I have few but positive memories of the only Eritrean I have ever personally known; I still listen to music from Eritrea on occasion; I have an Eritrean Tigrigna IME on my computer and I more or less know how to read fidäl. There are very few Tigrigna words I can actually recall, however: one of these is ከተበ ketebe meaning “to vaccinate”, more specifically from a proto-Semitic root meaning “to scratch”, because the Horn of Africa was an early adopter of variolation, the predecessor to vaccination. That same proto-Semitic root gave us the Arabic word “kitab”.

So yeah, Eritrea feels like a country that more people should have respect for, and that more people should know about, because it is the Horn of Africa and as such it’s as vibrant and as ancient as any other country in that region — and yet Eritrea tends to get overshadowed by other countries, or reduced to just this popular liberal imagining of “AfRiCa’s NoRtH KoReA” or whatever.

It can be very difficult to come to understand all the nuances of the politics of the Horn of Africa. My impression as a whole is that Eritrea is an anti-imperialist country working under a lot of pressure and as such it should be supported, but I can’t speak for all the policies of the ruling party. I have also heard claims that Eritrea supports the Fano militias in Amhara, but I have also heard claims that this is false propaganda, so I have no clue what to make of that.

♫ Everything I used to love has turned to shit ♫

GOLD金 / 김! Always believe in your Seoul!

Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble famously recorded a cover of “Brother Louie”

I mean, props for having the gratuitous faux Cyrillic make use of distinctly Ukrainian letters, I guess…?

Masaman always gave me really mixed vibes in the brief period when I would occasionally watch him as a teenager, and this was way before I was myself a communist. In hindsight I was right to find him a bit of an uncomfortable watch.

Hell yeah

K-On!

I was raised bilingual, and speaking from my own experiences I’d say that it’s a good idea to consider the following questions if you want to maximize the child’s ability in either language:

1. Is there a parent who the child sees more or less often than the other? What will one do in case one parent dies, or in case the child has a language disorder, or there is otherwise some sort of unexpected problem that could impact the child’s language development?
2. What are the language dynamics at play in the family and in the local area? What will the child associate with each of the two languages? Can the child have all its needs met in the non-dominant language? Does the child have access to a broader community of speakers, and in what way?

I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to share my own story because it gets pretty melodramatic at points, but yeah, language skills need to be built and maintained over the course of one’s entire life, so you need to be able to adapt to changing circumstances. But as a whole I think that what you’re planning for your own kid sounds like it will work well, or at least decently well — the only way to know for sure is to get a time machine and go forwards 20 years, and until then I think it’s best to have faith in your competence as a parent. There’s no-one who knows a family better than itself.

And beyond that, one should also ask oneself… Well, what types of language skills does one want to see in one’s child, and what happens if the child ultimately does not reach the goals one has set? I’d say that I have sort of a nuanced or over-complicated relationship to so-called “bad grammar” because of my position.

Well, it is now 3 years since that article was published back in 2017, and I’m proud to say that my memories have not been altered in any way that I can tell.

On an unrelated note, I’ve been hooked on this sparkling water called “Dr. Breen’s Private Reserve”

I watch basically any channel with 100,000+ subscribers through Piped so that my views or retention or engagement don’t get counted by YouTube.

He doesn’t list any sources for anything he says anywhere in the video, which is a surefire sign that he’s probably just copying from Wikipedia and the first page of results on Google. In the DPRK part of the video he talks about supposed human experimentation in North Korea, the sources of which are just, well, defectors (including defectors who literally do not exist) who are contradicted or questioned by other defectors.

In any case it’s like North Korea is being included here as the token “gommunism bad” country, when the rest of these are all, you know, Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, Apartheid South Africa, and a whole five different experiments by the United States. Also, speaking for myself, I’m just kind of tired of “countryballs” in general. There was a while when the only upload of “The Red Flag is Raised” had a little Palestine countryball in the corner, and it just bothered me.

Removed by mod

Jimmy Neutron “sodium chloride” ass reply, “everything is edible at least once” is a common joke that works precisely because words’ definitions are not rigid

Edit: I think it’s best to leave this comment up as I originally wrote it, but I’m also going to go on the record to say that I could’ve and should’ve phrased this a lot more cordially.

Washington Post is @washingtonpost.com, so evidently not.

Edit: Bluesky has this about page which is relevant.

The long awaited sequel to Tako Luka Maguro Fever

Amanita bisporigera, or the aptly named eastern North American destroying angel, if anyone’s wondering.

From Wikipedia:

The principal amatoxin, α-amanitin, is readily absorbed across the intestine, and 60% of the absorbed toxin is excreted into bile and undergoes enterohepatic circulation; the kidneys clear the remaining 40%. The toxin inhibits the enzyme RNA polymerase II, thereby interfering with DNA transcription, which suppresses RNA production and protein synthesis. This causes cellular necrosis, especially in cells which are initially exposed and have rapid rates of protein synthesis. This process results in severe acute liver dysfunction and, ultimately, liver failure.

I could not confirm that it causes liquefactive necrosis of the liver specifically, however. I wouldn’t doubt it, but I couldn’t confirm it.

Edit: I should clarify, I got this from the original thread on Bluesky, not my own identification.

“Have these gentlemen ever SEEN a” yadda yadda

The key just to the left of the # key, i.e. the A key in the default Thumb-Key layout, should have a ▲ for the upward swipe. That swipe is how you get into shift mode. Swipe up on that key again to enter caps-lock; swipe down on that key to release the shift/caps-lock.

That’s a bit mean, I think Lemmy is pretty good all things considered.

is there a point where I will be so comfortable as to not need to fear misspelling something without this crutch of autocorrect?

I can’t speak for how long it will take you specifically, but yeah, I absolutely think you can get to that point. I don’t really remember how long it took me to learn, but it couldn’t have been more than a few weeks, and I think I had some factors which were working to my advantage, anyways. Have you adjusted any of the settings?