spz | Reading

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72790&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=student-names-in-language-classes

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72790

From Barbars Phillips Long:

A Reddit thread beginning with a complaint from a student taking Spanish at a U.S. high school hinges on whether the teacher should call the student by his preferred name in English or translate it into Spanish. I never really thought about the practice of using or assigning Spanish names in Spanish class, or French names in French class, even though I did not have a French name in French class (possibly because my junior high French teacher was Puerto Rican and my high school teacher was a Hungarian refugee who had studied at the Sorbonne). But since I was in high school in the 1960s, sensitivity about names, naming, pronunciation of names, "dead names," and other assorted naming issues are a much more prominent part of advice/grievance columns and forums.

There seem to be two teaching approaches to renaming. One is to translate or change the pronunciation, which this student is unhappy with. The other style is to allow each student to choose a new name for themselves, probably from a curated list; some teens really like having the alternate name.

I don't think the details of the Reddit debate are necessary here, but it did make me curious about a few things:

Where did this renaming practice originate and is it part of teacher training in some or all states?

Why does it appear to be a U.S. phenomenon? (Students commenting from the U.K. and other countries say they are not renamed in foreign language classes.)

Is renaming a practice in U.S. high school classes in Mandarin or other non-Romance languages?

Is renaming a practice in U.S. college classes in foreign languages?

Do teachers, as a standard practice, rename students in English in ESL classes in the U.S. or overseas?

For those who are curious, the student complaining said that he is called by his initials, J.P., and he wants his Spanish teacher to pronounce them in English instead of using the Spanish pronunciation for the letters.

(Here's the Reddit thread.)

Most of my Chinese students have English names which, in many cases, they adopted or were granted already in elementary school, middle school, or high school, and over the years became quite fond of their English name. A minority staunchly cling to their Chinese names, and would consider it a betrayal of their ethnicity to switch to a foreign name. Quite a few tell me that they switch to an English name because their teachers and classmates can't pronounce their Chinese names. I should also mention that a large proportion of foreigners studying Chinese languages think it's cool to take a Chinese name, makes them feel more Chinese, and they stick to their Chinese for their whole life. Often, one of the first things teachers of first-year Chinese do is endow their students with a Chinese name, which many of the students think imparts a Chinese personality / character to them. My name, for example Méi Wéihéng 梅維恒 ("Plum Preserve / Maintain / Safeguard Constant / Unchanging / Immutable"), thoughtfully bestowed upon me by Tang Haitao and Yuan Naiying, gifted Princeton teachers, corresponds well with the sound and meaning of my name.

Far fewer of my Japanese students adopt an English name, perhaps because Japanese names seem easier to pronounce than Chinese names (vowels and consonants are straightforward, no tones to contend with, can spell them readily in romaji, etc.)

Selected readings

"A confusion of languages and names" (7/8/16)
"War on foreign names in China" (6/22/19)

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72790&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=student-names-in-language-classes

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72790

denise posting in

dw_news

Back in August of 2025, we announced a temporary block on account creation for users under the age of 18 from the state of Tennessee, due to the court in Netchoice's challenge to the law (which we're a part of!) refusing to prevent the law from being enforced while the lawsuit plays out. Today, I am sad to announce that we've had to add South Carolina to that list. When creating an account, you will now be asked if you're a resident of Tennessee or South Carolina. If you are, and your birthdate shows you're under 18, you won't be able to create an account.

We're very sorry to have to do this, and especially on such short notice. The reason for it: on Friday, South Carolina governor Henry McMaster signed the South Carolina Age-Appropriate Design Code Act into law, with an effective date of immediately. The law is so incredibly poorly written it took us several days to even figure out what the hell South Carolina wants us to do and whether or not we're covered by it. We're still not entirely 100% sure about the former, but in regards to the latter, we're pretty sure the fact we use Google Analytics on some site pages (for OS/platform/browser capability analysis) means we will be covered by the law. Thankfully, the law does not mandate a specific form of age verification, unlike many of the other state laws we're fighting, so we're likewise pretty sure that just stopping people under 18 from creating an account will be enough to comply without performing intrusive and privacy-invasive third-party age verification. We think. Maybe. (It's a really, really badly written law. I don't know whether they intended to write it in a way that means officers of the company can potentially be sentenced to jail time for violating it, but that's certainly one possible way to read it.)

Netchoice filed their lawsuit against SC over the law as I was working on making this change and writing this news post -- so recently it's not even showing up in RECAP yet for me to link y'all to! -- but here's the complaint as filed in the lawsuit, Netchoice v Wilson. Please note that I didn't even have to write the declaration yet (although I will be): we are cited in the complaint itself with a link to our August news post as evidence of why these laws burden small websites and create legal uncertainty that causes a chilling effect on speech. \o/

In fact, that's the victory: in December, the judge ruled in favor of Netchoice in Netchoice v Murrill, the lawsuit over Louisiana's age-verification law Act 456, finding (once again) that requiring age verification to access social media is unconstitutional. Judge deGravelles' ruling was not simply a preliminary injunction: this was a final, dispositive ruling stating clearly and unambiguously "Louisiana Revised Statutes §§51:1751–1754 violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution", as well as awarding Netchoice their costs and attorney's fees for bringing the lawsuit. We didn't provide a declaration in that one, because Act 456, may it rot in hell, had a total registered user threshold we don't meet. That didn't stop Netchoice's lawyers from pointing out that we were forced to block service to Mississippi and restrict registration in Tennessee (pointing, again, to that news post), and Judge deGravelles found our example so compelling that we are cited twice in his ruling, thus marking the first time we've helped to get one of these laws enjoined or overturned just by existing. I think that's a new career high point for me.

I need to find an afternoon to sit down and write an update for

dw_advocacy highlighting everything that's going on (and what stage the lawsuits are in), because folks who know there's Some Shenanigans afoot in their state keep asking us whether we're going to have to put any restrictions on their states. I'll repeat my promise to you all: we will fight every state attempt to impose mandatory age verification and deanonymization on our users as hard as we possibly can, and we will keep actions like this to the clear cases where there's no doubt that we have to take action in order to prevent liability.

In cases like SC, where the law takes immediate effect, or like TN and MS, where the district court declines to issue a temporary injunction or the district court issues a temporary injunction and the appellate court overturns it, we may need to take some steps to limit our potential liability: when that happens, we'll tell you what we're doing as fast as we possibly can. (Sometimes it takes a little while for us to figure out the exact implications of a newly passed law or run the risk assessment on a law that the courts declined to enjoin. Netchoice's lawyers are excellent, but they're Netchoice's lawyers, not ours: we have to figure out our obligations ourselves. I am so very thankful that even though we are poor in money, we are very rich in friends, and we have a wide range of people we can go to for help.)

In cases where Netchoice filed the lawsuit before the law's effective date, there's a pending motion for a preliminary injunction, the court hasn't ruled on the motion yet, and we're specifically named in the motion for preliminary injunction as a Netchoice member the law would apply to, we generally evaluate that the risk is low enough we can wait and see what the judge decides. (Right now, for instance, that's Netchoice v Jones, formerly Netchoice v Miyares, mentioned in our December news post: the judge has not yet ruled on the motion for preliminary injunction.) If the judge grants the injunction, we won't need to do anything, because the state will be prevented from enforcing the law. If the judge doesn't grant the injunction, we'll figure out what we need to do then, and we'll let you know as soon as we know.

I know it's frustrating for people to not know what's going to happen! Believe me, it's just as frustrating for us: you would not believe how much of my time is taken up by tracking all of this. I keep trying to find time to update

dw_advocacy so people know the status of all the various lawsuits (and what actions we've taken in response), but every time I think I might have a second, something else happens like this SC law and I have to scramble to figure out what we need to do. We will continue to update

dw_news whenever we do have to take an action that restricts any of our users, though, as soon as something happens that may make us have to take an action, and we will give you as much warning as we possibly can. It is absolutely ridiculous that we still have to have this fight, but we're going to keep fighting it for as long as we have to and as hard as we need to.

I look forward to the day we can lift the restrictions on Mississippi, Tennessee, and now South Carolina, and I apologize again to our users (and to the people who temporarily aren't able to become our users) from those states.

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/10/the-big-idea-kristina-w-kelly-2/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59430

Nothing beats away a dreary February day like curling up with a cozy fantasy novel. Even better when that novel is a sapphic love story with iguana, cat, and mushroom people! Grab a seat by the fire and a cup of hot chocolate (or tea) and listen to author Kristina W. Kelly’s Big Idea as she shows you the magical world of Tea Tale.

KRISTINA W. KELLY:

What happens when you second guess who you are? When you begin to rethink what really defines you? What happens when your faith betrays you, lies, and hides truths?

Everything begins to crumble. Like a sea cliff battered by eons of waves.

And if you’re Divine, your magic goes haywire and you start to wonder if you can hear animals talk. You change. You become. Maybe not something new, but someone different.

The idea for Tea Tale started simple: I wanted to feature my favorite beverage—tea—, pay homage to my favorite video games (as I did with the first book in the series, Tavern Tale), and set it all in winter. Of course, I needed to carry through the subplots and address some of the unanswered questions from that first book. What emerged was a quest to sprinkle religious betrayal over a sapphic pairing within the framework of Role Playing Games (RPGs).

Divine is a healer. Or was a healer. Her path used to be clear: serve the Goddess of Souls by caring for the living. She’d influence emotions, heal wounds, shield others from harm. The teachings of her temple always seemed contradictory to the way she lived, though.

Her temple, like all the temples in Trelvania, said that non-humans—races like the Iguions (iguana-like bipeds), the Kellas (feline humanoids), and Thospori (think mushroom warriors)—couldn’t receive the blessings from the deities. Simply because they were non-human. Oh, the temples said something about how non-humans don’t have magical power, of course, so that’s why they couldn’t be on the receiving end of magic. But Divine had healed a Kellas child. She had healed an Iguion adult. She had done what was supposed to be impossible. Forbidden.

When I was growing up, I was taught that I was born evil. A child tainted and only by a blood sacrifice could I be saved from these sins I hadn’t even committed. These same people told me that because I was a woman, despite my music education degree, I couldn’t lead the church orchestra. I could help in the nursery with the babies, though. All the other jobs were for men. I was led to believe that god thought I wasn’t equal or as capable because of my gender. Those same people decreed “love your neighbor”, but showed that only counted for some of the population. Even though the greatest command was love, people couldn’t love whomever they wanted.

Whether sudden or gradual, I eventually found myself changed. I had sought experts who studied the historical context and the translations that made sense in that period, not a modern view. I discovered that sentences I had etched into my brain weren’t even in the texts we had been reading and that books were left or added depending on the particular flavor of faith. I learned about the practices of different cultures and religions and the history of the one I’d known. I found people who were exploring their spiritually like I was and discussed their journeys. And I began to explore who I was without all of the baggage, shame, and fear I’d been taught.

When the community you trusted had it wrong, how do you replace that feeling of community? These questions I’ve been asking you, reader, is what I attempted to capture in Tea Tale. Yes, Tea Tale is cozy fantasy, but with a sip of religious oppression.

The faire in Tea Tale is inspired by holiday events in MMORPGs and one of my favorite RPGs ever, Chrono Cross. There’s special games, unique items, decorations, and event food like the Millennial Fair in Chrono Cross. Divine’s tasting tea by the fire and listening to musicians. When she helps prepare the Sultry Sapphire tavern for the Midwinter Nights Faire, the notes of RPG influences really come through. I love a good quest chain in video games, where my character runs around the city helping ten people just to get five mushrooms back to the first quest-giver. Divine’s tasks become more tasks—side quests—as she also tries to find a gift for her romantic interest.

But while Divine does all of that, she’s also struggling to understand her magic when it seems to be acting contrary to what her temple taught her.

Just like I sought experts, Divine seeks experts to understand how magic really works in her world and how she connects to it. She talks to the non-humans who are, quite frankly, oppressed by the temples of Trelvania and uncovers that the truths her temples spout might not be the whole story. She grapples with what it means to have lived so many years within an organization that didn’t respect her enough to tell her the truth. And if she’s not that person, she wants to discover who she is.

Divine tackles replacing her religious community with those around her who support her without expecting something in return. Like me, she befriends those who are questioning the same ideas she is, or find friends who have never followed the temples. Ordinary people who come together to make a difference. A community and a found family.

Tea Tale focuses on people coming together during their Midwinter Nights Faire to enjoy each other, get creative through poetry and music, and spread joy through gift giving, food, and hot drinks. From Divine’s love interest, Saph, donating food to those in need, to Divine advocating for change in the way non-humans are treated, the characters find small ways to collectively be impactful. “If no one is being a voice,” Divine thinks, “then I should. Someone must do something.”

At its heart, Tea Tale is full of magic, tea, and cozy moments. One of the things I love about modern RPGs is that the games give your character the option to pick any love interest they want. The world of Tea Tale is just like that—it’s a queer normative. But just like life, there are lies and injustices to chip away at to free who we want to be.

I’m still learning every day who I am. It’s ok to change. To become different as I grow. If we can surround ourselves with love, empathy, and patience we can find our true power. We can crack the deceit wide open and find warmth and friendship. Together, we lay those broken pieces, starting a foundation where others can feel safe to be who they want to be while sipping hot tea that smells of lavender and vanilla. When faced with lies and disparity…become someone different.

Tea Tale: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Space Wizards

Author socials: Website|Instagram|Bluesky|Facebook

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/10/the-big-idea-kristina-w-kelly-2/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59430

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/10/when-the-moon-hits-your-eye-out-in-trade-paperback-today/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59421

Yes, that’s right, the USA Today and Indie Bestseller that was also one of Amazon’s 100 Best Books of 2025, is now out in convenient trade paperback form, with a new bonus chapter: An alternate Day One which I wrote but (previously) did not use. It’s good! And a bit different. And has a cat! Because cats are cool.

Anyway, get it four yourself and buy six more for your friends and family. Saja thanks you in advance for your contribution to his Kibble Fund. It’s available wherever you choose to buy your books, and is of course also still available in ebook and audio.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/10/when-the-moon-hits-your-eye-out-in-trade-paperback-today/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59421

bruce_schneier_feed

Posted by Bruce Schneier

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/02/the-ai-generated-text-arms-race.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=71563

In 2023, the science fiction literary magazine Clarkesworld stopped accepting new submissions because so many were generated by artificial intelligence. Near as the editors could tell, many submitters pasted the magazine’s detailed story guidelines into an AI and sent in the results. And they weren’t alone. Other fiction magazines have also reported a high number of AI-generated submissions.

This is only one example of a ubiquitous trend. A legacy system relied on the difficulty of writing and cognition to limit volume. Generative AI overwhelms the system because the humans on the receiving end can’t keep up.

This is happening everywhere. Newspapers are being inundated by AI-generated letters to the editor, as are academic journals. Lawmakers are inundated with AI-generated constituent comments. Courts around the world are flooded with AI-generated filings, particularly by people representing themselves. AI conferences are flooded with AI-generated research papers. Social media is flooded with AI posts. In music, open source software, education, investigative journalism and hiring, it’s the same story.

Like Clarkesworld’s initial response, some of these institutions shut down their submissions processes. Others have met the offensive of AI inputs with some defensive response, often involving a counteracting use of AI. Academic peer reviewers increasingly use AI to evaluate papers that may have been generated by AI. Social media platforms turn to AI moderators. Court systems use AI to triage and process litigation volumes supercharged by AI. Employers turn to AI tools to review candidate applications. Educators use AI not just to grade papers and administer exams, but as a feedback tool for students.

These are all arms races: rapid, adversarial iteration to apply a common technology to opposing purposes. Many of these arms races have clearly deleterious effects. Society suffers if the courts are clogged with frivolous, AI-manufactured cases. There is also harm if the established measures of academic performance – publications and citations – accrue to those researchers most willing to fraudulently submit AI-written letters and papers rather than to those whose ideas have the most impact. The fear is that, in the end, fraudulent behavior enabled by AI will undermine systems and institutions that society relies on.

Upsides of AI

Yet some of these AI arms races have surprising hidden upsides, and the hope is that at least some institutions will be able to change in ways that make them stronger.

Science seems likely to become stronger thanks to AI, yet it faces a problem when the AI makes mistakes. Consider the example of nonsensical, AI-generated phrasing filtering into scientific papers.

A scientist using an AI to assist in writing an academic paper can be a good thing, if used carefully and with disclosure. AI is increasingly a primary tool in scientific research: for reviewing literature, programming and for coding and analyzing data. And for many, it has become a crucial support for expression and scientific communication. Pre-AI, better-funded researchers could hire humans to help them write their academic papers. For many authors whose primary language is not English, hiring this kind of assistance has been an expensive necessity. AI provides it to everyone.

In fiction, fraudulently submitted AI-generated works cause harm, both to the human authors now subject to increased competition and to those readers who may feel defrauded after unknowingly reading the work of a machine. But some outlets may welcome AI-assisted submissions with appropriate disclosure and under particular guidelines, and leverage AI to evaluate them against criteria like originality, fit and quality.

Others may refuse AI-generated work, but this will come at a cost. It’s unlikely that any human editor or technology can sustain an ability to differentiate human from machine writing. Instead, outlets that wish to exclusively publish humans will need to limit submissions to a set of authors they trust to not use AI. If these policies are transparent, readers can pick the format they prefer and read happily from either or both types of outlets.

We also don’t see any problem if a job seeker uses AI to polish their resumes or write better cover letters: The wealthy and privileged have long had access to human assistance for those things. But it crosses the line when AIs are used to lie about identity and experience, or to cheat on job interviews.

Similarly, a democracy requires that its citizens be able to express their opinions to their representatives, or to each other through a medium like the newspaper. The rich and powerful have long been able to hire writers to turn their ideas into persuasive prose, and AIs providing that assistance to more people is a good thing, in our view. Here, AI mistakes and bias can be harmful. Citizens may be using AI for more than just a time-saving shortcut; it may be augmenting their knowledge and capabilities, generating statements about historical, legal or policy factors they can’t reasonably be expected to independently check.

Fraud booster

What we don’t want is for lobbyists to use AIs in astroturf campaigns, writing multiple letters and passing them off as individual opinions. This, too, is an older problem that AIs are making worse.

What differentiates the positive from the negative here is not any inherent aspect of the technology, it’s the power dynamic. The same technology that reduces the effort required for a citizen to share their lived experience with their legislator also enables corporate interests to misrepresent the public at scale. The former is a power-equalizing application of AI that enhances participatory democracy; the latter is a power-concentrating application that threatens it.

In general, we believe writing and cognitive assistance, long available to the rich and powerful, should be available to everyone. The problem comes when AIs make fraud easier. Any response needs to balance embracing that newfound democratization of access with preventing fraud.

There’s no way to turn this technology off. Highly capable AIs are widely available and can run on a laptop. Ethical guidelines and clear professional boundaries can help – for those acting in good faith. But there won’t ever be a way to totally stop academic writers, job seekers or citizens from using these tools, either as legitimate assistance or to commit fraud. This means more comments, more letters, more applications, more submissions.

The problem is that whoever is on the receiving end of this AI-fueled deluge can’t deal with the increased volume. What can help is developing assistive AI tools that benefit institutions and society, while also limiting fraud. And that may mean embracing the use of AI assistance in these adversarial systems, even though the defensive AI will never achieve supremacy.

Balancing harms with benefits

The science fiction community has been wrestling with AI since 2023. Clarkesworld eventually reopened submissions, claiming that it has an adequate way of separating human- and AI-written stories. No one knows how long, or how well, that will continue to work.

The arms race continues. There is no simple way to tell whether the potential benefits of AI will outweigh the harms, now or in the future. But as a society, we can influence the balance of harms it wreaks and opportunities it presents as we muddle our way through the changing technological landscape.

This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared in The Conversation.

EDITED TO ADD: This essay has been translated into Spanish.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/02/the-ai-generated-text-arms-race.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=71563

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/09/housekeeping-note-re-emails-and-big-ideas-2-9-26/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59405

Hey, I neglected email for a bit in order to finish my book(s), including Big Idea queries, but now that they’re both in, I’m going to going to catch up with everything in the next couple of days. If you have a Big Idea query into me and haven’t heard back from me by this Friday, go ahead and resend it. Thanks.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/09/housekeeping-note-re-emails-and-big-ideas-2-9-26/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59405

languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72784&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ai-teaches-spoken-english-in-taiwan

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72784

Taiwan education ministry adds AI to English speaking test:
New system gives students instant feedback on spoken English
Lai Jyun-tang, Taiwan News | Feb. 3, 2026

Is this a first in the whole world? Or is it already common in many countries?

The article includes links to various Ministry resources providing background (in Mandarin).

AntC says he'd be very interested to hear from LLog readers involved with teaching/examining English using this tool.

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s education ministry has added artificial intelligence to its English speaking assessment system to help students better learn and practice spoken English.

Liberty Times reported Monday that the upgraded system uses artificial intelligence to score pronunciation and analyze spoken answers in real time. Education officials said the move supports Taiwan’s 2030 bilingual policy by placing greater emphasis on practical communication skills.

Tsai I-ching (蔡宜靜), a division chief at the ministry’s K-12 Education Administration, said the system is free for students from elementary school to university and covers listening, speaking, reading, and writing. She said the new speaking tasks include open-ended questions and information-based responses to mirror real-life situations and international test formats.

The system evaluates pronunciation accuracy, fluency, rhythm, vocabulary use, grammar, and how well responses match the question, according to the education ministry. After each test, students receive instant, personalized feedback and learning suggestions, the ministry said.

At Changhua County’s Shengang Junior High School, students use the system to practice speaking beyond textbook exercises and gain a clearer understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. Teachers also guide students to use the feedback to refine pronunciation and sentence structure.

In Keelung City, Cheng Kung Junior High School applies the test results to build a learning cycle that links assessment, feedback, and improvement. The approach has helped boost student motivation and engagement, per CNA.

Selected readings

"Artificial Intelligence in Language Education: with a note on GPT-3" (2/4/23)
"AI panics" (11/27/16)
"English as a prestige language in Taiwan" (11/29/20)
"English as an official language in Taiwan" (12/8/18)
Ralph Jennings, "Isolation-wary, Chinese-speaking Taiwan moves to make English an official language", Los Angeles Times (10/15/18)

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72784&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ai-teaches-spoken-english-in-taiwan

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72784

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/09/oh-and-3/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59394

Would you believe that I also completed another book since yesterday? This one is Couch Cinema: Comfort Watches from The Godfather to K-Pop Demon Hunters, a non-fiction collection of essays. No, I didn’t use “AI” or anything, I would never do that, you deserve better as readers. It’s a collection of my December Comfort Watches essays from December of 2023 and 2025, collected up in a nice single volume. I put them all together, did a light edit, added an intro, and sent it off to my agent.

As it happens, this is the first book I’ve done in years that isn’t already spoken for contractually, so we’ll see if we get any nibbles for it. If not, hey, Scalzi Enterprises was designed for just this sort of project in mind, and I wouldn’t have a problem using it as a test case to see if boutique publishing is something we have the bandwidth for. I would have to come up with a name for the imprint. We’ll find out!

Anyway. Two books in, and it’s only February. I can take the rest of the year off, right? Right?!?

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/09/oh-and-3/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59394

languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72775&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=japanese-inscription-in-medieval-india

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72775

Japanese Inscription, Kanheri Caves, Cave no. 90, Maharashtra, Late 13th century CE or later

Inscription records a devotional chant honoring the Lotus Sūtra and Nichiren, a Japanese Buddhist monk and philosopher born in 1222 CE.

It was likely inscribed by a Japanese pilgrim,… pic.twitter.com/Ww2BUEl4W0

— Satavahana (@SatavahanasIN) February 8, 2026

The Lotus Sutra, on which Nichiren Buddhism is based, was composed in written form in an India language between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century AD. It was translated into Chinese by Dharmarakṣa's team already in 286 AD and reached Japan by the 6th century (traditionally 538 CE) from Korea.

Selected readings

"Ace love" (4/4/24) — see the next-to-last comment
"The Development of Soka Gakkai in India"
"Nichiren (1222–1282)"

[Thanks to Geoff Wade]

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72775&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=japanese-inscription-in-medieval-india

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72775

languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72778&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nepali-man-slurred-in-northeast-india

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72778

Watch on YouTube

He's a Gurkha, the very people among whom I worked for two years (1965-67) as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bhojpur District, Nepal

He says he's a paharia ("hillman") — pahāḍī पहाडी.

Gurkhas are renowned Nepali soldiers serving in armies like the British and Indian forces, famous for their bravery, loyalty, and distinctive curved knife, the kukri, and are known by the endonym Gorkhali. They originated from the region around the town of Gurkha in Nepal, becoming integral to the British Army after conflicts in the 19th century, and are respected for their fierce fighting spirit and rigorous training, exemplified by the grueling Doko race.

Key Aspects of Gurkhas

Origin & Identity:
They are soldiers from Nepal, primarily from ethnic groups like Gurung, Magar, Rai, and Limbu, identified with the historic Gurkha kingdom.

Military Service:
Gurkhas have served the British Crown for over 200 years, forming the Brigade of Gurkhas, renowned for combat prowess.

The Kukri:
Their iconic weapon, a curved knife, has legendary status, believed to "taste blood" when drawn in battle.

Motto:
"Better to die than be a coward" reflects their martial ethos.

Recruitment:
Selection is highly competitive, involving tough physical tests like the Doko race, a steep uphill run carrying a heavy basket.

Modern Role:
They serve in various British Army units, including infantry, signals, and logistics, upholding a long tradition of service. (AIO)

Because of environmental degradation and overpopulation, Nepalis have been moving eastward into the northeastern parts of India, leading to scenes like that in the short video with which this post began.

Selected readings

"Learn Nepali" (9/21/16)
"'Bāphre bāph!' — my favorite Nepali expression" (8/12/18)
"Nepal, Naple(s), Naipul, nipple, whatever" (8/14/18)
"Dung Times" (3/14/18)
"Royal language" (9/29/15)
"Oli ko goli" (10/13/15)
"Unknown Language #7" (2/27/13)
"Unknown Language #7: update" (5/12/13)
"Seke, an endangered language of Nepal, in Flatbush, Brooklyn" (1/11/20) — with notes on Gurumg, Tamang, Mustang
"Tik Tok and Red Book" (1/19/25) — how many young Chinese find out about Nepal cram schools and barista training
"Chinese learning English in Nepal" (92/25)
"Learn Nepali" (9/21/16)
"Fast talking" (4/9/24) — see the last paragraph

[h.t. Sunny Jhutti]

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72778&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nepali-man-slurred-in-northeast-india

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72778

bruce_schneier_feed

Posted by Bruce Schneier

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/02/llms-are-getting-a-lot-better-and-faster-at-finding-and-exploiting-zero-days.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=71569

This is amazing:

Opus 4.6 is notably better at finding high-severity vulnerabilities than previous models and a sign of how quickly things are moving. Security teams have been automating vulnerability discovery for years, investing heavily in fuzzing infrastructure and custom harnesses to find bugs at scale. But what stood out in early testing is how quickly Opus 4.6 found vulnerabilities out of the box without task-specific tooling, custom scaffolding, or specialized prompting. Even more interesting is how it found them. Fuzzers work by throwing massive amounts of random inputs at code to see what breaks. Opus 4.6 reads and reasons about code the way a human researcher would—looking at past fixes to find similar bugs that weren’t addressed, spotting patterns that tend to cause problems, or understanding a piece of logic well enough to know exactly what input would break it. When we pointed Opus 4.6 at some of the most well-tested codebases (projects that have had fuzzers running against them for years, accumulating millions of hours of CPU time), Opus 4.6 found high-severity vulnerabilities, some that had gone undetected for decades.

The details of how Claude Opus 4.6 found these zero-days is the interesting part—read the whole blog post.

News article.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/02/llms-are-getting-a-lot-better-and-faster-at-finding-and-exploiting-zero-days.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=71569

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/08/monsters-of-ohio-done/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59387

And what is Monsters of Ohio? Why, it’s my 20th(!) novel.

What’s it about? Well, if the title is to be trusted, it’s about monsters! In Ohio!

How would I describe it? Two words: “Cozy Cronenberg.”

When can you have it? November this year.

I like it. I hope you’ll like it too.

More to come about this. Stay tuned.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/08/monsters-of-ohio-done/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59387

languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72772&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mandarin-vs-dongbei-accent

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72772

A Julesy bonus

Watch on YouTube

For a deeper dive into Dongbei, one would want to ask why it is that this particular topolect has become so unique and widely known in the Mandarin megaverse. Ditto for Sichuanese in its diverse manifestations.

Selected readings

"OMG moments induced by allegro forms in Pekingese" (1/26/12)
"Triple topolectal reprimand" (5/20/16)
"Varieties of Mandarin" (10/25/17)
"Northeastern topolect expressions" (11/12/25) — with references
"Northeastern topolect expressions, part 2" (12/19/25)

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72772&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mandarin-vs-dongbei-accent

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72772

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/07/trying-out-a-new-recipe-nadias-healthy-kitchen-healthy-brownie-batter-bark/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59371

Though I’ve followed Nadia’s Healthy Kitchen on Instagram for years, I’m not entirely certain I’ve ever actually made anything from her before. I am not vegan, gluten-free, or overly worried about sugar being in my baked goods, so I’m not entirely sure why I wanted to make these “healthy,” vegan, gluten-free, no-bake peanut butter and chocolate brownie batter bark bars, but I did! And now I’m here to tell you how difficult they were to make, and if they’re any good.

To start things off, let’s look at the video she posted that I saw:

View this post on Instagram

You know, that didn’t look too hard! Here’s the recipe so you can follow along while we take a look at the ingredients list.

Despite having King Arthur’s measure-for-measure gluten-free flour in my pantry, this recipe did not call for 1-to-1 gluten-free flour, and instead calls for oat flour and ground almonds.

Now, you might notice a typo in the recipe in the measurements section. Nadia mentions ground almonds four times in the post leading up to the written recipe, and once in the instructions portion of the recipe, but makes the mistake of typing “ground oats” right below “oat flour” in the measurements. One of the comments on her recipe actually points this out, as well.

Moving on, I did not have oat flour or ground almonds, but I did have the cocoa powder, maple syrup, peanut butter, coconut oil, dark chocolate, and, of course, salt. So there I found myself in Kroger’s baking aisle buying Bob’s Red Mill’s Gluten-Free Oat Flour which is different than their Whole-Grain Oat Flour which is not gluten-free, and their Super-Fine Almond Flour (not their Natural Almond Flour, but that one is also gluten-free). I know the recipe says ground almonds, but I figured since the almond flour is basically just really finely ground almonds it’d be like the same thing, right?

Thankfully, this recipe is measured by weight, so this ended up being a very easy, one bowl recipe in which I just dumped all the ingredients in and measured by weight the entire time (except the 2 tbsp of coconut oil and 2 tbsp of peanut butter that are separate for the ganache). You literally just weigh it out and mix it all together, easy peasy!

After mixing the “dough” together (I don’t know if it’s technically considered a dough. What are the qualifications of a dough?), you just roll it out into a thin rectangle and pour the melted chocolate and peanut butter over top, then freeze it just long enough to solidify it enough to cut into bars.

I was genuinely surprised how quick and easy this recipe was, and it’s honestly not very many ingredients. Obviously the oat flour is something that not everyone just has on hand, but if you are gluten-free then maybe that’s more of a common household ingredient for you and this would actually be super convenient for you to whip up.

Okay, so it wasn’t hard and didn’t take very long, but it did it actually taste good? Well, honestly, I quite liked it! I wouldn’t be so bold as to claim that it tastes exactly like a fresh-baked, full-sugar, non-vegan brownie, but it definitely is rich and chocolatey, with some nice flavor from the peanut butter and a melt-in-your-mouth texture. One thing I really like about them is that it can feel like gluten-free treats are always super dry and crumbly, but these are pretty fudgy and not like crumbly sand.

Honestly they look just like they do in the video, and I’m happy I gave them a whirl. I wouldn’t say they’re life-changing, but if you have a gluten-free person in your life you want to whip up a treat for, these might be a really good option.

Final note, the chocolate ganache gets pretty melty at room temp, so I recommend keeping these bad boys in a container in the fridge.

Do you like using measure-for-measure gluten-free flour for your GF recipes, or do you prefer recipes that have flour alternatives like this one? Do you like the addition of the peanut butter, or do you wish this recipe were also nut-free (then I guess the almonds would be out, too)? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/02/07/trying-out-a-new-recipe-nadias-healthy-kitchen-healthy-brownie-batter-bark/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59371

marthawells

Some good news:

Both Queen Demon and the Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute anthology, made it on the Locus Recommended Reading List:

https://locusmag.com/2026/02/2025-recommended-reading/

with a lot of other excellent books and stories, including a new section for translated works.

You can also vote on the list for the Locus Awards. Anybody can vote here with an email address: https://poll.voting.locusmag.com/ though they have you fill out a demographic survey first with how many books you read per year, etc.

Of course a lot of great work did not end up on the list, like I was surprised not to see The Witch Roads and The Nameless Land duology by Kate Elliott, which I thought was excellent.

languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72758&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=la-cosa-the-thing-bigger-and-more-intimidating-than-cosa-nostra-our-thing-mafia

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=72758

From Keith Barkley:

There was a story on Morning Edition this morning about using “thing” as code for something you don’t want the government to overhear:

'La cosa': In Cuba, this single phrase carries coded truths
Eyder Peralta, Morning Edition, NPR (February 6, 2026)

Listen to the 4-minute audio recording (linked in the title above) and / or read this transcript:

In Cuba, "la cosa" speaks louder than words. That single phrase carries the weight of daily struggle, coded truths and the country's unspoken realities.

—–

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

In Cuba, expressing opinions in public can get you in trouble. But for Cubans trying to tell you what they really think, there's a single phrase that does a lot of work and carries coded truths. NPR's Eyder Peralta reports from Havana.

EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: If you want to get a Cuban talking, just ask…

(Non-English language spoken)?

"How's the thing?"

MARISLEYSIS: (Laughter).

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).

PERALTA: Marisleysis (ph) sizes me up, and she takes a leap.

MARISLEYSIS: (Non-English language spoken).

PERALTA: "My love. The thing is very bad," she says. Her friend stops her. She's saying too much in front of a microphone. But Marisleysis dismisses her because that's the thing about the thing. The thing can be anything.

MARISLEYSIS: (Non-English language spoken).

PERALTA: The thing is our food, our sustenance, our clothes.

MARISLEYSIS: (Non-English language spoken).

PERALTA: "How's the thing? It's super high. It's super expensive. It's super bad." Fidel Castro argued that there was freedom of expression in Cuba, but he was cryptic about the limits. He famously uttered…

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

FIDEL CASTRO: (Non-English language spoken).

PERALTA: Within the Revolution, everything against the revolution, nothing." Cubans who crossed that line have ended up in jail. So like bishops deciphering an encyclical, Cubans have learned to navigate. I catch Nino (ph) and Gabriela (ph) running errands in downtown Havana. Everyone in the story asked us only to use their first names because, well, things are complicated in Cuba, and they didn't want to get into trouble.

GABRIELA: (Non-English language spoken).

PERALTA: "La cosa is the situation in general," says Gabriela. La Cosa, says Nino, is abstract. It can mean something as simple as the struggle to find gas, or it can mean the corruption scandals plaguing the Cuban government.

GABRIELA: (Non-English language spoken).

PERALTA: The meaning also changes depending on the trust you have with the other person, she says. Sometimes, only both of you know what you're talking about. So la cosa in Cuba is like a wink and a nod. It's a phrase you hear on the streets, but also beaming from the high altar of Cuba's music royalty.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

PERALTA: In his latest album, the singer-songwriter Silvio Rodriguez has a song titled "Here Comes The Thing."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "VIENE LA COSA")

SILVIO RODRIGUEZ: (Singing in non-English language).

PERALTA: "The thing is coming," Rodriguez sings. "It's going to be bad."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "VIENE LA COSA")

RODRIGUEZ: (Singing in non-English language).

PERALTA: It's a song about an unstoppable change, and it comes at a time when Cuba is facing a crushing economic crisis, discontent on the streets and a belligerent President Trump who's predicting the demise of the communist government. The thing is coming with eyes wide open, he sings, and lies won't ever stop it.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "VIENE LA COSA")

RODRIGUEZ: (Singing in non-English language).

PERALTA: The thing Rodriguez writes about could be anything – a popular rebellion, a communist renewal or a vicious foreign intervention, and that mystery gives him plausible deniability. Back on the streets, I find Mario (ph) leaning against the government building where he works as a receptionist. He says, defining the thing is not complicated.