Month: November 2022

An idea for a startup or pet project – it would be interesting to create a blinking sign at the entrance to a room saying “camera on” or “in a conference call”, which would activate automatically on any messenger that switches to active status.

The simplest way is to monitor the CPU consumption of certain processes (zoom, teams, etc.), and turn on the sign “in a conference call” when a typical CPU load pattern occurs. Probably, one could also programmatically check the camera activity to light up the “camera on” sign

Reading “The Culture Map”: …In another study, Americans and Japanese were asked to “take a picture of a person.” Americans often took close-up shots, highlighting the features of the human face, while Japanese instead showed the person in their surrounding space, where the human figure appeared quite small compared to the background.

Well, that’s how it is, just watch their cartoons

I bought Yuki a bone to chew on and wondered if it’s actually good for dogs to chew on bones. After all, their teeth don’t regenerate, and bones definitely wear them down. While researching this question, I came across the well-known fact that they shouldn’t chew bird bones because such bones are hollow. And it made me think, what air fills them since they are hollow? It’s unlikely that gas gets in there from birth and stays for life. Indeed, it turned out to be more interesting.

It turned out that these cavities in the bones are connected to air sacs (up to nine), which are in turn connected to the lungs. So, it turns out that the cavities in bones are also connected to the air sacs. Oxygen is taken up in the lungs, and air is pumped in and out of the bones and sacs during the movement process. Thus, the bones are essentially an extension of the air sacs.

Interestingly, humans also have bones filled with air (pneumatized bones). They are located around the nose – near the sinuses, the temporal bone, whose mastoid process can be felt behind the ear.

https://infinitespider.com/pneumatic-bones-birds-and-you/

It’s interesting, why does no one implement a gradual discontinuation of subscriptions in case of non-payment on time? For example, gradually slowing down the speed, gradual partial loss of paid functionality, reduced exposure for social networks, the same new Twitter Blue Check could have several degrees of fading/transparency from saturated to semi-transparent (after which it completely disappears).

It’s either there or it’s not. No shades of grey.

Shift Robotics has released boots that increase walking speed by 2.5 times. Curiously, could the same technology be used to make boots that reduce walking speed to zero? That would be wildly interesting for integration with 3D games and virtual worlds. In theory, if all the sensors are in place, and the motors can reverse the wheels…

https://shiftrobotics.io/products/moonwalkers

Thank you, Andrey Shuvalov! Now I have a play for my ailing 4th finger on the right hand! True, the finger has already healed, but it was a useful thing indeed!

P.s. Andrey also sent a video

Could you share some interesting videos for the trip to NY and back?

I’m primarily interested in educational videos that are also good in audio-only mode (so I don’t have to look at the phone while driving). But generally, anything goes — interesting interviews, stories from fascinating people, even audiobooks are fine (but not too long, an hour or an hour and a half, otherwise it’s a pity to stop midway and unclear when to resume listening). Dovlatov was a good choice among audiobooks.

Also — any recommendations for interesting channels. If it’s not too much trouble, upload everything 🙂

Here are all my subscriptions on Youtube:

https://github.com/raliev/interestingyoutubesubscriptions

If anyone is not particularly shy about sharing their own, here’s a handy exporter for all subscriptions into a file (to clipboard): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/youtube-subscriptions-exp/dhpojdmnffaocepmljcdcongdmkjblan/related?hl=en

You can install it in Chrome, export subscriptions — it takes a couple of seconds, and then remove the extension.

Very interesting explanation of a well-known illusion

Today I discovered that the project vsenauka.ru, where a plethora of popular science books were officially available for free download, has been shut down. After some Googling, I found https://nauchpop.rusneb.ru/ Despite the 404 Not Found preview in FB, it opens successfully for me, and there is that very library. I randomly checked, the books are there, and downloadable.

SELECT NARCOTICS IN TIME-DELAY SAFE, says Walgreens. I’m like – 🤔. Went to Google it.

So, here’s the issue – junkie robbers raid pharmacies and wipe all opioid medications from the safes. The situation gets to a point where placing them in a regular safe proved ineffective, as no safe is immune to being cracked by thermorectal cryptoanalysis or, more likely in American circumstances, a gun to the head. So, they came up with a safe that unlocks after an indeterminate time (at least a few minutes) within enough time for police to arrive – usually just a few minutes. All law-abiding customers just wait a bit, while it becomes very unprofitable for robbers to play such Russian roulette.