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Cake day: June 6th, 2023

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  • Maybe it depends on what you watch. I use Youtube for music (only things that I search for) and sometimes live streams of an owl nest or something like that.

    If I stick to that, the recommendations are sort of OK. Usually stuff I watched before. Little to no clickbait or random topics.

    I clicked on one reaction video to a song I listened to just to see what would happen. The recommendations turned into like 90% reaction videos, plus a bunch of topics I’ve never shown any interest in. U.S. politics, the death penalty in Japan, gaming, Brexit, some Christian hymns, and brand new videos on random topics.




  • Gender often comes along with cases, which basically show you what role a noun is playing in a sentence. For example, is someone doing something, or is something being done to them. That lets you change the word order and keep the same meaning. You can emphasize different parts of the sentence, or just be more flexible with how you say things.

    Here’s an example from German:

    • Der Hund (subject) hat den Mann (object) gebissen. / The dog bit the man.
    • Den Mann (object) hat der Hund (subject) gebissen. / The dog bit the man. (Implied: That guy, and not someone else.)

    In English, the meaning changes when you change the word order.

    • The dog bit the man.
    • The man bit the dog.

    Languages do fine with genders and without. They’re just different systems that happened to evolve over time. And languages can even change. English used to have 3 genders, but they disappeared hundreds of years ago. Instead of having like 12 different ways to say “the,” we just have one, thanks to the Vikings and the Norman invaders.






  • Yeah, it really is. “I’ll have the pig, please” sounds kind of humorous. “I’ll have the pork chop” sounds totally normal and way more elegant.

    What really fascinates me is how English lost its cases and endings. Old English could outdo modern German, but then the Vikings came along, and later the French.

    I think most of the declinations were already gone by the time the Normans invaded though. Supposedly Old Norse and English were pretty mutually intelligible, so if you drop the pesky endings, you end up with something that everyone understands pretty well.


  • It can be pretty confounding, the words that look the same but are pronounced differently. Through, though, thorough, tough, trough.

    There are no rules, you just have to learn it. And it could be confusing if you mix them up. Through and throw, for example.

    English has never had a spelling reform, but you can see the “real” spelling in informal language sometimes. Through = thru (in texts and chats). Tough = tuff (in slang and brand names).



  • Now, more than a decade after Sylvia’s death, their efforts have landed the Wildensteins before France’s highest court. The evidence she and Dumont Beghi brought forth has persuaded prosecutors that the Wildensteins are a criminal enterprise, responsible for operating, as a prosecutor for the state once put it, “the longest and the most sophisticated tax fraud” in modern French history.

    A trial this September will determine if the family and their associates owe a gargantuan tax bill. The last time prosecutors went after the Wildensteins, several years ago, they sought €866 million — €616 million in back taxes and a €250 million fine, as well as jail time for Guy. The consequences could do more than topple the family’s art empire. The case has provided an unusual view of how the ultrawealthy use the art market to evade taxes, and sometimes worse. Agents raiding Wildenstein vaults have turned up artworks long reported as missing, which fueled speculation that the family may have owned Nazi-looted or otherwise stolen art, and spurred a number of other lawsuits against the family in recent years. Financial distortions have saved the family hundreds of millions of dollars, prosecutors allege, but their treatment of Sylvia could cost them far more — and perhaps lead to the unraveling of their dynasty.

    What a story. It’s a long read, but fascinating.


  • marron12@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldgotdamn
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    1 year ago

    I think part of it is because of pricing software like RealPage.

    On a summer day last year, a group of real estate tech executives gathered at a conference hall in Nashville to boast about one of their company’s signature products: software that uses a mysterious algorithm to help landlords push the highest possible rents on tenants.

    “Never before have we seen these numbers,” said Jay Parsons, a vice president of RealPage, as conventiongoers wandered by. Apartment rents had recently shot up by as much as 14.5%, he said in a video touting the company’s services. Turning to his colleague, Parsons asked: What role had the software played?

    “I think it’s driving it, quite honestly,” answered Andrew Bowen, another RealPage executive. “As a property manager, very few of us would be willing to actually raise rents double digits within a single month by doing it manually.”

    I lived in a building that used this software. In 6-7 years, rent went from around $1200 to about $2,000. More and more apartments stayed empty. They kept raising prices during the pandemic. Surprise surprise, a tent city popped up down the street. A couple people died there.