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It is an expression from poker. A "tell" is a revealing signal that a player may give (inadvertently) that they have good or bad cards. "His tell is that he is holding his cards close to his chest."

In other contexts it means a revealing signal.


HAGHLUABLABG

I can't believe this is still going


> HAGHLUABLABG

??


https://archive.org/details/big-book-of-jerkcity/page/119/mo...

> HUGLAGHALGHALGHAL, interj. An all-purpose sound, denoting the act of performing oral sex, the act of receiving oral sex, taking drugs, writing your Congressman, misdialing your party and getting that annoying series of tones, or sitting perfectly still and making no noise whatsoever.


I believe this is what the tags call "cocksucking-noises".

https://www.bonequest.com/tags/cocksucking-noises

(To solve the CAPTCHA: "spigot" is the human face.)


I resonate with this. I think some folks will object to the word "illusion" and it's connotations but I think it is resolved with:

1. Consciousness is a material thing (that we haven't found yet)

2. Consciousness is not a material thing (and therefore we cannot "find" it, and thus cannot be "known")

2 is the weirder proposition of course. It asserts a category of things that can't be conceived, but of course it feels like we are talking about it because we are using words to contain it. But of course, the words have no direct referent. That's the illusion.


2 is only weirder if you don't already accept non-material reality, i.e. the proposition There exist real things that are not themselves composed of matter and/or energy.

That's crossing into metaphysics, which isn't usually a welcome topic here, but the fact remains that more than 80% of the current and prior world population believes/believed in a non-material reality.

The persistence and stickiness of that belief throughout history ought to at least make us sit up and pay attention. Something's going on, and it's not a mere historic lack of scientific rigor, notwithstanding science's penchant for filling gaps people previously attributed to spiritual causes. That near-universal reflex to attribute things to spiritual causes in the first place is what's interesting - why do people not merely say the cause is "something physical we don't understand"?


Tiger got to hunt,

Bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"

Tiger got to sleep,

Bird got to land;

Man got to tell himself he understand.

—Kurt Vonnegut


Hey, I feel you on rejection - it stings. Just remember that, like any company, that place is just a collection of humans making imperfect decisions with limited information. Trust me. Your worth isn't defined by one hiring decision.


> I find it extremely hard to believe that most consumers have a strong enough moral compass to go out of their way to buy something they already have access to.

This is zero-sum thinking. Do you oppose libraries on the same principle?

Sometimes making a thing accessible can increase the overall market for the good, because it trains the behavior. The market for books requires readers, and readers are created by people reading.


> Do you oppose libraries on the same principle?

No, because libraries have to buy the books! If lots of people check out a book, the library will have to buy more copies! Yes, maybe the authors loose out on some revenue, but there's a clear relationship between number of readers and the author getting paid for their work.

This is also why I thought the Internet Archive's lending lending library was great! I'm aware they got sued anyway, and I think that's a real shame.


If we take this to the logical extreme - someone had to buy the book in order to upload it to Anna's archive in the first place.


Yes, but whereas libraries need to buy more copies of books that lots of people check out, Anna's archive only ever needs one. Not exactly sustainable for the author.

As I said, I loved the Internet Archive's approach to this! That's very much not what Anna's archive is doing.


At this point, we are just arguing about what exactly the numbers are, though. There is not a black and white difference between public libraries relationship to publishers, and gray libraries relationship to publishers.


Still, libraries buy what, maybe 5 copies of a mildly popular book. I don't think that would be sustainable either if that was the only books sold.


Libraries have to replace paperback books after ~20 checkouts on average. (This number is from memory but I'm quite sure it's in this range.) Hardcover books last a bit longer but of course are also more expensive.

I agree the industry would have a hard time surviving off library sales alone, in the same way that most businesses rely on multiple revenue streams to make ends meet, but I think library revenue is much more significant than you're making it out to be!


It's also likely true that a library that bought 10 copies of a book initially is unlikely to buy 10 more copies once there have been 200 circulations and they are needing to be replaced. They may only buy 5 replacement copies since the book is likely to be less popular than at initial release so it will take much longer for the next 100 circulations to occur.

As for anecdota, I have more than once borrowed a library book and then purchased a copy so I could read it again or to finish it if demand is strong enough that I would have to wait weeks or months to be able to borrow it again.


The principle of virtual libraries is the same as physical ones: only one person has access to the book at any given time. For popular books, either the library has to buy more copies (or digital licenses) or else it rations access by waiting list. The idea is sound IMO.


Have you tried borrowing a mildly popular recent book from the library? There's often a digital queue of 20+ people with reservations.

There's plenty of incentive for most people to buy the real book rather than wait for the queue.

(I've also found libraries a useful way to discover lesser-known authors, since you can quickly sample/browse books on the shelves. But they wont have all of the books published by those unknown authors.... so I end up buying/ordering other things by them)


"If we take this to the logical extreme "

I think this is a situation where doing so doesn't make much sense. This is all about compromising, I think that must be the premise.


> If you can't judge that funding war criminals is a wrong action

Yandex does not equal Russia though.

The United States gov't has participated in what many consider illegal acts of aggression (i.e., war crimes) and do so using tools like PowerPoint. Is it moral to accept Microsoft as a client?

I'm not saying I know the right answer here, but the purity test you're proposing seems quite stringent.


You'll be shocked to learn that some people avoid US products for exactly the reasons you've mentioned. Right now some avoid Israeli stuff for similar reasons. And so it shouldn't be a shock to learn that some people don't want their money to end up in pockets of Russians and their state (via taxes).


You are well within your rights to use the handicapped stall. It’s an accommodation not a reservation.


Yes, just like those convenient parking spaces and seats in the tube


I've been using Blot for years (for two websites), and I can't say enough good things about it. Happy to see it featured here!


Yeah, this is confusing. Does this mean idling your car is bad for the engine?


not if the oil is warm. if its cold where you are use a block heater so your oil is warm to begin with. then you can idle no problem, and get the cabin up to a human temperature


This URL didn't work for me, but I found this: https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/weather-verif...


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