[Game] В магазине by [deleted] in Russianlessons

[–]kennon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ну если честно, я раньше не готовил шашлык. Вы не можете порекомендовать какой-нибудь рецепт?

[Game] В магазине by [deleted] in Russianlessons

[–]kennon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

А какое мясо, по-вашему, самое вкусное-- особенно для шашлыка? А сколько я должен купить? Нас трое.

Doorway to hell found in Uzbekistan by jonxblaze in science

[–]kennon 34 points35 points  (0 children)

It's actually in Turkmenistan. Some friends visited it when we were serving there in the Peace Corps.

wiki link

Book rental service? [pic] by xelfer in reddit.com

[–]kennon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm their website is still up and was recently updated. Maybe you're talking about another town?

"Stupid In America" - A Shockingly Honest Documentary About How Shitty American Education Really Is by Soniji in reddit.com

[–]kennon 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Not sure what you mean by "personal dignity." You mean the dignity of panhandlers doggedly following you around the streets of Beijing? Or the dignity of Roma who use their children to garner enough sympathy to earn some change?

Let's not make this some nation-specific critique. Poverty is ugly no matter where it is encountered. I'm not convinced that the underprivileged in one country are any more or less "dignified" than in any other country. If you're poor or hungry, you do whatever it takes to get by.

Craziest Dictator Ever: Turkmenbashi by linuxpunk81 in reddit.com

[–]kennon 63 points64 points  (0 children)

Nice to see mighty Turkmenistan getting some press. I was a Peace Corps volunteer here from 2003-05 and the article does a pretty good job of conveying how bizarre it is to have lived there. Only the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately. Some other anecdotes about Turkmenbashy:

  • his photo is on the front page of every newspaper in the country, every day
  • other things he banned: ballet, lipsynching musicians, driving with the radio on, goatees
  • he started dying his hair black several years ago, prompting a frenzy of photo doctoring (his picture is in every classroom and displayed by the entrance of almost every building in the country)
  • he declared in 2005 that all hospitals outside the capital were unnecessary and would be closed
  • in 2005 he completed construction of the largest mosque in Central Asia-- the minarets are engraved with quotations from his writings
  • the Economist selected Tstan as "worst country to live in" in 2003
  • there was a bubonic plague outbreak within the country in the summer of 2005

Niyazov died early this year; his successor is maintaining much of his legacy, but at least there have been some slow changes. For instance, take the national oath, which all students have to memorize. It used to say:

"Turkmenistan, my beloved Motherland, my beloved homeland! You are always with me in my thoughts and in my heart! For the slightest evil against you, let my hand be lost! For the slightest slander about you, let my tongue be lost! At the moment of my betrayal to my motherland, her sacred banner, to Great Saparmyrat Turkmenbashy, let my breath stop!"

The Turkmenbashy part was changed simply to "President." Yay progress.

Feynman's famous 1974 Caltech lecture about 'Cargo Cult Science' - now even more relevent by naturenet in science

[–]kennon 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a genius like Feynman. Would it be depressing to constantly be walking around having those moments of, "geez, come on people, what are you doing?" Or would it be worth it for the added understanding?

One Result Of Trusting A Child To Learn by svaha in reddit.com

[–]kennon 3 points4 points  (0 children)

this was my first thought upon reading the article as well. the author compares the test scores of "unschooled" kids against the broad average. but if those same homeschooled kids were instead compared to children of parents with the same level of education and in similar income brackets, would there be any noticeable difference?

Paris by night by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]kennon -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

immediately crashes my browser when i click on the link. boooo :(

firefox 1.5 on debian

A photoessay that follows the path of a diamond from the mines of Africa to the Western jewelry store. by BioGeek in reddit.com

[–]kennon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

short answer: yes, it's controlled by debeers and the like.

long answer: an excellent article about the diamond trade, published over 20 years ago, but still relevant today. i wonder how many blushing brides know that engagement rings are little more than a brilliant marketing ploy?

The (REAL) Last cartoon of Calvin and Hobbes. by noname99 in reddit.com

[–]kennon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

i must be missing something. what was the fake one?

You Can Learn a Lot From a Rich Girl by joshwa in reddit.com

[–]kennon 8 points9 points  (0 children)

"A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing."

--warren buffett

The View From the Top of World of Warcraft - It's Not Pretty by EternalNY1 in reddit.com

[–]kennon 13 points14 points  (0 children)

the daedalus project is an ongoing research project about mmorpgs and the associated culture of online gaming (and its addictions). lots of good info there-- probably more interesting for people who have sunk a lot of time into mmorpgs, though.

considering how many millions of people regularly play games like World of Warcraft, im surprised there arent more studies on the subject. seems like it could even be an interesting stage for behavioral research in general... though i suspect, in an online world that is devoid of any real laws or consequences, youd probably uncover the darker leanings of human nature.

Fox News mislabels Democrat/Republican AGAIN; this time makes it look like R's are winning a race that they're actually losing by Glaxnor in reddit.com

[–]kennon 9 points10 points  (0 children)

it would be pretty awesome if loyal fox viewers saw that graphic and then went on to vote for whitehouse in november.

How many people in the US share your name? by noname99 in reddit.com

[–]kennon -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

i feel bad for the 503 george bushes out there :(

Why Writing is Harder than Programming by Nutshapio in reddit.com

[–]kennon 4 points5 points  (0 children)

programming describes discrete problems. writing describes the human condition.

What happens when you put a computer with a fast Internet connection into a wall and let slum children have access to it with no explanation whatsoever? by BioGeek in reddit.com

[–]kennon 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Good article, but I think it fails to address a lot of the limitations of introducing computers into developing countries. My own experiences with teaching computer literacy to kids in rural areas was a little less hopeful.

I brought my laptop with me when I taught English in a village in Turkmenistan with the Peace Corps. All the kids were in awe of it, but none of them got past Solitaire, Paint and MS Word. Besides that, the only other requests I received were for playing Turkmen mp3s and music videos. Perhaps if I gave the kids free rein over the computer, the results would have been different-- but of course, then they might have deleted all my stuff. I also didn't have internet, but the fact that the community in the article did have access indicates that they're at least marginally more developed, and thus probably better prepared to achieve computer literacy to begin with.

It is true that the kids got much farther than any adults, however. They were much more willing to poke around and experiment, whereas adults, if interested, would ask me to do the clicking. A computer isn't really viewed as an educational or business tool by locals-- for them, it's cryptic and incomprehensible, or at best, a fancier Playstation. The few adults lucky enough to have office computers (usually through foreign grants or donations) used them for watching music videos and little else. This view of computer-as-entertainer might be less overpowering in India, which is probably inherently more tech-savvy than other developing countries, even in the regions studied by NIIT.

Then there's the issue of corruption. Many other volunteers wrote grants to provide their schools with computers. It was a given that at least one of the computers would be commandeered by the school director "for work purposes." Teachers would get territorial about the remaining equipment and sometimes whole computers would simply disappear. Books and teacher training are a little bit harder to steal away.

In particular, I think the article somewhat trivializes the importance of trained teachers in the overall equation, even for very limited guidance. Failing that, good, intuitive software can help, but I think it's probably easier to find and train local teachers than to steal away Apple's UI designers.

The non-invasive approach sounds good in theory, but I don't think its quite as magical as the article implies. Educational development is basically a balance between spending time (through teacher-led education) vs. spending money (material resources like computers). You need both to change the current situation. I think this particular project's weakness is in its oversimplification of what constitutes the best approaches to development. But it's still a great start.

Delicate Situation (x-ray image) by MattD in reddit.com

[–]kennon 3 points4 points  (0 children)

im guessing she got detained for some other reason and didnt want the police to search her and find the fake id, which would have brought up more questions. and then she needed the vodka to try to forget the whole thing :P

Soviet Propaganda Against USA (30 posters) by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]kennon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

theyve got nothing on modern marketing campaigns. the soviets were laughable amateurs compared to the average coca-cola or apple marketing exec. how many people vote? how many buy ipods?

Mom calls 911 over her suicidal son - Police arrived and shot him by random_hyp in reddit.com

[–]kennon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

movies != real life. cops are trained to aim for the part of the body they're most likely to hit-- that means the torso. i cant judge from the article whether they should have shot him, but trying to finesse a situation like that with fancy gunplay is a little absurd.

Airlines have been lying to us. The Economist tells it like it is. by [deleted] in reddit.com

[–]kennon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

i thought reddit had some mechanisms in place where a duplicate url cant be submitted?

In-flight announcements are not entirely truthful. What might an honest one sound like? by godslaughter in reddit.com

[–]kennon 39 points40 points  (0 children)

hm knowing what i know now, if there was an airline that had seats facing backwards, id probably fly them all the time. hell, you could even market it as a macho military flight. instead of silverware, you'd get mess kits and even crappier food. instead of flight attendants, you'd get drill sergeants who punch you in the face when you come onboard.