Notices by Dave Morriss (perloid@mastodon.sdf.org), page 3

My RPi4B (4GB) is above me, on a shelf, fixed to a DIN rail. It has the Pimoroni fan shim fitted to it. I just ran a benchmark on it with sysbench and watched the temperature. Started at 37°C, and after 7 iterations reached 52°C max. Ambient temp is around 21°C here today (Edinburgh, Scotland).
Slightly cooler results than the same tests on this YT video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVfvhEJ9XD0

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon Go for it!

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon Good question. Take "nice"; its meaning has changed from fine and precise in the early 1900's and before to (insipidly) pleasant now. Not a mistake as such, I admit. I'm not sure what process caused that change in fact.
If it's an historical change, then it's not capable of being reverted I guess. If it's an ongoing change and it seems to be senseless then why not try and correct it? For example "pundit" is apparently morphing to "pundant", which makes no sense!

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon
> Sometimes it's the curmudgeons that are culled.
That's called natural wastage!
> looking or sounding better
That's often sexual selection; the sort of process that produced peacocks and lyre birds. It can lead to some bizarre changes.
> unique environment
Yes, environments change, and species adapt. Over evolutionary time an "original" form can be lost since it's no longer "fitted" (or "adapted")

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon It's what I was taught is the mechanism underlying evolution: natural selection. The "fittest" (i.e the variations most fitted to current conditions) have an advantage because they get more food, escape predators better, etc. When it comes to language though it's hard to see what, other than whim or fashion, determines what is "fittest". I propose that old curmudgeons like me should be tasked with culling the less well-adapted. 😃

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @klaatu @liaizon Yes, I think so. This was an example of how you could write valid but incomprehensible sentences in English - if you were so minded.

@clacke @Jason_Dodd @klaatu @liaizon Can you say things like "Where he had had had, they had had had had" in Esperanto? (Supposedly from a discussion about the answer to an examination question). You might ask "why" I suppose... 😉

@clacke @liaizon I'm reminded of the old schoolboy quiz: "Which is correct? 'The yolk of an egg *is* white' or 'The yolk of an egg *are* white'?"

@Jason_Dodd @liaizon @clacke That's cool! I'd have called that reaming, but I probably don't understand the subtleties here.

@liaizon @Jason_Dodd @clacke Apologies. I was stuck on the concept of honing I think. As I understand it bird beaks or bills are very complex structures, as you'd imagine given that they relate to the bird's feeding method, preening, etc. I think that a chicken's beak continues to grow all the time. I seem to remember the vet trimming them for one or two of our chickens when they over-grew.

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon Haha! Good point. I write Perl a lot (I'm reluctant to learn anything else) as well as Bash, and have a syntax checker for each in my editor. Mostly they are useful but the times when I want to write a quick and dirty script and get nagged all the time drives me nuts. I'd rather not be a human syntax checker on reflection!

@liaizon @Jason_Dodd @clacke We had chickens when I was a kid and the constant pecking seemed to be their means of foraging. If they turned up something edible it'd be gone in seconds. It could have had the side-effect of beak-honing I guess, but as I recall their beaks grow all the time, so maybe it is more like compensating for that. Rodents chew at hard stuff because their incisors grow constantly and need to be "honed" down (more worn down I guess).

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon I can see this, but note they didn't say "narrowing in" or "sharpening in". The use of "hone" instead of "home" seems more like the use of a similar-sounding word in error. I'd prefer it if we used "home in" and "hone" interchangeably.

@liaizon @Jason_Dodd @clacke Great thought! Some birds (not pigeons that I know of) do a beak wiping action that looks like honing. I doubt that it is to make their beaks more "stabby" though.

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon Interesting. Quite specialised though, and possibly a localised use of words that perhaps fitted the context well, but didn't necessarily transfer as well outside it. Still, I doubt the majority of "hone-in-ers" have your image in mind and would probably vote for the pigeon in a popularity contest!

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon Yes. I sympathise. I have helped non-native speakers to grasp English weirdnesses (what does "notwithstanding" mean asked my Norwegian neighbour; is it something to do with sitting down?). I quite like English though. I trained as a Biologist, and that subject is complex and the way things are is often illogical (due to evolution usually) - just like English!

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon Ah "populari(s,z)ation"! That's simply saying that nobody pointed out that an incorrect usage was a mistake, and more and more people followed the wrong usage. It's fashion! It's what's trendy and modern! As one who is not fashionable, trendy, modern, or anything related - pshaw! 😉

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon In my experience "hone in" is being used by mistake. The intention is to say that by a process of refinement or iteration an answer has been reached. The image using "home in" is like a homing pigeon circling to find its roost. On the other hand "sharpen in" doesn't offer such a picture. When has anyone ever "sharpened in" a knife? I can see the image of narrowing something to a point, but then you wouldn't include "in" would you?

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon Similar experiences here (time spent in Singapore and Indonesia for example), and yes, it's not helpful to be the person ranting about English misuse, but as you say, sometimes the mistakes matter. Often they are the result of lack of knowledge, and being one who likes to explain things, I sometimes get involved.

@Jason_Dodd @clacke @liaizon I agree 100%. Neologisms are vital (which is how I interpret your comment). However, modifications which derive from mistakes, misunderstandings, inability to spell, and so on are something I believe we should try to fix. For example, the use of "queue" when the writer meant "cue", which I see a lot, adds nothing to the language and is confusing to non-native speakers.