Month: December 2022

Alright, the temperature in my office during the day is 11 degrees and it’s just what’s needed (But the family will come soon and turn on the heating)

How to pass an interview in one tweet

Stocking up on popcorn

CATCOACHING. The cat is explaining to Yuki how to play with a spring. Or possibly the other way around, Yuki is showing the cat. We haven’t figured it out yet. But we captured this rare moment of idyll.

Target, your search function is the worst on the planet! The first hundreds of results for “triangle” are, I don’t know, triple triangles, not the simple triangle I was looking for, and a ruler, something the British refer to as a set square (by the way, it’s also strange to call something a square when it’s actually triangular). My daughter initially wanted a triangle for her architecture classes, and now she’s distracted by thoughts of the seaside instead of focusing on her engineering classes. Please fix your search!

Missed you 🐕

When it’s cold (froid) or hot (chaud) outside, for example, the French say Il fait froid or Il fait chaud. I ask in class, why is the verb faire (to do) used here? Who is this he (il)? And then I thought about it. In Russian, the heat or cold weather is generally “stands”. Try explaining to foreigners why the weather “stands” 🧍🏼.

But it’s actually interesting. The rule looks like this: Because the weather does things, it’s not just there being something. And because French grammar absolutely needs a subject (il).

I’m currently reading a book by N. Kukushkin about the origin of life, which presents an interesting example. Scientists investigated samples from a geothermal source called “Loki’s Castle” in the North Atlantic and discovered in the found archaea genes transitional to eukaryotes (organisms made of cells containing a nucleus — like us, for example). Loki is the god of trickery, deception, and cunning, among other traits in Germanic-Scandinavian mythology. The archaeon was named Lokiarchaeota. Later, scientists discovered another similar group and humorously named it “Thorarchaeota” in honor of another Scandinavian god, Thor. “There was no turning back.” Since then, other types such as Odinarchaeota and Heimdallarchaeota have been found, and as you’ve guessed, no one intends to stop this party. All this kingdom is now officially called Asgard — after the mythical world where all these gods mingled. It includes all eukaryotes, so we too can consider ourselves residents of Asgard.

This reminded me of a similar thing in space, described in the book by Alexey Semikhatov, “Everything in Motion,” which I read a little earlier. There is a group of asteroids with a stable gravitational equilibrium relative to the large Jupiter-Sun system. That is, they hardly move relative to the Sun and Jupiter because their gravity “balances” them. It all started when the German astronomer Max Wolf in 1906 named the first discovered object after Achilles, one of the leaders of the Achaeans, who besieged Troy in Homer’s “Iliad.” Then, new objects began to be discovered at the Lagrange points (L4 and L5). Soon the list of ships from the second song of the “Iliad” became popular text in astronomical circles: L4 became “camp of the Greeks,” and L5 — “Troy,” and the objects therein were named after the heroes who besieged or defended Troy. Here, however, there are a couple of exceptions — (617) Patroclus and (624) Hector are in the “camps” not originally theirs, simply because they were discovered before the idea to name such asteroids according to Homer’s epic came to astronomers. Such are these “spies.” Interestingly, Hector and Patroclus being in “foreign” camps is paradoxically logical: Hector killed Patroclus, and only for this reason did Achilles return to the battlefield, where he then defeated Hector.

I just read from Nikolai Kukushkin that in New York, streets have been laid out in a grid since 1811 to allow air circulation and promote healthier conditions for people. I always thought it was simply for convenience, but yes, sources confirm it.

318 years ago, yellow fever raged in New York. Estimates suggest that 10% of the city died within a few months (“… in ten weeks time, sickness has swept away upwards of five hundred people of all ages and sexes. – Lord Cornbury, New York’s colonial governor; there were about 5000 inhabitants at that time). Back then, it was believed that the disease was caused by bad air – the so-called miasma theory. Even malaria was essentially named after “bad air” (mala aria). And thus, the grid pattern of the city planning allowed for better air circulation through the streets.

“…a commission was mapping Manhattan’s rectilinear street grid from Houston to 155th streets, charting a course for wealthier New Yorkers to escape the confines of lower Manhattan. One criticism of the new plan was its lack of open space, but the commissioners noted that unlike Paris or London, where “a great number of ample places” such as parks “might be needful,” in New York the “large arms of sea” embraced Manhattan, making it “in regard to health and pleasure…particularly felicitous.”

Interestingly, the treatment with leeches also came from there.

An interesting artist. Walter Molino, 1915-1997. He worked as an illustrator for the weekly La Domenica del Corriere, with most of his works being the front pages of this newspaper. Among the illustrations included in the post, there is one depicting people traveling in individual glass bubble cars (“Singoletta”) – this drawing from 1962 was widely circulated during the Covid era (remember, there was such a Covid) with the message “the city of far 2022”. The artist depicted personal transportation of the future, which interestingly overlapped with the Covid context.

Decided to look into an old edition of Little Red Riding Hood in the original language. Found via Google Books a 1754 edition.

Here is the ending with my free translation.

…

C’est pour mieux te manger, dit la farouche bête

– And this is to eat you up! – said the wild beast

En effet, cet indigne loup

Such is this despicable wolf!

la prend, l’avale tout d’un coup

took her and swallowed her in one gulp

sans qu’aucune plainte l’arrete

and no complaints stopped him

On voit ici que les enfans

We see here that children

Surtout les jeunes filles

Especially young girls

Belles, bien faites & gentiles

Beautiful, comely, clever ones!

Font fort mal d’écouter toutes fortes de gens

Do very poorly in listening to elders

Ce n’est pas une chose étrange

It’s no surprise

S’il en est tant que le loup mange

That the wolf eats them

Je dis les loups; car tous les loups

I say wolves; because not all wolves

Ne font pas de la même sorte;

are equally strong

Il en est d’un humeur accorte

Some have agreeable dispositions

Sans bruit, fans fiel & fans courroux

Quiet ones, but spiteful and horrendous,

Qui privés, complainsans & doux

Who, familiar and self-contentedly obliging, are nice

Suivent par tout les demoiselles

Follow all girls everywhere

Jusque dans les maisons, jusque dans les ruelles.

To their homes, to their streets

Mais hélas ! qui ne sçait que ces loups doucereux,

Alas! Who knew those most syrupy wolves

De tous les loups sont les plus dangereux.

Turn out to be the most dangerous

There is a literary translation, quite far from the original by an unknown author, but beautiful:

Little children especially young maidens,

Beauties and darlings,

When meeting all sorts of men on their ways,

Should not listen to deceitful words –

Otherwise the wolf might devour them.

I said a wolf! Wolves are countless,

But among them, there are other

Deceivers, so duplicitous,

That, sweetly emitting flattery,

Guard the honor of the maidens,

Accompany them on their strolls home,

See them safely off by the dark corners…

But the wolf, alas, the more modest he appears,

The more devious and terrible he always is!

In short, there were no lumberjacks! Everyone died in the end!