Yuki first saw how “parents” buy a ball for themselves and play with it. He is impressed by the day. So we’ve made it to pickleball. Now we need to make it to the court. It’s right in front of our house, but still, we need to get there! For instance, the pool, which is also in front of the house, I managed to go only once this year, and last year—not at all.
POSITIVELY NO ADMITTANCE. Captured today in the center of the hall of the largest Catholic church in North America.
Another linguistic puzzle. Why POSITIVELY?
The correct translation is “ENTRANCE STRICTLY FORBIDDEN TO WHOMEVER.” But why not ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE?
“Positively” in the phrase “positively no admittance” (strictly prohibited entrance) is easiest understood as employing its primary meaning: it emphasizes “no admittance” (prohibition of entry to whomever).
But why positively?
I read that there was an assumption that this word in its early uses was employed to describe positive law, that is, law established or recognized by state authority, as opposed to natural law — those “laws” that seemingly are naturally understood by people as applicable to all, such as “do not kill.” “Positive” in the context of positive law means “officially established or imposed”; it is a synonym for “prescribed.” So, could the expressions “positively no trespassing” and “positively no admittance” fundamentally mean “as officially established or prescribed, entry is forbidden” or “by law, entry is forbidden”?
As attractive as this theory may sound, early evidence of the phrases “positively no trespassing” and “positively no admittance” does not show such a direct link to positive law; therefore, this explanation falls apart.
A more probable explanation for the odd sound of modern cases of “positively no trespassing/admittance” is that the word “positively” is now so readily applied in contexts unrelated to law that it has lost some of its forcefulness, although, perhaps, it never had a legal meaning.
In short, it’s not clear at all; what’s clear is that it is used for emphasis.
Is it ethical for the media to write about “your personal data has leaked and is up for sale on the darknet”?
They cleared out everything from Liza’s closet and took her favorite cat. Now the daughters have moved away: one lives in Italy, the other – in Blacksburg. The kitty lived with us for eight months, now we are taking him to Liza. Yuki said he would provide moral support.
One really good thing about Kensington — this incredibly criminal neighborhood of Philadelphia, just teeming with dying drug addicts on the streets, a couple of hours away from us. Varlamov traveled there to report on “Kensington: Zombie Apocalypse in the Middle of the USA”, and after seeing Peter, watching Varlamov is revolting. Such different approaches to the same topic. Varlamov presented the neighborhood as a form of entertainment, while Peter shows what life there is like, from a very kind and humane perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWGwCbSUECw
I’ve noticed time and again that if I perform an audit on any part of a project where no one before me has, I invariably stumble upon some horror. It’s almost worth taking bets on it soon.
Simply take something that’s been somewhat working for years, that no one has bothered to look into because it works, and you’ll discover that a process is being triggered 50 times when once would suffice, or there’s a security breach, or something else.
The reasons for this are usually an excessive adherence to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” principle, and not enough attention paid to “what could go wrong” during the development phase. It’s just that things “going wrong” don’t always lead to noticeable problems. If you have five million products in your catalogue, 10,000 broken ones hardly make a dent. Until some customer reports it, that is.
Maybe I should have gone into testing? I’ll go check what courses are available.
If you need your phone to read any text in any language, with good diction, and not like a robot, there is a convenient feature: send the text to ChatGPT (app) preceded by the prefix “return this exact text to me”, and on the returned text, click Read Aloud. I haven’t tried it on very long texts, but it easily could last for 15-20 minutes.
Today we went biking in Sharpsburg, where the Antietam National Battlefield is located. I was drawn to the zigzag-shaped fence, which is called a Buck-and-rail fence in English—a fence made of posts and rails. It was widely used in the US, particularly in rural areas, from colonial times up to the 19th century.
The unique feature of such fences is that they are very quick and easy to build on any terrain—no nails are needed, and the way the parts connect ensures everything holds together naturally very tightly. If a hypothetical cow were to try and push this fence, it would only drive itself deeper into the ground and “strengthen” further.
I found this interesting also because it reminds me of a similar structure made of bricks but wavy this time. It’s particularly common in England, but you can find it in the US too. For instance, the University of Virginia has had such walls for two hundred years.
The most interesting aspect of the wavy wall is that this type of construction uses FEWER bricks than building a straight and even wall of the same strength. When constructing a regular flat wall, bricks are typically laid in at least two layers to ensure its strength, whereas a wavy wall allows for saving on bricks and using just a single layer. Its stability is provided by the alternating convex and concave bends.
This is a very, very good channel on English pronunciation. The creator really goes all out, preparing simply fabulous and lengthy videos on various topics, yet for some reason remains very “niche” with only 50K subscribers.
There are about fifty videos on his channel; they are released infrequently, but each one is a treasure trove of very interesting information about English pronunciation, and very useful tips specifically for Russian speakers on how to improve their pronunciation. I think I’ve watched them all.
And now, after a long hiatus, another one has just been released. Highly recommend it.
https://youtu.be/LmSpJzJZ4W0?si=7u6BiHZkzo3VWNie
I once shared how convenient it is to cook soup with a pressure cooker — ten minutes to chop potatoes, carrots, and onions, throw in the meat, add water, press the button and it’s ready in an hour.
I pulled out the slow cooker from the garage — cooking with it is even simpler (and the food turns out very, very delicious). Just throw meat and potatoes into an empty pot. Ideally, of course, wash them first. And that’s it. Press the button and after a few hours, you get very tasty, very tender meat with real baked potatoes. Just today, I slightly overdid it (seven hours, of which four were on high, which is admittedly too much). Still very tasty, but it could have been a tad better, something for next time. Ribs, in particular, turn out great only this way. They are fatty and need to be cooked long.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 