72 replies to this topic

[RizeJodo]

Alright folks. Guess I'll do this.

Teamspeak meeting will be held on September 12, 2015 at 8:00 PM PST.

I have sent a message to TS administrators asking what said meeting is going to be about but have yet to hear back so at this time the TS meeting is open for whatever discussion you wish.

Teamspeak meeting is open to the public and to facilitate a good turnout I have provided the following timing chart.

8:00 PM PST
9:00 PM MST
10:00 PM CST
11:00 PM EST

4:00 AM UTC (Coordinated Universal Time)
4:00 AM GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)

Bring any concerns you may have to the TS meeting.

TLDR: Teamspeak Meeting 09/12/2015 8:00 PM PST.

[UltraEM]

That's around noon on Sept. 13 for me. I'll most likely attend.

[Bishop]

Sounds Good

[Slein Jinn]

05:00 on my first day in my new flat... yeah... that's not going to happen.

[Rimmy1a]

Slein Jinn, on 07 September 2015 - 03:20 PM, said:

05:00 on my first day in my new flat... yeah... that's not going to happen.

Be glad it's not a Soviet-era one, with the bathtub in the kitchen. That would necessitate a special TS channel.

[Slein Jinn]

We put washing machines in the kitchen, not bathtubs.

[Rimmy1a]

These are not always easy to tell apart.

[Slein Jinn]

I know one of the devs for Garry's Mod...

[Rimmy1a]

You win.

Still seen Soviet-era flats with bathtubs in the kitchen, though. Not in person, but friends in Russia.

I suppose it makes sense if you prepare for your bath or episode of epic soup making by boiling the kettle.

[cassy]

Rimmy1a, on 08 September 2015 - 10:41 PM, said:

You win.

Still seen Soviet-era flats with bathtubs in the kitchen, though. Not in person, but friends in Russia.

I suppose it makes sense if you prepare for your bath or episode of epic soup making by boiling the kettle.

Oddly enough I have seen some in NYC that were the same way . . .
Maybe we are doing something wrong?

[Slein Jinn]

Rimmy1a, on 08 September 2015 - 10:41 PM, said:

You win.

Still seen Soviet-era flats with bathtubs in the kitchen, though. Not in person, but friends in Russia.

I suppose it makes sense if you prepare for your bath or episode of epic soup making by boiling the kettle.

You're Canadian, don't be an American stereotype.  Lumping Poland and Russia in together is a pretty ignorant thing to do.

[Rimmy1a]

Slein Jinn, on 09 September 2015 - 02:11 AM, said:

You're Canadian, don't be an American stereotype.  Lumping Poland and Russia in together is a pretty ignorant thing to do.

Lol I wasn't, at least not any more than in a "once upon a time over a large area it was found to be good to do this" sense. Whether because of fuel considerations or available space or whatever. I'd probably expect electrical voltage to be the same in wiring jobs done at the same time across Europe.

I'm okay with being wrong, especially over a throwaway comment that (to me) gives a ridiculous visual.

[Slein Jinn]

I can't say it never happened, but I've never seen it.  Washing machines in the kitchen is really pretty common, though.  A lot of those old Soviet-era flats haven't got space in the WC, so into the kitchen they go.

[cassy]

Slein Jinn, on 09 September 2015 - 09:12 AM, said:

I can't say it never happened, but I've never seen it.  Washing machines in the kitchen is really pretty common, though.  A lot of those old Soviet-era flats haven't got space in the WC, so into the kitchen they go.

I think it has more to do with the time period when they were built rather than the area.  The ones in NY were built around WWII when bathrooms were typically very small, and sometimes still called water closets.  There was a lot of pre and post war building.

Slein Jinn, on 09 September 2015 - 02:11 AM, said:

You're Canadian, don't be an American stereotype.  Lumping Poland and Russia in together is a pretty ignorant thing to do.

Polish food seems to be better, otherwise it might be lumped in with other Eastern European countries.  Poland is still part of the Slavic language cluster in Eastern Europe, so it sounds similar and can easily be confused.

[Slein Jinn]

cassy, on 09 September 2015 - 05:39 PM, said:

Polish food seems to be better, otherwise it might be lumped in with other Eastern European countries.  Poland is still part of the Slavic language cluster in Eastern Europe, so it sounds similar and can easily be confused.

Poland isn't even in Eastern Europe.  It's in Central Europe.  

And lumping Poland and Russia in together because they both speak Slavic languages makes about as much sense as lumping Portugal and Romania in together because they both speak Romance languages.  The Slavic language family is huge, and Polish and Russian are at complete opposite ends of the spectrum of Slavic languages.

[cassy]

Slein Jinn, on 09 September 2015 - 06:34 PM, said:

Poland isn't even in Eastern Europe.  It's in Central Europe.  

And lumping Poland and Russia in together because they both speak Slavic languages makes about as much sense as lumping Portugal and Romania in together because they both speak Romance languages.  The Slavic language family is huge, and Polish and Russian are at complete opposite ends of the spectrum of Slavic languages.

I am not saying it makes sense, just that it is the case.
Portugal is usually lumped with Spain, those languages often sound similar as well.
Also, Germany used to be considered Central Europe because that is the approximate split of the Soviet Bloc and the rest of Europe.  I am sure that now Poland is considered part of Central Europe, because so many things have changed, but that is pretty new.  It is also not the view of the entire world, but I concede the point.

[Slein Jinn]

cassy, on 09 September 2015 - 07:34 PM, said:

I am not saying it makes sense, just that it is the case.

I know that it's the case that people are ignorant and full of misconceptions.  You don't have to tell me.  Americans frequently lump Iranians--and sometimes even Turks--in with Arabs, too.  Cultural and geographical ignorance abounds.  

Quote

Portugal is usually lumped with Spain, those languages often sound similar as well.

Well, Polish, Czech, and Slovak fit together similarly well to Spanish and Portuguese.  All three are Western Slavic languages with a fairly high degree of mutual intelligibility, including an extensive battery of cognates and broadly similar phonology.  Just as there's much more distance--both geographically and linguistically--between Portuguese and Romanian, however, so to is there between Polish and the Eastern Slavic Russian.  Comparing Polish to Russian is more like comparing English to German; sure, they share a lot of basic roots, since they're both descended from a common ancestor, but a thousand years of divergence has lead to large differences in grammar, phonology, and a wide array of unique lexical items.  Of course Poles can pick out certain words in Russian--and vice versa--just like you can doubtless pick out certain words in German, but there's effectively no mutual intelligibility between the languages.  

Quote

Also, Germany used to be considered Central Europe because that is the approximate split of the Soviet Bloc and the rest of Europe.  I am sure that now Poland is considered part of Central Europe, because so many things have changed, but that is pretty new.  It is also not the view of the entire world, but I concede the point.

Well, Polish territory presently includes quite a lot of what used to be Germany--Śląsk (Silesia) and Pomorze (Pomerania), including prominent cities like Gdańsk (Danzig), Szczecin (Stettin), Wrocław (Breslau), and Katowice (Kattowitz).  And Germany still is a part of Central Europe, too.  

The notion of "Central Europe" goes back hundreds of years to the loose political and commercial coalition between Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia.  The distinction between Central and Eastern Europe is quite well-established throughout most of European history, and likely has at least something do with Central European cultures predominantly embracing Catholicism (including Poland) and Eastern European cultures predominantly embracing Eastern Orthodoxy (including Ukraine and Russia).  The conception of Central Europe was, for political reasons, sort of suspended during the Cold War in the parlance of the Western powers, as Europe was divided along one great line of "Communists vs. Democrats", but no one in this part of the world would have ever regarded themselves as "Eastern European".

[Rimmy1a]

Now Slein, you know better than to try to explain an analog world to a binary-based country.

Us vs Them, Republicans vs Democrats, Good vs Evil, et cetera.

/personalbias

[cassy]

Slein Jinn, on 10 September 2015 - 04:38 AM, said:

Comparing Polish to Russian is more like comparing English to German;

Maybe more like Spanish and Italian then, because a fluent Spanish speaker can find enough cognates to get along in Italy.  An English speaker really wouldn't be able to do that in Germany.

Rimmy1a, on 10 September 2015 - 09:00 AM, said:

Now Slein, you know better than to try to explain an analog world to a binary-based country.

Us vs Them, Republicans vs Democrats, Good vs Evil, et cetera.

/personalbias

01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111
And because you were a stinker . . .

[Slein Jinn]

cassy, on 10 September 2015 - 07:16 PM, said:

Maybe more like Spanish and Italian then, because a fluent Spanish speaker can find enough cognates to get along in Italy.  An English speaker really wouldn't be able to do that in Germany.

That's my point.  Polish and Russian are extremely different.  I know a lot more about this stuff than you do.  I chose my examples quite deliberately.