Evan Kirshenbaum

@evankirshenbaum.bsky.social

203

Posts

Software researcher, inventor, erstwhile linguist, book lover, bad bassist, former youth soccer ref and baseball coach, Stanford grad, proud dad, and devoted husband.

@evanKirshenbaum at Twitter

Posts Replies Media Lists

Reply to

Locutus of Borg™

How else were you going to set your watch accurately?

Reply to

Nathan Wind as Cochese

That was directory assistance, not time. Typically prefixed by an area code.

Reply to

Deeks 🫶

"Popcorn" (767-2676) got the time in Chicago, but it didn't get the temperature.

Reply to

Paul Frazee

Nice at first. Then it feels like you're being exfoliated. Then it's "Okay, enough!" Our velcro-tongued kitty grooms her brother into submission when he's in a spot she wants.

Reply to

Mike Masnick

It's not the real stuff, but it's tasty and pretty easy. (We've done it both ways, and I'd recommend using vodka rather than Everclear.)

Slivovitzwww.washingtonpost.com Slivovitz is a plum schnapps or brandy made all across Eastern Europe and -- under different names -- in Germany, France and Italy.

Reply to

Max Kennerly

It's posts like this that make me regret that BlueSky hides blocked posts, so I have no idea who it was or what they did to deserve such a marvelous rejoinder.

Reply to

AkivaMCohen

"The 22nd amendment says 'elected', which clearly refers to the popular vote, so terms where he lost that but won the electoral college don't count." Or something like that.

Reply to

Emma Evans

I'm pretty sure that even with peanuts there are levels of sensitivity, from hives (or less) to anaphylactic shock, and they may not have put two and two together until later, when people started talking about it more and realized that (if it was getting worse), it could be life-threatening for her.

My son had a friend who had contact allergies to nuts and dairy. They caught it early (and he's much less sensitive now), but I doubt many kids like him survived their first few years before the '80s or '90s at the earliest. (The kid was born in '98.)

Reply to

Emma Evans

They're sort of right about not having kids with (life-threatening) food allergies. They tended to die before reaching school age. (Although 30 years probably doesn't do it. My son's preschool class was nut- and dairy-free 25 years ago, and if heard of it earlier. 40 or 50 years, I'd give them.)

Reply to

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

📌

Reply to

Dots and Lines

Baseball umpire signals are also believed to be due to deaf players, though which nineteenth century player is responsible is disputed. (Some of the signals, especially "safe" and "out" are transparently taken from ASL.)

The Deaf and the Origin of Hand Signals in Baseball – Society for American Baseball Researchsabr.org

Reply to

Emma Evans

Emma, I'm so sorry. 🫂

Reply to

ProzacElf

Feel free to DM if there's anything else you might want to know. (Or not, of course.)

Reply to

ProzacElf

Ugh. You're describing me starting the Friday before Memorial Day (of course), but I could only sit for about 30sec, too, before unbearable pain. 5-day course of steroids and daily gabapentin are working well for me. OTC Lidocaine patches on the lower back are a miracle. PT is probably helping, too.

Apologies and feel free to disregard if this isn't the kind of help you were looking for.

Reply to

Benjamin Dreyer

Apparently Shinola was originally "Shinol'a" (ca. 1880, before it was the name of the company). It wouldn't surprise me if it was originally thought of by the manufacturer as "shine-all-a", but was mispronounced by the public, and the apostrophe was dropped from the packaging to match that.

Reply to

Benjamin Dreyer

My native Chicago dialect uses singular "they" to the point where I had trouble understanding what people were objecting to when it became an issue later, and I think I've always used "themself".

Reply to

Alexandra Merideth Erin [she/her] - in my Brain Damage arc

I loved the anagram reveal. "Yes, viewer, you caught that. You're so so smart. It's not going to be that simple."

Reply to

Benjamin Dreyer

I think that, to me, if it would seem wrong to refer to Cousin Bob as simply "Bob", the "Cousin" should be capitalized. It's more of an honorific than an appositive.

Reply to

Chabitz

But donate *more* because it's deductible.

Reply to

Benjamin Dreyer

Introspecting, I think I'm mostly the former except in careful speech, with possibly a bit of labialization on the vowel. I grew up in Chicago in the ’70s.

Reply to

kilgore trout

It's not called B-Ark, by any chance, is it?

Reply to

Bluesky

Thank you so much. That was one of my top wants. Checking somebody out to see if they're worth following us easier when their first hundred followers aren't all people you've never heard of. To extend this, could you also add followers you've blocked?

Reply to

Megan E. Zombi

Sure, but nobody acts like you're unable to just because of your age.

Reply to

Durrell

That many younger people ignore the fact that much of the technology that they believe we're incapable of dealing with was actually invented by us Boomers (and earlier generations).

Reply to

Claire Willett

Jane's Strong Desire George Thorogood & The Damagers Reasonably Strong Bosstones Maybe

Reply to

David M. Perry

The Tap-les Bob Seger and the Orange Nerf Ball Band

Reply to

Mx. D.E. Anderson

"Where's the toilet?" "… In the restroom?"

Reply to

Benjamin Dreyer

Was the author (or character) Jewish? I tend to say it that way, and I believe it's a Yiddish calque. I can definitely see wanting a narrator or character to sound like that and resisting changing it.