Ken Arnold @kcrca@qoto.org

@elein Apparently some sins are never forgotten... 🙂

@andyb Also, among the oldest writing we have is people complaining how Kids These Days™ are destroying the language. It's really just how languages evolve, and old folks get cranky about it. I have resolved to be on the right side of this change 🙂

@andyb I have a theory: All languages have a complexity budget. English spends it on spelling and vocabulary size. Japanese spends it on different ways to speak depending on relative status. And so on. So I don't think English is worse. I think it's just weird in some different ways (and some of the same ones.)

@nazgul The nice thing is that you don't really have to decide for realsies. Write for a few months. Then decide if you want to pick up a consulting gig or not. And then stop doing that when you want to. That's the upside of being post-adult with savings.

@andyb It IS obtuse and arbitrary. Language is like that. Do. you say "I went to hospital" or "I went to the hospital"? When to use "the" is as obtuse and arbitrary as the "u" in "colour". Is "in" the opposite of "out"? How about "Roll the carpet out"? Oops, that's "Roll the carpet _up_". So yeah, welcome to language. It's been our friend for a long, long time, but it's always been like this. Free free to unfriend it 🙂

@mmasnick Wait, aren't you referring us to this article without waiting for us to be wrong? SAD!!! 🙂

@skells It's a interesting thought. Although, given the law of symmetry of aphorism, there's always "Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity." <shrug> In the end we all stumble between these approaches scraping the floor for clues for what's really going on. Luckily for probably everyone, what I think about this will have no effect on what gets done. 🙂

@skells I mean, good question, but I got no clue, that's not my bag. I mean, that's pretty common wisdom in my circle, but I've never seen real research on it.

@skells I'm not saying there aren't people there who know better, even in some high places. I'm saying we can't assume logical behavior for major decisions with a randomizer like that at the helm.

@skells Maybe so, but I think it's pretty clear that Putin is deluded about the situation and nobody is telling him he's wrong. So if he said "bomb it", it would be bombed, even if circumspect individuals would know better.

@skells Doesn't that only require that they _believed_ they would win? And I'll bet they do.