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Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

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Anti-Matter

I am Anti-Matter !

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NintendoByNature

@Zuljaras nice! It's kind of like our independence day, but we weren't slaves to England. How do you guys usually celebrate?

NintendoByNature

Zuljaras

@NintendoByNature It is a non working day for the whole country and many people gather at our monuments of freedom where many people died from the slavers trying to change for the better.

We have an Independence Day as well but it is in 22 of September.

NintendoByNature

@Zuljaras very neat. I love learning about different countries and there customs. Have a good day tomorrow!

NintendoByNature

Tyranexx

@Heavyarms55 Hard to say. I know for a fact that trying to talk someone through something on the phone is a lot easier said than done, particularly if they don't know or aren't comfortable with what they're doing. I'd suggest trying to use something like Team Viewer if that's viable, but the time zone difference would certainly make that difficult.

Source: Someone in IT who supposedly knows everything about computers and is the default family support specialist.

...I definitely don't know everything.

@Zuljaras Have fun! Days off in the middle of the week make the rest of the week a bit odd, but hey, it's still a day off!

"Love your neighbor as yourself." Mark 12:31

HobbitGamer

NintendoByNature wrote:

@Zuljaras nice! It's kind of like our independence day, but we weren't slaves to England. How do you guys usually celebrate?

Eh, I guess we were more like serfs.

@Zuljaras Enjoy the day!

#MudStrongs

Switch Friend Code: SW-7842-2075-5515 | My Nintendo: HobbitGamr

NEStalgia

@Zuljaras From the American perspective, your country was first discovered a mere 30 years ago!

@NintendoByNature " we weren't slaves to England. " A matter of semantics really. The only real dividing line between slavery and serfdom/peasant subjects is papers of ownership. Certainly neither are free. And "new world" peasants were second class subjects, a good portion of which were effectively banished from the UK to begin with. An island of misfit toys and rejects with no free will may not be technically "property" of a slaver, but as subjects of the crown, you're really owned by the crown all the same. The concept of "citizens" instead of "subjects" hadn't hit the UK at that point still.

NEStalgia

HobbitGamer

@Zuljaras Of course we do! It's next to Hungary and Wallachia, and Transylvania.
(I'm kidding, I do know. But I bet folks think 'Eastern Europe' and assume it's in the top-right tucked up to Russia)

#MudStrongs

Switch Friend Code: SW-7842-2075-5515 | My Nintendo: HobbitGamr

NEStalgia

@Zuljaras Sure we do, It's in Russia, with all the bears and stuff. EVERYONE knows that!

@HobbitGamer has the right of it. Everything East of Berlin = Russia in the US. And all are impoverished countries with an early 20th century level of technological advancement.

That's of course a stereotype and egregious parody of the American knowledge of geography, obviously it's not actually that bad, at least not universally, and is a bit of poking fun. But like all stereotypes it has its basis in at least some truth. At at least the US stereotype is based mostly on lack of knowledge and general apathy/disinterest in the region seen as otherwise uneventful.

There's also a practical reason that imagery persists here, though. A lot of people here of course have ancestry from various countries in Eastern Europe (half of which no longer exist), and most of those ancestors left there at a point where all that was pretty much true, so that's kind of the family legend everyone grows up hearing every generation. The last time great-great-great grandpa saw the place it really was Russia, destitute, backward, and with active human hunts on a regular basis. The history got kind of frozen in time to the last point the family was there in the early 20th century when it was a miserable, hopeless, living nightmare to be near (anywhere in Eastern Europe.) So it's not all plain ignorance, but sort of a "family tradition" a lot of people hear. No need to ever visit "the old country" that your nearest connection to was 3+ generations ago, so that overall mood of Communist era Eastern Europe kind of endures in the mind-share as "present" forever. Not all inaccuracies are 100% attributable to American ignorance

NEStalgia

Zuljaras

@NEStalgia HAAHHA! Nice. I have watched lots of videos when they were "new" about US Students given a map of Europe with the countries but no names. And they were tasked to write the names of the countries. It was lots of fun! It was similar to what you described. 80% of Europe was Russia and that was it

[Edited by Zuljaras]

NEStalgia

@Zuljaras Don't feel bad, those same kids would draw a US map that consists only of California, Texas, New York, and Disney. Canada would be Alaska, The Florida Keys would be Hawaii, and at least 30 states would be missing. There would be at least one New England State, a State of Chicago, and and Old Jersey would appear somewhere.

Those videos don't tend to reflect kids on a scholarship track, exactly.....

NEStalgia

NEStalgia

@Zuljaras I can't say it's not a real thing, it's not a specific thing. Various local contests and such probably exist for various things. 30 minutes would be an awfully long time. If it took that long, you're probably cheating. Unless you forget about New Hampshire and all of it's 10 residents.

NEStalgia

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