I thought the term sounded familiar, and it is!

It came into our language via the Spanish, and came to mean some sort of an ogre who tends to hang out on trees, smoking cigars. Yikes!

I sometimes get that feeling when I run across someone's personal blog, and it hasn't seen updates in quite a long while (yeah, like in ten years or so). However, as with most of the other replies here, I tend to just assume they've lost interest and moved on.

I've had some blogs like that myself, and I'm certainly still alive (I hope, lol!) Some of them already gone with the sites themselves like Multiply, if you ever remember that, also, Friendster blogs—all this in the late 2000's and early 2010's. Then there's some Wordpress blogs I used for a while back in 2015~2018. I just got lazy, lost interest, and so left them in the dust.

Thus, yeah, I simply assume they're doing just fine, and have just moved on with their lives.

However, there's a different feeling for when I browse the blog/social media profile of someone I definitely knew has already passed on. It hits different. It's like a frozen snapshot of their life. Their final post just there. A lot of times, the final post doesn't even indicate anything. Their lives just went on as normal until it didn't, and it just hits me differently than someone who I would just assume have just stopped posting.

The way I've been using (and heard it being used) is more about the act. For example: "Nakiki-usyoso ka pa dyan! Pumasok ka na nga!" ("You're even spectating over therel! Come right back in, you!")

There's another word, usisa, which I would characterize as more like "to investigate, to look into" but is also akin to usyoso in a way I just can't put my finger on. I think it got conflated with usyoso as the colloquial uzi (from usisero/a, "someone who is overly-curious") took hold (example: "Uy! Wag ka ngang uzi! Kita mo na ngang nag-aamok na yang si Mang Torio eh. Pumasok ka na dito, bago ka pa madamay dyan!" ["Hey! Stop being an onlooker! You already see Mang Torio running amok. Come back inside before you get involved."])

I'd use neither to refer to the feeling of "wanting to find out about someone I'm spectating on" though. Personally, I'd just use something like na-intriga ("got intrigued/curious"). For example: "Na-intriga ako dun sa nabasa kong blog kagabi. Ano na kayang nangyari sa kanya. Huling post nya 2020 pa, tapos depressing pa yung post." ("I'm curious about the blog I read last night. I wonder what happened to them. Their last post was on 2020, and the post itself was depressing.")

If you have such a problem with too many people existing, do something about it. IDK.

I've started doing this when I noticed the space savings. First, I've done it with underwear, then with my undershirts. Now, only those shirts I need to be ironed (and immaculately folded) don't get rolled.

Wait, what? Peel avocados? ‌ Just why?

But then again, I grew up eating ripe, if not nearly overripe avocados, the kind whose flesh would turn into mush if you try to grab them. So, yeah, I would just slice the avocado in half (going around the pit), remove the pit, and then scoop out the flesh.

Both can be true, that we're experiencing record low birth rates globally and that the global population is still increasing at the moment.

How?

1. While birth rates in many countries have fallen below replacement rate, it's still not zero, which means people are still having babies.
2. Due to advances in health science, the death rate has fallen.

These two factors, especially decades earlier, mean that population hasn't yet fallen. However:

3. Non-existent humans will not produce babies.
4. The older the population is on the average, the higher the death rate will be.

This means that if I don't produce offspring, my non-existent offspring will not produce babies. The less babies are produced, the older the population would be, and the higher the death rate will be. If current trends continue, the death rate will overtake the birth rate, and the population will shrink.

Outside of a worldwide disaster that kills off people of child-bearing age, population will still rise before it levels off and then fall off as more and more people find less and less appealing to raise children. This is just a consequence of us humans not dying immediately after childbirth, and us humans as a whole making offspring at a certain age (say, 20 years old). These two factors explain the lag between childbirth figures and population growth.

Sorry, I'm under my rock here, but distraction from what?

On first thought, it didn't seem that bad of an idea. Manufacturing and industry-based businesses in the western Rizal area (Montalban, San Mateo, Antipolo, Cainta, Taytay, Tanay, etc) needs access to the port of Manila. That then leads me to thinking there must have already been a plan for such a highway (like NLEX, SLEX, and C6).

However, the devil is in the details. Why would it need to be near the Pasig river? Couldn't they have adopted an existing alignment? Aurora Avenue comes to mind, but it's too narrow west of EDSA. An alignment based on Shaw Boulevard could have been nice, but it doesn't even reach Rizal, it'd have to cut through already-built-up area west of Manggahan floodway if it has hopes of reaching Manila East Road. So, Metro Manila is already too crowded for a major east-west corridor for transporting goods.

How about using the river itself! No, not a highway over the river, but using cargo barges to carry goods from Rizal perhaps via facilities in Tanay, Cainta/Taytay, Pasig, Makati, Manila and then a separate facility next to the port. And then if it works, it can be extended via a different route coming from Laguna. It's already there, and perhaps there wouldn't be any induced demand.

Of course, it would be hard to connect with the C6, NLEX, and SLEX projects, which might be the point all along. Also, there might be issues with how navigable Pasig river and Laguna de Bay would be to barges of a certain capacity.

I don't know, that's why things like this should have been planned by the government decades in advance, and with expert help from the likes of JICA and others, in light of future projections and policy.

I don't use a shower, rather, I have a bucket (or two) of water and a dipper. I can ruminate and think about things while giving myself a thorough scrubbing, and not consume any water.

I can take as much time as I need (much to the irritation of people I live with) without consuming any more water.

I’d be worried about not really being able to make my own decisions and not having someone there to help me out.

I don't know about you, but I sure hope I'd be able to check out before that time comes for me. Before my mind and body becomes too feeble, I'd like to be able to just nope out.

Even if it were possible, I still would not prefer to have any kids.

First off, I haven't even been a "proper adult", and probably would never be. How can I be expected to raise a child with the care and love they deserve when I don't even have my life sorted out? Even if you argue that I'd have to change once having a child, I've also seen people fail to change even after having children they swore they loved even more than their own life.

Secondly, we've already got enough people that are unwanted and abandoned. Why not take better care of people we already have now?

Lastly, parenting is a huge commitment. It's not just about you and your "legacy", but another life that will suffer for your mistakes. For those who are up to the task and willingly take on the responsibility, thank you and best of luck!

Thanks! About the translation, yeah, my primary concern is putting across the wording of the original, that's why it became too literal. You know, that basic Japanese newbie learner tendency to be too literal.

I am also a bit stumped about the grammar used for the last sentence, but I'm guessing it's some polite construction which wouldn't affect the English translation too much.

I agree about being able to grasp the gist of the message with some basic Japanese, but IDK about being able to actually read the message.

お願い

この先は危険ですので、これ以上前へ行かないようお願い致します。

There are some parts of the message that I don't think is included in basic Japanese lessons:

• 危険 → dangerous
• 以上 → exceeding, beyond
• 行かないよう → probably related to the V+ようだ construction, which with the following bit, might be a polite way of making a request.
• お願い致します → probably some polite way of saying ‘please’

If I were to translate the message with my meager self-taught Japanese, I'd probably render it as something like

Request

Because of the danger ahead, not going beyond here is humbly requested.

Though I don't think that fully captures the nuance of the message itself.

Oh! That's probably enough for one day's work (kahit na may konting overtime o mejo heavy workload)! Pwede na palang pang-remote work ito! Of course, it'd depend on what exactly you're doing, but a work day doesn't impose a huge demand on a computer all the time.

So pwedeng na ata talaga syang pang-work computer!

That looks like a sweet portable PC set-up. Obviously you can't use it on the go as laptops would allow you to, but if you've got the space, you can set it up rather quickly.

Just one question though, how long do you think it'd run when on powerbank alone (assuming your average usage)?

First OS: Windows 3.1 running on top of MS-DOS 6.2

First Linux distro: Ubuntu (forgot the version, but it was circa 2018).

If I'd count an OS/Linux distro that I've used even if not in a machine I own, it'd be Linux Mint of circa 2006.

The alien impersonator was me all along!‌ HAHAHA!!!

I mean, seriously, I am not a native English speaker, but even with my weird English accent, it only became weirder if I try to speak fast while keeping the emphasis on that 't' at the end of "hot". My native accent also probably lends to that glottal stop taking over the 't' and merging it with the upcoming 'p' sound. It also helps that the two sounds (glottal stop and the bilabial 'p') are on opposite sides of my mouth, so I‌ can quickly sound them in succession. The end result sounded to me like an exaggerated "posh British" rendition, as if the alien watched way too much‌ BBC before invading Earth.

It just sounded way weirder than I otherwise would be. I can't really describe it.

NO

Neither do I self-identify as a tankie, I don't think anyone who'd identify themselves as tankies would think of me as one.

I didn't get it until I started trying to say "hot potato" in the middle of a sentence, like "Look out! Hot potato incoming!"

The 't' in "hot" became more and more like a glottal stop as my tongue started to touch the gums of my top front teeth less and less.