Month: February 2024

Near our house, there’s a spot with 17 training fields for soccer, lacrosse, baseball, and softball. By spring, there should be beautiful grass as usual, so all fields are covered with a “film”. It creates the impression of water instead of grass, especially against the sun. For the grass itself underneath, it’s not just an impression at all.

By the way, this grass cover is interesting in itself. The size of each piece is about a third of a soccer field, around 30×30 meters, so there are several on each field. Machinery is at work, deploying and securing them.

A little life hack for happy owners of energetic dogs and wireless headphones simultaneously. Every time I need to put airpods in my ears, I have to hold the case in one hand, and with two fingers of the other hand, I pull out the headphones one by one and insert them into my ears. And then, what’s left to hold the leash? Right, with the pinky finger. And the energetic dog, dashing towards the scents of nature, knocks the airpods out of my hands or at least makes me switch on my brain at that moment and prepare for the lunge. And I do not like to switch it on that early.

So here’s the hack – a pair of headphones can be extracted from the box with one hand in your pocket in just two seconds.

Our cat is a thinker

Just read up on how a dishwasher works. It was acting up yesterday, so I had to figure it out. I bet many haven’t even thought about the working algorithm. Well, hot water under pressure is poured onto the dishes, with the dirty water going into the sewage system. It seems straightforward, but there are many nuances.

First, water fills the inside, after which, if there’s a water heater (see below), it turns on. Hot water begins spraying through either rotating or stationary spray arms. Moreover, if they are rotating, there are no motors — they spin by the force of the water jets. The water drains down and flows into a container, from where it again travels up the spray arms to the dishes. So, the first point – the water is heated not somewhere inside but right in the dishwasher’s tub. Well okay, that was obvious. Moving on.

Then there’s a difference — in the USA, dishwashers are meant to be connected only to hot water, whereas in many parts of the world, cold water suffices, and the dishwasher heats the water itself. The latter category has a heat exchanger built into one of the walls. While the water heats up and sprays from the spray arms, new water is poured into the heat exchanger. Next, the temperature of the new batch of water gradually increases – while the ambient temperature in the chamber gradually decreases. The washing cycle ends when these temperatures align. Hence, the second discovery — the condition for stopping the dishwashing is dynamic, not just based on a timer.

This approach, incidentally, prevents thermal shock to the dishes when switching from dirty to clean water. Clean water in the next cycle comes from the heat exchanger, already warmed to the temperature of the draining dirty water. And ultimately, there are no sharp temperature shifts within the chamber.

This concerns many European dishwashers, where cold water enters and is heated. In my dishwasher, like most in the USA, connecting to cold water is technically possible, but highly unrecommended – it would significantly reduce the quality of the process. Thus, there’s no heat exchanger, and no thermal shock occurs because the water is already hot at the inlet.

It’s funny that Europe does a lot because of the Kyoto Protocol, which the USA did not support. For example, both water and air in my home are heated by gas. Thus, the dishwasher emits CO2 🙂 The second reason is that heating 10 liters of water with 110 volts is simply slow, and connecting the dishwasher to a separate outlet, like for a washing machine and dryer, is overkill.

Next – how drying works. After rinsing, cold water is poured into the heat exchanger. From the existing heat, it gradually warms up – meanwhile, all the moisture in the chamber will condensate on the side wall, on the heat exchanger. Naturally occurring air circulation in a closed space will cause it to move near the cold wall – where water will settle. As I understand, a heating element is also turned on to accelerate the process.

There’s a separate compartment for rinse aid. This agent reduces the surface tension of water, making it easier to evaporate, not gathering in droplets, thus leaving no streaks on dry dishes from the dishwasher with rinse aid.

The amount of resources consumed depends directly on the amount and dirtiness of the dishes: the more and dirtier they are, the longer the process will take and the more water will be needed. But how does the dishwasher know how much and how dirty the dishes are? This is also interesting.

Let’s start with the volume of dishes. The dishwasher knows how much water it has poured in, and how much has drained out. The difference — is what remains on the dishes. Essentially, this delta is proportional to the surface area of the dishes. Changes are detected by special sensors – if there’s a significant lack of water, more is drawn from the water supply.

How does the machine determine that the dishes are clean? By the water returning to the container: if it contains a lot of impurities and coloring agents, special optical sensors – turbidity sensors – detect this. Thus, the process continues until the required level of cleanliness in the water returning from the dishes is achieved.

The turbidity sensor consists of two main elements. On a board, shaped like the letter U, a LED and a phototransistor are placed opposite each other. The board is housed in a clear plastic case. After the main washing cycle and the first rinsing stage, the LED emits an infrared beam towards the phototransistor. The light must travel through the water to reach it. If the water is clean enough, i.e., contains only a small amount of detergent residues and food particles, the light reaches the phototransistor, which then sends a signal to the control module. The module adjusts the program trajectory, canceling an additional rinsing stage.

Additionally, many dishwashers (not mine) have a built-in water softener – a cation exchange resin. One part is filled with levatit resin granules. This substance softens the water. The dishwasher receives decalcified water. But levatit has the property of depletion. Ordinary salt regenerates the levatit. There’s a special container in the machine for the salt. Sodium ions from the salt solution replace the calcium and magnesium ions, restoring the ion-exchange properties of the resin and preparing it for a new water softening cycle. This regenerative quality is why dishwasher salt is called regenerating salt.

Then another interesting note, there are two compartments in the door for detergent – Pre-wash and wash. So, capsules only fit in the wash. This means that for the first 15 minutes, the dishwasher operates without any agent at all, just on water, if capsules are used. However, if you use powder, that first cycle will be much more effective. In other words, capsules – not so great. I should try buying powder.

I was very pleased with GE because inside the machine there’s a brochure with a plumbing scheme and details important for maintenance by a technician. How to enter service mode, how to run auto-tests, etc., electrical wiring. None of this is in the user manual. And on the website, you can download CAD files and order individual components. Absolutely fantastic!

Hmm, it turns out that more than 70% of this lemon consists of the peel. If we consider the lemon as a sphere, then the volume of the pulp would be 8*pi*4/3, and the volume of the whole lemon – 27*pi*4/3. In the end, the pulp makes up 29.6%. And the peel, accordingly, 70.4%. Should I return it to the store with these calculations. Where do I need so much zest?

by the way, check yourself, what is this part called, besides the pulp – 1) lemon skin 2) lemon peel 3) lemon zest 4) lemon pith 5) lemon rind. And what about the peel of an orange? watermelon? potato? apple?

I bought a refrigerator cheaply second-hand, but it turned out to be a freezer. On the lowest setting, it goes down to -14°C. And I think I found a great solution to convert it from a freezer to a fridge without replacing the thermostat or buying another one. I purchased a $11 box on Amazon that plugs into an outlet and switches on and off programmatically. It has many modes, one of them is — work N minutes, rest M minutes. It comfortably handles the power load. Right now, it turns on every hour for 10 minutes. And so far, with these settings, it maintains a steady +4 °C all day long — just what you need for a refrigerator (Inside the refrigerator, I have a radio thermometer from a weather station to monitor the temperature).

Wow, it turns out columnar brushes can easily cost $1200 each. When I said brushes were expensive, I meant a few dozen dollars each. Turns out, they can be two orders of magnitude more expensive. Well okay, I chose the biggest and most expensive one.

Sable – a predatory furry animal from the mustelidae family. The fur from the tail part of the sable, which inhabits the valleys of Siberian rivers – Amur, Tobol, and Ussuri, as well as in China and Korea, is used to make brushes. Sable fur is elastic and lightweight, with very fine tips. The highest quality brushes are made from the fur of male sables harvested in winter. The tuft consists of hairs of various lengths which, when the brush comes into contact with a surface, create a capillary flow.

P.S. It’s clear why the price is high. In the USA, there are restrictions on importing animal fur products from species listed in the so-called red book (CITES list). The ban was introduced in 2015. There have been some relaxations, but ultimately, this drove up the price. Link in the comments

What would I spend a few honestly earned millions of dollars on, if I had them? Blinovskaya would appreciate my current scribbling!

First, I’d set aside enough to cover all my family’s desires. Next, if anything remains, then:

The first thing I would spend money on is creating the perfect environment for my hobbies, to make it comfortable and pleasant.

I would create a super man’s cave and spend half to see the world more closely and more thoroughly.

Let’s start with the man’s cave. It would be a space with a separate corner for electronics with lots of little drawers, an oscilloscope, a soldering station, a signal generator, and stabilized voltage, etc. In another corner, there would be everything for 3D printing, engraving, and other tools that don’t produce much dirt during their use (for those – a separate room). Yet in another corner would be everything for painting. This would probably be the largest “station” because it requires space. There would be a piano in the living room. Another corner would house my office for work. And a gym, although I’m not sure how often I would use it. A separate shed would be for working with wood and metal, with machines and materials. And the house itself could be small. I just need it for sleeping, breakfast, and dinner.

A perfect example to follow is Shane Wighton (channel on YT: Stuff Made Here). I would like exactly the same! Adding his video “This is why I have 17,342 pounds of tools” in the comments.

The second thing worth spending money on is experiences. There are nearly 200 countries in the world, and about half of them can be visited without much risk to health and sometimes life. Out of this half, all are interesting, but if I were to make a list, the countries still unvisited that I particularly desire are Japan, Czechia, Costa Rica, Iceland, almost all of South America, New Zealand. Ideally, the trip should look like this – buy a one-way ticket for the family, and we leave when we miss home – be it a week, a month, or three, as we decide. Additionally, I would happily spend part of the money to join some scientific expeditions and would sail to the Galapagos, Antarctica, or into the depths of the Amazon.

Here, I kindly envy Sergei Dole, Lena Pashkovskaya, and Eugene Timonov.

In my list, there are no expensive cars, yachts, large houses with pools, and purchased businesses bringing in constant passive income.

The only problem is that I’m about a million dollars short of a million dollars.

Buying a house in the USA opens up a whole world of new terms that you never knew existed. For example, gazebo or pavilion – these are gazebos. The difference is that a gazebo usually has a floor. There is also a Pergola – a gazebo with a leaky roof. In the simplest case, it’s just a roof on leg-columns. Men’s cave is a room or shed where the homeowner spends time. Turns out, there is a specific name for a space where the lady of the house can seclude herself – She shed. Generally, sheds are small buildings on the property for various uses, mostly serving as a barn, and a she shed is a specifically designed building (or barn?) for the lady of the house. Simply something (usually a fabric) that creates shade can be called a canopy – essentially, it’s a tent. There’s a separate category – playhouses. These are small houses for children, featuring a variety of designs, practically mini-homes with an entryway, rooms, a kitchen, all set up in the backyard to delight the kids. There is also a separate playset including a slide where kids can climb and so on – it’s called swingsets, although there might not specifically be any swings there. Another feature is the sunroom – a glass or screened room attached to the house, designed for enjoying the sunlight without leaving home. Also, in our bedroom, there are windows on the ceiling, they’re called skylights here. There are two doors leading outside from the house – one regular, and the other fully transparent – called a storm door. Often in hot weather, the inner door is left open, thus more light enters the house but not the insects. And during heavy rain, it prevents water streams from entering the house. Well, probably everyone understands what a backyard is – it’s the back yard. Ours is fenced, to the delight of Yuki. There’s also a deck – usually a wooden platform connected to the actual house, most often on the same side as the backyard. Our platform is at the height of the second floor – essentially, it’s a balcony, only larger, quite expansive. You’ve certainly seen such mini-homes with very steep roofs and window – those are dormers.

I read that a VTsIOM survey showed that, as of February this year in Russia, a third of the 1600 surveyed support the exclusion of Darwin’s theory from school textbooks. This is a third more than in previous years.

I checked how it currently stands in the USA — as of 2006, only 40% definitely supported it and another 40% definitely did not. The rest were undecided. Turkey was even further from science 🙂 By 2020, the supporters had already reached 55%.

In the past in the USA, there were numerous attempts to legally ban the dissemination and teaching of Darwin’s theory in schools and other educational institutions on a national, state, or local level. For example, there were a series of trials known as the “Monkey Trials”.

The most famous of the “Monkey Trials” was the case against John Thomas Scopes, a biology teacher from Tennessee, which took place in 1925. At that time, many states in the USA had laws prohibiting the teaching of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in schools because it contradicted the biblical teachings on the creation of the world. In Tennessee, in January 1925, a law known as the “Butler Act” was passed, which made it illegal to teach any theory that claimed humans descended from lower forms of life. The fine was $100-500 (around $1,700-$8,500 today). This law was repealed 42 years later, on September 1, 1967.

Scopes was charged with violating this law after he intentionally taught evolution in a class to provoke a legal battle. The trial attracted widespread public and press attention. The trial of Scopes became a battle between two well-known figures of the time: William Jennings Bryan, defending the law and traditional religious views, and Clarence Darrow, a famous lawyer who defended Scopes and scientific freedom.

In the end, Scopes was found guilty and fined a small sum, but the case had far-reaching implications for education and the public perception of science in the USA. In subsequent decades, many of these laws were repealed or declared unconstitutional, and the theory of evolution became a standard part of school curricula.

In February 2009, the Catholic Church, through a special papal encyclical — Humani generis, acknowledged that the theory of evolution does not contradict the Church’s teachings and “can be considered a hypothesis in regards to the origin of the human body”.