@RegDwigнt Them's some mean pizzes.

Meanwhile:

Over the top?

I take my solace from Dr. Horrible.

Brazilian jazz was what first got me thinking the accordion (in this case, the forró) was not a horrible instrument only good for polkas and the like.

I don't see how people play the bayan with all those buttons instead of keys, however. It looks like an alien instrument.

Another thought occurs to me: why do right-handed people play the guitar pointed to the left and left-handed people play it pointed to the right? Is picking more intricate than fretboard fingering? The piano requires both hands to be equally dexterous (haha), right?

@RegDwigнt: This was intended for you, of course. Finishes up thoughts after a comment (second of two) I made on your latest YouTube piece.

Spam ^

@Robusto that is a very good question actually.

I could never imagine picking with the left hand. And I am not even properly right-handed, I am ambidextrous at a handful (haha) of tasks, and outright left-handed at a few. Like dealing cards, for example. My mom and nan kept making fun of that for as long as I can remember.

And yet yes, picking is more intricate I guess. You have to hit the strings right, and there's very little room between them. On the other side you have like huge frets that are like two inches wide and it doesn't matter for shit where in that space you place what finger.

I'm talking classical, obviously. I don't use a pick. When you use a pick, I wouldn't know why the fuck you would need a whole right hand for that. Which is why I don't use it. It's literally retarded.

Now, my elder godson, for whom I only just bought a guitar maybe six weeks ago and whom I now teach to play, he actually occasionally switches back and forth between pointing it to the left and to the right. And he is not ambidextrous at all for all we can tell. But this one thing, it literally doesn't seem to make a difference to him for some reason.

Then again he can't really play seriously just yet. He struggles to keep any string pressed down. Though that doesn't seem to be part of the reason why he occasionally switches.

I dunno.

These are just my random ramblings on the subject.

Do with them as you will.

@Robusto I only have a bayan actually. I don't have an accordion.

Though the accordion was actually the very first instrument that I ever played. Played as in, rehearsed one song in the kindergarden, then literally never touched it again ever since. Everyone in the kindergarden got some instrument assigned, for all I should think completely at random, and I got the accordion. It weighed more than myself. My father used to carry it for me to the kindergarden and back home. It was winter, minus 20 like. Quite slippery.

But I digress.

Yeah lemme tell ya. That chromatic button placement annoys the fuck out of me. And it doesn't help that they color the keys black and white the same as on the piano. If anything that actually makes matter much much worse. Fucks with your brain.

But I'm sure if I played it for more than five minutes in a year, I would come to appreciate it a great deal.

It's just that it's so clunky. Every time you want to play just a single note, feels like you're strapping on stunt-double gear for half an hour.

And while I think by now I sure weigh more than the instrument, that is certainly not what the instrument thinks.

So yeah.

The piano is just there. At all times. You wanna play a note, you just play it. The violin is lying in its open case, with the shoulder rest strapped on and the bow tied, so again, every time you walk past it, you pick it up and play a passage. The flute I don't even need to tell you. Just make sure it's not soaking in spit. Other than that, you could be picking it up and putting it down all day long.

But good luck doing that with an accordion or a cello.

I have a section in a document. The section is titled "Chto ne udalos" = "The aspects [of the project] that were planned but not implemented". To be brief, I translated it as "Shortcomings". Is there a better translation in English for this phrase?

Would this be a good question for the main site?

> The plot is located in the Vtorchermet Microdistrict of the Chkalovsky District of Yekaterinburg and is bounded on its sides by Sanatornaya St, Agronomicheskaya St, Sukhumsky Lane, and Patrisa Lumumby St.

I wonder if this is not a weird turn of phrase

@CowperKettle it's not totally weird, but has a little soupćon of weird.

"...and is bordered by..." sounds better and more natural to me.

@Mitch Thank you!

> No one is so depraved that a soupçon of goodness cannot be found in them, as evidenced by Mitch's helpful comment.

@CowperKettle depends on the context really. But going by just the three words the tone is informal. So I might go with "Where we've failed", or if that's a tad too much, with a more literal "What hasn't been accomplished".

I dunno. Would need to see the document to know for sure.

Shortcomings is more like things that you have accomplished, but implemented poorly.

But again depending on context it might or might not be of any consequence.

@CowperKettle Wait... are you saying I'm depraved? You're saying I'm depraved. Maybe not really depraved, but that's not really a badge one can wear with honor.

@Mitch Oops! Sorry. I lifted the quote from Wiktionary and added you into it

@RegDwigнt Thank you! What hasn't been accomplished - sounds great!

Haha

@CowperKettle Wiktionary is thereby obviously untrustworthy.

@Mitch No, it's great! It's my fault, I was too distracted reading Russian news on crackdowns in Moscow.

> This courtyard is equipped with state-of-the-art children's playground equipment with rubber coating. The yard is closed to

"The yard is closed to strangers".

I'm struggling with this.

The Russian sentence says "The yard is out of the rich of strangers and automotive vehicles".

The sentence is a stock kind of sentence used to emphasize the safety of an inner yard where children can play without the risk of being stalked or hit by cars.

@CowperKettle "The yard is innaccessible to strangers and automative vehicles"

Spasibo!

I zoned out again to news sites

That's probably how it would go in officialese, like on signs.

@CowperKettle news is the worst

wait... crackdowns in Moscow?

about Navalnya?

1400 people were apprehended by the police

@Mitch This time, not exactly Navalny

The Moscow officials banned all opposition candidates from participating in local elections.

Including those from Navalny, Yabloko, and some running by themselves.

but somewhat related? (I haven't listened to news all day, except I heard out of the corner of my ear that Navalny was poisoned or otherwise sick.

@CowperKettle That's probably a successful strategy

Yes, he was poisoned in prison, he was inprisoned just before the protest

Takes courage to even bother

...and ...

@Mitch It was successful in getting the largest public rally on Moscow streets since 2011

I have to run... later!

Later!

reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/cj3epd/…

CC @Cowp

Yeah, but in Russia the protest never get to that stage.

The Russian policemen just beat up peaceful protesters even before the protest starts.

They grab as many as they can into their vehicles, and beat and disperse the rest.