Author: Rauf Aliev

I really enjoyed reading the long article about four crazy roofers who managed to walk to a spaceport, film a launch, find a Buran, climb inside, and get back out alive. Very cool, great photos, and the report itself is very interesting.

http://lentach.media/articles/v-kosmos-na-kolesakh-chetvero-rebiat-poekhali-na-mashine-na-kosmodrom-baikonur/

Oh! I now know what it’s called: Shlemiel the Painter’s algorithm! An old article from an excellent blog – one of the first on the internet that I started reading (and then abandoned) http://russian.joelonsoftware.com/Articles/BacktoBasics.html

From the courses I’ve recently listened to on Arzamas, I recommend the following:

1. History of Orthodox Culture. https://arzamas.academy/courses/43

2. What is Antiquity?https://arzamas.academy/likbez/antiquity

What is Ancient Greece?

https://arzamas.academy/courses/36

3. How to Understand Japan.

https://arzamas.academy/courses/21

4. How Railroads Changed Russian Life. Co-produced with RZD. Interesting (haven’t finished listening yet, but the beginning is intriguing)

https://arzamas.academy/courses/49

5. How to Listen to Classical Music?

https://arzamas.academy/courses/25

(somewhere halfway interesting and useful)

6. The World of Bulgakov.

https://arzamas.academy/courses/39

7. The Russian Language from “goy esi” to “lol kek” – very interesting

https://arzamas.academy/likbez/ruslang

8. The Siege of Leningrad

https://arzamas.academy/courses/51/

Also, they have the “Inferiority Complex” podcast. There was recently interesting content about the swearing used by Pushkin) https://soundcloud.com/arzamas-academy

If someone has listened to anything else – please recommend.

I’ve also discovered Arkhe (http://arhe.msk.ru/) – but they do not have a mobile app and many lectures require video as slides are needed

Brought from Burning Man to Washington

These mushrooms are alive. Exhibits from burning man, DC

This object is bulky and made of wood. Exhibits from Burning Man, Renwick Gallery, DC.

Exhibits from Burning Man, Renwick Gallery, Washington DC

Besides “as though,” which appears 51 times in the first Harry Potter and zero in the two Narnias, I noticed that Rowling likes to use the verb “stare” – 58 times in “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” while in the two Narnias – 9 times.

Reading the first Harry Potter, I noticed Rowling’s fondness for “as though”.

In the book, this phrase is repeated 51 times, whereas in the first two Narnia books, for example, it does not appear even once. Based on such metrics, one could probably automatically guess the author of a book even from a fragment without proper nouns, if trained on phrases and grammatical patterns.

I wonder why it is generally assumed that extraterrestrial civilizations operate on the same time scale as we do? For instance, we see a stone on planet X. Just a stone. But in reality, it’s a frame from the multimillion-year life of some being. Or, conversely, although this is debatable.

And another important point. It seems obvious to everyone, but still. It’s absolutely impossible to determine if there is life or what is happening somewhere RIGHT NOW. You can determine if something happened some time ago, but you can’t say anything about right now. The further from Earth, the greater the gap in time. Light from the neighboring galaxy takes hundreds of thousands of years. And if we look further – then we are talking about millions of years. Assuming that time there flows faster for an entire species, which may emerge and disappear faster than on Earth – at best, we see traces.

There are two wildly interesting topics right now – the deep-sea world and space. Both are poorly studied – discoveries occur almost every year by recent students. It’s a pity, kids these days aren’t particularly interested in these subjects.