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CowperKettle
CowperKettle
01:21
@Vikas It all depends on the random behavior of nuts and bolts in Putin's head
> Russia says it's already destroyed four Bradley IFVs in Ukraine, yet the US not only hasn't supplied them yet, it hasn't even started to train the Ukrainian troops to operate them.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
01:36
Word of the morn: anamorphosis -- Greek prefix ana-, meaning "back" or "again", and the word morphe, meaning "shape" or "form"
Cerberus
Cerberus
01:55
@CowperKettle I wonder what the Russian government think it is achieving by making everybody know they are just outright lying so often.
By the way, yesterday I met someone online who wouldn't say what country he was from, out of shame.
That's just so saddening, he can't help whatever his government is doing.
 
1 hour later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
03:10
> Multicenter studies would undoubtedly be important because they provide the treatment modality and the results achieved.
I don't understand what they mean here. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8773593
studies .. provide modality .. and results achieved. O_O
Xanne
Xanne
04:00
@CowperKettle I skimmed this article, noting that it's a rare disease with severe consequences, manifesting itself in different ways at different times (sometimes delayed onset) and is difficult to diagnose.
@CowperKettle So I think, in the sentence you quote, that they're suggesting gathering data from a variety of places (centers) would provide information on the methods (modality) used to treat the disease and the results achieved. The authors are all from Poland. The rarity means that tests of treatments with control groups are therefore not feasible.
Also I note (the article doesn't mention it) that the treatment, with B6 in some form, is cheap enough AFAIK that big pharma would have no interest in financing the studies.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
04:14
@Xanne Thank you!
> Thanks to autocorrect, 1 in 5 children got a visit from Satan this past Christmas.
 
2 hours later…
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
06:20
I suspect Santa is racist. I haven't ever received any gifts
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
06:46
@CowperKettle "we need as much data as we can to find out what treatments the doctors tried and what results they got"
jlliagre
jlliagre
eibccbdvlitdtufdeevvegbkkgdejggnddkufhcihglj
eibccbdvlitdvuvcurhtuhvktceiuuijerifejfeurgc
sorry for the spam
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
07:06
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28 yo Denis Ulyanov was given a state funeral in Artemovsky, a town in the Urals. He enrolled in the Wagner Group from prison, where he served a sentence of 2 years 9 months for car theft.
Denis has been repeatedly caught for car theft since his youth, was getting 1 to 2 years in jail, then get out and did the same.
Once he stole a smartphone, a bicycle and a sum of money from his mom, and she went to the police. That time, he served 6 months in prison.
He said to his relatives that he wanted to "exculpate his guilt", and enrolled.
He received an Order of Courage posthumously, although it's unclear for what reason.
Order of Courage (Russia)
The Order of Courage (Russian: Орден Мужества, Orden Muzhestva) is a state decoration of the Russian Federation first established on March 2, 1994 by Presidential Decree 442 to recognise selfless acts of courage and valour. Its statute was amended three times, first on January 6, 1999 by Presidential Decree 19, again on September 7, 2010 by Presidential Decree 1099, and finally on December 16, 2011 by Presidential Decree 1631. The Order of Courage nominally replaced the Soviet Order "For Personal Courage" in the post-USSR Russian awards system. == Award statute == The Order of Courage is awarded...
e1.ru/text/politics/2023/01/13/71970341
The funeral was attended by representatives of the Military Commissariat, war veteran organizations, and the local Mayor's Office.
> We mourn along with the family and friends. We are proud that on our land such sons of the Russian land are born, who, at the cost of their lives, protect our peaceful skies. They give us the opportunity to live, raise children and grandchildren, - said the head of Artemovsky, Konstantin Trofimov, at the funeral.
The General Military Staff of the RF has rescinded the reprieve from mobilization for men with three children, announced in October. e1.ru/text/world/2023/01/13/71970422
Now the can be mobilized, too.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
08:03
There is a huge storm of comments online about the cancelling of the reprieve. People are afraid of a new mobilization wave.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
08:15
NASA is planning a gigantic serviceable telescope in space for finding new planets in 2040s science.org/content/article/…
Robots will do maintenance and install new modules as needed.
Amazing.
Cerberus
Cerberus
Do you think there is any chance that you might be in danger of mobilisation?
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
No, even if I tried.
I cannot lift weights and do push-ups for fear of damaging my vision. My cornea is too thin already.
I can lose eyesight from a hit to the eye.
And I receive insulin.
And if they try to mobilize me, I'll better to go jail.
It's only 5 years in jail, maybe you could be free in 3 for good behavoir.
I recently learned that three of my friends with whom I went hiking and bicycling are now living in Uzbekistan. They all fled in September, right after Putin announced mobilization.
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CowperKettle
CowperKettle
08:43
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We climbed the Konzhakovsky Kamen mountain together with those who have fled to Uzbekistan.
Several years ago.
Cerberus
Cerberus
@CowperKettle Ok, that is something.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
It was a great weather, because there were no clouds and all was visible
This girl is very diminutive, but she has jumped with a parachute and went hiking lots of times.
She asked me on a social network whether I also fled Russia, because she noticed that I had stopped posting my Strava runs
Thus I learned that she was in Uzbekistan.
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The Ural mountains are not very high, the highest peaks are mere hills of not more than 1500 meters
Like in Scotland, I guess, but maybe less picturesque
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Mount Narodnaya is almost 1900 meters, but it's quite far to the north.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
09:05
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Olesya Krivtsova was posting messages against the Special Operation. Her classmates at the University filed a complaint to the police. At 6 am her apartment was raided. During the raid, one of the policemen stood above her holding a sledgehammer. He told her: "this is a greeting from the Wagner Group" (one of the group's members was taped as his head was crushed with a sledgehammer for deserting).
Now she is on the list of terrorists, and faces up to 10 years in jail.
 
2 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
10:54
@M.A.R. He is a Sunni
Sunni Ta ibn Claus was corrupted in the Middle Ages by the Crusaders when they brought the tradition to the West.
He brings gifts only to Sunnis, not to Shia muslims
Artificial organic neuron closely mimics the characteristics of biological
 
2 hours later…
Mitch
Mitch
12:54
@Cerberus like Americans after the Iraq invasion, they should just say they're from Canada
@jlliagre how dare you
jlliagre
jlliagre
@Mitch eibccbdvlitdfdgihchvlgkfiiegennukcghbvijuhul
Mitch
Mitch
@jlliagre that really doesn't make it better
@CowperKettle but running is OK?
@jlliagre also I think I spot a typo
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
13:13
@Mitch When I run more than 10-15 km, I sometimes get slightly blurred vision the next several days, and some eye pain. But I rarely run more than 10 km.
After the longest run, 33 km, there were some issues.
And since May I only run once a week, because symptoms worsened.
But I hope that maybe I will get used to it, and resume running often.
Before this May, the symptoms only occured after runs exceeding 15 km.
Had I been healthy, I would have been abroad, I guess. Maybe some relatives would have helped me to get there.
Or maybe in hiding.
Mitch
Mitch
@CowperKettle What sort of job prospects do you think are available for expat Russians?
user4539917
user4539917
@Mitch Wouldn't that be un-American? Note, I didn't say "anti-American." Not against America; but, not proud of it. Unlike the hardcore trumpeters who are seen as good old proud American boys!
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@Mitch I guess programming and low-skilled jobs
Some low-skilled, quickly-learned coding.
Maybe interpreting, for the lucky ones who know the languages that well.
After 1917, white emigrees in Paris worked as taxi drivers, and in other low-skilled jobs all over Europe and in the USA.
Mitch
Mitch
@user4539917 I just heard that Americans overseas (probably tourists) did it to avoid difficult conversations in very informal situations with strangers. I suppose that could be perceived as 'unamerican'.
user4539917
user4539917
Agreed.
Mitch
Mitch
13:24
@CowperKettle remote programming sounds like it could preserve lifestyle and mobility (but you have to have money first and access to tech repair/good internet)
@user4539917 there's lots of nuances to the perceptions
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
The Physics Principle That Inspired Modern AI Art
> Diffusion models generate incredible images by learning to reverse the process that, among other things, causes ink to spread through water.
Mitch
Mitch
@CowperKettle 'low skill' = low wage and difficult to restart life
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Yes, but I read that the absolute majority of any migrants live in poverty the first one or two generations.
Mitch
Mitch
@CowperKettle is Kazakhstan a reasonable option? I thought there's a sizeable Russian population there (which can make emigration easier)
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@Mitch My friend intends to emigrate there, and he said that if he starts a business I could do some low-skilled work.
Mitch
Mitch
13:30
@CowperKettle yes... The brain surgeon/judge to Uber driver/cleaning lady pipeline
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
He visited it in the fall, to investigate.
@Mitch My distant relatives who used to be rich had a house worker/gardener who earned a university degree in Tajikistan, but fled because of poverty/civil war/etc
Tajikistan has enough water energy resources to swim in money, but the current family is a clan that dates back to the USSR, and they siphon money out of the country.
I mean the ruling family.
Mitch
Mitch
Got it
It's hard enough trying to make a living in your own country
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
> Five times (in the elections of 1994, 1999, 2006, 2013 and 2020), Rahmon won undemocratic presidential elections; in addition, he extended and reformed his powers based on the results of the national constitutional referendums of 1999 and 2003. Since 25 December 2015, Emomali Rahmon has held the lifetime title of Peshvoyi Millat (Tajik: Пешвои Миллат), which means “Leader of the Nation”
Mitch
Mitch
But then circumstances change and you have to start over from scratch where you don't know the language
@CowperKettle in the Boston area supposedly there's a lot of housing/apartment buildings that have been bought by (among other 'invesrirs' around the world) Russians with a lot of money.
And the hint is that it is for money laundering (the housing tends not to be lived in or rented out)
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
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Alexander Sokolov, Mayor of Khabarovsk (formerly)
In 2019 it was discovered that he owned six houses in the USA, totaling some $6 million in value
It was also discovered that he did not appear in his office for six months, probably loafing abroad or doing some business.
Haha.
He was an outspoken pro-Putin "patriot"
18 лет воровства. Американская мечта мэра Хабаровска
►
Navalny's AntiCorruption Foundation issued an investigation about him.
Mitch
Mitch
14:06
> Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels
Said Mark Twain
Or Oscar Wilde
Or Oliver Twist
Or Marcus Aurelius
Or my barber
Full disclosure: since COVID, I am my own barber
He's not very good
> Wit is the last refuge of the powerless
That sounds like a mix of Wilde and Mao
> True power comes from the end of a....
Wrong answers only
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
@Mitch That was Samuel Johnson. At least, that is recorded as such in Boswell's Life, so I guess it depends whether you believe Boswell. Maybe he just made it up himself.
Mitch
Mitch
@FaheemMitha like Jesus, Johnson was a construction of his apostles
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
@Mitch Perhaps so. Also Socrates.
Mitch
Mitch
5
Q: "X is the last refuge of Y" - who first?

MitchWhat is the source of the snowclone: X is the last refuge of Y Here are the following examples I could find: Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. - Samuel Johnson Audacity is the last refuge of guilt. - Samuel Johnson Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative. - Oscar Wilde ...

history snowclones
> Power comes from the end of the barrel of whiskey
Said Mao Tze Jack Daniels
@FaheemMitha I've actually said that out loud and people (well, person) was aghast at the suggestion.
I think that Plato didn't invent the person (other writings of greeks at the time supposedly refer to him as being a pretty smart guy). And the Socratic dialogs may have been -inspired- by discussions remembered by Plato.
But the dialogs themselves were not anywhere near constructions by Socrates.
Socrates might have said in passing that 'What is a friend? The one who gives back money he owes sooner rather than later.' and the Plato wrote a whole story about that.
Or 'What does it really mean to -know- something, truly -know- it? I bet you ten bucks I could get some dumb guy to say something smart'. And then Plato just wrote a whole story about that.
jlliagre
jlliagre
15:10
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M.A.R.
M.A.R.
15:52
@Mitch I think he bet ten gold coins instead of ten bucks.
Or uh, what was the currency they used?
Drachms?
Oh. Drachma
Or maybe it came later? Maybe they exchanged favors. "I have this batch of hemlock I can give you in exchange for a sassy quote."
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
@Mitch Did you mean to write "constructions by Socrates"?
@Mitch That's a very scholarly answer.
@Mitch Said what out loud? That Socrates was a construction?
 
1 hour later…
jlliagre
jlliagre
17:27
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Lost in translation...
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Mitch
Mitch
18:20
@M.A.R. "Hemlock? I can't use that! Keep your hemlock. You might as well go stuff it in your face."
OMG what have I done?
I killed Socrates.
I'm so sorry
@FaheemMitha Yeah, I meant that. I'm saying that Socrates was probably a real dude, and probably had good arguments for everything, and probably had great sessions talking bullshit while drinking late into the night about subjects that Plato ascribed to him, but Plato (not Socrates) constructed the dialogs with those well thought out arguments (not Socrates) and actually wrote them down.
Hm...I bet Plato didn't even write them down. He probably had a (much brighter than him) slave-scribe who did all the writing. Probably came up with the arguments too.
Like a translator for an idiot monarch who makes the monarch look smart.
@FaheemMitha I've actually said out loud that Socrates might as well not have existed, we should only refer to the pre-Platonists. I'm saying it was all Plato.
Vikas
Vikas
@jlliagre French OO7?
Mitch
Mitch
The only evidence of Socrates' thought is through Plato.
My claim is that the dialogs were all Plato's work and should be recognized as such
Also, tomorrow I'm going to go the seashore and stop the tides.
OK not really. It's too cold.
@CowperKettle Another example of words that do a whole lot of overtime working at two jobs.
It's inspiration of the sort that birds can fly and airplanes were inspired by birds so we call that flying.
(but the 'diffusion' method for creating pictures is pretty cool)
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
18:46
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A manager writes to another in some company in Russia - "We made an icon using the MidJourney AI and placed it instead of the icon drawn by a human designer, and it was viewed 14% more".
Or ".. generated 14% more views"
Don Ritchie
Donald Taylor Ritchie, OAM (9 June 1926 – 13 May 2012) was an Australian who intervened in many suicide attempts. He officially rescued at least 180 people who had intended to attempt suicide at the Gap. == Early life == Ritchie went to Vaucluse Public School and attended Scots College. He enlisted into the Royal Australian Navy on the 30th of June 1944 as a Seaman during World War II aboard HMAS Hobart and witnessed the unconditional surrender of the Japanese Imperial Forces in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, officially ending World War II in the Pacific. After the war he was a life insurance...
Faheem Mitha
Faheem Mitha
19:02
@Mitch Yes, something like that. AFAIK, the only evidence that Socrates existed was his students writing about him. Let's say there was a real person called Socrates. It doesn't therefore follow that the depiction of him is accurate.
@Mitch That might be true as well. We really know very little about the Ancients.
But didn't Plato and Xenophon cross-reference each other? So at least they provided supporting evidence for each other's existence. But I really know very little on the topic. Some distant memories from a long-ago childhood, mostly.
According to the Socrates Wikipedia page, Aristophanes was a contemporary too, and wrote about him.
As a child, I tried to read the Socratic dialogues, and thought they were so much gibberish. He would just make random assertions which were supposed to follow from what went before, and as far as I could tell, didn't at all. And then everyone would go, yes, yes, Socrates. What a bunch of yes-men.
Again, it's been many years since I've looked at any of this. Perhaps it would read differently now.
According to WP, he wasn't born all that long ago. 470 or 469 BC. Only around 2500 years or so.
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
> 2016: 507.000 (2,1%)
2017: 777.000 (3,1%)
2018: 1.256.000 (5,3%)
2019: 1.206.000 (5,6%)
2020: 1.367.000 (6,8%)
2021: 3.521.000 (16,4%)
2022: 6.887.000 (29,2%)
Sales of electric cars and plug-in hybrids in China.
In Russia, a total of 3000 electric cars (full-electric) were sold in 2022.
Which is 33% more than in 2021.
Not bad.
 
2 hours later…
Mitch
Mitch
21:19
Jdhf
@FaheemMitha same here
@FaheemMitha omg my thoughts exactly
jlliagre
jlliagre
21:55
@Vikas Neither French, nor 007: हम्फ्री बोगार्ट in उच्च सिएरा. Loosely related to Mitch's quote: Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.
Wordle 573 4/6

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Daily Quordle 354
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Daily Octordle #354
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