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alistaira

15 karma · joined January 2, 2020

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alistaira··on How many of the 170k English words do you know?
For those interested in the nature of the later, harder words but not willing to work through the earlier sets, here are the ones from my run:

Level 0: Core Basics Abundant, Baffle, Candid, Dwell, Emerge, Frugal, Generic, Hinder, Impartial, Jovial, Knack, Lucid, Meager, Naive, Obsolete, Peculiar, Quench, Refute, Seldom, Tedious, Unique, Valid, Wary, Yearn, Zeal, Adequate, Barren, Coarse, Diligent, Esteem, Fickle, Gloom, Hoax, Ignite, Jolt, Keen, Linger, Mend, Numb, Omit, Pledge, Quota, Rural, Soothe, Toxic, Urge, Vow, Witty, Yield.

Level 1: Intermediate Acumen, Benevolent, Complacent, Dilapidated, Eloquent, Fabricate, Gregarious, Hypothetical, Imminent, Juxtapose, Lethargic, Meticulous, Nostalgia, Oblivious, Pragmatic, Reiterate, Scrutinize, Tentative, Ubiquitous, Verbose, Wane, Aesthetic, Bolster, Candor, Defer, Elicit, Furtive, Glut, Heed, Impeccable, Lament, Modicum, Notorious, Opulent, Plausible, Resilient, Stagnant, Trivial, Viable, Zenith.

Level 2: Advanced Alleviate, Breviary, Cacophony, Deferential, Ephemeral, Fastidious, Garrulous, Harangue, Iconoclast, Juggernaut, Laconic, Magnanimous, Nefarious, Obsequious, Paradigm, Recalcitrant, Sanguine, Taciturn, Ubiquity, Vacillate, Winsome, Zephyr, Abase, Banal, Capricious, Debilitate, Ebullient, Facetious, Gaikwar, Hackneyed, Idiosyncrasy, Jargon, Kindle, Labyrinth, Maverick, Narcissism, Ostracize, Palliate, Quagmire, Rancorous, Sagacity, Tantamount.

Level 3: Expert Abstemious, Bellicose, Chicanery, Deleterious, Enervate, Fatuous, Gauche, Hegemony, Inculcate, Jejune, Kowtow, Lugubrious, Mawkish, Nonsectarian, Obdurate, Pernicious, Quotidian, Recapitulate, Supercilious, Tempestuous, Unctuous, Vehement, Winnow, Xenophobe, Ziggurat, Acquiesce, Bombastic, Circumlocution, Desultory, Equinox, Fiduciary, Gerrymandering, Hubris, Incognito, Kinetic, Loquacious, Metamorphosis, Nihilism, Orthography, Precipitous, Quasar, Reparation, Soliloquy.

Level 4: Grandmaster (The Obscure) Accoutrement, Brobdingnagian, Crepuscular, Defenestrate, Equanimity, Flibbertigibbet, Grandiloquent, Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, Ineffable, Jingoism, Kerfuffle, Logorrhea, Mellifluous, Obfuscate, Panacea, Quixotic, Rococo, Sesquipedalian, Tergiversate, Ultracrepidarian, Vicissitude, Weltschmerz, Xeric, Yclept, Zeitgeist, Absquatulate, Bumbershoot, Callipygian, Dord, Ergophobia, Fartlek, Gobbledygook, Houghmagandy, Interrobang, Kakistocracy, Lollygag, Mumpsimus, Nudiustertian, Omphaloskepsis, Pogonotrophy, Quire, Ratoon, Snollygoster, Tittynope, Ucalegon, Vagitus, Widdershins, Xylopolist, Yarborough, Zenzizenzizenzic.

alistaira··on Absurd Trolley Problems
The point of the hypothetical situation is to look at a 'pure' case without external consideration in order to get to the crux of the problem.

Consideration of legal implications is missing the point of the exercise.

alistaira··on Storing State in the URL
You mean like Amazon?
alistaira··on Storing State in the URL
I'd be inclined to ask a second question in addition to "What happens when you press refresh?":-

What happens when the user presses BACK.

Pagination seems acceptable, but if I go to a list page, then apply 3 filters, do I have to click "back" 3 times to leave the page? Do you just overwrite the history to allow the described 'refresh recovery' without clogging the history? Do you "debounce" sessions of filter changes within a period of time into a single "back"?

alistaira··on I resigned from Twitter
My unqualified guess is that it makes time to ensure the full story and context to be digested by traders. If the story is emerging during trading, there is risk of more volatility / unpredictability as the fastest information may not be the most complete.
alistaira··on ‘Havana syndrome’ and the mystery of the microwaves
For the second, I get the impression that this is less of a case of a building being bathed in EM radiation (as a jammer might) but (excuse my unscientific attempt at this description) several beams of EM radiation creating a superposition at their point of intersection in 3D space.

The latter case would be harder to triangulate as you'd need to have multiple detectors positioned along each beam line in order to determine the range of each emitter.

alistaira··on Bitwarden Send - A trusted way to securely share information with anyone
Interesting project! Great to see new features coming out of BitWarden.

One concern that is going to put me off using the feature though is that sharing my password manager account email with the person I've sent the file/text to seems unnecessary.

Not everyone we share data with (particularly in the world of messaging) should be privy to the sender's email address.

alistaira··on First person receives Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine in UK
If a person has no symptoms, I think it is reasonable to say they are "asymptomatic".

There is absolutely a difference between 'yet to have' and 'never will have' but I think it is potentially confusing to attempt to delineate between asymptomatic and "pre-symptomatic".

The main concern with messaging that causes confusion in this regard is that a superficial reading of "asymptomatic doesn't spread virus" would imply that if you aren't symptomatic, you aren't a danger.