English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

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2:55 AM

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer, repeating words in answer (176): Why is a transportation by road called a "Shipment" but a transportation by seaways called "Cargo"? by Jacob on english.SE

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

5:14 AM

Mstislav the First of Kiev. The last Great King of the Ancient Rus. With his death in 1132, Russia broke apart into several feudal kingdoms. And it stayed separated up until the Mongol Invasion in 1240, although Kiev continued to be nominally called the Mother of Russian Cities.

Mstislav was the grandson of the British ruler Harold who died at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Basically, the year 1132 was the year when Russia started drifting apart into Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

7:36 AM

'Jumping gene’ may have erased tails in humans

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

9:29 AM

A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea

CowperKettle

10:24 AM

A man was apprehended by police in Moscow for standing in the Red Square and holding a clean sheet of white paper. ovdinfo.org/express-news/2021/09/22/…

Matt E. Эллен

10:46 AM

paper cuts are a terrible injury. probably best for everyone involved. clearly a danger to himself and others.

3 hours later…

CowperKettle

1:32 PM

Independent statistician Shpilkin says that the recent elections were fraudulent, and that Putin's United Russia party really received 31% to 35% of votes, and not the claimed 49%

He produces there charts to prove his point. I wish I were competent enough to understand whether these chart are fireproof evidence.

intellinews.com/…

When I read simplified explanations, I seem to concur that they do indicate fraud. But how can I be sure without being a stats expert and going through all the chain of data?

I believe that Putin's popularity remains high.

When I was an independent observer at a voting station, there were throngs of happy families merrily going with their kids to vote. I don't think they were against Putin.

CowperKettle

1:55 PM

> Scientists have observed Bornean orangutans chewing on the leaves of the Dracaena cantleyi plant, producing a soapy lather they then spread onto their skin. It has anti-inflammatory properties, suggesting the orangutans are using it to self-medicate.

2 hours later…

Cerberus

3:25 PM

@CowperKettle Wait, what? The grandson of a British ruler? I had no idea there was that much contact between Britain and Russia!

Perhaps via old Viking conexions down the Dnieper or Volga or something?

@CowperKettle Is it really possible to identify a Belarussian culture that old?

@CowperKettle This is pretty cool. Poor Sodom destroyed by a meteor.

CowperKettle

@Cerberus Furthermore. Harald Hardrada, the guy whom Harold managed to kill on 25 September 1066, just before the fateful Battle of Hastings, was twice the guest of Prince Yaroslav the Wise at Staraya Ladoga, an ancient capital of Northern Russia. The wife of Yaroslav the Wise was a distant relative.

Harald Hardrada

Harald Sigurdsson, also known as Harald of Norway (Old Norse: Haraldr Sigurðarson; c. 1015 – 25 September 1066) and given the epithet Hardrada (Old Norse: harðráði, modern Norwegian: Hardråde, roughly translated as "stern counsel" or "hard ruler") in the sagas, was King of Norway (as Harald III) from 1046 to 1066. In addition, he unsuccessfully claimed both the Danish throne until 1064 and the English throne in 1066. Before becoming king, Harald had spent around fifteen years in exile as a mercenary and military commander in Kievan Rus' and of the Varangian Guard in the Byzantine Empire. When he...

And Prince Yaroslav was the safekeeper of Harald's money that he earned as a member of the Russian (Varangian) Guard in the service of the Byzantine Emperor.

This money allowed him to invade England in 1066.

Cerberus

4:14 PM

So many conexions between the extremes of Europe!

1 hour later…

Cerberus

5:29 PM

@CowperKettle You can see that something is not right when these were the polls.

One aspect of how the elections were unfair may be how the constituency seats hugely benefit United Russia.

So, just as in America, a party may win a majority even though they got a minority of the votes.

In Russia, because there are more serious parties than in America (there would be more in America, but they were crushed long ago by the bipartisan, winner-take-all system), the difference between actual votes and seats will be much greater than in America.

So it's probably a combination of fraud and a rigged constituency system.

3 hours later…

M.A.R.

8:20 PM

Robusto

8:32 PM

Woah! This Experiment May Have Found a Dark Energy Particle

►

@Mitch ^

Another one for your "woah" collection.

The annoying truth of it is that Anton Petrov is someone I respect.

Woah the humanity!

@M.A.R. Perhaps the guests should be grateful.

@CowperKettle It was an interesting story, that. Harold Godwinesson marched his troops of the feard (the militia who were guarding the southern coast against the predicted attack by William the Bastard's troops) to Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire (some 200+ miles or 320+ km away).

Harold's brother, Tostig, was fighting alongside Harald Hardrada because he had fallen out with the rest of Godwine Wulfnothsson's heirs.

Harald was reputed to be some seven feet tall, and according to the tale they parleyed across the river before the battle. Harold asked what Harald wanted, and Harald replied that he wanted England, as it was rightfully his. Harold replied that he could have six feet of English earth, or as much more of it as he needed for a grave, as he was taller than other men.

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

10:24 PM

@Cerberus This time, a blockchain-based electronic voting system was used for the first time ever in Russia. And millions of people voted using it. I cannot begin to understand how it actually works though. Too complex.

I don't believe electronic voting, since you cannot trust that the Government is running the code that they say they are running on the servers.

And in Russia's case, critics say that no source code was even provided.

So it's a kind of black box. Beleive us, so to speak.

With paper ballot voting, you can at least be sure that a voting station in a strongly independent-minded city, like Yekaterinburg, and stuffed with a couple of truly independent voting observers, will turn out the real figures.

And you then can compare these high-quality voting stations against the results obtained in small town stations. And then you can clearly see that United Russia is surging ahead when there's no independent observers.

How can you double-check on the results obtained through electronic voting? I don't know.

And there may be exit polls run by independent poll interviewers. They ask people how they have just voted, the people who are coming out of the voting station.

I'm not sure it has not been banned yet in Russia though, I'll need to read up.

10 years back, there was independent exit polling by organizations like Russia's oldest public opinion research funds. But nowadays they have the "foreign agent" status, which makes it very different for them to operate and for any person to cooperate with them.

Cerberus

@CowperKettle Yes, of course.

That is why anything but paper voting is always a bad idea.

Voting-machines are computers, and computers are never 100% secure.

CowperKettle

11:01 PM