Tim J

@timtfj
247 Followers
198 Following
3.4K Posts

I used to play in too many orchestras, and currently play in none. I'm interested in many things, often science, language or music related.

I like words (especially ones that don't exist yet), and cheese. I hate underthinking, football, parsnips, and rigid rules about commas.

Jeg bruker av og til et omtrent norsklignende språk, but am not in fact Norwegian. 🎻

Bloghttps://timtfj.com
Birdsitehttps://twitter.com/timtfj
Locationjust outside Manchester, UK
Tim J2d ago
Keith Frankish3d ago
I was thinking of setting up a stall to sell copies of Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Brideshead Revisited, and other works by the same author. But that would have made me a . . .
Show threadTim J2d ago
It would be useful for them also to understand that <ff> and <f> are pronounced like in the English words "off" and "of" respectively. But one thing at once . . .
Show threadTim J2d ago

(Hence the difference between Gwyneth and Gwynedd, for example.)

It beats me how someone who knows they're going to have to repeatedly say a non-English word on air can think it's OK not to know the pronunciation.

(Though to be fair, I think some of them were trying. But they mostly only got either the <e> or the <dd> right, rarely both at once.)

Tim J2d ago

Dear Radio 4 election commentators,

• "Senedd" does not rhyme with "Kenneth".

Please take the time to understand that:

• Welsh spelling is phonetic. The <e> in <Sen> and the one in <edd> both represent exactly the same sound. Don't turn the second one into /ə/ just because it's unstressed.

• English writes two different sounds as <th>. The one in "the", and the one in "bath". Welsh has both sounds too, but distinguishes them: <dd> is the voiced one, and <th> the unvoiced one.

Thank you.

Tim JApr 23
susApr 23

A USian friend of mine has decided to take a trip to north Ontario in May. Hiking, hunting, camping.

They should have paid more attention to the warnings from the north.

https://www.nfb.ca/film/blackfly/

Blackfly

National Film Board of Canada
Tim JApr 23
Random MandelbrotApr 23
-0.28006478411138486 + -0.6294270855551917i at zoom 7.4842117105e+11.
Tim JApr 22

RE: https://glammr.us/@fskornia/116415597297660514

Why numbers should be in numerical order. (Follow the second link to see it in all its horror.)

Tim JApr 20
QuixoticgeekApr 18

RE: https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@vik/116424300137013600

Shots fired.

Entirely justified.

Tim JApr 17
Random MandelbrotApr 17
0.35687585272456135 + -0.3439673217110343i at zoom 9.3921280188e+05.
Tim JApr 17
Rob RicciApr 17
One of the things that's really important to me as a research professor is to have students who are confident in questioning me and disagreeing with me - I'm not always right, I make mistakes, I get the wrong mental model in my head for systems, I miss things. Because there's an inherent power imbalance between me and my students, one of my main tasks is to build up deserved confidence in my students, and to make it clear that they are always free to disagree without penalty.