Random Thoughts XI: Listen to the Whispers

[warpus]

Kürbis spice—made from 100% real pumpkin.

Looks too Turkish, Americans wouldn't buy it. Although.. Stick a photo of Arnold on the packaging and maybe you've got something

Cucurbitaicin, the active component.

Hmm it basically sounds like what you'd get if you took a cryptocurrency and combined it with a rat poison. Although.. Stick a photo of Arnold on the packaging and maybe you've got something

 

[amadeus]

Looks too Turkish, Americans wouldn't buy it.

There was once a time when spice from the Orient was big business.

Set sail! The Venetian traders off to Constantinople; we shall bring the riches of the East, such as nutmeg. A friendly Musselman trader at the bazaar will sell us ten sacks for five gold drachmas.

I guess I like the romanticized Renaissance better than the, you know, reality of scurvy and unkempt peasantry toiling in vain in the turnip patches (got it right this time w/spelling!)

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Stick a photo of Arnold on the packaging and maybe you've got something

Schwarzenegger or the pig from Green Acres?

 

[Samson]

It is easier to talk to people, if you already have given a speech to the general group and they are returning - although I never lectured in an actual amphitheatre...
Stage death can be horrible, although if you at least control nervousness you can soldier on and avoid complete shutdown. In my case, with these once-a-month Zoom meetings for one of the seminars, I just don't see the point, so have to fake thinking I am actually providing something by talking (they have 85.000 words of the seminar to read, what good will one hour of talk do). Usually it is passable.

It is really weird how being face to face with your audience changes how it is to give a talk. I hate it, but I find the adrenaline really helps me give a flowing talk, and the feedback you get from the audience when they are saying nothing and just staring at you is significant. Over zoom it is just not the same.

 

[Kyriakos]

It is really weird how being face to face with your audience changes how it is to give a talk. I hate it, but I find the adrenaline really helps me give a flowing talk, and the feedback you get from the audience when they are saying nothing and just staring at you is significant. Over zoom it is just not the same.

(Obviously) it is all a mental game; in time, with some prerequisites, your mind will automatically (or not so automatically) fill in the gaps to make speaking through Zoom very similar to speaking in a room. Certainly the first time I "lectured" over Zoom there were more difficulties, but I also have issues when a lot of time passes (during the Summer there are no Zoom meetings).
But, as I said, for me there is also the indifference aspect, because I sincerely do not see the point. Usually I manage

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Teaching those who listen, and teaching a faceless wall are formidable tasks.

 

[NovaKart]

If you type or paste something in Sorani Kurdish and use google translate set to Uighur it translates mostly accurately and this even works for paragraphs.

I don’t really get this because Uighur and Kurdish are not related languages and I don’t believe they would have much vocabulary overlap either.

I don’t translate set to Kurdish on google translate because I think it only works for Kurmanji and in the Latin alphabet.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

At least it works for something. There's an obnoxious woman on FB who can be a really childish dimwit at times, and her oh-so-witty comeback to people is "blah blah blah blah."

Whereupon a message appears from Google Translate, informing me that the text is in Arabic, and would I like it translated into English.

 

[The_J]

I don’t really get this because Uighur and Kurdish are not related languages and I don’t believe they would have much vocabulary overlap either.

It must apparently depend on the grammar structure (or its absence).
Once upon a time in ...2012 or so... I was studying, finishing my master thesis. I talked to one of my Indonesian fellow students. He was also about to finish his. Due to whatever reason at this uni the summary of the thesis needed to be in German. So my friend said "I'll just use google translate", and I was .
Apparently translating between Mandarin and Bahasa Indonesia (common thing to do in Indonesia, due to the "culture imports" etc) works really, really well. The languages are in no way similar, but due to the absence of real tenses and other things the translations are apparently pretty good.
I had to explain my friend that he can't do the same between English and German, and I made the translation for him.

 

[NovaKart]

It must apparently depend on the grammar structure (or its absence).
Once upon a time in ...2012 or so... I was studying, finishing my master thesis. I talked to one of my Indonesian fellow students. He was also about to finish his. Due to whatever reason at this uni the summary of the thesis needed to be in German. So my friend said "I'll just use google translate", and I was .
Apparently translating between Mandarin and Bahasa Indonesia (common thing to do in Indonesia, due to the "culture imports" etc) works really, really well. The languages are in no way similar, but due to the absence of real tenses and other things the translations are apparently pretty good.
I had to explain my friend that he can't do the same between English and German, and I made the translation for him.

There’s a lot of differences between the grammar of Kurdish and Turkic languages so I’m still surprised.

I would still be really wary of using the translation for a thesis but it’s still surprisingly good. The thing which really surprises me is, I was at work at trying to find out what something in Kurdish meant in English and there aren’t any good dictionaries, some are okay but none that are very good - and someone told me to use Uighur and it worked and normally works pretty well.

 

[NovaKart]

I thought this was kind of funny.

PARIS, Nov 21 (Reuters) - French aid worker Sophie Petronin, freed a year ago after four years in the hands of jihadist militants in northern Mali and now back in Mali should stay there, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Sunday.

"One cannot for several months, even years, mobilise the secret services, including the military, to rescue this woman from her hostage situation, bring her back and have her return to Mali," an outraged Le Drian told LCI television.

https://www.reuters.com/world/afric...tent&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter

 

[Ferocitus]

Grandma once said:
"sometimes you have to hug the people you don't like so you know how big to dig the hole in your backyard."

 

[amadeus]

I guess not enough people loved it at Levitz’.

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

First World Problems. My cleaners are late..when will they turn up today!?

 

[amadeus]

Kermit the Frog was a better military strategist than Herman Goering.

Kermit had no Luftwaffe, not a Stuka or Junkers or anything. No U-boats or Enigma, just a few Hollywood actors.

 

[Kyriakos]

Kermit the Frog was a better military strategist than Herman Goering.

View attachment 614974

Kermit had no Luftwaffe, not a Stuka or Junkers or anything. No U-boats or Enigma, just a few Hollywood actors.

 

[amadeus]

The world has refused to recognize their taking of Manhattan, though. Most observers have commented that the Kermit-Piggy duumvirate is little more than

Spoiler :

a Muppet regime

 

[Kyriakos]

I really suck in Among Us.
That's $4 down the drain

 

[Ferocitus]

I really suck in Among Us.
That's $4 down the drain

Only bet what you can afford to lose K, and spare us the amateur dra(ch)matics.

 

[Kyriakos]

Only bet what you can afford to lose K, and spare us the amateur dra(ch)matics.

High above, the massive cylinder looks uncanny, alien and yet familiar, like a material to be split in the assembly line. I guess that's why they call it Rendezvous with Drachma.