1

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Eurovision

« on: May 26, 2023, 06:02:44 PM »

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65722833

Don’t all rush at once

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Eurovision

« on: May 25, 2023, 01:03:45 PM »

What was I trying to do

Yes, that is the question I asked you. I'd be very keen to hear your answer.

My original post was about the two things I said it was I wasn't "trying" to do anything in that post other that post a video which some people might find entertaining and relay the information the lady at church told me regarding what the song was actually about. My subsequent posts were responding to what I regarded as xasop's bizarre focus on a minutiae of fact which I think we all agree doesn't actually matter. I didn't regard it as a particularly serious exchange, I thought he was just being silly.

It was pointless, inconsequential, and unimportant, and therefore you fought back.

I thought it was strange of xasop to obsess over that point. I'm not sure I "fought back". I pretty much immediately conceded that what I said was an assumption and in subsequent posts I explained why I made that assumption. I still believe my assumption was most likely to be correct, but I think we all agree that it doesn't really matter any way and it's inconsequential either way to my OP in this exchange. Which is why your suggestion that I was intending to mislead is bizarre. To what end? It doesn't matter.

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Eurovision

« on: May 25, 2023, 08:51:24 AM »

Many of those of us with a sceptical eye will take an issue with you so casually planting disinformation and then insisting "it doesn't matter" when it's highlighted.

Your link says that disinformation is "false information which is deliberately intended to mislead".
You're suggesting I was intending to mislead? Really? What was I trying to do, trick you into thinking this bloke doesn't speak Finish when he actually does?
At worst this was misinformation and none of us actually know if it was even that.

The normal course of action, since you agree the issue is unimportant, would be to say "oh, huh, yeah, my bad, I don't actually know one way or another" and to move on.

Well. I conceded it was an assumption. I explained the reasons I'd made that assumption. I even went so far, on cross-examination, to look up the dude's LinkedIn profile. Maybe he's Finnish or knows Finnish. It appears not, so I suspect my assumption was correct. But sure, I don't know for a fact. So yeah, my bad, I don't actually know one way or another.

Why do you have to fight back, AATW? Where is this drive coming from? Explain your intentions, so I do not have to speculate about them.

It just felt like pointless pedantry. We all agree this doesn't really matter. In general I do think that truth matters, but there's no consequence here.
If the Covid vaccines are deadly poison, that matters. If the 2020 US election was rigged, that matters. The truth about these things matters, and disinformation about them matters too. There are consequences. With this...I mean, we all agree this isn't important, right? The point of my post was "didn't this BSL interpreter do a great job?" and "oh by the way, a lady at church who knows BSL told me what the song was about and it's this". Picking up on exactly how the BSL dude was BSLing - whether he was translating straight from Finnish or whether he had a translation in front of him and was using that - felt like a bizarre thing to focus on. As we all agree: it doesn't matter.
And don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of pedantry in general. But sometimes - like on this occasion - it feels a bit pointless. I'm a bit of a Grammar Nazi, and I enjoy muttering "fewer" under my breath as much as the next man, when people use "less" incorrectly. But, really, I don't care about that one. It doesn't matter. It's perfectly clear what is meant by "6 items or less". Real hard liners will say it DOES matter, but they're being prescriptive rather than descriptive about language which feels pointless. This felt pointless too. I actually thought xasop was trolling me.

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Eurovision

« on: May 24, 2023, 09:43:24 AM »

Exactly. I'm glad we agree

That was my point all along. I wanted to understand why you had made a claim about which you had no information that was irrelevant in the first place.

I think a better question would be why you are obsessing over this tiny detail when you've just agreed it doesn't matter.
I simply repeated what the lady at church told me, but the main points of my OP were:

1) Isn't this BSL interpreter doing a brilliant job?
2) As he's signing in BSL, a friend of mine who understands it told me what this song is actually about.

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Eurovision

« on: May 23, 2023, 04:38:37 PM »

but it doesn't make any difference whether he is interpreting from English or Finnish

Exactly. I'm glad we agree

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Eurovision

« on: May 23, 2023, 04:32:10 PM »

I'm pretty sure it's this dude

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianjbailey/?originalSubdomain=uk

He neglects to mention his ability to speak Finnish in his profile.

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Eurovision

« on: May 23, 2023, 04:08:07 PM »

I think it's reasonable to assume that a BBC BSL signer doesn't speak Finnish.

Why is it reasonable to assume that someone whose job it is to interpret between languages doesn't speak one specific language?

Because that isn't his job. He works for the BBC whose main output is in English. So his job is to translate from English into BSL.
And given that less than 0.1% of the world's population speak Finnish, it is statistically improbable that he is one of them.
Are you just trying to annoy me?
(You are doing reasonably well if so, to be fair)

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Eurovision

« on: May 23, 2023, 03:52:46 PM »

In the sense that the Finish original was translated into English and the bloke was doing BSL based on that.

But how can you or your church buddy know that's what he's doing just from watching it?

Because she understood what he was signing. I think it's reasonable to assume that a BBC BSL signer doesn't speak Finnish.
So he must have been signing from some translated version of the lyrics, otherwise how would he know what to sign?

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Eurovision

« on: May 23, 2023, 03:33:26 PM »

Apparently that dude is signing an English translation of the song.

In what sense is it an English translation?

In the sense that the Finish original was translated into English and the bloke was doing BSL based on that. I suspect you knew exactly what I meant.
Do you and Pete have matching "You don't have to be a pedantic arse to be a TFES mod, but it helps" signs on your walls?

Apparently it’s about leaving work on Friday, feeling a bit silly at the pub and then loosening up after a few drinks. Or something

The Rebecca Black of Finland?

Ha. You gotta get down on Friday, to be fair.

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Eurovision

« on: May 23, 2023, 06:59:23 AM »

The BBC sign language interpreter understood the assignment



Spoke to a lady at church who works with deaf children and therefore knows BSL. Apparently that dude is signing an English translation of the song. So she could understand it and told me what the song is actually about.
Apparently it’s about leaving work on Friday, feeling a bit silly at the pub and then loosening up after a few drinks. Or something

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 20, 2023, 06:30:30 PM »

While it's still too early to take polls seriously, the fact that Biden is currently neck and neck with Trump in general election polls shows that he does in fact stand a chance of winning. The absolute biggest mistake Democrats can make in 2024 is the one they made in 2016: that the Democrat winning the election is a foregone conclusion. The absolute certainty of Trump being unelectable is what made him electable.

I heard that there was a significant “anyone but Clinton” vote. The Democrats can’t put up someone else who will evoke that response, and I fear Biden is one such person.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Trump

« on: May 20, 2023, 04:44:52 PM »

Plus he has little chance of winning.

That's what we thought in 2016.  If there is one thing that we've learned from history is that we never learn from history.

One would think that after his actions after the election he lost he’d basically be unelectable. But people are famously idiots and I’m starting to worry he could get in again, especially if the alternative is Biden again

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Ether vs. Rocketship Earth

« on: May 18, 2023, 02:56:07 PM »

There is no force between the earth and the ball, save the aether (if in what is commonly known as the "air" or water, the two principle fluids).

But the Canvendish experiment and the Schiehallion experiment (https://flatearth.ws/schiehallion) both demonstrate that masses attract.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Ether vs. Rocketship Earth

« on: May 18, 2023, 02:18:12 PM »

When things fall, they are universally described to be going "downwards," (unless you ask AATW...)

Do what? Of course things fall downwards. So long as we understand that "downwards" is a relative term, like left and right.
My question is what in your model means that when you release an object it moves downwards rather than upwards or to the side.
You said "aether is a fluid and it acts differently on objects due to their density and mass in different locations, due to the nature of aether"
I mean, honestly, that sounds like word salad to me. But you mention density. A ball is more dense than the air below it, but it's more dense than the air beside it and above it too. So why does it go down? RE's claim is that it's because there's a force acting between the ball and the earth. And the direction of that force is towards the centre of gravity. Which, from any point on the earth's surface, is "downwards"

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Ether vs. Rocketship Earth

« on: May 18, 2023, 11:58:05 AM »

Things fall as they do because the aether is a fluid and it acts differently on objects due to their density and mass in different locations, due to the nature of aether, not the nature of the objects.

And what's your evidence for any of that?

claiming that gravity is directly proportional to mass (therefore, the actual "measure" of the force of gravity would never vary at all if said where found at a various locations)

Why wouldn't it? The force of gravity is proportional to mass and the distance between the centre of gravity of two objects. But the earth isn't perfectly spherical and not of uniform density, so that affects the strength of gravity in different locations. You know they use that to identify things like fossil fuel deposits under the earth?

Why do you think the existence of gravity needs "justifying"?

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Arts & Entertainment / Re: Eurovision

« on: May 18, 2023, 10:49:42 AM »

Boo.

https://metro.co.uk/2023/05/18/eurovision-abba-wont-perform-despite-sweden-hosting-on-50th-anniversary-18803297/

I'd probably have watched if they had. They should do one last tour, they could charge what they liked. There's the show in London with "ABBAtars", I'm sure it's good but it's stupidly expensive given that it's not actually them.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Ether vs. Rocketship Earth

« on: May 18, 2023, 09:43:36 AM »

all the globe Earth / Heliocentric model have are interpretations and assumptions

Well that's not true. We have people in the ISS orbiting the earth as we speak, directly observing it.
We have photos of the globe earth, we have timelapse videos made from those photos showing the earth rotating in space.
Now, you can call all that fake if you want, but that's just argument from incredulity.

AllAroundTheWorld (nice troll name, by the way), go back to your Electronic Arts game and your lollipops.

QED. Just calling everything which doesn't fit your worldview as fake.
You can prove anything to yourself if you do that.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Ether vs. Rocketship Earth

« on: May 18, 2023, 09:38:12 AM »

all the globe Earth / Heliocentric model have are interpretations and assumptions

Well that's not true. We have people in the ISS orbiting the earth as we speak, directly observing it.
We have photos of the globe earth, we have timelapse videos made from those photos showing the earth rotating in space.
Now, you can call all that fake if you want, but that's just argument from incredulity.

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Ether vs. Rocketship Earth

« on: May 18, 2023, 08:13:03 AM »

Ok, let's imagine for a second that there were no stars and no planets. How would you then pretend to prove that the Earth is a spinning ball planet orbiting around the Sun, without assuming that the Sun is a space ball bigger than Earth, millions of miles away?

I'd suggest that ships disappearing below the horizon as they sail out to sea and the bottom of distant landmarks or land masses being hidden below the horizon, and the amount they're hidden increasing with distance, is a pretty good start. EA is the explanation given here, but it does require an explanation. If the earth is flat then why can't you see the rest of the objects?

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Flat Earth Theory / Re: The Ether vs. Rocketship Earth

« on: May 17, 2023, 09:20:47 AM »

It is basically the same thing (minus the vertical vector)

But...the vertical vector IS what UA claims. I'd suggest that's a pretty fundamental difference.