English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

CowperKettle

02:16

Map of areas ISIS wanted to take over by 2020

Cerberus

Yeah, they were modest.

CowperKettle

My friend bought a flat near Sochi, for holidaying. Now he would have had a flat in the ISIS empire.

In Moscow, 4095 former WWII soldiers are still alive.

That's per 10 million population.

Cerberus

@CowperKettle Fun!

I also like the appendage which probably touches Vienna.

They wanted to repeat the Turkish siege of Vienna.

CowperKettle

02:42

Maybe they wanted to postpone that until 2029, to make it a 5-centenniary event

Siege of Vienna (1529)

The siege of Vienna, in 1529, was the first attempt by the Ottoman Empire to capture the city of Vienna, Austria. Suleiman the Magnificent, sultan of the Ottomans, attacked the city with over 100,000 men, while the defenders, led by Niklas Graf Salm, numbered no more than 21,000. Nevertheless, Vienna was able to survive the siege, which ultimately lasted just over two weeks, from 27 September to 15 October 1529. The siege came in the aftermath of the 1526 Battle of Mohács, which had resulted in the death of Louis II, King of Hungary, and the descent of the kingdom into civil war. Following Louis...

Cerberus

@CowperKettle Maybe!

Although the second siege had more impact.

CowperKettle

02:56

Comparing Stalin to Hitler could soon get you prosecuted in Russia, saying they both invaded Poland already has

Yes, saying that the USSR invaded Poland in cahoots with the Third Reich will be officially a jail-punishable crime very soon.

Cerberus

03:09

How does Putin defend such a decision?

Mitch

04:25

@Cerberus Yeah. I think they were holding back. They left out huge parts of Malaysia and Indonesia, and also those parts of France that were briefly invaded. Also, large parts of England are Islamic. There's even a neighborhood in Beijing.

They shouldn't be so meek. Have confidence. Claim it all.

CowperKettle

05:45

@Cerberus "This will protect the memory of the great struggle of Soviet soldiers etc etc"

The Fallen of World War II

►

CowperKettle

06:04

Putin's regime has no over-arching ideology like the Soviet or the Iranian regimes. So, it tries to jury-rig some kind of ideology

The Soviet regime's goal was to provide good working conditions for all, to make everyone equal, and gradually to move the whole country towards "communism".

CowperKettle

07:41

Word of the day: POLIP syndrome (Polyneuropathy, Ophthalmoplegia, Leukoencephalopathy, and Chronic Intestinal Pseudoobstruction)

CowperKettle

08:44

Researchers develop artificial intelligence that can detect sarcasm in social media

M.A.R.

@Cerberus yes, the map seems like whatever land Muslims have ever conquered in history

CowperKettle

We are having a great weather, but I feel tired from the beginning of the day. It's almost 2 pm, and I woke up at 7:30 am and have spend this time trying to read something and do something. But mainly lying on the bed and listening to audibooks. Feeling totally tired out.

I want to write a Russian version of this Wiki article

POLG

DNA polymerase subunit gamma (POLG or POLG1) is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the POLG gene. Mitochondrial DNA polymerase is heterotrimeric, consisting of a homodimer of accessory subunits plus a catalytic subunit. The protein encoded by this gene is the catalytic subunit of mitochondrial DNA polymerase. Defects in this gene are a cause of progressive external ophthalmoplegia with mitochondrial DNA deletions 1 (PEOA1), sensory ataxic neuropathy dysarthria and ophthalmoparesis (SANDO), Alpers-Huttenlocher syndrome (AHS), and mitochondrial neurogastrointestinal encephalopathy syndrome...

Seems like an interesting gene.

CowperKettle

09:50

Vegetarians appear to have a healthier biomarker profile than meat-eaters, and this applies to adults of any age and weight, and is also unaffected by smoking and alcohol consumption, according to a new study in over 166,000 UK adults

M.A.R.

10:28

@CowperKettle I'm curious, how is meat-eater defined?

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. I haven't read this yet

Ah

> Participants were categorised as either vegetarian (do not eat red meat, poultry or fish; 4,111 participants) or meat-eaters (166,516 participants) according to their self-reported diet.

M.A.R.

Okay I think that's biased

Because "people who are careful about their diets" will always be healthier than "people that don't care much about what they do or don't eat".

I feel like this sort of bias would be in a lot of such 'veggie' studies, unless they somehow control for it.

So what if it's instead "vegetarians" vs. "People who are careful about their diets, but still eat some meat"

I haven't regarded every veggie study closely but I've never seen this addressed anywhere.

CowperKettle

> Going around saying, "don't eat people"
That's the way to make people hate ya
We always have eaten people, always will eat people
You can't change human nature

> But people have always eaten people
What else is there to eat?
If the Juju had meant us not to eat people
He wouldn't have made us of meat

M.A.R.

It wouldn't have been a problem if the conclusion people drew from these studies was that "vegetarians are more careful about what they eat". The false conclusion is often rather that somehow there's some sort of health bar somewhere and you decrease it every time you consume meat products

CowperKettle

The Reluctant Cannibals

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> However, vegetarians also had lower levels of beneficial biomarkers including high-density lipoprotein 'good' (HDL) cholesterol, and vitamin D and calcium (linked to bone and joint health). In addition, they had significantly higher level of fats (triglycerides) in the blood and cystatin-C (suggesting a poorer kidney condition).

M.A.R.

10:36

So even if a sustainable truly vegetarian lifestyle was not just some rich people luxury, this makes me a bit reluctant to take the whole thing seriously.

CowperKettle

Soon they will produce artificial meat, and there would be no moral dilemma

M.A.R.

It all vaguely ties to the pseudoscientific belief that "green good and healthy".

CowperKettle

In the future, you could upload your DNA to a store, and they will make a stake grown out of your own meat.

M.A.R.

Ew I don't taste good

"Green good and healthy" manifests itself in some pretty harmful practices in pharmacy, so I think it's kinda become my biggest pet peeve

Hypocrites also advertise herbal products here as "these things are healthy and green, they're not made of chemical evil big pharma products", whatever that means.

And our pharma isn't even big

Like, if you wanna believe in your donut Earth bullshit or whatever, fine. If you wanna think the Earth is getting bigger or it's 6500 years old, fine. Just don't fuck with medicine

CowperKettle

People here love herbal medicines too, because "they are not chemistry"

Herbal tea blends etc.

M.A.R.

10:42

@CowperKettle yeah exactly! The same phrase roughly is also used here

And it makes no sense, because the basis for almost all conventional drugs is some herbal compound that's not chemistry

Except the dull bitter white pill doesn't contain something that'd make you die a slow painful death, but the green thing might

Random fact, there are seven times more fatalities from scorpion bites than snake bites in Iran

CowperKettle

There are some snakes in the Urals, but not a lot of bites

M.A.R.

At least whenever my professor wrote his book.

CowperKettle

There are a lot of fatalities from drunken brawls here

M.A.R.

Drunk bites

CowperKettle

Especially in small towns and villages.

M.A.R.

10:47

Dangerous species

CowperKettle

A lot of drunks in the villages. Except for Tatar and German villages

And the newly-fangled New Age movement of "ecologic settlements". They are teetotallers

M.A.R.

Well I think before the revolution there were a lot of loud drunks here too

CowperKettle

M.A.R.

Now a lot of people are just basement drinkers

CowperKettle

Ringing Cedars' Anastasianism

Anastasianism (Russian: Анастасианство, Анастасийство, Анастасиизм) or the Ringing Cedars (Звенящие Кедры; also "Jingling Cedars") is a new religious movement, often classified as New Age, that started in central Russia in 1997 and has since spread across the world. Ringing Cedars' Anastasians are sometimes categorised by scholars as part of Rodnovery (Slavic Neopaganism), and often as a modern Pagan movement of their own. Anastasianism has also been considered part of the broad spectrum of self-described "Vedic" religions arising in post-Soviet Russia.The movement is based on the series of ten...

I have a friend, a girl, who dreams of joining this movement, and live in a faraway village

She carries Slavic Pagan signs with her.

Like the Old Slavic Swastika and stuff

And refuses to take part in any Christian celebrations.

Because "Old Slavic religion is our true religion"

M.A.R.

10:50

Interesting. TIL

@CowperKettle Anastasians do that? So they're like Amish?

CowperKettle

So I congratulated her on Perun's birthday ))) Perun is the chief god of the old pantheon of Slavic tribes. The guy who strikes other guys with lightnings

@M.A.R. A bit like that, yes, but they do use computers and equipment.

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Isn't that Chris Hemsworth?

CowperKettle

They set up secluded villages. Even in the URals there are such settlements.

Haha, probably that is some Hollywood actor

M.A.R.

You lose grasp of what's normal when you're secluded

Sounds harmless enough but easily exploitable.

CowperKettle

> the god of sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, law, war, fertility and oak trees

M.A.R.

10:53

@CowperKettle Thor

CowperKettle

I thought so ))

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle also thor

CowperKettle

Yes, most likely they are cognate

M.A.R.

I didn't know he was the God of fertility

Marvel has lied to me!

@CowperKettle so uh, he has an axe and a piece of lightning, but I don't wanna know his symbol for fertility

CowperKettle

Haha

We have a popular signer who sings in a mock Old Slavic style mixed with some ... I don't know "dub"? Some modern electronics. This sounds and looks funny.

M.A.R.

10:56

Might as well worship a God of fertility after all the plastic we've ingested

CowperKettle

Нейромонах Феофан — Притоптать | Neuromonakh Feofan

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He is called Neuro-Monk Pheophanus

LOL

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle probably a good with a decent sense of humor and a joke gone wrong

Probably pranked Russian Thor and was cursed to be a neuro-monk (WTF)

CowperKettle

He sings with an "o" accent, pronouncing the letter "o" clearly in each word, instead of glossing it over. This dialect was common to peasants from North-West of Russia

Западные среднерусские окающие говоры

За́падные среднеру́сские о́кающие го́воры — одно из двух ответвлений западных среднерусских говоров, занимающее северную часть их территории (от южного ответвления отделено изоглоссами различения и неразличения гласных неверхнего подъёма в первом предударном слоге). Оканье в западных среднерусских окающих говорах сближает их с севернорусским наречием. == Общая характеристика и область распространения == Окающие говоры не составляют целостного диалектного объединения и не разделяются на группы говоров вследствие непоследовательного распространения в них языковых явлений. В пределах окающих говоров...

People use this kind of pronunciation when trying to pretend to be a peasant, for a joke.

M.A.R.

Hmm

Okay, Imma take a nap. BBL

CowperKettle

Bye!

CowperKettle

12:03

> After auditing 1 million self-checkout transactions over the course of a year, totaling $21 million in sales, they found that nearly $850,000 worth of goods left the store without being scanned and paid for.

theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/…

That's 4%, which may be justified, provided that money is saved on reducing the number of worker-operated checkouts

CowperKettle

12:53

Previously two senior doctors who were responsible for treating Navalny after his admission in Omsk suddenly died.

And a third doctor resigned.

Now the Head of the Hospital went missing.

Probably a coincidence.

He should have just fled from Russia to evade this coincidence.

CowperKettle