Category: facebook

A good album. They used to be alive. But in 2022, Shakhrin broke down. Really broke down.

Time will come to choose

Whom to meet the dawn with and for whom to sing

What are you ready for this world?

In which war are you ready to die?

Some shoot on principle,

Some keep hiding over and over,

This one believes he’s a born prince,

While that one fights for love.

There are those, from the couch, in front of the screen

Who curse those above them and the people:

Those above – are steering wrong,

The people – sing the wrong songs.

I want to believe, I’m with those,

Who fall and stand up again,

Who never pity themselves

And at least do not lie to themselves.

Who give orders to themselves,

As they are their own commander,

Who are fearless in their personal war,

Who will find the strength to build their own world.

Someday, a biopic drama has to be made about Liz Truss. Girls all around the world will weep out loud! From Minister for Women and Equalities to Prime Minister and back. What a year it’s been. Thankfully, the USA is still holding up, praise God. Three weeks until the elections.

And why is the DBLP logo in Cyrillic? https://dblp.org/ Checked in two browsers and on the phone (neither has RU locales set, only EN-US)

Friends, what are the current ways to send money to relatives in Russia from the USA?

It’s not needed right now, but when it becomes necessary (possibly very soon), it will be too late to ask.

A couple of photos from the “American kindergarten” series, taken by me over the last few days.

Reading about William Glackens, he’s an artist. He and his wife Edith Dimock (also an artist) had two children — Lenna and Ira. How surprised I was to learn that Ira is a son. And the name Lenna, it turns out, is a feminine version of Leonard.

Who is this advertisement aimed at?

Watching the movie “Elvis.” And here’s a thought that came to me this morning over breakfast. We haven’t finished watching Elvis yet, yes, it’s three hours long, but some expectations from the movie have already formed — to learn more about Elvis Presley. Is it worth watching the movie for this purpose? Here are some biopics that come to mind: “Blonde” about Marilyn Monroe, “Bohemian Rhapsody” about Freddie Mercury, “The Theory of Everything” about Stephen Hawking, “I, Tonya” about Tonya Harding, “Amadeus” about Mozart. Some of them stick closer to the real biography (like Hawking), while others are full of fabrications (for example, Blonde).

What happens is: they often create an alternative history, having an unknown intersection with real events and facts. It’s very hard to correct this initial impression by later reading a biography, as it already forms a mental image, and all subsequent information is viewed through the prism of what was already received earlier. For example, the movie “Blonde” starts with a scene where Marilyn’s insane mother tries to drown her little daughter in the bathtub. Or Marilyn’s polyamorous relationships with Chaplin and Robinson. This is what millions of viewers will remember after watching.

Then, a portion of the audience might become interested and start reading about what from the movie is true and what is embellished. But here enters the confirmation bias – the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. Precisely those shaped by these biopics. And then try to believe that Salieri actually didn’t kill Mozart, and that most of the stories about Marilyn Monroe’s affair with Robert Kennedy are made up since no one was there to actually witness, and there are no facts.

Interestingly, propaganda works in a similar way. It’s very important what introduces us to a subject because everything that follows is perceived in a certain context. That’s why propaganda aggressively targets schools and kindergartens.

The little fox definitely knows how to keep himself busy. Suddenly remembered he has an imaginary friend in the corner (Watch with sound)

Started reading Brave New World. Well, reading as in what’s called close reading. Darn, it’s more complex than any 20th-century English books I’ve seen in the original before. Of course, the meaning is clear even without delving into bookish words, but I’m not only reading the book, but also trying to learn from it.

Take, for example, the first two pages with my comments. About a dozen unfamiliar words per page. So far, this is a record among the fiction books I’ve read in English.

Here is a list of words that seemed complex to me in the first chapters. Clearly, you wouldn’t hear these in everyday spoken language, and not even in work correspondence, but for broadening horizons, expanding vocabulary, and getting a feel for the language — why not.

soliloquize

callow

burgeon

prodigious

viviparous

largesse

solemn

predestined

caustic

posthumous

spasmodic

inculcate

aperture

maudlin

immoral

effusive

inscrutable

incongruous

axiomatic

renounce

simian

ruminate

incandescence

corporeal

mockery

asceticism

caste

cremate

imminent

satiety

abject

deplorable

repulsive

fulminate

What they mean — see the third picture in the post