linguistics major
EXPLAIN CHOMSKY TO ME OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU! DON'T DUMB IT DOWN INTO SOME VAGUE SHIT! EXPLAIN CHOMSKY TO ME RIGHT NOW OR I'LL LITERALLY FUCKING KILL YOu! WHAT THE FUCK IS A GENERATIVE GRAMMAR? WHAT THE FUCK ARE CONTEXT-FREE GRAMMARS? DON'T DUMB IT DOWN OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU
I didn't study linguistics but I covered this in Computer Science and Philosophy of Language a long time ago. Here's my half remembered explanation:
A generative grammar is a set of rules for generating valid sentences in a language. So you start with a single symbol , and applying the rules (which basically tell you how and when you can replace symbols with other symbols) generates new sequences of symbols. A given sequence of symbols is a valid sentence if and only if it can be generated from the starting symbol by a series of applications of the rules of the grammar.
Thanks for trying. Not entirely sure I really got that, but thanks nonetheless
every time I go to use one the sea of emotes swallows me whole and I drown in it's dark abyss.
not caring about emotes :maduro-coffee: using them in every comment :maduro-salute:
Can't see emotes on mobile
(Insert agony emoji here)
Although I will say reading the emotes also brings joy ngl
some of them also dont show up when i open the site on android firefox, although i can mostly guess what they are from the text
No stress, my boomer mindset just prefers apps to browser scrolling.
Like i said it is fun to read the emojis in text format as well!
People are, on the whole, pretty kind. Like if you say something controversial you can get a whole chain of dunking. But if you post on the megathread about having a shitty day and just wanting to eat cake and read a book, you'll get a bunch of people telling you they're sorry to hear that, cake is great, what're you reading, etc. It's now become genuinely weird for me to go on Reddit and see people try to make the most mean-spirited, supposedly "hilarious" replies to the most banal posts. I'm glad the vibe here is different.
I agree, except for some users who post the ML version of the Marine pasta and start listing their communist credentials.
I really like that the mega thread goes from sub to sub. Highlights subs I wouldn’t have joined and also provides some good leftist theory/takes. I appreciate that.
btw i love how you include cool facts in every megathread, always a joy to read
i accidentally misgendered someone in one of my recent shitposts and it was actually taken seriously by the mod team without being rude about it in any way, which ive never seen before anywhere
I tend to not really pay attention to user names or tags, so it's been a good reminder to me to be more intentional about being sure to use people's pronouns.
Going between here and discord where pronouns are hidden in your user roles is painful. Like, just put it right there where everyone can see them.
I use discord very rarely and each time it's a painful and infuriating experience. I swear it's the least user friendly software I've used in quite some time.
I hate how it defaults to like 3 forms of notification. I GET IT PEOPLE ARE TYPING THINGS.
It acts like I'm a Russian spy every time I log in, so that's a lengthy process. Then I'm usually going, ok I can hear everyone so I'm in the right place! ... but I can't see what they're seeing so I'm in but I'm not in. Great. Also it took me for fucking ever to figure out how to log out. I was expecting a button at a top corner, but no, you have to go looking for that shit. (And I know, I know I will never log off but discord kept giving me notifications when my friends were doing things and I felt like I was being spied upon. And yeah, it's the internet, we're constantly being spied on, but don't rub my face in it!)
I'm really bad about not reading the username of who i'm responding to because of permanent r*ddit-brain, and the simple addition of pronouns beside the user name has helped me remember that I am responding to a living-breathing human, even if they ARE wrong and stupid and I hate them.
This site has not once even approached the shit stank levels that is reddit
The reason it's worth fighting for change and pushing for folks to do better here is because there's so much potential.
Because this place is special and I know we can make it something awesome
I feel pretty safe asking questions here. I asked a question about challenging a student about trans athletes and no one jumped down my throat for poor understanding.
Also I assume the moderation is incredible because I don't browse that much anymore and I never see the transphobia or blatant shit stirrers. I know you can't stop everyone from seeing it, but I've never seen it so good shit mods.
People have been reporting more and more which helps alot as sometimes older threads that still get activity get missed
I do like the disabling of the down votes. I feel I can speak against the grain a bit more than I used to.
Yeah, there's something subtle, but substantial in the difference between (-15) "everybody hated this" versus (1) "nobody liked this". Doesn't default conversations in an antagonistic, bully-brigaded manner.
The funniest thing is that there's still an impulse to downvote shit, but the arrow flashes, and then nothing. The impotence of my disagreement with this anonymous online comment confronts me head on - the way I see it there's only 4 courses of action in this conjunctural event: 1) angry reply 2) hour long typing out of an effortpost before deleting it due to the obviously hysteric nature which had structured the whole pedantic, passive aggressive nature of the comment 3) post ppb and/or copypasta 4) if no ppb, there is only to reconcile oneself with one's impotence.
This is why I think the vestigial downvote thing is pretty rad
I know it's already been said but the emotes are fantastic, especially :volcel-judge:
Holy shit when did we get a volcel police badge? I thought it was always volcel vanguard?
The emote update this week. Also the badges are now in high resolution so you can read the text nicely
nah. was looking for it to pop as a mention.
maybe :volcel-police: would work, but im betting the linking breaks
I really like that “the dunk tank” is there and categorized as such, so I’m not seeing a dozen boomer-tier memes or shit takes on main
One thing I really like about this site is that when someone posts about bad shit that's happened in their life, or that they're struggling mentally, or even if they've had some personal achievement, the responses all feel really sincerely supportive
On reddit, the responses to that sort of post all felt so fucking performative and patronising, like just signalling to everyone "look what a caring person I am" while giving zero actual shits about the person on the other end
Maybe it's the smaller, more personal community or maybe it's just because people here give more of a shit than r*dditors, but it's cool
I love how comments on higher-level comments are given different colors. There's a few design-things like that, but in general, I mean....dude, almost everything seems to be discussed under the context of fuck capitalism. It's refreshing. People seem genuine in wanting to share info. And the emojis remind me of theshroomery (sketchy politics at times, but great if you're into psychedelics) which is cool.
The moderation is really good. Like, seemingly every leftist community on social media is ready to slip into transphobia, misogyny, SWERFism etc. at a moment's notice but here, the mods actually take a stand against reaction. I seriously can't think of many left web communities that manage to take the correct line on social issues, so this is quite an achievement. It's also the only reason I even dared to make an account on here lol
