Acoustic Kitty, RIP

December 2, 2022 4:11 PM

Subtitles, rich lifeguards, heavenbanning, and gold-plated Morse Code keys: Tom Whitwell brings us 52 things I learned in 2022. (SLMedium)
posted by swift (36 comments total)

A bolt of lightning contains about ¼ of a kilowatt-hour of power.

That explains Reddy Kilowatt's four lightning-bolt limbs.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:30 PM on December 2, 2022 [6 favorites]

Sweet Molly McGee, I'm less than 2 on the clutter scale (#47).

Cats use buttons too (#15). I think they have a more instinctive use of them and also they use them exactly like you think they would.
posted by fiercekitten at 4:41 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

These are fascinating. The gender guessing AI based on eyes one is wild! The silver didn't tarnish before the industrial revolution factoid doesn't seem to really be true alas.
posted by Wretch729 at 4:42 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Heavenbanning is such a brilliant idea; I want it implemented everywhere immediately.

And I fully expect to get 537 completely-legitimate-definitely-not-fake favorites for this comment.
posted by nushustu at 4:44 PM on December 2, 2022 [18 favorites]

I just learned about that "ellipsis" thing (number 4), and I thought the list was just talking about ending a sentence with an ellipsis rather than proper punctuation, but no, it's so much worse!

Are there actually people who do this?
posted by explosion at 5:04 PM on December 2, 2022

Number 4... This millennial is not so sure... Ellipses just imply pauses to me, or sentences trailing off...

(And on 11, musicians sure make life hard for programmers, but programmes also made life hard for themselves by setting up conventions on how to categorise music that just don't work for classical music, where you might have a composer, an orchestra, a soloist, and a conductor - who's the "artist"?)
posted by Dysk at 5:21 PM on December 2, 2022 [11 favorites]

I loved #28, since it's one of those stories in which someone finds out that they're the absolute best at something that's pretty popular and seems to have never thought that they might be, and the mid-story twist (and its resolution) is likewise mind-blowing.

Are there actually people who do this?

I'm afraid so. I used to be on a polyamory email distribution list, and someone showed up one day who did that. And, to make it worse...he seemed to think that it was a swinger forum... and started telling us what a great lover he was...and his physical characteristics...including that one...yes...that one...and wouldn't listen to other list members telling him that that wasn't what we were about...because he wasn't hurting anyone...as far as he was concerned...
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:21 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

The countthings app is so nifty - I knew there were programs to do this but having it neatly done through an iPhone app makes it even more accessible. I want to count stacks of wood and piles of beads!
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:24 PM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

Teenage smoking seems to be a solved problem.

This is almost certainly variable by region. If one drives out to most small towns in my neck of the woods, teens are definitely smoking. Perhaps this is more of a class thing?

Also:
Proud member of Team Ellipsis here. It’s a perfectly valid writing tool, especially if the writer intends to convey natural speech patterns. People take pauses in the middle of a thought, or simply trail off. Thus, the ellipsis.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:50 PM on December 2, 2022 [6 favorites]

Regarding #37, colouring egg yolks:

I was aware of colouring farmed Atlantic salmon to disguise it as wild Pacific Salmon and the SalmoFan used to choose the colour. But I didn't know this was done to eggs. Now I wonder what other foods have this "feature".

...Oh and Team Ellipsis for sure. How else do you pause in a text? Comma isn't long enough. Dash? Em-dash? And why is pausing passive aggressive?
posted by Zedcaster at 7:03 PM on December 2, 2022

Dog buttons. Cat buttons. Mind-blowing but yet not. Of course our friends can speak!
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 7:37 PM on December 2, 2022

Actually ellipses mean to perhaps be continued...
posted by jim in austin at 7:38 PM on December 2, 2022

→ The countthings app is so nifty

There's a free one for Android. When I installed it, it was called Mediscount, and you have to register an email address. It's meant for pharmacists in Korea, but I've found it can count anything it can distinguish
posted by scruss at 8:20 PM on December 2, 2022 [1 favorite]

In 1739, there were three times more coffee shops per person in London than there are today.

Maybe that's because the population of London has grown really fast?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:33 PM on December 2, 2022

#45 is an interesting take on ask culture vs guess culture.
posted by swift at 8:39 PM on December 2, 2022 [3 favorites]

I was going to rant on ellipses... then I RTFA... yep, cusp of Boomer/Gen-X... ellipses are like a comma and a half... the period is the end.
posted by zengargoyle at 9:39 PM on December 2, 2022

Now that Kid Ruki (Gen Z) is several hours away at college, her and the mister (Gen X) use ellipsis to express comic timing while trading Dad Joke texts. I’m Team Ellipsis because I believe that punctuation helps express tone. (I’m also Team Parentheses because I have ADHD.)
posted by Ruki at 9:44 PM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]

Don't forget team exclamation point! (It's even better in parentheses!)
posted by zengargoyle at 9:51 PM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]

Old millennial here: Pausing in a text message = hitting send every time you pause, breaking up your sentence that way.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 10:14 PM on December 2, 2022 [2 favorites]

Punctuation is becoming more of an art-- less a science, or at least...(y'know) unboun'd by the old rules (&tc) that........... literally(!) de-stroye'd alllll of time 'n' space and left us...! unable 2 evn

/no you're high
posted by The otter lady at 11:13 PM on December 2, 2022 [5 favorites]

1: A bolt of lightning contains about ¼ of a kilowatt-hour of power.

Things to learn in 2023: the difference between power and energy.
posted by biffa at 12:39 AM on December 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

I just learned about that "ellipsis" thing

I've been told off on reddit for recommending ellipses (to an ESL poster who was specifically asking about how to punctuate this particular thing). "Comes off as passive aggressive", apparently. Yes I am GenX. And TBH: fuck that. It's the punctuation that expressd what was in my brain.



...
posted by pompomtom at 12:45 AM on December 3, 2022 [7 favorites]

(Watch out, cloud!)
posted by pompomtom at 12:45 AM on December 3, 2022

THE CONVENTION OF ELLIPSES AS MIDSENTENCE PUNCTUATION … ALONG WITH CERTAIN OTHER COMMUNICATION STYLES WHICH ARE NOW UNFASHIONABLE … MAY BE RELATED TO ARCHAIC EQUIPMENT WITH REDUCED CHARACTER SETS
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 2:58 AM on December 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

by setting up conventions on how to categorise music that just don't work for classical music, where you might have a composer, an orchestra, a soloist, and a conductor - who's the "artist"?

Last month I was in the chorus for the recording of a new “classical” composition. Our symphony does most of its recordings from concert series. (Why pay for studio time when the concert hall is excellent, and also you can sell tickets?) One of my new work colleagues, a young woman, showed up for one of these performances. We chatted afterwards, and she was a little baffled trying to fit this concert into the “convention” where there is “an artist.”

First, there were three hundred of us on stage: about 150 singers in the chorus, and similar in the orchestra. Two soloists, an orchestra conductor, and also the chorus conductor, who wasn’t performing onstage but who came out to bow during the applause. The composer was in attendance and also came onstage afterwards. The librettist did not attend (but wow, what a text this piece had).

Second, the new piece was only the second half of the concert. The first half was Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony, a classical chestnut. The symphony’s marketing for the concert series was not very ambitious: the posters said “BEETHOVEN WITH THE SYMPHONY and the conquest requiem.”

My work friend was terribly confused trying to figure out the role the composer had played in this process. Had she also written the Pastoral? No. Well, had she modified or arranged the Pastoral for this concert? Also no. Beethoven wrote that long ago. The music was already sitting on the shelf in the symphony’s library. So what had the composer contributed to the first half of the concert? Nothing. No involvement. And for the second half? Was that orchestra music also pre-existing, and she just added the singing to it? Oh, goodness me, no.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 3:56 AM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

I spend a lot of time talking to my work-mates on text chat, and I try to not use ellipses that much, but, when you're telling a bad joke, it really works well for pausing and for the reaction.

Me: Hey, how many tickles does it take to make an octopus laugh?
Me: ...
Me: Ten tickles!
Them: ...

Also, might I recommend the episode of The Memory Palace on the Acoustic Kitty project?
posted by Katemonkey at 4:58 AM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

#38. The Chinese government has launched a crackdown on ‘weird’ and ‘ugly’ fonts.

Problem fonts involve: characters lifted from Japanese kanji, characters that add graphical features, becoming half-characters and half-graphics, and calligraphy-like fonts, because they are pretending to be calligraphy. I used to know a guy from Russia who proudly exclaimed after being confronted with a choice in fonts: "In Russia, we *all* use same font!"
posted by jabah at 8:34 AM on December 3, 2022

Some of these have definitely been the subject of past FPPs
posted by rmd1023 at 8:38 AM on December 3, 2022

Something about this reminds me of Harper's Index. I used to see that regularly on here and I don't think anyone's posted one for years.

Looks like they're still doing that bit, too.
posted by egypturnash at 9:02 AM on December 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Fingers crosséd the next generation brings back the accent over the E to emphasize the last syllable, like in Shakespeare.

(What is that calléd?)
posted by TangoCharlie at 9:27 AM on December 3, 2022

The accent can come back if journalists stop using “outsize” for “outsized”. Sizing is performed on an object; sizing is not immanent. At least in my thinking.

Okay, sorry for the derail.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 9:55 AM on December 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

We should all learn to use conversational doorknobs.

All the door[knob]s in this spaceship have a cheerful and sunny disposition. It is their pleasure to open for you, and their satisfaction to close again with the knowledge of a job well done.
posted by neuron at 10:00 AM on December 3, 2022 [9 favorites]

The fact/fiction about silver not tarnishing before the industrial revolution led me to the link, in which the late husband/research assistance of Patricia Briggs, urban fantasy author, attempts to cast silver bullets. Really good rabbit-hole!
posted by kittensyay at 12:26 PM on December 3, 2022

Me: Ten tickles!

Stealing this for Xmas.
posted by biffa at 2:03 PM on December 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

Been using subtitles "unnecessarily" according to others in room with me since 20 years ago. I still have great hearing, but hate turning up tv loud in room that is poorly reinforced for any kind of sound. Not to mention the ongoing weird disparity in broadcast / streaming / film audio tracks. I'd probably have them turned on in every movie theatre and the volume turned down (often I wear earplugs), if I was still going to movie theatres.

Also:
- nice to be able to ask a bartender to turn them on in bars where there was no way you'd ever hear what was on the tv
- handy if you are with people who don't mind running commentary on things you are watching, 'cause if you have the subtitles on, you likely won't miss stuff and have to rewind
- allllso handy if say, you are watching something like GoT and aren't sure whose name was mentioned that you forgot from like 2 seasons ago, et al

get off my er..... media viewing lawn?

[rant=off]
posted by bitterkitten at 10:28 AM on December 4, 2022 [2 favorites]

Another data point on the Ellipses (which I, a Gen-Xer use liberally) from my Gen-Z son. he and I were having a discussion about this last week, oddly enough, because he called me out for it until I explained that I was using it as a long pause (as discussed above). After seeing this post and the discussion, I revisited it with him and got this explanation: He polled his friends and they agree that most often, they encounter ellipses from their parents as a sort of hanging disapproval at the end of a text like -- "...don't forget to take out the trash..." or "and when you're done gaming you will...?"
He demurred when I asked him if I do this (I'm pretty sure I don't).
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:36 AM on December 4, 2022