July 17 2024 - No Stupid Question

 

Is that really true?  Is there no stupid question?  Someone has already thought of this and compiled a list of questions from various sources.  They claim these are real questions.  I guess they might be - I couldn't come up with some of these.     1.  “If animals could talk, which species would be the rudest of them all?” 2.  “What happens if you don’t show up to a job interview?” 3.  “Are there birds in Canada?” 4.  “What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way?” 5.  “Should I tell my parents I’m adopted?”  Also, a woman in a chatroom once asked, “How can I be sure I’m the real mom of my kid?” 6.  “What happens if you paint your teeth white with nail polish?” 7.  “Why isn’t 11 pronounced onety one?” 8.  “Can I eat my Himalayan salt lamp?” 9.  “Why does the coronavirus hate us?  What have we done to upset it so much?” 10.  “If the world is going to end, should I buy, sell, or hold stocks?” 11.  “Can I make a PlayStation 5 by linking a PlayStation 2 and a PlayStation 3 together?” 12.  “I was bitten by a turtle when I was young.  Can I still drink orange juice?”  Someone responded to that one and said no, it will reactivate the turtle venom. 13.  “Is an egg a fruit or vegetable?” 14.  “Are skeletons real or made up?” 15.  “Why are the holes in cats’ fur always in the right places for their eyes?” 16.  “Does looking at a PICTURE of the sun hurt your eyes?” 17.  “If I ate myself, would I become twice as big or disappear completely?” 18.  “Why isn’t a cupcake a mineral?” 19.  “Do inflatable dolls count as passengers in the carpool lane?” 20.  “Why are there school?”  That’s how they phrased it . . . “Why are there school?” This list was compiled in 2021 - there are 3 years worth of questions to add to the list.     I put two pictures together to get the Koi under the lily pads.  Sort of works.

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Mar 26 2024 - Is Smart Stupid?

 

Marina asked me how "smart" compared to "stupid".  It definitely compares with stupid in the retrievals - dictionaries range from around 50 to up to 1000 synonyms, etc. Tthat big number is the power thesaurus so not sure how many there really are.  And remember smart is an adjective and a verb - to smart - i.e. sting, burn, hurt, etc.   This is word very comparable to stupid in that it is used a lot today - smart phone, smart chips, smart shopping - smart is a handy word to use.  It gives status to a product. It has become a term for fast, simple, intuitive, connected.  So products are getting smart like we are.  Is artificial intelligence more than "smart?"  There's a promise of reasoning, making decisions and solving problems.  That's how humans want to be - that's smart.  So how intelligent and smart will artificial intelligence be? to answer that look to the new expression-  "super intelligent".  Ouch for human intelligence.  And go check out super smart - only a small percentage of humans fit that category.  The expression outperforms smart in the Good Books Ngram Viewer whereas super stupid has a much lower score than the others.  It takes us to the place  in the dictionary where everything now starts with"super" and "hyper."  Where supersmart has synonyms like ultra smart, hyperintelligent and so on.   Smart and stupid have similar entries in the google Books Ngram Viewer.  Here's the link to the Google Books Ngram Viewer  https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=smart Here's our Google Books Ngram Viewer rating for smart: The spring flowers are popping back out with the improved weather - here's a pretty spring pansy.

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Mar 242024 - Marilyn's Photos - Stupid Life Hacks

Stupid seems to be a favourite word today. Isn't this is proven by the headline "Stupid Life Hacks?" It doesn't really make sense given the meaning - "having or showing a great lack of intelligence or common sense."   It showed up in 1541 in the English language, but since 2000 it has exploded in popularity. Maybe it is so used because it has so many similar words and comparable meanings.  There are somewhere upwards of 447 similar and opposite words in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.   I found this list in one of the dictionaries and had to put it into alphabetical order to make some sense of it.    absurd asinine astute barmy batty birdbrained boneheaded bovine brain-dead brainless chuckleheaded clever cock-eyed crackbrained cracked crazy cretinous cuckoo daft damfool dense derpy dim doltish dopey dotty dozy dull dull-witted dumb dunce-like dunderheaded empty-headed fat-headed fatuous foolish fruitless futile glaikit gormless gullible half-baked halfwitted harebrained idiotic ignorant ill-advised ill-considered imbecile imbecilic inane indiscreet inept injudicious insane intelligent irresponsible lamebrained laughable loony loopy ludicrous lunatic mad meaningless mindless moronic muttonheaded naive nonsensical not the full shilling nutty obtuse off one's head off one's trolley Opposite: out to lunch peabrained pig-ignorant pointless potty prudent ridiculous risible scatterbrained screwy senseless sensible short-sighted silly simpleminded slow slow on the uptake slow-witted soft in the head thick thick as two short planks thickheaded unintelligent unthinking unwise vacuous vapid View 2 vulgar slang words witless wooden wooden-headed zany We've found something starting with almost every letter of the alphabet! What do you think of the "view 2 vulgar slang words" that is in there - I wouldn't have noticed this if it wasn't sorted.  And then check out the chart below showing the use of the word stupid over time. I think this is a Google Ngram. More on this feature HERE.  Is this worrisome?  What does it signify?  There certainly are a lot of people asking questions about other people being stupid.   Peter Kaufman's article on the sociology of stupidity proposes how "stupid" actually works: "let’s not forget that the phrase “stop being so stupid” is often followed-up by “because you are embarrassing us.”   We have snow every year rain the last week of March.  This is picture is from 2021 when there was a huge snowstorm in April while the Magnolias were blooming.  The snow melted, and they bloomed.  There isn't any news so far in March on the state of the tender fruit crop.  We had very warm weather and then very cold weather.

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