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Conrado
Conrado
12:47 AM
@Robusto Although I don't really know him well (only on this chat and for a few months), I would have guessed that he would advise before leaving for so long. I add my hopes to yours.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
1:13 AM
 
 
1 hour later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
2:15 AM
Revenge dress
The "Revenge dress" is a dress once worn by Diana, Princess of Wales. It was worn for the first time at a 1994 dinner at the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens. The dress has been interpreted as having been worn "in revenge" for the televised admission of adultery by her husband, Charles, Prince of Wales. == History == The event to which the dress was worn was a 29 June 1994 fundraising dinner hosted by Vanity Fair magazine for the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens. Diana had originally declined the invitation to the dinner but had accepted two days prior to the dinner after several...
The weird side of Wikipedia. A whole article dedicated to a dress.
There are hundreds of diseases that don't have articles.
 
Xanne
Xanne
2:58 AM
But think of all the dresses that don’t have pages - :)
2
Consider this, from Harper’s Bazaar: Melania Trump stepped out at her first of three Inaugural balls this evening wearing a crisp white shoulder-bearing gown . . .
Go Bears!
 
user 85795
user 85795
shoulders bearing the weight of a nation under siege
 
user 85795
user 85795
3:27 AM
 
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
3:55 AM
> — Can anyone transcribe a sheet in musescore for me? I have the PNG files from a shady website but i dont wanna pay or download their shady program, ive tried using programs to convert the png to xml files but it doesnt work for some reason
> — why don't you do it yourself? You will learn how to use Musescore on the way, which will be very useful.
> — Well, ive never really studied music. I cant even read music notes lol
@Robusto ^
 
RegDwigнt
RegDwigнt
4:11 AM
BTW, a longer version of that Mahler rehearsal is actually available on YouTube.
It's 2:30 hours long and in German.
(Subtitled.)
I'm starting now. See you on the other side.
 
 
3 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
6:53 AM
Gosses Bluff in central Australia is thought to have been formed by the impact of an asteroid or comet approximately 142.5 ± 0.8 million years ago
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
7:13 AM
A local parliament deputy in Tuymen proposed to reinstate mayoral election, instead of appointment of local mayors by Moscow. Several hours later, he was detained by the police on charges of "extremism" znak.com/2021-03-03/…
They found an "extremist" video material in his social network post made last year. The video was made about a decade ago and lambasts Putin's party promises of better life made in 2002, which were not kept.
Many people know that this innocent video was designated an extremist material, but now and then somebody makes a mistake of posting it on the Internet.
It recounts the promises made by Putin's "United Russia" party in 2002, and calls the party members scoundrels and liars. Hence it is extremism.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
8:02 AM
 
Xanne
Xanne
8:14 AM
@RegDwigнt This is fantastic—at least the first half.
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
8:47 AM
@Gigili I suppose they have to call it something.
@Conrado I thought the phrase "Commander in Chief" was commonly used.
 
 
2 hours later…
Conrado
Conrado
10:45 AM
@FaheemMitha Yes, was. But now that title belongs to someone else. What you wrote was perfectly right, I was just being lighthearted about a ticklish subject.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
10:56 AM
A sign on an overpass saying Ekaterinburg - moi gorod (Yekaterinburg is my city)
In Russian, we often omit is, sometimes placing a long dash in its place.
мой город stands for "my city"
д is d, p is r
 
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
11:15 AM
@Conrado Oh, you mean now. Right.
 
 
1 hour later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
12:22 PM
It is so blisfully warm. Minus 3 degrees
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
12:38 PM
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
12:51 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in body (99): Spoken English is important? by Lovekesh Jayant on english.SE
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
1:14 PM
Word of the day: simultagnosia
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:49 PM
Meteor Crater
Meteor Crater, also called Barringer Crater, is a meteorite impact crater approximately 37 miles (60 km) east of Flagstaff and 18 miles (29 km) west of Winslow in the northern Arizona desert of the United States. The site had several earlier names, and fragments of the meteorite are officially called the Canyon Diablo Meteorite, after the adjacent Cañon Diablo. Because the United States Board on Geographic Names recognizes names of natural features derived from the nearest post office, the feature acquired the name of "Meteor Crater" from the nearby post office named Meteor.Meteor Crater lies...
That one happened around 50 thousand years ago.
 
 
3 hours later…
Gigili
Gigili
4:25 PM
I think I should stop getting into fights.
5
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
5:15 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, mostly punctuation marks in answer, repeating characters in answer (205): "Throw you with a stone" vs "Throw a stone at you" by user416326 on english.SE
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
5:29 PM
 
New Saxony
New Saxony
5:52 PM
@CowperKettle Well, duh.
That's why Russia sucks, among other things.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:10 PM
@NewSaxony Cowp is a Russian activist, which is why he shares this stuff so often.
@Robusto Crater? That looks like a bulge
My eyes might be playing tricks on me, but the crater seems to have a shadow. How does it have a shadow if it's a depression in the ground, not an elevation?
@CowperKettle What book? I think good journalism is when you give the audience the details and help them figure it out by themselves. I mean, obviously going to jail for reading any book is just nuts, but I'm just saying, if you leave out some details, you'd seem a less trustworthy reporter.
Which is incidentally why Twitter sucks in a nutshell
@Gigili What sorta fights?
I fight a lot these days too. I just can't seem to converse with most Iranians online without getting into a heated debate.
The other day someone accused me of being a government spy and a dictator lover because I criticized, rather just mentioned, the police brutality in France
Everything is a false equivalence for people these days.
 
Conrado
Conrado
6:26 PM
@M.A.R. Your eyes aren't tricking you. These impact displaces enough material to push a sort of "lip" up around the perimeter of the crater.
I think that the shadow on the left in the picture corresponds to the "lip" (overturned bedding), not to the crater proper.
Here are some more good pictures from different perspectives: impact-structures.com/… Note: don't ever pass a chance to throw stones into soft mud. Just make sure to throw far enough from people that the ejecta doesn't get on anyone's clothing.
Ah, but the article I pointed to says that the crater is not actually formed by same process as that of a low-speed stone in soft mud?
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
6:43 PM
@M.A.R. It is a kind of protest. They read books sitting on subway trains. The books are in Belarusian language, which is suppressed by the Lukashenko regime
@M.A.R. I'm not an activist.
The Californian cost is obesity-free
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I wouldn't say that...
20% obesity is huge.
 
Conrado
Conrado
I agree with Cerb.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
So the Californian coast looks like 20–30% obese?
It's 14% for the Netherlands.
Still huge.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Basically the Lukashenko regime is suppressing anything related to the national resurgence symbols. The white-red-white flag, books in Belarusian language etc. Because the other side uses the colors of the flag as a kind of hidden protest, since open protest is momentarily and brutally dispersed.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@CowperKettle Why is Belarusian suppressed in Belarus? That doesn't make any sense
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
6:49 PM
A strategy which will accomplish very little.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@M.A.R. Because only a small portion of people uses Belarusian.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
The rest Russian?
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
And the portion of people that uses it the most is the people who hate Lukashenko the most.
 
Conrado
Conrado
@CowperKettle So it's not quite the whole story to say she went to jail for reading a book.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
The vast majority uses Russian.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:50 PM
Wow, you'd think one of the most basic items you can rally nationalists around in a national or local language
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@Conrado Yes, she was reading a book in Belarusian language to display her protest against Lukashenko's regime.
 
Conrado
Conrado
It's a bit like my aunt, who lives in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. She was arrested while carrying a hatchet.
She was doing garden work.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Hatchet
A hatchet (from the Old French hachete, a diminutive form of hache, 'axe' of Germanic origin) is a single-handed striking tool with a sharp blade on one side used to cut and split wood, and a hammerhead on the other side. Hatchets may also be used for hewing when making flattened surfaces on logs; when the hatchet head is optimized for this purpose it is called a hewing hatchet.Although hand axe and hatchet are often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. A hand axe is essentially a miniature axe with a flat butt or poll on the back side of the head, whereas a hatchet has a hammerhead...
 
Conrado
Conrado
However, I'm sure that the officer reported that she was rebellious or dangerous or something.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Cerberus I think it'd be around 30 percent for Iran? Wait, obesity would be lower
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
6:51 PM
Yeah.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
I'm afraid that in Belarus.. if you were caught carrying a hatchet and any sign of white-red-white designs on you, you would get many, many years in prison these days.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
30-something percent would be overweight though
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
There is no country fatter than America.
 
Conrado
Conrado
I think that she didn't put the hatchet down when the officer told her to.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Overweight is not nearly as bad as obese.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:52 PM
@Cerberus well there's one in Africa, where it's traditionally important to be obese
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Oh?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Yeah I think the US is top five or something? That might have changed recently
 
Conrado
Conrado
@CowperKettle Yeah, that's simply horrible. There is no excuse for that kind of oppression. considers. Perhaps holding this kind of opinion makes you (and me) an activist of sorts? Like Meghan Rice: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Rice
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
> Nauru 1 61.00
Cook Islands 2 55.90
Palau 3 55.30
Marshall Islands 4 52.90
Tuvalu 5 51.60
Niue 6 50.00
Tonga 7 48.20
Samoa 8 47.30
Kiribati 9 46.00
Federated States of Micronesia 10 45.80
Kuwait 11 37.90
United States 12 36.20
Okay, Kuwait wins.
The rest are Pacific islands.
Which I believe have a genetic disposition.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Wait, huh
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
6:54 PM
Not sure how unhealthy they are: could be that they can bear obesity more lightly.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
A number of Lukashenko's opponents mysteriously vanished many years ago. It's an open secret that they were murdered.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
So Islands in Oceania
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Not just Oceania.
The entire Pacific.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Cerberus No I mean I vaguely recalled it was somewhere in Africa, but I was wrong
Iran is 47th
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Right.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:55 PM
I think we'd be rising in the ranks in the future years
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
By the way, it seems all of the islands in that list are in fact in Oceania, as you said.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
PhysEd is absolutely horrible here.
Very disorganized
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I think the main problem may be eating.
And possibly cars.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Cerberus which is why I'm saying we're going to rise in the ranks
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I'll believe it.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:57 PM
Fast food chains are slowly establishing their dominance
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
The government should really do something about that.
 
Conrado
Conrado
> Chile’s biggest challenge, though, is that in Chile 34.4% of adults are obese, and 44.5% of children are obese or overweight. (oecd.org/health/health-systems/…) That is worse than I thought!
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I wish ours did.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I mean, there's very weak enforcement of copyright law here, so we always had, say, KFC ripoffs
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I think a fat tax will come, but it is taking a lot of time.
At least various countries already have a sugar tax; that also helps.
We don't yet.
@Conrado That's a big number.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:58 PM
Speaking of food, dinner is ready. BBL
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Don't overeat!
> Kuwait 11 37.90
United States 12 36.20
Jordan 13 35.50
Saudi Arabia 14 35.40
Qatar 15 35.10
Libya 16 32.50
Turkey 17 32.10
Egypt 18 32.00
Lebanon 19 32.00
United Arab Emirates 20 31.70
Bahamas 21 31.60
New Zealand 22 30.80
Iraq 23 30.40
Fiji 24 30.20
Bahrain 25 29.80
Look at how fat Arabia has become.
When did that happen?
Must be fairly recent.
Also other countries in the Near East.
 
Conrado
Conrado
@Cerberus Yes, quite disturbing.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I'm also surprised at New Zealand.
 
Conrado
Conrado
@M.A.R. Cheers!
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I can't think of anything those countries have in common.
So maybe it is more subtle factors, such as the spread of American fastfood chains.
Or portion sizes.
Or car use.
 
Conrado
Conrado
7:04 PM
@Cerberus They all eat too much cheese, perhaps?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Conrado Why cheese?
 
New Saxony
New Saxony
7:23 PM
@Cerberus Because arabia is all desert and so their only food is the goats they herd or the oil they pump, and since oil don't taste too good, they eat goat milk in the form of cheese.
Or camel milk. Can you make that into cheese?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Hah, that would seem unlikely.
For one thing, what cheese they have is hardly a new development.
Secondly, most people in the Near East live near coasts and rivers, not in deserts.
 
New Saxony
New Saxony
@Cerberus Hmm.
I forgot rivers exist
are there lochs in the desert?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Well, there are oases.
Wadis.
 
New Saxony
New Saxony
@M.A.R. The polls say that Millenials keep moving to the cities, and cities are great for biking, and since biking keeps you fitter, less people will get fat(ter).
 
Conrado
Conrado
Right, but to have access to too much cheese is more wide-spread than before, I think. I actually think (although I don't have data) that it is likely simply the portion sizes and physical inactivity that you mentioned. Where I live, I know old folks who fifty years ago used to go to town in an ox-cart and on foot. That was a 40km trek. They would go one day, and come back another.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
7:29 PM
Better.
 
New Saxony
New Saxony
Then again, I don't thing that those who are obese currently would ride bikes.
 
Conrado
Conrado
Now, everybody rides the bus. Myself included. I've never walked fifty kilometers in one day.
 
New Saxony
New Saxony
@Conrado They should build some rail.
Do the Saudis have their own version of Amtrak?
 
Conrado
Conrado
And I'm physically active; I would even guess above average (of people in my town).
 
Robusto
Robusto
8:14 PM
@CowperKettle New Mexico is obesity-freer than California.
@M.A.R. See it up close sometime. The crater is not as big as some others, but when you're there and you realize that a lump of iron about 50 meters across made the crater, you get a feeling of humility in the face of nature. Basically, if one of those landed anywhere near your location you'd be fried, crushed, pulverized, or all three.
 
Xanne
Xanne
8:30 PM
Obesity correlates quite consistently with the price of food relative to income. Beats everything else. All that scolding, all that education about brussel sprouts, to no avail.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
How do you mean?
It is the poor who are fat, in middling to rich countries.
But I think food is nether extremely cheap nor extremely expensive for them?
 
Robusto
Robusto
There's also an education component. Smarter, better educated people tend to seek out better diets. Also, people on the lower end of the economic scale often have more than one job, and eat fast food and other unhealthy meals just because they don't have time to prepare something more nutritious.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
"better educated people tend to seek out better diets" — Absolutely. (I wouldn't say "smarter".)
> people on the lower end of the economic scale often have more than one job
I'm not sure this applies everywhere.
I think a large proportion of those are on the dole.
 
Robusto
Robusto
8:46 PM
@Cerberus Yeah, the US mostly got rid of the dole because Republicans started us on social Darwinism.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@NewSaxony "cities are great for biking" is a very European thing to say.
Iranian cities are particularly hostile to bikers.
(I mean the infrastructure, not the people)
@Robusto so anyway, now that I think about, why does a meteor explode in contact with the ground? What's the fuel?
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, no whitespace in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer, repeating characters in answer (265): Take my photo, take a photo of me by Zachary Holland on english.SE
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I mean, you'd expect the hot space rock to explode, that's for certain, but why doesn't it just throw shrapnels around? Where do the explosions after contact come from? Or maybe I'm just being too science fictiony with meteor strikes
 
Robusto
Robusto
@M.A.R. Purely kinetic energy. I don't know the physics equations, but if you take something of a certain mass and accelerate it to a certain number of kilometers per second, the collision releases an ungodly amount of energy.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
'cause I mean, when I was a kid, I used to think meteor explosions look like nuclear explosions in a way, all that CG'd stuff in documentaries about the extinction of the dinosaurs
 
Robusto
Robusto
8:53 PM
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto Sounds like a 30s thing...
@M.A.R. One would imagine, though, that biking is not much better in the country, for another reason: it's just too far.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Cerberus very. I'm actually kinda worried
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto I think it's E = 1/2 mv²?
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus I thought Mexico was in second place gaining on he US, maybe even past the US.
It -is- a competition of course
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Cerberus most people would want to use bikes for commuting
@Cerberus 1/2
Yeah
 
New Saxony
New Saxony
8:55 PM
@M.A.R. So are NZ ones.
 
Mitch
Mitch
and it would be shameful if US were to lose the top spot
 
New Saxony
New Saxony
The infrastriucture, I also mean
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@M.A.R. Distances within a city are probably much smaller than from the country to the city.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@NewSaxony Well, in your case, it's often when the bike lanes run into a lamp post or something. In my case, there are no bike lanes, and dangerous drivers all around (Iran has so many more dangerous car accidents that it has any right to have)
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch I remember. They must have been lagging.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
8:57 PM
@Cerberus Yeah that's what I'm saying. Nobody would use a bike to travel to the city every day and back
 
Robusto
Robusto
According to the calculator, if we have a mass of 100000 metric tons traveling at 50000 kph, that would yield the equivalent energy to 2305225 tons of TNT. So about 2.3 megatons.
 
Mitch
Mitch
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I feel funny when I superstitiously try to connect the two events: What were the odds that we'd get another deadly pandemic in a century, and what were the odds of ending up with fascism sympathizers
OTOH, these nazis are much different though. They're cowards for the most part, because they're unfiltered
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@M.A.R. But most people who live in a city wish to transport themselves within the city.
Shorter distances than for those who live in the country.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus That sounds right. My physics education was a long time ago.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:00 PM
Possibly also better, flatter terrain.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus They're supposedly really into sugary soft drinks
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I mean, when such extreme ideologies gain popular support, it's usually (always?) because of some traumatic event, right? People feel things are on the decline, but nothing like a world war has happened to the US recently
 
Robusto
Robusto
Yep, they give it as KE = 0.5 * m * v².
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9645061728395061 joules is what I get.
 
Mitch
Mitch
So apropos of something here, are you suggesting that to curb obesity, we increase the cost of food? Kind of like a carbon tax or tobacco tax?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:01 PM
@Cerberus Yeah, and I'm saying, I'm not at all optimistic about bicycles making any noticeable dent in the obesity rates in Iran, but capitalist monopolies are setting foothold here
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch That is a big problem.
Also ultimately inspired by American chains.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Say, you don't have ads for fast food here. But it sure feels like you would in a couple of years.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Before they came, I think people hardly ever bought sugary drinks prepackaged.
And the poor drink them everywhere.
No idea why.
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus I put it in terms of megatons of TNT so we could understand the magnitude of the destructive force.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus I feel like I've seen scientific articles (or popularizations of them) that claim that diet soda use leads to adult onset diabetes in about the same numbers as full cal soda
or I could be making that up.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:03 PM
@M.A.R. I believe you. My point was just that I wouldn't expect it to be much better in the country qua cycling.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus Again, we win.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto I didn't because that would have been too much work.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Mitch IIRC no, but diet soda can cause its own problems
 
Robusto
Robusto
@Cerberus No work at all to select a different outcome using that calculator I linked.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch I have heard similar but more complex claims.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:04 PM
I mean, saccharin tastes awful. What do they use in diet soda there? Aspartame?
 
Mitch
Mitch
Or, and bear with me here, we could tax gas to encourage biking walking -and- reduce carbon emissions.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I think it's one of those research papers that have only done the statistics.
 
Mitch
Mitch
But I realize of course that that is insane
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Robusto I used the Windows calculator.
 
Robusto
Robusto
A rookie move.
 
Mitch
Mitch
9:05 PM
@M.A.R. eg? because I want to sound more realistic when I make up stuff
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Yeah, that is already being done.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R. ugh. yes.
 
Robusto
Robusto
This looks good. I'm bookmarking it: omnicalculator.com "Your life in 1654 free calculators"
 
Mitch
Mitch
also... is it called Splenda?
or some that starts with an 'e'?
maybe E?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Mitch so you have this psychological phenomenon where people who really want soda but want to lose weight go nuts with diet soda. They end up accumulating a dangerous amount of aspartame in their body.
AFAIK, this is a "growing concern" for the medical community.
 
Mitch
Mitch
9:06 PM
@Cerberus Well, good for them that they're already using my idea.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Uhh.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
You have a small molecule like aspartame that looks like so many aminoacids and other compounds, you're bound to run into some sort of complicated problems.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R. Also for the 'good taste' community.
@M.A.R. Also convulsions
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Like it's carcinogenic at certain doses but I've forgotten the details.
 
Mitch
Mitch
too much causes convulsions.
in rats
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:07 PM
@M.A.R. I think you need to drink exorbitant amounts for that to become an issue. Inhuman amounts.
 
Mitch
Mitch
so stop doing that!
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Cerberus well and the thing is people are drinking inhuman amounts of it apparently
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
In practical situations, the dose of aspartame is just far too low to make any difference.
@M.A.R. As in 20 L daily?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I dunno, as I said, I forgot the numbers.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Central Amsterdam used to be awful for car traffic and air pollution and dead pigeons in the canals.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:08 PM
I don't remember the details, but I think 2 L daily isn't going to be enough.
 
Mitch
Mitch
But they did things and now it's just the pigeons
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I'm regurgitating what I read in a medical journal like a decade ago.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch It is still awful for car traffic.
That is, it is awful if you want to travel there by car.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus but more bikes?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
And the tourists!
 
Mitch
Mitch
9:09 PM
oh
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
What the cities do is what we call "autootje pesten".
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Use pesticide on cars?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@M.A.R. Those are, or were, the worst!
@Mitch Bikes don't pollute, nor do they take up too much space in the street.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
> bully your car
Heh
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@M.A.R. "Pestering those little cars", you could translate it.
 
Mitch
Mitch
9:10 PM
@Cerberus What? That's crazy talk
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Reminds me of that Chinese mistranslation I saw
Ein moment
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I don't know why the diminutive is used in expressions like that.
 
Mitch
Mitch
which one?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
If you break hard, maybe your tyres will release some harmful particles.
But it will be a negligible fraction of cars.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:12 PM
Pretty good.
 
Mitch
Mitch
palladium, which is probably toxic, can be recovered from dust (lots and lots of it) in the gutters along the side of the rode
I saw a youtube thingy on it
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Is it worth while?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Mitch Probably by that same mechanism I talked about a while ago. Plants
 
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R. mmm...that's not what I remember... they gathered like a bucket full of asphalt/tire/crud particles and then smelted it down like ten times.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Doesn't that cost a lot of energy?
 
Mitch
Mitch
9:14 PM
at the end they had a tiny ball of palladium, like a small ant size
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
And cause a lot of pollution?
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus Yes.
@Cerberus Yes
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
OK.
Cool.
 
Mitch
Mitch
But this was you tube so...
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@M.A.R. It's "Buddha-jumps-over-a-wall", some sort of soup. The idea is that the soup is so delicious Buddha will do that. So that's where the translation to "God" comes from. As for "jumps over a wall", it's Chinese slang for using a VPN to circumvent the government's restrictions, hence "God use [sic] VPN"
 
Mitch
Mitch
9:15 PM
I don't think you'd want to do it as a long term reclamation process
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Mitch That sounds a bit impractical for miles of road
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@M.A.R. Hilarious!
 
Mitch
Mitch
but if you absolutely needed some palladium and your supplier was unavailable, it seemed like a workable one shot method.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Like Imambayildis, or whatever it's called in Turkish.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R. roomba?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:16 PM
İmam bayıldı
İmam bayıldı (literally: "the imam fainted") is a dish in Ottoman cuisine consisting of whole eggplant stuffed with onion, garlic and tomatoes, and simmered in olive oil. It is a zeytinyağlı (olive oil-based) dish and is found in most of the former Ottoman regions. The dish is served at room temperature or warm. == Origin of the name == The name supposedly derives from a tale of a Turkish imam who swooned with pleasure at the flavour when presented with this dish by his wife, although other more humorous accounts suggest that he fainted upon hearing the cost of the ingredients or the amount of...
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I mean, smelting and burning and electrolysing are processes you'd perform on the plants too
@Cerberus Haha, hadn't heard of this
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
It's pretty good.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R. Where did the plants get their palladium from? The street gutters supposedly got it from cars' catalytic converters
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I like eggplants, then I eat too much in a meal and I hate eggplants for a while
 
Mitch
Mitch
@Cerberus Would you go so far as to swoon over it?
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:18 PM
I still love them no matter how many I eat.
@Mitch Yes.
 
Mitch
Mitch
Oh
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I wouldn't consider that very far!
 
Mitch
Mitch
I'd swoon next to it. Don't want to make a mess.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
The only thing I hate is when it's undercooked.
Then it still has this awful rubbery texture.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Cerberus Oh, maybe that's how I get to hate it
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:19 PM
It needs to be soft.
 
Mitch
Mitch
I hate it when beans are undercooked.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I mean, I'm not the best cook out there
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Aww.
 
Mitch
Mitch
no al dente beans for me I always say
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Cerberus genau
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:19 PM
Heat it with lots of either water or oil or both.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Sometimes I add so much tomato paste the whole thing burns
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
And long enough.
 
Mitch
Mitch
mmm
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Browned tomato paste is good!
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Don't make me hungry at 1 a.m.!
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:20 PM
Alas.
 
Mitch
Mitch
mmm
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
In other news, I'm watch the Band of Brothers finale tomorrow
Does Tony Stark die?! :'(
 
Mitch
Mitch
I'd tell you the ending but 1) that would be mean and
and 2) I haven't watched it
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Well, I was looking for the soundtrack and I sorta spoiled it
 
Mitch
Mitch
also I don't know what Band of Brother is. Presumably a thing that one watches.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:21 PM
@Mitch the whole thing or just the finale?
 
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R. there's a whole thing?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I mean, it's WWII, that was another time.
@Mitch You seriously haven't watched it? It's HBO's best.
 
Mitch
Mitch
one hour ago was another time too but I don't keep bringing that up
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
The US was a force for good for a few years then.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R. I've heard of HBO
In fact I can tell you the time and place I first heard of this magical HBO
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:23 PM
I mean, Allies did bomb civilians, but Germans did the whole nazi thing which was really unique
@Mitch Yay, we're making progress
Has the US been the good guys ever since? Dunno.
 
Mitch
Mitch
it was... 19... 1980? And my aunt and uncle were visiting and they mentioned they saw some movie on this new fangled 'cable' thing ("What's 'cable'?") called HBO ("Whaat? What does that mean?").
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@M.A.R. And the Americans were initially reluctant to bomb cities, which the English really wanted.
 
Mitch
Mitch
And I still haven't gotten a subscription
or whatever it is you do to HBO
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@M.A.R. In some ways, in some places.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
5 mins ago, by Cerberus
Heat it with lots of either water or oil or both.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
9:25 PM
They kept Russia at bay, which I think has been very good for the world.
 
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R. They mean well
In fact
in any international compettion of well-meaningness, US has been at the top
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Cerberus I mean, they ruined North Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, toppled a legal regime in Iran . . .
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch Uhh I wouldn't say that.
 
Mitch
Mitch
keep going
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Mitch too well, sometimes it's the uncle that gets uncomfortably close with you.
 
Mitch
Mitch
9:26 PM
@Cerberus have other countries been more well intentioned than the US? I think not.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@M.A.R. I agree about most of those, but I think Vietnam and Korea are bit more complicated?
 
Mitch
Mitch
@M.A.R. I feel like we're now talking about different things.
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
@Mitch America has in many ways been driven by business interests and improving its own position geopolitically.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@Cerberus Well I mean, they could have done literally anything but whatever they did and it would have produced a better outcome
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Those intentions are good...for itself.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:27 PM
AFAIK in Cambodia, Pol Pot rose thanks to the US
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I'll believe it.
But Korea?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
You bomb people, they gather around the arseholes that seem to be bullies
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
If America had not been involved at all, what would have happened?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
I dunno
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Wouldn't the North have conquered the South?
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:29 PM
Just like everything else
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Now at least most of the paeninsula is a fairly good place to live.
Otherwise, perhaps all of it would have been as miserable as the North.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Would the communists have gained serious power if the US let Vietnam alone? Or the other commie countries
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
I'm not sure.
I don't remember enough about the history.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Back to eggplants
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
But at least in Europe I know for certain America helped us a great deal.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:30 PM
@Cerberus Mhm, as part of the business interest thing
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
Otherwise, we would be speaking Russian here and posting stories worse than @CowperKettle's.
2
@M.A.R. I would say it's a combination of several motives.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Reminds me of the YouTube video about Santa being a communist
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
But the end result has been highly beneficial.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
The only thing that matters for the most part
 
Cerberus
Cerberus
America has done a lot of bad things, also for bad reasons. But I think we shouldn't portray it as either black or white.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
9:35 PM
Beige
 
Mitch
Mitch
9:46 PM
@M.A.R. Mauve
 

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