Recipe? 🧐

I do miss my Pixel 5a. I think it was the last Pixel to have a headphone port. I have an 8a now and it’s just worse. Effective battery life is MUCH worse and I’m not even sure why. The device itself is a little thicker, no headphone port, the under-screen fingerprint reader is much less effective, the pinhole camera is in a worse location, and other than that it’s pretty much the same.

I would have used my 5a into perpetuity but the screen spontaneously broke one day totally out of nowhere. Didn’t drop it or anything, it just permanently froze while I was using it one time.
Turns out it might have been some moisture problem and people online said that it might work if you put the phone in the freezer. Well, that actually did work and I used it that way for a couple weeks. I would keep my phone in the freezer overnight and it would work for most of the day. But eventually that stopped working and the screen warranty had just ended so I got a new (worse 😡) phone. But I miss the 5a…

To be fair, that’s the standard pronunciation in a very popular dialect of the language.

That might be right in general, but the device that the commenter included a picture of says オゾン (ozone) all over it. You can also see the O3 molecules in the diagram. So producing ozone does appear to be the primary function of that particular machine.

I looked it up before making my comment and couldn’t find any info about what % of Americans drink water, only info about average volume of water consumption and average volume of soft drink consumption.

You are right that there is a problem in North America with soft drink vs water consumption and it sounds like you know more about it than I do. I only called out your original statement that “most don’t even drink water” because it seems like a huge stretch beyond what the research I was able to find can actually support. The idea that >50% of people in America don’t drink water regularly or ever still seems absurd to me. I struggle to think you even believe it yourself.

I took a college class once about early childhood development. We were looking at a map of countries colored based on how much paid maternal leave is required to be provided. There were only two countries on the map with 0 required.

Person sitting on my right: I should really know the name of that other country [looking at Papua New Guinea]

Me: Yeah I don’t remember right now but I knew it was just the US and one other country. I really should know the name I just forgot it right now…

Person sitting on my left: Yeah I’ve never seen it before… Is it part of Canada or something?

Me: … That one?

Left: Yeah

Me: That’s Alaska

Left: Haha. Wait really? Are you sure?

Me: 🤨

True story that took place at a USA university

Most don’t even drink water any more.

Do you have a source for that or even honestly believe it yourself?

If we’re okay with having a leftover day (or two), let’s just have 5-6 intercalary days and then we can divide the other 360 days as evenly as we want. I’m a big fan of 12 months with 30 days each, with 3 weeks of 10 days each. But 360 is so versatile you could do it however you want.
Since the days of the week originally get their names from the sun, moon, and planets, we could easily name days for the 3 planets that have been [relatively] recently discovered or recognized: Earth, Uranus, and Neptune.

Basically I’m advocating for the same structure of the French revolutionary calendar, but I’d change it so that the year starts on the Gregorian calendar’s March 1 to line up the leap day, and also copy the Gregorian calendar’s leap year calculation.

Probably when my roommate tried to kill himself a few months ago.
My sister tried to hold his wound shut and led him outside.
I held the door shut to keep him from getting back to the knife, called the ambulance, and cleaned up all the blood the next day.

Still feels kinda surreal.

Startpage, but I haven’t really been happy with it. Takes results directly from Google or Bing I think, and sometimes makes me do a captcha if I’m on a VPN. At least there’s no A.I.
I also have Duck Duck Go, Google, Wikipedia, Wiktionary and a few other searches set to prefixes in Firefox so if I search “w bananas” it’ll search Wikipedia, or “dd bananas” for Duck Duck Go, etc.

If I’m searching for something to read about basically and I think it’s on Wikipedia, I’ll usually start there with a direct search using my shortcut and not even touch a general search engine.

Did you try it raw or did you cook it first?

I don’t know much about any Roman leaders other than Caesar but I remember watching a series about Caesar and constantly being reminded of Trump. Not just in terms of constantly breaking laws and norms or demanding personal loyalty above all else, but also in really specific ways.
Like how Trump wrote about how he’s like the “King of Israel” and the “second coming of God” in the same way that Caesar implied that he was/should be a king. Or how Caesar demanded several Triumphs (big parades) for all of the wars he won, many of which were tenuous or ridiculous claims. Doesn’t that sound exactly like how Trump claims that he’s ended 6 or 7 or 100 wars and deserves a Nobel prize?

In the same way that American politicians today can be put into the category of “blindly loyal to Trump”, Roman politicians could also be Ceasar-ists whose primary political priority was doing whatever Caesar wanted them to.

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert on this topic at all, this is just my impression.

I am not a native or regular speaker, so take my observations with a grain of salt. In this comment I will refer to people as “males” and “females” in order to not imply some characteristics of gender or a certain age.
There’s probably 6 common first-person pronouns (I forgot about one): 私 (watashi), あたし (atashi), うち (uchi), 俺 (ore), 僕 (boku), and 自分 (jibun).

私 (watashi) is the most common and basic pronoun. This is the one that I meant when I mentioned a “mildly formal basic pronoun that doesn’t really reveal much about yourself.” In formal speech, it’s basically totally flavorless and generic; anybody can use it. In more casual speech, it’s a little more feminine. Males are more likely to use 僕 (boku) or 俺 (ore) casually. This is my pronoun of choice when I speak Japanese.

あたし (atashi), sometimes also written as 私, is an alternate abbreviated form of 私 (watashi). I’m not very familiar with this one and I don’t think I know anybody who uses it, but I’ve heard that it’s more feminine and more casual than 私 (watashi). Males will rarely ever use あたし (atashi). I have also heard that it has a slight rebellious flavor to it.

うち (uchi) is where we start getting into the interesting ones. In a literal sense, うち (uchi) means house/family. This kind of synecdoche is not uncommon in Japanese, where you can refer to somebody by their house. This is actually where the word “otaku” comes from. In contemporary Japanese, otaku basically means “nerd” but it’s originally a second-person pronoun that means “your house,” and it was a common formal way for nerds to formally refer to each other. I don’t really know much about うち (uchi) usage but it’s definitely more feminine. Not quite sure about the level of formality. I quite like this pronoun and I would probably use it if it was a little more neutral.

俺 (ore) is very casual, very masculine, and I’ve even heard people call it a little bit aggressive or rude if it’s used in the wrong circumstance. This is probably the most common male pronoun in casual settings, though it is not really used in younger speakers. This would be a pretty subversive pronoun to use as a female, but I do know at least one female speaker who uses 俺 (ore) as their primary first-person pronoun.

僕 (boku) is maybe the most interesting one. It’s masculine, but can be quite polite. It’s very common among young boys and my male Japanese friend told me he doesn’t use it because it sounds childish (幼い). Despite that, it is still used in older male speakers in a professional setting. It’s also worth mentioning that there’s a falling-pitch 僕 (boku) which is more childish and a rising pitch 僕 (boku) which is more professional. Rising pitch 僕 (boku) personally gives me the vibe of a professor or researcher and it sounds a little more individual than 私 (watashi), though that’s just my impression. 僕 (boku) is also commonly used in songs by female singers. Female usage of 僕 (boku) outside of music is, I’ve heard, very rare. But in fictional media there’s definitely a trope that exists of the “boku girl” and it’s really cool to hear. Off the top of my head, there’s a vtuber Amane Kanata who speaks with 僕 (boku). My favorite fictional “boku girl” is Tsukimiya Ayu from Kanon. Hearing 僕 (boku) from a character who is otherwise not masculine gives off a really complicated vibe. It’s a little naive, bold, boyish, cute, childish, etc. But you should probably not expect to hear it in real life.

自分 (jibun) means “oneself” and is not necessarily a first-person pronoun. You can easily use 自分 (jibun) to refer to “yourself” or “themself” etc. As a first-person pronoun, I think it can be very gender neutral. It also has the quality of slightly distancing yourself from what you say, or trying to imply that you are not imposing yourself on other people. In English, it would be like saying “well, personally” at the beginning of every sentence and “but that’s just me” at the end. I do like 自分 (jibun) and it has its use cases. I would say I more often use it as a second- or third-person pronoun though.

Again, my knowledge of these pronouns is pretty superficial as a non-native non-regular speaker but even if I have some details wrong, the proof of concept is still there. Sometimes I wish that the English pronoun system was more robust and I hope for a distant future in which we abandon our silly he/she pronouns that imply nothing but gender and move towards using a variety of interesting second- and third-person pronouns like girlypop and anon.

You gotta mention how purple is such a common color for twin characters. It’s not just Clannad and Lucky Star, there’s also Paniponi Dash, Houseki no Kuni, Fate/Grand Order, Iya na Kao sare nagara Opantsu Misete Moraitai 2, Subarashiki Hibi Furenzoku Sonzai, The Simpsons, etc…

@MarieMarion@literature.cafe @OddDeer@lemmy.dbzer0.com thanks for being my audience. Skip to the end for a TL;DR.
The abbreviated version of the speech follows:

In English, everybody uses the same personal pronouns (I, my, me). We do have unique pronouns that characterize people based on individual characteristics, but those are all 3rd-person pronouns (he, she, they). What this means is that in English, your pronouns are fundamentally decided by somebody else. Yes, you can still tell somebody your preferred pronouns and request that they use those 3rd-person pronouns to refer to you, but fundamentally it is a decision that is up to them; you cannot force somebody to refer to you in a certain way.

I bring that up because in Japanese it’s actually the opposite. It is the 1st-person pronouns that are unique and characterize people. There are at least 5 personal pronouns that I would say are in common use today but historically there’s a lot more, maybe dozens. Do you want to subversively use a more masculine pronoun as a woman? Do you want to use an antiquated formal pronoun at all times? Do you want to use a mildly formal basic pronoun that doesn’t really reveal much about yourself? Literally nobody can stop you. Yeah they can judge you for it, but it’s different from English in that the language is designed so that you have control over your pronouns.

This difference between the two languages led me to two conclusions.
The first is that: pronouns have become such a big “problem” in the Anglosphere. Imagine a conversation between two people where one introduces themselves with “My pronouns are she/they, what are yours?” and the other person responds “I don’t really believe in having pronouns. I think it’s kinda weird.”
Don’t you immediately get the impression that these people are on opposite sides? That there is some serious conflict in their points of view? It’s easy to get caught up in that dichotomy, and yes there is a “right” side. It’s good to respect people’s preferred pronouns. But I want you to realize that this “problem” exists entirely in the language itself. If we had the power to declare our own pronouns without making a request, to “say and therefore be,” the problem would largely disappear. People would still judge you. People will still disrespect you. But the English language gives people a tool to do so.

The second conclusion that I came to is that linguistically, English is actually pretty conformist/collectivist while Japanese is pretty individualistic. It’s pretty common knowledge among people who make a distinction between “individualistic” and “collectivist” cultures that Anglosphere countries are considered to be more individual while Asian, particularly Sinosphere countries like Japan, are considered to be more collectivist. But if you told me to compare the pronouns in two languages: one of which has tools for you to put other people into simple boxes and no tools to express yourself, the other has tools to express yourself and you cannot put other people into boxes; I would definitely come to the non-obvious conclusion that Japan is a much more individualistic culture while Anglosphere countries are all collectivist. I could definitely go into more depth here, but I’m sure you already see the broad point: the collectivist/individualist dichotomy is a false one. Cultures all have elements that are one or the other. Everybody universally appreciates some things that are individualist, like art, and other things that are collectivist, like family and school.

As a last point, I want to address an obvious elephant-in-the-room for people who speak Japanese. You all know I’ve been ignoring a very important fact about Japanese that punches a big hole in the argument. Japanese already has the exact same 3rd-person gendered pronouns as English: 彼氏 (kareshi, he) and 彼女 (kanojo, she). I would like to counter that observation with two points: first, those words are used FAR less often than they are in English. When speaking in the 2nd- or 3rd-person in Japanese, it is very common to forego pronouns and just use somebody’s name. In fact, if you use the 2nd-person pronouns in almost any context, it’s a little weird; almost like you forgot their name and have to call them “hey you” instead. In 3rd-person, you also typically will refer to somebody by name as well, and would rarely use kareshi or kanojo.
A second point: kareshi and kanojo are literally English imports. In the Meiji era of Japan after their long isolationist period, there was a desire to find ways to translate the gendered pronouns in English and French literature, which is where kareshi and kanojo (the latter originally kano’onna) came from in the first place.

If I wanted to fill more time I would also talk about how honorifics can personalize 2nd- and 3rd-person communication, the implications of using specific Japanese 1st-person pronouns, and I could really go in depth speculating about how English could have a neopronoun revolution in the future not via ones like xe/xim but rather anon, oomfie, homie, bestie, my guy, my brother in christ, girlipop, etc. and that maybe we are seeing that revolution right now.

TL;DR: English pronouns create some problems because they let you put other people into gendered boxes while Japanese pronouns let you express yourself and your unique relationships with other people. This should make us skeptical any time we hear somebody say that a culture is entirely “individualistic” or “collectivist,” and we should also recognize that the problem that some people have with respecting preferred pronouns is almost entirely a linguistic problem (sure, exacerbated by anti-trans outgroup politics) rather than an actual problem in people’s viewpoints. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

I was reading a thread where people were talking about Japanese pronouns and remembered that this is my favorite icebreaker question.

My topic is Japanese pronouns. How they differ from English, a little bit of the history, and broadly why they should make us reinspect how we construct identity and how they complicate the idea of “individualism” vs “collectivism”

I could fill 25-30 minutes easily with no preparation.

I got you
https://youtu.be/2h1s6S4kotE

Basically the same, I read it and it helped me process. I reread it more recently and related to the final chapters about identity. It was also just really funny, I’m basically always thinking 24/7 about the party chapter which was taken from the blog.

It’s just really funny, whimsical, and insightful beyond any expectations. Definitely worth rereading imo

Favorites: the book version of the blog Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh and also The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Currently reading Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell and the new Penguin Classics translation of Towazugatari/A Tale Unasked by Lady Nijo, translated by Meredith McKinney.

Obviously I don’t agree with anybody on 100% of all things, but if I had to throw out some of who I sarcastically call my personal philosopher kings:

• Cordelia Fine
• Philip N. Cohen
• Ella Yurman, YouTube
• Noam Chomsky
• Big Joel, YouTube