Month: September 2022

And here are how our crocodiles cross the road

In almost all video conferencing apps, you can set a background that replaces your real background. It would be interesting to make this background dynamic and adaptable to lighting, time of day, weather, and even the color of your clothing, so that the background and the speaking head would look as natural as possible. For example, if I am sitting by a window and the sun is hitting from the right, then all shadows on the artificial background should be the same, not opposite. If it is currently night, then it is better to light the room with the moon or artificial light rather than bright sunlight from a window. I wonder, is it a complex task? Seems quite feasible. Well, replacing the background picture automatically from static to regularly updated by a generator remains a question.

A Wavy Lined Emerald moth flew into the kitchen and immediately found a trendy spot. Such a beautiful moth, the photo doesn’t do it justice

The cat arrived

And Lisa

Our Masha is now competing for France. Mathieu and Masha have just returned from Lyon from the French team’s control skating sessions and are due to participate in Villard de Lans at the Masters next month (akin to the French championship). The video shows a clip from a training skate at the competition in Lake Placid. Filmed by – On Ice Perspectives

The best visual art channels (drawing, painting) in my opinion, which I have been subscribed to for a long time and truly love:

Igor Volodkin –

Alexander Ryzhkin –

Oleg Toropygin –

Vitaly Leshchenko –

Mikhail Denisov –

The Simple School –

Academica –

Anastasia Shimshilashvili

I’ve already spent many dozens of hours watching their videos, and I haven’t seen anything close to the quality of these lectures on YouTube (if you know any worthy ones, please recommend). There are also channels by Igor Sakharov and Igor Manukhov, but that would be overkill.

Here’s a bit of our Yuki. We came up with this game just a minute before recording

Finished the first season of The Morning Show. Great series! Highly recommend.

Occasionally, I caught myself realizing that the English wasn’t 100% clear. That is, the context helped, but the nuances slipped through. So, I decided to rewatch the first episode “with a pencil in hand.” Meaning, without subtitles and stopping the video every time I didn’t understand even a single word or expression, and then diving into figuring out what was unclear. At the same time, I decided to keep a record, which added about ten seconds per phrase, but ultimately gave a more complete picture of how much I had missed. Watching it for the first time in this mode is impossible. It would take 2-3 hours per episode.

Almost everything highlighted in yellow was new to me. Then I inserted interpretations.

For example, the expression “Hello, pot. I’d like to introduce you to kettle” was new to me. Alternatives are “hi pot, meet kettle” or “The pot calling the kettle black”. Literally translates as “The pot calling the kettle black”, but essentially it means “The pot calling the kettle black”.

And other phrases/expressions/words like

– shoehorning

– on the back-burner

– to drag the feet on

– sweeps, cue in, touch a nerve, and various such words from news tv

– jack shit

– hearsay

– hot soup coming through

– repudiation and navel-gazing

– that makes two of us

– to go through a rough spot

– nipping at our heels

I wonder why banks do not offer the option to set a card so that all transactions require confirmation from the phone, until the feature is turned off. It’s very convenient when you can’t find it but aren’t sure you lost it.

P.S. Nadia, I haven’t lost it;)

Made cushions for the chair. Well, the first pancake isn’t a total mess; it’s even usable. But most importantly, I figured out the technology and gained some experience and bumps along the way. Probably, that was the main goal, and the cushions are just a byproduct.

Creating something out of fabric is quite an interesting engineering project, even more complex than crafting something from wood. Millimeter precision and attention to detail – I still lack these, but they really are the key to success.

From an economic standpoint, it would have been easier to throw out the chair and buy a new used one. The cushions cost about $70, including fabric, foam, thread, a zipper, and about 6 hours of work – that’s taking into account another 20 hours spent on various other things beforehand, to ensure the cushions were more or less correct on the first try.