Updated 03-Aug-2025 Mutual Intelligibility is the ability for two speakers (or writers) of different languages, to understand each other. Certainly there are degrees when it comes to mutual intelligibility, and not simply intelligibility or not. And there are many ways of measuring mutual intelligibility, with the sentence-level utterance a key feature. On the one hand ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 First, happiness is multidimensional. Second, happiness can be measured. And third, happiness cannot be dictated (though, indeed, there is a significant role for lawmakers and politicians). Happiness does not come from the barrel of gun. That is a concept only for armchair generals who never fought a war and still live inside some ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Of all the fairly ridiculous ideas, bicycle lanes in Thailand rank fairly high. First, let's discuss the law of unintended consequences. This is when you want to do one thing, but something unexpected (and usually negative, though not necessarily) results. As Merton writes undesired effects are not necessarily undesirable effects. One did not ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The other day I was looking at the Thai keyboard (a fascinating subject, especially when we have to distinguish between Unicode characters, Thai letters, and Thai script elements, and keyboard keys (these do not match up). I noticed there is no space in the Thai unicode standard. Which means a Thai keyboard maps ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The 19th century phenomenon, has different (distinct) implementations but is generally the same. One (or usually more than one) person move a glass or marker of some kind across a board (wood or paper) with letters and numbers on it, spelling out different answers to questions that are posed. A spirit supposedly guides ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 From health officials, it is clear that the main causes of obesity (beside genetics) are: Sedentariness (how much one is in active) Portion control (how much one eats) Food choices (what one eats) Avoid processed foods Avoid sugar/added sugar Avoid fried foods The above sounds quite simple, and one might say this comes ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 As an American, I grew up with instant ramen noodles, that is the very cheap wavy dried noodles one buys to eat, on a student's diet. Warm and filling, though honestly the nutritional content is quite suspect. I had no idea that this dried out version has extremely little to do with the ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 While in Thailand, the dangers of bicycling should not be understated. More than one around the world bicycling trip has had an untimely termination in Thailand. The main issue is the unwritten rule that smaller vehicles (motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians) are to give way to larger vehicles (cars and trucks). There is no right ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Elon Musk has engaged in outright fraud The TSLA Twitter bots The Solar City acquisition The Solar City roof tile scam The self-driving car scam Elon Musk is bad for the environment Spaceflight emissions No plans for ... Tesla's ESG rating Toxic metal mining Elon Musk is bad for humanity
Updated 03-Aug-2025 This phenomena is such that virii which are present in our bodies, but dormant, can reemerge. Scientists want to understand the immune system. To do it, they're looking to fake space. Skin Viral Infections: Host Antiviral Innate Immunity and Viral Immune Evasion 5 Viruses That Can Cause Complications Later
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The main reason of my interest in Roman cement is the self-healing properties, especially in marine environments, and consequent waterproof ability, and adhesive strength. It seems to have many features which make it superior for stone pointing, stucco, tiling, and roofing uses, as well as for repair and restoration. > From a material ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Collagen - Harvard school of public health I thought it was a scam -- can collagen really turn back the clock? - The Guardian 24-Week study on the use of collagen hydrolysate as a dietary supplement in athletes with activity-related joint pain
Updated 03-Aug-2025 By 2024 the Pentathlon event will likely replace horse jumping with some kind of obstacle course. But is a run + laser pistol really modern? And fencing? Perhaps a complete rethink is actually needed. I do get that shooting and running are a useful combination, much like skiing and rifle shooting of biathlons. ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The result is that there is a significant difference between several honey extracts and an equally sweet placebo taken before bed, on ameliorating nighttime coughing and sleep disturbance.
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Acute creatine loading enhances human growth hormone secretion
Updated 03-Aug-2025 Learning Spanish (Spain or Central American) is a popular past time, and is fourth in the number of non-native speakers (behind English, Mandarin, and Hindustani). It is also the fourth most spoken language by native speakers. For an English language speaker there are many similarities that can help in Spanish language acquisition. There ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 One learns a language to speak with a people and/or read their writing. All languages are useful to someone who has some use for them, though in general not all languages are equally useful in the abstract. Putting aside native vs. non-native speaker divides (which are hard to account for), languages are put ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 The global birthrate continues it's ongoing descent. In some countries there has been a dramatic drop due to covid, such as in the Philippines whose annual births in 2019 were 1.5 million, and which dropped to 900,000 and 400,000 in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Thailand Birthrate In 2021 the birthrate of Thailand dipped ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 In February, the state of California announced it was going to begin measures treating the Covid-19 pandemic as endemic though it did not use that word. The realization that there is no end date is poignant. > There is no end date for Covid-19 Resignation in the face of an Endemic Pandemic In ... Read more
Updated 03-Aug-2025 LXPanel is the panel for LXDE. Like Longfellow's little girl: > When she was good, > She was very good indeed, > But when she was bad she was horrid. The horrid part comes when something happens and all the settings are lost, which requires about 30 minutes or more of reconfiguring the ... Read more