Screenshots: https://vgy.me/album/v8fzwq7Z

crontab: https://snippet.host/ymeofo

DB schema (which I'm sure could use some refinement, lol): https://snippet.host/fiyxhr

query one-liners: https://snippet.host/vouqax

Traditionally:

道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。"The Way can be spoken, [but that] is not the constant/permanent/unchanging Way. The name can be named, [but that] is not the [you know] name."

Mawangdui:

道可道也，非恆道也。名可名也，非恆名也。[Same thing, but with more overt grammar, making it clearer that the first and third clauses say "The X is something you can Y" and not "The X that can be Yed". This doesn't make "The Dao that can be spoken" wrong, but that nuance is coming from knowing the meaning of the whole thing, not directly out of the grammar of the text.]

You can use words to describe it, but you'll fail to capture the whole thing.

In the traditional text, but not the Mawangdui text, 非常 has become a very common intensifier [literally "unusually"] in modern Mandarin. Classically it's two unrelated words.

Apparently the Christians adopted 道 to translate their concept of the Holy Word, which is a fun use of both senses.

Let's bring back pronominal adverbs! You may already be familiar with such classics as "therefore" or "whereas". Why not revive all of them? No longer are "hereunder" and "thereinafter" the sole domain of lawyers. That alone would be an epic meme indeed, but we must go therebeyond. It is difficult to believe that anyone ever actually used words like "therethroughout" or "wherewithin", but we can make sure someone does.

You can even make up your own!

Just take any demonstrative (this/that/these/those), interrogative (what/which/who/where), or third-person personal pronoun, and turn it into the corresponding locative adverb, depending on whether you want to indicate being at, coming from, or going to something:

This -> Here/Hence/Hither;

That -> There/Thence/Thither;

What/who/which -> Where/Whence/Whither;

Him/Her/Them -> There/Thence/Thither; etc.

Makes sense? No questions? Great!

Now pick your favorite preposition and stick it on the end. Don't forget to experiment with some archaic prepositions like "anighst", "overthwart", and -- here's a really good one -- "withinside". That one means "within / inside" and I'm sure you can already see the potential.

"What place should I go into?" Nope! "Whitherwithinside should I go?" Now we're talking.

  for (let i = 1; i <= 4; i++) {
      woman.getOn(floor);
      try {
          getDown();
      } catch (e) {
          if (e instanceof NotUpError) {
              getUp();
              getDown();
          }
      }
  }

I applied to an insurance data entry job to fill the gap. It was Q4 2019 and I'd been in the workforce since 2008. Lots of tech support including big-boy serious-business firewall stuff. I think the application asked if I had a high school diploma, but I figured it was just a cursory formality. Naturally, the background check company pops up, wanting to "verify" my high school diploma. It was a home school diploma, in Texas, where home schooling is completely unregulated except for a one-liner statute declaring home school diplomas equivalent to normal high school diplomas. There's nothing to verify.

In the end, I had to get my mother on the line with these people so she could . . . tell them she really did home school me. And they were like, "cool thanks" and pushed through my background check. I mean, she could have been anybody! It's not like they validated anything. If they were checking something that was actually a big deal, that could have been mildly scandalous or something.

HireRight. Intelligence to move forward.℠

*but, well,