Day: August 26, 2016

I am the first to say that Quora Inc are technically incompenent (in places; I was rather impressed with their recent post on CSS: Faster Paint Times by Michael Yong on Engineering at Quora).

But concretely, look more closely at the all time graph.

See how it starts back at 2013 or whenever? (I’m not checking, coz it’s slow.)

What’s the bet that the all time graph doesn’t start fetching data to plot from when you joined Quora, but from the start of time?

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Oh, and 1.6 million views is modest, is it?

I’ve got 300k.

I hate you.

(Checks profile)

Oh, you’re that anti-anti-smoking dude! In that case, I love you. Coz God knows, you’re not getting a whole lot of love on this forum…

Two people to date. Arguable in both cases.

The first has an obsession on answering any question about the Roman Empire by taking it to include Byzantium. “How did the Roman Empire fall in 476?” “IT DIDN’T!!!!”

One particular post of his, I commented that his argument was casuistry. And, yes, I teased him for his obsession. It escalated rather quickly (10 minutes, 2 or 3 back and forths), he told me to fuck off and stop trolling him, and next thing you know, “Your comment cannot be posted at this time.”

Yeah, that was more my bad. I was right to challenge him, but should have gone straight afterwards to posting my own answer (which I did). And I was wrong to tease him.

The second posted an answer to a question on common law relationships. The answer was narrowly US-focussed, the question was implicitly US-focussed, and I commented something like “that’s a US-specific answer to a US-specific question”. (And then added two sentences about how common law relationships are legally accepted in Australia.)

“Your comment cannot be posted at this time.”

That, I think, was more his bad than mine.

How do I pronounce eta?

In Modern Greek: /i/.

When reading Ancient Greek to myself, still /i/. I’m Greek, which makes me Reuchlinian, as Haggen Kennedy described: I pronounce Ancient Greek as Modern Greek to myself.

When reading Ancient Greek out loud, or describing Ancient Greek historically, I do not use whatever weird-ass Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching they have in these parts. I do what we reasonably think eta originally was: [ɛː].