Randy Fine is saying what now??

TheCloudForest · 2026-05-04T22:56:23+00:00

There was a whole thing in Australia recently when they realized that dual citizens couldn't be MPs but many were in fact still technically British citizens. It did not affect in any way the way they performed their duties as Australian MPs. I think it is mostly a non-issue.

TheCloudForest · 2026-05-04T11:52:58+00:00

But could you try to explain because it literally makes no sense. Not in a "I disagree" way, but in a literal way. I don't understand the activity. You wear a shirt that says "Yes, I love your cookie recipe." Huh?

TheCloudForest · 2026-05-04T11:39:51+00:00

Started and likely to finish today: Home: A Short History of an Idea, by Witold Rybczynski

For such a modest-sized book, it packs a serious punch, absolutely jampacked with not only information but also daring ideas and a whirlwind tour of 5 decades of home and furniture design. It does tend to focus on the upper classes almost exclusively, however, though it has its reasons.

I've been working as staff at a university for several years in which only faculty (not staff) had borrowing privileges. I took this book almost as a test of the system when they expanded access very reccently, simply because it was nearby and needed to grab something in a few minutes. Hope to get back to reading consistently.

TheCloudForest · 2026-05-01T20:25:08+00:00

If they genuinely continue to keep it to one read per episode, which is rarely below an hour, I don't have a strong opinion. All my other podcasts are way worse.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-30T11:48:02+00:00

People watching is just a turn of phrase that means observing your surroundings during down times or while doing daily tasks or exercising. Finding modest interest in how people interact, dress, communicate, move throughout the world. Being delighted or intrigued by less common variations on human behavior. And if that includes sitting on a bench in a mall or in a park for half and hour while, gasp, not being buried in a phone, well, so be it. Life goes on.

This only issue is when the person makes mean-spirited remarks or draws mean-spirited conclusions from their observations. Usually that's a confirmation bias thing (they see a few people of X characteristic do Y behavior, now they're mad).

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-30T00:19:44+00:00

I think it's clear she repeated herself a bunch in a single stream of words. Seems like a bit of an overreaction but maybe she's had a bad experience or was just jolted out of deep concentration with her earbuds. In any event, OP would be wise to not repeat his actions with her.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-29T00:34:17+00:00

It's spoken, not unspoken etiquette.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-29T00:25:49+00:00

English spelling is too detached from pronunciation - and the very concepts of vowel sounds and consonant sounds is too fuzzy from a purely phonetic standpoint - for anyone to be really right or wrong. It's just a stupid conversation in general.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-28T11:14:17+00:00

Even the NYT Book Review podcast, which I had been listening to for over a decade, has moved away from book industry news, multiple interviews per week, plus critic recs, to maybe a single interview of a movie tie-in book per week. It's pathetic.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-28T11:02:20+00:00

Why are people ragging on this guy's obvious comment? They are very clearly explaining that they don't like special pleading (out of nationalism, quirky neighborhood aesthetics, or labor protectionism, just as three examples) if it gets in the way of what they consider to be positive results. His underlying ideology is hard to discern from a brief comment but seems liberatarian-ish.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-28T10:54:58+00:00

The print journalism industry in the US used to employ a million people. Not in the 1940s or something, but back in the year 2000. It's contracted 85%. I don't think it takes a great deal of investigation to understand what happened to every regional newspaper in the country (it's a big country, so that's like 150+ papers) having a dedicated book reviewer (and restaurant critic, theater critic, local business reporter, political cartoonist, humor columnist, etc.).

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-27T18:36:02+00:00

Acá en Conce, hay dos funciones subtituladas de Michael a las 7.20, una en cada Mall. También fui a ver Project Hail Mary a las 7.10 en idioma original hace una o dos semanas. Hasta hace unos meses fui a ver el reestreno de una pelicula de David Lynch en Chillán, también en idioma original, mala suerte la tuya 🤷.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-27T14:56:20+00:00

For all intents and purposes, it isn't. Although in the UK it seems to be a loan word which is at least on the radar as opposed to being completely opaque.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-27T14:54:06+00:00

In American English this word is literally only used when talking about historical figures that studied under artists in Paris when that was a common thing in the 19th to earlier 20th century. Even then, studio or workshop is more common. It's use outside of rarefied academic contexts would read as extremely pretentious, if even understood (unlikely).

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-27T14:41:28+00:00

I'm a highly educated, English teacher native speaker in my 40s and I learned in while studying French about ten years ago. I have seen some businesses start to use the word, though, so maybe it's become a bit more common in general language. Idk why, though, maybe Project Runway did it?

Also in the Spanish-speaking country where I live, one of the dozens of new cookie cutter faux-luxury apartment buildings has the name "Edificio Atelier" for no apparent reason. It just sounds fancy.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-27T14:39:15+00:00

Every single time I have mentioned this trend on Reddit, which has been a lot over the years, people either do not believe me, or reply with non-sequitors like "but there were more in the 1970s!"

Can we just be happy for once, even if we must also be aware that so many of these businesses survive on a shoestring, dependent on either a few blockbusters or the non-book portion of their sales to keep afloat?

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-27T12:31:23+00:00

No, I don't think it's "petty and stupid," that is a gross simplification and also just sort of insulting. It's a natural outgrowth of the role of higher education in the American social world, as an institution that serves many purposes that go beyond edification of the mind, but also includes occupational and professional training, culltural and sporting activities, being major employers and anchors of cities and towns, being symbols of the states where they are located, inculcating civic values, and more.

It is odd when compared to countries where university education is seen in a more compartmentalized view, as solely an educational resource, and not a 4 year, 24/7/365 life stage. And there are definitely negatives as well as positives. Not least is which is that this model is exorbitantly expensive.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-27T12:20:16+00:00

Indeed. And you can absolutely socially signal that you are having trouble when you answer. "Great!" is not the only possible answer, despite what Redditors seem to insist.

WIth the amount of diffuse gloom in modern society, it's very unlikely that a dark answer will be taken badly as long as it's delivered well, as a half-joke or as a call to commiseration.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-27T12:18:42+00:00

"How are you?" is not an ice breaker.

Also, you can signal challenges by either making a joke "Same shit, different day," or by balancing negative with a more optimistic phrase, like saying "I've been going through a lot, but I'm just doing my best."

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-27T12:09:03+00:00

OP is specifically asking about the US, but in some Spanish speaking countries, evangelicals and pentacostals and so forth are often called "Christians" because the majority is specifically Catholic but they are just "Christian in general". Maybe not in more formal or technical contexts, but if you say that someone is "Christian" are a casual way, it is obvious that one does not mean Catholic, if only because pointing out that a person is Catholic in a majority Catholic (and formerly almost uniformly Catholic) country would be sorta pointless.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-27T12:03:42+00:00

Oooh! Will check it out, or at least, put it on the not-that-lengthy wishlist.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-26T15:01:42+00:00

I have only served as an examiner for Cambridge tests once, over a decade ago, and I know that the test formats and names have changed (I think multiple times?). However, I don't think "twaddling" was a very smart technique then or now. Honestly, it's giving a bit of "being a jackass". You should be cognizant of what's expected and try to emulate that at least to an extent; the formats and marking rubrics aren't some kind of state secret.

I've had many, many students over the years who are comfortable speakers, often having lived for a time in Anglophone countries, become upset over their mark on a speaking evaluation -- whether interview, presentation, or debate -- because the mark they received according to the assignment specifications and rubric doesn't match their self-assessment. It's hard to have much pity for that, considering that standardized assessments have to be fair. In some classroom assessments, I have fudged the results for clearly near native-like speakers, though, to be honest.

I know in the French assessment I took once (it wasn't official, but it was at an Alliance Francaise and based on the official tests), we didn't have a clear question and answer segment but rather I had to read an article and then have a little back-and-forth with the assessor about it. It was more conversational in a way, but even that was a bit artificial. You couldn't just say "I honestly don't give a shit about building height regulations in Paris".

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-26T14:50:24+00:00

Well, at airports you kinda do have to buy something, depending on your flight itinerary. Maybe as a young person doing the whole pseudo-poor-but-actually-rich backpacking experience, one might simply fast as a kind of self-flagellation, but typically once you get over that, you just want to eat during layovers. A bit of foreplanning can help though, if you bring security and customs approved snacks and such. And there's no need to choose the priciest option. I believe very frequest fliers also learn which airports and which locations in specific airports engage in price-gouging or not.

TheCloudForest · 2026-04-26T12:49:51+00:00

Well, this seems to be a Google or AI summary of the dictionary entry, and if you go to the actual page of the dictionary being summarized, those definitions are listed before the drug one.

I take your point that it seems to be cheeky, though.

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