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12:00 AM
But once my dad strung a large length of cable from the balcony to the next room's window, and tuned into Radio Freedom
It was quite unimpressive to me. Just some news and talk programs.
Just before dying, the USSR even managed to produce a lalptop:
A clone of Toshiba T1100, made in 1991.
I never knew about that.
I think that maybe upon the breakup Russia should have instituted heavy protective tarriffs to preserve its industry.
12:48 AM
Could you guys pleas tell me if this sentence sounds fine to you?

After that, the system continued working without interruption.
@MichaelRybkin Yes, that sounds fine.
I just turned it on, and the tuner at least still works.
@CowperKettle Funny the broken very colloquial grammar [...] ne saura même plus c'est quoi ça should be [...] ne saura même plus ce que c'est.
1:57 AM
It's a beaut! "1-bit DLC" I guess around '94?
 
1 hour later…
3:02 AM
> US president Joe Biden has decided to supply Ukraine with long-range army tactical missile systems (ATACMS), an important boost to Kyiv’s capacity to target Russian military logistics at long range distances as the country prepares for a second winter at war.
> Amazon, these days flooded by self-published books written by AI, has taken its first half-hearted steps to curtail that practice. The retailer has set a limit to the number of books that any one novelist can reasonably upload. Writers toiling away at the fifth revision of their long overdue debut will no doubt be comforted to know that the limit is set to three books a day.
2
> Hunga Tonga injected ~150 million tonnes of water vapor into the stratosphere. This is small compared to the atmosphere’s total water vapor content, but unusually large for the stratosphere. This eruption raised the water vapor content of the upper atmosphere by ~15%.
So, numerous factors are at play.
@CowperKettle "To infinity, and beyond!" —Buzz Lightyear
@alphabet thank you
28-year old Ilya from Belgorod was arrested, then brought into a forest by the police, where they tortured him with electric current and a blow torch, for his alleged attempt to destroy a large "Z" letter standing by the road at the entrance to the city.
"They put my leg on a wooden stump and brought an axe, and said they'll now hack off a piece of my leg, but then did not do that"
 
1 hour later…
4:21 AM
6:04 AM
Cat is stealing fatback slices intended for birds.
@tchrist So, there are some actual buyers for AI-written books?
6:21 AM
@CowperKettle LOL. Didn't give up.
7:11 AM
Wordle 827 4/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜🟨🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
 
3 hours later…
9:49 AM
@Conrado Yes, '93 or '94. The 6 CD changer still works fine too. I believe the cassette part is broken but I don't have cassettes to check anyway.
 
2 hours later…
11:34 AM
> Demetrius was the last among the Attic orators worthy of the name,[18] after which the activity went into a decline. His orations were characterised as being soft, graceful, and elegant,[19] rather than sublime like those of Demosthenes.
After 300 BC, all went downhill.
@jlliagre Looks cool. In my family there's a similar monster, I hope it at least turns on, but it's packed somewhere :)
 
1 hour later…
12:51 PM
#Worldle #611 2/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜↙️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
⭐⭐🏙️🪙
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr
1:51 PM
🌎 Sep 24, 2023 🌍
🔥 40 | Avg. Guesses: 4.29
🟨🟥🟩 = 3

globle-game.com
#globle
Daily Quordle 608
8️⃣5️⃣
2️⃣7️⃣
m-w.com/games/quordle/
Daily Octordle #608
4️⃣🕛
🕚6️⃣
7️⃣3️⃣
8️⃣🔟
Score: 61
2:48 PM
Wordle 827 5/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Daily Quordle 608
3️⃣7️⃣
5️⃣4️⃣
m-w.com/games/quordle/

Daily Octordle #608
8️⃣4️⃣
🕛5️⃣
9️⃣7️⃣
3️⃣🕚
Score: 59
Surname of the day: Szigeti -- Hungarian; means "insular" or "islander" (according to perfunctory googling, though)
== Hungarian == === Etymology === From szigeti (“islander”). === Pronunciation === IPA(key): [ˈsiɡɛti] Hyphenation: Szi‧ge‧ti Rhymes: -ti === Proper noun === Szigeti a surname ==== Usage notes ==== Hungarian surnames ending in -i or -y (both pronounced /i/, e.g. Munkácsy, Kölcsey, Petőfi, Jókai) may form their plurals with or without a linking vowel. These variants are usually synonyms with an occasional difference in meaning. (Reference in Hungarian: e-nyelv: The plural of surnames ending in -i or -y.) The variant with a linking vowel may indicate the persons belonging to the fa...
Ah, yes, islander
3:07 PM
Rootl game #115

⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Weak
3:38 PM
You can do better!
3:53 PM
> Sir Brian May, of Queen, has told Nasa TV he is “immensely proud” to be a team member of Osiris-Rex.

May was among those who helped to identify the location on Bennu where the samples would be collected.

Together with others working on the mission, May – who has a PhD in astrophysics – has co-authored book about asteroid Bennu, including stereoscopic (3-D) images.

“I can’t be with you today, I wish I could, I’m rehearsing for a Queen tour, but my heart is there with you as this precious sample is recovered,” he said. “Happy sample return day.”
Wendover, just to the west of the landing site, gets only six inches of rain a year, formally qualifying it as actual desert.
The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah, United States. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and is known for land speed records at the Bonneville Speedway. Access to the Flats is open to the public. The Flats are about 12 miles (19 km) long and 5 miles (8 km) wide, with a crust almost 5 ft (1.5m) thick at the center and less than one inch (2.5 cm) towards the edges. It is estimated to hold 147 million tons of...
> The first land speed record was set there in 1914 by Teddy Tetzlaff.
> He broke the world land speed record mark by running 142.85 miles per hour (229.89 km/h) on the Bonneville Salt Flats at Salduro, Utah on August 12.
Wordle 827 3/6

⬛⬛⬛🟨🟩
⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Interesting that they had five digits of precision then. I imagine they must have used a good stopwatch on a known distance.
It's not as though they had a state trooper wielding a doppler-shifted radar gun in 1914.
> Precipitation is highly variable across the state, with annual totals ranging from less than 5 inches in portions of the Great Salt Lake Desert to more than 40 inches in some portions of the Wasatch Mountains.
One frequently hears of the four great deserts of North America, but never does this account for our arctic tundra. For example, Resolute, Nunavut receives around half an inch of rain per decade.
> The Great Basin Desert…is both the highest-elevation and northernmost of the four and has very cold winters… Vegetation is dominated by a few species of low, small-leafed shrubs; there are almost no trees or succulents and not many annuals. The indicator plant (the most common or conspicuous one used to identify an area) is big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), which often grows in nearly pure stands over huge vistas. (Such cold shrub/deserts in the "Old World" are called steppes.)
Curiously, the famous Grand Staircase (Escalante) feature there clearly has steps but no one calls it a steppe. :)
The Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument (GSENM) is a United States national monument protecting the Grand Staircase, the Kaiparowits Plateau, and the Canyons of the Escalante (Escalante River) in southern Utah. It was established in 1996 by President Bill Clinton under the authority of the Antiquities Act with 1.7 million acres of land, later expanded to 1,880,461 acres (7,610 km2). In 2017, the monument's size was reduced by half in a succeeding presidential proclamation, and it was restored in 2021. The land is among the most remote in the country; it was the last to be mapped in the...
And a political teeter-totter.
4:39 PM
Word of the eve: miscreed
> But the rose leaves herself upon the briar,
For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed,
And the ripe plum still wears its dim attire,
The undisturbed lake has crystal space;
Why then should man, teasing the world for grace,
Spoil his salvation for a fierce miscreed?
 
2 hours later…
6:16 PM
@CowperKettle it's always a Dmitry's fault
@CowperKettle when has that ever stopped anybody?
6:29 PM
I guess bots would be potential customers for AI books.
6:41 PM
@Vikas doesn't have to be bots. Especially if there's no AI disclaimer, people trying to find novels by subject would easily be drawn. "Oh I wanna read a fantasy novel about a werewolf and a vampire hanging out and killing nazis", that sort of thing
Well, if the novel turns out good, so be it. But at this stage, it likely won't be a good book.
> While nymphs take treats, or assignations give,
So long my honour, name, and praise shall live!
English French of the day: avant la lettre (before the term itself was coined)
 
2 hours later…
8:35 PM
Wordle 827 4/6

⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛
⬛🟨⬛🟨⬛
⬛🟩🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
9:17 PM
Rootl game #115

⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

⬛⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
⬛⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I guessed the same correct word twice on #1. I didn't know that was even possible.

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