Month: November 2024

Exploring Multilingual Nuances in Nabokov’s Lolita | November 14 2024, 00:24

Do you know what a cowcatcher is (English version – cowcatcher, literally a cow catcher)? It’s that red thing at the front of a steam locomotive.

Eventually, about halfway through the book Lolita, I set aside the English version and started reading the Russian one from the beginning. With English, the pacing of my reading lacks; I find myself wanting to Google something in every paragraph. In Russian, I only started googling by page 55.

Though I lie. I also paused at the phrase tant pis, which Nabokov left in French. Apparently, it cannot be briefly translated into Russian or English (the footnote “too bad”? – a silly translation). It is used to express regret that something went wrong but also implies acceptance of the situation since nothing can be changed now. I think the perfect translation would be “oops!”

MRI Musings and Magnetic Mysteries | November 13 2024, 21:50

Today I found myself in an MRI machine, where they scanned my brain. I hope the brain is still there, and I hope the MRI operators didn’t find anything interesting in there.

What else to think about for 45 minutes in this buzzing machine, where you can’t move, but thinking isn’t forbidden?

Right, I wondered how headphones could work in an MRI machine, the ones they put on me. Music was playing from them, and occasionally—the voice of the MRI operator. Think about it—in any headphones, there should be diaphragms and magnetic coils, yet inside an MRI coil, none of this can exist. I started to ponder, and if my implants are in order, maybe the headphones could be made from special materials like titanium. In general, I lay there and racked my brain. Eventually, I came to a solution, which turned out to be just that.

A thick hose stretched from the headphones to the machine, and that explained everything. The headphones are just cups with tubes stretching from the headphones to another room where the speakers are located. The sound travels through the tube via air—a very simple solution.

Digitizing Dilemma: NTSC vs PAL in a Community Makerspace | November 12 2024, 22:41

Brought over from Russia around 20 videotapes of three different formats, all filled with recordings from the past. Here in the city library of Leesburg, we have a free makerspace where one can use all sorts of equipment, from 3D printers and carvers to even sewing machines, and, joy of joys, a station for digitizing old videotapes.

Everything is absolutely free, though you do have to pay a bit for consumables. For example, for 3D printers, it’s the plastic. But for the video converter, it’s nothing at all.

Overall, I don’t think I’d sit through all 20-30 hours while all the tapes were being digitized, but I would at least figure out where to start, then hand it over to someone else (I’ve already found a few options).

And I came without any identification, and certainly without a library card. But nobody even asked for them.

In the end, I’m returning empty-handed.

The problem turned out to be that their VCR is NTSC, while my tapes were recorded in Russia and are therefore in PAL. In the PAL format, video is recorded at a resolution of 720×576 pixels (or 625 lines in the case of VHS) at 25 frames per second, while in NTSC, it’s 720×480 pixels (or 525 lines) at 29.97 frames per second, plus there’s different color modulation.

Now, I need to find out if any of these numerous services support capture from PAL.

Family Memories on “This is My Child” with Tatyana Lazareva | November 11 2024, 21:07

Back in 2012, Nadya, seven-year-old Masha and I appeared on TV, on the show “This is My Child” with Tatyana Lazareva (who was declared a foreign agent by the state ten years later). Today, I finally got around to the disk with the video. Here are three short clips, a few minutes each, they are quite amusing!

Challenges of Training a Shiba Inu with Unpredictable Eating Habits | November 11 2024, 16:22

This explains why training our Shiba Inu is such a challenge. Food generally doesn’t motivate him. It’s been at least 12 hours since he last ate. We had breakfast long ago, and lunchtime is approaching. And here you are, bringing him warm boiled meat, which generally he likes, but if it isn’t his usual mealtime, he doesn’t understand why he’s been given meat when he didn’t ask for it. And his response is like — what’s this for, just put it in the bowl, I’ll eat it eventually. And it’s been this way all 3.5 years. Moreover, he almost always eats when someone is at home. If nobody’s around, he’d rather sleep. So leaving food for him and going away almost guarantees you’ll come back to find it untouched. Overall, he enjoys tasty food, and when it is indeed time to dine or have dinner, he eats with great pleasure whatever you give him.

In general, when he doubts whether to eat the meat from the bowl or not, and after thinking it over decides to leave, the trick is to pull out a piece of meat and offer it from your hand. If he eats it (and if he’s already by the bowl, he’s more likely to eat from your hand), his decision will likely change. And within a minute, the bowl will be empty.

Or take cheese, for instance. On one hand, when we pour some wine and get a cheese platter to make watching a series or movie more fun, Yuka also comes over to watch the cheese, drooling copiously, ready to eat a kilogram of it at any time. But you need to pour the wine and turn on the projector. If, however, you bring cheese at some random time or anytime outdoors, his reaction to the cheese will be the same as to a stone.

Cinema Ballet: A Stunning Fusion of Film and Dance | November 10 2024, 22:16

This was our first ballet in a cinema, and the experience turned out to be simply stunning. It was very hard not to applaud (the projectionist?). Rich colors, intricate costumes, amazing detail, very good sound, which gave the full feeling of sitting in front of the orchestra pit. Yes, what’s happening on stage is a flat picture, but unlike the static front row at the Paris de Bastille theater, where your eyes are at the level of the performers’ heels, here the best angle is chosen for each scene, thanks to the moving camera. Altogether, a very interesting experience.

The production itself was luxurious. Odette/Odile was performed by Korean Se Yun Park — seemingly the first Asian etoile at the Paris Opera. Paul Marc played the role of Prince Siegfried.

This was a daytime session on the last day, plus ballet in cinema is still not more popular than Marvel comics. There were about ten other people in the auditorium besides us.

Spoiler: Both the prince and the swan end up dying majestically. Poor bird 😢 Right after that, we headed to a restaurant to eat duck.

Incidentally, it turns out that directors choose the ending according to their own taste in different productions. In the 2012 production by the State Ballet of Siberia, Siegfried and Rothbart drown in the lake; in the 2015 production by the English National Ballet, Siegfried’s love breaks the curse and the other swans defeat Rothbart; and in the 2018 production by the Royal Ballet, Siegfried rescues Odette from the lake, but she is already dead.

New Butterfly Species Named by Russian and German Scientists | November 10 2024, 13:48

The Ulyanovsk scientist Alexey Solovyev, together with the German Thomas Witt, discovered a butterfly with unusual genitalia and named it Fignya melkaya. It belongs to the slime-lookalikes.

Interestingly, do they also name butterflies after presidents?

Dual Mastery: Katherine Stone’s Journey in Oil Painting and Tattoo Art | November 10 2024, 03:58

An intriguing Canadian artist, Katherine Stone, is also a skilled tattoo artist. Her husband is a tattoo artist as well. I’ll leave their Instagram in the comments (easy to find on Google). Her oil paintings are especially captivating and diverse. Honestly, it’s rare to come across someone equally talented in both oil painting and tattooing.

Posts like these are tagged with #artrauflikes, and the “Art Rauf Likes” section on beinginamerica.com showcases all 129 of them (unlike Facebook, which overlooks nearly half).