Month: December 2016

As Pieter van der Wilt said in comments:

Well nothing really very outstanding. The great achievements of mankind during the last 200 years come mainly from highly industrialized nations (UK, France, Germany, USA, etc…). Greece is a small country with a fairly high level of creativity.

All nations are great, because humanity is great. The literature and music of Modern Greece have unparalleled depth and diversity and lyricism, and are a gift to the world. (Though that is just as true of the literature and music of Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan, and Bolivia, and Vanuatu.)

As Pieter said in his answer, Byzantium preserved ancient Greek scholarship—but didn’t build on it: that was left for the Western Renaissance. I could add Orthodox Christianity; but as theology rather than ritual, all the work had been done by 800 AD anyway.

If you’re after technological achievements, well, there are individual Greeks who have done things; overwhelmingly and inevitably, they’ve done things in the UK and the US.

We’ve made much more of a recent impact on our immediate region of the Balkans, as anyone in the region will tell you. But you spoke of the world, not of our neighbourhood.

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From your comments to Pieter, OP, it looks like you’re reaching at a comparison with the Muslim world. But the game now in advances for humanity is a globalised game. The Ummah doesn’t get its own Golden Age any more; we’re much too interlinked for that. The Ummah gets to contribute to the advances for humanity, by taking part in the research and the stewardship spearheaded (for now) by the West. The West will likely yield its mantle within our lifetimes to China. The part of the Ummah that has relied on oil will have to work out what to do once oil no longer matters—and how to work with the West and China on the cleanup.

And I should hope that over a billion Muslims don’t need to draw lessons by comparison with a small bankrupt country of 10 million.

Aw, come on. No Canberra hate from you people? That’s positively UNAUSTRALIAN!

I admire the methodicality of Ben Reimers in his answer. In fact, do look at it: Ben Reimers’ answer to Is Canberra the worst city in Australia?

The emotive definition of a good city to live in, that OP is presumably after, is not intrinsically about access to a beach. Or at least, I don’t think it is, being not much of a beach-goer. (That’s un-Australian too.) But it is critical mass of population, to sustain a vibrant cultural, entertainment, and gastronomical life; good amenities; and nice landscape.

To some, it needs to be “a good place to raise a family”. Mila Karmacharya has said it, just as many say it about Perth.

That criterion is not necessarily antithetical to “critical mass of population, to sustain a vibrant cultural, entertainment, and gastronomical life”. But, well, if it is, that decides me on it. And decides everyone whole who lives in Sydney or Melbourne on it too.

The way out is to say that Canberra is too small to be a city to begin with. It certainly feels that way. Especially if you’re trying to get a cab in the afternoon, to get to the airport to escape Canberra.

It is true that the restaurant scene has improved radically in the last decade. There are even honest-to-God bars in Canberra now. (I hesitate to say pubs.) And I did see a homeless mission wondering about the CBD at night; so it’s not as Stepford as I’d thought it is.

But of the capitals of states and territories, it is certainly the sleepiest. And that weighs heavily on anyone who lives in Sydney or Melbourne.

Jimmy Liu for me too, Habib le toubib, and Jimmy Liu for a lot of us. Proof positive that gadflies don’t survive long here.

Dimitris Almyrantis was reminiscing about a banned user, and I asked him: “So, [whoever it was] was your Jimmy Liu, then.” He retorted “No, Jimmy Liu was my Jimmy Liu.”

Albanian and Greek are related, though not as closely related as their geographic proximity would suggest. So it could be a common inheritance, or it could be a loan.

*Goes to his copy of Vladimir Orel’s Albanian Etymological Dictionary*

*Finds that the page where thrime would appear has been misscanned*

*Bugger*

On that basis, I can’t answer the question with an informed opinion.

My uninformed opinion is that, if the word in two languages looks pretty similar, the default assumption is that it’s an old borrowing, not a native cognate (related word). If it was a common inheritance from Indo-European, you would expect it to diverge more.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that I am a popular Quoran.

Let us further assume that there is a substantial subset of my followerdom that I do not want to give gratuitous offence to, for one of sex, politics, or religion.

Assuming these, things, one would also be right to assume that, though I’m a pretty open book in general, I do use the Anonymity facilities of Quora, rather than give gratuitous offence.

One would also assume that I would be a little more judicious about my comments and upvotes to follow suit.

I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided against it. I’m reluctant to go over the top in what subject matter I upvote and comment on, but I have decided not to refuse to upvote and comment anything but cute fluffy bunny rabbits.

Obviously there’s an inconsistency in that, and I think I’ve lost a friend over it, but… *shrug*. It’s a difficult balance to strike.

If any of my followers know what the hell I’m talking about and are in fact unhappy with me, well, we can take it up in messages; but I’ve drawn my dividing line.

Gigi J Wolf’s answer to What are some things you will never do on Quora?

Comment, Michael Masiello:

You’re a better man than I, Charlie Brown. I break so many of these lupine commandments that I feel every inch a sinner.

Forgive me, La Gigi, for I have sinned.

• I’ll never post another meme.

I did it once without even thinking it, and them removed it before being nabbed by the meme police. But I unrepentantly post memes that are actually not gratuitous, but are discussed in the question (such as a meme of Obama as an action hero, proving that at least some American attitudes had changed).

• I’d post a meme and cartoon every single dang answer if I could, but I don’t want my answers collapsed.

I’d post a cartoon of my own making to every single answer if I could be bothered, but drawing and scanning is a little too much of a hassle. Let alone actually getting the shape of people right.

• I’ll never post a selfie of me without makeup, or when I just wake up. Quit asking.

Guilty. I have in fact posted one or two selfies without makeup. Though almost all photos are from an external party.

• Or while I’m on the potty. How would you like that?

Not one of my kinks. I’m ok, thanks.

• I’ll never use profanity, or even say things like ‘potty’.

… Bugger.

• I’m never going to go into graphic detail about sex.

I will never go into graphic detail about sex under my own name, anyway…

• I’m never going to fink and write about the rotten things someone did to me.

I don’t name names, unless they’ve blocked me, but I do try and behave here within BNBR. I do hold grudges, but I haven’t been strongly enough motivated to dish on them here.

• I don’t think I’ve ever been very critical of Quora here. Unless their definition varies greatly from mine. Or unless Alec Baldwin is a mod.

I’ve just dedicated a whole blog to being critical of Quora, so… again, bugger.

• I’m never going to give graphic details of the horrible events of my childhood, or whether my parents spanked me, or whether I hated any of my relatives.

I’ve mentioned the fly swatter in a survey question, but I don’t have a lot of horrors to relate anyway.

• I’m never going to get into super emotional detail about how I ‘feel’.

I often use Quora as therapy. Bugger.

• I’m never going to show anyone in a bad light, unless they’re a public persona and I can make innocent fun of them.

I’m not as innocent as I like to think I am, though again I don’t do it much.

• I’m not going to ever argue over whether God really exists or not.

God, no. Theist/Antitheist arguments on Quora are truly a reason to despair of both the existence of God, and of the essential goodness of humanity.

• I won’t answer questions about specific Quorans (Unless it’s me. Thanks, Guy!), and whether I think they’re dweebs.

… Guilty again, and several of those answers have had their parent question deleted.

• I don’t link to other answers unless the question asks me to.

Linking is one of my tics on Quora, and in fact I often link to an answer and suggest people upvote it instead of mine.

• I don’t thank anyone for upvotes. What is this, an AWARD ceremony?

Not succumbed, and so far not really been given enough upvotes to even be tempted to succumb.

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Anyone else want to go into which Lupine Commandments they’ve violated?

Darshan Nayak’s answer to Can we say that, “The speed of time is 1 second/second.”?

I asked the same thing to my school teacher, and she made a face and yelled “Stop wasting my time and get out!!”

That’s how Indian school teachers are!!

Remixing the others’:

Ut succurramus innovantes agiliter: To support by agilely innovating.

Vote #1 Alistair Smith: He’s got the most important stuff. Alistair Smith’s answer to What are the top 10 things everyone should know about Melbournians?

We are coffee snobs, we (well not me) are sports mad. We dress in black, and we wear layers because of the volatility of the weather. We (and I guess South Australia) are more lefty than the rest of the country; right wing shock jocks are much more a Sydney thing.

Alistair did #1–#6. I’ll add these as #7–10:

• We dislike Sydney. This is a fairly commonplace kind of city rivalry, and takes the form of sneering at their lack of culture (yes, they have the Opera House, we try to forget that). The worst thing we could say about the generic sitcom Hey Dad..! was “What do you expect of a comedy filmed in Sydney”. TV stations will try to keep the Sydney origins of most Australian TV shows quiet here.
• We have geographical divides. There is an impoverished West and an affluent East. There is a North of the River/South of the River split. People living in hipster Brunswick (such as, oh, everyone I knew at Melbourne Uni) would never venture any further south than St Kilda. Which is not very far south.
• There is an old stuffy class-conscious elite in Melbourne, though you really have to dig deep to find it. My one experience of it was being introduced to the venerable old historian Geoffrey Blainey, only to be asked by him whether I was related to the Nicholas family of Nicholas Aspro fame. (Australian Dictionary of Biography)
• Then again, Googling for links to them, maybe it’s just as well I’m not: Bloop, bloop, bloop – another one bites the dust.

Didn’t the Nicholas “Aspro” family write the book on the intergenerational pissing away of the family fortune?

• You will learn very little about Melburnians from watching The Real Housewives of Melbourne.

Oh. Vote #1 Alistair Smith.

Andrew Baird has blocked me, so I’ll post here my corrective that the Parthenon blew up because the Venetians bombarded it. Yes, the Ottomans stored their gunpowder there. They figured the Franks would never destroy the old stones they venerated. And there was noone in the Ottoman realm with the concerted evil of Michel Fourmont: the Ottomans, like their Greek subjects, did benign neglect of antiquities, not systematic destruction. They were not Wahhabis.

In fact, his picture of the Parthenon is an excellent illustration of what’s happened to the Ottoman presence in Greece for a different reason, and not even metaphorical. The Acropolis remained in use as the Athens citadel for millennia. There were any number of Byzantine, and Frankish, and Ottoman structures on the Sacred Rock. They were extirpated from the site in the 1830s, in the service of the single narrative of Hellenic Antiquity.

And a lot of the physical remains of Ottoman Greece were dispensed with in the same way. Particularly in Athens, and in Thessalonica only somewhat less so. (Not to mention turning the Hamza Bey Mosque there into the Alkazar porn cinema.)

So you have to look around to find minarets, and they’re something of a surprise when you do find them.