Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category
March 28, 2020
(There will be mansex, talked about in blunt language and with racy (though not actually X-rated) images; not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)
From The Economist‘s 2/20/20 issue on-line, in the Science and Technology section, “Do not rely on facial expressions for how people are feeling: A smile does not always mean someone is happy” (in print on 2/22, as “Face blind: Facial expressions are not usually a reliable guide to how people feel”):
(#1) Michael Haddad illustration for the piece; interpret this!
(I have a long-standing interest in facial expressions in two contexts: during mansex, and in cruising for sex beween men. In both, I’ve noted how difficult it is to interpret the emotional content of facial expressions — whether as emotional state of the source or as emotional state perceived by an audience. Meanwhile, the expression itself just is; it’s a gesture, and that’s all. It’s just stuff, as I’m fond of saying.)
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Posted in Facial expressions, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, It's Just Stuff, Technology | 1 Comment »
July 15, 2019
Swissies are everywhere (AMZ posting of 5/19/17, “Marco, Marco, Marco”). Even in Palo Alto, Tall Tree City, where the Swiss flag flies proudly — Einer für alle, alle für einen; Un pour tous, tous pour un; Uno per tutti, tutti per uno; In per tuts, tuts per in — a mere five blocks from the Swiss Mammoth Center on Ramona Street:
(#1) The Swissies are coming, the Swissies are coming! 675 Forest Ave. in Palo Alto, the long arm of Swiss telecom in Santa Clara County
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Posted in Palo Alto, Switzerland and Swiss things, Technology, Zwickys | Leave a Comment »
April 13, 2019
[The body of this posting vanished from WordPress on 4/23/19. Below is a summary of its content, without most of the original bells and whistles; when I finished the 4/13/19 posting, I deleted the files of background material for it, and I no longer have the heart to reconstruct it all. (By some software freak, the comments from the original posting were preserved.)
If you’re looking for my posting about Louis Flint Ceci and Magrittean disavowals, that’s “A Ceci disavowal” at:
https://arnoldzwicky.org/2019/04/24/a-ceci-disavowal/ ]
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Posted in Art, Books, Formulaic language, Gaming, Language play, Metaphor, Quotation, Snowclones, Technology, Writers | 4 Comments »
November 1, 2018
The Scenes From a Multiverse of 10/9, entitled #NOTALLPLACES:
A riff on Michael Schur’s sitcom The Good Place, with Kristen Bell (as Eleanor, apparently sent wrongly to the place after her deathGood Plae modality is harsh.) and Ted Danson (as Michael, the designer of the place). Also a comment on social media (Twitter vs. Facebook). And of course on the nature of reality and our perceptions of it.
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Posted in Euphemism, Language and religion, Linguistics in the comics, Modality, Movies and tv, Philosophy, Semantics, Taboo language and slurs, Technology | Leave a Comment »
October 24, 2018
In this morning’s comics feed: a Zippy with the slogan “Kindness, Acceptance, Inclusion”; a Bizarro with a Discomfort Control mechanism; and a Rhymes With Orange about the facial recognition of a Mr. Banner. The first two can be understood at some level even if you don’t get the cultural references involved (though they’re much more entertaining if you do), but the third is probably just incomprehensible if you don’t recognize Mr. Banner.
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Posted in Acronyms, Holidays, Language and religion, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Science, Technology | 1 Comment »
September 27, 2018
The Palo Alto Medical Foundation periodically revises the format for its on-line statements, including after visit summaries to its physicians and labs. As far as I can tell, every such software upgrade arrives with bugs, sometimes spectacular ones; this is, after, the way of software the world over.
So it was with recent after visit summaries, in which my name at the top was given as
Dr. Zwicky M. Zwicky
I have an idea about how this might have come about. Probably not verifable, since it involves decisions by two different people, neither of whom could easily be identified.
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Posted in Address terms, Errors, Technology | 1 Comment »
June 23, 2018
This morning’s name: the verb pixelate. Based on the noun pixel, with at least three senses, in NOAD:
verb pixelate (also pixellate or pixilate): [with object] [a] divide (an image) into pixels, typically for display or storage in a digital format. [b] (be pixelated) (of an image on a computer screen or other display) be enlarged so far that the viewer sees the individual pixels that form the image, the enlargement having reached the point at which no further detail can be resolved. [c] display an image of (someone or something) on television as a small number of large pixels, typically in order to disguise someone’s identity.
It’s sense c that I’m especially interested in here. That, and the ambiguity of
/ˈpɪksəletəd/
between pixelated, the PST/PSP of this V, and a very different Adj pixilated.
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Posted in Ambiguity, Language and food, Language and the body, Phallicity, Signs and symbols, Technology | 1 Comment »
