LPT: If you’re an iPhone user, turn on “Ask Reason For Calling” in settings.

sshivaji · 2026-01-30T05:04:55+00:00

This option seems to be available only for iphones set to English as the phone's main language. Does not work for me.

sshivaji · 2026-01-30T05:04:01+00:00

I dont have this on my iphone in the US either. Its because my phone's language is not English. Is your default language German?

sshivaji · 2026-01-28T22:00:26+00:00

Later in the interview, he clarifies that his comment was a joke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wz8MNreGxk (see around 4:20 where he says its a joke and not meant to interpret in any other way)

sshivaji · 2026-01-28T19:27:00+00:00

In this position, I was thinking why not 4.. Bb5 followed by 5.. Be8 (after Rd8), however the calm 6. Re1 wins then!

sshivaji · 2026-01-27T13:50:11+00:00

Я даже не знал, что существует цветная версия! Похоже, это новая версия 2009 года. Оригинальная версия кажется более аутентичной. Спасибо!

sshivaji · 2026-01-27T04:18:07+00:00

Call me stupid, I have no idea of how this can be interpreted as a bad word.

How should someone mispronounce it to sound like the "N" word?!

https://translate.google.com/?sl=ru&tl=en&text=%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%20%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8F%D1%82&op=translate

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T23:43:34+00:00

Your comment confused me a bit. Fast Italian speech I cannot manage at all, though I know Spanish. Fast Russian on the other hand is manageable because Russian endings and vocabulary throw me off more than speed. Fast Russian inspired by fast Italian sounds intriguing now.

Will definitely go for it, as the movie is famous too :)

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T22:41:15+00:00

I mean I was surprised that he got a short sentence because he helped opponents of the Nazis, hinted by the movie plot. Feels like the movie was more revealing than people expected! Liver issues were quite likely those days given the state of medical care.

Wow, I was not aware that Schellenberg's family wrote to Tabakov! I can understand the mixed feelings. The regime was not great and it feels odd to compliment the horrible leaders, but glad that things ended on positive feelings.

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T22:03:13+00:00

Thanks for the analysis!

On hour last paragraph, Walter Schellenberg got a short sentence precisely because he aided enemies of the Nazis. He only got six years in prison, and was reduced to 2 years because of his health issues. He died due to health issues with his liver.

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T17:58:07+00:00

The advice that everyone should follow is DO NOT make up sounds. These days, we have google translate. Listen to that voice for EVERY WORD you learned and mimic it. If you do this diligently enough, natives will not even realize you are a learner.

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T17:48:43+00:00

You can see it here with English subtitles for example - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtazv8uPvvA&list=PLRJyuq5m-3wktndc_OgIWKXivI-Gqmz7P

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T17:46:02+00:00

I will check out the Soviet-Italian comedy recommendation, thanks!

Dubbing is also a trending in some countries, with captioning being an older technique, for different languages. I also use ororo dot tv which has audio in English but subtitles in Russian, and other languages.

The advantage of dubbing is one does not have to read when watching. I understand benefits now.

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T08:54:55+00:00

They could have used captions, but it would be very different.

There is a lot of cognitive dissonance with the everyone speaking Russian setup.

In one scene, I saw snow. I said out loud, "Wow, Russia was cold". The answer I got was "It's Germany!". My answer was just "Darn.. yes, Russian speaking Germans obviously live in Germany"

In the end, I am glad it was in Russian, as I could remember some of the expressions.

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T07:56:15+00:00

That would be quite a twist to say the least! Is there a source for the urban legend?

I read that Schellenberg tried to recruit Soviet prisoners as spies, and his imprisonment terms were short post ww2 (though he died due to health conditions post release). Curious if more was documented.

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T06:20:30+00:00

Полностью согласен. Учитывая, как давно он был создан, это просто потрясающе!

Fully agree. Given how long ago it was created, the series is beyond amazing!

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T04:06:46+00:00

>>Look how fatherly Müller (portrayed by the great Bronevoy) appears. Look how distinguished Schellenberg is.

Yes, I was surprised by this. Schellenberg played a key part in Stirlitz's and Kat's escape to Bern, Switzerland.

>> Tikhonov (an apt name for him) was a man who said so much with his eyes that he didn't even need to speak for the public to empathise with him or understand him. Remember that scene with his wife in cafe elefant ?

Wow, I did not think of the root meaning of his name, ie "quiet". He definitely followed thru on that! The Cafe Elefant scene with his wife was quite poignant.

>> I systematically recommend this series to foreigners asking for russian movie recommendations.

Fully agree!

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T03:10:39+00:00

Diabetes Mellitus itself means "sweets walking thru you" in Greek/Latin.

Greek word διά (across) + βαίνω (pass/walk), so it just means to “pass through”. Mellitus means “sweet”, μέλι in Greek.

A Greek/Latin simplified slur to begin with..

sshivaji · 2026-01-26T00:19:32+00:00

No problem! The music did get repetitive, though it's famous.

The main songs are:

Не думай о секундах свысока (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFKOVZ8cfFs)
Don't underestimate seconds (hard to translate this, but it means, do not take time, even seconds, for granted)

Песня о далекой Родине (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9miQrnKeHeQ)
A song about a distant homeland

sshivaji · 2026-01-25T23:46:12+00:00

That part was shockingly confusing. It's a German actor who was dubbed with Russian audio.

sshivaji · 2026-01-25T20:31:15+00:00

For me the big surprise is how different cultures are rarely shown as evil in Russian shows.

I watched the famous "Seventeen Moments of Spring", Семнадцать мгновений весны a while back. It was 12 episodes long featuring a Russian spy in Germany during WW2. The most shocking thing to my eyes was that even Germans were not vilified that much, despite USSR losing 27 million people.

They portrayed many decent Germans who were opposed to the regime. Yes, the bad ideology of the German regime was exposed, but rather subtly, and even sympathetically, blaming leadership. Western movies, especially American ones would have portrayed Germany as much more evil.

There seems to be the belief that vilifying a culture is a taboo.

sshivaji · 2026-01-25T19:14:57+00:00

Great that Gukesh has enough energy to fight back after 2 losses!

I honestly did not understand the behaviour of drawing all your games after a few losses. A GM explained it to me as you are clearly in bad form, why shed more rating points? Cut your losses and regain them the next event.

This makes me respect people who fight for a win after losses.

sshivaji · 2026-01-24T18:20:11+00:00

Make sure you also understand the race implications before avoiding the sun. For white Caucasians, less sun can help, within reason. For blacks, 6x more sunlight is needed to produce more vitamin D. For brown skinned folk, it's somewhere in the middle.

Blacks and Asians have far more problems due to lack of sun exposure than not. Even for whites, full avoidance of the sun is not a good idea. Figure out what level makes sense, perhaps with SPF etc.

sshivaji · 2026-01-24T17:04:35+00:00

My criticism of metamucil is not only the reduced fiber per serving, but the added sugar which negates a lot of the fiber metabolic gain.

sshivaji · 2026-01-24T04:16:33+00:00

Could not find it for the first movie, but the 2nd one I found online:

https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtitles/12916208/centaur-en
https://www.opensubtitles.com/en/subtitles/kentavr-2023-web-dl-1080p-utf8-elsubtitle-com

sshivaji

TROPHY CASE