State of the Discussion

"I know fully well how vulgar that is and I did it on purpose!'.
Well, we don't have to consider that. Trump has no clue how vulgar it is.

There was very bad taste in the past too (even by the different aestethic standards of the day). There is a degree of preservation bias but also a "where to look" one.
Where one still can find lots of - in my opinion - aesthetic abominations is in churches with Roman catholic ones being the main culprits (and there churches dedicated to Mary leading the charge).
Orthodox churches also do lots of gilding but imo it's not that 'in your face'.
In the case of His Orangeness and his role models round the Persion Golf the lack of tast is imo to a degree program. The absence of any kind of subtlety is the very point.
It's not the amount of precious materials that makes bad taste but the lack of subtlety.
In the past there existed an art of showing off aimed at experts and equals. Those whose opinion counted would notice and that's what counted.
These days that knowledge is there no more in either the target audience nor the show-off-ers themselves.
About the only thing missing is glaring price tags put everywhere to rub it in.
And then there is of course the cliche of "the kind of shabbiness only the very rich can afford", putting pride in the very expensive stuff looking like crap deliberately while reminding everyone HOW expensive it was.*
Apart from that, the vulgarian ultra-rich seem to have lost the art of decadence with style.
They would not 'get' Trimalchio (or even see him as too intellectual).
* Remembering "The People vs. Larry Flynt" I wonder, whether the vulgarity of his mansion (the real one iirc shown at the end of the film) was him lacking taste or a bold statement of 'I know fully well how vulgar that is and I did it on purpose!'.

"Paid or unpaid?" sounds to me like she could make good use of them, but has no budget to pay them. If you were serious, apply and find out.

Yes, same size as a plump standard pillow. Traditional Japanese versions are quite a bit smaller and thinner.
I got mediocre marks in cursive penmanship because I insisted right from the beginning on straight up and down strokes instead of slanting it.
Did anyone notice that the toy software actually did a nice job of flattening the notebook pages?

Hmmm, I will take that under advisement in case new pillow number 2 fails. I didn't know about little back-sleeping ones, I assumed normal pillow size. Is your pillow the same size as a regular pillow?

What sort of pillow?
Michael, your story of the buckwheat hull pillow doesn't surprise me. As far as I can work it out, for back sleeping the desired position is to have one's neck fully supported but not raised, and one's head somewhat lower to the point where that is achieved. Those kinds of pillows can achieve that, if you wiggle your head into it just right, as indeed did very over-stuffed goosedown pillows for me for a long time. But I think (after 30 years or so) I am long past that. Now it has to be pillows filled with different kinds and resistances of foam and memory foam, contoured in various ways that are just right for one's particular needs. And it's often, as it has been for me now, a system of trial and error, where you have to try with a particular new pillow for several days to be sure whether or not it's any good.
Unfortunately, I am now a side sleeper, and I have never worked out exactly what the ideal combination is for that. New pillow number 1 professed to be for both back and side sleepers, and was weirdly and alarmingly contoured, but it only seems to be (reasonably) good for back sleeping. The jury is still out on new pillow number 2, but it means I am currently juggling 4 different pillows!

I've dabbled in handwriting analysis over the years. What I see is someone who is fascinated by spider webs, likes oatmeal on the thinner side, and shaves against the grain of his beard. I'm about 97.341% sure about all of that.

For wj more than anything...
Got the first toy version of my nonlinear "flattening" software running. Here's the input image I've been using for testing. It's a picture (converted to grayscale) of one of my old work notebooks. The notebook is "curled" in three-space and the camera is: (a) not centered over the notebook; (b) rotated relative to the notebook; and (c) not pointed at the center of the notebook.
Here's the output from the toy software. It's an approximation of a scan at a bit under 300 dpi. In the current version I give the toy hints about where the corners are, but then it's on its own. There are errors in the area where the curvature is most extreme. OTOH, in real life such areas are likely to be empty. I'm not unhappy with the result here.
Lots of future work on illumination correction, among other things.

My new pillow arrived today. My fingers are majorly crossed. And for russell and Pro Bono too: may all our physical problems get better, since our political ones (Ubu, Gaza and Ukraine etc) show no immediate sign of doing so.
Someone needs to find a way to enforce consequences or else we are in a de facto tyranny.
Absolutely right.

They're a starting point. LLMs are much better, but can still make mistakes or make stuff up. YouTube videos vary from overhyped BS to good sources on what is currently known about a subject.

But what got me was the subhead: "It’s unclear how the Justice Department will respond to the request." Do you morons not know? It's not a request. It's an order! Not that the Trump administration recognizes the distinction.
If the search bar here is any indication, I have twice mentioned politics and feud in Medieval Iceland in relation to discussions here. Once was in response to regime cleavage and the corruption of the Supreme Court, the second was in response to CharlesWT discussing libertarian capitalism as a governmental philosophy.
Here's number three, and to quote the Violent Femmes "Third verse/Same as the first."
Checks and balances only work if the people in charge actually care to follow the law. You see this all the time in Icelandic saga, when a goði [a political leader in a district] had enough sway over the local politics it was nearly impossible for anyone who was not allied with that goði to get satisfaction within the law, usually leading to extra-judicial solutions (bloodfeud) being pursued.
Basically, you had to join a party to get enough power and influence as a collective to sway the local courts, and you had to have enough wealth and land to even be entitled to legal status in court. Tenant farmers were stuck with whatever their goði or their landlord decided, or else either leave and find a better landlord or take matters into your own hands and risk becoming an outlaw. (Jesse Byock's Feud in the Icelandic Saga is fascinating reading. I pulled most of this info from his chapter on "Feudeme of Advocacy." If you have no advocate, you are exposed to the whims of those with entrenched power.)
This administration is definitely in the place where they think that no one exists with enough compulsive power to make them follow the law. It doesn't matter to them if something is an order. They are going to force a confrontation and dare the opposing party to try to force compliance.
Someone needs to find a way to enforce consequences or else we are in a de facto tyranny.

I reflected that Trump is firmly aligned on the side of Envy, Rapine, and Ignorance, and is, for the moment at least, triumphing over Truth and Learning.
Exactly right. But congratulations to your daughter, Pro Bono.
It's an extraordinary and underappreciated achievement for them to keep going in those circumstances.
Agreed.
Charles, thanks for Creatine suggestion. Will look into it.

About a decade ago, I had frozen shoulder syndrome (adhesive capsulitis). First the left, then the right shoulder. I could only sleep about an hour and a half at a time. The pain intensified the longer the shoulder was immobile. Moving my arm would usually reduce the pain enough that I could sleep another hour or so.
Using Dr. Google, I determined that I could pay someone thousands of dollars to cure it in ten to twelve months. Or I could endure it for ten to twelve months, and it would cure itself. Which I did, and it did.

Talk of neck and shoulder pain gets my attention.
I've had neck pain and associated nerve symptoms in my hands and feet since October. In April I had decompressive surgery on my neck for degenerative cervical myelopathy. Since then I've been had shoulder pain to go with it, which gets severe with prolonged mild exertion - cooking dinner, for example.
The surgeon is hopeful that some of these symptoms will moderate with time.
It is, as Russell says, an eye-opener. I realise that people live with much worse than this from a much younger age. It's an extraordinary and underappreciated achievement for them to keep going in those circumstances.

And then, and continuing to now, intense myalgia.
Taking a Creatine dietary supplement might be helpful. It's been around for a long time and is considered safe for most people. But you may want to check with your doctor first. Look for Creatine Monohydrate in the dietary supplement section of stores.
"Emerging evidence suggests that creatine supplementation may benefit individuals experiencing myalgia (muscle pain) after COVID-19, particularly in the context of post-COVID-19 fatigue syndrome or long COVID. Here's a summary of the relevant findings:"
Creatine Benefits for Post-COVID Myalgia

Also, too:
Do you morons not know?
Yes, they definitely know. But for some reason, or collection of reasons, a remarkable number of people and institutions are amazingly reluctant to name things for what they are. At least, when it comes to Trump.
What we're seeing is the failure of the institutions that are meant to preserve constitutional governance and the rule of law. Not just failure, they seem to be actively running away from the responsibilities of their role in our grand experiment.
Everybody is afraid of the bully. Nobody wants to upset the apple cart, even though the apple cart has already been smashed to bits and the apples rolled into the gutter.
One way or another, the reign of DJT will end. I really don't know what we will be left with.
One thing that does seem to be clear is that everybody else on the planet is figuring out that a MAGA United States is a fickle and utterly self-interested actor, and are taking steps to deal with that. Among other things, some of them are discovering that they don't really need us all that badly. We can be worked around.
Another 3 1/2 years to go.

Taking a hard turn in a different direction:
Headline in today's Washington Post: "House issues subpoena for Epstein files". Which is good to know. (And about time, considering how the Trump Justice Department has stonewalled.)
But what got me was the subhead: "It’s unclear how the Justice Department will respond to the request." Do you morons not know? It's not a request. It's an order! Not that the Trump administration recognizes the distinction.

It seems like the lit there is suggesting that sexual selection *might* have a role in development of language, but given that the evidence shows that more intelligent mothers have lower infant mortality rates, it could be that it's actually natural selection having an effect that looks like it could be sexual selection - that is, it's not the selection of mates that is the mechanism for the trend, but rather the survival of the offspring that is the driving mechanism. I'd guess it could be kind of hard to tell if it is mate/mate communication or parent/child communication that is the dominant factor. Seems like a bit of a black box and a set of assumptions.

Well, the one who is best able to whisper sweet nothings in a potential mate's ear is likely to have better mating success...
Here are two articles and a book that make the case for sexual selection pressures having an impact on language development.
"The article argues for a hybrid model where early language evolved through natural selection for collaboration, followed by sexual selection for displaying superior intelligence, leading to the development of modern, expressive language. It emphasizes sexual selection’s role in driving the "supercharged" nature of human language compared to other primates."
The evolution of language by sexual selection
"Miller discusses how language may have evolved as a sexually selected trait to display cognitive abilities and intelligence, serving as a courtship tool. This review article explores the idea that verbal creativity and eloquence signal genetic fitness."
Sexual selection for indicators of intelligence
"The book argues that many human cognitive traits, including language, evolved through sexual selection as displays of intelligence and creativity to attract mates. Miller posits that language’s complexity and expressiveness serve as fitness indicators in mate choice."
The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature

Open thread, so I found this (about and with an extract from Max Bennett's A Brief History of Intelligence) on the origins of human language, its relation to AI and other aspects, interesting. Also, it sent me down a rabbit hole about Kanzi, whom I had completely forgotten:
https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/the-one-weird-trick-that-gave-humans?utm_source=substack&publication_id=54748&post_id=169644176&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=false&r=w2vx&triedRedirect=true