@ljs look, here's how serious czechs are about the venus of dolni vestonice
ready to shoot doc. oliva, phd. in the head the moment he makes an inappropriate joke

@ljs very difficult for mr. oliva to keep his composure
you know, since the turn of the century or so he himself has transitioned from being an archaeologist to being a subject of his own field's study. he's a 20th century archaeologist.
so when he comes to a lecture, he arrives with a stack of handwritten notes, sits down and reads from them monotonously. his ability to interact with people is long gone.
the only thing in the world what cheers him up are the depictions of primary or secondary sexual characteristics. thankfully, being a 20th century archaeologist, he sees them everywhere.
which is why he's looking at the venus' butt
stay strong docent oliva!!!

@ljs of course nobody knows what venus of vestonice was used for
which means 20th century archaeologists tend to assume it's porn
but fairly recently a child fingerprint, made when the clay was still wet, was identified on the figure's butt (this may explain why is mr. oliva inspecting it)
so perhaps it was a child's toy
:(

who's this docent oliva you speak of? it got me curious. my surname is not very common even in brazil. I've heard of olivas from portugal, spain, and even from poland, but czechia is a first. is this about a fictional character or a real person?

@lxo @lkundrak are you the not-decent Oliva?

@ljs @lxo @lkundrak "docent" means associate professor. Oliva is not so rare surname in CZ. I know another docent oliva who's a computational linguist.

@vbabka @lkundrak @lxo you are not a d?cent Babka

@lkundrak he mustn't chuckle to himself for even a second or dude with big gun pulls big trigger

@lkundrak he holds her in bare hands? WTF???

@lkundrak @ljs I know nothing of present day Mr. Oliva however sometimes in summer of 2001 or 2002, I spent a week working for him in a field near Vedrovice, sleeping in a tent. 🙂

There was other guy from the museum working at the site, Petr Neruda, who was young at the time. IIRC years after this, there was some piece of news that there was some row between the two? 😜

@lkundrak @ljs recently some clues were taken from animist peoples of Siberia who continue to make similar artifacts to this day.

@lxo he's a real person. I'm not too familiar with him, just happened to attend a couple of his lectures (that were above totally above my grade) out of curiosity. I think he's fairly popular here; he used to be the head of human evolution museum in my city and generally is the go-to person when the media needs to talk to someone accomplished in the field of archaeology.

It's perhaps obvious, but "oliva" indeed literally means "olive" in Czech. I don't think it's a very common name, but it doesn't sound odd or unusual either.

The other Oliva I am familiar is Jon Oliva of heavy metal band Savatage (also his brother, used to play guitar in the band but died in a car accident in 90's). I think they're from Tampa, Florida.

@mirek very old-school

@djasa @ljs i have zero idea about archaeology gossip
but i can appreciate the idea of a drunken fist fight in a dirt pit on an prehistoric site

@vbabka @lxo @ljs as someone mostly untouched by academia, i had no idea that a docent means an assistant professor
i thought mr. oliva was like a boss level professor or something because he was old and weird :(

@djasa @ljs fat-bottomed girls?

@lkundrak @djasa we are kidding ourselves if we imagine ancient people didn't wank

@lkundrak @vbabka @lxo if only you were untouched by your uncle...

@ljs @djasa i think nobody doubted that about humans. but it was not until sapolsky's ground breaking primatology research that we finally observed a baboon wank

@lkundrak @djasa aren't primates (and Brno-mates) renowned for wanking at the drop of a hat in zoos where both should be kept?

I thought this was common knowledge

@lkundrak @djasa that reminds me of the Bruce Lee/Chuck Norris fight in way of the dragon, which is probably exactly what happened

@ljs @djasa one historian once told me when i tried to be smart about ritualistic context of palaeolithic cave art: "look, hunter-gatherer bands occasionally met there when there was plenty to eat. i think it was a party site. the old ones gossiped and the young ones fucked"
:(

@lkundrak @djasa yeah I do think there's often far too much high-minded clinical assessments of ancient people with a modern mindset where saying the wrong word one time can get you 'cancelled'.

Back then life was 'brutish and short' as they say and fantasising about green sprouts of civilisation when people were just out being humans and surviving is unhelpful I think.

@ljs @djasa @lkundrak slightly off-topic but a related fun fact - the zoo in Brno actually had (possibly still has but I haven't been in a decade) a homo sapiens cage in the primates section and paid people to be there

@liskin @djasa @lkundrak I have a feeling hammer smashed was often in this cage

@ljs @djasa @lkundrak Possibly. Or perhaps this never happened. I have a vivid memory of rescuing a teddy bear from a grizzly bear exhibit, but I can't find any photos from either.

@liskin @djasa @lkundrak BRNO IS THE ZOO

@ljs @liskin @djasa @lkundrak wow such a degenerated thread

@vbabka @djasa @liskin @lkundrak what can anybody expect given who's involved.

We are what we are

@ljs @djasa @liskin sadly, no, because i identify as a neanderthal

@lkundrak @ljs Given the anatomical exaggeration, it may have been Barbie.

@lkundrak @djasa @ljs btw this blew my mind yesterday https://denikn.cz/1233067/vzacna-hrobka-pod-tatrami-je-stara-1600-let-muzete-si-ji-prohlednout-nazivo-a-je-to-zazitek/?cst=1e15da7dc528f80c42c5408e4fc959d3ef70d9299c29f69d134bac3aad377260
Too bad .sk will turn to a Mordor soon so I won't see it.

@vbabka @lkundrak @djasa Ah wow. I'd be a bit scared to go down there with hammer smashed though.

He might revert to his primal ways

@vbabka @djasa @ljs wow, fifth century. pretty fucking insane.
i suspect not much will change about slovakia, for better or worse. they're pretty much used to having total dickheads and career criminals run the country. when things go too bad, a higher force sends a sensible president to restore balance

@lkundrak @vbabka @djasa sorry to hear you have such shit to deal with, I am a big fan of Slavic people in general as you can tell (I am even married to one, no not @vbabka ), and I try to be an honorary Slav myself, so I hope balance comes soon...

@ljs @djasa @vbabka oh, i thought "shit we have to deal with" is generally the slav people :)

@lkundrak @djasa @vbabka no it's shirtless brits

@ljs @djasa @vbabka oh, let's clear this issue up.

*** British lads don't know how to drink! ***

your young ones seem to be blissfully unaware that you get blackout drunk from drinking too fast, not necessarily too much! it's perfectly okay to sit down, run your mouth and slowly drink your beer. no need to chug it down quickly -- you're staying the whole night and having ten more anyway.

but i think i've noticed the problem. you're tapping the beer wrong! where's the fucking hat! of course you're finishing the beer down quickly, without a hat it oxidizes and turns to piss.

i've seen british people being offended by the foam hat. incredible. there has to be one inch of a wet foam that stays until you finish the beer. it's there so that the beer could be drank slowly!

if you intend to finish the beer down quickly, it's perfectly okay to ask for no foam (in czechia you ask for "hladinka", in slovakia you get laughed off) but that shouldn't be the default, and you only do that if you really really are getting just one beer.

Edit: jesus, this got me emotional. perhaps the right time to apply for czech citizenship.
Also, why does my spell checker suggest changing "british" to "brutish". Oh, it's the capitalization.

@ljs @djasa @vbabka same with spirits. i think what slavs have figured out is that when you slow your drinking down a little bit you can drink much more. ingenious.

@lkundrak @djasa @vbabka yeah to be honest I think you're right, though what you guys do with foam is fucking crazy sometimes.

I had pilsner urquell in prague and it always had a huge 'head' as we call it, but it went down nicely.

I guess at that size head it can keep longer but you're totally right about beer going bad without that if you don't drink quickly enough.

Another think with british drinking culture is a desire to 'prove yourself' by drinking far too much.

As a 42yo man I don't have to worry about that any more but in your youth it's a thing.

I prefer the more relaxed Prague drinking culture (God only knows what you Brno monsters do)

@lkundrak @ljs @djasa hm wouldn't say "hladinka" is no foam, just foam that's level with the rim of the mug.

@ljs @djasa @vbabka the crazy things are probably "snyt" (1/2 glass foam) or "mliko" (only foam). It's not like they're too popular unless we're showing off to tourists, but they're actually fairly pleasant to drink. The thing is that it's very wet, not too foamy, essentially feels like drinking a little lighter beer.

When it comes to proving ourselves, same thing here. Except that the drinking culture is unhealthy enough that we go through this earlier in our teens.

Nor would we ever find ourselves in a position where boarding a plane and flying somewhere where the drinks are cheaper would make sense. I guess then you're motivated to drink even more, so that the numbers add up. A pity the fines and medical expenses ruin them afterwards :(

@vbabka @djasa @ljs yes, you're right
s/hladinka/čochtan/
hladinka is the sensible one