asciilifeform: if anybody knows how to make these prettier without resorting to bitmapisms or javascript, or ~anything~ platformistic, plox to write in
asciilifeform: i refuse to use bitmaps for the matholade in ffa, cuz retarded ( not searchable + looks like shit on 3 out of 4 people's displays no matter what you do )
asciilifeform currently in a bout of rage re the retardation of html, where formatting a kindergarten-level equation takes hrs and still dun satisfy
asciilifeform: ( likbez : man is the only known reservoir. and spread in shit. prior to mid 20th c, vanishingly rare, cuz damn near errybody inoculated through exposure to ~some~ liquishit in water. then suddenly ~0 shit-eating, among the industrial city folx, and thing appears on epidemiological map )
asciilifeform: speaking of virology, did mircea_popescu ever do piece on polio ?
asciilifeform: i've spoken with jp folk, they see the notion as roughly similar to how anglos see orlol's phonetic alphabet thing
asciilifeform: jp could cancel hieroglyphs tonight, if (dunno) emperor is put back on throne and wants to peter-the-great.
asciilifeform: so it's rather different situation than cn, which actually escaped inventing alphabet for 5000yrs
asciilifeform: for e.g. children's books, they already encode in 100% 46.
asciilifeform: but for text entry they have hiragana kbd, given as 100% of lang can be coded in it, the hieroglyph desk-sized lolkeyboard of 1900s fame vanished with introduction of microcomp
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: in 'standard' jp, they use hiragana as adjunct to the sadglyphs, yes
asciilifeform: mcarthur tried to ban hieroglyphs, it went nowhere, sorta how peter I was able to cut the 30 redundant greek chars from ru alphabet, but still left 6 or so turds
asciilifeform: but 'wouldn't do, not for troo scholar' (tm)
asciilifeform: freestanding. one can write the whole lang in it.
asciilifeform: they 'fixed' in the 9th century . problem as usual is the entrenched mass of 'i had to hieroglyph, so let the son also'
asciilifeform: jp (1890-1945) was arguably better example. went from 'wooden civ' to, e.g., world's biggest+fastest battleship, h2o2-powered submarine, all sortsa goodies that quite solidly demonstrated 'yes first copied, then grasped, white man's tech' , until nailed by confederacy of anglodunces
asciilifeform: i'm unequipped to say whether cn 'understood nuke', but the apparent total absence of indigenous cpu arch does tell tales
asciilifeform: that there's actually the best evidence for mircea_popescu's version
asciilifeform: ( usa's item , recall, used liquid H2 and was building-sized loltron )
asciilifeform: btw funnily enuff , the 'germans who sailed' ended up having to copy the (droppable) fusion n00k, rather than vice versa.
asciilifeform: witness, for instance, FG schems published for 2 yrs (!) as of , what, last week, still no known copies
asciilifeform: devil is always in the implementation details.
asciilifeform: by same token as ru nuke is ameri-copy
asciilifeform: tho i'll point out that cn nuke is half century old.
asciilifeform: ants prolly not, but for all i know, ~bees~ do. ( 'mysterious' fungus wiping out colonies could very well be 'bee nuke', spread 'deliberately', supposing they could... )
asciilifeform: i dun think there's anywhere in e.g. usa where you could smell it, even if it were there you couldn't pick it up past the exhaust gas and garbage
asciilifeform: i dun know precisely what is in it, prolly aging plaster, wood, flats fulla old b00kz..
asciilifeform: when i was in timis i walked around and, among other things... smelled the houses. it passed litmus. ( even tho last time i smelled the magic smell was 25y ago ! )
asciilifeform: but can't put finger on precisely what.
asciilifeform: ( iirc mircea_popescu had a photo of argentine orc clothesline slowly pulling the nose off a gargoyle or sumthing to that effect )
asciilifeform actually agrees there, buenosaires arch is palpably moar 'white man' than in BingoBoingostan imho. 'while supplies last'.
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: we had a fella like that. used no mic. and would detonate a balloon with h2+o2 at the start of each session, to get folx awake
asciilifeform: in 500 seat hall, no way in hell is prof gonna be heard without mic ( the days of profs having 'operatic' voice as job qualification are long gone )
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: fwiw 'lapel mic' was standard issue even at asciilifeform's uni in early 2000s. so i have nfi re the brits
asciilifeform: speaking of optics, asciilifeform replaced the sad webcam thing bolted to the torture room iron pole with a modern-day 25megapixel thing. should make for some decent shots once i get that bolix...
