I’m using an LG K9 right now. Works ok, but I’d prefer a smaller screen

bxa3 on a pastry

The prized all-noun headline

So many times I wanted to talk about ‘el año’, and instead wrote ‘el ano’. 😣

(Spanish. ‘the year’ vs ‘the anus’)

Compared to the first question, I had to think a lot harder about this one. First stumbling block - ‘difficult’. Difficult compared to what? Second, ‘reading’. Is it ok to also think about characters in films and TV here? Taken at face value, the answer would be no, but the question seems more about interpreting the story than about the medium that the story is in. So film and TV should be ok? I think?

Anyway, characters in stories tend to be pretty explicit in their intentions. Captain Ahab wants to kill the whale, Frodo Baggins wants to destroy the ring, Elizabeth Bennett wants to find a suitable husband. They will explain themselves in dialog, and sometimes even get their thoughts narrated. Sometimes a character’s goals will be ambiguous or misleading, and that’s deliberate on the part of the author. It’s not a problem if you get to the reveal in a mystery novel and don’t yet suspect the killer. So, I think I can follow stories well enough. But…

Is there some aspect to characters that I’m not getting, and that I am not aware I’m not getting? There’s a kind of intrigue type of stories that just go over my head. I never know what’s going on in Scorcese or Frances Coppola movies, for example. And then there’s people in the fanfic space who like to ship characters, or imagine this character in that universe, and I don’t get it. Back in school we had a book report exercise with questions about the characters and how they develop through the story, and I found it unreasonably difficult to apply those questions to the stories I was reading.

So I’m going to say Slightly Disagree. On the face of it, I can generally understand what I need to follow a story. But I have some doubts, and I don’t think I have the insight to assess how relevant those doubts are.

E. After the discussion below, I’m revising this to Slightly Agree. I think there’s more going on with this question than I’m able to fathom.

I don’t get the gender neutral either (using Gboard on an older Android). Which is a bit odd because as far as I can tell gender neutral is the base character, and the male and female versions are customisations that are applied as if they were accented characters.

I’d rather have them all as no-gender, no-race, generic little yellow peeps but eh…

Getting XCom flashbacks. I’d set up a breach team on the door, and send the rest of the squad round and up that drainpipe so they can drop down from the roof. But best go around the back of the cars so as not to activate through the window.

Have you all forgotten that they directly addressed this in the show? https://youtu.be/Q9W7pvOLxmQ

Stamets, put Lemmy down! You can post a meme once you’ve done a task.

Oh no, that was my perception in my words. If there was anything so explicitly hostile I would have taken a picture of that instead.

Some context for my reaction - it has a cover letter that mentioned the high demand on the service and 24+ month wait times. Health service provision here (the UK) is highly politicised (as it is everywhere), and services are always under pressure to cut their wait lists. The application pack came in separate sections for standardised assessment forms, and one for admin details like contact numbers and medical history. This question was in the admin section.

I appreciate your point of view though, and it’s a reasonable possibility. I’ll keep it in mind when I fill it out.

Oh that’s all reasonable information to ask for. And I hadn’t considered the possibility of someone filling it reluctantly at a doctor’s request, so thanks for that. But the format of the question rubs me the wrong way.

“Bearing in mind that our resources are limited, and that you might be mistaken, write a persuasive speech about why you, in particular, merit our attention”. I’m (I think) decently able to express myself. I’m not great at self-advocacy, but I can grit my teeth and do it anyway. Not everyone filling this form will have those advantages. It feels like a barrier for people to self select out of the process, and I have to wonder if was clinicians or administrators that put it there.

Goodbye.

Just reflect on it for a while