Language Overflow

CowperKettle

02:28

edition.cnn.com/2018/04/13/us/…

> Should the country's most populous state be split into three separate states? California voters might be able to make that decision this fall.

A local venture capitalist's proposal to break up California, "CAL 3," gained nearly double the necessary signatures to get it on the ballot in November, which will allow state voters to decide on the partition.

There must be some Russian-now behind this proposal.

Man_From_India

02:42

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ a long story dude.

Why what has been happening with you?

@CowperKettle how is going with you?

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ haha that's great. I wish we could all gather together someday to just know each other in person who we already know on this platform :-)

CowperKettle

03:10

@Man_From_India I'm depressed.

Bicycled to Staropyshminsk yesterday. The snows have almost melted.

60 km in total

Man_From_India

03:39

@CowperKettle why is it? What happened? I'm too depressed myself :'(

CowperKettle

18:27

@Man_From_India I don't know why

Anonymous

@Man_From_India and @CowperKettle I'm sorry to hear that.

CowperKettle

Good evening, Snails!

I'll go there in July

Anonymous

On the bright side, I've adopted a new hamster girl from the Humane Society. Her name is Mint :-)

CowperKettle

Already bought a ticket to Barnaul.

@snailboat Good news! (0:

Barnaul

Barnaul (Russian: Барнаул, IPA: [bərnɐˈul]) is a city and the administrative center of Altai Krai, Russia, located at the confluence of the Barnaulka and Ob Rivers in the West Siberian Plain. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 612,401. Barnaul is one of the industrial, cultural and educational centers of Siberia. There are many theatres, museums, and monuments of the architecture of the 18th to 19th centuries, and there are nine state institutions of college-level education in the city. The two largest colleges in the city: the Altai State University and Polzunov Altai State Technica...

Altai Mountains

The Altai Mountains (also spelled Altay Mountains; Altai: Алтай туулар, Altay tuular; Mongolian: ᠠᠯᠲᠠᠢ ‍ᠶᠢᠨ ᠨᠢᠷᠤᠭᠤ , Altai-yin niruɣu (Chakhar) / Алтайн нуруу, Altain nuruu (Khalkha); Kazakh: Алтай таулары, Altai’ tay’lary, التاي تاۋلارى Russian: Алтайские горы, Altajskije gory; Chinese; 阿尔泰山脉, Ā'ěrtài Shānmài, Xiao'erjing: اَعَرتَىْ شًامَىْ; Dungan: Артэ Шанмэ) are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan come together, and are where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters. The northwest end of the range is at 52° N and between 84° and 90...

Anonymous

She's adorable. I don't have any pictures, though. She had a stressful first day, and I didn't want to bother her more than necessary.

Anonymous

18:30

I'll come back with pictures later :-)

CowperKettle

How did she wind up at the Humane Society? Her previous owner dumped her there?

Anonymous

@CowperKettle How cold is it there?

CowperKettle

@snailboat In July, it will be only mildly cold. Probably around zero degrees C at nights. We will be trekking for 11 days in the wilderness at a height of about 2000 to 3000 meters above sea level, where there is no trees.

Anonymous

@CowperKettle Hamster owners sometimes get kind of irresponsible. The owners put a boy and a girl together in the same cage and they had a litter of eleven, but they didn't want to take care of the babies.

CowperKettle

A litter of eleven is quite irresponsible. I don't know what they were thinking

Anonymous

18:32

They found homes for four, and the other seven ended up at the Humane Society.

CowperKettle

there are high mountains there

But we won't climb the peaks. Just trekking on foot is dangerous enough

We need to calculate what food to take in order not to starve, etc.

Anonymous

Sounds scary. You're quite the outdoorsman, aren't you?

Anonymous

I grew up in Illinois, where the closest we get to mountains is hills a few meters tall. The whole state is flat.

Anonymous

In fact, the highest point in Illinois is only a few hundred meters tall.

CowperKettle

@snailboat No, I only started going to the nature last year ))

Anonymous

18:35

I moved to California, but I still find mountains really intimidating.

CowperKettle

@snailboat I grew up in Siberia, which is also a huge endless plain

The highest point in the Urals is 1700 meters high, which is some 200 more than the highest point of Scotland. So I basically live in Scotland ))

Anonymous

Scotland is nice. I'm part Scottish, actually.

Anonymous

But I didn't know that until recently. I knew I was part Irish.

Anonymous

My sister is into genealogy.

CowperKettle

Ah!

So you have both Scottish and Irish blood!

Roethke, one of the two greatest 20th century US poets

The other is Millay

Anonymous

18:39

One of the Two Greatest 20th Century US Poets of the Day: Roethke

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Man_From_India well, it's fair to share if you wanna do it. I did mine

CowperKettle

(0:

@snailboat My sister stumbled upon a woman who investigates the history of the Lukin surname in the town of Rezh.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Man_From_India gotta warn you though. I'm very ugly

CowperKettle

And this woman just sent me a file with my whole genealogy starting from 1710.

This was last fall.

Turned out all my ancestors from 1710 to 1880 were blacksmiths in Rezh.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@CowperKettle the info is obsolete now?

Anonymous

18:41

Wow.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@CowperKettle they made you, duh

CowperKettle

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ She is constantly updating it

She asked me a lot about my relatives, and added it into her database

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@CowperKettle your grandparents are tagging along

CowperKettle

I knew that my great-granddad was a blacksmith in Rezh even into 1910s

A devoted (devout?) communist.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@CowperKettle Plot twist: She's an alien that's trying to know the enemy

Devouted

CowperKettle

18:43

Thanks!

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

O.o

Why did you take me seriously

CowperKettle

Oops

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Or maybe I took you

So complicated

Is this Russian humor?

CowperKettle

Russian humor is banning Telegram and saying it's to protect the citizens.

Anonymous

It's cold here. But @CowperKettle would consider it very warm.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

18:45

Do Russians laugh like Germans, Brits, or normal people?

CowperKettle

The ban starts this Monday

Anonymous

It's 18°C here.

CowperKettle

Wow

Anonymous

Damkerng would agree that it's cold if he were here.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@snailboat water would boil inside @Cowp

CowperKettle

18:45

It's +5°C here and I can hear snow particles hitting the window. It's windy.

Man_From_India

@CowperKettle but i know why I'm. Some times there is something we can't control :'(

@snailboat yes I'm too depressed. Don't know how to cope up with it.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Nov 7 '15 at 22:25, by Damkerng T.

Winter is cold for me, as always. For me, anything below 25 C is cold. :-)

Man_From_India

Btw how r you? How is ur health @snailboat?

Anonymous

I'm doing alright.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@CowperKettle FIVE DEGREES!

CowperKettle

18:47

Today was the last day of the snowboarding season in Yekaterinburg. The closing feast:
https://www.e1.ru/news/spool/news_id-54312831.html

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

How are you keeping up?!

That's like, 5 whole degrees

Man_From_India

See you guys later. Have to sleep a little.

CowperKettle

@Man_From_India Good bye!

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ By jogging (0:

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

@Man_From_India I'll just chat in your dream

@CowperKettle that makes things colder?

Right. Soviet Russia

CowperKettle

This is a photo from January 1st

This Santa Claus was jogging with us for 2 hours ))

I wonder how he stayed alive

It was quite cold

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

18:51

Why? Is he naked?

Don't post nudes

CowperKettle

It was several degrees below zero

We jogged along the streets in the form of a huge 2018 sign, to be visible on our Strava.com track records (0:

18 kilometers

My friend followed me on his bicycle

A dance around the Xmas tree (0:

A photo by the monument to the city founders, fondly called Beavis and Butthead by all locals

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

Remind me to turn on VPN and check them out some time

CowperKettle

Check out whom?

Beavis and Butthead?

A nice cartoon

By the way, our State Duma is preparing a law to ban VPN in Russia.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

I'm the Beaver, you're the Butthead

CowperKettle

And a bill banning all profanity, all "false information" and all "derogatory information" on social networks has already passed the first reading.

M.A.R. ಠ_ಠ

18:58

@CowperKettle well, is YouTube censored in Russia?

CowperKettle

So we're moving towards the situation you have in Iran

@M.A.R.ಠ_ಠ Formally it should have been banned last summer. But the govt decided not to enforce the ban.

YouTube refused to take down an investigation demonstrating that our Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is a thief, a secret billionaire

So there are grounds to ban it by order of court, but that would bring some people to the streets, and the Govt. is waffling

As soon as Putin got reelected, our local parliament abolished mayoral elections.

That brought quite some folk to the streets in protests.

But we soon forgot it because every week there is some new madness.

The poisoning of Skripal in London, the chemical attack in Syria, etc.

The protest against abolishing the elections

Our Parliament says it might issue a law under which Russia could just pirate any technology from the US and produce anything without license

The degree of madness is rising up.

Our city was one of the last in Russia with real mayoral elections. Now only the Czar decides whom to appoint.

userr2684291

20:18

@Charo Hello.

userr2684291

20:28

I came across some linguist's blog (there's some interesting content there) while I was googling something completely unrelated, and I found this video (not really SFW) youtube.com/watch?v=Ekc2UJydnuM. I thought it was funny, but then I remembered I codeswitch all the time, though perhaps not as extensively! I wonder how common this is in Europe in general given the influence of English (I imagine it would be more common with bilingual speakers).

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