Month: October 2019

I wonder if there could exist a society where everyone would be required to allocate certain fixed taxes across a portfolio ranging from police maintenance, healthcare services to education, with the departments themselves convincing people to invest more in them than in other areas?

I wonder, what prevents the use of the three-ballot voting system? Its principle is as follows: each voter receives a ballot with a unique number that has three detachable stubs. To vote “FOR”, the voter marks the selected candidate on any two parts of the ballot, and to vote “AGAINST”, the candidate is marked only on one part of the ballot where they are listed. If there is not at least one mark for each candidate, the ballot is considered invalid. A validator checks that the following condition is met (the number of markings for each candidate is greater than or equal to one and does not exceed two). The voter receives a receipt with a number (but without an indication of whom they voted for). After the election ends and votes are counted, a list of voters and all parts of the ballots are published in a public ballot database, so that everyone can check if their vote was counted. According to the protocol, the number of ballots is three times the number of voters who participated in the voting and correctly filled out their ballots. The number of votes cast for each candidate is calculated as the difference between the number of marks for the candidate and the number of correctly filled ballots, divided by three. If desired, it is possible to reconcile the number of attendees with the number of different numbers. What are the drawbacks?

I love this channel, just excellent visualization and explanations of everything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK32jo7i5LQ

Two photographs taken almost simultaneously (the sun managed to rise slightly in one of them). One photograph was taken on film (Kodak ISO 200, Minolta 5000i, 35-80mm), the other on a smartphone (iPhone X).

I tried to return to the good old 35mm photography. Lisa got interested and even secretly bought an Elikon 35CM. I immediately criticized it and convinced her to upgrade to a Minolta 5000i – also a beginner’s camera, but an SLR with three lenses. I took it with me to Texas on a trial and shot two rolls of film. Here’s what I got.

The Minolta 5000i with an external flash and three lenses (70-300mm, 80-200mm, and 35-80mm) cost 50 bucks. Film costs 3-4 dollars per roll. Developing costs 7 dollars, and scanning another five. So compared to digital photography, it’s not cheap to operate, but if you count the initial investment, it’s pretty good. My digital SLR with lenses costs several thousand bucks, and it’s hardly paid off 🙂

Note to the conductor after the concert: “Sorry, I am not a tattletale, but your timpanist only hits the instrument when you are looking at him.”

It’s funny that the FBI can be pronounced as “ef-bee-eye” and “fay-bee-eye”, but nobody pronounces USA as “you-ess-ay”, even though in abbreviations the letters should be read as in the alphabet. It’s also interesting that instead of “El” (L) everyone always pronounces it as L. En-ay-ch-el. It’s incorrect to say “leh”, meaning it’s incorrect to pronounce VLKSM as “vay-el-kay-es-em”. Additionally, abbreviations have a gender and a way to determine it (by a keyword: CIS – it, with certain exceptions – for example, what gender is NATO?)

I just bought a razor at a little shop where at first glance there are no sellers. Not like Amazon Go, which operates on AI and machine learning, but more like a regular street stall “take the goods, throw the money here.” I’ve often encountered such stores on farms, but those are godforsaken places and rarely does anyone stop by accidentally. Here, though, there’s a flow of a hundred people per minute.

In my childhood in Baku, buses used to operate in such a way – at the exit you’d throw a coin to the driver (and of course, he wasn’t watching). Inside other buses with tickets, there was a money box and a request to rewind the ticket (you could rewind as much as you wanted without dropping any money). There were no controllers, just conscience. I wonder, is moving away from a trust-based system in Russia a temporary or an established cultural phenomenon, which should always be taken into account? Why is working on trust considered prestigious worldwide, but not yet achievable in Russia?

I think the issue is with a generation of poorly raised individuals – it should fade away sometime and things will get better. In the States, in many places, this issue has long been gone (probably not everywhere, but I have not been everywhere). For instance, I cannot imagine in the USA that guys around thirty would jump into a doorless Wrangler in a parking lot because it’s more comfortable to drink beer there, and just for fun, “take the wheel” and maybe even honk. Here, there simply are none of these types. None at all.

I visit D3, and there’s a post about political prisoners. Clicked on “expand”, and it’s about carpe diem. A perfect example of why not to use automatic announcements

Our Masha is a good girl 🙂

A small lifehack – in many cases – especially for tourists – it’s advisable to switch to Google Earth for exploring the surrounding area. Earth has long been operational on Chrome and doesn’t require any software installation. It makes viewing photos in context to their location easier, and this helps to decide whether to go somewhere or not. Besides, Google displays objects in 3D in some incredible way – ordinary houses, and even amusement parks are three-dimensional, which is a very big plus. And there, you can also activate many other layers.

Google does not only capture terrain with vehicles but also from their planes, and then combines all data to create a depth map and subsequently a 3D map. This video explains how it works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suo_aUTUpps