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12:08 AM
 
1:06 AM
The Flying Nun is an American sitcom about a community of nuns which included one who could fly when the wind caught her cornette. It was produced by Screen Gems for ABC based on the 1965 book The Fifteenth Pelican, written by Tere Rios. Sally Field starred as the title character, Sister Bertrille. The series originally ran on ABC from September 7, 1967, to April 3, 1970, producing 82 episodes, including a one-hour pilot episode. == Overview == Developed by Bernard Slade, the series centered on the adventures of a community of nuns in the Convent San Tanco in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The series...
O_O
> She explains her ability to fly by stating, "When lift plus thrust is greater than load plus drag, anything can fly." In one episode, she tries to gain weight so she could stay grounded, but the attempt fails.
 
1:21 AM
> We love the merry organ and the bells across the snow.
We love the Church of England, although we never go,
And we love the dear old Bible, with "Jehovah" and "begat,"
It's not that we believe in it or anything like that.
Sydney Bertram Carter (6 May 1915 – 13 March 2004) was an English poet, songwriter, and folk musician who was born in Camden Town, London. He is best known for the song "Lord of the Dance" (1967), whose music is based on the "Shaker Allegro" more commonly known as the song "Simple Gifts", and the song "The Crow on the Cradle". His other notable songs include "Julian of Norwich" (sometimes called "The Bells of Norwich"), based on words of Julian of Norwich, "One More Step Along the World I Go", "When I Needed a Neighbour", "Friday Morning", "Every Star Shall Sing a Carol", "The Youth of the Heart...
A nice folk author, I never knew about him.
 
 
3 hours later…
4:16 AM
Daily Octordle #305
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Score: 68
octordle.com
 
 
2 hours later…
7:12 AM
I posted a quote from there, and then found that it vanished.
 
Probably just a glitch.
 
8:05 AM
Word of the day: dipinti
Noun: dipinto (plural dipinti)
  1. (archaeology, epigraphy) a sketched or painted (as opposed to engraved) inscription.
  2. dipinto m (plural dipinti)
  3. (archaeology, epigraphy) a dipinto
  4. dipinto m (plural dipinti)
  5. a picture or painting
  6. Synonym: quadro
Adjective: dipinto (feminine dipinta, masculine plural dipinti, feminine plural dipinte)
  1. painted
 
Wordle 525 2/6

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8:17 AM
@CowperKettle interesting how the brain replays information while one sleeps, just like rote memorization.
 
Thanks for sharing.
Yet, medical schools traditionally deprive their students of sleep.
 
8:53 AM
@user4539917 No wonder, with the amount of medical knowledge growing in leaps and bounds.
And with full exome reading soon available widely.. patients and docs will have to wade through terabytes of data on thousands of mutations.
 
> At least 9,311 Russian soldiers have died since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine nine months ago, according to an independent investigation conducted jointly by the BBC Russian Service and independent Russian news outlet MediaZona.
> The death toll, which was published by the BBC on Friday, only includes officially confirmed fatalities, meaning that the true number of Russia’s losses in the conflict to date could be as much as twice that number, the U.K. public broadcaster said.
 
9:51 AM
Wordle 525 3/6

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Is there any hint to determine what the word they refer to in the following?

> Input Actions are the conceptual equivalent to Action and Axis mapping names, except they are data assets.


They refer to:

A: Input Actions
B: Action and Axis
 
@TheRealMasochist A: Input Actions
 
Thank you. How do you know? It is always the first agent mentioned in the sentence?
 
@TheRealMasochist In my experience, it's usually the first thing mentioned, yes.
Although I'm not a native speaker of English.
 
OK. No problem. :-)
 
10:35 AM
> What do you call an arrogant criminal climbing down the stairs?
A condescending con descending.
"The Highwayman" is reputed to be "the best ballad poem in existence for oral delivery".
"The Highwayman" is a romantic ballad and narrative poem written by Alfred Noyes, first published in the August 1906 issue of Blackwood's Magazine, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The following year it was included in Noyes' collection, Forty Singing Seamen and Other Poems, becoming an immediate success. In 1995 it was voted 15th in the BBC's poll for "The Nation's Favourite Poems". == Plot == The poem, set in 18th-century rural England, tells the story of an unnamed highwayman who is in love with Bess, a landlord's daughter. Betrayed to the authorities by Tim, a jealous ostler, the highwa...
Curious.
 
11:38 AM
Holodomor Memorial Day or Holodomor Remembrance Day (Ukrainian: День пам'яті жертв голодоморів, romanized: Den pamiati zhertv holodomoriv, lit. 'Day of memory for victims of the holodomors') is an annual commemoration of the victims of the Holodomor, the 1932–33 famine that killed millions in Ukraine, falling on the fourth Saturday of November. The day is also an official annual commemoration in Canada, and observed by Ukrainian diaspora communities in other countries. Traditionally, on this day Ukrainians attend memorial services and put up symbolic vessels of grain and light candles in memory...
I don't think that it was an intentional genocide of Ukrainians. It was a communist atrocity that covered the whole USSR, with Kazakhstan suffering the most deaths in percentage terms.
> current scholarship estimates a range of 3.5 to 5 million victims
On the same scale as the Holocaust, but more haphazard.
The Soviet famine of 1930–1933 was a famine in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Volga Region, Kazakhstan, the South Urals, and West Siberia. Estimates conclude that 5.7 to 8.7 million people died of famine across the Soviet Union. Major contributing factors to the famine include: the forced collectivization in the Soviet Union of agriculture as a part of the First Five-Year Plan, forced grain procurement, combined with rapid industrialization, a decreasing agricultural workforce, and several severe droughts. During this period the Soviet...
 
12:06 PM
@CowperKettle I remember doing that one in school. It's kind of an awful poem. If it's a poem at all.
 
@FaheemMitha Ah! Sorry for your experience.
I hated Dostoyevsky in school.
 
@CowperKettle It wasn't a bad experience. I just don't think much of that poem. If it's a poem.
Might be OK if one is doing a recitation.
 
I got carried away reading about the author, rather than the poem itself.
 
I recall an animated discussion in class about the line
> “Now, keep good watch!” and they kissed her.
From what I've heard, being a highwayman was not a particularly lucrative profession. Much better to be a banker and rob people legally.
 
12:23 PM
> Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
 
Actually, reading it again, it's mildly effective in a kind of horrific way.
 
12:45 PM
In school, we once staged this play by Gogol, in installments, in class.
The Government Inspector, also known as The Inspector General (Russian: Ревизор, tr. Revizor, literally: "Inspector"), is a satirical play by Russian dramatist and novelist, Nikolai Gogol. Originally published in 1836, the play was revised for an 1842 edition. Based upon an anecdote allegedly recounted to Gogol by Pushkin, the play is a comedy of errors, satirizing human greed, stupidity, and the extensive political corruption of Imperial Russia. The dream-like scenes of the play, often mirroring each other, whirl in the endless vertigo of self-deception around the main character, Khlestakov, who...
 
Russia seems very obsessed with the idea of denouncing its previous rulers
 
There was a late Soviet joke about it.
As soon as Lenin died (1924), it turned out that the second person in the party, Comrade Trotsky, was a traitor. Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin and Stalin overthrew Trotsky and expelled him from the USSR (1927).
But a couple of years later it turned out that Kamenev, Zinoviev and Bukharin were also enemies and pests. Then the valiant comrade Heinrich Yagoda arrested them (1936).
 
I feel like if historical eras were people, Russian historical eras would be drunkards brawling each other
 
A little later, Yezhov arrested Yagoda as an enemy agent (1937). But after a couple of years it turned out that Yezhov was not a comrade, but an ordinary traitor and enemy agent. And Yezhov was arrested by Beria (1938).
After the death of Stalin (1953), everyone realized that Beria was also a traitor. Then Zhukov arrested Beria (1953).
But Khrushchev soon learned that Zhukov was an enemy and a conspirator. And exiled Zhukov to the Urals. A little later, it was revealed that Stalin was an enemy, a pest and a traitor (1956).
And with him, and most of the Politburo. Then Stalin was taken out of the mausoleum, and the Politburo and Shepilov, who joined them, were dispersed by honest party members led by Khrushchev (1957).
Several years passed and it turned out that Khrushchev was a voluntarist, a rogue, an adventurer and an enemy. Then Brezhnev sent Khrushchev to retire (1964).
After the death of Brezhnev, it turned out that he was a pest and the cause of stagnation (1964-82). Then there were two more, whom no one even managed to remember (1982-85). But then the young, energetic Gorbachev came to power. And it turned out that the whole party was a party of wreckers and enemies, but he would fix everything now. It was then that the USSR collapsed (1991). And Gorbachev turned out to be an enemy and a traitor. You have read a short course on the history of the CPSU.
 
Traitor is just a side gig for Russian politicians
 
12:53 PM
"My Dream Team for Building Communism"
NO. 1: Leader of the Team
No 2, 3, 4, up to Stalin: "Future Traitor"
The last four working guys: "The guy who will die first (second, third, fourth)"
 
Where's comrade Santa?
 
Santa Claus?
He is a communist?
 
Plot twist: Engels is Santa and Putin is a rogue leprechaun
We are all caught in the politics of North pole
 
Yup, and the elves are doing slave labor.
 
In the cartoon Tale Spin, there was a northern country that looked simiral to the USSR.
 
1:00 PM
Lenin was Krampus. The resemblance is uncanny
 
But nobody knows what time it is at the north pole.
 
Thembria.
I watched the whole series in Russian
 
So the elves work 24/7
 
Maybe Khamenei is Santa now. It's like a doctor Who thing
 
Krampus is a horned, anthropomorphic figure in Central and Eastern Alpine folklore who, during the Christmas season, scares children who have misbehaved. Assisting Saint Nicholas, or Santa Claus, the pair visit children on the night of December 5th, with Saint Nicholas rewarding the well-behaved children with modest gifts such as oranges, dried fruit, walnuts and chocolate, while the badly behaved ones only receive punishment from Krampus with birch rods.The origin of the figure is unclear; some folklorists and anthropologists have postulated it as having pre-Christian origins. In traditional parades...
 
1:01 PM
Wiki link for the win.
👍
 
I just didn't know about Krampus
In Ukraine, Santa Claus is St. Nicholas (Svyatyi Mikola)
 
Nah
 
Is he eligible for the draft?
 
Does that face look like a Nicholas to you?
 
1:04 PM
@M.A.R. Looks like a generic "good old man"
 
He even has an orange turban
 
This is a song about Mikola, sung during the Ukrainian Revolution on 10 December 2013.
@M.A.R. That's a nimbus
 
numbis
 
> A halo (from the Greek ἅλως, halōs;[1] also known as a nimbus, aureole, glory, or gloriole) is a crown of light rays, circle or disk of light[2] that surrounds a person in art.
 
And no it's a gay turban
Benign-ly gay. Like Ian McKellen
 
1:08 PM
> From Proto-Indo-European *nébʰos (“cloud”). Cognates include Latin nebula, Proto-Slavic *nebo (“heaven, sky”), Sanskrit नभस् (nábhas, “sky”) and Ancient Greek νέφος (néphos).
Oh, so nimbus is cognate with modern Russian nebo, sky.
 
Finding Nebo is a story about a deep sea fish that comes to the surface for the first time
 
How is "sky" in Hindi, I wonder. Google says aakaash
 
It's "Aseman" in Farsi, which is from Old Persian or something, so the Hindi or Tamil or . . . version is similar
In Turkish it's Gokuzu, "the face of the high", in Azeri it's "Goy" with a soft G, synonymous with "blue"
 
In Old English, welkin
> For trifles only suit an idle hour,
When school is emptied or the welkins pour.
 
I sure wish Wilkins poured. The bastards charge hundreds of dollars for any service
Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is an American imprint of the American Dutch publishing conglomerate Wolters Kluwer. It was established by the acquisition of Williams & Wilkins and its merger with J.B. Lippincott Company in 1998. Under the LWW brand, Wolters Kluwer, through its Health Division, publishes scientific, technical, and medical content such as textbooks, reference works, and over 275 scientific journals (most of which are medical or other public health journals). Publications are aimed at physicians, nurses, clinicians, and students. == Overview == LWW grew out of the gradu...
 
1:19 PM
Yep
Sir Ian Murray McKellen (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. His career spans seven decades, having performed in genres ranging from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction. Regarded as a British cultural icon, he has received various accolades, including seven Laurence Olivier Awards, a Tony Award, and a Golden Globe Award. The BBC states that his "performances have guaranteed him a place in the canon of English stage and film actors".McKellen began his professional career in 1961 at the Belgrade Theatre as a member of their highly regarded repertory company...
So Gandalf was gay.
 
@CowperKettle Yes. Aakash and also aasmaan. Aakash is also a common male name here.
 
> When he was 12, his mother died of breast cancer; his father died when he was 25.
@Vikas Nice name!
In my school, there was a beautiful girl from the Caucasus, her name was Gulnara. Very smart and calm.
> from the Persian (Fārsi) name “Golnar”, composed of two elements: “gol”, meaning “flower, (literature) rose” plus “anâr”, meaning “pomegranate”.
Turns out it means "pomegranate".
 
@CowperKettle I had three friends of same name in past. All were nice.
Anar is also Hindi name for pomegranate. Lots of common words in Hindi and Farsi.
 
Nice!
Ian McKellen slept in such bed as a 4year old.
> Half a million Morrison shelters had been distributed by the end of 1941, with a further 100,000 being added in 1943 to prepare the population for the expected German V-1 flying bomb (doodlebug) attacks.
 
2:35 PM
@CowperKettle What do you mean "was"? He's still alive, isn't he?
@CowperKettle Um, Shakespeare used it in Early Modern English:
> The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out.
Miranda speaking, from The Tempest.
#Worldle #309 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr
Easy-peasy.
🌎 Nov 26, 2022 🌍
🔥 87 | Avg. Guesses: 5.52
⬜🟥🟩 = 3

#globle
Damn, I'm lucky today.
Wordle 525 4/6

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@CowperKettle First time I read "climb down." I though climb implied going upward.
 
@Robusto Yes, The Tempest was the only play that I forced myself to read through ))
Miranda was a name that Shakespeare invented.
There's a nice website, Shakespeare Navigators, with many tough sentences and phrases explained
 
2:52 PM
#Worldle #309 1/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐⭐
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr
"Les doigts dans le nez !" (French idiom of the day)
 
Oh, the author of the website died in 2021. RIP.
 
🌎 Nov 26, 2022 🌍
🔥 4 | Avg. Guesses: 6.71
🟧🟧🟥🟩 = 4

#globle
 
Dec 2, 2018 at 16:03, by Robusto
Shakespeare used it too. In college I played Prospero in The Tempest, believe it or not, and I remember well these lines by Ariel:
 
Nice! I played the Mayor in "The Government Inspector" in school, and that was all ))
 
I remember everyone else's lines, but curiously, I have a hard time recalling my own. Probably because I memorized them rather than hearing them over and over again.
It was a lot of memorization.
 
3:03 PM
I remembered some bits and pieces from other plays, reading some quotes.
> Thus far with rough and all-unable pen
Our bending author hath pursued the story,
In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
This one is good.
I used it in my letter to a friend, an old lady in New York, a retired teacher of Russian. She was born in the USA.
She thought I wrote the lines myself, and fixed some words for me.
She wrote that "all-unable" is not quite typical for English.
Hehe.
> Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England. Fortune made his sword,
By which the world’s best garden he achieved
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crowned King
Of France and England, did this king succeed,
Whose state so many had the managing
That they lost France and made his England bleed,
Which oft our stage hath shown. And for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.
 
Daily Quordle 306
8️⃣6️⃣
7️⃣9️⃣
quordle.com
 
And this is great:
> Those that much covet are with gain so fond,
For what they have not, that which they possess
They scatter and unloose it from their bond,
And so, by hoping more, they have but less;
Or, gaining more, the profit of excess
Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain
(Rape of Lucrece)
> 'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore;
He ten times pines that pines beholding food;
To see the salve doth make the wound ache more;
Great grief grieves most at that would do it good;
Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood,
Who being stopp'd, the bounding banks o'erflows;
Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows.
(also from there)
 
> Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound,
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough.
Henry V Part One, Act V scene iv
 
Nice!
By the way, The Tempest contains lines in which an angel explains the IDDQD cheat code from Doom.
> You fools! I and my fellows
Are ministers of fate: the elements
Of whom your swords are temper'd may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
One dowle that's in my plume;
Noun: dowle
  1. feathery or woolly down; filament of a feather
  2. #*
  3. a. 1859, De Quincey, Notes on Godwin Foster and Hazlitt, at page 304 in the collected works' volume of 1864.
 
@Vikas I knew it!
 
3:12 PM
@CowperKettle Don't tell me you cheated at Doom! ;0
 
)))
I added this quote from The Tempest to that Wiktionary article
> Compare Old French douille (“soft”), and English ductile.
 
Are they related? Ductile means "drawable" as in drawing out metal into wire.
 
@CowperKettle how many damn words does one need for "feather"!
 
Daily Octordle #306
3️⃣🔟
6️⃣7️⃣
4️⃣5️⃣
🕚8️⃣
Score: 54
octordle.com
@jlliagre ^ Another personal best!
 
3:23 PM
@M.A.R. Is this a meme? If so, I don't recognize it.
 
@Robusto I'm making fun of your ;0
 
My ;0 is quite offended. He may never come back to chat.
 
Maybe you just care too much about integrity in video games
 
Cheating ruins video games for everybody. Not least of all the cheater.
My sons went through a "god mode" cheating phase, and it never failed that after doing that they lost interest in the game.
 
If I were my parent, I would forbid me to ever play a single game.
 
3:30 PM
Games are one path to learning for kids.
 
Although I think that computer games are the modern form of art.
 
One modern form of art.
 
Grim Fandango was beautiful.
 
Never played it.
 
It's a Film Noir, only a game about a world of the dead, in Mexican style.
It's just great.
 
3:34 PM
Here's one I thought was beautiful:
 
And there's great "actors", and music.
> In 2022 the Museum of Modern Art included the game in their exhibition Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design .
 
Here's another one that was stunning. The trailer doesn't do it justice:
 
Yes, I heard about Assassin's Creed
 
There are many different versions of AC. Odyssey was the best, IMO.
 
3:55 PM
@Robusto sure, we did too
@CowperKettle why?
I mean, I don't get parents that forbid things, without replacing them. I played my first PC game when I was 18. Before that, I didn't spend all the time I wasn't playing reading or studying, or whatever beneficial activity you have in mind.
I'm turning out okay I suppose, but I don't attribute it to things I didn't do.
 
@M.A.R. Some of the great fun I had with my kids was playing Marathon with them on our home LAN.
 
4:19 PM
@M.A.R. In Iranian also aasmaan?
Oh it's called Persian language.
Farsi is also same?
How do you pronounce Turkey (country)?
 
@M.A.R. Because I was getting addicted to them very strongly. One could replace it with reading and maybe programming for fun.
I could be wrong.
@Robusto We had great fun playing Heroes of Might and Magic III over the LAN. Me, dad and my brother.
 
@CowperKettle Same for us.
 
4:45 PM
> Belarus Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei Dies Suddenly
 
5:20 PM
Heart attack is quite common at age 64.
 
 
1 hour later…
6:29 PM
@Vikas Farsi I'd a subset of Persian, if you want to be precise, and synonymous if you don't
 
7:11 PM
*is
 
@Robusto Congrats!
 
7:56 PM
@M.A.R. Noted.
 
 
2 hours later…
9:58 PM
> State Duma deputy Svetlana Zhurova warned Kyrgyzstan that it might "repeat the fate of Ukraine" if it goes on renaming Russian district names into Kyrgyz ones.
LOL, the countries don't even border each other.
 
Pretty desperate.
I think there is no country in the world that will truly be rejoicing at the invasion of Ukraine.
It's just trouble for everyone.
 
10:22 PM
Maybe it's the side effect of the Earth running out of non-renewable resources.
The USSR invaded Afghanistan when oil was expensive, and so they were on a roll.
I mean, there might be general instability, with some regions of the planet suffering from high oil and gas (and thus fertilizer, food, etc) prices, and other becoming more agressive due to being pumped with cash by selling oil and gas.
 
@CowperKettle Is that automated advertising inside a video game?
 
@Cerberus No, it's a Twitter channel with "Memes for Hellenistic Teens". Some funny ancient world memes there
Wasting his time on Twitter instead of writing some good story.
 
@CowperKettle Lovely name.
 
@CowperKettle He's already the most prolific writer ever, I think. So he's not wasting time. I just finished two of his recent novels and both were quite lengthy.
One of them, Billy Summers, may be his best work ever. Not bad for a guy who's five years away from 80 years old.
 
10:39 PM
@Robusto Oh. I envy him.
Billy Summers is a crime novel written by American author Stephen King, published by Scribner on August 3, 2021. == Plot == Billy Summers is a 44-year-old hitman and former U.S. Marine sniper, who only accepts jobs killing truly evil men, but now he wants to retire from the assassin life altogether. Nick Majarian, a mobster whom Billy has worked for many times before, offers him one last job--one that pays $500,000 up front, and $1.5 million after it's done. Billy's target is Joel Allen, also a hitman, who was arrested for murdering a man who won a fortune off of him in a poker game. Allen has...
 
@CowperKettle Pretty cool and modern.
That is praesumably a real advertisement?
 
Could be a made-up meme
 
@CowperKettle It's a take on the old "one last job for a hitman" genre, but what he does with it great.
 
Hmm.
 
@CowperKettle This could have been a real ad. Either that or a very real-looking imitation (which it also could easily be).
 
10:42 PM
From the early sixties or something?
 
She's wearing high heels in the kitchen cooking, so that is very 1950s.
 
She looks good.
 
It's also a monaural speaker, so that lends credence to the '50s guess.
 
Hmm.
@CowperKettle In Holland, it's Sinterklaas, from the which the American name was derived. It is really short for Sint Nicolaas.
 
10:45 PM
The ad would likely not be targeting women, but men who think they could persuade their wives that it would be a great investment.
 
Hah.
The complexities of family advertising.
 
BTW, the text at the bottom suggests it is probably a joke: "10 Ersatzen Way, Assining New York"
There is an Ossining, New York, but not an Assining ...
 
Well spotted.
 
And Ersatzen Way? Fake way? Substitute Way
 
Right.
Would seem an unlikely name.
 
10:48 PM
Yes.
Could have been from the Harvard Lampoon or National Lampoon.
 
Word of the night: exerkines pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36417200
 
It really smacks of the work of Bruce McCall, a Canadian artist who painted art with a lot of retrofuturistic themes.
For example.
That's a fake ad, obviously, and it's the sort of excess he liked to lampoon.
It's all about satire, and the kitchen one above is no doubt every bit of that.
 
11:05 PM
Shirt embroidery by Hiroko Kubota
 
Cute.
 

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