Zickzack

I wonder if the original German is equally ambiguous...

The translation is good and authentic. Those who can read Low German[1] can compare the slightly different versions here[2]. In their comments[3 (German)], the brothers Grimm state that the storyline of a woman who pushes her husband for too much is ages old and known in many cultures. They have picked the richest German version.

If a Straussian reading is needed, then it should be considered that a Low German story from a coastal - hence Protestant - region rates the pope higher than the king.

[1] Low German was a way of getting crap[4] past the radar for the Grimms. Compared to the Juniper Tree[5] (Van den Machandelboom - Low German, again), this fairy tale is harmless.

[2] https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Vom_Fischer_und_seiner_Frau

[3] https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Kinder-_und_Haus-M%C3%A4rchen...

[4] What he translates as "filthy shack" is literally a "pissing pot", i.e. a chamber pot. He seems to have a hard time telling it as it is. Maybe, the Straussian reading makes sense.

[5] https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm047.html - you have been warned.

It showed an area totaling just 20 square kilometers, a tiny place. The map was divided into 400 individual grid squares, outlined in light blue — a single square kilometer each.

He means 20 kms squared, as opposed to 20 square kilometers. The map should be 80cm x 80cm then.

I shall raise my glass to this fine gentleman.

Flavius Josephus writes in the History of the Jewish War against the Romans - an important source for the Roman army - that the first cohort of every legion was twice the size of other cohorts, because it included the veterans, i.e. those who had served 16 years at least.

The following calculation is either simplistic or robust, depending on your view. And I am aware that there are simplifying assumptions, like the one that the rate of attrition did not depend on the service age of the soldier. There are reasons for that even. Younger soldiers might have fallen prey to infections because they encountered them the first time. Older soldiers were possibly tougher in that respect. Young soldiers took two years to learn to fight like a legionary. Old soldiers may have balanced their ageing bodies (a decade or more of gruelling service) with their experience. And yes, not all veterans would be incorporated into the first cohort, because they had higher echelon jobs in their respective cohort. But then, the good ones (long lasting ones?) would have been members of the first cohort in the first place because it was supposed to be elite. So bear with me.

Josephus gives us that a Roman legion could be divided in eleven roughly even sized parts, with the veterans forming one of these eleven parts. Assuming a constant rate of attrition (see above), this means that about 8% of a legion were lost each year for a variety of reasons other than retirement, 92% made it. If we assume twenty years of service, 0.92^20 gives ~ 0.188, so roughly one fifth of the legionaries made it to retirement.

If the same attrition rate applied to auxiliaries - twenty five years of service -, then about one in eight auxiliaries made it. And finally, the Pretorian guard, where the assumption of the same rate may be a stretch: sixteen years of service mean that one in four enjoyed the fruits of his post-military life.

Let us assume there were no reasonable explanation for the origin of life. Yet, "there is no reasonable explanation of life, hence god exists" would still be a non sequitur. You have to brush up your Logic, and it is not meant as a 'take that'.

If you want to do yourself a favor, try your skills on "there is no reasonable explanation of life, hence Zeus exists". Or Allah, if it helps.

Worse yet, you are peddling the god of the gaps: the god that is supposed to explain things where science cannot. This is exactly the god that is fleeing from science ever since science reared its head. And it is the view of god which the original article tries to refute. As your existence shows, it cannot be entirely right.

Personally I find it very sad that the agnostic approach of Pascal did not prevail. Let the programmer decide what they think fits the situation best and let the compiler deal with the technicalities. This, and I also miss range types... for like 40 years now...

I am with you there. However, Pascal, a toy Algol, was designed to be a language for a compiler course. It took its ideas like "where does an array start" from other Algol implementations and added a broken type system. Pascal gets the love now, as witnessed by the Lua designers referring to Pascal and not to Algol.

1-based indexing causes you to have to throw in a bunch of +/-1 compensation factors to prevent you from double-counting or scaling past an edge.

Way back then, I started with Algol 68, moved on to Turbo Pascal, and finally Fortran (I was young and needed the money). My vectors and arrays started at 1, as was the default, and I do not even know what you allude to. The first element has the index 1. Since there is no zeroth element - neither in language nor in thinking -, starting at 0 is what causes problems. You always have to use a corrective term in your head - the element five elements after the third one has index 7.

Yes, whatever.

Silibinin [1] is an antidote to death cap. As far as I know, silibinin has reduced the mortality from 2/3 to 1/3. If the damage done to the liver is already too big, then silibinin does not work and there are two options left: liver transplantation or death.

I wonder why the article does not even mention it, and I am worried that it is a case of "not invented here". Silibinin is here for at least 30 years. I was shocked when I read the story of one who was poisoned by eating the destroying angel (same poison) unwittingly. That story basically said, that at the end of the aughts, his doctors in Great Britain did not know about silibinin.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silibinin

[] I'd say 90%+ Poles say "królowa" (literally queen).

I thought "królowa" is reserved for Mary, Queen of Poles.

William Fairbairn, was a portly pensioner with an unusual passion: he was the world’s leading expert in silent killing

This reads like a sentence straight from a bad 70s action movie. Who had decided he was the world's leading expert? And how in the world would one know?

The "narrative history" seems to use a lot of name dropping, as witnessed by the reference to Churchill in the title. Special Operations Executive, the ministry of ecomomic warfare as well as the build up of a large air force go back to the much maligned Neville Chamberlain.

Lactic acid fermentation [1] is the secret to many sausages. In the case of Mettwurst [2], made of raw meat, it is essential. Aged steak, hanged pheasants [3 - with a discussion of bacteria] - even today, the list should be long.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactic_acid_fermentation [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mettwurst [3] https://honest-food.net/on-hanging-pheasants-2/

Arguing continuity of national borders over centuries in the Balkans is a fools game anyway.

Hear, hear.

Yet, the knowledge of the so called historical regions will get you far in Eastern and Southern Europe. The maps of voting behavior pop up here every now and then. And this is only one aspect.

When I read this:

But everything ALGOL-68 did, PL/I did earlier and better.

I just wanted to write "Not so". As much as I appreciate the OP in general, his knowledge of Algol 68 is limited. Algol 68 was more than the introduction of first class datatypes. Parallel programming comes to mind. In comparison to PL/I, there were other features such as automatic memory management. It helped to have had John McCarthy in the commitee.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Conference

That is exactly what you write. It was agreed on that Poland was moved to the west, and that any claims to reimbursements would have to be addressed to the Soviet Union. Given that Poland has accepted and insisted on the movement to the west, as witnessed by the border treaty [1],the question remains why Polish leaders never had the guts to demand reparations from the Soviet Union.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Polish_Border_T...

Is the "Learning Algol 68 Genie 3.0" guide [1] of some help?

[1] https://jmvdveer.home.xs4all.nl/en.download.learning-algol-6...

Something that doesn't return a value shouldn't be called a "function", that's just a C-ism.

Something that does not seem to return a value returns in fact a value of the type void which is empty. The idea comes from Algol 68 and has been a contribution by a certain John McCarthy.

As always, the off topic invitation cannot be passed.

The two-level grammar of Algol 68 gave the semantics of Algol 68 in a denotational language, the second level. As such, it is not more complicated as other languages with defined semantics, such as in the ML family. To my knowledge, people used that second level to implement a real virtual (ho hum) machine, resulting in a working interpreter. However, the ML aficionados can be surprised with the information that their language was not first one with fully defined semantics. Algol 68 was ahead of its time.

As for Pascal, history as I know says that Wirth invented Pascal as a training language for a course in which a one pass compiler was to be built. Only later, when the Algol 68 project became complicated, Wirth started to market it as a superior design - something which it never has been.

And yes, I enjoyed Turbo Pascal.

https://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating...

  phat = 1.0*pos/n

UN resolution 678 granted the liberation of Kuwait. That has been achieved in February 1991. It did not grant the invasion of Iraq as it has happened in 2003.

The Polish "wihajster" is a similar case. It comes from German "Wie heißt er? [What's his/its name?]" and refers to a nameless thing. https://de.pons.com/%C3%BCbersetzung/polnisch-deutsch/wihajs...

The article refers only to the Politeia (republic). And most commentators do the same. It is pretty likely that they do so because they know little Plato. Popper, however, knew more than that. While the totalitarian tendencies in the Politeia are already indicated1, Popper refers to later dialogues such as the Nomoi (Laws) which spell it out.

1where Plato's Socrates takes on the task of refuting himself- a common rhethoric ploy trying limit the power of interpretation to oneself

Further, Popper made it abundantly clear that whosoever thought that Popper's critique of Plato referred only to the Politeia had not read Popper at all. So far so bad. Philosophers as well as there reception can be a sobering experience.

During Nazi rule, there were many books written which the authors later found to be embarassing.

The common explanation was said to be: "I did not write that. They have forced me. And I did not mean it that way."

Amundsen lost his life trying to help Umberto Nobile and Nobile's crew.

The Ukraine offers the Orlyk constitution from 1710. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Pylyp_Orlyk

The author tries to derive a dilemma for utilitarism:

If you don’t accept ethical intuition as a source of justified belief, then you have no reason for thinking that enjoyment is better than suffering, that satisfying desires is better than frustrating them, that we should produce more good rather than less, or that we should care about anyone other than ourselves.

We have to take the author's word for this, because he does not offer any support for his claim. I wonder whether he believes that his personal ethical intuition can/may/should be generalised. The structural similarity to "whosoever does not believe in (my) god has no base for ethics" should serve as a warning.

If you do accept ethical intuition, then at least prima facie, you should accept each of the above examples as counter-examples to utilitarianism. Since there are so many counter-examples, and the intuitions about these examples are strong and widespread, it’s hard to see how utilitarianism could be justified overall.

The auther is willfully ignorant about utilitarism and should make amends.

As so many others have said, this article is dangerous for your health.

Firstly, how can mushroms harm you?

1. The most common case - rotten mushrooms. Mushrooms live in interesting places. If your mushroom has begun to rot and you did not watch out, then you will suffer from food poisoning. Beginners are hardly able to tell whether a mushroom is fresh.

2. Mushrooms that have not been prepared properly. Must mushrooms are poisonous, if eaten raw. Some can be stir fried, but there are species where every part of the mushroom must be given full heat for at least a quarter of an hour. Ignore this, and you will regret it.

3. Personal intolerance - quite some species are known to be digestible by some and to give bad reactions to others. This may even mean death. Learn that carefully, and go step by step when you try them while avoiding the all too dangerous stuff.

4. Poisonous in the strict sense.

When one explains mushrooms to inexperienced people, you have to teach them about the defining features of a certain species. This means that if any of the features is not clear, different, or missing, then they may not eat the mushroom. "I believe" is ok, just do not eat it.

In detail:

Puffballs - he must be joking. There are too many of them, and the beginner will not even understand what to look for.

Chanterelles - he even mentions the Jack O'Lantern without specifying the specific difference. That difference is ridges instead of gills. Further, there are many mushrooms with ridges, but I dare anyone to explain the similarity of a ridge of a chanterelle to a ridge of a trumpet of the dead (do not let the name scare you).

Oyster mushrooms - oh yes, they can be mistaken. Saying that they are difficult to mistake depends on the knowledge of the person and that may vary wildly.

Chicken of the woods - there is a persistent rumor that it is poisonous, if it grows on a poisonous tree. You will need botanic knowledge to be safe.

Hen of the woods - not even this one is foolproof.

King bolete - too little detail given, while many people still believe that all mushrooms with pores are edible. This is a dangerous and wrong belief.

Lion's mane - I bet money on that there are people who will mistake an old hedgehog mushroom for a lion's mane.

I generally agree with the sentiments in the article. However, when it comes to the following, I beg to differ:

I always find it funny when people go to a place like Romania and then go out of their way to eat what is labeled as traditional Romanian food. So they go to some fancy place in the tourist district that serves expensive dishes nobody eats anymore.

I find it funny when peple go to a foreign country and avoid the traditional food. It is one of the big mistakes. Yes, the locals will often - especially in Romania - point you to a pseudo Italian restaurant when you ask them for a recommendation. In the likely case that you like Italian food, do not go there.

My first visit to a Romanian restaurant was a cheap place at the northern trainstation in Bucharest on my way to Transylvania. The other guests were working class people, half of them missing teeth. The toilet was a hole in the ground. The place served Romanian food only. It was the day when my love story with ciorba de burtă started. This love story is not entirely mutual because my attempts to create something that tastes like the Romanian original are not satisfactory.

I have travelled all over Romania in the following years. Restaurants in the center of known tourist locations are to be avoided. The rest is excellent.

One of the secrets of Romanian food in the countryside is that there are still semi-nomadic shepherds taking care of herds of cows and sheep. Meat of similar quality is hard to find in Western Europe. These herds travel through regions where there are still bears and wolf packs, by the way. As for vegetables, the people in the countryside have not yet understood what glory Monsanto holds for them. This will change, I am afraid.

If you can read German, then search for the term Putativnotwehr - or Erlaubnistatbestandsirrtum which looks so much more German. It refers to an understandable, but wrong belief to be in a situation that justifies self defense.

It is a valid excuse in penal law, yet it does not apply to civil liabilities. You can still be sued for damages. An official prosecutor told me that you can use it once in your life to beat somebody up. After that, they will not believe you anymore.

However, I completely agree that it does not make sense to judge the Rittenhouse case by German law.

The rule of thumb I know is that you need about twice the amount of long pepper compared to black pepper. Check, if this works for you.

There is another thing which I like to do: bite off a little bit of long pepper, leave it in your mouth, and wait. The flavour changes several times. If that does not happen, then you have got a bland sample, I guess.

Here is is a nice resource for spices: http://gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com/engl/Pipe_lon.html

Collins was largely powerless to help if something went wrong. If that did happen, he would have been faced with the choice of abandoning his crewmates to die on the moon and fly back to Earth himself.

He would have died in orbit then, just a little bit closer to the rest of mankind. There was no was way for him to return to solid Earth unless the lunar module came back. He was dependent on the outcome of the Lunar mission and he was not even allwed to set his foot onto Moon. One of my heros since childhood...