It used to be that I had to remind myself to not trust anything I saw on the Internet on April 1. But now I can not trust anything I see on the Internet all year round!
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Prabhakar Ragde
@plragde@mstdn.social
mastodon 4.7.2Food, wine, music, books, film, art, architecture, travel, feminism, and functional programming.
334 Followers
125 Following
34 Posts
Joined November 04, 2022
Location:
Lisboa
Today we went to Auschwitz and Birkenau.
I will not be posting any more photographs.
Replying to
@irene@discuss.systems I used the photo that heads your republished blog post (also visible in the thumbnail I get on Mastodon) in the history lecture I designed for the first-year CS course at our UW (in Canada) when I was asked to coordinate it in 1989, a year after arriving as a fresh hire.
It's depressing that more than 35 years later, the situation is arguably worse than it was back then. Though at least women now have more ability to connect with each other and allies. But reactionary forces do also.
When I go to Spain and attempt to speak Spanish, they hear the traces of Portuguese pronunciation in my voice, and pity me. When I return to Portugal and attempt to speak Portuguese, they hear bits of Spanish pronunciation because I can't switch so easily, and they hate me even more than they did already.
The only rational response to it being 34C in Seville. And this is probably the coolest day this week.
Replying to
@lindsey@recurse.social +1 on “advise”. I know I’m an extreme point and I mostly didn’t do what academia wanted or expected me to do, but: I never told a student what to work on (only offered suggestions, emphasis on plural), and I never put my name on a paper of a grad student.
Three weeks after we were in the Longjing tea region of Hangzhou, the BBC posted an article on it.
Two days after we had jagodianzki (bilberry buns) in Kraków, the BBC posted an article on them (today, quoting bakers from Warszawa, where we were a week ago).
They're gaining on us!
This is for @gallais@piaille.fr.
In researching our upcoming trip to Poland, I have learned that "milk bar" did not originate in the writings of Anthony Burgess, but was a Polish term (bar mleczny) for an inexpensive restaurant serving homey food and, while a bit old-fashioned, many of them still survive and thrive. The concept travelled to the US and then to the UK.
Also, I have never seen so many menus with steak tartare on them.
We are just back from Seville but will be in Poland in ten days, and Hungary in four weeks. It's going to be hopeless to learn any of either language, but I might try to make some long-overdue progress on the orthography.
Thanks to an undergraduate degree in combinatorics and much use of it in my research career, I have a bit of a head start with Hungarian names.
This one is for @ccshan@woof.group.
My India travelogue is almost done (just one more day in Kerala to document) but, annoyingly, it is being interrupted by another trip to Asia. So there will be some live-tooting from Japan and China, not much, and then I will return home, post the last Kerala bits, and then whatever is interesting enough (and not time-sensitive) from this latest trip.
I didn’t expect to find the largest and best-stocked Thai grocery I have ever been in (I have not visited Thailand) just north of the Antwerp central train station, but there it was.
Replying to
@griotspeak@soc.mod-12.com @lindsey@recurse.social The flip side is that I lost students to other advisors who just handed them a project (or taught them a seminar course where they found one). It's good that you have ideas; I hope you find a match!
Replying to
@mattblaze@federate.social I think you should put everything behind a content warning that says "Another post by Matt Blaze".
Replying to
While I am writing on writing, I should mention two more recent contemporary novels. Susan Choi's "Flashlight" builds on the reputation she earned with her debut novel, more ambitious and wider in scope. It denies us a tidy ending but gives us a realistic one. Also true for Ocean Vuong's "The Emperor of Gladness", more mature than his debut. Both bode well for future works, and I recommend them.
I think there were more cormorants on this one "Chinese fishing net" on the west side of Vembanad Lake than I had ever seen in total in my life before. But we saw many more on our lake cruise, perched on piles and sticks, diving in after fish. And also egrets, herons, and other waterfowl.
Replying to
@joey As someone currently elbow-deep in tenure & promotion dossiers, I encourage you to do this.
Replying to
@oddhack@mstdn.social @flippac@types.pl @lindsey@recurse.social @griotspeak@soc.mod-12.com This may be heresy coming from a lifelong academic, but if someone can do PhD quality work more than once outside of a degree program, do they really need it?
Replying to
As it happens, I have one of these, from a year ago, but I also tried to generate one more recently, and it also has my old address on it. I put in a "Change Address" request to Finanças, and got back similar boilerplate, saying what was needed was a residency card with my current address on it. In other words, both AIMA and Finanças require something from each other to make an address change.
@kfitz It has gotten so bad! I think they deliberately made it worse to make their "AI" look better, but I haven't turned any of those features on (and I suspect that if I do, it would still be worse).
Replying to
@SteveBellovin @mattblaze "Photos may be processed by an algorithm different from the one in your phone".
Replying to
@chrisamaphone I feel sometimes like there should be a core undergraduate course in developing mental models (hopefully resulting in increased demand for them). I would criticize much pedagogy for failing to pay attention to them (was particularly obvious when OO was hot).
Replying to
The book more than holds up. It is stunning, maybe more so because I have the whole of the six-book trajectory with me (having just finished The Rose Field), but I have forgotten most of the specifics of the plot of the first trilogy. Now I have the next two to look forward to. And maybe then I can tolerate the Iliad again.
Replying to
I would have been trapped in this loop indefinitely, except that I managed to change my address at my in-person AIMA biometrics appointment (and, incredibly, was asked for no proof at all, though I had reams of it with me), and the card arrived at the right address (a minor miracle). People regularly report such Portuguese bureaucratic loops on social media. Some manage to cajol a human into giving them a temporary document that breaks the cycle.
Replying to
@csk@mathstodon.xyz (Also N is now living on Grace just south of Bloor and she might be willing to check it out for you, saving you the overhead of a possibly fruitless trip.)
(I have been trying for decades to write doggerel about Jorge Luis Borges to the tune of "Oranges Boranges" from the H.R. Pufnstuf TV show, but have utterly failed at it.)
I am not a fan of Side 2 of Bowie's "Low" (I'm on Team Side 1), but I had to play "Warszawa" on arriving in the city. In this year of mad travel, this is the first new country I've visited. (I expect there to be at least three more before the year is out.)
Google Maps on my oldest (bedside) phone has gotten confused. It is promoting the nearby Zahir Kebab to me, as it often does, but this time it has added the subtext “Premium z Łodzi”. I’ve been researching Poland, so that’s perhaps understandable (though it’s never happened before with other countries), but I’m not sure what “Premium in the boat” signifies.
Replying to
@csk@mathstodon.xyz So do you make periodic expeditions to Toronto's Koreatown to stock up? I remember one decent Korean grocery store on Krug east of the parkway.
Of course, it is even more hopeless where I am now.
Replying to
@csk@mathstodon.xyz I don't know Koreatown well any more (N and I lived there 1986-88) but when I go (most recently in 2024), I tend to hit PAT Central, which is a large supermarket at Bloor and Manning. You can just wander east on Bloor and poke your head into various smaller stores.
The Krug people might be willing to take a request, if you're enthusiastic enough and provide your contact information.