35152
#ielts #toefl #gre #english_vocabulary #english
Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
fix (1)
to influence the result of a contest, a vote, or a race by illegal or unethical means
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
queue up
If you queue up, you join a line of people waiting for their turn to do something.
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Language Log
DJT nearly (or barely?) escaped death . . .
Dan Halpern, "Trump’s charm offensive in the Bronx", The Economist 5/29/2024:
As the former president glowered and dozed through his criminal trial a few miles south in lower Manhattan, the Trump campaign emails had been growing weirder and weirder. Their subject lines were an anthology of cryptic clickbait. “I stormed out of court!” read one (he didn’t). “I nearly escaped death,” said another (if he had, then grammatically speaking he would be dead, which he pretty clearly wasn’t).
Linguistic analysis of "proximatives" (or "approximatives") like English nearly, almost, barely, …. has been going on for a while. There's a clear and interesting account of one relevant aspect in Larry Horn's 2017 chapter "Almost et al.: Scalar Adverbs Revisited" (unfortunately behind a stiff paywall):
The division of labor between semantic and pragmatic aspects of the almost, barely, and other proximatives has been a bone of contention ever since Sadock’s (1981) proposal that a almost <miϕ"> ’d is true if a in fact <miϕ"> ’d: Chris almost died entails that Chris approached dying while merely conversationally implicating that Chris didn’t die. Given that barely <miϕ"> = almost not <miϕ">, Dana barely survived would likewise on the same account implicate, not entail, that Dana in fact survived. While additional support has been marshaled for this “radical pragmatic” line, one persistent problem acknowledged by Sadock and not dispelled since is the resistance of the almost <miϕ"> → not <miϕ"> implication to cancelation. New evidence for and against Sadock’s approach and competing analyses of the proximatives is considered and a solution presented.
Presumably the author of the Trump campaign email was subject to the human tendency to jump to a contextually plausible interpretation, as often seen in misnegations and inversions of scalar implicatures (as in this post).
The obligatory screenshot (of the paragraph in The Economist's article):
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/NearlyEscapedDeath.png
[h/t Philip Taylor]
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Idiom of the Day
in the next breath
(especially when speaking) In or at the very next moment or opportunity; in a very short space of time. Watch the video
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
pack up (2)
If something packs up, it stops working and needs to be fixed.
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are- um
are the best- that- that- that's probably the best
envisioning of a future AI.
Musk lays out the standard benign (= space socialism) scenario, and hints at the negative (= extermination of humans?) scenario.
But there's a third option for the future, anyhow the next bit of it — namely another "AI Winter" cycle, as Wikipedia explains:
In the history of artificial intelligence, an AI winter is a period of reduced funding and interest in artificial intelligence research. The field has experienced several hype cycles, followed by disappointment and criticism, followed by funding cuts, followed by renewed interest years or even decades later.
The term first appeared in 1984 as the topic of a public debate at the annual meeting of AAAI (then called the "American Association of Artificial Intelligence"). Roger Schank and Marvin Minsky—two leading AI researchers who experienced the "winter" of the 1970s—warned the business community that enthusiasm for AI had spiraled out of control in the 1980s and that disappointment would certainly follow. They described a chain reaction, similar to a "nuclear winter", that would begin with pessimism in the AI community, followed by pessimism in the press, followed by a severe cutback in funding, followed by the end of serious research. Three years later the billion-dollar AI industry began to collapse.
Is this plausible? Some pundits think so — a small sample:
Christopher Mims, "The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam: The pace of innovation in AI is slowing, its usefulness is limited, and the cost of running it remains exorbitant", WSJ 5/31/2024
Kevin Okemwa, "Is AI all a fad? A new report suggests very few people are using tools like ChatGPT and the hype is being misconstrued for actual public interest", Windows Central 5/29/2024
Mark Sullivan, "Why we may be headed for a generative AI winter: As the generative AI buzz fades, its positive effects seem spotty and anecdotal. Meanwhile, some execs may wonder if all these tools and products are really making things better.", Fast Company 4/25/2024
And — as always, independent of AI hopes and hypes — some people are predicting an economic boom, and others an economic crash. I have near-zero competence to evaluate economic predictions.
With respect to the technical side of (what has come to be called) AI, I see a lot of progress, many near-term opportunities, and also a lot of hype. When it comes to the socio-economic effects, I'm inclined to think that those have been exaggerated, at least for the near term, but I could be wrong.
As for Banksian space socialism, I read Consider Phlebas when it came out in 1987, and I've been an Iain Banks fan ever since. The Culture's universe is attractive and emotionally plausible, though there's a fair amount of problematic physics, and the time scale of the envisioned AI developments might be centuries or millennia rather than decades. In any case, it seems clear that Banks' vision has been motivating Elon Musk since he was a student — though how that turns into support for various would-be authoritarians is puzzling. Maybe that limbic system he mentions?
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Word of the Day
apodal
Definition: (adjective) Having no limbs, feet, or footlike appendages.
Synonyms: apodous.
Usage: Eels are apodal and well adapted for wriggling in the mud, through the crevices of reefs, and along rocky shores.
Discuss
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
juicy
very interesting in a scandalous or lurid way
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uflaged.
In the event of similar actions, appropriate countermeasures will be taken, said the Kinmen Defense Command.
On Saturday, a Chinese netizen posted a YouTube video holding the leaflets before putting them into a black cardboard box and wrapping it with a red ribbon. It then shows him driving to the coast, operating his drone over Erdan Island, and dropping the package onto the military base.
One flier read:
"Both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China, one Chinese nation. Taiwan independence is a dead end. Lai's Taiwan independence is a dead end."
liǎng'àn tóngshǔ yīgè Zhōngguó
两岸同属一个中国
tóngshǔ yīgè Zhōnghuá mínzú
同属一个中华民族
Táidú sǐlù yītiáo
台独死路一条
Lài shì Táidú, cǐ lù bùtōng！
赖氏台独，此路不通！
The other leaflet read:
“Using force to resist unification leads only to a dead end! Don’t sacrifice your life for Taiwan independence, do you understand?”
yǐ wǔ jù tǒng,
以武拒统，
zhǐyǒu sǐlù yītiáo!
只有死路一条！
bùyào wèi Táidú màimìng,
不要为台独卖命，
nǐmen shìfǒu míngbái?
你们是否明白？
I did not provide my own English translations because those given in Taiwan News and quoted above are adequate.
The whole thrust of this drone campaign against Taiwan is comparable to America flying a drone into rural Ontario and dropping pamphlets that exhort the Canadians, "Join with us or else!"
I won't comment further than to say that I don't think Taiwanese would find this kind of propaganda very persuasive. For example, the first line of the second leaflet threatens, “Using force to resist unification leads only to a dead end!" That's tantamount to saying, "We are going to force you to unify with us. If you resist, you will end up dead!" Selected readings
* "The umbrella in Hong Kong" (10/19/14) — cf. Sunflower Revolution in Taiwan during the spring of 2014
* "DON'T SPEAK THE ENEMY'S LANGUAGE!" (2/17/16)
* "Epochal Shanghai drone quote: 'Control your soul’s desire for freedom.'" (5/8/22)
* "Drones and passivity" (11/8/11) — and there are many other similar posts
[Thanks to AntC]
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Language Log
Headline puzzle of the day
Philip Taylor writes:
I have read this headline over and over again, and I still have absolutely no idea of what it means.
"Sir Patrick Vallance calls for net zero to have immediacy of search for Covid vaccine"
Can you do any better before reading the full article ?
Readers may want to try their luck before they hit "Read the rest of this entry" to see my guess.
Over-priming of internet-related concepts led me first to the idea that Sir Patrick wants Google to make it as easy for people to do web searches for "net zero" options as for Covid vaccination options. Which doesn't make sense…
When I clicked on the link, the subhed helped, though perhaps that's cheating: "Former chief scientific adviser backs Labour’s green energy plans and calls for urgent action to end the UK’s excessive carbon emissions".
Perhaps based on that hint, I re-conceptualized "search for Covid vaccine" as the rushed vaccine-development effort by pharmaceutical companies and various governmental agencies, early in the Covid pandemic. On that interpretation, the headline seems to mean that
* the search for a Covid vaccine was urgent and therefore had great "immediacy", motivating large-scale multi-directional efforts aimed at achieving short-term results, in months rather than years or decades;
* Sir Patrick asserts that "net zero", i.e. equality of reduced CO2 emissions and increased CO2 capture, should be seen as equally urgent, motivating equal socio-political "immediacy" over equally short time frames.
The article's first sentence supports this interpretation:
Sir Patrick Vallance has thrown his support behind Labour’s green energy proposals, warning that the race to net zero should be treated with the same immediacy as the search for a Covid vaccine…
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: strenuous
This word has appeared in 79 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
con
to persuade someone to do something in order to cheat them
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Language Log
LLMs for judicial interpretation of "ordinary meaning"
Kevin Newsom serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (of which there are a total of 13 across the country; since they are the next level below the Supreme Court, their practices and opinions are of great importance).
Judge Suggests Courts Should Consider Using "AI-Powered Large Language Models" in Interpreting "Ordinary Meaning", Eugene Volokh, The Volokh Conspiracy | 5.30.2024
That's from Judge Kevin Newsom's concurrence yesterday in Snell v. United Specialty Ins. Co.; the opinion is quite detailed and thoughtful, so people interested in the subject should read the whole thing. Here, though, is the introduction and the conclusion:
I concur in the Court's judgment and join its opinion in full. I write separately … simply to pull back the curtain on the process by which I thought through one of the issues in this case—and using my own experience here as backdrop, to make a modest proposal regarding courts' interpretations of the words and phrases used in legal instruments.
Here's the proposal, which I suspect many will reflexively condemn as heresy, but which I promise to unpack if given the chance: Those, like me, who believe that "ordinary meaning" is the foundational rule for the evaluation of legal texts should consider—consider—whether and how AI-powered large language models like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Anthropic's Claude might—might—inform the interpretive analysis. There, having thought the unthinkable, I've said the unsayable.
Now let me explain myself….
I think that LLMs have promise. At the very least, it no longer strikes me as ridiculous to think that an LLM like ChatGPT might have something useful to say about the common, everyday meaning of the words and phrases used in legal texts….
Let's see how this plays out in actual practice and in terms of precedent.
Selected readings
* "The non-culpability of ChatGPT in legal cases" (2/2/24)
* "AI percolates down through the legal system" (12/16/23) — with lengthy bibliography on AI, LLM, etc.
* "AI and the law" (10/15/23)
* "AI and the law, part 2" (10/19/23) — another long bibliography
[h.t. Kent McKeever]
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Word of the Day
Word of the Day: exhume
This word has appeared in 10 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year. Can you use it in a sentence?
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Language Log
Do linguistics still matter?
I've been scarce here for a while, due to moving (for a year, while the Quadrangle is reconstructed) and dealing with some overdue professional obligations. Time will continue to be tight for me, and it'll be a couple weeks before I have time for a Breakfast Experimenthttps://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/2122.png but I'll try to find time for a series of interesting short posts, starting with this one.
English nouns ending in -ics come in several morphosyntactic flavors, some of which act like plurals while others act like singulars.
Some are the plural of a singular noun in -ic, like comics or clinics: ("Comics are interesting").
Others are uncountable (treated as singular) nouns referring to fields of knowledge or practice, like physics or politics:("Politics is interesting").
And then there are plural nouns referring to activities, like calisthenics, where a corresponding nominal singular is non-existent or rare: ("Calisthenics are interesting") — but the same word-form can also be used with singular agreement for the associated discipline.
Despite these differences, it's surprisingly rare to see agreement errors for such words.
But here's one in an article title: "Do Linguistics Still Matter in the Age of Large Language Models?", Slator 5/28/2024.
Within the article, at least four uses of the word take the standard singular agreement:
* “Linguistics is no longer front and center in the way we build NLP systems,” they said.
* The authors identified six major facets where linguistics contributes to NLP
* Linguistics provides NLP with an appropriate metalanguage, serving as a common language for expressing observations and formulating explanations.
* “Linguistics offers NLP an important metalanguage for expressing observations, such as about model predictions, and hypothesizing explanations,” they said.
But there's one sentence with three conjoined uses of plural agreement:
”Linguistics help take a system’s fingerprint, evaluate a system in particular categories, and foster understanding of complex models by binding observed behavior to interpretable linguistic categories,” said the authors.
In fairness, that's exactly how the authors of the cited arXiv.org paper phrase it.
The author of the Slator article is based in Athens, Greece, which may explain and excuse the error in the title. And the lack of copy-editing can be seen in the first sentence:
"…Juri Opitz from the University of Zurich, along with Shira Wein and Nathan Schneider form Georgetown University…"
I'm not pointing an accusatory finger at any of the authors in question. I find it surprising that -ics disciplinary words are so rarely treated as plurals, and so these examples are interesting.
The obligatory screenshot:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/DoLinguisticsMatter.png
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Idiom of the Day
in the wild
In naturally occurring conditions or environments. Watch the video
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Language Log
Microsoft Copilot goes looking for an obscure sinograph
and finds it!
Back in early February, I asked the Lexicography at Wenlin Institute discussion group if they could help me find a rare Chinese character in Unicode, and I sent along a picture of the glyph. It won't show up in most browsers, but you can see the character here. You can also see it in the first item of the list of "Selected Readings" below. In the following post, when you see this symbol, , just imagine you're seeing this glyph.
On 2/27/04, Richard Warmington kindly responded as follows:
I asked Microsoft Copilot (a chatbot integrated into Microsoft's Edge browser), "Can you tell me anything about the Chinese character ?"
The answer began as follows: Certainly! The Chinese character is an intriguing one. Let’s explore it:
1. Character Details:
Character:
Unicode Code Point: U+24B25
[…] I will paste the rest of Copilot's answer below.
I don't know whether it's relevant to your interest in the character, but the character has 30 strokes and looking in Wenlin reveals that, if one considers only the "20,902 original Unicode Hanzi", there are only 22 characters with 30 or more strokes, and is not one of them. However, if one looks at "all 80,000+ Hanzi (new, rare, obscure …)", is indeed there, one of 305 characters with 30+ strokes.
Now, for what it's worth, here is the rest of Copilot's answer. For all I know, it may contain incorrect information. Certainly! The Chinese character is an intriguing one. Let’s explore it:
1. Character Details:
Character:
Unicode Code Point: U+24B25
Pronunciation: In Mandarin, it is pronounced as “yǎn.”
Meaning: The character represents a type of ancient musical instrument called a “stone chime” or “stone bell”. These chimes were made of stone and were used in ritual ceremonies during ancient times.
2. Historical Context:
– The character has its origins in ancient Chinese culture, particularly during the Shang Dynasty (around 1600–1046 BCE).
– Stone chimes were an essential part of ceremonial music and were often played during important rituals and events.
3. Unicode and Non-BMP Characters:
– Interestingly, is one of the non-BMP (Basic Multilingual Plane) characters in Unicode. These characters lie outside the standard BMP range and have higher code points.
– Non-BMP characters are less commonly used but still hold historical or cultural significance.
4. Standardization:
– The character is not part of the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters, which contains the most commonly used characters in modern Chinese.
– However, its inclusion in Unicode ensures that it is preserved for historical and scholarly purposes.
In summary, represents an ancient musical instrument, and its presence in Unicode reflects the rich cultural heritage of China.
[I omit the three Web links provided by Copilot as they appear to be generic rather than specific to the character in question.]
Thanks much to Rich Warmington for his reply, also for including the parts of Copilot's response that are useless and / or incorrect (supposed Mandarin pronunciation, musical instrument meaning, etc.). They humored me.
At least it knew how to find the Unicode number. Selected readings
* "Cucurbits and junk characters" (3/30/24)
* "Troublesome characters" (10/14/14)
* "Weird characters" (7/7/13)
* Victor H. Mair, "The Need for an Alphabetically Arranged General Usage Dictionary of Mandarin Chinese: A Review Article of Some Recent Dictionaries and Current Lexicographical Projects", Sino-Platonic Papers, 1 (Feb. 1986), 31 pages. (pdf)
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Word of the Day
marionette
Definition: (noun) A jointed puppet manipulated from above by strings or wires attached to its limbs.
Synonyms: puppet.
Usage: They appeared to me clear-cut and very small, with affected voices and stiff gestures, like a procession of rigid marionettes upon a toy stage.
Discuss
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Slang of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
aggro
aggressive, violent
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⚠️ Best of English Learning Channels
👉 @EnglishLearn
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Language Log
The future of AI
Elon Musk (a long-term Iain Banks fan) recently told the audience at VivaTech 2024 that AI will (probably) bring us Banksian "space socialism" — which Wikipedia explains this way:
The Culture is a society formed by various humanoid species and artificial intelligences about 9,000 years before the events of novels in the series. Since the majority of its biological population can have almost anything they want without the need to work, there is little need for laws or enforcement, and the culture is described by Banks as space socialism. It features a post-scarcity economy where technology is advanced to such a degree that all production is automated. Its members live mainly in spaceships and other off-planet constructs, because its founders wished to avoid the centralised political and corporate power-structures that planet-based economies foster. Most of the planning and administration is done by Minds, very advanced AIs.
If you have the patience for it, Elon offered an eloquent presentation of his Banksian vision in the cited VivaTech Q&A, starting at 33:27. Here's the question:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
hello Elon uh my name is Shan
I'm a student of University of ((…))
uh we found that a
lot of job
uh being replaced
by AI.
uh do you worry about your job
rep- being replaced
by AI?
if not why?
uh if your job
was uh replacing-
replaced by AI what would you do?
And here's the answer:
Your browser does not support the audio element.
Elon:
{laughs}
well uh I mean we do get into some existential questions here.
um in- in a benign scenario-
um in a benign scenario
uh we probably none of us will have a job.
um there will be- but in that benign scenario there will be Universal High income
uh not Universal basic income Universal High income there would be no shortage of goods or services.
um and I- I think the benign scenario is the most likely scenario
probably I don't know 80% likely if you ask- in- in my opinion.
um the- the the question will not be um
one of uh lacking goods or services you'll have um
everyone will- will have access to
as much in the way of goods and services as they- as they would like.
um the- the question will really be one of meaning
of how- how- if you-
if the computer can do and the robots can do everything better than you
uh then
uh what- does- does your life have meaning?
that's- that's really the- will be the question in the benign scenario
and in the negative scenario all- all bets are off, we're-
we're in deep trouble
um so
I- I do think there's-
there's perhaps- perhaps still a role for humans in this- in- in that we may give
AI meaning
um so if- if you think of the way that our brain works
we've got the limbic system which is our instincts
um and our feelings
and then we've got the cortex which is uh thinking and planning
um but the cortex is constantly trying to make the lyic system happy
so maybe that's how it'll be with AI which is the
AI is trying to make that cortex happy which is trying to make our lmic system happy
and maybe we are what give
the AI meaning or purpose you know some kind of-
yeah- I- so- but- but- I- I do think that long term in a benign scenario
any- any job that somebody does will be optional.
like if you- if you if you want to do a job as kind of like a hobby
you can do a job
but- but otherwise the- the AI and the robots will
provide any goods and services that you want.
Moderator:
okay so you see
there is a future
where no one will need to work
it will be just ((passions))
Elon:
I think so
uh prob- prob- that is the most likely outcome
um if- if- if people are
interested in reading some science fiction books
that- the most
accurate portrayal of
a future uh with um super intelligent AI is- um
was done by Iain Banks
uh the- the culture books
of Iain Banks
um [...]
Idiom of the Day
be still in the game
To remain a contender for success despite setbacks or difficulties. Watch the video
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
back up (1)
to make an extra copy of digital information on disc, flash drive, external hard drive, etc. in case the original data is lost
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Language Log
A one-sided war of words, via drone
Chinese drone drops propaganda leaflets on Taiwan's Kinmen
Kinmen Defense Command says fliers 'typical cognitive warfare trick'
By Keoni Everington, Taiwan News | May. 27, 2024
If you're curious about the Chinese original of "typical cognitive warfare trick", it is "diǎnxíng rènzhī cāozuò jìliǎng 典型認知操作伎倆", which might also be rendered as "typical cognitive operation tactic".
A note on the name of the islands: Kinmen (金門) means 'golden gate'. The name was first recorded in 1387 when the Hongwu Emperor appointed Zhou Dexing to administer the island and protect it from pirate attacks. The spelling "Kinmen" is a postal romanization. This transcription system is a variation of Nanking Syllabary, a system developed by Herbert Giles in 1892. It was adopted by the Chinese Imperial Post, part of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service led by Irishman Robert Hart. It is based on pronunciation in the Southern Mandarin, or Jianghuai, dialect. This dialect is widely spoken in Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, including the city of Nanjing. The Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs uses "Kinmen," while the United States Board on Geographic Names gives "Kinmen Island." Jinmen is the island's name both in Tongyong Pinyin and in Hanyu Pinyin. Chin-men / Chinmen is the Wade–Giles romanization of the county and island's name. Quemoy, pronounced /kɪˈmɔɪ/, is a name for the island in English and in other European languages. It may have originated as a Spanish or Portuguese transcription of the Zhangzhou Hokkien pronunciation of the name, Kim-mûi. This is the most common form of the islands' name in English. For example, works that deal with the First and Second Taiwan Strait Crises (the Quemoy Incident) and the 1960 United States presidential election debates when the islands received prominent worldwide news coverage all use the word Quemoy. In addition, the former National Kinmen Institute of Technology was renamed National Quemoy University in 2010. Kinmen scholar Wei Jian-feng advocates the use of the word Quemoy to better connect the island to "international society or achieve more recognition in the world". Kimoi is a Hokkien-derived spelling also used in the postal romanization system.
(Wikipedia)
Even as a rural Ohioan, I knew well the name of these little islands, Kinmen (just off the coast of Fujian / Fukien / Hokkien province of the PRC), because the communists kept shelling them — in an almost ritual fashion — every day at specified times already in the 50s, and later many young Taiwanese soldiers I knew were stationed on these islands.
Kinmen / Quemoy was often in the news, usually in tandem with Matsu, another group of nearby, scattered islands, as "Quemoy and Matsu". I could append an equally lengthy, detailed note about the name "Matsu", but in the interest of brevity, will refrain from doing so.
Now back to the article Chinese drone dropping propaganda leaflets on Kinmen, starting from the beginning.
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A video surfaced over the weekend showing a Chinese drone dropping a package containing propaganda fliers on one of Taiwan's outer islands, which the military deemed to be a “typical cognitive warfare trick.”
On Sunday (May 26), the Kinmen Defense Command said soldiers found a black cardboard box sealed with tape on a pier on Erdan Island in Kinmen County's Lieyu Township on Saturday morning (May 25). After opening the package, soldiers found leaflets with political slogans printed in simplified Chinese.
The Kinmen Defense Command assessed the object was dropped by a drone beyond visual range, with the intent to attract attention, stir debate, and increase social media traffic, a “typical cognitive warfare trick.” It said that important facilities and positions in the defense area are fully camo[...]
Word of the Day
parapraxis
Definition: (noun) A minor error, such as a slip of the tongue, thought to reveal a repressed motive.
Synonyms: slip-up, miscue, slip.
Usage: She thought her verbal blunder was just a silly mistake, but her friend, a Freud enthusiast, tried to convince her that the parapraxis actually had great significance.
Discuss
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Idiom of the Day
at a (single) stroke
All at once, with a single decisive or powerful action. Watch the video
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Phrasal Verb of the Day | Vocabulary | EnglishClub
feel for
If you feel for someone, you have sympathy for them or feel sad because they are suffering.
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Learn English Through Football Podcast: Do the Double (2024 Domestic Cup Finals)
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Language Log
We need libraries and we need computers
Both for the flow of and access to information.
More than a week ago, the Seattle Public Library system, a large and wonderful institution that thousands rely on every day, went offline after ransomware hackers attacked it.
"Why did ransomware hackers target Seattle Public Library?", GeekWire, by Taylor Soper (May 29, 2024)
This is an excellent article that explains why the criminals went after a library, how they carried out their dirty work, and what the authorities are doing to restore services.
The ransomware attack on Seattle Public Library this past weekend isn’t the first to target public library systems.
Libraries in Toronto and London also recently suffered major cybersecurity breaches, knocking out technical infrastructure and causing serious disruption to services that lasted several months.
Ransomware attacks rose significantly last year. They typically involve hackers who leverage credentials or exploit software vulnerabilities, make data inaccessible or threaten to leak it, then demand exorbitant payments from victims. Recent high-profile attacks have hit auction house Christie’s; healthcare systems including Ascension and Change Healthcare; and Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.
I well remember the shutdown of services at the British Library a month or two ago, because it directly affected my research on medieval Dunhuang documents (which I've written about on Language Log numerous times in the past) and the work of countless scholars and investigators in diverse fields who are spread all around the world.
Here's an onsite report from Denis Mair, who is an avid user and supporter of the Seattle Public Library:
The Seattle Public Library is now in it's ninth day without a computer system. The whole system was rendered inoperable by a ransomware attack. All branches were closed for almost a week (including Memorial Day). They reopened yesterday, but books are checked out by recording numbers in a notebook. There's no wifi in our local branch.
Is there nothing preemptive that can be done to stop the depredations of these scoundrels?
Selected readings
* "Attribution of the WannaCry ransomware to Chinese speakers" (5/26/17)
* "Not very difficult at all?" (5/14/17)
* "sitemeter = malware" (12/10/14)
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Word of the Day
juggernaut
Definition: (noun) An overwhelming, advancing force that crushes or seems to crush everything in its path.
Synonyms: steamroller.
Usage: It touched the ground just as it struck among them and mowed through them, a veritable juggernaut of destruction.
Discuss
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