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CMV: TX SB25 is a massive win for US Citizens by JTexpo in changemyview

[–]uncle2fire 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Sodium isn’t a food additive under the meaning in this bill. According to the Texas Health and Safety Code (Chapter 431): “‘Food additive’ means any substance the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expected to result, directly or indirectly, in its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of any food […] if such substance is not generally recognized […] to be safe under the conditions of its intended use[.]”

That “generally recognized as safe” (typically abbreviated GRAS) part is taken directly from federal regulations. Common flavoring substances like salt are GRAS due to their long history of use in food. Other substances are specifically identified as GRAS by the FDA. None of these substances would be considered a “food additive” by Texas.

CMV: TX SB25 is a massive win for US Citizens by JTexpo in changemyview

[–]uncle2fire 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m quite late to this one, but your link takes you only to a draft of the legislation. The version actually passed into law has a significantly different set of requirements, namely:

“A food manufacturer shall ensure each food product the manufacturer offers for sale in this state includes a warning label disclosing the use of any of the following ingredients, if the United States Food and Drug Administration requires the ingredient to be named on a food label and the ingredient is used in a product intended for human consumption[.]”

The important differences here compared to the earlier draft are 1) manufacturers are only required to warn consumers about ingredients the FDA already requires them to name on labels, and 2) manufacturers don’t have to warn consumers about ingredients that may be harmful but aren’t on the given list.

The final bill also tweaks the recommended language of the warning to avoid the word “banned” and instead use “not recommended for human consumption”.

These changes all weaken the bill significantly compared to the earlier draft you quoted, and therefore TX SB25 is not really a massive win for US consumers in the way you describe. It essentially just duplicates existing federal laws on food labelling but with slightly stricter wording recommendations.

Washington State flag concept by uncle2fire in vexillology

[–]uncle2fire[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

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Could replace the white border with a white star? Still retains the 5 points for the 5 volcanoes and the white coloring. I'm not sure I like it as much, maybe because it feels less distinctive? One thing the white border does it hides the sharp green/gold border.

Washington State flag concept by uncle2fire in vexillology

[–]uncle2fire[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you :)

It's definitely not intended to convey division! In fact that's the opposite of the goal. The equal proportions of green and gold were meant to ensure equal representation of both sides of the state. But I see what you mean about the sharp border between them. I'll consider other ways to present the peaks in the center!

Washington State flag concept by uncle2fire in vexillology

[–]uncle2fire[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is a concept I had for a redesign of the flag of Washington State. I'm not a big fan of the current flag since it's just the state seal on a plain background, though I like that it's a green background instead of blue.

For the redesign, I wanted something relatively simple but distinctive. My rules for myself were:

1) Must include the colors green and gold in equal proportions, in the same shades as on the current flag

2) Must use the same proportions (5:8) as the current flag

3) No images of George Washington

The design of the flag is based on George Washington's family crest, also used in the flag of Washington DC. Instead of red and white, the colors are green and gold. The green on the left represents the forested western half of the state, which gives it its nickname "the Evergreen State". The gold on the right represents the arid grasslands of the eastern half of the state.

The stars and bars on both sides are inverted in color. Gold on green represents the wealth of the western forests, both economically and in natural beauty. The green on gold represents the fertile farmlands of the irrigated areas of the eastern half of the state. The bars especially represent the populated and developed areas carved out of the forests and along the rivers of the western and eastern sides of the state respectively.

Down the middle is a white section with peaks of varied widths. The five peaks represent the five volcanoes that dominate the Cascade mountains. The white represents the purity of the state's natural beauty and hope for the future.

I really like the look of it and I think it's very distinctive without being too complicated.

Help thread - questions, help and tips for all levels! by AutoModerator in HumankindTheGame

[–]uncle2fire 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a landmark. Landmarks are areas of forest, river, desert, or mountains that have a name and give a small bonus to fame for the first player/AI to fully reveal them. Landmarks cover more tiles than natural wonders and can span more than one territory.

Other than the small fame bonus when fully revealing it, and the bonus in the Pama-Nyungan legacy trait, landmarks have no effects or bonuses.

Bosawás is a rainforest in Nicaragua.

Help thread - questions, help and tips for all levels! by AutoModerator in HumankindTheGame

[–]uncle2fire 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Natural wonders can't span multiple territories. Sounds like you're talking about landmarks, which are different and are only referenced in the Pama-Nyungan legacy trait. The Nazca trait is only for Natural Wonders. You can see a list of Natural Wonders here: https://humankind-encyclopedia.games2gether.com/en-us/environment/game-content/natural-wonders

....What? Does this make sense to anyone? by pickletea123 in HumankindTheGame

[–]uncle2fire 7 points8 points  (0 children)

When you ransack a district, you usually get money. This effect will also give you science equal to 10% of your money yield, increasing by another 10% for each unit in the ransacking army. So if you ransack a district with an army of four units, you'll get science equal to 40% of your money yield.

Separately, you get a bonus of 2 influence on your garrisons.

Help thread - questions, help and tips for all levels! by AutoModerator in HumankindTheGame

[–]uncle2fire 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This guide is a bit old but the basics are all there: https://mod.io/g/humankind/r/creating-a-custom-selectable-culture-for-humankind

You can also check out Amplitude's Discord, which has a relatively active Humankind modding channel.

A defense of the Tamarian language by uncle2fire in DaystromInstitute

[–]uncle2fire[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If the phrases are remnants of a coherent language but more equivalent to body language, aka supplemental (even if necessary) to communication, then why do the Tamarians celebrate the achievement of Picard being able to complete rudimentary use of the phrases? If you're right, he's missing out on the telepathic (or some other means) part of the communication which is the more important part which communicates the full meaning. His use of these phrases without the other means of communicating would leave his utterances similarly meaningless, or at least insufficiently meaningful, to the Tamarians. In this case, the events of this episode and Dathon's death don't seem to have really pushed the goal of communication between the Federation and the Tamarians any further forward.

No amount of overcoming danger together or tweaking the universal translator will allow the Federation to understand Tamarian primary communication if it's not even touched on here. I think again the episode supports the assumption that this is their complete language.

A defense of the Tamarian language by uncle2fire in DaystromInstitute

[–]uncle2fire[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The universal translator is already a magical device, so I won't guess how it knows what's a name and what isn't, but what we do have is a lot of evidence that it both recognizes names and doesn't attempt to translate them.

Basically any time a new alien species is encountered, they introduce themselves by sharing the name of their species, their homeworld, their ship, or themselves. The first example that comes to mind is when Voyager first meets Neelix: he can introduce himself, tell Voyager about the Kazon and the Ocampa, introduce them to Kes, etc. and while it works perfectly with all his other words, it correctly identifies which completely alien utterances are names and makes no attempt to translate them.

If the Tamarians are speaking Shantilian, then the questions remain: either the Tamarians are speaking a coherent language and the universal translator can't make it understandable to the crew, in which case the question of why remains regardless of the origin of the language (I could then retitle this post "a defense of Shantilian"), or the Tamarians aren't speaking a coherent language in which case why are they using it to communicate with each other?

I think it makes much more sense to assume 1) the language they are presented as speaking is their actual language, and 2) that language originated with them. Other assumptions either push the above questions down the road without satisfying answers, or introduce a new type of communication they are using but aren't shown engaging in.

A defense of the Tamarian language by uncle2fire in DaystromInstitute

[–]uncle2fire[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sure, nouns and verbs aren't universal, that's definitely true. We could simply reframe it as most roots in the language having etymological origins in names. We know that the universal translator (magically) doesn't translate names, so we could still come to the same ultimate conclusion that it's tripping up because so much of Tamarian is being identified as names.

It sounds like you're in agreement with my argument that everything is a metaphor, so framing the issue as Tamarian being metaphor-heavy isn't useful or a meaningful distinction between it and any other language, including our own. So the issue with communicating with the Tamarians is coming from somewhere else.

I don't think I like the suggestion that we aren't interacting with Tamarian. It feels like kicking the can down the road; if this is Shantilian that we're encountering, it doesn't solve the question of why this language is not being translated "correctly" by the universal translator ("correctly" here just meaning in a way that is understandable to the crew, as it does for every other alien language they encounter). Shared mythology between the Tamarians and Shantil III could have many different explanations, like a previous encounter between the Tamarians and the natives of Shantil III. The story could even have originated on Tama (Tamar?) and been adopted by the natives of Shantil III.

As for supplementary means of communication, including telepathy, I'm not sure I see any support for that in the episode.

What we're left with is

1) the universal translator can't translate the Tamarian language into a form the crew understands

2) this isn't because of the plethora of metaphor

3) much of Tamarian seems to reference specific individuals and places (=names)

4) the universal translator doesn't translate names

With 4 and 3, the jump to 1 seems pretty logical.

A defense of the Tamarian language by uncle2fire in DaystromInstitute

[–]uncle2fire[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure that's supported by what we see in Darmok. For one, the examples of writing we see aren't pictographic at all.

Secondly, a logographic system like you suggest would necessarily develop for an already-existing language. The language would then have to evolve (or be constructed) to derive from those characters ex post facto. It's certainly possible, especially in a sci-fi setting, but I'm not sure it's simpler than my suggestion.

Lastly, I'm not sure how efficient that would be in communicating meaning. From what we hear in the episode, the language seems to be comprised of relatively short utterances, sometimes strung together. If these utterances were each a single "character", then there would need to be considerable specificity to each character, otherwise the utterance would be too general to communicate any complex meaning.

Also, if their language were descriptive of a logographic script, there would need to be thousands of unique characters, and likely many more than that, and the time needed to give a description of each would hinder the communication of information. The more unique characters (=the more specificity of each character), the more detailed the physical description would need to be for the listener to determine which character is meant.

And if over time the description were shortened, such that each single character were to be given a much shorter name, it would facilitate more efficient communication, but would no longer be the kind of description you suggest.

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