at a loss. I thought I'd talk a bit about tautologies, as an invitation to an open thread. The linguist Paul Grice is probably most famous for a set of maxims, which are now termed Gricean maxims, that he proposed … Read more
by wj We're about due for a new thread anyway. And Biden stepping aside from the campaign seems like an inevitable topic. So here we go.
by liberal japonicus Seems like I should open another thread, so here it is. Have at it.
by liberal japonicus A little early, but I thought I'd put this thread up to talk about the UK elections on July 4th. I've been watching them intently, with the fascination that a Trekkie doing Duolingo Klingon might have for Enterprise registry numbers. In part, that's to avert my gaze from dealing with questions about … Read more
by liberal japonicus {note: this is not a post speculating about Biden stepping down, despite how the title might lead one to think that. I promise I was working on this before pre-debate discussion even started.] I've been trying to write this post for a while now, but maybe sending it out now is the … Read more
by liberal japonicus I'm sure everyone is getting a surfeit of doomscrolling from a lot of other places. Here at ObWi, we like to wrap our observations about the coming judgement day in wrapping paper that says 'ain't that amazing'. “Recognizing and segmenting visual objects in images, as well as environmental sounds and spoken words … Read more
by liberal japonicus How about that Rishi? Or should I say Rishi!? There is too much stuff to list but off the top of my head and starting at the useful mark of that press conference, there is Rishi in the rain (with a New Labor soundtrack leaked email blaming MPs for poor campaigning Greece! … Read more
by liberal japonicus Some open tabs agout language in my browser to chat about A stone discovered with Ogham runic text in England Ogham is highly unusual among world writing systems, consisting solely of parallel lines in groups of 1-5. The stones provide insight into the Irish language before the use of the Latin insular … Read more
by liberal japonicusGftNC noted (along with this article) that I didn't open up the last thread, though I meant to, so here is a 100% open thread. The article is Marina Hyde's takedown of the voter id law in the UK, which also noted that Jacob Rees-Mog and Boris himself fell afoul of the law, … Read more
by liberal japonicus
A teacher here in Japan, much younger than me, mentioned on Facebook that he was letting students know that they could tell him their pronouns if they were different from their university profile. We chatted a bit about it, but it left me with some questions. Since folks here are in education and others are education adjecent, I thought it might be an interesting topic. More below the break.
I hope I'm not stepping on Janie's post, I'm always grateful to her for keeping the home fires lit, but this article caught my eye as it were and I thought I'd put up, in large part because it lets me talk about what's ailing me (and maybe some of you?) https://www.sciencealert.com/your-vision-can-predict-dementia-12-years-before-diagnosis-study-finds Our research was … Read more
by liberal japonicus
I don't do a lot of linguistic-y talk here for a couple of reasons. The first is that it is way too easy for me to dive in the weeds and natter on about it. A second related point is that we all come to our language insights from different places and along different paths and it is too easy to dismiss someone's perspective it doesn't line up with yours. However, I thought that this popular article gave some interesting points about current work in the field of Indo-European linguistics, a field that I hadn't thought about for a while.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/a-new-look-at-our-linguistic-roots/
A graf from the article that I like is this:
“It’s something that, again, is surprising,” Olander says. “I think ‘surprising’ could be translated to ‘It probably means that their method is wrong.’”
If I were still attending linguistic talks, I would start using 'surprising' as a descriptor.
What the article doesn't touch on so much is the field of paleolinguistics. I assume that this is because generally, a lot of linguists consider those researching this topic a few fries short of a Happy meal, hence the mocking descriptor of 'long rangers', because they were really interested in long range comparisons. I believe that this started out as an insult but was picked up by those folks as a badge of honor. This Judith Kaplan post has this observation that explains why the article does this:
How human language originated (whether this had happened once or several times); how early language was structured and used; and how it diffused and diversified across the globe—these questions loomed large over the work of long-range comparative linguistics in the late-1980s and early-1990s. Through newspaper reports, public television programming, and interdisciplinary appropriations, they were formulated at the intersection of specialist and general concerns. Publicity was actively pursued by committed “long-rangers,” who found themselves marginalized in an academic world dominated by more circumspect goals.
Kaplan is a historian of science, and her site is worth a look if any of this interests you. More below the fold
by liberal japonicus An open thread to talk about this and whatever else strikes your fancy. The ins and outs of this are probably interesting for those of you who have the stomach for it.
by liberal japonicus I flagged a story about Air Canada's use of an AI chatbot and how they tried to avoid responsibility for the information it gave out and Janie pointed out in a comment that JB's John Cole mentioned it. Take it away, JC In other news, the Air Canada Chatbot lawsuit thing is … Read more
by liberal japonicus This quasi open post (aren't they all?) begins with a question. In this Guardian article, the title is King strips CBE from former Post Office boss Paula Vennells but the subtitle of the story says "Vennells had said she would return honour after fresh fallout over wrongful prosecution of post office operators", … Read more
by liberal japonicus In my facebook feed, this cover, from 2017 popped up, reminding me I had started a Year of the Dragon post. Probably an appropriate year, given that dragons tend to represent chaos and untamed nature, and in light of the fact that everything seems to be going to hell. Japanese celebrate the … Read more
by liberal japonicus When I lived in Eugene, Oregon, a city that is an outlier in a state that's an outlier, around election time, we'd get a phonebook like publication with all of the ballot amendments. Some were well-meaning, others totally wack and it was always a fun read back in the days when there … Read more
by liberal japonicus Seems like we are about due for one. Have at it.
liberal japonicus Hello from (one day) in the future. Thanks to the wonders of the international dateline, I can tell you that everything is pretty much the same (i.e. shitty), though I suspect that I'm walking around with an American day count while everyone around me has an Asian day count, as described in this … Read more
liberal japonicus To toss out some things that we've previously mentioned PPT of a fuel ammonia presentation OpenAI and Altman Black Friday winners and losers Have at it.
by liberal japonicus Thought I'd crack open a thread on X (i.e. ex-Twitter). This is an old article about what the X might have meant. The hole article is a fun look at what X could mean, but a pull graf X can symbolize divinity and harmony as a symmetrical letter, but references to death, … Read more