Month: February 2024

I hope that the fact my insurance excluded earthquakes and a global flood from the policy is not at all connected to the news about some unknown stuff in space posing a threat to our national security.

This is just a picture of asphalt dusted with fresh snow. I found it unusual that the snow was only staying on one half. What makes that half better?

The day before yesterday

Such a discovery in my years. The unit of electric charge “Coulomb” in English turns out to be Coulomb, because Charles-Augustin de Coulomb is French.

I am currently reading a book on painting techniques by artist Virgil Elliott. I’m discovering all kinds of interesting things that I hadn’t thought about before. It’s what in English is called connecting the dots.

For instance, consider an apple on a table in the courtyard with sunlight falling on it. What color is the apple’s shadow? The color of the shadow is determined by a mixture of the secondary light source’s color, the apple’s own color, and the color of the table on which the apple’s shadow falls. The color of the secondary light source is blue. Why blue? Because shorter wavelengths scatter better, and the shortest we see is blue. If we could see UV, the sky would be UV-colored. Thus, blue light comes from the sky and falls into the apple’s shadow. Therefore, the shadow is not pitch black as it would be on the Moon. In an indoor setting, however, the shadows carry the color of the walls, mixing further with the color of the apple and the color of the table. But still, most of the energy comes from the sky, so the shadow is blue. I sort of understood this intuitively, and even used it, but never really thought it through properly.

Okay, but why does human vision perceive sunlight with a slight tinge of yellow? For example, if you look at the sun from space, you would see white sunlight. When sunlight passes through Earth’s atmosphere, shorter waves (blue and violet) scatter much more by air molecules and particles in the atmosphere than the longer waves (red and yellow). This means that direct sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface has more of a yellow spectrum, compared to when the light is not distorted by the atmosphere.

Reading further, in the chapter about Venetian techniques, I understand another thing that finally explains why artworks on a computer screen look altogether different. In the past, artists were very particular about color. A painting could be worked on for years. Paints were applied in layers, each allowed to dry before new, semi-transparent top layers were added. Light, entering such layered shadows, gets trapped in it. Much of this light does not escape easily, increasing the contrast. What does escape, however, is tinted — and this tint depends largely on the viewing angle and the angle at which light falls. As a result, it produces shades that simply do not exist in the paint pigments.

In other words, from the perspective of color rendering, a painting has not only pigments but another important attribute — the thickness of the layer of paint, and it’s this physical characteristic (well, apart from the pigments, of course) that determines the color we see at any given point. It’s not just about having green or blue pigment there. Eventually, if we see, say, a bunch of grapes, a 17th-18th-century artist had to do more than just place the right color pigment in the right spot; a proper underlying layer was needed, and on top of that, a dozen layers of semi-transparent oil, each shifting the color of the base through both pigments and reflection of light. Of course, no artist could control this molecular reflection adding harmonic colors, but by following the technology, an artist could achieve something unusual, refine it further by color, and end up with something unique that fits within the right color.

Something elusive distinguished Shtirlitz from others: whether it was his heroic profile, his determined posture, or the parachute dragging behind him.

There are two types of Orthodox churches: with icons inside and icons outside. I couldn’t just pass by – St Moses Coptic Orthodox Church. They share the building with karate, dance classes, a photo shop, and a design company.

By the way, everything in this church is in Arabic, of course, since the Copts are from Egypt. For many, Orthodoxy and the Arabic language seem to come from different worlds, but they do not. Incidentally, this is one of the oldest Christian Churches – it has now been around for about 20 centuries.

We tried a bunch of different tumblers, thermoses, and a water bottle, and ultimately found the ideal ones.

The mug in the foreground has a really cool interface – to open the lid you need to press it at a certain angle with your finger, it clicks and shifts, and clicks back into place as well. The mechanism is well-crafted, operates precisely, doesn’t spill a drop, and it’s very intuitive to feel in the car which way it might pour when tilted, and of course, it’s easily visible whether it’s open or closed (these two flaws accompany most mug tumblers). A downside of this particular mug – compared to a thermos, it doesn’t keep the water boiling hot for as long as one might wish. And it seems it shouldn’t be washed in a dishwasher. Also, there were some old comments on Amazon about its unreliability, but probably the manufacturer has fixed all that by now.

The second, silvery one, is actually a thermos. Besides being the record holder in our tests for the time it keeps coffee very hot, it also has a cleverly designed lid. By pressing a button, a slit opens around the rim, and you can drink from any side. It holds up well in the dishwasher. Feels nice to the touch – like a cybertruck. The downsides – it takes an additional second in the car and some getting used to, to figure out by sight or touch whether the mug is open or not. This is already the third such item in a row. We periodically replace it when it wears out.

The other two bottles are for cold water. They are simply well-made, don’t spill when turned upside down, and instantly open a wide “spout”.

I just calculated, my average monthly mileage over four years is over 4600 km, and annually it’s 56000. Well, as for me, recently it’s been nearly zero. For the car. It turns out, the average daily is 150 km. Clearly, it’s very uneven. Sometimes busy, sometimes quiet. But on average, that’s how it is. Our little Toyota is doing great (knock on wood).

I am currently reading Virgil Elliott, and he uses an interesting grammatical construction in the text – “without our having to tax our brains too much”. I can’t find any explanations online about why it’s our having instead of us having.

I haven’t found out why one is preferable over the other, but why it’s such a complicated construction – I’ve figured it out. Here, having to, of course, comes from “have to”, which translates into Russian as being forced, must, have to. From this “being forced,” a gerund is formed, which doesn’t exist in Russian, creating something akin to “necessity.” So, the translation becomes “without the necessity to overly tax our brains.” Thus, our is optional. It can be removed entirely.

Also, there is an interesting verb in the screenshot: amount to