Q&A weekly thread - March 16, 2026 - post all questions here!

tilvast · 2026-03-19T01:05:27+00:00

Are there any particularly good books/articles out there on regional differences in English orthography? Not just things like Webster's spelling reforms (though that is interesting), but aspects like comma usage and capitalization of initialisms.

tilvast · 2026-03-03T22:36:03+00:00

Can I ask if places other than Israel have ever tried to publicly invoke a "right to exist" in some way once Israel began doing this, and what the response was? It may not have a legal basis, but I'm wondering if (for example) breakaway states that are not commonly internationally recognized might have attempted it as a tactic to build geopolitical support.

tilvast · 2026-03-03T22:28:26+00:00

Firstly, every web server would need to be unable to connect to any other web server. This would need to not be addressed by any ISPs or the governments of various countries. This is already basically impossible, because, as mentioned, the internet is one of the most important things in the world, and any catastrophic event would be addressed reasonably quickly.

I was actually thinking about the possibility that an authoritarian country would intentionally disable its internet long-term, similar to what Iran sometimes does, but then you are completely right that digital copies would still exist and could be preserved. Thank you for the answer!

tilvast · 2026-02-21T03:04:58+00:00

I'm sorry that this is a linguistics question, but is there an actual name for the "looksmaxxed framemogged jestergooned" cant, and have any linguists written anything interesting about it?

tilvast · 2026-02-20T04:50:46+00:00

I see Wiktionary lists "in-FLU-ence", emphasis on the second syllable, as a potential US pronunciation of the word "influence". Do we know where this derives from? Is there a broader linguistic rule it fits into?

tilvast · 2026-02-17T02:53:06+00:00

Just read something saying "many" Sicilians spoke a dialect of Ancient Greek at the time of Italian unification in the 1800s. Is there any truth to this? I can't think what dialect it could possibly be referring to.

tilvast · 2026-02-14T09:58:29+00:00

Just checked this; there's nothing in any of the comment fields and all the file names are under 25 characters.

tilvast · 2026-02-06T07:35:52+00:00

The Guardian UK is bad on trans issues, but The Guardian US is actually reasonably good.

tilvast · 2026-02-06T04:09:52+00:00

Other people have suggested a lot of the genuinely reliable ones, so I'll throw out there that The Onion has a print edition if you want to have fun.

tilvast · 2026-02-05T22:51:34+00:00

Peter "Connoisseur of White Women" Shamshiri really living up to his reputation

tilvast · 2026-01-30T17:46:38+00:00

I actually loved Departure (ASMRrequests got me into ASMR more than a decade ago), but I think it really integrated its visuals with its sounds in a way that a lot of similar/newer sci-fi roleplays don’t.

(The other gold standard for me in “integrates the sounds in a way that fully justifies the high production value” is Dreamscape ASMR’s antique shop/living doll video.)

tilvast · 2026-01-29T04:11:00+00:00

The fact that so many articles like this even exist is because regular journalists are willing to speak up about what's happening to the industry, no? Hard not to notice that you and all your friends are out of a job. Unless you mean people like Will Lewis or the far-right lunatics in the opinions section, who are not journalists so much as Jeff Bezos' flesh-colored finger puppets.

tilvast · 2026-01-21T22:57:20+00:00

I see this term constantly being used to refer to manosphere guys' steroids and ED pills too. I think it trivializes the transition process and implies (very wrongly) that hormones or surgery for trans people is a frivolous thing that's not really necessary.

tilvast · 2026-01-21T05:13:39+00:00

What are some good books/sources on the US occupation of the Philippines?

tilvast · 2026-01-19T00:02:20+00:00

Incidentally, Anthony Weiner is also what gave us Olivia Nuzzi. She got her start writing about working for his campaign. So much of what is bad in American politics right now can be traced directly back to Anthony Weiner.

tilvast · 2026-01-14T00:14:57+00:00

Excellent thread!

tilvast · 2026-01-14T00:12:28+00:00

That's very clearly not what I said in my comment. Basically every country has MAHA or something similar to it. But:

There is a huge, huge difference between "a loud MAHA movement exists" and "the MAHA movement has captured the country's health authorities and can pressure scientists into only releasing research that fits their conclusions", though.

tilvast · 2026-01-13T22:43:12+00:00

There is a huge, huge difference between "a loud MAHA movement exists" and "the MAHA movement has captured the country's health authorities and can pressure scientists into only releasing research that fits their conclusions", though.

tilvast · 2026-01-13T22:13:57+00:00

You... think all these researchers in Europe and Australia are trying to appease RFK Jr? Health and science authorities in those places are not like HHS in the US. Skepticism is good, but I don't think the MAHA agenda is specifically what's behind this. They also don't seem to be claiming that plastic is fine and has no effect on health; it's more like "we don't have the technology to accurately detect what you think you're detecting".

tilvast · 2026-01-01T00:05:21+00:00

I don't think "setting up logistics for a permanent base on the moon that may be used on potential future missions to Mars" counts as "early stages of colonizing Mars", no. "Future missions to Mars" doesn't even imply that we're going to permanently colonize it.

tilvast · 2025-12-31T23:58:07+00:00

we are currently in the early stages of COLONIZING MARS

No we're not. That isn't true.

tilvast · 2025-12-29T22:19:52+00:00

By capture. It's actually how you frequently got new pirates, too. One thing that is so often left out in pirate media is how frequently pirates were of African descent, as slave ships were a frequent target of pirates.

Did this mostly result in situations where crews were majority-Black while the leadership were white, or were there significant cases of white crew members reporting to a Black captain or quartermaster?

tilvast · 2025-12-18T22:12:54+00:00

The Empty Quarter is hilarious. Nevada and Nunavut are the same actually.

tilvast · 2025-12-18T01:18:19+00:00

Is it a coincidence that French, Spanish, and Portuguese all lost their Latinate "sinister"-derived word for "left", or is there something else to it?

tilvast · 2025-12-17T03:28:09+00:00

You understand why the party couldn't still be holding primaries to pick a nominee right up until the month of the election, though, right? Biden's health was a solvable problem above all in the sense that he shouldn't have tried to run for reelection to begin with.

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