Alexey Chervonenkis found dead | Hacker News Reader

Alexey Chervonenkis found dead

en.wikipedia.org

50 pointsreinhardt24 comments

In brief -

There's a very large park in Moscow called Лосиный остров ("Moose Island"), more of a forest really. On Sep 21st he went out for a walk in this park and around midnight called his relatives and told them he got lost. They called the police and the emergency services. Tried calling him back as well, but he didn't answer. On Sep 23rd his body was spotted from a helicopter that was involved in a search and it was ID'd by the relatives.

The rest of the article is fluff.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losiny_Ostrov_National_Park

Лосиный means elk?

Moose is американский лось

I've been working on a Russian language app. It's kind of important that I understand the nuances.

I don't know Russian, but if this is any similar to Polish, then Лосиный will be an adjective form of the noun лось. американский just means "American".

There's no real differentiation between moose and elk in Russian, since elk is the only one of the two indigenous to Russia and moose is a North American thing, so there's no real need to "split hairs" so to speak if you're talking to someone who grew up in the Russian language. They'll assume you're talking about elk.

You could theoretically call both лось and have it sound ok to a Russian speaker. It's not something you'd pick up from the language as much as from knowing Russian culture/flora/fauna.

I've got several iOS language apps so I need to "split hairs". http://appstore.com/h4labs. Even getting the nouns right in many languages was harder than I thought it would be.

In that case, it sounds like you should probably hire a native Russian (and Spanish, etc.) speaker to vet your dictionary.

Each translation was done and verified by at least two native speakers.

Every Spanish speaking country has linguistic differences, Russia's so huge maybe they do too?

"American Elk Island" probably wouldn't fly too well as a place name, in any case.

It is a naming confusion (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk#Naming_and_etymology). Russian word "лось" refers to what North Americans call "moose" and in British call "elk" (Alces alces species). The animals of species "Cervus Canadensis", which in North America is called "elk" is called "Вапити" in Russian (i.e. "wapiti"). Russians never use "Американский лось" to name an animal, because it is the same species in North America and Eurasia.

> called "Вапити" in Russian

I'm a native speaker and I've never even heard this word before. I'd use "олень", but I'm no biologist. They all are either олень or лось to me :)

Well, wapiti _is_ a species of deer, but it is called that to distinguish it from European species of red deer (Cervus Elaphus - благородный олень) which is what Russians usually mean by "deer".

Лось is either. "Aмериканский лось" is something that you may hear on Animal Planet in a show about elks and moose.

Chervonenkis had an appointment at Royal Holloway College, and their site has more:

http://www.clrc.rhul.ac.uk/people/chervonenkis/

I slightly knew Vladimir Vapnik for a while when he was at AT&T research, and he was a very kind, approachable, and passionate guy. You just had to not let his rather formidable reputation (VC dimension, uniform convergence, and the SVM, which at the time was just emerging) get in the way.

Link to Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Chervonenkis

Not in his individual Wikipedia article (yet) : He name is the 'C' in VC-dimension : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VC_dimension

I suppose this is a good time to mention hiking safety.

Boy Scouts of America Hiking Safety Recommendations:

- Always tell someone where you are going and when you will return.

- Never hike alone or at night; use the buddy system.

- Dress properly for the weather and environment.

- Wear sun and insect protection

- Take an extra pair of socks in case you need to change.

- Obey traffic signs and signals.

- Avoid hiking along roadways.

- Stay on the trail.

- Be alert to your surroundings.

- Don't litter as you hike.

- Be alert to dangerous animals, insects, and plants.

- Never touch a wild animal.

- Take 1 pint of water for each hour you will be hiking.

- Never drink untreated water.

I read about him just now, admittedly was not aware of him prior.

My first thought though given the location was "so what was this guy doing the government didn't like?".

Wikipedia has very sparse information about this man but at 76 years old even stumbling can become a fatal accident.

"Given the location"? What is it about a forest that makes you think the government was involved? Or do you mean that every death in Russia is a suspicious death?

My comment was exactly that...

Basically saying that as someone uneducated on foreign affairs my gut reaction to a death of a prominent Russian scientist is to suspect that the article is about suspicious conditions.

Not sure why this got negative feedback... I bet a lot of people immediately thought that was the purpose of the story.

People seem to be interpreting your comment as an accusation, rather than an admission of bias.

Thank you. I think you are right. Felt like somehow what I said was inflammatory. If anything it's admission of ignorance... but one I thought was worth mentioning.

If you were a native Russian, your would look out not for malice but rather for negligence and indifference on part of the authorities. Which is why I, for one, think the right question to ask is: how did it come that a person so evidently in distress could not be located quickly in a place like that? No doubt, Losiny Ostrov is a large park (it is about the same size as Pinnacles State Park in California), but it is surrounded on all sides by urbanized territory and should have excellent mobile coverage. Given that Chervonenkis had a phone on him, couldn't Search and Rescue have the mobile provider determine his location (qv. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking) with at least the accuracy that would allow for a small ground team to find him?

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