Elster
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Elster
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22 followers 90 following 150 posts
“There is no difference between passive resistance and passive collaboration — it's the same thing.” W. G. Sebald
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attention to detail (famed)
iPhone lock screen with jacked time display, flush left for some reason
November 29, 2025 at 9:06 PM
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The special tool we use here at The New Yorker for punching out the two dots that we then center carefully over the second vowel in such words as "naïve" and "Laocoön" will be getting a workout this year, as the Democrats coöperate to reelect the President. Those two dots, often mistaken for an umlaut, are actually a diaeresis (pronounced "die heiresses"; it's from the Greek for "divide"). The difference is that an umlaut is a German thing that alters the pronunciation of a vowel (Brünnhilde), and often changes the meaning of a word: schon (adv.), already; schön (adj.), beautiful. In the case of a diphthong, the umlaut goes over the first vowel. And it is crucial. A diaeresis goes over the second vowel and indicates that it forms a separate syllable. Most of the English-speaking world finds the diaeresis inessential. Even Fowler, of Fowler's "Modern English Usage," says that the diaeresis "is in English an obsolescent symbol." It's actually a lot of trouble, these days, to get the diaeresis to stick over the vowels. The autocorrect on my word-processing program (I was just kidding about the hole punch) automatically whisks it off, and I have to go back, highlight the letter, hold down the option key while pressing the "u," and then retype the appropriate letter. The question is: Why bother? I am not getting paid by the hour. The fact is that, absent the two dots, most people would not trip over the "coop" in "cooperate" or the "reel" in "reelect" (though they might pronounce the "zoo" in "zoological," a potential application of the diaeresis that we get no credit for resisting). And yet we use the diaeresis for the same reason that we use the hyphen: to keep the cow out of co-workers. Basically, we have three options for these kinds of words: "cooperate," "co-operate," and "coöperate." Back when the magazine was just getting started, someone decided that the first misread and the second was ridiculous, and adopted the diaeresis as the most elegant solution with the broadest application. The diaeresis is the single thing that readers of the letter-writing variety complain about most. We do change our style from time to time. My predecessor (and the former keeper of the comma shaker) told me that she used to pester the style editor, Hobie Weekes, who had been at the magazine since 1928, to get rid of the diaeresis. She found it fussy. She said that once, in the elevator, he told her he was on the verge of changing that style and would be sending out a memo soon. And then he died. This was in 1978. No one has had the nerve to raise the subject since.
November 29, 2025 at 9:02 PM
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it’s a hard world for little things
a large tabby lying on her side, sleeping soundly on a hardwood floor
November 29, 2025 at 8:50 PM
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not sure the government has really tamed inflation as they claim
marvel rivals boss bars with HP of many billions and multipliers well over 90,000
November 29, 2025 at 5:17 AM
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new fruit just droppped
a small black and white cat loafing in a square wooden friit bowl
November 29, 2025 at 12:17 AM
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I already have Elephant
Cart Purchase The White Stripes - White Blood Cells (CD) - BRAND NEW The White Stripes - Icky Thump (CD) - BRAND NEW The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan (CD) - BRAND NEW The White Stripes - De Stijl (CD) - BRAND NEW
November 28, 2025 at 6:53 AM
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posting something random simply for the love of the game
a map from a 4X game with the largest territory being labelled CUMANIA
November 28, 2025 at 3:46 AM
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kickin it old style
close up of a full-size CD player and the envelope for the CD it is playing, Autechre NTS Session 3
November 28, 2025 at 1:30 AM
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Well I wrote a hit play and directed it so I’m not sweating it either
a large tabby lounging insouciantly on a corrugated scratcher
November 26, 2025 at 9:03 PM
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Post your warning label
black and yellow triangular trip hazard warning sign posted on a glass door
November 26, 2025 at 3:15 AM
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“Fucking females is for poofs.”
Jason Flemyng as Crazy Larry in Layer Cake (2004)
November 24, 2025 at 9:26 PM
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silent hill 2
monochrome atkinson dither showing james standing next to an armchair in front of a glowing tv
November 23, 2025 at 7:48 AM
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rare george dub
george russell wearing pink lego sunglasses
November 23, 2025 at 5:38 AM
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hello little miss
a small black and white cat looking slightly to the left of the lens
November 23, 2025 at 3:23 AM
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recent activity eXistenZ 4 stars Final Destination Bloodlines 4 stars Black Bag 4 stars Red One ½ star
November 22, 2025 at 5:50 AM
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getting caught up on the latest rotanev releases
Recently Added Atonal Bells, by Marco Asoleda and Noods Someone Is Trying To Get, by Ross Hillier Get This Thing Started, by Papaverhof The Memory, by Dj Wank
November 22, 2025 at 2:12 AM
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beetlejuice death screen. text: drain unblocked
November 21, 2025 at 6:29 AM
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new steam controller looks great
an overhead shot of a pair of feminine-looking hands resting on a fleshily asymmetric quasi-biological looking device resting in the user’s lap
November 21, 2025 at 5:20 AM
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My suspicion, my awful *awful* newfound theory, is that there are people with a sincere and even kind of innocent belief that we are all just picking winners, in everything: that ideology, advocacy, analysis, criticism, affinity, even taste and style and association are essentially predictions. That what a person tries to do, the essential task of a person, is to identify who and what is going to come out on top, and align with it. The rest-what you say, what you do-is just enacting your pick and working in service to it.
November 20, 2025 at 10:18 PM
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what are you doing here bro
November 20, 2025 at 5:54 AM
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y’all need Linus
cover of the Linux Bible, 3rd edition
November 20, 2025 at 1:57 AM
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UNITY BOOKS Order summary ^ 80,50 $
November 20, 2025 at 1:30 AM
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new friend
a lego bonsai japanese maple, sitting on a white desk. in the background, teeming bookshelves
November 20, 2025 at 12:08 AM
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megamind, a blue bald guy with an enormous dome
November 17, 2025 at 10:40 PM
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Lipstadt called it
Ironically, at the same time that they were investing what was facing me with such personal import, I was also receiving a very different message from other sources, particularly intellectuals and scholars in the field. Holocaust denial, they insisted, was the equivalent of flat-earth theory and, as such, was worthy of nothing more than utter ridicule. I should not, these skeptics insisted, take Irving's charges seriously. I was "silly," one leading historian opined, to invest so much time, effort, and resources into fighting them. "Just ignore it" was his sage advice. Though I agreed with these scholars about the total absurdity of denial, I explained that if I followed their advice, Irving would win by default. Because the British justice system placed the burden of proof on me, my failure to fight would result in a ruling that I was indeed guilty of libeling David Irving by calling him a denier. Irving could then legitimately interpret such a ruling as having concluded that his version of the Holocaust—no plan to kill the Jews, no gas chambers, no Hitler involvement-was legitimate. "So what?" the historian continued. "No one will believe it anyway." From my then budding awareness of the Internet, I knew he was wrong. There were many people who, though not fully accepting deniers' claims, might wonder if there was not some justification to Irving's positions.
November 17, 2025 at 4:23 AM