My dad and I started watching Once Upon A Time In Northern Ireland today, on his request.
Uncategorized
71
Posts
25
Posters
0
Views
-
@astronomerritt I grew up mostly comfortably middle class in a working class town with working class friends. I've been aggressively code-switching since I was four.
And I'm still very, very bad at wealthy white American class signifiers, which has been a major barrier for me at times.
Also: those people absolutely do not understand the difference between code-switching and appropriation, and sometimes need bopped on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.
@tess Oh, god, the code-switching! It made introducing my family to people in my professional life so awkward because suddenly I didn't know how to talk any more.
I sympathise. I still make mistakes in my middle-class persona and have said things in professional settings that I really shouldn't have. Weirdly, it's the wealthy upper-middle classes I've had the most trouble with. Upper-class Brits tend to be more laid back. A benefit of the highest form of privilege, I expect.
-
@astronomerritt ^^ this
in the last 2y or so, a lot of the local types have been training center agents to disengage (or sometimes even outright hang up). but I think that's _utter fucking bullshit_ because very often _the reason you are calling_ is because of a fuckup. of COURSE that caller is going to be agitated
it also doesn't help that we have ... compounding (local) problems
such a disaster
lol at having to suppress! "Compliance Would Like A Word" just came to mind
@froztbyte I think it’s down to two factors. First, it’s cheaper to tell call agents to hang up than it is to actually train them in de-escalation. Second, they’re all supposed to lick company bunghole and never admit that the company did anything wrong, so it’s hard for them to de-escalate anyway.
I used to be good with angry customers. Turns out genuinely sympathising with people and saying things like “you’re right, that’s unacceptable” tends to get them on-side. Probably wouldn’t be allowed to do that any more.
-
@astronomerritt 100% this. It’s akin to the caste system in India.
@hedders @astronomerritt Really? Does "British society tends not to like it" mean something much more violent than I had imagined?
-
@tess Oh, god, the code-switching! It made introducing my family to people in my professional life so awkward because suddenly I didn't know how to talk any more.
I sympathise. I still make mistakes in my middle-class persona and have said things in professional settings that I really shouldn't have. Weirdly, it's the wealthy upper-middle classes I've had the most trouble with. Upper-class Brits tend to be more laid back. A benefit of the highest form of privilege, I expect.
@astronomerritt @tess Fun fact: Southern Irish professional classes swear like Glasgow dockers. We know the posh words to describe our desired intent, but there’s a time when you need to channel your internal Malcom Tucker.
https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/ttoi-malcolm-tucker-peter-capaldi-the-thick-of-it-gif-10919168
-
I also feel I need to explain, for Americans and other strange creatures, that class in Britain has absolutely nothing to do with how much money you have. You're born into a class and you're not getting out of it. It's your upbringing and your background and your language and your culture.
Your kids might be of a different class to you. Your grandkids certainly can be. But you're stuck with where you're born, and British society tends not to like it if you pretend otherwise.
Do not take this explanation for approval.
@astronomerritt when someone told me its practically a caste system I understood it better
-
@hedders @astronomerritt Really? Does "British society tends not to like it" mean something much more violent than I had imagined?
@amenonsen @hedders I was about to say, it’s certainly not nearly as virulent in its expression as the Indian caste system, but in the specific sense that you’re born into it and can’t shake it, it’s similar.
-
@froztbyte I think it’s down to two factors. First, it’s cheaper to tell call agents to hang up than it is to actually train them in de-escalation. Second, they’re all supposed to lick company bunghole and never admit that the company did anything wrong, so it’s hard for them to de-escalate anyway.
I used to be good with angry customers. Turns out genuinely sympathising with people and saying things like “you’re right, that’s unacceptable” tends to get them on-side. Probably wouldn’t be allowed to do that any more.
@astronomerritt yup. _and_ the many-call-centers practice of goodhart's law, making low-duration high-volume calls the estimated target
I sigh deeply
-
It's always a bit jarring to me when I see folk complain about bad language online, using phrases like "nobody has to use those words" and "it's always vulgar" and "it sounds uneducated".
Please understand: that is cultural bias.
@astronomerritt It may well be vulgar and even uneducated, but it also cuts through the crap and gets our attention, eh? That seems to me like using language effectively, in all its breadth.
As with so many things in recent years, I find myself thinking yet again of Doctor King's letter from a Birmingham jail.
"…the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice…"
-
@astronomerritt when someone told me its practically a caste system I understood it better
@cursedsql It’s not as violent and openly unpleasant and oppressive as most caste systems have been, but in the sense that you're born inescapably into it, yeah.
-
@cursedsql It’s not as violent and openly unpleasant and oppressive as most caste systems have been, but in the sense that you're born inescapably into it, yeah.
@astronomerritt yeah in america these days we just think class = money + some ineffable refinement which we pretend has nothing to do with some sort of creepy american peerage but really does
-
I also feel I need to explain, for Americans and other strange creatures, that class in Britain has absolutely nothing to do with how much money you have. You're born into a class and you're not getting out of it. It's your upbringing and your background and your language and your culture.
Your kids might be of a different class to you. Your grandkids certainly can be. But you're stuck with where you're born, and British society tends not to like it if you pretend otherwise.
Do not take this explanation for approval.
@astronomerritt I sit in this weird place where I was raised outside the UK and so I came to study here with this blind spot for class. Like, I would wonder why two sets of my friends, who seemed to have so much in common, just didn't seem to want to hang out together. 🙃
My accent codes me as middle-class, so you can imagine I was treated with some degree of bemusement at first by friends groups from working-class backgrounds. I was oblivious! I just thought it was clique dynamics of some kind.
Anyway yeah, from what I've come to learn I would definitely describe it as closer to a caste system than an economic one.
-
@astronomerritt It may well be vulgar and even uneducated, but it also cuts through the crap and gets our attention, eh? That seems to me like using language effectively, in all its breadth.
As with so many things in recent years, I find myself thinking yet again of Doctor King's letter from a Birmingham jail.
"…the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice…"
@daveybot @astronomerritt I much prefer someone sweary to those uptight types that repress their rage, hate and misandry and are pseudo-christian [or other religion] while demeaning and abusing women and children.
-
@astronomerritt It may well be vulgar and even uneducated, but it also cuts through the crap and gets our attention, eh? That seems to me like using language effectively, in all its breadth.
As with so many things in recent years, I find myself thinking yet again of Doctor King's letter from a Birmingham jail.
"…the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice…"
@daveybot Uneducated my hole, they didn’t take my ability to swear away from me when they gave me my PhD 😉
You’re spot on, though. And it seems as well that those who value their idea of civility over actual ideals like truth and justice don’t ACTUALLY value civility, as in the concept of treating all others with respect: they just don’t like to be made uncomfortable.
-
Every British person does a subconscious class calculation when they meet someone, whether they admit to it or not. You want to know if someone is "like you" so you know how to speak to them and how to relate to them. But I mess up the calculations. I've got too many middle-class indicators now from being highly educated. (That's classism for you!) So swearing is, for me, often a way to reassure someone working-class that we're on the same level and can relate to each other as such.
It's annoying, though. I don't get angry at people much, but a close colleague once tried to joke that the Pulp song Common People was about me, having gotten the impression that my working-class indicators were the pretension, and not the middle-class ones. The idea that I might read as one of those fucking idiots who pretends to be working-class because they think it's "cool" drives me round the bend.
@astronomerritt
I grew up in West Central Scotland and went to a comprehensive school. On account of my good exam results I applied to St John's College, Cambridge and went down there for an interview. I had no idea which college to apply to, or on what basis such a decision would be made, so I just chose the one Douglas Adams had been to.
I turned up with a clean shirt, wearing one of my dad's ties. All the other candidates seemed to be wearing suits and carrying copies of The Economist.
I was not offered a place. -
@daveybot Uneducated my hole, they didn’t take my ability to swear away from me when they gave me my PhD 😉
You’re spot on, though. And it seems as well that those who value their idea of civility over actual ideals like truth and justice don’t ACTUALLY value civility, as in the concept of treating all others with respect: they just don’t like to be made uncomfortable.
@astronomerritt Gosh yeah. Never mistake manners for principles, eh?
I was also thinking about this in the last week as more and more songs came out regarding the recent horrors in Minneapolis.
(@WiteWulf had a great summary of them: https://cyberplace.social/@WiteWulf/115977684267122313)
I liked them all, but for pure effectiveness and impact of message, you really can't fault the Waterparks track.
-
@astronomerritt I sit in this weird place where I was raised outside the UK and so I came to study here with this blind spot for class. Like, I would wonder why two sets of my friends, who seemed to have so much in common, just didn't seem to want to hang out together. 🙃
My accent codes me as middle-class, so you can imagine I was treated with some degree of bemusement at first by friends groups from working-class backgrounds. I was oblivious! I just thought it was clique dynamics of some kind.
Anyway yeah, from what I've come to learn I would definitely describe it as closer to a caste system than an economic one.
@Tattie God, I’ve nothing but sympathy for an outsider being forced to navigate this shit! It must have been so WEIRD from the outside. (Although I worry about calling it a caste system — I don’t think it’s that openly oppressive, I don’t want to act like my experiences were anything like being low-caste in India, for example.)
My parents worked their way into management roles, so they had middle-class friends, and it never struck me as weird that they’d drink in the social club with one set of mates, and then they’d drink in the nice pub with ANOTHER set of mates, and those sets almost never crossed or overlapped. Before I even had the words to describe it I knew that those friends were Different. It’s so fucked.
-
@astronomerritt
I grew up in West Central Scotland and went to a comprehensive school. On account of my good exam results I applied to St John's College, Cambridge and went down there for an interview. I had no idea which college to apply to, or on what basis such a decision would be made, so I just chose the one Douglas Adams had been to.
I turned up with a clean shirt, wearing one of my dad's ties. All the other candidates seemed to be wearing suits and carrying copies of The Economist.
I was not offered a place.@chrisradonc You couldn’t have summed it up any better than that. And I sympathise. I had to work out literally everything about my post-secondary education myself because my parents, bless them, had no idea. Folk often don’t understand just how much of a leg-up you get from having the right parents and going to the right schools.
-
@astronomerritt Gosh yeah. Never mistake manners for principles, eh?
I was also thinking about this in the last week as more and more songs came out regarding the recent horrors in Minneapolis.
(@WiteWulf had a great summary of them: https://cyberplace.social/@WiteWulf/115977684267122313)
I liked them all, but for pure effectiveness and impact of message, you really can't fault the Waterparks track.
-
@astronomerritt
I grew up in West Central Scotland and went to a comprehensive school. On account of my good exam results I applied to St John's College, Cambridge and went down there for an interview. I had no idea which college to apply to, or on what basis such a decision would be made, so I just chose the one Douglas Adams had been to.
I turned up with a clean shirt, wearing one of my dad's ties. All the other candidates seemed to be wearing suits and carrying copies of The Economist.
I was not offered a place.@astronomerritt
I ended up studying medicine, a field dominated by the middle class. I found that few of them spoke like me.
As Ken Loach observed, "The problem is that the British middle class is obsessed with swear words."
https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2012/ken-loach-the-british-middle-class-is-obsessed-with-swear-words/ -
@astronomerritt
I ended up studying medicine, a field dominated by the middle class. I found that few of them spoke like me.
As Ken Loach observed, "The problem is that the British middle class is obsessed with swear words."
https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2012/ken-loach-the-british-middle-class-is-obsessed-with-swear-words/@chrisradonc Ken Loach is, as he is so often, absolutely correct.
Gli ultimi otto messaggi ricevuti dalla Federazione
-
Perché non abbiamo mai i governanti di cui avremmo bisogno ma sempre e solo quelli che ci meritiamo?
-
@NicholasLaney giusta osservazione, ma torni presente che si parla di tempi molto lunghi qui, dove stravolgimenti o collassi della civilizzazione sono possibili. Ad esempio, gran parte della medicina moderna esiste e progredisce grazie all'industrializzazione, ed un collasso energetico avrà un impatto negativo altissimo sulla disponibilità dei servizi di salute pubblica che hanno abbattuto la mortalità pre-riproduttiva.
-
@jwz Do you remember GLU? It had a perfectly good tesselator, and it turns out to be easy enough to separate from the open source GLU code into being standalone. I've done it once, and the libtess2 above is that too but cleaner than my old attempt. In general it's surprising how much good primitive game/graphics tech you can get by raiding either GLU or the old CPU renderers in Mesa.
Oh, btw, I guess the nanosvg I was using was this minor fork for better units support:
-
@afreytes qué bueno.
-
"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea." -- Robert A. Heinlein
(It's #HootinTootinTuesday again! Post some jokes or funny memes under this hashtag today, and bring lots of smiles to #Mastodon.)
#Humor #Humour #FunnyMeme #Puns #Dogstodon #DogsOfMastodon #DadJokes #Dogs #PuppyBowl #PuppyBowl2026 #DogsOfMastodon #Catstodon #Cats #CatsOfMastodon #CatsOfTheFediverse #StarTrek #QuoteOfTheDay #RobertHeinlein
-
Bonus #Joke
Q: What kind of dog never throws anything away?
A: A hoarder collie.(It's #HootinTootinTuesday again! Post some jokes or funny memes under this hashtag today, and bring lots of smiles to #Mastodon.)
#Humor #Humour #FunnyMeme #Puns #Dogstodon #DogsOfMastodon #DadJokes #Dogs #PuppyBowl #DogsOfTheFediverse #SpeedBumpComics #PuppyBowl2026
-
I should note that two of my coworkers deserve co-credit for the concept. I shouldn't hog the glory
-
@Sadsquatch
I know there's been talk of inviting our city councillors on a cycling tour of some of the best and worst infrastructure
@frstep
