I think I might be able to answer this one from my perspective. I was born in a Portuguese speaking country, so on paper my mother tongue should be Portuguese (which it sort of still is). But we moved when I was a kid and I lived in multiple countries, so I went to international schools for most of my life. English then became my mother tongue over time and it is dominant over Portuguese. I now work in an organisation where English is the main working language, but I live in France, so I acquired a third language, just not quite at native level. Here are some of the interesting things I’ve observed:

• I have slightly different “personalities” in different languages. This may be a reflection of exposure to different cultures and times of my life I learned these languages, but also very much a confidence thing. I am funnier and at ease making jokes in English than the other two languages.
• Some words I only learned in one language because of timing and circumstance. There are technical terms I know only in English because of my work. There are motorcycle parts I only know the name of in French because I bought my first bike here. I birdwatch, and for some birds’ names I default to English, while others I use their French name.
• Because of moving around I was exposed to a lot of different cultures, which is awesome, but that means I have cultural weak ties to my countries of origin (I’m also mixed race). If anything the one cultural constant in my life has been anglophone media (especially American) which had a mot of influence. I identify more with Anglo-Saxon culture but also feel vaguely European. I even sound generically American, which throws some people off when they learn I never lived in the US nor Canada.
• Knowing multiple languages fluently can obviously make it easier in some ways and make things more accessible. It also made me very adaptable. When I arrived in France I narely knew the language. Once I gained fluency, everything became much easier (well, as easy as this country can be).
• One disadvantage is that in some ways I am always the “other” (though not just because of language). Everywhere I go I feel like a foreigner, hence the username. I speak English to my kids, and that makes me stand out and people treat me as if I’m some sort of exotic being. It’s gotten better now they’re in a more international school.
• It’s harder to find people who “get it” because they lived through the same experiences.
• At work I sometimes have meetings with Portuguese speaking people but I’m uncomfortable speaking Portuguese in a work setting because I miss many of the terms. So I often default to English which confuses people because I’m from a lusophone country and I speak fluently.

There are some messier issues around identity that I won’t get into because those aren’t limited just to language, but the above are things that have stood out to me over the years.

!spoiler Ah? I didn’t catch that, I thought they divorced when the daughter was still alive given the parts about dating someone else? Where in the story did you catch that bit?

It’s probably too early to tell just how many people will be impacted and if those impacted will connect the dots to Trump and his cabinet’s actions. But I’ll ask as a precaution - is there a lethal dose for schadenfreude? My gut tells me we may experience quite a bit of it and I don’t want to overdose.

Ah man I’m so sorry about your owl friends :( you’re right though, it really is a great lesson in taking things as they are and living in the present. I wish you more happy owl encounters in the near future!

I think you explained it quite well. I just read the story and was a bit confused by the ending but this clarified it for me.

Major spoilers ahead! (struggling with the spoiler tag!)

!spoiler The story reads like she’s in the present and you assume her memories of her daughter are in the past. Then looking back at the language used, she’s describing memories of her daughter with language that indicates it’s in the future, not the past. So it stands to reason that the encounters with the heptapods are in the present and learning their language gives her the ability to ‘see’ the future I assume Gary is her daughter’s father. Just like she mentions of the readers of the Book of Ages, she won’t do anything to change the future even if she knows what’s coming, even if it means a future where her daughter dies young.

Yeah I count myself very lucky someone shared the location with me. There is another well documented sedentary Tawny with photos going back to 2010. Sadly when I went back last week it wasn’t there, and another photographer passing through told me it hadn’t been seen for almost a year. Last time I saw it was March or April last year, so I fear it may have passed away. I’m hoping that’s not the case, and if it’s still around and I can get some shots I’ll share them here.

I’m also on the lookout for Long Eared Owls but those are going to be much more challenging to find.

So I went digging around for some of the older photos I’ve seen of the same spot and they seem to date from 2012-2015. I can’t tell if it’s the same individual but maybe someone with a more discerning eye will fare better?

Here’s another photo I took the week prior on a cloudy day:

In any case, the spot is next to a path that gets quite a bit of foot traffic (joggers, people walking dogs, people strolling with kids) so it’s not exactly quiet, but it doesn’t seem to be bothered.

spent the day alternating between dozing and glaring at everyone.

Life goals, honestly

Was your grandma allowed to vote, and how many times did she vote? I kid ;)

Viscously

for some reason

I think we know the reason, my friend.

Yep, improving Paris’ air quality has been a major focus for her for a long while. A huge number of roads have been replaced by cycle paths/public transport only, the speed limit throughout most of the city has been reduced from 50km/h to 30km/h, street parking spots have been reduced drastically, and certain older cars can’t are limited. It’s going to improve further given the périphérique speed has also been reduced (major traffic artery around the city), and the centre arrondissements are now being restricted for vehicles. Vehicle drivers are not too happy, but it does make a big difference for quality of life when you live and work in the city.

IANASU but apparently it’s true: https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/02/26/sea-urchins-wear-hats/

General Pinochet’s rule in Chile is a good example:

In fact, when Milton Friedman—one of the principal architects of the so-called Chicago School of economics—traveled to Chile in 1975, it was still not clear whether Pinochet would fully embrace the Chicago School’s economic program. It was only after Friedman met personally with the dictator that Pinochet was persuaded to fight inflation with “shock treatment”—that is, steep budget cuts that would cause high unemployment but, Friedman promised, would also put the country on a more secure economic path.

If anyone is wondering I’m petty sure gasoline doesn’t foam like you see on the top if you look close enough. The colour is also clear or very slightly yellow (unless additives have been added), so the colour on these doesn’t look right. It’s more than likely a joke using beer.

You mean like… curtains?

To each their own ¯\(ツ)/¯

A lot of people on Lemmy work in tech so responses are going to lean heavily in that direction. I’m not in tech and if you check my answer to this you’ll have a number of examples. I also know a few people who wanted to learn a new language and asked ChatGPT for a day by day programme and some free sources and they were pretty happy with the results they got. I imagine you can do that with other subjects. Other people I know have used it to make images for things like club banners or newsletters.

I use it like an intern/other team member since the non-profit I work for doesn’t have any money to hire more people. Things like:

• Taking transcripts of meetings and turning them into neat and ordered meeting minutes/summaries, or pulling out any key actions/next steps
• Putting together objectives and agendas for meetings based on some loose info and ideas I give it
• Summarise the key points from articles/long documents I don’t have tome or patience to read through fully.
• Making my emails sound more professional/nicer/make up for my brainfarts
• Giving me ideas on how to format/word slides and documents depending on what tone I want to employ - is it meant for leadership? Other team members?
• Make my writing more organised/better structured/more professional sounding
• Writing emails in foreign languages with a professional tone. Caveat is I’m fluent enough in those languages to know if the output sounds right. Before AI I would rely on google translate (meh), dictionaries, language forums, etc and it would take me HOURS to write a simple email using the correct terminology. Also helpful to check grammar and sentence structure in ways that aren’t always picked up by Word.
• I sound more like a robot than an actual robot, so I ask the robot to reword my emails/messages to sound more “human” when the need arises (like a colleague is leaving, had a baby, etc).
• Bouncing off ideas. This doesn’t always work and I know it doesn’t actually have an opinion, but it helps get the ball rolling, especially if I’m struggling with procrastination.
• If my sentences are too long for a document, I ask it to shorten/reword and it’s pretty capable of doing that without losing too much of the essence of what I want to get across

Of course I don’t just take whatever it spits out and paste it. I read through everything, make sure it still sounds more or less like “me”. Sometimes it’ll take a couple of prompts to get it to go where I want it, and takes a bit of review and editing but it saves me literal hours. It’s not necessarily perfect, but it does the job. I get it’s not a panacea, and it’s not great for the environment, but this tech is literally saving my sanity right now.