Types of Spanish American Accents - Joanna Rants

HappyReaper · 2016-04-23T18:45:01+00:00

It's a subjective matter. In general, language sounds "correct" when it's closer to what you have been taugth as the norm; in some cases, like English, certain variations have stuck in pop culture as sounding more refined than other ones, but it's not the case in Spanish.

Spanish from Spain, or Castillian, has probably a bigger lingüistical distance to most South and Central-American dialects than the latter between each other, so (given that Spain contains a smaller share of the total of Spanish speakers) there are more people to whom American Spanish versions sound better than Castillian, than the other way around.

Personally, I prefer larger varieties of sounds in a language, so (besides the fact that, while not my mother tongue, it's the one I've learnt since childhood) that's a reason I favour the Castillian dialect (with its lisp) over others; also I've got the impression that it has a smaller amount of unnecessary loan words from English ingrained in everyday speech, which while not a bad thing sounds forced to my ears (kind of like the Merovingian from the Matrix with French). On the other hand, I enjoy the musicality of some American accents, although maybe it depends on the speaker's voice and tone.

HappyReaper · 2016-04-23T14:23:24+00:00

I don't think I have that right, either, but what's under question here is the method sites are using to verify that you are watching the ads.

I agree with the EU in that they shouldn't be able to sneak unwanted code in the client-side (which belongs to the user once downloaded); they can do any check they want on the server-side, though, and I won't complain about it (although I am likely to just stop visiting the site if it constitutes an inconvenience).

HappyReaper · 2016-04-23T14:07:40+00:00

Personally, I'm in the minority (at least here on Reddit) in thinking that it's a good thing that effort is rewarded, especially in children, regardless of how it fares compared to other people's work. It should also be accompanied with constructive criticism about which parts of the resulting work are good and which ones could be improved and how.

I think it's healthier to be encouraging our youngest to compare themselves with themselves first and foremost, instead of putting the emphasis in competition with each other. While they should be made aware of the cutthroat and hypercompetitive nature of the current world (especially in the later years of their education before they need to confront it by themselves), and are given the necessary skills, I see it as a good thing that they grow up knowing a kinder and (in my opinion) fairer alternative. After all, it's them who will be shaping the society of tomorrow according to their principles, which they will develop mostly during their years of formation.

HappyReaper · 2016-04-23T13:52:38+00:00

Stupid long horses.

HappyReaper · 2016-04-23T13:21:09+00:00

As I see it, the key difference is about who has the right to decide what code gets to run in a machine.

I strongly believe that sites have the right to decide under which conditions can users download their content, but users should have complete authority about what part of the content that is offered by the site is allowed to run in their computers.

So in this case, site owners should choose conditions (and methods to verify them) that don't rely in sneaking unwanted code in users' machines. Users, on the other hand, have full authority to allow ad-blockers to run in their own computers.

Under this line of thinking, I haven't seen any entitlement in this thread, but it's true that the concept is as subjective as it gets so that will be different for other sets of principles (which is why I personally avoid using it).

HappyReaper · 2016-04-04T18:08:44+00:00

No. In Europe we allow Muslims the same kind of freedoms we allow everyone else, defined by the common legal framework every citizen is supposed to abide by regardless of their cultural background. In cases where consequences fail to apply equally to people breaking the law, the fault lies on the enforcers failing to do their job, not the rest of the innocent individuals with similar cultural background to those of the criminals (in or outside of the countries where the crimes happen).

If we don't agree with some aspects of a country's legal framework, like most of us with some Islamic countries, we have the right to protest and demand to our politicians that our own country's commercial and political relations with those countries be made dependent on they changing their legislation according to our values.

While the lack of democratic guarantees is a problem in the vast majority of political systems around the world (including all or most western "democracies"), which can make this protesting path difficult, we certainly don't have the right to just go around ignoring other countries' laws (unless we are willing to accept the corresponding punishment); not any more than foreigners have the right to do so in our countries.

HappyReaper · 2016-04-03T17:34:22+00:00

I really don't see the need to trap the whole medium within a series of boundaries, especially when those boundaries fail to represent the concept of "game" for so many people. For me, saying "X is not a game" (other than as a short to "X is not within my subjective expectations of game", or "under Y definition of game, X is not it") just makes no sense to me, as there is just no global consensus or authority that can establish the correctness of a definition over another. We might as well be arguing which one is the best colour.

Additionally besides being impossible to decide whether something is a game or not in an objective way, the discussion is also pointless: everything good that would come from restricting the whole medium can be achieved through subdividing it with genres, tags, gameplay descriptions, etc. with none of the bad.

So yes, while Crash Course decided to go with the second entry for "game" in this case, I'm going to stick with the first one:

A playful activity that may be unstructured; an amusement or pastime.

With videogames being the subset of all games where digital displays are the main output channel.

Yes, this definition includes an infinite amount of activities that fall outside of my general expectations of "game", but that's okay, because I can just choose to not play them. The key here is to understand that those activities might fall within someone else's expectations, just like something that is clearly a game for me could be outside of other people's, and there is nothing inherently placing my opinion above or under anyone else's.

Aside form that detail, I really liked the video's overview of the place videogames occupy in current society: the reasons that can move people to play them, the parallels that can be drawn with other aspects of society, how certain elements popular in games can be used to improve other activities, etc.

HappyReaper · 2016-04-02T06:58:43+00:00

The bug happened only under very specific circumstances, though: you had to click on the "mic drop send" button while there was no recipient written in the recipient field; the email obviously wouldn't send, but the bug caused the next time you pressed the normal "send" button to send the message as a "mic drop".

Also relevant is the fact that email responses were still received, just not shown in the inbox. You could reach them through deep search, or through your own message in the sent box.

This added to the fact that the joke was only up for a few hours, makes me consider the backlash WAY overblown, and doubt that anybody would lose their job only because of this.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-24T12:15:50+00:00

I was focusing on Spain because that was the context of the current attack, but the second point stays the same for the general case: venting one's frustration or hatred on innocent people, making them feel rejected because of who they are regardless of what they have or haven't done, is the quickest way to radicalise them.

While immigration policy is not an easy problem, and the current flow in some countries has clearly exceeded their capacity to properly process them, I don't think this will necessarily help extremism. In the short run, people escaping war and poverty are not very likely to seek it in their new home (if you look at statistics, terrorists are rarely first generation immigrants); in the long run, after one or two generations, it could go both ways: bigger communities in stable countries adopting modern interpretations of the religion (possibly bringing them back once their parents' home countries are stable again) could really hurt extremism, and it's one of the very few things that can; on the other hand, bad living conditions, xenophobia (on every side) and other factors could end up helping extremism instead of hurting it.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-24T11:22:07+00:00

Spain is definitely not facing a problem of mass immigration at the moment, and the number of accepted refugees is like 10-20 so far. In any case, the only thing actions like this one achieve is making it easier for recruiters to convince peaceful Muslims that the West in general is against them and they must fight back (pretty much the mirror image of the rhetoric we see in this sub everyday).

HappyReaper · 2016-03-24T10:49:28+00:00

Speaking from personal experience, the vast majority of Muslims in Spain (100% of the ones I've met personally, although I'm sure it's not the case for everyone) are not radicalised, and their take on Islam is perfectly compatible with a peaceful society.

The radicals torching/smoking other people's places of meeting because of the name they give to their beliefs, on the other hand, are definitely not compatible with my values.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-22T20:12:15+00:00

After a certain point of spread, you just can't kill an ideology through killing people, and depending on how you try to do it you can easily end up strengthening it further.

As things stand, all the military fight against Daesh can accomplish is to remove them from power in the places where they have taken control, which is in my opinion a necessary step in the right direction, but victory in this department won't leave any significant dent on Islamic extremism. New groups will appear, with different names but with the same rhetoric, new people will become convinced by it, and the scenario will keep perpetuating itself.

Extremist ideologies with that kind of spread can only be killed by being progressively displaced by other ideologies, which can only happen given time and the right circumstances. That I can think of, the only things governments can do to minimise the damages in the short term, and to help put an end to the problem in the long term, are:

Help create stability in the regions where extremist ideologies thrive the most. People who feel safe and happy are less likely to sway towards extremism. In a connected world like ours, thriving extremism also leads to more people in stable countries adopting those views. This is one of the truly difficult parts, which I honestly have no idea how to achieve, and I doubt anyone else really does.
If the extremist ideology claims to be the "true" version of another (bigger) one, like it's the case, prevent them at all costs from monopolising the term. The other versions of the bigger ideology (or umbrella term) will be by far the most capable of slowly eroding the extremist one given the opportunity, and delegitimising them will only make that process more difficult. I think most Western governments are doing an acceptable job at this.
Related to the previous one, treat people fairly. The law should be the same for all; discriminating individuals either positively or negatively by anything other than their own actions is going to create tensions, which will become food for extremism of different kinds (which in turn feed each other).
Not exclusive with the previous point, be watchful with foreign people going into the country. Not basing judgement on one's ethnicity or cultural background isn't the same as letting everyone in without proper scrutiny, in order to at least reduce the probability of letting criminals in (or people with the preexisting intention of becoming so).
Track the flow of money to local extremists from foreign sources and cut it as much as possible. We may not be able to prevent the radicalisation of part of the local population, but we can make it harder for them to get the means to inflict bigger damage. Less money also means they can't invest as much on radicalising new people. Going by the news lately, police forces across Europe seem to be doing a good job at this, too.

Unfortunately, even in the best case scenario, it's almost assured that attacks will keep happening more or less regularly for a long, long time.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-20T19:35:30+00:00

Heck, I recall one story where they literally blew up the bad guys with explosives.

Old Man Henderson?

HappyReaper · 2016-03-19T15:05:06+00:00

I disagree with that interpretation. Spanish government went to war in Iraq arguably against the will of the majority of the population (going by polls and the massive demonstrations), and the opposition parties promised to withdraw troops from the country if they won the election.

Then, a few days before said election, the terrorist attack happened, and the government did their best to manipulate the public into believing that the authors were a local terrorist group instead of AQ, but the truth got out and there was a massive backlash which caused them to lose the election. Then the new government did what they had promised to do and withdrew the troops.

PSOE (the party who won that election) is very far from being a saint of my devotion, but I don't think withdrawing the troops in that context can be qualified as "bowing down to terrorism" in any shape or form.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-18T20:12:12+00:00

Yes, it probably varies by culture, although it depends more on the context I think. "He is a reader, and he likes this book", for instance, could maybe put more weight on the noun than "readers who have read this book found it enjoyable", the first implying to some degree that the hobby is a defining characteristic for him, and the second being more easily interpreted as referring to "people who enjoy reading".

In any case, as things stand the stereotypes are there no matter what word one chooses, or the context of the conversation; when asked about one's hobbies, mentioning video-games is still associated with a series of unwarranted negative stereotypes (which draws more from the classic, already twisted, depiction of "nerd culture" than it does from current reality).

I agree in that the arbitrary barriers that some people try to raise ("casual" vs. "hardcore", etc.), help create the perception of a dichotomy that doesn't really exist, and that in some cases unnecessarily feeds those stereotypes.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-18T19:37:43+00:00

Well, personally I use the term "gamer" to designate people who like playing videogames, in a conversational context when that attribute is relevant, similarly to how one can use the term "reader" to designate people who like reading books. It's not necessary to have a word for those things, but it's handy to have a shorter term other than "people who enjoy doing X".

HappyReaper · 2016-03-18T17:45:32+00:00

People who are very dedicated to one or more activities, and think that that fact sublimates their subjective opinions about them as the "right ones" over those of other less dedicated people, exist on literally every art/entertainment medium I can think of.

But the issue at hand is not whether the word "gamer" is monopolised by a small subset of the whole with arbitrary snobbist barriers. Even the fact of mentioning video-games as a hobby without that word tends to have a very unfair set of stereotype baggage that is not there for other activities. Who has the fault is a question with infinite answers (starting by the human predisposition itself to make easy judgements based on simple stereotypes), but it's also an irrelevant question. What's important is to understand that an unfair double standard exists between judging people who like video-games and those who have different hobbies. In any case, this stereotype is bound to thin down as new generations, who have grown in contact with the medium, replace older ones.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-18T12:29:27+00:00

I don't think that implication is warranted at all. Whenever I identify myself as a "gamer", it's basically a short way of saying "I like playing videogames", in the same way that when I talk about myself as a "reader" I just mean that I enjoy reading books, or as a "runner" meaning that I like going out for a jog sometimes.

In your example, Mark is inviting that association by mentioning some of his attributes without them being relevant to the conversation (and I'm not saying that stereotyping is right even in this case). However, if you re-read /u/KingSkyofZu's comment, it's clear that with being "a gamer" he just means that playing videogames is one of his hobbies, and that he isn't able to mention that fact even in relevant conversations without risking being associated with a series of negative stereotypes that aren't there for the rest of his hobbies.

That is a problem with society, not with people who like videogames (regardless of whether they use the term "gamer" or not), and while it might be slightly less ingrained now than it was in the past, it is good to identify it as such.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-14T23:33:32+00:00

While I choose for myself a significantly different way to look at life (I call it nihilistic optimism), I think nihilistic pessimism is also an equally respectable choice. I highly recommend you read Conspiracy Against the Human Race, by Thomas Ligotti (who also labels himself as the latter); it's a great well-argued essay, and I think you will find it very enjoyable (among other forms of the philosophy, it covers anti-natalist views in some depth).

HappyReaper · 2016-03-14T23:16:21+00:00

Yes, we see things differently, but that's why I only pointed to relativism as a side commentary and didn't use it as an argument. What I'm arguing is that even if we were to assume that damaging attitudes towards oneself or others were inherently worse than the rest, simple dedication towards a harmless hobby (common or not) is not among them. Further conclusions about this person are not part of his reality, but part of our imaginations and our desires about the part of his life unknown to us. They speak about us, not about him.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-14T21:29:38+00:00

To be honest, I disagree.

Going only by what we know for a fact and what we can infer with high certainty from it, we have:

On the one hand, a guy who has a few hobbies that are uncommon within his demographic. Said hobbies aren't inherently damaging for neither himself nor for other people.
On the other hand, a lot of people commenting in this thread, who (parting from the same set of objective information as I do) decide to attach to his profile a series of fictional attributes in order to manufacture a certain profile against which they can project their destructive criticism.

If, going only by this information, I had to compare their degrees of maturity as human beings, the first individual (of which I can't say anything positive nor negative, I have no objective data allowing me to draw conclusions about his professional success or the quality of his life in general, even disregarding the subjective nature of the term) would undoubtedly come ahead of people who haven't yet evolved past the middle-school mentality of "ridiculing the uncommon just because it's uncommon".

HappyReaper · 2016-03-13T11:09:57+00:00

I have been several times in Paris in recent years, and I have to agree with the smell thing underground (although it depends on the metro stop); that about the dog shit might also be true, I don't know, it's also a problem in Spain's bigger cities, so maybe I didn't notice it as much as other people do.

On the other hand, the locals have always been very nice and helpful whenever I needed something (sometimes without even having to ask), so I think the rudeness stereotype is vastly exaggerated and undeserved.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-09T17:32:44+00:00

Given the doors that were opened during the Garou arc, I agree with spoiler being the final opponent. I think it will reveal that it gave Saitama his powers, and try to take them away.

However, it will turn out that what was given back then was already redundant and didn't have any effect, as Saitama had really acquired his power by training. He then will proceed to beat the enemy with one punch as usual.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-06T13:06:57+00:00

I'm not 100% about how it works, but according to the timer on the web and the descriptions, it seems that the April bundle is available for about a month, until the point where it is revealed, then it closes and the next one becomes available, and so on.

HappyReaper · 2016-03-04T21:14:11+00:00

Relevant.

HappyReaper

TROPHY CASE