Thank you to everyone who showed concern, called, and texted from the morning to check if we were all alright. Thankfully, we are fine.
The plane was carrying athletes returning from a training camp in Wichita for top junior, intermediate, and novice figure skaters, coming back from the World Championship. Yes, some of them were known to Nadya and Masha, and a few were close friends. In total, 14 people related to the ice-skating community perished, and tragically, all 64 people on board died.
Six members of the US figure skating team on that ill-fated flight were affiliated with the Boston Figure Skating Club. Skater Spencer Lane, his mother Molly, skater Gina Han and her mother Jean, as well as coaches Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were on board. Nadya and Masha were also closely acquainted with sisters Everly and Alidia Livingston, aged 11 and 14 respectively, and knew Inna Volyanskaya well. It is very, very sad news.
A similar tragedy occurred in 1961 when a plane carrying 18 members of the US figure skating team to the World Championships in Prague crashed during an attempt to land in Brussels. All 73 people onboard died, including the 16-year-old “Queen of American Ice,” Laurence Owen, along with her mother and coach Maribel Vinson-Owen and her older sister Maribel Owen.
Names of the deceased will be released. In the US, there is an unwritten ethical rule that the relatives of deceased individuals are notified first, followed by the media after some time.
Look at how interestingly the glass has cracked. The crack goes in a circle. Usually, on glass, cracks tend to spread towards the nearest edge because that’s where the stress can be minimal. However, in this case, it seems that the crack stopped before reaching the edge of the glass, which is quite unusual.
Unfortunately, this is already the third glass with a similar crack; in the other two, the crack indeed completed the circle. The dishwasher, which torments the glass with its temperature, is to blame for everything. The second photo shows how it was originally
Today, I am showcasing the paintings of German artist Torsten Wolber. He studied graphic design and illustration and worked as a teacher for nearly 30 years before dedicating himself entirely to oil painting in 2020. His Facebook and Instagram pages are filled with useful videos, and he offers courses, sharing his experience in every way he can (see comments)
His works blend classical portraiture, Impressionism, and expressive realism, creating a unique and instantly recognizable style.
I’ve been reading how others write about artists—what a bore! Birth dates, schools attended, influences, genres… Either it’s completely unnecessary or it’s all evident from the paintings themselves. Just show the art—no need for all the fluff. So here you go—look, enjoy.
I’ll leave links to his Facebook and Instagram in the comments.
Posts like this are grouped under #artrauflikes, and you can find all 142 of them in the “Art Rauf Likes” section on beinginamerica.com—unlike Facebook, which conveniently forgets (or ignores) almost half of them.
I finished “Theodora”. It’s a three-hour opera in a production by the Royal Opera House. About Christian saints and martyrs Theodora and Didymus, who lived in the 4th century in what’s now modern Syria. On stage – prostitutes, pole dances, a bomb, essentially, the full package.
And yes, originally it’s not an opera, but an oratorio, meaning originally on stage there is a chorus that sings for three hours, and nothing else happens. In the production, however, the oratorio is decked out like an opera, plus a bit more.
In short. The plot. Briefly. Valens, the Roman envoy, forces everyone to worship Roman gods, and threatens to execute those who refuse. Theodora, a Christian, does not comply. Her lover, Didymus, secretly converted to Christianity, tries to save her by disguising himself in her dress. In the end, Theodora surrenders to the enemies to save Didymus, and both die as martyrs for their faith. Afterwards, they were canonized by Christians in gratitude.
The oratorio is in English. That’s unusual in itself. Well.. in English. “Vouchsafe, dread Sir, a gracious ear. Lowly the matron bow’d, and bore away the prize…”. English from three hundred years ago. I understood “Carmen” in French with subtitles better. But no matter, there are translations you can hold in your hand and glance at one-eyed, plus everything happens veeery slowly there.
So, what we have here. A classic plot on a religious theme. In Katie Mitchell’s production, they decided to break all norms at once, making the oratorio into an opera and also setting it in modern times. It turned out pretty cool, actually.
Katie Mitchell situates the action in, as they called in an Alicante publication, a “Putin-like” embassy in Antioch, where rooms function as a brothel. This is the first theatre piece to involve an intimacy coordinator for sex and violence scenes (Ita O’Brien).
Valens, the Roman envoy in Antioch, wears a red sweater. He hasn’t heard of the #MeToo movement, hence the brothel accommodates “comfort women” for him and his bodyguards. They in red lingerie dance on poles in the red room (kind of a striptease; Holly Weston and Kelly Vee).
Next, we are introduced to Septimius, Valens’ head of security. His task is to ensure that all citizens publicly worship Roman gods as a sign of loyalty. Otherwise – death.
Here comes Didymus, one of the bodyguards. Didymus used to believe in Roman gods but secretly converted to Christianity. He’s in love with the Christian Theodora, the head of the household staff at the embassy.
Theodora plans an assassination attempt on Valens with a homemade explosive. They actually assemble it on stage with duct tape and some stuff.
Septimius uncovers the conspiracy and defuses the bomb. Theodora’s punishment – she becomes a “comfort woman”. For this, they dress her up as Marilyn Monroe. Oh, actually, it seems more like Louise Brooks, but never mind, they look alike.
Then the drama continues with an escape, Didymus saves Theodora, then the other way around. But ultimately, as in all operas, things end up not very well, but specifically in Mitchell’s production, good prevails over evil.
The role of Didymus is played by Jakub Józef Orliński. He has a beautiful scene where he changes into heels and a shimmering dress, in which he continues to perform until the end of the opera.
Jakub has a rather unusual voice. He is a countertenor. It’s the highest male voice. After castrati fell out of favor – quite rare. Google it, his voice is very beautiful. I’ll leave a few links in the comments.
The first performance of “Theodora” was in London, at the Royal Theatre in Covent Garden in 1750, and this production 272 years later comes from there too. Quite symbolic. True, back then it flopped – almost no audience. But now, it’s a classic.
Here’s your text translated into English, with the HTML markup preserved:
I was thinking this morning about how to explain what a programmer’s job interview is like. I think I came up with a great analogy. It’s as if, when hiring a cook for a cafeteria, they were asked to describe the process of protein denaturation in a chicken egg at the molecular level. When hiring a salesperson, it would be essential to know how a reduction in the refinancing rate would affect aggregate demand in the long term.
You can’t just hire a welder. He needs to know how many valence electrons are in an iron atom and be able to derive the equation for the chemical reaction during welding.
A plumber must definitely know Bernoulli’s law and be able to calculate the water flow through a pipe using the Navier-Stokes equation.
Undoubtedly, you can’t just hire a hairdresser—you need one who can explain in detail how disulfide bonds work in the structure of hair and why, on a molecular level, a perm is a crime against keratin.
A carpenter should be asked about the ideal number of hammer strikes per minute to secure a nail considering the thickness of the wood. Even if he cannot name the exact number, he must demonstrate a thought process in the right direction (towards the interviewers).
Of course, once a programmer is hired, the very first task will involve reversing a string without using built-in functions. By recursion. Right after writing a module where two 100-digit numbers are added without using the addition operation. And the result is displayed in the console, formatted like a diamond. And certainly, a Java programmer will be using volatile, transient, strictfp at least every other day.
You should hire someone whose eyes sparkle with passion, or if not, someone who, like a tank, confidently plows through to a solution. Someone who understands exactly where to hit the code with a sledgehammer to make it work and keeps duct tape in their pocket in case that doesn’t help. Someone capable of fixing a bug and explaining to the client why the bug is a “feature” and not a mistake. Someone who says “that’s an interesting problem, I’ll think about it” instead of “it’s impossible”, and is already Googling how to do it. Someone who writes patches with such inspiration that they look like part of the architecture. And most importantly — you should hire someone who isn’t afraid to ask during the interview: “Why do I need to solve problems reversing strings, when in real life I have reverse()? Like in Python s[::-1] or ”.join(reversed(s)).”
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(ENG) Today, I introduce Marc Dailly. Creativity is often defined as the ability to recognize patterns and break them—to disrupt the usual order and create something new. Take the rules of composition and do the opposite. Need contrast? Render everything subdued. But. It requires sheer talent to make all this truly turn out great. And Marc Dailly succeeds.
Posts like these are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes, and on beinginamerica.com, under the “Art Rauf Likes” section, all 141 can be found (unlike Facebook, which forgets (overlooks) about almost half).
(ENG) Today, I’m introducing Marc Dailly. Creativity is often defined as the ability to recognize patterns and break them—to disrupt the usual order and create something new. Take the laws of composition and do the opposite. Need contrast? Make everything muted. But. It takes extraordinary talent to make all of this work brilliantly. And Marc Dailly pulls it off.
Posts like this are grouped under the hashtag #artrauflikes, and you can find all 141 of them on beinginamerica.com in the “Art Rauf Likes section—unlike Facebook, which tends to forget (or ignore) nearly half of them.
Here’s the text translated to English with the style and HTML markup preserved:
What I appreciate about the USA is the consistency of standards, especially those non-vexing ones.
For instance, right now, I’m stuffing a duvet cover. In Russia, I had to shove a 200×210 cm duvet into a 210×200 cm or a 200×210 cm cover—well, you get the idea. In the States, it’s a square 90-inch duvet and a square 90-inch duvet cover. Although, duvet covers aren’t really a thing here.
Electrical outlets and light switches seem to be universally the same. I’ve never seen different ones. Pure standard. When you plug something in, it doesn’t block the area for the adjacent plug. Most dishwashers are 24 inches wide, refrigerators are 36 inches.
If there’s a left turn on the road—in our parts, it’s always a separate lane. I can’t recall an intersection where cars behind wait to go straight when you turn left.
Front doors are 36 inches, interior doors are 32 inches. In general, when you need to measure something, it’s very pleasant that almost all dimensions fit within a grid of 1-2-4-6-12-16-18-20-32-36-48 inches. That is, there’s almost nothing like 17.5″ x 13.5″.
All east-west highways have a two-digit code ending with a zero, north-south ones end with a five. The smaller the number, the closer to the east or south respectively. For example, highway 15 is north-south, west coast, while 95 is north-south east, and 90 is east-west northern part, and 10 – east-west southern part.
Secondary highways have three digits, where the last two digits are from which you exit. For example, 285 – you exit from 85. And if the first digit is even, it means the secondary highway will eventually lead back to the primary one with that number.
ZIP codes also follow a standard system. The first digit represents a major region of the USA, and the digits roughly proceed from the east coast to the west. The second and third are for navigation within the region, and the last one – for city area navigation (delivery zone).
House numbers are even on the right, and numbers increase as you move away from the center. Often, a hundred numbers are allocated per city block, so the hundreds often signify blocks.
Bottles and cans often come in very understandable volumes – 12, 16, 22, 32 ounces, half-gallon, gallon. Yes, it’s unusual, but at least there isn’t a package of 900 grams of milk next to a 1-liter package. Yes, I intentionally put grams and liters side by side.
I have long noticed an interesting feature. You practice a piece on the piano and when progress seems to stall, you quit, but the next day when you sit down at the keyboard, suddenly, the difference from yesterday is like night and day, even though all you did was sleep.
I found a study (Journal of Neuroscience) suggesting that the proximity of sleep to practice plays a significant role. The researchers hypothesized that motor memories – the brain’s way of preserving skills and actions – not only consolidate over time, but can significantly improve if sleep follows soon after practice.
This hypothesis was tested through a series of experiments involving 290 right-handed individuals. Participants had to move a cursor on a computer screen to hit targets using a joystick. The complexity arose because sometimes the movement of the cursor was altered by optical rotation, which forced participants to adjust their hand movements to accurately hit the target. Different groups of subjects underwent this at different times, and those who did it before sleep showed the best progress.
It turns out that engaging in activities involving a significant portion of motor memories—like playing the piano or participating in complex-coordinated sports—right before sleep is beneficial. You could either adjust your sleep or the timing of these activities.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 