not true, but still funny

 

gimme some o' dat ass

Yeah, baby. Daddy like.

Joe and Mel

Of course, Apocalypto was riddled with inaccuracies despite Mel's ranks of "professors." Which is par for the course with any Gibson-made and/or Gibson-starring film about "history." Think: The Patriot. Think: Braveheart. Etc., etc.

if it's gun versus vehicle, I'm betting on the vehicle

Nice Photoshopped smoke, there, Scott. Looks like something I'd make.

let me walk you through a recent quiz

How to think your way through one of my quizzes! 

Step one: it helps to become a paying subscriber to my Substack so that you've got the lesson under your belt before you attempt the quiz. Anyway, the quizzes themselves are interactive and free—open to the public, so you don't need to become a subscriber to take the quizzes. The following is taken from my most recent quiz, Verbs: Part 9.

__________

Question 1

Which sentences, if any, show a past event before another past event/era?

I was quietly cleaning my guns when the robbers unwisely broke in.Back in 1860, American society had been moving toward civil war.Before your aunt suddenly ran out on us, she had left me a note for you.Your future achievements will vindicate all of your mom’s past hopes for you.

REASONING: In the relevant lesson (which has the same title as the quiz), you learn that the past-perfect tense is used for past events before other past events.

Remember:

present-perfect tense: I have done it. (past tense, with helping verb in the present tense)
past-perfect tense: I had done it. (helping verb is in the past tense)

A perfect tense means the action is completed.

First possible answer: No. I was quietly cleaning my guns is an ongoing, background action in the past. [T]he robbers unwisely broke in is a sudden action, also in the past, that happens while the background action is still occurring, i.e., at the same time. This is therefore not a past action before another past action.

Second possible answer: Yes. Before 1860 refers to a bygone era. American society had been moving toward civil war is a past occurrence before 1860. Past perfect is justified. The American Civil War officially started in 1861.

Third possible answer: Yes. Past action: ...aunt suddenly ran out on us. Past action before that past action: ...she had left me a note for you. Past perfect is justified.

Fourth possible answer: No. Your future achievements will is a reference to the future. The phrase all of your mom's past hopes is not a past action before another past action.

Question 2

Which, if any, are examples of the future-continuous tense?

I’ll be seeing you soon, Highlander!She’s betting on her boyfriend to win.We’re going to win the prize after we behead them all, Tricia!They’ll know who’s winning the moment the teams come around the bend.

REASONING: When you hear future continuous, you should be on the lookout for a future marker like will or won't. You should also be looking out for the continuous marker -ing. Where do you see both of those markers for an action that takes time in the future?

First possible answer: Yes. The verb will be seeing has all the marks of the future-continuous tense (a.k.a. the future progressive).

Second possible answer: No. She is betting is the present continuous tense, not the future-continuous tense.

Third possible answer: No. We're going to win is the near-future or intentional tense (see this reference, #3). Don't be fooled by the -ing in going. There's no will or won't there, nothing to indicate the future. True, the phrase we behead is the grammatical present tense even though the after means the beheading is a future action. Despite that, there's no indication of a future action that takes time.

Fourth possible answer: No. They'll know is the future simple (or the simple future). The phrase the teams come around is, grammatically, the simple present but refers to a future action. Using some form of the present tense to talk about the future is a thing we do in English (We're going to England next year before it disappears—understood to be a future action), but that's a whole 'nuther discussion.

Question 3

The turkey was pronouncing doom upon the family. We killed it and ate it. We will have killed five talking turkeys by next year.
What verb aspects do you see above (and in the correct order)?

progressive, simple, simple, perfectsimple, perfect, progressive, simpleperfect, simple, simple, progressiveprogressive, perfect, simple, simple

REASONING: The aspect of a verb = simple, progressive, or perfect (and sometimes conditional). A simple aspect basically means that the action occurred, is occurring, or will occur in the time frame of the verb tense. Use the progressive aspect when the action takes time. Use the perfect aspect when the action is completed. This is a minor point, but use the conditional (would) for hypothetical, imagined, or fanciful futures (or as I put it in the lesson: hypothetical, conditional, or volitional).

Special note: The present-perfect tense (You've grown!) indicates a completed action that still has a connection with or relevance to the present. Saying "You grew!" is different from saying "You've grown!" In the second case, the speaker is comparing your past size to your current size. In the first case, the speaker is merely stating a fact.

simple past (or past simple): He ate her brain.
simple present: He eats brains.
simple future: He will eat her brain.

past progressive (or continuous): He was eating her brain.
present progressive: He is eating her brain.
future progressive: He will be eating her brain.

past perfect: He had eaten her brain.
present perfect: He has eaten her brain.
future perfect: He will have eaten her brain.

Okay, let's discuss the answers to this question.

First possible answer: Yes. The first verb, was pronouncing, is in a progressive tense. The next two verbs, killed and ate, are in the simple-past tense (also called the preterite). The verb will have killed is in a perfect tense—specifically, the future perfect.

Second possible answer: No. As explained above.

Third possible answer: No. As explained above.

Fourth possible answer: No. As explained above.

Question 4

Next week, we _____ solved the mystery of the Möbius panty hose.

wouldn’t havewill havewill have beenwon’t have

REASONING: The phrase Next week clues you in to the fact that this sentence refers to a future action or state of affairs. The participle solved probably indicates a completed action. So—a future completed action has to be in the future-perfect tense.

First possible answer: No. The verb wouldn't have solved is in the conditional past.

Second possible answer: Yes. The verb will have solved is in the future perfect.

Third possible answer: No. The auxiliary will have been would require a participle ending in -ing—will have been solving. Progressive, not perfect. Besides, the sentence says solved.

Fourth possible answer: Yes. This is, like the second answer, the future-perfect tense.

Question 5

Which, if any, are definitely—not possibly—dimensions of a verb?

person (first, second, third person)mood (indicative, interrogative, subjunctive)aspect (simple, perfect, progressive, conditional)number and tense (singular/plural; past, present, future)

REASONING: My lesson discusses the four standard dimensions of a verb: person, number, tense, and aspect. I mention a possible fifth dimension, mood, but give reasons for why it's probably not one of the dimensions of a verb: Grammatical mood normally takes into account the tone and tenor of the whole sentence, not just the verb(s).

First possible answer: Yes. Explicitly mentioned as a standard dimension of a verb.

Second possible answer: No. As discussed above.

Third possible answer: Yes. Explicitly mentioned as a standard dimension of a verb.

Fourth possible answer: Yes. Explicitly mentioned as a standard dimension of a verb.

__________

And that, friends, is how you reason your way through one of my quizzes. You might have your own way of doing things, and that's fine. I'm pretty libertarian about methods: As long as you're not eating anyone's brain, your method is probably fine.

was I wrong?

These days, I try to keep away from politics and current events here on the blog, but that doesn't stop me from dropping comments over at Instapundit, especially in the daily "open threads." Someone had put up the following French-language tweet, which I thought made a great deal of sense, but which seemed to be missing some balance. So, because I'm often bizarrely inspired to write in French when I see French-language tweets, I wrote a French response (and without AI, thank you very much). 

Here's the tweet, then my response:

Je crois qu'on ne mesure pas ce qu'Elon Musk est en train de construire avec X.

Tous les médias de l'histoire ont été couplés à une culture, une langue, une bulle géographique. Le Monde parle aux Français. Le NYT parle aux Américains. NHK parle aux Japonais. Chaque média filtre…

— Brivael - FR (@BrivaelFr) April 5, 2026

I wrote:

Très bien exprimé, monsieur. Nous sommes en train de voir une supernova d'idées qui se globalisent instantanément—et les gouvernements et les médias ne peuvent rien contrôler. C'est le rêve de l'internet, enfin réalisé.

Mais en même temps, il faut considérer l'avertissement de Michael Crichton qui, dans son roman Le monde perdu (The Lost World), a déclaré que le pouvoir de survie reste dans les mains de la diversité—ces "bulles" isolées dont vous avez parlé. Quand l'information est simultanément répandu et disponible partout dans le monde, le monde risque de tendre vers la monoculture, et la monoculture est une force qui peut affaiblir la civilisation.

Donc il faut, à mon avis, essayer de maintenir un équilibre robuste entre l'unité et la diversité pour assurer la survie de la civilisation mondiale.

Translation (by something called "Deep L," and put up by a commenter):

Very well put, sir. We are witnessing a supernova of ideas spreading across the globe in an instant—and governments and the media can’t control any of it. It’s the dream of the internet, finally realized.

But at the same time, we must heed the warning of Michael Crichton, who, in his novel *The Lost World*, stated that the power of survival lies in diversity—those isolated “bubbles” you mentioned. When information is simultaneously disseminated and available everywhere in the world, the world risks drifting toward monoculture, and monoculture is a force that can weaken civilization.

So, in my opinion, we must strive to maintain a robust balance between unity and diversity to ensure the survival of global civilization.

For my efforts, I got this smartass comment in return:

Who invited these Macron plants?

—as well as three downvotes by the rightie thought police. Why? What did I say that was so unreasonable? Were the downvoting idiots so fixated on my use of the word diversity that they were immediately triggered? Oh, no! Liberal alert! Diversity in itself isn't good or bad; it just is. What determines the goodness or badness of diversity is the context. In the States (and in many European countries), racial diversity has been pushed to a ridiculous extreme while the left simultaneously demands absolute ideological conformity, even from the members in its own ranks. The American right has, lately, been pushing back against this ideological convergence in favor of ideological diversity of thought.

If anything, my post's warning about "drifting toward monoculture" (I would've translated that as "tending toward monoculture") should fit smoothly into the conservative brain since today's conservatives are so against globalization (practically a synonym for monoculture*). You'd also think that conservatives would want to preserve "local color" instead of watching everything meld into one bland, uninspiring shade of brown or beige or gray where everyone thinks and acts and learns and cooks and plays in exactly the same way—a world of robots.

Even the original French-language tweet got a dislike. Incredible, the idiocy of some people. And here's the thing: If someone were to disagree with me, surely that person would at least recognize that nothing I said in my response was intolerably radical.

"Macron plant." Jesus Christ. I'd rather be thought of as a Crichton dittohead.

__________

*AI, being programmed by leftists, is no help here. Google "globalization and monoculture," and the AI god will say that monoculture is a bad thing... but only because the overall "culture" is becoming more Western which, from my perch in Korea, strikes me as laughably untrue (Korean Wave and all that). Countries are all trying their best to "globalize" each other, and it's not obvious that the West is winning this contest.

a topic near and dear to the hearts of some of my readers

when you think it's gonna be a slap on the wrist

Only slightly off-topic: Every judge who lets a criminal go should have a limb removed every time that criminal commits a crime. Once the judge runs out of limbs, we start on the major organs until the judge learns a lesson or is no longer a judge.

black Snape: the problem in a nutshell

Another one of those YouTube one-man-show skits. I'll be morbidly curious to see how the showrunners try to wriggle out of this one. 

where the PA announcements come from

I'm pretty sure I'd be fined if I tried to rip out the wires to the damn speaker.

Not all Korean apartments have these, but most of the big apartment buildings do. In an alternative universe, a different Kevin is living in that much cheaper apartment in Suwon—the one I'd checked out with my then-boss back when he was still thinking of doing a startup company. Well... ain't no startup company, and despite a year of laboring in obscurity, I'm about to reenter the work force this coming fall.

In the meantime, I'm still in Daecheong Tower and still obliged to listen to PA announcements. Just a few more months of this.

snek

I guess I lied

I guess I lied: the Verbs section of my Substack grammar curriculum has only nine parts, not ten, and the final quiz for that section—for Unit 9—is now done. Go have a look: Verbs, Part 9: Four Dimensions of a Verb & Intro to Tenses. I'm going to take a little break this weekend so I can concentrate on making an awesome keto pizza (and konjac-pasta spaghetti), then I'll get right back to work on Monday, making quizzes for a new section on verb tenses. Verbs, Part 9, linked above, contains an intro to tenses, but the next five sections are a deep dive into them (which you'd know if you were a paying subscriber!).

Onward!

El Popol Vuh

This is a long video, but for folks interested in mythology, religion, and folklore, there might be something in it for you.

"box" announcements are getting aggressive

In my apartment building, the way it works is that you throw your garbage into sorted containers at the B1 level. Most of the sorting is for recycling purposes: plastic bottles and PET containers go in one hamper; drink cans and small, metallic objects go in another; plastic shopping bags and other sheet-like bits of plastic (called "vinyl" in Korean—비닐/binil) go in a third; clothing and other worn items go into a fourth hamper. There's a large space in which to throw one's generic garbage; there's a separate room with various garbage cans into which one can throw one's food waste (which you bag up in special, yellow bags); there's an area specifically for throwing away chairs, an area for other furniture, another area for fluorescent lights, and supposedly an area for different kinds of paper, but I've never figured that one out and have gotten yelled at by the crabby old bastard who struts around the garbage area, looking like the king of his own little dunghill. Anyway, in the same area as the paper disposal, there's a large volume of space devoted to throwing away cardboard boxes.

Perhaps because of the skyrocketing rise of delivery culture, we residents who use Coupang and other shopping/delivery services often receive our ordered products in boxes both big and little. As a result, the number of boxes being thrown away downstairs has grown to unmanageable proportions, and what most of us residents do (yes, me included) is to just toss the empty boxes onto the large, chaotic pile of boxes already there. From the perspective of the mean old man (and, I imagine, his cohorts) who manages the garbage situation, this has become untenable, so since last year, we've begun seeing signs about how we need to follow a certain box-throwing etiquette: first strip off all the packing tape from every box, then deconstruct, flatten, and fold your boxes before placing them in a neat, orderly fashion in the box-tossing area. And most of us (yes, me included) have ignored the initial announcements about this, posted on public walls and inside elevators. I used to stare at such signs with a mildly blank curiosity. They somehow didn't seem relevant.

But now, we've got the PA announcements. One of the loveliest aspects of living in a large, Korean apartment building is that you're subject to routine PA announcements inside your own apartment. I find these announcements to be a rude, disturbing, Orwellian invasion of privacy, but I don't make the rules, and since I live in Seoul, this is part of the price I pay to remain in Korean society. PA announcements are everywhere, including in quiet city parks and even out in the extra-urban farmland, where you'd think you'd be spared the goddamn noise. But, no—as my walks through Korean farmland have taught me, there's no escaping the PA: You will be assaulted by mostly irrelevant noise, like it or not, even when you're out with the cows and the sheep and the ducks and the tractors and the fields. Anyway, the PA announcements in my apartment building now include announcements about box-disposal etiquette, so with Big Brother essentially breathing down my neck, I've reluctantly begun to follow that etiquette. I don't normally have a huge number of boxes to throw away, luckily, so it's not that onerous of a chore, but I do find myself grumbling resentfully as I prep and fold every little (and occasionally big) box.

This means I peel off the shipping box's tape, ball or fold it up, and throw it away separately; I do leave the paper shipping labels on the boxes since they're not tape, per se, and thus far, no one's complained. I deconstruct and fold the boxes down to a manageable size, and when I have the opportunity, I tote them down to the B1 level and dispose of them. Neatly. Orderlily.

I think what I resent about these little, incremental additions of obligatory procedure in my life is how these additions chip away at my free time, my breathing space, my liberty. But, you might respond, by coming to Korea, you already chose to sacrifice many of the liberties that Americans (well, at least red-state Americans) enjoy. That's on you, buddy. Yeah, I've got no rebuttal to that. I did indeed make a choice to reside here, to stay here. Besides, taking responsibility for your own garbage isn't necessarily a bad thing. If anything, it's in the same spirit as my resentment of irresponsible fucks who litter in parks and on the trail. The world is only getting more crowded, and this garbage problem is only going to get worse. More and more, we have to see our world as an increasingly crowded, claustrophobic community.

Of course, it'd be nice to have Mr. Fusions of different sizes all over the place, constantly gobbling trash and converting it pollutionlessly into usable energy. Imagine having a Mr. Fusion unit that uses your garbage to power your apartment. A single kilogram of garbage could theoretically power hundreds of apartments for months, or just your own apartment for years. And how much garbage do you actually produce monthly? Dozens of kilograms, I'm sure. Imagine if you had a Mr. Fusion hooked up to your toilet so that all of your waste—not just Coupang boxes and bags—could be converted into fusion fuel. It's a fantasy, I realize, but damn, what a fantasy. Imagine if the system were such that 60% of your fuel got converted to energy while the remaining 40% came back to you as money. The motivation to keep our streets, parks, forests, and other natural land clean would be extremely powerful. Countries that have rivers, creeks, and sewers clogged with filth and fatbergs would be cleaned up so fast that it would make your head spin and your dick scream for mercy.

But ain't nuthin' like that happening in my lifetime. Ah, well. In the meantime, I need to get back to folding up boxes. And cringing every time the PA comes on.

maybe give Harrod's a try?

Assuming I ever make it to London again, this place is a possibility.

two more units, then onward

I've got two more units' worth of verb quizzes to do, then I move on to the next section, which is specifically about verb tenses. That's five units, so five more quizzes. After that, it's grammatical mood, which is six units; pronouns'll be ten units; adjectives will be seven units; adverbs will be six units; conjunctions and interjections will be three units each (six total); then prepositions will be ten units, and that ought to catch me up—I'll have quizzes t match the curricular material I've written, and anyone who survives the entire gauntlet of quizzes will have my eternal respect. Yes—even after I cark it, my ghost will respect you.

With the basic parts of speech all done, I'll be moving on to punctuation, but I need to create that material first, and it's going to be a while. I had thought I might end this basic-grammar curriculum this year, but it's obviously going to go on until at least 2027 if not longer.

And why? Why do it if it's not earning me any real money? I wish I knew.

But I am impelled.

oolpeu!

A wolf has escaped from a Daejeon zoo according to news seen over at ROK Drop.

An article says in part:

Authorities are searching for a wolf that escaped from Daejeon's O-World theme park on Wednesday morning. 

At 9:30 a.m., the Daejeon Metropolitan City government sent out an emergency alert to inform people of the search and capture operation within the zoo’s compound. The theme park houses several rides and a zoo. 

O-World reported the wolf’s escape to fire authorities at approximately 10:24 a.m. on the same day.

Along with O-World staffers, fire authorities have deployed 11 personnel to search for the wolf on the loose using nets.

According to O-World, the escaped wolf is two years old and was raised in captivity. It is reported to have escaped while moving into a feeding ground shared by other animals. Although O-World said the wolf was presumed to still be inside the zoo, it was spotted outside the theme park later that day, according to Daejeon Fire Headquarters.

At the time of the escape, O-World immediately evacuated all visitors and blocked further entry. No injuries have been reported so far.

"Presumed to still be inside the zoo." Life... uh... finds a way.

I'm kinda rooting for the wolf as it finds a way.

Next, we need a tiger to escape.

Trivia: Because of phonetic rules inherent to the Korean language, Koreans can't pronounce certain "w-initial" words like wolf, wood, or woman. These words all get converted to "oo-initial" sounds: oolpeu, oodeu, oomahn/oomeon. As a result, these Koreanized words now all begin with glottal stops (IPA symbol: ʔ, basically a question mark without a dot, like when someone with a Cockney accent says "bottle of water"). This is why I've always wondered why some Koreans who have the hanja character 우/禹 in their names (there are many possible "Woo" characters for Korean given names and surnames—see more here if you trust the AI) romanize it as "Woo," which makes non-Koreans inevitably mispronounce the name. Maybe Koreans think it's more dignified-looking than "Oo" or "Ooh" as a name (and they'd be right). Same goes for Koreans with the name 이/李 ("Ee") who romanize their name as "Lee" or "Yi" or even "Rhee" even though the surname is actually pronounced "Ee" in Korean. All of these romanizations invite mispronunciation. Yeah, I realize that a lot of Asians don't romanize their names for the sake of non-Asians, but in adopting that attitude, they merely perpetuate misperceptions and miscommunications. To be fair, something similar happens when Asians find themselves in the West where, even if they spell and pronounce their names au juste, their names will still end up butchered by our callous and crass Western accents.

Another spot of trivia regarding oolpeu and oodeu above: the "eu" sound shouldn't be over-pronounced. It comes out as a barely plosive whoosh of breath. So oolpeu sounds like oolp with an aspirated "p" at the end; oodeu sounds like ood with an aspirated "d" at the end. Here's another example: Koreans hangeulize the word Christmas as 크리스마스, which would be clunkily romanized as keuriseumaseu, or, with hyphens, keu-ri-seu-ma-seu. Pronounced in a slow, exaggerated manner, that romanization makes sense, but when Koreans say 크리스마스 at a natural speed, it comes out sounding an awful lot like Christmas. So please don't over-pronounce the "eu" when you see it. In Japanese, the final "u" that you see in words like tonkatsu is the same deal: the "u" is, ideally, barely audible, but Western YouTube cooks routinely over-pronounce u-final Japanese words, resulting in abominations like "tohn-kaht-soo" (Japanese Schnitzel). It should be closer to "tohn-kahts."

While we're at it, Koreans can't pronounce "yee-initial" English words, either—like year. It comes out sounding like ear with a glottal stop at the beginning (like a Cockney "'ere, guvna'"). Three years ago sounds like three ears ago.

There you go—more shit you'll forget in a day.

Babish and the Wellingtons (no sea shanties)

Chef Brian does homemade Chinese takeout

It's great to see how fearless Western chefs have become with Asian ingredients.

the two types

There are two types of dogs..🐕😅 pic.twitter.com/YNfGoGoLf5

— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) March 27, 2026

"worst decision-making" & "suicide by cop"

ready, ready, ready

I spent all day creating three new quizzes, so the following are now ready for you to try out (as always, please leave comments/emails if you find any problems):

Verbs, Part 6: Phrasal/Prepositional Verbs

Verbs, Part 7: Infinitives, Bare Infinitives, and Finite Verbs

Verbs, Part 8: Gerunds vs. Participles

That last unit is more about verbals, but verbals are derived from verbs, and that's why gerunds and participles are in the Verbs section. Give it all a whirl.

Some of you will naturally do well. My lazier, soft-headed learners who never bother to study will keep right on failing (said he with equal parts bitterness and amusement).

one more time, with feeling

The lesson is worth repeating: Respect the fans. Respect the canon. Don't switch everything up or shit on precedent just because you have an agenda.

Joshua's "best" chocolate-chip cookie recipe

These recipes are always "the best" or "the ultimate," but they also look tasty.

cherry blossoms

April 4, 2026—3:54 p.m.

A view from the 14th-floor window next to the freight elevator in my building. That was on April 4. It's now four days later, and the blossoms are already falling and fading. But I've always found it nice that I have, in my own neighborhood, this cherry-blossom parade. The Korean name for cherry blossoms has always struck me as funny: It's beot-ggot/벚꽃, which to me sounds like butt goat... and you know what that means:

my favorite thing when I was a kid

We've learned a lot about octopuses (octopi? octopodes?) since I was a kid, but for a long time, they were my grade-school obsession. Here's a video on octopuses that tells me nothing new but is nevertheless fascinating.

Caution: The video claims the octopus has "nine brains," referring to the central brain and the eight nervous ganglia in its eight arms. But the ganglia, despite giving independence of action to each arm, can only loosely be called "brains" in their own right. 

I also learned an interesting little factoid: octopus arms are technically arms, not tentacles because of how the arms' suckers run along the limbs' entire length. Mollusks like squids have two tentacles (suckers only on the ends of the limbs) and eight arms. I didn't know any of this until I read about it just now. As the kids currently say, I was today years old when I found this out. In Korean, an octopus's limbs are miscalled "legs."

secret Santas, but several months late

It's my fault that this is so late. This video came out last year, on December 22.

seems I'm headed that way

I am slow of speech and tongue.
—Moses, Exodus 4:10

Headline:

Scientists Identified a Speech Trait That Foreshadows Cognitive Decline

Early signs of Alzheimer's disease may be hidden in the way a person speaks, but it's not yet clear which details of our diction are most critical for diagnosis.

A study from 2023 suggests that as we age, how we say something may matter more than what we say. Researchers at the University of Toronto think the pace of everyday speech may be a better indicator of cognitive decline than difficulty finding a word.

"Our results indicate that changes in general talking speed may reflect changes in the brain," said cognitive neuroscientist Jed Meltzer when the research was published.

"This suggests that talking speed should be tested as part of standard cognitive assessments to help clinicians detect cognitive decline faster and help older adults support their brain health as they age."

Lethologica, also known as the 'tip of the tongue' phenomenon, is experienced by young and old alike. But as we grow older, finding the names for things can become more challenging, especially after age 60.

To explore why that is, researchers asked 125 healthy adults, aged 18 to 90, to describe a scene in detail.

Next, the participants were shown pictures of everyday objects while listening to audio that was designed to confirm or confuse them.

For instance, if participants were shown a picture of a broom, the audio might say 'groom', which helps them recall the word through rhyme. But on the flip side, the audio might also offer a related word like 'mop', which can momentarily lead the brain astray.

The faster a person's natural speech in the first task, the more quickly they came up with answers in the second task.

The findings align with the 'processing speed theory', which argues that a general slowdown in cognitive processing lies at the very center of cognitive decline, not a slowdown in memory centers specifically.

"It is clear that older adults are significantly slower than younger adults in completing various cognitive tasks, including word-production tasks such as picture naming, answering questions, or reading written words," explained a team led by University of Toronto psychologist Hsi T. Wei.

"In natural speech, older adults also tend to produce more dysfluencies such as unfilled and filled pauses (e.g., "uh" and "um") in between speech and have a generally slower speech rate."

In a 2024 piece for The Conversation, dementia researcher Claire Lancaster said that the study from Toronto "has opened exciting doors… showing that it's not just what we say but how fast we say it that can reveal cognitive changes."

Recently, some AI algorithms have used speech patterns to predict an Alzheimer's diagnosis with an accuracy of 78.5 percent.

Other studies have found that patients with more signs of amyloid plaque in their brains are 1.2 times more likely to show speech-related problems.

Amyloid plaques are a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, as are tau tangles.

In 2024, researchers at Stanford University led a study that found longer pauses and slower speech rates were associated with higher levels of tangled tau proteins.

Neuroimaging records of 237 cognitively unimpaired adults suggest that those with greater tau burdens tended to have a slower speech rate, longer pauses between speech, and more pauses overall.

Interestingly, participants with greater evidence of tau in their brains did not have greater difficulty producing the correct answer on memory recall tests.

Perhaps participants dealing with early memory issues are still finding the right answer; they are just taking longer to get there, leading to slower speech with more pauses.

If that's true, then speech patterns during memory recall tests could provide whole new intel on a person's neurological state, not captured by traditional tests.

Read the rest. I find that, these days, I speak more slowly and think more slowly. Our time on is earth is limited, and one never knows where on the conveyor belt one is, or when, exactly, one will drop off its edge.

Max and the überCow

Dave Cullen on the crushing inevitability of AI

Truth and illusion:

"The only answer, I think, is the Great Turning Away: turning away from the internet itself because the internet may become useless for things it was previously useful for, like getting news, doing research, etc. Fake historical documentaries could be made using AI, and history itself could be rewritten in such a convincing manner that people will believe it."

Verbs Part 5: done

The quiz for Verbs, Part 5: Regular/Irregular Verbs, Active/Passive Voice is now done. Give it a whirl and leave comments if you have any. I might be done with all ten verb-related units by the end of this week.

And now... back to the movie-review book, which is currently 243 pages long and will likely be over 300 pages long by the time I finish Volume 1 (which goes from 2004 to 2015). As time has gone on, my reviews have gotten longer on average, so Volume 2 will be 2016-2018 or so, then Volume 3 will be 2019-2022, then Volume 4 will bring us almost up to date: 2023-2026-ish.

And as you see, I still have no title for the book/series. Should I do what fantasy series do and give the series a series title, then a different title for each individual volume, or should I use only one title and just change the subtitle to Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, etc.?

Mark vs. Luke

When you've been Force-fed:

dealing with konjac noodles

Remember my previous report on eating konjac noodles straight out of the package? Ick. I tried pan-frying them to see whether I could get them to a state like Chinese crispy-fried noodles. No such luck. But something good did happen, though: The noodles' taste and texture improved. So I went online and looked up what other people were doing with their noodles, which is how I discovered what seems to be most people's go-to method: first boil the noodles for about five minutes, then pan-fry them. While the texture can never be 100% that of regular pasta, there will be a radical improvement. So I'll be trying that method, maybe as soon as this weekend.

health report

Blood sugar is down to 107, but for some reason, blood pressure is way up to 144/87. No idea why. Maybe lack of exercise as I allow my toe to heal? Hmmm. In recent weeks, my BP has been as low as 117/72 (March 27), 117/70 (March 29), 116/70 (March 31), 102/74 (April 1), 108/81 (April 4), and 124/77 (April 5, actually considered "yellow zone" on my BP monitor). I think I need to get off my ass and get moving, especially with spring now in fuller flower.

another quiz is out

Verbs, Part 4: Modal and Semi-modal Verbs is now out. Give it a test run.

Sample question (pick none, one, some, or all):

Which sentence/s express/es definite intention or planning?
☐ You shouldn’t have ordered the fetus pizza.

☐ Sure, I’d like to get together again!

☐ I’m going to visit Iceland next year.

☐ We can’t see through this fog.

 

(vegan) fun with figs

My favorite meatless YouTuber:

indeed

the next quiz is ready to go

Verbs, Part 3: Linking and Auxiliary Verbs is now up. Give it a whirl and leave a comment or email if you find any problems.

Seven more quizzes here, and we move on to the next section.

female bodybuilders versus regular men

And the women admit to 'roiding up.

the wish

When every video is a variation of "The Monkey's Paw"...

real friends

I was never the type to get grabby about wayward baseballs so as to steal all the credit, but I do wonder whether I was ever as unselfish as these friends are. To any friends I might have slighted by acting selfishly, not rejoicing in your victories, I apologize.

Real friends celebrate your wins like their own pic.twitter.com/Mteuzbgq92

— Dudes Posting Their W’s (@DudespostingWs) April 5, 2026

more plot details and hints

I'm not pumped for much, these days, but I'm pumped for Dune 3, coming at the end of this year. Many questions need answering.

creepy Jesus and other thoughts

I re-watched Mel Gibson's 2004 The Passion of the Christ for the first time in years this past weekend. I'm not sure how I missed this screamingly obvious detail when I last saw the movie in a Korean theater, but this time around, I saw that Jesus' eyes were a disturbing color—somewhere between light brown and yellow, a kind of weird amber. The effect looked almost evil; it certainly put me into the uncanny valley. Perhaps the point was to simultaneously emphasize Jesus' humanity and his divinity—his humanity came through as we watched the man suffer at the hands of the Romans; his divinity was made manifest through the otherworldliness of his eye color (actor Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus, has naturally blue eyes, so they were re-colored by computer). 

I'm again reminded of Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever: The main character, Thomas Covenant, is driven crazy at the beginning of the story by finding himself in an alternate universe where he is healed of his leprosy, allowing him to feel things again and removing the impotence caused by his leprosy. Covenant meets a lovely teenage girl, Lena, who is nothing but kind to him; his self-hatred, plus the impossible return of his health, makes him angry at her kindness and drives him mad; in a horrible act that taints the rest of the chronicles, he rapes her. In the second novel of the first chronicles, Covenant meets the adult Elena, child of his rape (time moves differently between worlds); she has an otherworldly, displaced stare because she is the child of two different worlds. I thought of Elena's unnerving stare every time I looked into the movie Jesus' eyes.

And since my recent review of the movie Project Hail Mary went on about book-versus-movie differences (book review here), I guess it's only fair to point out how Gibson's film departs from various aspects of scripture: the flashbacks to Jesus as a child being comforted by Mary; the scenes of the Devil (Rosalinda Celentano) and the Devil's weird child (Davide Marotta); the quick scene of Judas being harassed by the furry, simian demon, then later being harassed by the crazy-eyed, demonic children who eventually goad him into suicide; the various cruel details of Jesus' crucifixion; the number of times Jesus falls in the movie (six) versus the Stations of the Cross (three); the detailed look into the character of Simon of Cyrene (Jarreth J. Merz), etc. Was Gibson justified in treating the Jesus story this way? To get the viewer to feel something instead of taking us with faithful literalness through the story? Was this a case of feelings over facts?* (And isn't that normally what liberal-leftists are accused of doing when they argue? Prioritizing feelings over facts?)**

Aside: I did a review of/meditation on The Passion of the Christ way back in 2004 when the film had first come out, and my blog was not even a year old. That essay made it into my first self-published book, Water from a Skull (2006)—no longer available through the now-downsized CafePress, which doesn't allow authors to self-publish books anymore. Water from a Skull will eventually be back, but on Amazon this time.

Did you rewatch The Passion of the Christ? Did you watch some other cinematic portrayal of the Jesus story this Easter season? Maybe the more Gnostically tinged The Last Temptation of Christ, or something more classic like The Greatest Story Ever Told? Did you take your celebration in a more pagan direction (this looks like a website worth exploring: It's by an atheist but against many anti-theistic misuses of history to formulate anti-religious arguments)? Or did you just have yourself a normal weekend free of all this Easter nonsense?

Well, I guess we can all look forward to Low Sunday this coming weekend.

__________

*I'm using facts, here, in a sense meant to be appreciated by scripturalists. If you're an atheist, you are of course more likely to dismiss scripture as merely a silly fairy tale.

**A partial answer might be that Gibson's version of the story was based on the mystical writings of AC Emmerich, a German nun prone to visions.

primordial humor

the algorithm is pushing this hard

Sticky toffee pudding. YouTube is pushing me to try to make it.

Maybe someday. On some cheat day.

do animals have a sense of play?

Of course they do.

Just a dog having the best day of its life. pic.twitter.com/nNMkauFig0

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 5, 2026

destroyer of souls

I'm happy for all of my friends who are happily married. You guys hit the jackpot. As for everyone else... I am so, so sorry, but I'm glad I don't know your private hell.

Jeremy Jahns reviews Ender's Game

I'm putting up this old Jeremy Jahns review of Ender's Game, the movie (from November 1, 2013), because there's a brief discussion in there about why Jahns didn't read the book first. His insights are relevant to my recent review of Project Hail Mary. A lot of that review was devoted to the issue of book/movie differences.

follow the bouncing...

Too bad that this...

...doesn't come without a dose of crazy.

At twenty, they bounce and they flounce.
At thirty, they've still got a jounce.
But as time crawls its loop,
and the boobs tend to droop,
you'll be forced to accept or renounce.

Choose wisely.

yeah, fuck those corny jokes

"making us dumb"

The dangers of AI as brought home in this video.

Colion gets flirty

It's kind of nice to watch Colion Noir get hot and bothered when he meets a woman more capable than he is. And as the video shows, she's obviously the real deal.

Easter meal

That heavy-cream powder goes fast. I made my second and final batch of "carnivore" buns today using the same procedure as the one I'd used yesterday. I switched up the protein, though, and decided to make myself some PLTs: pepperoni, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches. I ate three PLTs, then split the fourth bun in half and made myself a no-sugar-added blueberry "shortcake." It was good despite my not having added any sweetener to the bun batter (that's an experiment for later; I have no idea whether a sweetener like BochaSweet will prevent the buns from rising or what).

Yeah, yeah—I did the "croissant" cut again. Twice.

The "bottomings" go on.

Next is the 'roni.

Pretty please with cheese on top.

lettuce on top for two; lettuce on the bottom for one (what was I thinking?)

cross-sectional bite

blueberry "shortcake"—the sugar granules are actually BochaSweet

Damn—I should have dusted the top layer of whipped cream with a bit of cinnamon.

The whipped cream was under-whipped. I normally use either my regular food processor or my hand-held one. I still don't have the timing right. I used the regular food processor today and went for 90 seconds, which was enough to make me fear the ire of my net-door neighbor. But 90 seconds proved to be enough only to whip the cream partially; some of it was stiff while other parts of it were runny. Still, it came out fine taste-wise, and even the runny parts were somewhat thick. As in viscous, not stupid.

from "bread" to "bread"

Here's a progression from my first carnivore-bread recipe to my latest:

the Chris Cooking Nashville recipe

Victoria's Keto Kitchen recipe

the lilsipper_official recipe—winner!

I was looking over the Chris Cooking Nashville recipe last night. It's so damn complicated. Not just the soufflé-like procedure of separating the egg whites and yolks, then whipping the whites into a froth, but also the sheer number of ingredients needed, some for stability—things like gelatin, baking soda, vinegar (to activate the baking soda), cream cheese, and egg-white powder. That's just five of the eight ingredients I'd used to make Chris's recipe (I added a non-sugar sweetener). Compare that to the lilsipper recipe—three ingredients, simple procedure, better results. Just mix the two dry ingredients together, scramble the eggs separately, then pour the dry ingredients into the eggs while stirring. There's just no comparison.