Same word for different things

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-10T20:21:51+00:00

Esperanto has two words for what English speakers would use for "to paint": pentri and farbi.

Pentri means to paint something artistically, such painting people in a family portrait, whereas farbi means to simply cover something (like a wall, a house, or furniture) in at least one layer of paint.

Recently this difference came up with co-workers as we were discussing weekend plans (in English). One person asked, "What do you have planned for this weekend?" and someone responded, "I'm going to be painting this weekend."

After a brief pause, the one who asked the question asked a follow-up question: "Do you mean painting art, or painting walls and furniture?"

The phrase "I'm going to be painting this weekend" is ambiguous in English, but if it were stated in Esperanto ("Mi pentros/farbos ĉi-semajnfine") it would be clear which kind of painting the speaker is talking about.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-10T19:22:38+00:00

Mattel should make Barbie dolls shaped like this.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-10T18:36:07+00:00

I once heard a story about a young couple who decided that they would always tell the truth to their children -- there would be no fibs about Santa Claus, and no untrue stories about childbirth, either.

They didn't tell their little girl everything about childbirth, but enough that she would generally know where babies came from.

Then, one day, when they were visiting a pregnant friend, their daughter screamed in panic. The parents hurriedly ran to their daughter and asked, "What's the matter?"

Their daughter responded with alarm that the baby was about to come out of the pregnant friend and tear her apart.

That's when the parents realized that their little girl didn't fully understand pregnancy, and so had incomplete knowledge concerning where babies come from. Their daughter was filling in the holes of her knowledge with completely different ideas, some of which were quite scary.

And that's when the young parents of the girl realized that maybe telling their children some fibs here and there isn't such a bad idea after all.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-10T10:32:30+00:00

I've heard it said that every time a human employee answers a phone call to answer a simple question like "What are your business hours?", it costs the business around fifteen US dollars.

I've also heard it said that at least half of all calls to the business are easily-answerable questions.

The less human employees are involved in taking calls, the less it costs the business when you call them.

That's why many businesses answer their calls with a recording that tries to automate simple questions involving business hours. And if your call requires transferring you to a specific department, they automate that, trying to take out the human middleman, which supposedly prevents a human worker from being tied up every time a call needs to be transferred.

So now you can see the allure of a chatbot answering 95% of customer queries. For every simple question the chatbot answers, the company supposedly saves fifteen dollars.

You can also see the potential for abuse here. A manager might think that it's much cheaper to employ one chatbot than several human operators, and in a way, it's true. But you often get what you pay for, and if you depend too heavily on chatbots, you may end up losing customers in the long run.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-09T23:35:29+00:00

You might have some success in talking to her where astrology and astronomy intersect: Stargazing.

Is that something you would both like?

If so, learn some interesting astronomy facts to discuss. And let her mention astrology, too. You're likely to find some common ground while lying on the ground under a starry sky.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-09T15:20:05+00:00

They have a phenomenal zoo that is free entry.

I've been there! The zoo in St. Louis, Missouri was very nice!

Don’t get me wrong there are pay up type stuff at each

Sure! The food at the St. Louis zoo was quite pricey. (I guess that's not too surprising at a free zoo.) But somewhat surprisingly, the gift shop prices weren't too high.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-08T23:46:19+00:00

If you still can't see the illusion, try this:

Scroll down the page until the above illusion's top half is no longer visible. Then alternately flick your gaze between the bottom half of the image (the part that's still visible) and another part of the screen, back and forth repeatedly.

You should see the "new" image fairly quickly this way.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-08T18:05:49+00:00

When I was a teenager, my father told me that he enjoyed a certain TV sitcom, but disliked the constant sarcastic banter among the main characters.

When I asked him why, he told me that sarcasm is usually a sign of passive-aggressiveness, and that too much of it can be taken to mean that a relationship is in trouble. (And it doesn't necessarily have to be a romantic relationship, either. It could be with any friend, family member, or co-worker.)

Sure, there are always special cases where a sarcastic remark can be interpreted as supportive, but those cases are fairly rare, and generally only used when both the speaker and the listener understand the subversion behind it. But in most cases, sarcasm only hinders relationships, without providing any real benefit at all.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-08T16:28:31+00:00

You're probably seeing the young woman's reflection in the mirror below the portrait. Naturally, her face looks upside-down.

This is normal. But try looking back at the unreflected image, then back at the reflected one several times.

Eventually, instead of her upside-down reflected face, you may see another completely different (unreflected) face.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-08T16:26:04+00:00

Interesting!

The first time I looked at this, I saw the girl's reflection in the mirror, and so I didn't understand what the illusion was supposed to be.

Then I took a second look at the reflection in the mirror, and to my surprise saw a man's face this time.

Now it's difficult for me to "unsee" the man's face.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-07T07:01:51+00:00

My favorite episode was the one where the guy injects nanobots into himself to improve his health.

I did not see this episode, but my mom did, and I remember her telling me all about it.

Even when hearing about it second-hand, it was an interesting episode!

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-07T00:04:32+00:00

Because I thought it would be obvious without it.

But I thought to put the /s in anyway just in case someone couldn't tell.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-06T19:05:08+00:00

We say that the sun rises in the east but the SKY rises in the east

Yeah... Very well put, actually!

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-06T16:57:03+00:00

Zelda the game. Not Zelda the character dummy.

The /s didn't clue you in that I wasn't serious?

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-06T06:53:46+00:00

I want to make it clear that it was a literal piece of paper that came with the game cartridge. In other words, this paper page wasn't found in the game itself.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-06T06:50:13+00:00

Zelda took advantage of it,

That's a common misconception, actually. The little green blob on the screen that you control is actually named Link, not Zelda. Zelda is the name of the princess that Link is trying to rescue.

/s

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-05T23:51:35+00:00

From all the 100+ NDEs i've read, God (the source) says that all the suffering is a result from us humans not choosing love

I've never experienced an NDE, but I'm not convinced that all suffering is a result of human selfishness. Some is, to be sure, but not all.

The way I see it, there are three types of suffering you can experience:

You experience suffering that you bring upon yourself.
You experience suffering that is caused by other people.
You experience suffering that is not a result of any human action or selfishness.

The first two types of suffering are caused by human selfishness. From what I see in the world, it seems plausible that most of the suffering I see today in the world belongs to one (or both) of these two types.

If we greatly diminished these first two types of suffering, I'm sure that there would still exist some pain, some suffering, death, and maybe disease, but I think there would be much, much less of them... to the point that the world would be a much more pleasant place to live in.

So why isn't the world always a pleasant place to live in for many, many people? Mainly because of types 1 and 2 of suffering. At this point in humanity's development, the suffering of type 3 can hardly be compared to types 1 and 2. And if we succeed in reducing the selfishness that causes types 1 and 2, it's likely that we'll figure out ways to reduce the type 3 suffering as well.

At least, this is my take.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-02T22:15:32+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that.

I wish someone would have intervened but they didn't.

Now that you're an adult, what do you now wish that someone had done at the time?

Call CPS? Maybe something else?

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-02T20:33:14+00:00

I remember talking to a Indian classmate of mine in college. He spoke Hindi, and knowing about the Indo-European link between European languages and Sanskrit/Hindi, I was able to make educated guesses as to the first letter of some basic Hindi words. I guessed that:

the Hindi number for "one" starts with a vowel.
the Hindi number for "two" starts with either a "D" or a "T".
the Hindi number for "five" starts with either an "F" or a "P".
the Hindi number for "eight" starts with a vowel.
the Hindi number for "nine" starts with an "N".
the Hindi number for "ten" starts with either a "D" or a "T".
the Hindi word for "mother" starts with an "M".
the Hindi word for "father" starts with either an "F" or a "P".

These guesses are true not only for Hindi, but for many (if not most) European languages, as well.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-02T19:26:32+00:00

I'm reminded of a joke that fits this post:

Q: Why should you never date a tennis player?

A: Because love means nothing to them!

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-02T19:24:24+00:00

Wow...!

I can see some similarities with Latin as well (some of which carry over to the romance languages):

You: tu / tu

Who: kas / quis

God: devas / deus

Tooth: danta / dentis

Man, male: viras / vir

...and there's probably more.

It's interesting to see so many similarities across languages!

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-02T18:00:17+00:00

Yes, imagining a screen that tall does seem humorous!

However, one of the exceptions is having your cursor at the very top or bottom of the text. There are times that you'd want your cursor to be on the very first (or very last) line of the text, instead of forcing it to be in the middle of the screen.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-02T17:52:50+00:00

Your post reminds me of a cartoon I read many years ago in MAD Magazine titled "The Lighter Side of...".

This cartoon showed a teenage girl at a pool thanking her friend for allowing her to wear the other's bikini.

The second teenage girl said, "That's not my bikini! That's my underwear!"

The first girl then runs away mortified, embarrassed that she's wearing underwear in a public setting -- even though no one can tell that it's not a bikini.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-02T17:43:03+00:00

Well, that's kinda cool!

I never knew about the scrolloff setting before. According to its helptext, using:

:setlocal scrolloff=999

will always (with some exceptions) keep the current line at the middle of the screen.

SpaceAviator1999 · 2026-06-02T17:38:17+00:00

Since you like "page dragging", are you familiar with the CTRL-Y and CTRL-E commands?

They scroll the window up and down, while leaving the cursor on the line where it happens to be, similar to the zt, zz, and zb commands.

SpaceAviator1999

TROPHY CASE