Along with an interesting story, the Russian-language flyer has fascinating Runglish words, phrasing and grammar.
"Кливланд" (Cleveland) is spelled with "а" at the end, which makes the pronunciation "Cleev-lahnd". The modern version is "Кливленд", which is pronounced almost the same as English.
"Мувис" is just transliterated "Movies". I suppose the movies were new enough that the current words "кино(театр)" (kino(theater)) and "фильм" (film) were not in use within the diaspora.
"От'езд" uses an apostrophe instead of ъ, which is what Ukrainian uses. E.g: "від'їзд".
"Все идем видеть его" sounds odd. Maybe an English-structured sentence written in Russian, or maybe just the grammar of the times.
An apostrophe instead of ъ was sometimes artifact of using an old typewriter (1920th). One hero of literature wondered why all the words are written with ъ (where appropriate), but об'явление (an advertisement on a bulletin board in this context) was invariably written with an apostrophe. Well, many advertisements on boards was typewritten, and even handwritten advertisement started to follow this spelling, and even when typewriter was produced with ъ, this spelling persisted in this context.
But it may be an urban legend.
Upd: sometime this "legend" says that after the spelling reform of 1918 the ъ at the end of words was banned, this letter was forced to be removed from typewriter as well (though it may be used in a middle of words). The article on this reform in Russian Wikipedia mentions, that for the same reason ъ was seized from typographies to restrict its usage. In both cases an apostrophe was used instead. It seems these facts are consistent with each other and this particular usage of the apostrophe.
I would encourage it. A few years ago, I started a site/blog on both Web and Gemini. I mostly keep track of projects I build, books I read, some interesting events, and some cheatsheets and links I revisit a lot. Writing things down definitely keeps me more motivated, and it is nice to look back in time and reflect occasionally.
And I made the site simple and contrary to current Web on purpose: plain HTML, no JS, no popups, only graphics are photos and diagrams.
After working in tech (and providing tech support and tutoring), this seems like a typical non-tech-savvy user behavior: Just do what is familiar.
So they got a good deal on a car. It's a car and it drives, and you fill it with gas. It already works, the effort to learn and use the car for more potential is (probably) not worth it to the owner.
You could see the same pattern with people who use office applications on a daily basis but don't bother learning functionality (or even shortcuts).
Yet I am not trying to push the "users are dumb" stereotype, because everyone has their own blind spots in knowledge.
Not Europe, but around 2015, Russia passed a law requiring foreign companies to store data on servers in the country. Then banned LinkedIn in 2016 [0], and tried to get Twitter and Facebook to comply in 2017-2019 [1]. All of which were met with ridicule from many people in the US (IIRC from article comments and reddit).
IMO, somewhat similar situations - popular social media, known for data gathering, based in another country that is viewed as a geopolitical and/or ideological opponent and is often villified.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but this is slightly creepy.
I never understood why people care to keep their private conversation history in the first place. IMO private messages (as opposed to public posts, blogs, etc) are supposed to be temporary ("ephemeral") - one does not record every face-to-face conversation or phone call after all.
I think this is interesting, and not necessarily unpopular. It seems different people just think about this issue differently. I do everything I can to preserve every single chat history that I can. And I would like to have every face-to-face conversation and phone call recorded and easily accessible for that matter. I have a sense that I am the sum of my experiences and I don't want to forget those experiences - it feels like I am somehow less than myself if I don't remember them.
But I've seen that episode of Black Mirror, too. So I wrestle with the desire to perfectly remember everything that I've ever experienced vs the mental and emotional health benefits that clearly come from being able to forget things.
I read your reply a while ago, but still can't wrap my head around "t feels like I am somehow less than myself if I don't remember them.". I forgot many things, and it's quite ok with me, so I'm trying to understand your view.
Are you trying to remember everything all of the time? Including all of the new memories?
Suppose you are able to record calls and face-to-face interactions. Are you going to spend hours of your life re-watching or fast-forwarding through mundane everyday things?
I forget things all the time, but I don't like it. I suppose what I imagine I want is perfect recall of everything I've seen, heard, experienced. I get great joy from looking at old photos or videos, and I hate that there are millions of experiences over my lifetime that I can't recall and that there is no record of.
So, yes, I do want to remember everything all the time.
At the same time, I recognize that there are mental health benefits to forgetting things, so I will settle for being able to easily flip through all of my text messages with friends and loved ones.
I agree. But it's more to do with the part of me that cringes at messages I sent and exist forever. The person I was 10 years ago is so different. It feels so jarring reading old messages.
I can see both sides. I did actually correspond with people using written letters up until maybe 2004 or so, and in many of those cases, especially old girlfriends and letters from my little sisters when I first went to college, reading them years later was intensely nostalgic.
On the other hand, when I left the Army I moved into a much smaller place, put most of my stuff in storage, then three years later figured anything I hadn't touched or used for three years was something I didn't actually need, and let the facility have all of it. That seems to have included both all those old letters and all of my old photographs. I can't say I actually miss those things. People in here are saying they don't want to forget the past but the reality of forgetting is you don't know you forgot it so it has no perceivable effect once it happens.
To be honest, I'm nostalgic enough as is and don't think I need even more things to hold onto. I already don't watch new television or listen to new music. I'm mentally stuck in 1999 and not sure that's healthy.
Unless you write your text messages deliberately composed, in multiple paragraphs, and it takes days to send and receive, the comparison is very flawed. More long-form digital communication, like email, is a bit closer to letters, though.
Which brings me back to my point that text chats are equivalent to a spoken conversation and should be treated as such, and not be kept forever. Especially not printed out as a gift. You wouldn't give someone close a video of them sleeping or leaving for work over last 3 years (even if you saw them do it), nor a map of their movements from a GPS tracker (even if they told you where they are going), because that does not respect their boundaries nor privacy.
Although after reading some responses, no doubt some people will think of those as "cherished memories".
> I never understood why people care to keep their private conversation history in the first place.
One reason that's understandable without relying sentimentality, is they're a record of what you were doing or thinking at a particular time, much like a private diary.
There's been a few times where I've gone back though stuff like chat history to better understand something that I didn't realize the significance of at the time.
I never was disciplined enough to keep a diary when I was younger, but I started using messenger when I was about 14. It’s pretty amazing to be able to go back and see my interactions, the way I communicated, the way I saw the world (am now 30). I feel lucky to be able to have that window into my past life.
Really depends on the mindset when creating the message. If I message on a platform that keeps history, then I write with that expectation, or at least possibility, in mind. Now, this begs the question - is this modification of behavior problematic, does it detract perhaps from the meaning of the communication itself? Maybe.
The barrier, to me, is broken the moment we use technology. I work with this shit, I know how the sausage is made. I know that the phone calls are as encrypted as HTTP, that everyone can always keep record without you knowing, that even if they promise that something will go away, it may be won't, especially because it's a juicier target now just that promise alone. As soon as something is electronic, then it's a record.
If the message was something I found interesting, important, or funny, I would usually copy or screenshot it. Or remember it. Although I don't proactively delete old messages, I never intentionally backed up or transferred message history between devices either.
As for privacy and permanency - if data stops existing, it is definitely private now :)
First generation Chevy Volt (2011-2016) has a button at the end of the left stem that sounds an alternative polite (aka "pedestrian") horn. It's several very rapid, but somewhat quiet honks, that sound like "brrrap".
I like that. I used to have a car that would give that kind of polite honk with a light press and a louder honk with a harder press. I’ve always wished that were still a thing.
As a Ukrainian-American (more so the latter, I've lived in the US for the past 20+ years), US corporate culture requires making any statement into a very polite, almost optional, suggestion ("would you", "it would be great if", etc). Several times I was accused of being "rude" when I made a direct statement.
So it is not exactly direct, but I don't have a good cultural reference to compare to either.
IMO the visuals were just... bland. Everyone wears grey and lives in dark grey dwellings. The color balance is so bad that Atreides flag that is green on Caladan becomes cyan on Dune. This greyness also ruined the supposedly-awesome scene with the worm where it was just a dark blob on a grey background. And it was unintentionally funny when the camera pans over a featureless grey desert, and someone says "you can tell the spice by the color of the sand".
Perhaps there was something wrong with whatever setup you watched the first one on. The colors were all pretty warm and...sand-colored, definitely not anything I'd call "grey".
I highly recommend his book on Wolfenstein 3D (mentioned at the end of the article). Even though it's technical, it is not dry or boring. And there are lots of old-school tricks and optimizations, like 64 unwrapped functions for scaling wall textures, storing the sprites "sideways", managing the wacky graphics card, and hacking the graphics modes to even be able to display something like a game in the first place.
Wholeheartedly agree, I did not know books like this even exist, and enjoyed both (Doom as well) of them thoroughly. Too bad he’s never going to write the Quake/i586 book.
"Кливланд" (Cleveland) is spelled with "а" at the end, which makes the pronunciation "Cleev-lahnd". The modern version is "Кливленд", which is pronounced almost the same as English.
"Мувис" is just transliterated "Movies". I suppose the movies were new enough that the current words "кино(театр)" (kino(theater)) and "фильм" (film) were not in use within the diaspora.
"От'езд" uses an apostrophe instead of ъ, which is what Ukrainian uses. E.g: "від'їзд".
"Все идем видеть его" sounds odd. Maybe an English-structured sentence written in Russian, or maybe just the grammar of the times.