Jamal

The paper you got this from is citing the Programme for International Student Assessment, which is an OECD study. The same study, for example, ranks R...

Are you serious?

@"Isaac" @"Christoffer" I asked you nicely many pages ago to be civil or else ignore each other. It’s hard enough to maintain quality in this thread. ...

Being humorous in online discussions, on the other hand, is a distinct art. You can clearly see that @"Noble Dust" and @"T Clark" are novices. :joke:

My brother and one of my friends provide a safe space for the most disgraceful and outrageous jokes conceivable. Also it seems to be impossible to off...

That would be Del Monte Python, yes?

That rings truthy. I don't think so. I don't demand that we postpone humour till after the revolution.

I think you could equally say that it's an alternative to criticism. It's a laughing off of the problem. Or if it is criticism, it's of the mild varie...

I don't think it's all that tough. All you have to do is wink and stick out your tongue immediately after you make the joke. That does annoy me.

If only authentic earthquake damage were desirable among record collectors.

Yes, it was similar for me. The only difference is that when I read them again decades later, the ideas didn't have anything like the same impact, and...

I think it makes sense, given that science fiction, including cyberpunk, is primarily about ideas.

:cool: I wish I still had my Zappa vinyl. Not that I have anything to play it on.

Yeah, like I said: bollocks.

Yeah I don't know what's up with their website. It's been intermittently inaccessible for the last few days. I just kept trying and eventually got in.

Story of my life :roll:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZbE2VvZCqk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vasrhwKKS_M

Thanl ;ou, I appecraipujet i5 :up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTrZAq7Q8Wk

I haven't read William Gibson or much else in the genre, so you should be highly sceptical about what I'm about to say. It's interesting that you choo...

Moving on... Armenian brandy for breakfast today.

Seriously though, I didn't understand what you two were on about, but now I suspect that your comment was just a way for you to amusingly use the word...

:rage:

If you guys are not just messing with me, you can hear it here: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/awry

Worth quoting.

Where is the eggplant emoji when you need it?

Plunging?

He's your short bald special man friend and some would say you're entitled to defend his honour with horrific violence whether he's wearing a dress or...

I thought he was good in Six Degrees of Separation but forgettable in everything else.

It's why there are eagles on the coat of arms of Russia. As to what the prevaling myth of Russian exceptionalism is, I don't have any scholarly knowle...

It's the latter, but I'm not sure why.

Byzantium and Rome are much bigger in the Russian historical consciousness than you might think. The idea that Russia, particularly Moscow, is the suc...

:rofl: Everyone has a breaking point.

I pity your poor bald wife.

If he thought my wife's baldness was amusing and deserving of mockery, I might--how you say--whoop his ass.

I went to see Chris Rock doing stand-up many years ago. He was pretty good, but his total inability to deal with the single mild heckle disappointed m...

I see. Yes, there's some relationship there, in the Russian context, but I was just talking from personal experience about everyday people in everyday...

Fair point. And the funniest guy in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was Carlton.

Does that apply to everyone who thinks they have a good idea when that idea is not held by everyone? Need I mention the examples of the suffragettes, ...

I'm currently imagining a scenario in which Will Smith makes a joke about my wife in the street, which I find funny until I turn to my wife and see th...

Nice to see you make a post I approve of :smile:

Me too. I still hear awry as "awe-ree" in my head just before I tell myself it's "a-rye". I only discovered the truth in my late twenties. Then there'...

I keep coming back to that as well. Not particularly the apocalyptic streak, which I haven't thought about, but in other ways there are very strong si...

Peter and Catherine were famously influenced by Western Europe, and to the extent that their territorial expansion sought a status for Russia equal to...

:up:

Thanks, I have read some good histories and understand the popular concept of the Russian identity crisis. I just didn't know what you meant when you ...

Please either be civil to each other or ignore each other.

I don't know if this fits with my knowledge of Russian history. But then, my knowledge of Russian history isn't great. How do you mean? Peter the Grea...

Yes and no. I think he wants a sphere of influence, and that to me can be described as imperialist, rather in the same sense as the USA has been accus...