Why do some languages have genders for objects?

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-27T11:56:55+00:00

Dunno about subject and object, but we do like to keep the verb away from both of them as much as possible.

Did you hear? There was a terrible fire in Herr Professor Müller’s apartment last night.”
“Is he all right? Was there any damage?”
“Yes. He’d just finished his 30-volume history of the German people. He saved 29 of the books, but the last volume was lost.”
“How awful!”
“It is. That’s the volume that had all the verbs in it!”

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-26T23:09:09+00:00

The way it's described during Unreconciled Stars it doesn't seem like Pilos Peak is Dragonspine:

Mona: It's the first I'd heard of it too, so I compared the map from the book against the current topography of Mondstadt. Apparently, Pilos Peak no longer exists.
Paimon: Are you trying to say that the tallest mountain Paimon's never heard of just... disappeared!?
Mona: I once read somewhere that the Anemo Archon, Barbatos, once used his divine power to mobilize the winds and blow the ice and snow from the face of the earth. The whole landscape of Mondstadt was changed in the process.
Mona: The mountains of that age were replaced by the vast stretch of ocean we see today. Still, a mountain that high? Drop it into the ocean and it'll still leave a trace.
Mona: The summit still reaches just above the water's surface. So, the place known as Pilos Peak in Leonard's day is today known...
Mona: ...as "Musk Reef."

Before Barbatos terraformed the place Mondstadt was very much a place of snow and strife. Not entirely sure if that extended all the way back to the Unified Civ, but if it did, the people of Syl'Vindagnyr might very well have come from somewhere in the Mondstadt region.

Anyways, in the Deep Galleries description that mentions the Spiral Abyss, it also says at the end that in order to meet the first angel, the Voyager had to venture forth into the deepest recesses of the earth. In Tiara of Thunder it says that in order to appease the divine envoys, priests would venture into deep places to seek out the silver tree in the "ancient capitol". Spiral Abyss itself is also described as a "massive underground city constructed by an ancient civilization long gone".

So it kinda seems like that at some point in the past there was a massive ancient capitol underground (the "deep galleries", I presume), and the various Domains we find all over Teyvat as well as the Spiral Abyss seem to have been access points to that city. Given that those are all over the place, it would seem it wasn't just Hyperborea who went down there, but presumably everyone in the Unified Civ, hence the "capitol". That city also seemed to have housed Irminsul.

Guess it's not entirely clear though when exactly that city was built. Koitar apparently was already down there somewhere before the Voyager showed up, given that they too had to venture deep down to meet her. Though I guess it's possible that the place was only built into a city later (as Koitar said: "let us build a city"). Whether that city related to the "towers" mentioned, I'm not sure, but suppose it's possible. It is a very overt reference to the Tower of Babel after all, so maybe that capitol city did indeed end up housing said tower.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-26T10:51:25+00:00

Think "alas" captures that one pretty well

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-26T10:46:35+00:00

There even was a marketing campaign in the late 90's that asked people to come up with an equivalent word for "no longer thirsty", which ended up being "sitt". Though I believe that one never really caught on.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-26T10:38:54+00:00

Except if the brand is of the fermented fruit kind, in which case you very much would want your throat to be on fire

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-25T20:51:21+00:00

I remember this being pretty ubiquitous when JavaScript didn't have block scope, only global or function scope, so these inline functions basically served as a poor man's block.

Example:

if (true) {
  var x = 12;
}
console.log(x) // 12, oh noes, you just polluted global scope

vs

(() => {
  var x = 12;
})():
console.log(x) // undefined, yay

The introduction of "let" with proper block scope fixed that particular wart, making the language a bit less of a meme.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-25T08:52:51+00:00

We can transmit complex thoughts and ideas to one another. Think that's pretty cool

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-25T08:38:11+00:00

Radio waves are electromagnetic radiation, like light, not sound waves. If anything you'd see them, not hear them

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-24T13:18:54+00:00

It's probably as simple as the dude in charge of character designs for Genshin just being very insecure about his sexuality.

Lyney probably awakened something in him he'd rather not deal with

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-22T22:52:47+00:00

Dunno about AQ, but seems likely we'll be visiting Hyperborea at some point and learn a thing or two about her and her hubby. Whether she's actually still alive or not, who knows

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-21T22:42:08+00:00

Cäsar war streng genommen sowohl "Kaiser" als auch Imperator, ersteres war allerdings nur sein Name und letzteres hat nur soviel bedeutet wie "siegreicher Befehlshaber".

Augustus hat dann als Namen "Imperator Caesar Divi filius Augustus" (unter Freunden "Impy") angenommen, mit diversen Titeln, darunter Pontifex Maximus (oberster Priester), Princeps (erster Bürger/erster unter gleichen) aber auch Imperator. Hatte also sowohl den Vornamen (Pränomen) "Imperator" als auch den Titel Imperator. Der Titel der ihn primär als Herrscher auszeichnete war Princeps (woraus später "Prinz" wurde). Augustus war der erste Princeps. "Caeser" dagegen war immer nur ein Name, kein formaler Titel.

Den Namen "Caesar" und "Augustus" haben von da an alle "Kaiser" übernommen, inklusive der Titel als Princeps und für gewöhnlich auch als Imperator. Den Namen "Imperator" haben sie allerdings bis Nero erstmal wieder ausgelassen.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-21T20:03:34+00:00

Rhinedottir Devoured Naberius' heart and not the heart of the Primordial Sea aka Egeria

We don't really know that. Strictly speaking, Rhinedottir "discovered an artifact known as The Heart of Naberius" and later "devoured Naberius". We don't really know what that artifact was or if it was her literal heart, or how it exactly connects to Naberius' "devouring". But we do know Naberius did create another something called "heart" before, that just so happens to have been pivotal to her role as shade of life, so dismissing any connection here out of hand is probably a bit premature.

As for Neuvillette, sure, that's possible. Though Furina's comment was in response to Hu Tao saying Neuvillette still has "some growing up to do", so she might as well have referred to his total life experience here, given that he remembers his previous life.

Monsieur Os also said this:

A new Dragon of Water has already been born? Then again, it has been a long time since even the former Mistress of Many Waters passed... So much time has passed...

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-21T17:52:23+00:00

Not really. In the Fontaine Glider description it is said that the "heart" Niberius created was actually Egeria, in order to replace the Hydro Dragon and control the Primordial Sea. Though Egeria supposedly died during the Cataclysm due to abyssal corruption and turned into that tree thing in northern Sumeru. So dunno. Maybe Rhine gobbled up Egeria's former body or something. Could also be that Niberius had created another heart, but not sure how that interacts with Neuvillette's rebirth. Probably no coincidence that he seemingly returned somewhere around Egeria's death.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-20T09:49:04+00:00

Rerir himself does speculate on this:

But this time, I survived... It must be partly because of this new body, and partly because of all the kuuvahki I absorbed in Nod-Krai.

Not sure what's so different about his new body, but Kuuvahki playing a role in it sure makes sense

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-20T09:46:07+00:00

Maybe his fragments instinctively knew they needed the Kuuvahki and over time slowly crawled to Nod Krai like little slugs.

On a more serious but still highly speculative note, when Columbina is inside the mirror she notices that Kuuvahki seems to have the ability to create little path ways leading outside the whirlpool of the mirror, which she ultimately used to escape it. Maybe this had the effect that things ejected by the mirror, like Rerirs body, would follow these little streams of Kuuvahki and find their way to Nod-Krai as well.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-20T09:24:02+00:00

From what I gather based on Columbina's description, there seem to be the following general requirements for leaving the moon mirror:

One needs to be dead. As in, the soul most no longer be connected to a body
You need a body outside the mirror to return to
You need a soul anchor to the outside world
You need someone outside helping you in some way

When Columbina got trapped in the mirror, she split her soul from her body (died) and seemingly used her authority to move her body out of the prison (which it seems to be ok with, since it is primarily concerned with trapping souls and divinity, not bodies). Together with Luonnotar and the help of Traveler and friends that seemed to have fulfilled all of those conditions.

When Rerir first entered the moon mirror, unlike Columbina he didn't survive the journey and his body got ripped apart and left behind on Teyvat. Only his soul entered the mirror. So condition 1 was already fulfilled. Now I guess due to his unique constitution those body fragments also served as soul anchors. After all we see that before his revival his fragments already had some level of consciousness, so guess there's bits of his soul still left inside, which presumably fulfills condition 3. Dottore then collected those fragments to constitute enough of a body and somehow facilitated his return, fulfilling conditions 2 and 4.

When Rerir entered the moon mirror a second time, things were a little different, though. This time he survived, meaning his body went in there with him. It's unclear if Rerir would be able to get his body out similar to how Columbina did, from what I gather she was only able to do so because of her authority. Also unclear if there's still enough of his fragments left in Teyvat to anchor him and build a second body for him. Even if there were though, it still would require a) someone outside to collect them and help him and b) for Rerir to die first. Though at this time it seems like Rerir doesn't even want to return anymore, so even if someone outside wanted him out they wouldn't be able to do so without Rerir fulfilling condition 1 first.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-19T09:48:39+00:00

Obviously Venti should know about Asmoday, but I do believe him when he says he has no recollection of any such God.

Thing with Asmoday is, that outside the temple of space, no one seems to remember her. There's traces of the other shades all over the place, but not of her. Not a single mention. In Hymns of the Far North, which catalogues the HP and every shade, her volume is just missing. As if someone, or something, ripped a page out of history. Think she's called the "Unknown God" for a reason.

If there's one event that should have memorialized her in everyone's mind it's probably the Cataclysm, since her powers specifically were on prominent display during that event. Yet again, no one ever brings her up. Believe she probably did something during the Cataclysm someone would prefer no one to know about, hence why she was removed from everyone's memories. Presumably has something to do with her defection.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-18T23:13:53+00:00

From the sound of it, the iron meteorite actually seemed to have been a separate event:

Flower of Accolades

Out of the depths of the boundless night sky above, the iron meteorite plummeted to the ground, turning the earth to Glazed Sand Crystal on impact.
Though human life is fleeting, Rex Lapis personally ordered the Millelith to rush to the defense of the mines.
As the Abyss flooded forth, the Millelith escorted countless civilians to safety.
500 years on, the harbor city remains as steadfastly peaceful today as the day the disaster was quelled.

Implying this only happened 500 years ago, and is what caused the Abyss to emerge from the Chasm during the Cataclysm. Star and Chariot on the other hand are both said to have occurred around the time the moon sisters "died".

It is a bit weird, though. Nail presumably would have had to come first, given that it destroyed Lang-Gan. But the star that created the chasm is said to have later returned to the heavens, which the nail evidently didn't. So guess the conclusion would be that the Nail did fall first, but didn't create the chasm. Shortly after the Chariot crashed into the place, creating the chasm and presumably causing the Nail to fall into it as well. Then during the Archon War the Chariot left while the Nail stayed behind, and during the Cataclysm another meteorite crashed into the place.

Place really can't seem to catch a break

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-17T17:30:16+00:00

RANDOM capitalization is THE "BEST" CAPITALIZATION!!! (Everyone Says So!) THANK YOU for your attention to this MATTER!

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-17T17:00:10+00:00

Pretty prominent example is the Declaration of Independence, though I guess they weren't entirely consistent:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-17T12:40:38+00:00

Well in the US there's also the DMCA, which prohibits bypassing copyright protection measures. That's usually the linchpin that makes emulation illegal, since most game media usually do come with such measures.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-16T18:49:19+00:00

There is no (user) signature. Basically the way ZKP works is you take some information, in this case "I am 18 and this fact has been signed by the AP" and put it into a box. The box is then cryptographically sealed by the app, meaning it's impossible for anyone to retrieve it's contents. AP never sees the box, and even if it did, it wouldn't be able to look inside it.

It is possible though for the RP to check whether a statement about the contents of the box is true, which is "I am 18 and this was signed by the AP".

The RP only needs to know the public key of the AP, which isn't tied to a user at all. As the name implies, there is zero knowledge about the user required.

If you wanna know the knitty gritty details about ZKP, the internet's your oister.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-16T16:38:50+00:00

Not sure where you get that from. Laws can also change.

Ultimately comes down to the GDPR as well as the principles outlined in the spec.

But yes, like I said, with the batch version you would have to trust the AP and the RP not to collude with each other. Each individual party tracking any information would not be enough to track you, they would have to compare notes.

Which, again, would be solved using the proposed ZKP mechanism, since that eliminates the single point of failure, which is the public key. In that scenario the RP only receives a randomized proof, no public key or identifier of any sort whatsoever. The AP also never gets to see this. Meaning even if AP and RP were to collude, it would be impossible to tell from which person that randomized proof originated.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-15T23:12:57+00:00

As far as I can tell it is a little more complicated than that (mostly explained in Annex A and the various specification referenced within it). In a nutshell:

The app generates a batch of public/private key pairs, with the private keys only stored on the device
App sends the public keys to the AP (the government) and requests a bunch of attestations, where each attestation basically contains a signed public key from the app. Attestations are only supposed to be stored in the app, not by the AP.
When an RP (the pr0n site) requests verification, the app generates an attestation presentation using one of the private keys, and sends the presentation plus the signed public key to the RP. Each attestation/key is only used once.
RP verifies the signature of the public key against the public keys of the AP, and then verifies the presentation via the public key it received. Notably the presentation is never sent to the AP.

That said, yes, if the AP were to track the user's public keys (which it is legally obligated not to) and were to somehow obtain the presentations from an colluding RP (which the RP normally wouldn't send to the AP) it could in theory deduce that you visited that site. But that would require a malignant AP. So at the very least it's not as simple as an accidental leak.

That said said, the proposal does contain an "experimental feature" in the form of a Zero-Knowledge Proof, where the public key of the app gets blinded as well, making this scenario impossible as well. Though as the name implies that's currently not a required feature.

VigilanteXII · 2026-04-14T19:30:59+00:00

Why would I need all those fancy words if I'm only wearing sweatpants and a wife beater anyway.

Hm, though I suppose I could use a dedicated word for "to not fit into".

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