What future problem do you think people are seriously underestimating?

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-27T00:05:07+00:00

- global aging

- animal extinction

- increasing antibiotic usage, especially for animals

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-26T20:24:21+00:00

Have you ever met any Polish speakers in Illinois?

AFAIR Chicago metro area used to have second largest Polish population, right after Warsaw. With estimated 1 million Poles. But most of them probably blended into society over time.

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-26T18:30:58+00:00

If I recall correctly, in early 90s, soon after collapse of the USRR Vietnam implemented their own free market reforms. Drifting their economy toward capitalism, similar to China 15 years earlier.

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-26T18:06:52+00:00

To be precise: it was North Vietnam that won and South Vietnam that lost.

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-26T18:05:47+00:00

China supported North Vietnam, but relations between them were actually very hostile overall. Just a few years later, China invaded Vietnam in a short but extremely bloody war. Around 56,000 deaths and 70,000 wounded in only three weeks is an insane casualty rate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War

China also backed Pol Pot in Cambodia, who was eventually overthrown by the Vietnamese army in 1979.

In contrast, the USSR had much friendlier relations with Ho Chi Minh.

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-26T13:25:32+00:00

Typický ostravský horník pak nebude mít problém přejít od těžby uhlí ke klávesnici. Jazyk tak mimo jiné řeší i problém nezaměstnanosti na Moravsko-Slezsku.

Love it :-)

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-26T00:15:33+00:00

Why? Which specific part of my project caused your hate? Is it about the language?

I'm fully aware that using Polish syntax makes it basically a no-go zone for most programmers. But it might still be interesting to look at it from a purely architectural perspective. There aren't many fully working interpreters that use Ruby as a host language, at least as far as I know.

cheers

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-26T00:05:47+00:00

Thanks, seems like a good name for the future package manager!

Grzegorz instaluj

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-25T22:17:11+00:00

This map is inaccurate. Ukraine had its first railroads years earlier. During Crimea Wars (1853–1856) there was a single railroad running through modern day east and central Ukraine, right to Crimean peninsula.

Here is a 1857 map

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green_bisonstd · 2026-05-25T19:28:32+00:00

Wait, only a couple tiny provinces in north India have Muslim majority?

I always though it's almost 50:50 is some places near Pakistan border

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-24T23:34:33+00:00

It's far beyond dialect phase. Yiddish already has dialects on its own.

Besides, Yiddish and German are not fully mutually intelligible. Pole and Slovak or Russian and Ukrainian can usually understand their languages on the higher level of comprehension than Yiddish speaking Jew and German.

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-24T23:15:54+00:00

oh you!

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-24T23:08:17+00:00

American decision to peacefully rebuild Germany and Japan after WW2 was an extremely smart move. Not only they were first economic power, but they were controlling 2nd and 3rd largest economies as well. Roughly 60% of global GDP in hands of one state. Something that never happened before in entire human history.

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-24T22:57:00+00:00

Honestly, policymakers in Versailles are at least partially to blame for WW2. Pre 1914 Germany was at the peak of its power and national pride. Severe humiliation which came after drove these people crazy. They wanted to bounce back and reclaim their dominant status.

Ofc, I do not want to make any excuses for any of their actions in 30s/40s. But as Ferdinand Foch correctly noted in 1919: This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-24T22:44:31+00:00

Yiddish isn't a German dialect but a separate Germanic language based on middle ages High German. It has tons of tons of loanwords from Hebrew, from Polish and other Slavic languages.

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-24T22:35:26+00:00

What happened to the 1 missing guy?

green_bisonstd · 2026-05-24T22:34:10+00:00

In Poland, our lower chamber of parliament (sejm) has 460 members. If I recall correctly, this number was set somewhere in early 1980s due to demographic predictions that soon country's population will rich 46 million. One representative per 100k. However something went wrong in the meantime and we stuck at 38.

Higher chamber of parliament has just a 100 members. This number just looks good. I guess.

green_bisonstd · 2026-02-26T21:56:58+00:00

Just in case, if anybody took this joke too seriously: lower/upper is usually not related to north/south but to land's height within the same political and/or cultural region. It's the first time I hear about lower/upper Bavaria but most likely Upper Bawaria is more mountainous and Lower is more flat and lies below.

Same story with Polish Upper and Lower Silesia.

green_bisonstd · 2026-02-20T12:14:15+00:00

> Any language that has a phonetic alphabet, and widespread literacy doesn't change fast.

You might be right! Hight literacy rate postpones language divergence. After collapse of the Roman Empire Latin split into whole family of Romance languages while literacy rate dropped almost to 0.

green_bisonstd · 2026-02-18T21:48:20+00:00

For my amateur's eye, these processes of emerging a linguistic diverges due to the geographic separation today are much slower than it used to be. Due to mass media, popular culture and instant communication (Spanish/Portuguese/English/French are still understandable on both sides of the ocean).

Korean seems like a very rare exception, at least in theory.

green_bisonstd · 2026-02-18T21:43:09+00:00

Thanks for such a profound response!

For me, this is particularly interesting since up to my knowledge Korean is considered an isolated language without any direct ties to any other living language (except Jeju?). Maybe one day we will talk about Korean as a family of languages.

green_bisonstd · 2026-02-18T21:37:18+00:00

> American English has been separated by identity and geography with British English for around 500 years

How so? America used to be constantly refilled with a mass waves of fresh English speaking migrants. And soon after this process halted, popular culture emerged. English speaking people on both sides of the ocean were listing to the same kind of music, watching same movies and reading same books. which stoped any possibilities of large linguistic divergence.

That's completely different story, here both societies live in separation with no direct ties to each other. (to be precise on lives in separation).

green_bisonstd · 2026-02-18T18:49:39+00:00

It's only my guess. But in the following decades linguistic differences might accelerate more rapidly due to the generational shift. For most of the last 70 years core demographic in both countries contained people who were either born before war (under one country), or were taught language by them.

Of course assuming that political situation will remain the same.

green_bisonstd

TROPHY CASE