English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

tchrist

19:00

Ukraine has no nuclear bombs. We all know who does.

Vikas

But Turkey will say "Russia's concerns of dirty bomb are genuine" lol

tchrist

The way Putin is foddering all those untrained Russian conscripts to early graves is heartbreaking.

Confoderating would have been a better verb for this, but it's more apt to draw offensive flags.

Vikas

One thing I don't understand is what is the point of reserved forces? Wikipedia says Russian has largest reserved forces. Something like 2000000 IIRC.

So why would they struggle to gather just 300000?

Is it because what they claim is false? The actual numbers of reserve?

Let me confirm numbers

Reserve personnel: 2,000,000

Yes. So this looks false to me because most sources said no one was ready to join this partial mobilisation.

So they forced them to join.

tchrist

Those are just the people who've already served their obligatory twelvemonth service.

Vikas

@tchrist Okay so they are just forcing someone who has already retired?

tchrist

19:09

Right now, yes.

Vikas

OK

That would make sense.

tchrist

In American, the Reserve means something specific that involves continuous periodic training and pay for same.

And it applies only to those who choose to serve in that way.

Vikas

@tchrist Yes that is what I would believe. That's how it should be.

tchrist

I don't know that that is what Russia means.

Vikas

But seeing what happened during Russian mobilization, it wasn't normal. There were news they were untrained, not enough food, medicine and maybe salary etc.

tchrist

19:11

And even if they do mean that, it is unquestionable that they are taking people against their will.

Vikas

Yeah

tchrist

And that there is tragically inadequate training and support.

Vikas

I think they were unwilling to join for above reasons.

That's why I wouldn't call them reserved forces.

Or personnel, whatever it is called.

tchrist

Even in this war's very earliest efforts, such as the armor column stranded on the road to Kiev/Kyiv, the troops didn't have food and were forced to pillage the local countryside so as not to starve.

@Vikas Neither would I.

And mostly such pillaging didn't mean stealing people's sheep. It was far worse.

Vikas

This is where they started losing confidence.

Resulted in low morale.

tchrist

19:17

Propaganda is far cheaper than actual matériel.

But man doth not live by words alone.

Millions have been thrown into tragedy. Millions.

Even that figure is off by an order of magnitude. It's tens of millions.

Resolution of this conflict is still so far away in time and circumstance that no one can say how it will end, nor when.

tchrist

19:35

> In Bavarian, viel is not pronounced as /fiːl/ and ein Haufen is not pronounced /aɪ̯n ˈhaʊ̯fm̩/. But again, there is some effort to keep the spelling consistent with the pronunciation, so if you came up with the crazy idea to write a [Wikipedia in Bavarian][6], you would spell viel as vui, vei, vii or fui, and ein Haufen as a Haufa, to reflect the actual pronunciation. And there are also Wikipedias in Ripuarian, Plattdeutsch, Alemannic.

> It's hard to imagine, say, standalone Australian, Canadian or Texan Wikipedias where the spelling mirrors the local dialect in such a manner.

Low Dietsch dialects

Low Dietsch (Dutch: Platdiets, Limburgish: Platduutsj, French: francique rhéno-mosan or platdutch) refers to a handful of transitional Limburgish–Ripuarian dialects spoken in a number of towns and villages (e.g., Gemmenich, Hombourg, Montzen, Welkenraedt). This area, located in the Belgian (Walloon) "tri-state area" from Voeren (Fourons), to Plombières (Bleiberg), to Eupen, is called the Low Dietsch region (Dutch: Platdietse streek). Classified by German dialectologists as Ripuarian Franconian and by Dutch-language dialectologists as Southeast Limburgish, Low Dietsch refers to a transitional dialect...

Cerberus

@tchrist I do not understand what he should seek to accomplish by saying such things to the West. None will believe it.

As to dirty bombs, Ukraine could easily make one.

But why should she?

tchrist

@Cerberus Perhaps for domestic alibis.

@Cerberus Oh my, the news media are alive with explainers of all that this afternoon!

Refs

Cerberus

@tchrist I think those dialects are probably much closer to each other than in Bayerisch to Hochdeutsch.

I found the passages in Bayerisch in Buddenbrooks nigh impossible to read.

@tchrist A dirty bomb is mainly just nuclear waste tied to a normal bomb.

tchrist

@Cerberus Right.

> "It seems to me this is one of these figments of Putin's imagination, that he likes to throw out there and put on RT," Fettweis said, referring to the Russian state-media organization. "It would not make any sense for the Ukrainians to do something like that. Even to try to get public opinion against the Russians because why would anyone believe the Russians?"

Fettweis added that he believes the intended audience for Russia's claims isn't the international community, but the Russian people. He noted that "Putin's biggest problem now to a large degree" isn't the Ukrainian army, but Russia…

Cerberus

It goes off, and radioactive material is spread around a couple of streets.

Of little military use.

Mainly useful to terrorists.

tchrist

19:45

So my guess about this actually being intended for their domestic audience has been guessed by others as well.

That paste was from here.

Cerberus

Yes.

But then why even mention it to Western diplomats.

There is little use in that.

tchrist

Implausible deniability.

The mention of the dirty bomb threat in Shoigu’s calls seemed to indicate the threat of such an attack has risen to an unprecedented level. “It appears that there is a shared feeling that the tensions have approached the level that could raise the real threat for all,” said Fyodor Lukyanov...

It has to be some sort of set-up intended to make people nervous.

Cerberus

It will not work on the West, nor on Ukraine.

So better keep it limited to Russian television, then.

tchrist

I also don't trust the Kherson deportations.

Cerberus

Deportations are rarely trustworthy.

I do not know exactly why they do it.

Keeping so many hostages is expensive.

Some long-term idea of adding to the dwindling Russian population?

tchrist

19:50

Ethnic cleansings are always followed by replacements by whoever the more desired ethnics are.

Cerberus

But they cannot do so at Cherson.

tchrist

Yeah, I don't know what they're doing.

But this I can tell you: it is not being done to spare civilian lives. That's never bothered Putin.

Cerberus

Of course not.

Nobody would think that anywhere.

tchrist

That's what he says the reason for it is.

> Estimates from a variety of sources, including the Russian government, indicate that Russian authorities have interrogated, detained, and forcibly deported between 900,000 and 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children, from their homes to Russia – often to isolated regions in the Far East.  Moscow’s actions appear pre-meditated and draw immediate historical comparisons to Russian “filtration” operations in Chechnya and other areas. President Putin’s “filtration” operations are separating families, confiscating Ukrainian passports, and issuing Russian passports in an appa…

Yes, that's expensive. But I bet he isn't paying these people.

Nor for them.

Cerberus

Yeah, trying to increase his own population by force.

It remains to be seen how well that shall work in the information age.

tchrist

19:57

He has China envy.

Cerberus

Russian culture is completely different, though.

Russians like freedom more, and they distrust the state far more.

tchrist

I mean he envies them their headcount.

We've seen other indications that he thinks the total number of citizens under his direct control is some sort of vanity metric for him, and their loss a humiliation.

Cerberus

Yes, mainly because the population is in decline.

The same sentiment holds much of Eastern Europe.

Vikas

I can think two other reasons for moving civilians on left bank: 1) They want to heavily bomb right bank to stop counter offensive. And don't want to be blamed of thousands of civilian deaths in a very short span. 2) Imagine they lose Kherson occupied area on right bank and civilians are still there. So civilians will reunite with Ukraine again and expose more easily how they never voted to join Russia.

tchrist

Didn't we read or get told that the dominant opinion andor conventional wisdom among the Russian people is that there'd be more than a billion Russians today but for the Bolshevik Revolution screwing over the old imperium, and that this was some cause for remorse?

Cerberus

20:04

@Vikas Right, perhaps those things are part of it.

@tchrist I have not heard this?

tchrist

Never mind.

Cerberus

What?

Oh.

tchrist

20:35

Bojo just bailed.

Cerberus

20:58

Good.

Robusto

@Cerberus Yet they always seem able to find the bully-boys who will work the prisons, death squads, torture squads, and all that to keep the rest of the resentful populace in line.

Cerberus

Of course.

She still has 144 million inhabitants.

tchrist

21:43

@Robusto Didn't they empty out the prisons to send them to war?

Robusto

@tchrist Not all of them. One suppose political prisoners were retained.

CowperKettle

@M.A.R. By and large, our media have been also acting subtle. This Krasovsky has been over the top lately. It's not the official line to make such ugly jokes.

Back in 2018, he tried to get elected with a motto about freedom of love, since is he an open gay.

Cerberus

21:59

Oh, really.

Still open about it?

CowperKettle

@Cerberus Yes, you cannot be closed about it, once you've came out

Word of the night: corkscrew esophagus

Cerberus

@CowperKettle He could stop ever mentioning it, and everyone around him could do the same thing?

CowperKettle

Ah, yes, probably

Cerberus

It is not officially registered.

CowperKettle

He also has AIDS.

Cerberus

22:01

So it can just stop existing.

The same applies to medical conditions: they need not be discussed in public?

CowperKettle

Hitler's close buddy Erns Roehm was gay. It was just not openly discussed.

Ernst Julius Günther Röhm

Cerberus

Yeah.

CowperKettle

22:17

This was my favorite game

Maybe Putin also liked to play it in the 1990s

Using AI to predict dementia

Cerberus

#Worldle #276 1/6 (100%)
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tchrist

22:42

@CowperKettle The mystery behind the astronomical rise in neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s could be caused by exposure to environmental toxins that are omnipresent yet poorly understood, leading doctors warn. And other dementias. And autism. And food allergies. And all the rest of the spiking ailments we have no answer for.

Cerberus

I have heard there is evidence to suggest the risk of Parkinson's is increased by certain pesticides.

tchrist

That was yesterday. :)

CowperKettle

There are so many interesting hypotheses about autism. It feels like it's hundreds of diseases, each different.

Cerberus

A professor in a newspaper advised us to eat and drink cheese and milk without pesticides, if we habitually consumed much of those.

tchrist

@Cerberus s/cheese and milk/food/

Cerberus

22:45

No, specifically those, he said.

CowperKettle

According to one hypothesis, some kids with autism woud find it better to exclude milk to avoid immune cross-reaction against Folate receptor alpha.

tchrist

You understand why, right?

Cerberus

Because therein accumulate the toxins most rapidly.

tchrist

Correct.

Cerberus

Those eating less of these foods than average, he had no advice for.

tchrist

22:46

It takes a lot of pesticide-polluted greenery to make a block of cheese.

Cerberus

Exactly.

So not all food is as risky.

tchrist

The pesticide mentioned was paraquat, once used to spray hemp crops during the drug wars.

CowperKettle

@tchrist Yes, something should be done about plastics. Putin and Plastics. Humanity's two biggest headaches.

Cerberus

Even so, the increased risk was not extreme compared with other factors, or so I seem to remember.

So most Parkinson's could not be explained by pesticides, I think.

tchrist

No, but heavy industry seems to increase it.

Smoking a lot of paraquat-poisoned pot in the 70s won't help, though.

Industrial toxicants and Parkinson’s disease

> The exposure of the human population to environmental contaminants is recognized as a significant contributing factor for the development of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and other forms of parkinsonism. While pesticides have repeatedly been identified as risk factors for PD, these compounds represent only a subset of environmental toxicants that we are exposed to on a regular basis.

Thus, non-pesticide contaminants, such as metals, solvents, and other organohalogen compounds have also been implicated in the clinical and pathological manifestations of these movement disorders and it is these …

Parkinson's Disease and the Environment

> The prevalence and incidence of PD vary worldwide influenced by several factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, genetic susceptibilities, and environmental exposures. Here, we will present environmental factors implicated in sporadic PD onset.

Cerberus

22:53

It would be nice if more could be done about these substances.

Though I do feel the quantity is essential.

How bad are they?

Compared with e.g. alcohol?

Meanwhile, we have arrived at the stone of Erech.

tchrist

Look at the 2019 paper, the second one linked to.

Cerberus

The site won't load for me.

tchrist

You can't load PubMed Central?? That's terrible. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6433887

> Parkinson's disease (PD) is a heterogeneous neurodegenerative disorder that affects an estimated 10 million sufferers worldwide. The two forms of PD include familial and sporadic, and while the etiology of PD is still largely unknown, the condition is likely to be multifactorial with genetic and environmental factors contributing to disease genesis. Diagnosis of the condition is attained through the observation of cardinal clinical manifestations including resting tremor, muscle rigidity, slowness or loss of movement, and postural instability. Unfortunately, by the time these features bec…

There's its text.

CowperKettle

The Stone of Erech was a great black stone, spherical in shape and roughly six feet in diameter. He set it upon the hill of Erech and made the local hill tribes swear an oath of loyalty on the stone. It was there that the King of the Dead swore allegiance to Isildur's cause at the time of the Last Alliance.

tchrist

@CowperKettle That is was. And pronounced [ˈɛɾɛx], not Eric. :)

Cerberus

23:00

tchrist

@Cerberus From the command line, run traceroute ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

Oh I see what's happening.

Cerberus

C:\Windows\System32>traceroute ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
'traceroute' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

tchrist

There's something wacky on the backbone.

@Cerberus WHUT!?

The dummies installed in tracert an Winbloze.

Cerberus

You're on Linux again?

tchrist

No, I am not.

Cerberus

23:03

OK.

tchrist

I am on a Mac.

Cerberus

Well.

tchrist

And odd things happen to the poor packets.

Cerberus

Switch to Windows!

tchrist

Try tracert instead of traceroute.

Cerberus

23:04

C:\Windows\System32>ping ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Pinging ncbi.nlm.nih.gov [130.14.29.110] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.

tchrist

mac(tchrist)% traceroute ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
traceroute to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (130.14.29.110), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.0.1 (192.168.0.1)  13.591 ms  2.459 ms  5.974 ms
 2  hlrn-dsl-gw04.hlrn.qwest.net (207.225.112.4)  28.009 ms  53.181 ms  23.954 ms
 3  63-225-124-25.hlrn.qwest.net (63.225.124.25)  28.481 ms  22.992 ms  23.984 ms
 4  * * *
 5  * * *
 6  mid-atlanti.ear2.washington1.level3.net (4.16.249.178)  75.276 ms  69.313 ms  68.219 ms
 7  ae0.clpk-core.maxgigapop.net (206.196.178.81)  76.335 ms  72.074 ms  69.685 ms

@Cerberus Yeah, you can't get ICMP packets through a couple of the hops; dunno why. I can get to the site, though.

It won't ping even.

mac(tchrist)% ping 130.14.29.110
PING 130.14.29.110 (130.14.29.110): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp_seq 2
Request timeout for icmp_seq 3
^C
--- 130.14.29.110 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss
Exit 2
mac(tchrist)%

CowperKettle

Now I can open it. I switched off my VPN, and it opens finely - - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6433887

tchrist

But my web browsers and CLI tools can fetch things about it.

Cerberus

We get no farther than this: nlm-isp-clpk.demarc.maxgigapop.net

tchrist

Yes, I don't know why.

But it isn't stopping me from getting the page proper.

You guys, though, it is.

Also, from the browser I can fetch it, but the normally command line tools it 403s against.

mac(tchrist)% wget ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6433887 > /tmp/pmc
--2022-10-23 17:09:05--  ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6433887
Resolving www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)... 130.14.29.110
Connecting to www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)|130.14.29.110|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 403 Forbidden
2022-10-23 17:09:06 ERROR 403: Forbidden.

Exit 8
mac(tchrist)%

You might have curl instead of wget installed, but I wouldn't expect a different answer.

So it's doing some fancier content and auth negotiation. That shouldn't be what's hassling you guys.

CowperKettle

23:10

> A new 3D electrode array allows researchers to map the activity and location of up to 1 million synaptic links in a living brain, for several months

tchrist

Oh it's doing some fancier cookie bits that I didn't tell my CLI tools to accommodate.

And a pinger that I block.

So three kinds of cookies, blah blah blah.

None of that explains you guys' troubles.

I can't believe it's restricted to domestic source addresses only.

But I don't know.

<section class="usa-banner" style="display: none;">
  <div class="usa-accordion">
    <header class="usa-banner-header">
      <div class="usa-grid usa-banner-inner">
        <img src="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/coreutils/uswds/img/favicons/favicon-57.png" alt="U.S. flag" />
        <p>An official website of the United States government</p>
        <button
          class="usa-accordion-button usa-banner-button"
          aria-expanded="false"
          aria-controls="gov-banner-top"
        >

Whatever.

Cerberus

Using an American VPN, I am let in.

tchrist

I'm astonished.

Seems not right.

Cerberus

I don't know.

CowperKettle

> Daily meditation has been shown to cure insomnia in rats

tchrist

23:22

How do you get rats to meditate?

CowperKettle

shrugs

I dunno.

Maybe it's the thing they naturally do.

jlliagre

#Worldle #276 1/6 (100%)
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⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

Not all "nearest countries" are presented.

#Worldle #276 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr

CowperKettle

23:43

Cerberus

Hehe.

CowperKettle

> At 13 years, over several weeks, her symptoms progressed from irritability to audiovisual hallucinations, insomnia, compulsivity, aggression, catatonia, mutism, and urinary retention. publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/145/2/e20191490/68240/…

A mutation in the gene called SHANK3 that encodes a scaffolding protein.

SHANK3 is linked to catatonia in autism nature.com/articles/s44184-022-00012-9

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