Mastodawn

#Poll: have you ever had #halva?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halva

Back in 2001, when I was reading #LordOfTheRings, I had a small carton of sesame halva that my mom left me.

When I was reading the part of the book where Gimli is discussing #Lembas, I was enjoying the halva, and ever since then, whenever I have halva, I call it lembas. ^__^

It's really, really, really good. It's obviously not a kind of bread, unlike Lembas, and it's of dubious nutritional value, but it is very tasty and filling.

Yes, and it is glorious.

65%

No, and I just realized that my life is incomplete

35%

Poll ended at Apr 16, 2025 at 2:44pm.

Halva - Wikipedia

thedoctor Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane This ... doesn't look appealing at all.

With a lot of Middle Eastern foods, you simply can't judge it based on looks.

Lembas... wait... I mean, halva is flaky, nutty, and sweet.

It's great eaten with bread (flatbread or pita, usually), or thinly sliced and enjoyed by itself.

That's the hard, cake-like sesame variety.

The other major variety (at least in Persian circles) is more pudding-like. It's dark, because the main ingredient is toasted flour. It's soft, sweet, kind of like a pudding, but not as smooth (as American pudding, at least). There's a certain granularity to the texture (like fine oatmeal), but not at all gritty or unpleasant.

It's so delightful (the "pudding" wheat-based variant) that it's actually served in funerals as a respite for the weary mourners. It contains rose water which is a natural olfactory antidepressant.

#Halva is heavenly.

Random Tux User Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane
I have most experience with the Indian version of it, but I have had the Middle Eastern version. If you ever get a chance to try carrot halva, or in some places it might be called gajar halva.

Its kind of different, like the middle eastern version but no one formed it into a block.

I've had it! One of our family friends makes all kinds of lovely desserts and has made it for us. <3

As I recall, it's a bit dry, not like a marmalade, but sweet. Looser than a cake, drier than a marmalade, very much its own thing. It's good! I don't like it as much as the other two major (Persian) styles (sesame ("cake") and wheat ("pudding")), but it's still good, and totally a halva!

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@enthusiast101 @rl_dane

Yess, I love both the Indian and (in my case) Afghan versions.

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane Loosely related. In the absolutely terrible Lord of the Rings board game, one of the players gets stuck in the mountains. Every turn, they roll 1d6 and 1-3, they insult the lembas bread and lose a turn.

The entire game was designed that those two characters have to be in a certain location before another player gets there.

But, due to random dice roll, I insulted the bread twenty-two times in a row and ended up dead-locking the entire game. No one could advance forward because I couldn't get out of the mountain and the event that another player had to be at when I finally escaped the mountain couldn't be resolved because they had already passed and were locked on me.

It was a really bad game.

That's hilarious. I'll send a link to your toot to my friend that loves, collects, and even designs board games.

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane Every time we end up driving in the mountains, Partner or I will look at each other and say "whatever you do, do not insult the bread!" and then we start laughing.

The kids have no context for the joke.

The kids have no context for the joke.

The very best kind of jokes, of course. ;)

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

Dad, I don't get fishing metaphors!

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane @dmoonfire

My parents tell jokes in Farsi which is cheating

@amin @dmoonfire

Do they still speak Farsi?

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane @dmoonfire

Oh, yeah. Very well.

I mean, they did live there for ten years, speaking it every day.

@amin @dmoonfire

That's awesome!

Do they have anyone they speak Farsi to on a regular basis? Any Farsi-speakers in Malaysia?

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane @dmoonfire

Just with each other and coworkers from then, really.

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@amin @rl_dane My mom knew about sixty languages. She would tell jokes in a lot of them just so I wouldn't get it.

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@dmoonfire @rl_dane

…how do you even know sixty languages? I doubt even @sotolf is anywhere near that point

sotolf Apr 15, 2025

@amin @dmoonfire @rl_dane nobody knows 60 languages, maybe enough phrases to impress someone, but I am really annoyed with online "polyglots" that have always been garbage in any language I happen to know :p

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@sotolf @amin @rl_dane My threshold has been "can you convince a CEO to give you money" as the threshold for "knowing" a language

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@sotolf @amin @rl_dane This also ties into my statement "writing lots of words doesn't mean they are good words" :D

sotolf Apr 15, 2025

@dmoonfire @amin @rl_dane CEOs are not really smart people :p I would very much say to really know a language you must be able to have a fulfilling long evening chatting with people about different themes without preparation.

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@sotolf @amin @rl_dane "Knowing" is a generic and squishy term, but I was avoiding specific proficiencies. In her case, if she was dropped in the middle of a city, she probably could find at least the bottom level of Mendel's basic needs in relatively short period of time. That's a form of knowing a language but still only a A2/B1 level of proficiency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages

And you only really need that level with a high degree of charisma to pull off a business meetings. The number of languages I would consider her proficient (C1 or C2) was considerably lower, much like I consider the number of programming languages I'm proficient in to be considerably smaller (much like I know only a dozen programming languages well enough I can program in my head).

But tying into the original conversation, you only need A1 to screw over your children with jokes they can't understand. :D

Common European Framework of Reference for Languages - Wikipedia

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@sotolf @amin @rl_dane

I wrote a dice rolling program in C#, I'm an expert!

:D

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@dmoonfire @sotolf @rl_dane

Writing a "hello world" program in SPL (Shakespeare Programming Language) is enough to be an "expert", imo.

@amin @dmoonfire @sotolf

"Speak your mind!"

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane @dmoonfire @sotolf

Yes, haha

gorkmo Apr 16, 2025

@rl_dane @amin @dmoonfire @sotolf “You are bad but not bad but you are multiplied by two and your mother’s brother’s daughter’s cousin’s former roommate smelt of elderberries!”

sotolf Apr 15, 2025

@dmoonfire @amin @rl_dane I would really want to know which languages, and the proficiency, because I've heard that claim so many time, and every time it's been like one sentence in an awfully accented version of the language, and I'd say 20 is possible as in able to hold a conversation in the language, maybe 15 at B2 which is the least required level for any job that I have ever applied for, I have a B2 certificate in 3 languages, some are dusty now, and some that I get for free or cheap from knowing the languages I know, I would say unless you're in a very specific job I'd say more than three times that is not really feasible. From experience with "polyglots" it's just a trick to fool people that want to believe.

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@sotolf @amin @rl_dane Perfectly reasonable question and assumptions. I also cannot give the details you'd want to know.

sotolf Apr 15, 2025

@dmoonfire @amin @rl_dane I do ask because I've tested out 10 or so "polyglots" who in the end showed themselves as being basically confidence trickster, and I wouldn't put any of them in even one of the A groups in any of the non-english languages I use.

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@sotolf @dmoonfire @rl_dane

My contribution to this thread was inviting in a linguist, and I'm satisfied with that. 😌

sotolf Apr 15, 2025

@dmoonfire @amin @rl_dane B1 is way higher than you think, that is managing daily life with a small vocabulary, able to read young adult books, and being reasonably fluid, knowing basic grammar, and having conversations about daily things, plus specific subjects if prepared.

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@sotolf @amin @rl_dane I'm aware of what skill B1 requires, but I think we aren't going to come to any form of agreement. What do you say to ending the thread?

sotolf Apr 15, 2025

@dmoonfire @amin @rl_dane I'm going to read and sleep now anyway, so I don't know, hope you have a wonderful rest of your day :)

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@sotolf @amin @rl_dane Take care.

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@dmoonfire @sotolf @rl_dane

Polymaths.social: where the internet arguments end with "Take care."

Corvus Apr 15, 2025

@amin @dmoonfire @sotolf @rl_dane I hope all of you have a wonderful evening.

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@Corvus @dmoonfire @sotolf @rl_dane

And you, as well!

@amin @Corvus @dmoonfire @sotolf

"May the hellthread be with you."

Peter Paterson Apr 15, 2025

@sotolf My CEO Michael Halligan of God's Pantry Food Bank is one of the smartest and most compassionate men I have ever known.
He runs rings around me in data analysis, and gave me a long hug after my father passed away.

sotolf Apr 15, 2025

@solusspider You can be very empathetic and a good person without being smart ;) And I also don't mean it exclusively, but in general. For a huge majority of them we'd be better off had we guilliotouined them :p

Peter Paterson Apr 15, 2025

@sotolf I know you were not being specific.
I merely pointed out an exemption fact.
We have to watch those wide brushes.

sotolf Apr 15, 2025

@solusspider I don't really think anybody can, anything anybody says is at some point relative or subjective, the only objective-ish thing we have is good science, but that makes most people feel uncomfortable so we tend to paint with a broad brush to simplify.

Peter Paterson Apr 15, 2025

@sotolf Ahhh... so "we" do?
Over and out.

sotolf Apr 15, 2025

@solusspider again, nothing I say is "the objecive truth" I am not even sure such a thing exists :)

@dmoonfire @amin

SIXTY?!? HOW???

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane @amin Well, it's a lot like programming languages. Once you get a couple of them under your belt, picking up a related language is just a matter of vocabulary and syntax. There is a lot of commonalities in the Romance languages and things based on Latin. So once she already knew Spanish and French, Italian wasn't that hard. Add in the Germantic languages and you add a whole slew of to the mess along with the languages that steal heavily from them. Put those together and she was functioning in Sweden.

That isn't to say she spoke like a native. She was a lot closer to Sean Connery speaking with a Russian accent. She could do business in there, but there was no question she was an American Speaking a Foreign Language. Grrl Power had an appropriate quote related to that.

"You speak like a wolverine ate a thesaurus, then violently diarrheaed on a text to speech scanner attached to an intermittently malfunctioning bullhorn!"

https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1332-al-ari-al-ara-al-ari-al-ara-ha-ha-ha-ha/

It was cool watching her to to Tel Aviv one year, going from "I can't do anything" to being able to order dinner in less than twenty four hours, play tourist the next day, and be able to stand on her own in a business meeting the day after that.

Grrl Power #1332 – Al-ari, al-ara, al-ari, al-ara ha ha ha ha – Grrl Power

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane @amin I'm not a polyglot. Growing up, I had to learn Polish, Russian, German, French, and Spanish and I suck at every single one of them. Mostly because I have a mild speech impediment and hearing issues.

My own skill set is more toward programming languages. Up until two years ago, I could have confidently said I could learn any programming language in a week and be able to write an enterprise application. And I had done so for large hunks of my life, from obscure POS languages to others. I could also say I comfortable have coded in 60+ languages, though most of them are utterly useless at this point in my life because I never want to see them again. :D

In forty years, there is only one language I'm incompetent in and that is Nix. I hate that language so much.

@dmoonfire @amin

Favorite and least favorite languages, and go!

Ok, you already mentioned Nix. Next least-favorite, then.

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane @amin For second least favorite? DCPA. An obscure COBOL offshoot without the data structures geared toward mainframes and promptly forgotten by everyone as soon as code was migrated off that.

Third least favorite? Brainfuck. Debugging that sucks.

Favorite? C#, followed by Typescript, then Rust.

@dmoonfire @amin

Why C#? I think I've asked this before in a different context, but you get to answer it however you like. ;)

sotolf Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane @dmoonfire @amin Programming languages are also way more similar and easier to learn than natural languages, I have code snippets written in 40+ programming languages mostly a bit more complicated than fizzbuzz, and basically if you know loops and conditions you can be dangerous in most of them :p

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@rl_dane @amin C# is pretty.

Really, I remember getting the O'Reilly book for C# 1.0 after spending years in Java and just going through and admiring the things they expanded on in Java and deciding that it was a aesthetic language that I thought was pretty. I liked the delegates, I like the properties, I liked the reflection. I like that they embraced the EMCA standard (ECMA-334 and ECMA-335) when Sun was being an ass about Java.

Then someone paid me lots of money to write it for a day job. And then more people paid me to keep writing it while I could donate effort to FOSS projects: Mono project needed volunteers back when I was trying to be a Debian developer, Debian needed a packaging system for pnet and mono, I was writing game libraries and games in it, submitted some patches to Tomboy and other libraries. I ended up maintaining csharp-mode for Emacs for a bit until I hit my skill limits trying to font-lock generics.

I just kept using it, focusing my OCD and fixation on it until I was really good at it.

One year, I wanted to understand the CIL (EMCA-335), so I wrote an interpreter. Yeah, it was for the most basic version and filled with bugs, but that gave me a fairly good understanding of the bytecode of C# (CIL), which lead me into playing with LOLCATZ and Brainfuck.NET which was just fun.

The language fits my style of thinking, as I evolved from C to C++ to Java to C#. At this point, I don't really think about the language since I just focus on what I want to do with it and I pretty much know what I have to do to make it happen.

Same thing with my cheesecake recipes. (And I hope my writing, but clearly ten years wasn't enough for that.) I found something I liked, obsessed about it, and just got good at it.

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@dmoonfire @rl_dane

Third least favorite? Brainfuck. Debugging that sucks.

…do esolangs count?

@dmoonfire @amin

Epic quote!

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@dmoonfire @rl_dane

Haha, I remember that scene.

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@amin @rl_dane As side character, Lorlara is just gloriously over the top and unapologetic in her ways. She must be a lot of fun to write since she knows she's on the side of questionable evil and is more than just okay with it.

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Apr 15, 2025

@dmoonfire @rl_dane

Isn't she just in a few scenes though?

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@amin @rl_dane Na, she goes back. The whole "mmm, bacon" with the duel verses underwear scene.

I really would love if comic management software would let you tag a character and let you go back and forth for every strip a given character shows up on. I would use it so often with characters I identify with (like Roku from Questionable Content).

D. Moonfire Apr 15, 2025

@amin @rl_dane Oh, and the whole "I hate interrupt your brooding time, sir, but..." which I also adore. :D