Interesting Links for 28-02-2022

[andrewducker]

Russians troops are disoriented, hungry, and don't understand why they're invading

(tags:Russia Ukraine OhForFucksSake )

EU Plans To Send Weapons To Ukraine After Putin Escalates Nuclear Threat

(tags:nuclearweapons Ukraine Europe Russia war )

How Ikea gets you to buy more stuff

(tags:IKEA marketing business )

The salt-mining elephants of Africa

(tags:elephants mining salt Africa )

I would not have believed the levels of Russian incompetence if you'd told me last week

(tags:Russia Ukraine incompetence video )

Words known better by men women, and vice versa

(tags:gender language English )

How Putin made the EU great again

(tags:Russia Europe )

Sid Meier warns the games industry about monetisation (30th anniversary of Civilization interview)

(tags:games business money )

I love the Childline "Nobody is normal" video

(tags:children video )

UK pledge to take Ukrainian refugees with family in Britain excludes brothers, sisters, adult children and parents

(tags:ukraine uk refugee OhForFucksSake )

Tumblr will now let you be the customer, rather than advertisers being the customer. I am *delighted* and wish Facebook/Twitter would do likewise

(tags:tumblr advertising business )

What do parents' houses really look like?

(tags:homes children parenting mess )

Comments

[dewline]

1. So we've been learning from multiple sources. I am both horrified and unsurprised.

2. Good.

5. Well, now we know. It's making some people wonder if that nuclear threat of Putin's is going to fizzle too if he actually gives the order.

7. There is something hopeful in this. Now, if some of those east-Europe nations that have been slow-dancing to autocracy the last decade or so start turning away from that practice, even better.

9. Yes. (smiles thru tears)

[cmcmck]

I suspect my being a female military historian might spoil their word knowledge thing a bit! :o)

[andrewducker]

You may be an outlier!

(I have to admit to not knowing a fair number of the "women's words")

[original_aj]

Being a male re-enactor who makes a lot of period clothing I knew all the "women's" words.

[naath]

I could define most of those words, and would recognise them all as words... I may be atypical

[andrewducker]

Ya weirdo!

[mountainkiss]

I think the whole fun of IKEA is going out with a whole bunch of random purchases, and specifically budget for it every time we visit.

[andrewducker]

I enjoy wandering about, getting a bit lost, letting the kids get lost, and encountering home decor I'd never actually buy.

[mountainkiss]

That's cheaper.

[andrewducker]

We then have to buy them lunch. Expensive beasts that they are!

[mountainkiss]

Losing them perhaps then cheaper option.

[andrewducker]

I shall suggest to Jane next time nursery fees go up.

[mountainkiss]

I’m sure she’ll go for it.

[mountainkiss]

(Slightly depending on how lost the kids get, I suppose.)

[andrewducker]

I've not lost either of them for more than 2 minutes. Which was still one of the more stressful experiences of my life.

re: words known better

[darkoshi]

The vocabulary test site used for that is still up and running:
http://vocabulary.ugent.be/

You don't need to know the words' definitions, only recognize them as real or non-real.
One real word I didn't recognize was "ducker" - I thought it was only a name (and even the meaning "a person who ducks" didn't occur to me)!


At the end of the test it gave this link to another study/word association test which I haven't tried yet:
https://smallworldofwords.org/en

Tumblr will now let you be the customer, rather than advertisers being the customer.

[jducoeur]

Oh, sweet! I'm not a Tumblr user myself, but I'd be all over this if I was. (And totally agreed about Twitter and FB.)