Author: Rauf Aliev

June 16 2018, 14:55

More and more shops around us have completely switched to paper bags. Mostly, of course, not the cheapest ones. But in the few where there is still “plastic” at the checkout, that is, polyethylene (HDPE) bags, they very often ask “plastic bag?”. If you say “no”, they give you a paper one. Many customers come with their own bags. Almost all of them are motivated by environmental concerns rather than anything else. Polyethylene bags in our supermarket, for instance, are recycled separately. In some places, like Aldo, LDPE bags are only available for a fee, and in Costco (which is similar to Metro in Russia), there are no bags at all at the checkout.

June 14 2018, 13:10

Today was Masha’s graduation from school. She received a Certificate of Excellence. She asks, did Trump sign this himself? )

From observations: several hundred parents came, the hall was full. The ceremony lasted over two hours and was generally quite boring. Children’s last names were called out quite quickly, papers handed out, interspersed with short speeches for all that is good and against all that is bad. However, it felt like I was the only one staring into my phone (work didn’t let go). A hundred percent of the parents around were attentively listening, actively applauding, and rejoicing in the successes of others, not distracted from the process for a second.

And so Masha has finished her third (almost) year at Spring Hill. From September – Longfellow Middle School. It’s eight and a half kilometers from home. Looks like she’ll be mastering the bus, apparently)

June 13 2018, 21:03

Today, I connected a motor from an old printer to an Arduino. Just through a transistor for now, but tomorrow a board that’s easier to control should arrive, and it has overcurrent protection, etc. I still don’t know what will result. Maybe I’ll attach a pencil and another motor for radial movement, and try to make a drawing machine by attaching a marker.

Also today, I tried to use a piezoelectric speaker to produce ultrasound; my generator supports a wide frequency range, up to 1 megahertz, so it’s fun to play with sounds above the upper limit of the audible range, from 20K. You can barely hear a sound over 15K, but if you keep increasing it, an annoying sensation appears. I should experiment on different people.)

June 12 2018, 15:35

Writing straight from the dentist’s chair. Getting dental treatment in the USA is hardly ideal. But since I don’t have much choice, I’m getting a crown here.

They scanned my mouth with a 3D scanner, and the scan was immediately sent to a milling machine where a crown made of lithium disilicate glass-ceramic was carved out. And here I am with a new tooth. The technology is called Cerec/e.Max.