Month: March 2021

In the meantime, it already has 115 million views

The “Skilled Hands” Club purchased an entry-level 3D printer, the XYZ Da Vinci 1.0. And I’m having trouble with the Silk PLA; the first layer isn’t adhering well – it starts curling up, and the model shifts right from the beginning, causing everything to go awry. I ordered some glue. But it will only arrive in two days. What to do in the meantime, without glue? I went looking for sugar. There’s absolutely no sugar at home. Found honey! Well, am I not a solution architect? I added a bit of water, microwaved it, applied a thin layer, wiped off the excess with a napkin – and it works! Just great, why did I even buy special glue?

I am printing a part for a smart trash can. It has a sensor that opens the lid when a hand approaches, but it also reacts to people walking by. I unscrewed the sensor, relocated it to a convenient spot, and now I am printing a cover/mount for the sensor board.

Instead of diet pills, they should release scales for weight loss and mirrors for weight loss, and also a special mode for smart speakers to accidentally throw in jabs on the subject.

In the US, the first digit of the ZIP code indicates how far the location is from the East Coast. Hence, postal codes in New York start with 1, while along the entire West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington) they begin with 9.

In Russia, the first digit of the postal code is formed as if tracing the borders in a counterclockwise direction starting from the north. Nearly all the territory is covered by postal codes starting with 6. Codes starting with five are designated for international mail reception points abroad. I failed to find anything about them except for code names – Tskhinvali, South Ossetia (postal code 500200), London (500380), Newark, USA (500380), Virolahti, Finland (500580), Basildon, England (500680), Singapore (500780), Altanbulag (500880), Folcroft (500980).

Tskhinvali: “…Following the signing of the Memorandum, ‘Post of Russia’ used its own funds to restore the main post office destroyed in August 2008 in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, equipping it with all necessary equipment, furniture, computers. The same services that are available in any modernized Russian post office are accessible at this branch,” noted Kotov.”

Altanbulag: “…In September 2019, a Strategic Cooperation Agreement was signed between FSUE ‘Post of Russia’ and JSC ‘Mongol Post’.”

Apparently, all these “international mail reception points abroad” are just virtual. I was unable to find anything physical.

While researching, I found that the Russian post was active in China from 1870 to 1920, in Crete from May 13 to July 29, 1899, and even in the Ottoman Empire.

All, March 8 has passed — winter is over

Interesting, how can one explain the occurrence of an event with a probability of 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent? In the States lives Joan R. Ginther, who has won the Texas lottery four times in a row. Each jackpot there has a likelihood of about 1 in 25 million. If there were so many jackpot winners that among them there was a chance for someone to win twice in a row, and there were so many of those that there was a probability of finding someone winning thrice, and enough of those to find someone winning four times, then I would understand. But there aren’t that many jackpot-winners. How can one explain the occurrence of such events from the perspective of probability theory?

The simplest explanation is that the assessment should not be made after the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of the event. In this case, it simply happened, and that’s that. Honestly, I find such an explanation hardly satisfactory 🙂 But on the other hand, the probability of finding a needle in a haystack is, say, 1:1,000,000, but someone saw the needle and picked it up. Or, say, flipping a coin 20 times in a row – an event with the same probability. The difficulty was in predicting, not in randomly hitting a rare event. Joan couldn’t predict the outcome, but she managed to hit a rare event. I think she simply bought a lot of lottery tickets. But still, it all seems strange.

The second – we are mistaken in thinking outcomes are independent.

Then there is the theory of the many-worlds quantum interpretation, where the probability of anything is 100%. You just have to choose the right universe.

Where do decent companies find such UI designers? Imagine, a blinking “Check Filter” when turning on the clothes dryer is just a reminder, not an alert, and it always blinks when the machine is started, as if that’s the norm.

Some time ago, before I overtook a Lamborghini Aventador, I decided to take a photo of it first. At home, just out of curiosity, I decided to look up the license plate and was surprised to find out that the car with this VIN, which is now associated with 8TUK485, used to be black –

How can this be? Did they really repaint it white (I can’t believe it!)

Continuing the topic of English. When you need to say the number 132, they don’t say one hundred and thirty-two, as we were taught in school. First, they don’t use “and” (it would be One Hundred Thirty-Two). But in practice, literally, everyone says One Thirty-Two. So, the word hundred is also dropped, especially in the case of house numbers. Theoretically, it could cause confusion with 1.32, but usually, it’s clear from the context that house numbers can’t include a point. Though, if we’re nitpicking, in the case of a point, you should say “point”.

And it might not be news to anyone, but just in case – numbers like 1500 are read as fifteen hundred, not one thousand five hundred. Sometimes even 2135 is read as Twenty-one hundred thirty-five. Also, twenty often sounds like ‘tweny’ in our region. But nobody reads 4000 as Forty hundreds—it’s still four thousand.

Some notes from my English lessons (mostly working on pronunciation, but also filling in the gaps in grammar, if any):

– it turned out, I had no idea about the subjunctive mood. For example, in the sentence “I think you should wait with this decision,” out of the following options, two are incorrect, and one is missing:

– I suggest waiting with the decision

– I suggest to wait with the decision

– I suggest that you need to wait with the decision

– I suggest that you should wait with the decision

– I suggest you to wait with the decision

Although, before I figured it out, I could have used all five (although a sense of the language was forming, and I don’t know why the incorrect ones were no longer favored). So, the incorrect ones here are number two and the last one. And what’s missing is precisely the subjunctive mood, which is exactly what’s needed here – I suggest that you wait with the decision. That is, the form with should, but without should. Other examples: I propose he work full time. It is imperative that the game begin at once.

I constantly confused what “d” in “I’d better” and “I’d rather” meant. In the second case, it’s would, in the first – had. Mixing them up was a mistake. I said “I would better” and nobody corrected me!

Before vowels, The is pronounced with an “ee” at the end. The Internet, The apple, etc.

Words like process, access, record, increase/decrease, import/export, discount, refund, conflict, contest, rewrite, update, upgrade, insert, object, refuse, desert, address, conflict, suspect, protest, product, and some others have different stresses depending on whether they are a noun or a verb. These are all widely used words. I constantly got them wrong. I am relearning to pronounce address with the stress on the first syllable, as they do in the States.

Control is pronounced with the accent on the second “o”. I often pronounced it with the stress on the first “o”.

Comparison is read with an “s,” not a “z” and the emphasis on the letter “a”. Meanwhile, observant is pronounced as “obzervant” 😉 and also resort is pronounced as “rezort”

I poorly articulated the “u” in words like curious. Correctly, it’s not “ky-urious,” but “kyoo-rious.”

The word evidently in the States is pronounced with the stress on “dent”.

It was new to me that a regular action in the past can be reflected through would. For example, My father always read me beautiful stories every night before bedtime could be translated as My dad would read me amazing stories every night at bedtime. Although in practice every second American here probably uses simple past simple “My dad read…” or the form “used to” to emphasize that he reads no more – I grew up (My dad used to read…).

The word temporarily in the states is pronounced with the emphasis on “ra”. Actually, this word is complex, and here there are two stresses, but in American English, the second one is stronger.

I also read employee with “em,” not “ee,” as it should be. Engineer should also start with “en,” not “in.”

It turns out, you can say “a Monday”. It means “some Monday”. In general, “on a Monday” is the same as “on Mondays”.

I also mispronounced words like paste – I didn’t articulate the “ay” in “paste” clearly enough; it came out closer to “pest”. Also, I didn’t articulate the “o” clearly enough in words like host or post.

The word distributed is read with the emphasis on i, not on u.

Awry is pronounced as a-rye. Turns out it’s because there was an older word “wry,” meaning “twisted”.

Luxurious is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable.

Novel in the USA is pronounced as “nawvul”.

Portugal is pronounced as “Por-chugl”, and Portuguese – por-chugeez. That is, a “ch” sound appears here.

And here’s another one. Query is pronounced in American English approximately as “kwir-ee,” not “kwair-ee.”

Previous series – https://www.facebook.com/raufaliev/posts/10158907915962368

#English #pronunciation #notes

I just can’t get used to calling cola “Coke”. If you ask for cola as Cola, they always double-check – Coke? And in California and the northeast of the country, you have to relearn it as Soda. For some reason, they don’t call it that around St. Louis and Milwaukee, which are quite far from the other two places. At the Canadian border and in the central states, you need to ask for pop for the same purposes.

#English #pronunciation #notes