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Robusto
Robusto
12:56 AM
@RegDwigнt Since when were you a German?
@Cerberus: @Reg is riffing on this:
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (L. 86), known in English as Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, is a symphonic poem for orchestra by Claude Debussy, approximately 10 minutes in duration. It was composed in 1894 and first performed in Paris on 22 December 1894, conducted by Gustave Doret. The flute solo was played by Georges Barrère. The composition was inspired by the poem L'après-midi d'un faune by Stéphane Mallarmé. It is one of Debussy's most famous works and is considered a turning point in the history of music. Pierre Boulez considered the score to be the beginning of modern music, observing...
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:12 AM
4
Q: I don't want to make a free website anymore. Also concerned person may have signed up for auto-renewing hosting

user30065Related to my last question, I'm trying to gain experience and a portfolio and offered to make someone a website for free. Things have not gone as smoothly as hoped for a number of reasons The website she wants is more complex than I had anticipated. She wants to sell things through the website....

verbal-communication explaining work-life-balance
Hahaha, first rule of website development: money talks, bullshit walks. Also: you get what you pay for.
All clients suck. Get used to that fact. The only compensation is money, the more the better.
 
 
2 hours later…
Cerberus
Cerberus
3:21 AM
@Robusto I know, it's very famous.
That's why I just repeated the odd part he introduced himself.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
3:31 AM
Dead cities of Russia
 
 
1 hour later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:33 AM
> I guess nothing could go wrong if I take a bite...
 
 
3 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
8:02 AM
> 65-year-old Halyna Dovhopola has been held in Russian detention since November 2019, with no indication even of whether she has an independent lawyer. Six years after invading and annexing Ukrainian Crimea, Russia is claiming that the elderly woman is guilty of ‘treason against Russia’ which she purportedly demonstrated by ‘spying for Ukraine’.
After invading Crimea, it seems that the occupiers automatically assinged the occupied citizens of Ukraine into Russian citizenship, I'm not sure how.
 
Xanne
Xanne
8:51 AM
Lebanon is in anarchy.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@Xanne I hope they hold a reelection and punish some officials, and things will settle down
In Belarus, it's the election day. Military vehicles in the streets, bicyclists are brutally apprehended by the police, as well as people who gather for protests.
The president's support rating is about 23% and it must be even lower in the capital, hence the military presence. The official results will show a clear win with some 65-75% of the turnout.
An instructional session leaked onto YouTube where election officials prepare to "count" the correct number of "votes".
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@CowperKettle How is the 23% figure attained?
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@M.A.R. I remember reading about some poll that seemed more or less true to me. The Belarussian Government prohibited polling, so it's hard to say, because the opposition wants to skew the numbers in its favor and insists that Lukashenko has only 3% of support.
But I think that 3% is too low and is used for propaganda purposes. There must be a significant portion of population who still support him.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@CowperKettle Things won't settle down. AFAIK people were already struggling for food in a really bad economic crisis, and now 15000 tons of grain (wheat?) are blown up, and three huge mills.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@M.A.R. Ah! I did not know that.
I only know about Lebanon that it has beautiful nature and a mixed-religion population with curious laws on the obligatory presence of christians and muslims in each authority.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:04 AM
Well here the government used to pursue as much Lebanon news as would further their anti-Israel agenda.
Come to think of it, I don't hear of the explosion much anywhere around here
Maybe we were only brothers when Lebanon was visibly fighting Israel and not after
These people are deplorable.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
I think that there will be no revolution in Belarus this time. But there will be increased tension from now on, and it will be like a hot boiler ready to blow up at any moment.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Hah, the situation with Belarus is the opposite. It's too far from me to know much about it.
Up until a few days ago I didn't know this Leshenkov guy or whatever was president there.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
The land of the potato and computer game companies.
There have been some good computer games and other programs created there.
And all people say that it's very neat and clean in Belarus, very untypical for Russia. That the streets are swept clean like in Europe, and villages are neat like in Europe.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Hmm, at least they have monetized a 21st century opportunity
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
nods
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:11 AM
@CowperKettle What do you mean? Are streets in Russia not swept clean?
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@M.A.R. In Russia there is more clutter and dirt and people use to just throw cigarette stubs and plastic wraps everywhere.
I don't like this.
In the recent couple of decades it has become better.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Well yeah I guess, same here
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
It used to be worse. I even noticed twice over the last two years that a guy was picking up the shit after his dog on a walk.
They say that in Belarus the people are more like Europeans in this regard, that they keep their streets clean.
I once was in a hospital and a neighbor was a Russian German. And he was constantly in anger at how dirty the hospital was. He said that tourists come to the Russian German village where he lives, in the Urals, to marvel at the neatness and cleanness.
There was a large area settled by Russian Germans on the Volga river.
In 1941, when Germany invaded, the Russian Germans were forcibly resettled in Kazakhstan. Many died in the process.
Some managed later to filter out to different parts of Russia.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Ah
24
Q: Are universities run more and more like businesses? What are the consequences?

pictorexcruciaI watched an episode of "the Patriot Act" called "Is College Still Worth It?" In there the point was made, with ample evidence, that universities are increasingly resembling businesses with dire consequences for the professors. The amount of tenure-track professors is steadily declining while the...

funding academic-life
Can't have it all eh? This anti-research, anti-science stance of the states funding the universities less smells a lot like Republican horseshit
Well our education is government-funded and crappy, inevitably pandering to the lowest common denominator. Checkmate pal.
 
Captain Bohemian
Captain Bohemian
9:59 AM
hunger trouble
 
 
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CowperKettle
CowperKettle
11:00 AM
@M.A.R. I come across some interesting neuroscience research published by Iranians
There must be some science still active.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
11:15 AM
Do you know that 50 Cent did when he got hungry? 58.
+15°C and drizzle today
Low clouds obscure the top of the 50-storey tower
 
Færd
Færd
12:14 PM
@M.A.R. That's some talent.
Maybe I would have spent it on something more essential and useful than borders.
 
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
12:41 PM
@Cerberus @Robusto omitted the second part of the puzzle.
De l'aube à midi + à l'après-midi d'un faune.
@Robusto well I'm not. That's why it's so racist!
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
1:09 PM
@RegDwigнt Ah, now it makes sense.
@CowperKettle Wow, I wish we had that weather here!
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:23 PM
@Cerberus You like drizzle?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
1:38 PM
@Robusto Not really, but anything is better than heat.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@Cerberus Where do you live?
I used the online weather radar to take a run in between two swaths of rain. Got home just as it started raining again.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@CowperKettle Amsterdam.
It's around 35 degrees here, but probably even hotter in the inner city, and the sun makes it hotter still.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Færd I've found that you either hear success stories, or perfectionist lifestyles. Not both, often
Bill Gates reads 50 books a year after he has become one of the richest men in the world
IOW, I never saw child prodigies in a good light. If they did become successful people later, and more importantly useful, and I wish them all success, nobody says then, "My son could calculate 456 times 456 when he was seven"
 
 
2 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:02 PM
Funny Ukrainian song about criminals who used to divide all their loot exactly in half. Once they robbed a baker, taking a string of bagels off him, but alas, the number of bagels was not divisible in two, so they quarreled and killed each other.
The author and singer is a Ukrainian translator who translated the Harry Potter book series into Ukraininan.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:41 PM
Minsk, the capital of Belarus, right now, at the close of "voting". The tyrant is very afraid.
They say that in exit polls he only got about 20% of the vote, but I'm not sure where this number comes from. I don't believe the police would allow exit polls. Might be just another fake news report.
Several soldiers sent to control the crows jury-rigged the opposition flag, and posted it somewhere. Understandably, the contact with the soldiers has just been lost. I think they'll get their jail terms.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:59 PM
Ha, the first photo is really from 2017. Basically the whole Twitter is soaked with fakes. It's better just to skip a couple of days and not track this all.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
5:57 PM
Twitter is best ignored. It is a cesspool of hysteria.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Yes, a lot of swearing and back-answers there
Word of the day: back-answer
> He’s called The General from the brazen craft
And dash with which he sneaks a bit of road
And all its fares; challenged, or chafed, or chaffed,
Back-answers of the newest he’ll explode;
(Bus Driver by William Henley)
Independend exit-polls held abroad, accoridng to Novaya Gazeta newspaper, indicate that the incumbent president got only from 10% to 20% of the vote. This is nice.
At least Lukashenko can't control voting station exits in foreign countries. You can't control everything.
My sister worked as an observer at a voting station in India in 2018 for the Russian presidential election, and sadly, Putin indeed dominated the vote. Not so with Lukashenko.
I was an observer in Yekaterinburg. I returned home past 1 a.m. and saw my sister on Skype, and was amazed to learn that she also was an observer ))
In my voting station Putin also dominated the vote.
 
Captain Bohemian
Captain Bohemian
6:17 PM
Facebook is best not to be added friends. It's a farce.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
7:06 PM
I have some friends on Facebook. I had to unfriend some, because they were too noisome with their comments.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
7:26 PM
I don't have a Twitter or Facebook account and my life is that much happier
3
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
7:57 PM
@Færd interesting claim: 7 percent of Iran's GOP is spent on dealing with the consequences of traffic accidents
 
Robusto
Robusto
8:09 PM
@M.A.R. Gates may read 50 books a year, but he probably buys them from the actual richest man in the world: Jeff Bezos.
And I read more than 50 books a year. Where do I go to get paid for that?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
8:21 PM
@Robusto You're asking the wrong guy. I don't care about a number.
Nevertheless his reading habit has been sensationalized as "how successful people live", implying that's how you succeed, reading n books in a year.
What constitutes reading a book anyway? What counts as a book anyway?
My theory is reading some so-called books can make you dumber actually
 
Robusto
Robusto
I dunno. A book? I read a lot of history, mainly. Books about history.
Also read about science.
I think that counts.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Robusto One of the best things to read
 
Robusto
Robusto
Also novels.
Fewer novels at my age. They just don't compare with factual stuff. ALthough I do like good historical novels.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I'm mostly at the novels age of my life
Probably the peak even. But I also inevitably read textbooks related to my field
 
Robusto
Robusto
What is your field?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
8:25 PM
Pharmacy
I will insert Bill Gates's microchips into soft flat-Earther anti-vaccination skin.
 
Robusto
Robusto
Waste of a good microchip.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
In case their radical totally new and revolutionary way of thought exposes the big pharma as a fraud
 
Robusto
Robusto
My younger son is a scientist at a pharmaceutical company. Two ends of the same sphere.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Hey I might be a hemisphere but I'm trying to lose weight, OK!
 
Robusto
Robusto
8:41 PM
@M.A.R. The only thing you have to fear is sphere itself!
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:14 PM
@Robusto Oh I fear it rottentomatoes.com/m/sphere
 
Robusto
Robusto
@M.A.R. I rest my case.
 
Mitch
Mitch
9:39 PM
@Robusto how about books about the history of books?
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch I give those to my wife.
For example, The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books was an actual book I gave her. She actually read it.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Nice
I'm too impatient... I prefer to read book blurbs
Cliff notes tell me what I was supposed to have understood.
 
Robusto
Robusto
There are two kinds of people in this world, Tuco. Those who read, and those who dig.
 
Mitch
Mitch
What I actually understand is way less. Or something that most people didn't get
I want the brain interface where you can download the book
Or the pill
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Mitch It's called a Kindle.
 
Mitch
Mitch
9:56 PM
That's a whole nother tech thingy to manage mentally
Somewhat tangentially I don't like reading books in a phone
 
Robusto
Robusto
I don't either. That's why I use a Kindle.
The way I go through books I can't do paper books, though I still like them.
On a Kindle I can have the book I'm reading and the book I intend to read when I finish that one, and the next ten books in case I need them.
So if I find myself in Bumfuck, Iowa on a Sunday night in January, I'm covered for reading material.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto you should get paid for that. Or at least control of a fortune 100 company
 
Robusto
Robusto
Or in an airport in France after my flight to the States is cancelled. I can still read.
If I'm out, I can just download something new.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Robusto no matter where I go I always take two books and maybe a magazine, and then I read twittet
 
Robusto
Robusto
Yeah, I can't read Twitter. Or Facefuck.
 
Mitch
Mitch
10:01 PM
If they wrote books one tweet at a time, I'd read it
Fb is how you find out every one in your family is a worse racist than you thought they were already
NextDoor is the same but for neighbors
 
Robusto
Robusto
Jan 30 '13 at 16:21, by Robusto
I just don't want to have "friends" like that. A friend is someone who will help you move. A real friend is someone who will help you move a body. A Facebook friend is someone who will find out where you moved the body and report you.
 
Mitch
Mitch
I actually haven't found that with ND but someone else said that
@Robusto labels don't mean anything
Except they make us feel like it means something
 
Robusto
Robusto
How did we get to talking about labels? I was talking about friends.
 
Mitch
Mitch
I should write a book about that
Using no words
 
Robusto
Robusto
Jan 30 '13 at 16:20, by Robusto
Every time I log onto FB I find more people to unfriend.
 
Mitch
Mitch
10:06 PM
@Robusto FB's use of 'friend' is just a label. It doesn't actually mean anything
 
Robusto
Robusto
And yet people think it does.
 
Mitch
Mitch
See? Labels are lies
 
Robusto
Robusto
How about the label that says "Danger: Poison! Do not swallow! Keep out of the reach of children!"
 
Mitch
Mitch
Lie
They're just daring yiu
Parents put labels on things like that because they want to keep the fun to themselves
They call it rat poison but it is good for you to take in tiny amounts to prevent another heart attack or stroke
It's science man
 
Robusto
Robusto
Jul 8 '15 at 15:34, by Robusto
That's just, like, your opinion, man.
 
Mitch
Mitch
10:20 PM
Say what you will about the Nazis ..
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
but they talked German very fluently
 
Mitch
Mitch
Their accent! So accurate!
You just failed the spy test
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I'm not Brad Pitt and this is not Allied
I think.
 
Mitch
Mitch
You started counting with your index finger instead of the proper german way with your thumb
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I'm more handsome
 
Mitch
Mitch
10:22 PM
In the movie about Brad Pitt's life, they ask you to play the younger Pitt
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Mitch I have a gun pointed at your profile picture, FYI
 
Mitch
Mitch
Let her rip
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Eh, certain parts of your profile picture
 
Mitch
Mitch
That's bull
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Don't leave any shoes in the scene
-4
Q: If Cinderella's shoe fit perfectly, why did it fall off?

YashWhat was the reason for Cinderella's shoe to fall off? After all, we all know that the shoe she wears fits her perfectly.

cinderella
 
Mitch
Mitch
10:25 PM
I have no response to that. Except this one.
Shoes fall off. It's a shoe thing
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
That's a very boring response
It was a secret code between the shoe loser and the shoe finder.
Who narrates Cinderella?
Zing. Checkpoint. Your game progress is saved.
 
Mitch
Mitch
If you want exciting...
Checkmate shoemakers
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
That could be even more exciting if a vocal minority of shoe makers start raging on Twitter
 
Mitch
Mitch
They're all there already
> I hate negative numbers so much, I'll stop at nothing to avoid them
> (this is literally a dad joke, I heard it from my dad this morning)
 
 
1 hour later…
Robusto
Robusto
11:59 PM
 

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