Month: May 2015

I figured out how much it costs to take a shower, drink tea, wash clothes, whether it’s necessary to save water and electricity, and to what extent.

“The pressure in the water supply system at the point of consumption in multi-apartment residential buildings for cold water ranges from 0.03 MPa (0.3 atm) to 0.6 MPa (6.0 atm);

for hot water – from 0.03 MPa (0.3 atm) to 0.45 MPa (4.5 atm);”

I measured it at home – 2 liters fill in 12 seconds. Therefore, 10 liters per minute.

Generally, the pressure of cold water can reach 17-18 l/min, which is about 3 atm.

Cost of water by meter:

cold – Mosvodokanal 29.16 RUB per cubic meter.

hot – MOEK – 135 RUB per cubic meter

Permissible hot water temperatures at the tap – acceptable limits of hot water temperature should be from 65 to 75 degrees Celsius.

Comfortable temperature range at the mixer – from 40 degrees to 50 degrees Celsius. At 65 degrees – skin burns in 2 seconds.

Let’s assume tap cold water runs very cold – 8 degrees. Usually, it ranges from 8 to 18 degrees, depending on pipe insulation and the season.

We’ll calculate for winter (8 degrees) and for summer (18 degrees)

WINTER:

50*x+8*y=45, x+y=1

50*x+8*(1-x)=45,

42x=37

x=88% hot water

y=12% cold water

SUMMER:

WINTER:

50*x+18*y=45

x+y=1

50*x+18*(1-x)=45,

50x+18-18x=45

32x+18=45

32x=27

x=64% hot water

y=36% cold water

Thus, comfortable shower temperature in SUMMER costs about

0.64*135RUB/cubic meter + 0.36*29.16RUB/cubic meter = 96 RUB per cubic meter or about 10 kopecks per liter

Thus, comfortable shower temperature in WINTER costs about

0.88*135RUB/cubic meter + 0.12*29.16RUB/cubic meter = 122 RUB per cubic meter or about 12 kopecks per liter

At 10l/min, a cubic meter is used up in 100 minutes.

Therefore, an hour of showering costs 57 rubles in summer and 73 rubles in winter.

If the shower temperature is raised from 45 to 50 degrees,

50*x+8*y=50, x+y=1

x=72%, y=28%.

0.72*135RUB/cubic meter + 0.28*29.16RUB/cubic meter = 108 RUB.

Therefore, the cost increases by 20 rubles / cubic meter.

Taking a bath – about 200 liters, i.e. on average 21 rubles.

Washing dishes – every 5 minutes of the tap running costs about 6 rubles.

If the pressure is higher than mine (not 10l/min but 17l/min), then all absolute amounts should be multiplied by 1.7.

Regarding electricity, it’s more interesting – an iron (1200W) on for 18 minutes or a kettle (2300W) on for 10 minutes uses as much energy as a 15W energy-saving bulb running continuously for a day in the hallway.

The cost of a 15W bulb on for a month – 47 rubles. If you have a standard 60W bulb, then four times more.

That comes back to the question, is it worth turning off the lights at night?)

At a water temperature of +5°C, it takes about 4 minutes plus or minus a few seconds to boil 1 liter of water.

At a water temperature of +25°C, it takes about 3 and a half minutes plus or minus a few seconds to boil 1 liter of water.

The power of a modern electric kettle is 2000-2200W, let’s take the average – 2100W. This means that in 1 hour, the kettle consumes 2.1 kW/hours.

At a cost of one kWh equal to 4.68 rubles, in 1 hour the kettle will spend 9.8 rubles. For apartments with electric stoves (like mine) the cost of electricity is 3.28 per kWh, which makes the figures 1.4 times lower (in brackets).

Let’s calculate:

At a water temperature of +5°C, boiling 1 liter of water will cost 1.4 rubles (1 ruble).

At a water temperature of +25°C, boiling 1 liter of water will cost 1.68 kopecks (1.2 rubles).

So, tea for guests costs 2.5 rubles including Lipton bags (sugar not included). Well, this is taking me off track now)

If you need to heat up warm water, the cost will drop even more.

Washing machine consumes from 1 to 1.5 kW/h. With laundry done 3 times a week for 2 hours, this results in 24 to 36 kW/h per month. Thus, one load of laundry costs about 9.3 rubles (6.6 rubles), and per month – 112-168 rubles (80-120 rubles).

An interesting concept would be a multiplayer attraction resembling an offline gaming area of modern standards, equipped with 3D helmets akin to the latest Oculus Rift and/or panoramic full-view screens, where one could sit in a chair suspended on hydraulics and indulge in a 3D shooter, racing games, or a flight simulator.

Gather the best of what is currently technologically available in hardware and software, and importantly – ensure multiplayer connectivity and network connection so that a team can come together and compete against each other, then later see their progress online and share it on social networks. An entire club could be built around this concept, complete with rankings and offline rewards, meet-ups and championships, a loyalty system, and partnership programs with offline retail.

Is this very expensive, complicated, or are there other reasons why such a setup does not yet exist in Moscow/St. Petersburg?

Masha was given a literature assignment to write a reply from the grandfather to Vanka’s letter “to grandpa in the village,” based on Chekhov. Masha wrote it.

For those who might not remember the story. Three months ago, the orphan Vanka Zhukov was sent by his grandfather to apprentice with the cobbler Alyakhin.

On Christmas Eve, he writes a letter to his grandfather about how he is faring there.

“…And this week the mistress told me to clean a herring, but I started from the tail, and she took the herring and started poking me in the face with its snout. Dear Grandpa, take me away from here, or I’ll die. I will grind tobacco for you, and if need be, beat me like Sidorov beats his goat…”.

Vanka would like to run to the village on foot, “but I have no boots, and I’m afraid of the frost.”

“…Pity me, an unhappy orphan, otherwise everyone beats me and I desperately want to eat!”

Bought an interesting toothpaste in France. The tube has a lever dispenser and a stand for placing the tube on a shelf. Such packaging is used not only for labell, but also, as I recall, for teraxyl.

By the way, Colgate was the first to use a soft tube, as you correctly guessed, for toothpaste. Later, glue and paint began to be put into tubes, and other manufacturers started using tubes for their products as well.

Watching “Only Old Men Are Going to Battle”, there’s a plane with notes drawn on it by Titarenko. First of all, the treble clef is shifted downwards, when it should curl around the second line from the bottom – the G note.

Secondly, a sharp D is drawn at the clef. This cannot be, as there is a strict order for sharps, with F-sharp always being the first; a D-sharp can only be the fourth.

P.S. Generally, it’s quite a glossy film.

In “Your groups” I found myself subscribed to 102 groups, of which I personally joined maybe two at most. The rest because I didn’t promptly click ‘Leave Group’ from the message “So-and-so added you to the group”. If I try to do it now, it takes about five to seven seconds for each one (there seems to be some reloading and the timer spins).

Damn Facebook. Adding me to (essentially) mailing lists without asking. Whenever messages show up from these groups, they appear in my feed. Maybe there’s a way in the settings to disable automatic joining?

Does anyone know how to unsubscribe from all groups en masse? Since 99% are just ads. Maybe there’s a plugin or something.

Check for yourself – maybe you’re also getting this kind of spam.

On my way from Kolomna, I listened to the first five chapters of the book “Memories of the War” by Nikolai Nikulin. I highly recommend reading it, or even better – listening to it. The narrative is maintained in the spirit of harsh trench truth, and the audiobook is very well narrated by Ivan Krasco.

The audiobook for downloading and online listening is here: http://www.rosbooks.ru/load/voennye_audioknigi_slushat_onlajn/nikolaj_nikulin_vospominanija_o_vojne/1-1-0-1656

In the car, you can listen via the free Android app “All Audiobooks” without ads.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.deeplogic.audiolib

Review: http://urokiistorii.ru/2010/05/nikulin-vospominaniya-o-voine

http://www.belousenko.com/books/nikulin/nikulin_vojna.htm

During his main speech at the Parade, two veterans were seated behind Putin among other presidents. One, who is directly behind, pulled out a camera at that time and is taking photos of Putin from behind, while the other one is picking his ears. Interestingly, the one with the camera has his hands positioned exactly at the level of Putin’s ears, which looks quite funny. The camera operators are switching angles, but apparently, there are not many good shots.

Note for startups: we haven’t seen this here yet.

In brief – a gift card for “a hotel stay” or “dinner in a restaurant” with a catalog of options. In the supermarket (the photo shows Intermarché in Lannion specifically) there’s a stand with books at the audacious price of 50-230 euros. The book contains real estate renting offers, but all for a fixed price equal to the catalog price and includes one day (or several days) of leisure which is part of the price. You can choose the leisure time later on their website. A wonderful gift, in my opinion.

http://wonderbox.fr

Sergey Molchanov

It all started with the family estate of René Chateaubriand, which I visited in France, in the small town of Combourg. There on the wall hung his diploma, issued at the end of the 18th century by the academy of arts. The academy’s logo was something peculiar (see photo).

I began to investigate. It turned out that it was a drawing based on the sculpture “Capitoline Wolf”, which in turn reflects the legend of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome.

According to the legend, they were the children of the daughter of the local king at that time, Numitor, Rhea Silvia, and the god Mars. Numitor’s younger brother, Amulius, ordered the infants to be thrown into the Tiber River in a basket, while their mother was locked in a dungeon. However, the basket washed up on the Palatine Hill, where the infants were found and nursed by a she-wolf. They later grew up, killed Amulius, restored Numitor to the throne, and later became the founders of Rome. Incidentally, the name of the city comes from one of the brothers, Romulus.

There are several versions of this she-wolf in various variations. During the time of Benito Mussolini, the Capitoline Wolf was used as a propaganda symbol, embodying the fascist regime’s aspiration to revive the Roman Empire.

Another interesting story is associated with the Roman bronze sculpture – until 2006 it was dated to the 5th century BC, but in 2006 radiocarbon analysis showed it to be from the 13th century. So now there’s a debate.