I always knew I was a country bear at heart . . .

[voluptuary_manque]

And here's one more good reason for staying out of the city!

 

[Tio_Narratore]

And here's one more good reason for staying out of the city!

Perhaps, bear, but if this isa scientific report, it's sorely lacking in size. A .4cm (less than 1/4 inch) difference in mean length with sample means of 9.7 and 9.3 is quite likely a result of sampling, and not of statistical significance (not to mention absolute size significance). We would need the sd for the populations as well if we wanted to know how significant the difference was. A proper report on populations provides both a measure of central tendency and a measure of dispersion; here we have only central tendency.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

It's a 'news' report. What do you expect from journalism?

 

[Tio_Narratore]

It's a 'news' report. What do you expect from journalism?

precisely. or not precisely, depending on how you look at it. By the way, the average rural length in this study was 3.82 in inches, while the city length was 3.66 inches; I wonder how many people would actually perceive a 1/7th of an inch difference in length? And, given the spongy nature of much of the organ measured, I wonder how accurate the measurements could have been?

Still, it's nice to know that someone is trying to answer the hard questions.

 

[Verdad]

This is Bulgarian countryside. It’s good to hear it’s got something going for it!

 

[TE999]

This study lends a new dimension to the cry of 'Ride 'em cowboy'.

Are there cowboys in Bulgaria or just sheepherders?

 

[trysail]

Thank god I'm a country boy...

-John Denver​

 

[3113]

Perhaps, bear, but if this isa scientific report, it's sorely lacking in size.

Science? We don't need no stinkin' science! Here in the U.S. we're outlawing science. It just messes up the truth we want to hear with facts

precisely. or not precisely, depending on how you look at it. By the way, the average rural length in this study was 3.82 in inches, while the city length was 3.66 inches; I wonder how many people would actually perceive a 1/7th of an inch difference in length?

Ex-cccccuse me, but we ladies are very, very sensitive. Don't you read the erotica here? We can measure a man to an eighth-of-an-inch just by having intercourse with him. Our vaginas are incredibly accurate, internal rulers--and we can calculate both in inches and centimeters. It's all we talk about when we meet up in public restrooms. Our latest measurements.

 

[3113]

This is Bulgarian countryside.

Soooo, it may not be rural vs. city, just Bulgarian rural vs. Bulgarian city? Whew! I was beginning to worry for the reputations my downtown homeboys.

Are there cowboys in Bulgaria or just sheepherders?

This might explain the extra 1/7th inch that rural Bulgarian men have. Sheep, uh?

 

[Verdad]

Are there cowboys in Bulgaria or just sheepherders?

I’d driven through a couple of years ago, and there were neither cowboys nor sheepherders and not much by way of agriculture either. The Thracian plane looked almost scorched; the villages could have served as a set for a Borat movie. It was a bit sad but also cool because you could see just where the Balkans began.

In the words of the Slovenian philosopher Zizek, the Balkans are an imaginary geography that in the minds of Europeans always begins somewhere else, toward the south-east:

For Serbs they begin in Kosovo or in Bosnia where Serbia is trying to defend civilized Christian Europe against the encroachments of this Other. For the Croats, the Balkans begin in Orthodox, despotic and Byzantine Serbia, against which Croatia safeguards Western democratic values. For many Italians and Austrians, they begin in Slovenia, the Western outpost of the Slavic hordes. For many Germans, Austria is tainted with Balkan corruption and inefficiency; for many Northern Germans, Catholic Bavaria is not free of Balkan contamination. Many arrogant Frenchmen associate Germany with Eastern Balkan brutality - it lacks French finesse. Finally, to some British opponents of the European Union, Continental Europe is a new version of the Turkish Empire with Brussels as the new Istanbul - a voracious despotism threatening British freedom and sovereignty.

Yet Zizek’s quip aside, there’s much to be said for the actual geography. In my entirely subjective impression, the Balkans began down in the east of Serbia. Around the same time as the mountainous terrain replaced the rich fields of the Danubian plane, the towns began looking poorer and more desolate and on the roadside stands you could no longer get a decent cup of espresso—a sign of faltering civilization if I’d ever known one!

In the Sicevo gorge, a river canyon of austere beauty, the road ran close to the Orient Express rails, enclosed by both sides by the looming granite walls. The mountain range that rises to prominence here continues toward the east, splitting Bulgaria in half. An uneasy silence must have set on the belle époque travelers as they passed through this gloomy place; the nature looked every bit as harsh and unforgiving to me. There was still some way to go till the Bulgarian border, but it was here I felt I’d passed a doorway into a different space and time. A small bribe we had to pay at the entrance in Bulgaria made official the change. The roads deteriorated; passing through a township every now and then, you could see a villager riding a used up cart pulled by a tired horse.

Sofia, however, didn’t feel unfamiliar. It had, if anything, entirely too many trademarked joints and flashing advertisements. Corporate logos seemed engraved in the sky. In stark contrast with the countryside left to abandon, the glitz of the neo-classicist downtown gave the city an aspect of a Potemkin village. Within a half hour’s walk of the major tourist sights, no façade was left unkempt and no window could be seen unpolished. A block away, the city lights went out at ten. The city’s two million inhabitants, with their average monthly salaries of two hundred euros or so, couldn’t be imagined to patronize many of the strategically placed boutiques. The whole thing smelled of money laundering.

The long and tumultuous history of the region is meticulously preserved, from the Thracian remains, across the multitude of gorgeous Eastern-style churches, to the monuments to Russian soldiers, still revered for freeing Bulgarians from the Ottoman yoke. Yet instead of a living culture whose thread goes back to the mythical Orphic dawn and continues into the melting pot of the 21st century, one experiences the past as a specimen preserved under the glass and the present as an illusion. On the pedestal that held a statue of Lenin, now stands a proud new Wisdom with an owl in her hand.

I didn’t have time to meet any people, though, so I apologize in advance if my perceptions are too bleak. Sadly, I didn’t get to conduct any anthropological measurements either!

 

[trysail]

I’d driven through a couple of years ago, and there were neither cowboys nor sheepherders and not much by way of agriculture either. The Thracian plane looked almost scorched; the villages could have served as a set for a Borat movie. It was a bit sad but also cool because you could see just where the Balkans began.

In the words of the Slovenian philosopher Zizek, the Balkans are an imaginary geography that in the minds of Europeans always begins somewhere else, toward the south-east:

For Serbs they begin in Kosovo or in Bosnia where Serbia is trying to defend civilized Christian Europe against the encroachments of this Other. For the Croats, the Balkans begin in Orthodox, despotic and Byzantine Serbia, against which Croatia safeguards Western democratic values. For many Italians and Austrians, they begin in Slovenia, the Western outpost of the Slavic hordes. For many Germans, Austria is tainted with Balkan corruption and inefficiency; for many Northern Germans, Catholic Bavaria is not free of Balkan contamination. Many arrogant Frenchmen associate Germany with Eastern Balkan brutality - it lacks French finesse. Finally, to some British opponents of the European Union, Continental Europe is a new version of the Turkish Empire with Brussels as the new Istanbul - a voracious despotism threatening British freedom and sovereignty.

Yet Zizek’s quip aside, there’s much to be said for the actual geography. In my entirely subjective impression, the Balkans began down in the east of Serbia. Around the same time the mountainous terrain replaced the rich fields of the Danubian plane, the towns began looking poorer and more desolate and on the roadside stands you could no longer get a decent cup of espresso—a sign of faltering civilization if I’d ever known one!

In the Sicevo gorge, a river canyon of austere beauty, the road ran close to the Orient Express rails, enclosed by both sides by the looming granite walls. The mountain range that rises to prominence here continues toward the east, splitting Bulgaria in half. An uneasy silence must have set on the belle époque travelers as they passed through this gloomy place; the nature looked every bit as harsh and unforgiving to me. There was still some way to go till the Bulgarian border, but it was there I felt I’d passed a doorway into a different space and time. A small bribe we had to pay at the entrance in Bulgaria, as well as a change of clock, made official the change. The roads deteriorated; passing through a township every now and then, you could see a villager riding a used up cart pulled by a tired horse.

Sofia, however, didn’t feel unfamiliar. It had, if anything, entirely too many trademarked joints and flashing advertisements. Corporate logos seemed engraved on the sky. In stark contrast with the countryside left to abandon, the glitz of the downtown gave the city an aspect of a Potemkin village. Within a half-hour’s walk of the major tourist sights, no façade was left unkempt and no window could be seen unpolished. A block away, the city lights went out at ten P. M. The city’s two million inhabitants, with their average monthly salaries of two hundred euros or so, can’t be imagined to patronize many of the strategically placed boutiques. The whole thing smells of money laundering.

The long and tumultuous history of the region is meticulously preserved, from the Thracian remains across the multitude of gorgeous Eastern-style churches to the monuments to Russian soldiers, still revered for freeing Bulgarians from the Ottoman yoke. Yet instead of a living culture whose thread goes back to the mythical Orphic dawn and continues into the melting pot of the 21st century, one experiences the past as a specimen preserved under the glass and the present as an illusion. On the pedestal that held a statue of Lenin, now stands a proud new Wisdom with an owl in her hand.

I didn’t have time to meet any people, though, so I apologize in advance if my perceptions are too bleak. Sadly, I didn’t get to conduct any anthropological measurements either!

☝​

★★★★★

 

[voluptuary_manque]

By damn, Verdad, that is downright poetic in it's desolation. Have you ever considered travel writing?

 

[Verdad]

Thanks, guys. I’ll consider it enthusiastically the moment I find someone to sponsor more trips!

 

[Tricialen]

Have to love those cowboys.....sigh

 

[TE999]

Have to love those cowboys.....sigh

Don't love us surfers anymore, huh? Like, wipeout, dude.

 

[Tricialen]

Don't love us surfers anymore, huh? Like, wipeout, dude.

Surfers are the best! All deeply tanned....and ripped....and sexy....especially you...surfer-boy...you know I love you!

 

[estragon]

Didn't the Word "Bugger"

derive from "Bulgarian"?

 

[Tio_Narratore]

derive from "Bulgarian"?

I don't know, estragon, it's all Greek to me.

 

[Handley_Page]

bugger /bg/ n.1 ME. [(MDu. f.) (O)Fr. bougre heretic, sodomite (arch.), person (colloq.), f. med.L Bulgarus Bulgarian (esp. as adhering to the Orthodox Church), heretic, Albigensian: see BULGAR.]
1 (B-.) A heretic; spec. an Albigensian. ME-M18.
2 A person who commits buggery. coarse slang exc. Law. M16. II Extended uses: all coarse slang.
3 An unpleasant or undesirable person or thing; (in weakened sense) a person, a chap. Cf. BEGGAR n. 3. E18.
4 A negligible amount. E20.

---------------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from Oxford Talking Dictionary
Copyright © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


Hope this helps

 

[Xelebes]

Perhaps, bear, but if this isa scientific report, it's sorely lacking in size. A .4cm (less than 1/4 inch) difference in mean length with sample means of 9.7 and 9.3 is quite likely a result of sampling, and not of statistical significance (not to mention absolute size significance). We would need the sd for the populations as well if we wanted to know how significant the difference was. A proper report on populations provides both a measure of central tendency and a measure of dispersion; here we have only central tendency.

Played around with the numbers (using 5 cm as a reasonable sample standard deviation.) Not good enough for a 2-sigma test.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Played around with the numbers (using 5 cm as a reasonable sample standard deviation.) Not good enough for a 2-sigma test.

I'd expect that, but a 5cm sd with a 9cm mean? Damn! about 3% of Bulgarian men, rural or urban, have penises longer than 8 inches flacid and the same number of them have ones less than half an inch!

 

[Xelebes]

I'd expect that, but a 5cm sd with a 9cm mean? Damn! about 3% of Bulgarian men, rural or urban, have penises longer than 8 inches flacid and the same number of them have ones less than half an inch!

Hm, I was thinking of full maturity and full arousal (14 cm x¯ and 5 cm s.) 3 cm s might be better, but it would not bring it any closer to passing the 2-sigma test.

 

[3113]

Played around with the numbers (using 5 cm as a reasonable sample standard deviation.) Not good enough for a 2-sigma test.

I'd expect that, but a 5cm sd with a 9cm mean? Damn! about 3% of Bulgarian men, rural or urban, have penises longer than 8 inches flacid and the same number of them have ones less than half an inch!

Stop it you guys! You know how hot and bothered I get when you go all math geek on me. And to be using these formulas to compute penis lengths.... (fans self).

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Stop it you guys! You know how hot and bothered I get when you go all math geek on me. And to be using these formulas to compute penis lengths.... (fans self).

There's a method to our madness . . . http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii177/1volupturary_manque/smilies/horny-1.gif