Catherine Berry

I'm fascinated by the ripples of connection we create while we live, and leave behind us when we die. My name will be forgotten very soon. My effects will endure until the heat death of the universe.

Show me your quick getaway vehicle!

Amen. The exploration of gender in _The Left Hand of Darkness_ (1969) is still fascinating, thought-provoking, and challenging more than half a century later. It's also an intensely engaging and moving story; the social commentary stays implicit. "*Loudly* implicit", as my partner put it. 🙂

I agree that if your suggestions are all from years starting with 19 that's a problem, but there's nothing wrong with mixing in some older classics. For example, I've exploded brains of all ages by recommending Clarke's _Childhood's End_ (1953).

To paraphrase Clausewitz, fascism is merely the continuation of moving the Overton Window by other means.

Also, RA causes swelling mostly at a joint, while PA causes swelling between two joints, often between the knuckle and adjacent finger joint. The skin of the affected segment can get stretched and shiny, producing a "sausage digit".

Best of luck with your diagnosis and treatment! 2/2

I'm so sorry! Arthritis is bad enough without the types ganging up on you.

One quick thing you can check: Rheumatoid arthritis is usually symmetric, while psoriatic arthritis is usually asymmetric. E.g. my current PA flare involves my right hand but not my left, which would be unusual for RA. 1/2

"One night the Master dreamed he was at a sex club pretending to be a dog. Ever after, he wondered whether he might actually be a dog, pretending to be at a sex club."

- _Aisu-Kurimu Koans_, 17th Meditation

So, go me. I may not be a doctor, but as an engineer, I occasionally fake doctoring pretty well. 😁 4/4

The idea is for the glove to be just tight enough that holding a fist requires ongoing effort; relax, and the fingers are gently straightened. I found the perfect gloves for this between the last flare and this one, so my first tests just happened. And it works exactly as planned. 🙂 3/4

By morning, the flare finger is painfully locked in the curled-up position, and it takes a lot of careful flexing under a stream of hot water to loosen it up.

Engineer that I am, I started thinking about how to fix this. I came up with the idea of wearing a slightly tight cloth glove to bed. 2/4

I have #PsoriaticArthritis which is pretty well managed by Cosentyx, but I still get flares a few times a year. I'm having one right now in my right middle finger. The biggest problem with finger flares has been that I tend to sleep with my fists clenched. 1/4

A still from the film "Arrival". A group of humans in protective suits stand in a dark rounded-rectangular tunnel that ends in a glass wall. Beyond the wall, a large octopus-like shadow looms in thick mist.

Film criticism pointed out that the dark tunnel leading to the bright glass wall where humans and aliens meet looks like a movie theater, and explored what this subtle breaking of the fourth wall implies about the story. 3/3

One of my favorite examples involves the excellent movie "Arrival". A film review got me to go see it because "thoughtful linguistics-based science fiction" sounded amazing. 2/3

Exactly. The critical side can also involve exploring how the film tells its story, addressing narrative elements of plot, theme, and structure, and how these are supported (or not) by things like set and sound design, lighting, camera angles and motion, and so forth. 1/3

I think a great many people vote for a candidate (any candidate) because it's part of their tribal identity. I have serious doubts that a majority of voters for either Harris or Trump could have coherently described even one of their actual accomplishments or policies.

A fun linguistic rabbit hole I've been exploring: The Spartan response to Xerxes' demand that they lay down their weapons, μολὼν λαβέ, is idiomatically rendered in English as "Come and take them". This construction is a "double imperative", in which the first imperative enables the second. 1/4

When someone plays the "Do you know who my dad is??" card, they've already lost any pretense of power or dignity. Strong, confident people let their own achievements earn them credibility, and gain support by sharing their goals.

Thanks, and you're welcome! Always nice when my weird mental travels find an audience. 🙂

If English did this, my examples above would become "living, learn" and "fucking around, find out".

I love exploring different ways languages convey similar meanings. "<imperative> and <imperative>" has a different tone from "<participle>, <imperative>", even though they have the same function. 4/4

Instead, the enabling condition was expressed as a present participle indicating what you would be doing to enable the imperative that followed. So a more literal translation of μολὼν λαβέ is "Coming, take them". 3/4

In other words, Xerxes must first come (to where the Spartans are) in order to take their weapons. Other examples of this enabling double imperative construction are "live and learn" and "fuck around and find out".

But it turns out this isn't how ancient Greek expressed this pattern. 2/4

A fun linguistic rabbit hole I've been exploring: The Spartan response to Xerxes' demand that they lay down their weapons, μολὼν λαβέ, is idiomatically rendered in English as "Come and take them". This construction is a "double imperative", in which the first imperative enables the second. 1/4

💯

Photo of Donald Trump standing on a roof with hands cupping his open mouth.

Diddler on the Roof

💜

The huge problem is that even software experts who have a good understanding of LLM behaviors have trouble predicting the reliability of LLM responses to different kinds of prompts. Lay people have no realistic hope of doing so. Yet they are being pushed to rely on LLM responses.

"Now hear me out on this -- can't we achieve a kinder, gentler genocide? A 'Genocide Lite', if you will?" 🙄

I love it when determining whether someone objects to oppressing people like me is called a "purity test". Seems more like a "basic human decency test".

I haven't heard anyone on the left say that either of those groups should just accept oppression to simplify the path to victory for other groups.