Just an ordinary myopic internet enjoyer.

Can also be found at lemmy.dbzer0, lemmy.world and Kbin.social.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • The alien impersonator was me all along!‌ HAHAHA!!!

    I mean, seriously, I am not a native English speaker, but even with my weird English accent, it only became weirder if I try to speak fast while keeping the emphasis on that ‘t’ at the end of “hot”. My native accent also probably lends to that glottal stop taking over the ‘t’ and merging it with the upcoming ‘p’ sound. It also helps that the two sounds (glottal stop and the bilabial ‘p’) are on opposite sides of my mouth, so I‌ can quickly sound them in succession. The end result sounded to me like an exaggerated “posh British” rendition, as if the alien watched way too much‌ BBC before invading Earth.

    It just sounded way weirder than I otherwise would be. I can’t really describe it.





  • “It is still being studied… considering that we (have) probably the only major highway in the world where there are bicycles,” Artes said in Filipino.

    I think EDSA is a stroad. It is pretty much hostile to both pedestrians and cyclists, which can be taken as a reason to double-down on making it more hostile to pedestrians and cyclists.

    If the bike lane were to be removed, an alternate one should be made available if the government is really serious about encouraging cycling in Metro Manila. The same is true for pedestrians, too. I am not really holding my breath for that though. Such infrastructure, like EDSA’s bike lane, always seems to be an afterthought, as if just putting a bike lane would ensure its use.



  • Ah, my bad. I didn’t mean to imply that it being done in a religious context invalidates it, just that the religious context would inform us more about the man’s intent and whether or not they’d continue on doing so regardless of the result.

    I used the term “pledge” earlier, but maybe it’s better to use the word “vow” to refer this. The term in Filipino is “panata” (which wiktionary translates to “vow”). It usually isn’t as dramatic as this, however. And as far as I’ve observed, a lot would do these vows after they deem their prayers to have been heard (usually recovery from illness or accidents, or recovery from financial ruin), and thereafter, no matter what, they’d try to fulfill their vows, whether that’d be a crucifixion reenactment, or attending processions, or even just as simple as foregoing alcohol or vices or letting their hair grow.


    edit:

    I must clarify my position here, I‌ guess. I am neither in favor nor against the practice. But having grown up in the country where these practices occur, I just felt I have to clarify some things. Personally? I don’t mind. They’re doing these things with good intentions, and they’re hurting no one. As far as I know, they don’t force anyone to join them, but rather, make sure that those who are following their footsteps are sure they want to.


  • I agree with your sentiment, but I felt compelled to comment on one crucial element here: what he has been doing isn’t a protest, but some form of a religious pledge. It just so happened that this year, he’s praying for world peace. This is akin to some traditions in India and other parts where self-flagellation is part of religious ritual, but only for those who pledge themselves to it. It’s touched upon in the article, but he’s been doing it since the 1980’s as thanksgiving for his survival in an accident. Some people just do it once, but some devote their lives to it, and it seems to me that he’s one of the latter.

    Whether or not his actions will lead to results doesn’t matter, as far as I see it. He’s already devoted to the bit, and only old age (and poor health) will likely stop him.


  • Oh, yeah! It can vary from place to place and even from school to school even in the same place! There were even people saying that they can guess from which school someone graduated from based on how they do cursive. I think that’s just nuts.

    My cursive nowadays is just reserved for when I‌ really need to write fast, and would tend towards some kind of a personal shorthand than any sort of legibility. 😅


  • What helped me get back to block print after six years of being required to write cursive is a shop/engineering drawing class that required us to use block print for our plates.

    Our teacher in that subject taught us how to do block print, paying attention to each and every stroke and in what order we write them. I remember one of our first handful of plates just being the alphabet and some of the often used symbols. That helped us with our penmanship, without shaming anyone who might have had developed bad habits from previous years. Everyone is required to do it, so there’s no shame in sucking at it.




  • IIRC, cursive capital Q is supposed to start way down, so that it’d look like an O with a broken infinity symbol in its butt, like this:

    The direction of the strokes in the image is not how I learned it, though. Stroke 1 for the capital starts where stroke 2 starts, but going clockwise until just past where it starts, then smoothly start the second stroke (same direction as shown in the image).

    However, I can see how it can look like a more flowy 2 and how people can say “yeah, that’s a capital Q.” Heck, cursive lowercase r barely looks like an r but people kinda get it.


  • Lol~‌ Thanks.

    I grew up at a time when cursive is a requirement–not just for one class, but for all classes in primary school. I remember our teachers checking our notebooks and making comments on our handwriting. All our compositions and essays were required to be in cursive, and they check for penmanship, keeping margins and all that. It was a whole lot of effort for something that I rarely get to use in higher levels. I switched to print in HS, when cursive is no longer required.



  • megane-kun@lemm.eetoxkcd@lemmy.worldxkcd #2912: Cursive Letters
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    3 months ago

    You got me writing ‘vacuum’ and ‘anniversary’ in cursive, and got so conscious about how I write it that my speed crawled to a stop and my handwriting got even worse than what I started with, lol!

    In casual writing, I separate out v, w and other letters that are trickier to write in full cursive. Same goes with t, i, j so that I can do the crosses and dots before moving on.

    All those seems to have done the job of making my cursive a bit easier to read. All hell breaks loose when I need to write really fast though.


    EDIT: stupid formatting, lol!


  • They won’t be content with an island or two. They are to make the entire sea under their control for their own strategic reasons: securing their own ports and keeping enemies (practically everyone but themselves) out.

    Ultimately, their aim is to break the cordon that is formed by Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia so that they can project power in the Pacific.

    Perhaps another goal is to turn us (the island nations I just mentioned) into vassal states (with the exception of Taiwan which they will [re]take outright). That way, they’d have a buffer against anyone who wants to take them on.