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CowperKettle

1:00 AM

4 hours later…

CowperKettle

5:30 AM

CowperKettle

6:28 AM

Once my father brought a live capercaillie from a trip to the woods

But the bird was wounded, and it died the next day. I cried.

It stood rigidly, and just kept standing, and then, if I remember right, it fell.

I felt a great pity for it.

4 hours later…

CowperKettle

10:53 AM

fonema Jimena

Hello! This is my first time here. I'd like to ask something, if it's possible to "tchrist". It's about one post about conditionals (I haven't got permissions to comment the answer)

Apart from the usual four types, 0, 1, 2, 3, I learnt that there was a fifth type, the so-called "mixed conditionals", where you have one part that talks about non-past and the other half about past.

CowperKettle

11:09 AM

@tchrist - a guest is asking for your opinion ))

fonema Jimena

11:26 AM

As in "If tickets weren't so expensive, I would've gone to see this film earlier!"

Is that an unreal non-past conditional?

(following Christian Jones and Daniel Waller classification)

Tickets are expensive at the present time -> non-past
Tickets are not cheap, they are expensive -> unreal
I didn't see this film earlier -> real

This is a combination of tenses that I couldn't find in their extensive list, but I guess it's difficult to cover all the possibilities, and it doesn't mean it cannot be said.

Thank you @CowperKettle - now I know how to make a reference

2 hours later…

Robusto

1:24 PM

The Drinker Fixes... Game of Thrones

►

@tchrist ^

CowperKettle

Russia is beautiful

CowperKettle

1:47 PM

Yekaterinburg is covered in smoke, and it smells all smokey

Fires have started early this year, due to exceptional heat.

Robusto

@CowperKettle That's not good.

CowperKettle

2:12 PM

Heat happens.

CowperKettle

2:26 PM

جاده ها به جائی نمی روند
وگرنه مسافران
به خانه هایشان باز نمی گشتند
گروس عبدالملکیان

> Roads do not go anywhere, otherwise passengers would not return to their homes. Gross Abdolmalekian

Iranian poetry

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

4:30 PM

CowperKettle

5:00 PM

Probably because in wealthier countries a woman can live perfectly well with a child on her own.

CowperKettle

5:18 PM

Robusto

5:46 PM

@CowperKettle Well, about two-thirds of Black families in the US are single-parent. What does that tell you?

CowperKettle

@Robusto Than my hypothesis was wrong?

I dunno.

Then there must be no relation to income.

Maybe it's because of traditions. In some countries there's a tradition to stick as a family.

In some nations.

Robusto

@CowperKettle I think it's actually more likely that single-parent families are on the lower end of the economic spectrum, at least here. Not sure about other countries.

CowperKettle

6:47 PM

> In the 1990s an oil exploration company dredged up brine shrimps larvae while drilling near the Great Salt Lake & when the the crew placed them in water, some of them hatched. Radiocarbon dating estimated they had been lying there for 10,000 years

When first pyramids were built, these guys had been chilling out for 6000 years already.

I'm listening to Charles C. Mann "1493", and it's very interesting.

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created is a nonfiction book by Charles C. Mann first published in 2011. It covers the global effects of the Columbian Exchange, following Columbus' first landing in the Americas, that led to our current globalized world civilization. It follows on from Mann's previous book on the Americas prior to Columbus, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.In his book, Mann argues that Columbus paved the way to the homogenocene, a particular feature of the anthropocene that is marked by a global homogenization of (agricultural) species, diseases, and...

Tzar Nicholas II inspecting the world's first 4-engine plane, in 1913

Robusto

7:09 PM

@CowperKettle Was that this Sikorsky he was with?

CowperKettle

@Robusto Yes

Nicholas should have just abstained from starting the war. But nobody could know that it would be such a long and expensive war.

Robusto

7:57 PM

@CowperKettle Nobody ever knows where war will lead. Remember what the oracle told Croesus when he desired an augury about whether he should invade Persia: "If you go to war with Persia you will destroy a mighty empire." So he went to war, and he destroyed a mighty empire: his own.

CowperKettle

My grandfather was sent to a penal unit after running away from German captivity (actually he was captured by the so-called Vlasov Army men). He was then sent to scout an area alone, and provide a report. He did that, and was later told that he had been walking in a mined area, and therefore had "washed away his guilt". He was returned to a regular Army unit. — CopperKettle 23 secs ago

I should convert it into an answer sometime.

Robusto

8:09 PM

@CowperKettle No time like the present.

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