The brain is, basically, a think-machine, even though it’s “just” a lump of meat. The brain tries to make sense of stuff and piece everything together “logically”.

Oftentimes the braim makes stuff up - your brain is very good at lying. Take for example vision - the eyes contain a relatively hole in the retina, yet you see a perfectly clear image. This is the “intended” purpose, but the core mechanism bywhich this is done is much more deeply rooted into the brain’s main “function” - it’s one of the core things the brain does. Its “thinking” is very malleable.

This can cause smaller “misinterpretations” of reality: Here’s a personal example: when my grandfather died, I periodically saw his reflection in the front door of his house. It would be visible only for a second, and then disaopear almost immidiately. I had to be moving relatively fast for it to appear, and couldn’t cause it to appear at will. 15 years later, I noticed it was actually my reflection, but since it was only visible in the exact same spot, from a certain angle, only in the evenings, with the porch lamp on and on a wood-textured PVC door, it took me that much time to piece all the puzlle pieces together and deduce the root cause. Me not having to visit his house all that often certsinly didn’t help the situation.

The other is plain hallucination: Take arthritis. You have pain which is proven not to be caused by anything external. Your nerves just send the “pain signals”, and you feel pain.

Additionally, sinesthesia isn’t just something someone either has or doesn’t, but it’s a spectrum, and, all the senses are in fact connected on a quite deep level.

What you describe definately falls somewhere on this “misinterpretarion-hallucination” spectrum. Maybe there was nothing to smell, yet you felt you smelled something, caused fully by your unconscious influenced by past experiences. Or maybe there was a totally different smell that got turned into this smell, but you couldn’t pick it out - as is the case with my grandfather and I.

This spectum can also be taken as the “physical-psychological” (cause) spectrum.

Maybe it’s a one-off thing for you, or maybe it’s a chain of conditions that’ll get fullfilled again every now and then. There’s most likely a logical explanation since the brain is inherently a logical machine, but chances are it’s not. There are just too many variables at play as far as outside factors go.

TANGO HOTEL ALFA TANGO INDIA PAPA ALFA INDIA SIERRA SIERRA TANGO INDIA LIMA LIMA BRAVO ECHO TANGO TANGO ECHO ROMEO TANGO HOTEL ALFA NOVEMBER TANGO HOTEL INDIA SIERRA INDIA PAPA ALFA

Question about the years if someone knows: is “years hence” a fancy british way of saying “years in the future” or is it some antiquated large non-SI unit of time since I find any of the species described in shorter timeframes, the Vacuumorph beimg an egregious example (“200 years hence”) very hard to imagine “evolving” only 200 years in the future, even with the 90s outlook on technology (since it seems they said these earlier examples at least are engineered species in the book).

Historically, I have a vague memory of knowing the fact that some places did actually do that, although I should check.

The thing with the Control panel (speaking as a former Windows user up until a year ago) was its consistency. Since the Aero era things have remained in more-or-less the same place. Sure, some things got added, some renamed and some deleted, but the basics I needed (mouse sensitivity, battery settings on the laptop, the Add/remove software page, search indexing, printers) has all stayed in more or less the same place.

Then 10 happened. And sure, Settings was great for a lot of stuff. But when Settings didn’t have the option (or I lost my nerves trying to find it), Control Panel was the way to go. I’d find what I needed pretty much instantly, since was always one of the same 20-odd things I need.

Even then, everything just seemed faster in Control panel. Was it more responsive? Were there less animations? Were more things crammed into one screen so less clicking and scrolling was involved? Is it just my imagination?

Honestly, I don’t know.

By the time I got used to the new Settings app, one of the big Windows 10 makeovers happened and jumbled up about 10% of Settings. Objectively not much, but just enough to irritate.

And now with 11, they not only made Settings unrecognizable, they also cranked the spyware up to, well, 11. And there’s no Control Panel to default on when in doubt (or fuming with rage).

All in all, while Control Panel wan’t what kept me on Windows, 11 losing it did ease the transition, since it meant having to learn a new way of doing things either way. Might as well make it a way that hopefully won’t change once a random design exec decides “this is ugly and it has to go”.

Honestly, KDE Plasma’s Settings are where it’s at. It’s right between the functional and informstional density of Control panel and the simplicity, visual appeal and saner structure of Settings. Shame it uses Qt, which from what I hear, is god-awful as far as UI toolchains go.

There is/was a new Windows 10 Control panel? I thought that was just the Settings app.

God, that seems horrible.

I don’t get taxes on index funds themselves - you don’t “own” anything - it’s basically a savings account that (in general) actually gives you something other than bajillions of a cent.

And there’s no sense in taxing you on what you already own (what you paid in). Especially on pension funds. Selling stock directly is a different matter, but that is done by the fund. They shouldn’t be passing this down onto you, nor should the government double-tax. Why don’t casinos charge capital gains when you cash out? Or stores charge you for gift cards?

And then there is the whole banking apparatus: I can use stocks as security against cheap loans, use the loaned money for consumption and then lower my capital gains tax by calculating those loans against my gains. Remove that loophole and suddenly a pensioner can’t pay for their running costs anymore

I lost you here. How would taxing capital gains affect pensions? Surely a carveout can be made. There’s a difference between (in most countries) mandatory pension plans, index funds and $200k in stocks in the hands of one individual. It’s not as if these are indistinguishable.

Personal note and speculation: often I read people taking about a system that is designed against group X.

A system doesn’t need to be purpusefully designed against a group for it to cause carm against the group. And the system can be mended and modeled to lower the discrimination caused (or to create positive discrimination).

All of that lead down a rabbit hole of “but can’t we just” for me

You do have a point. But, the current system isn’t here from “time immemorial”. Things change, and they do so fast. Some change is inevitable. And the key to making sure “can we just” doesn’t happen is active participation in the discourse.

Sometimes, refilling an empty cup with coffee is a good fix

No, “giving away” means giving something for free. A better way to say it would be “practically or as if I’m giving it away”.

Of course, in daily discourse you might say “I gave it away” instead of “I got rid of it” or “I sold it” since it sounds nicer and is probably more informative when someone asks you “What happened to your car?” and you want to mean I gave it to someone else and didn’t take any money for it, not when you post it for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

The fact that people list “giveaways” where you pay for anything other than shipping, tax, etc. does not change what the words mean.

And even if we’re cutting it close with “practically giving away”, the max price I’d give on such a “given away car” is $500. Anything more is cutting your losses.

$90k is 180 times that amount. Does that mean he wants to give the car away 180 times?

It’s the same underlying wordplay.

Feudalism only has a hierarchy of lesser and greater lords […] to exploit the peasantry

There are “lesser” and “greater” lords that exploit the “peasants”. There’s the “proletariat” and the “burgeoisie”, with “petit burgeoisie” in-between. There’s the “workers” and the management - “low-” and “high-”. And of course, there’s the classes: “high”, “low” and of course, “middle”.

The way I see it, pretty much whatever system one envisions, there’s the “down-lows”, the “high-ups” and the “in-betweens”, although they may not be called that explicitly. Usually it’s the high class that can be split into two, feudal lords and management alike.

I wonder how Reagan’s is doing

Oh. Thanks, then I had it the wrong way. I still remeber it from school and going to the doctor as a kid. Must’ve swapped them.

I always thought while both serve both functions, paracetamol was more on the antipiretic side (i.e. lowers body temperature) while ibuprofen was more of an analgetic (pain reliever).

Also, you can take both at once although then you shouldn’t take them as long. And always take the minimum effective dose (or preferably none if you can manage), but that applies to OTC non-prescribed medicine, not just to these two.

Yeah. Tbh, I always wondered why programming languages weren’t translated.

I know CS is all about english, but at least the default builtin functions of programming languages could get translated (as well as APIs that care about themselves).

Like, I can’t say I don’t like it this way (since I’m a native english speaker), but I still wonder what if you could translate code.

Variables could cause problems (more work with translation or hard to understand if not translated). But still - programming languages have no declentions and syntax is simpler so it shouldn’t even compare to “real” languages with regards to difficulty of implementation.

Get off the bike and push it.

I know, it’s not a great solution but think about it - if you’re on a bike you’re faster than a pedestrian and there’s a high chance a car won’t see you if they aren’t already stopped (assuming there’s no traffic light to regulate traffic).

Gommorrhea

As most others already said, the best solution is immersion, ideally by talking with someone. If you can’t find someone to speak with that would make it quite a bit harder to improve, but not impossible.

For your situation (being able to understand but unable to express yourself in English) I’d reccommend the stereotypical “think in english”. I’d recommend talking with someone (ideally a native speaker, but even a fellow learner is incredibly efficient, followed by writing a diary abd participating in online forums (like you currently already are!).

It’s best to have input from someone else who can correct you if you make a grammatical mistake, give general advice on what sounds ‘more natural’ or ‘better’ in the language and answer any questions you might have, as well as help you if you’re “missing one word” (from personal experience when learning a language it’s rarely a ‘it’s at the tip of my tongue’ situation. It’s more like I just don’t know this one word and I need someone to give it to me).

Another thing I can say about your problem is I also suffer a bit from it. Whenever I try to talk in German I need a few hours to ‘warm up’ - to just get my brain to switch to German and having a speaker on the other side really helps. I can hear the language to jog my memory and the other side can (and often does) give me input on what they think I might be trying to say. (I’m a B1-level speaker so not even close to fluent but more than enough for doing basic interations within an environment open to helping with language issues).

What I liked to do when I was actively learning German was trying to come up with different ways of saying ‘the same thing’, seing how they differ in their meaning, potential usecases, complexity, grammar, etc. It helps with vocabulary as well as the “thinking in German” part, as languages differ greatly in the ways they package the same message and taking a comparative approach helps greatly with being able to (casually) converse later. Having a fellow learner or a fluent speaker give you multiple variations of the same thing and analyze the differences for/with you would be a godsend for this approach.

Get your head out of your ass, it’s in your laws.

My head just might be in my ass, but none of that is in my laws, as I’m not a US citizen.

From what I’ve read online more than a few months ago, there were criminal charges in certain places for having abortions in certain other places where they weren’t illegal. Maybe it wasn’t for the people having abortions themselves per se (I don’t remeber anymore), but there definately was a doctor sending aborion pills/information that was sued as well as some police sharing data and peoole getting in trouble shenanigans. Or just straight up people looking stuff up on the internet and being investigated for it. Chilling stuff, really, whichever way you look at it.

Also, with the way the US seems increasingly unstable (what with the Supreme Court doing whatever they please, more or less, as well as a potential 2nd Trump presidency), there’s a high chance that the current status quo changes for the worse, i.e. some of the ammendments/clauses you’ve listed get selectively overruled for abortions, as well as more states getting abortion bans (perhaps even as a simple “No More Abortions, Anywhere” Supreme Court ruling).

As if crossing state lines to deal with that isn’t illegal in some places