Month: April 2019

An interesting lecture from Zhenya Timonova on faith and knowledge. In her style 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYetEmrze8k

Amazon is just mocking me by showing an ad on Facebook for a phone that’s twelve (!) years old, it’s still on Windows CE. Most astonishingly, it’s not being sold as used, but as a new model. And it’s sold by HP themselves, clearly not in a single unit. Can someone tell HP what century we’re in?

HP Ipaq 210 Enterprise Handheld https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000XMLAI6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_GSRQCbA4NV0V4

Recently, early one morning, they observed a huge Moon on the horizon. I then pondered, why is it so huge there? Refraction of light? Something else?

I googled it. It turns out that scientists do not have a definitive answer to this question. There are only a set of theories. Here are the main points on the topic.

Firstly, the Moon does not actually increase in size at the horizon. This fact is easy to check: take 2 photos / sketch the angular dimensions on paper / hold a coin at arm’s length against the Moon and look with one eye / look at the Moon through a rolled-up paper tube, etc.

The Moon definitely does not increase because of the atmosphere. On the contrary! To be precise, because of the atmosphere and refraction, the Moon decreases vertically and becomes slightly flattened.

When the Moon is at the horizon, its angular sizes actually decrease: it becomes further from the observer by a distance approximately equal to the radius of the Earth.

Visually, any objects at the horizon look bigger, for example, constellations. Our brain attributes about 1.5 times more size to the object. The shape of the horizon and the objects on it also play a role: some give more apparent enlargement, others less. Thus, one of the reasons: a simple optical illusion of comparing objects, not the atmosphere at all.

Any objects in the clear sky, if you stand up straight and tilt your head back, will seem smaller. Conversely, if you lie down horizontally and compare the Moon against a clear horizon (i.e., tilt your head back), and then while lying down look up at the sky, the effect will change. This is an effect in the brain due to the position of the head.

Less significant facts explaining the illusion: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Иллюзия_Луны

Exactly two years ago I was at a #muse concert, and here I am again!

The show is freaking awesome. They will be in Moscow on June 15th, wherever you’re from – I highly recommend you don’t miss it 😉

TIL that “born” (рождаться) is a past participle of “bear” (нести), when used in the sense of “being born”. However, the same PP from bear in all other senses is different – borne.

When birth is being discussed, the past participle of “bear” is usually “born”: “I was born in a trailer—but it was an Airstream.” Note that the form used here is passive: you are the one somebody else—your mother—bore. But if the form is active, you need an “E” on the end, as in “Midnight has borne another litter of kittens in Dad’s old fishing hat” (Midnight did the bearing).

But in other meanings not having to do with birth, “borne” is always the past participle of “bear”: “My brother’s constant teasing about my green hair was more than could be borne.”

The simple past tense of “bear” when no helping verb is involved is of course “bore”: “Yesterday my wife bore twins.”

The dialectical form “borned” is not standard English.

+https://www.grammarly.com/blog/borne-born/