Author: Rauf Aliev

Unexpected Costs: My Tesla Model Y Windshield Replacement Saga | July 16 2025, 17:26

Well, it hasn’t even been two months since I bought the Model Y, and I’ve already replaced the windshield. An unfortunate stone flew from under the wheels of some truck. The result — a crack that grew every few days of waiting for the repair.

Overall, it was known from the start that Tesla’s service is not as good as their cars, but so far my experience with the service has been most wonderful — except for the fact that I ended up paying $1000 out of the blue (not their fault, of course).

As soon as you get a crack, you create a claim through the app and set up a repair. The nearest available date was in two weeks from that day. The estimate came immediately through the app: $1,140. This included a new windshield ($1000 with a 50% discount) and labor — about $600. The insurance will only pay me $140, because I pay the first thousand as per the insurance terms.

The repair works like this: you arrive at the appointed time, and leave the car. The reception already knows you have arrived and why you are there. The initial estimate for completion in the app was 6 PM — that’s 10.5 hours after the appointed time. I brought two laptops, headphones, a charger, and hadn’t finished my coffee when I received a message that everything was done. It took 40 minutes.

So, the experience with their service was excellent, although of course it would have been better if there had been no need for it at all.

Why Don’t We Have Self-Sustaining Solar-Powered Drones Yet? | July 16 2025, 01:33

I wonder why we still don’t see autonomous drones that could lead an “eternal” life: landing on roofs, deploying solar panels, charging from the sun, and taking off once a day for whatever their mission might be? When you consider the energy aspects, it seems like a feasible scheme. For instance, a heavy drone weighing about 8 kg could carry foldable solar panels with an area of 1.5 m² and a battery with a capacity of 2 kWh. In one sunny day, such panels could collect about 1.2 kWh of energy — enough for it to fly for 20 minutes at a speed of 40–50 km/h, take photos, and transmit them via the mobile network. And there would still be a reserve of energy for several cloudy days.

Even a light drone weighing 2 kg with small panels (0.5 m²) could rise into the air for 10–15 minutes every day if it managed to find good weather and a sunny roof. The power required for hovering for such devices is about 150–200 W, and solar panels with 20% efficiency at mid-latitudes can produce up to 350–400 Wh per day. The balance comfortably adds up, especially if not chasing speed and if there’s no rush on the roof.

Such a “solar nomad” could live for weeks and months, flying from roof to roof and charging in anticipation of missions. At first glance, the technology of batteries and panels already allows this to be done. Or am I missing something?

Exploring the Slug: An Unusual Imperial Unit of Mass | July 15 2025, 20:52

Have you ever heard of a unit of mass measurement called a slug? In the US, it does exist, even though it’s less common nowadays. American physics and engineering textbooks for students, especially where they want to clearly differentiate between mass (slug) and weight (lbf), tend to use the imperial system with its feet and the like. It simplifies F = ma in the imperial system without introducing extra coefficients.

1 slug is the mass that accelerates by 1 ft/s² under the force of 1 pound-force (lbf). Thus, a slug accelerating at 32.174 ft/s² “weighs” 32.174 pounds-force (lbf). 32.174 ft/s² is our 9.8 m/s², just in feet.

A “slug” is, on one hand, a slug (a slow-moving mollusk without a shell), and on the other hand, a heavy piece of metal or a bullet (like a shotgun slug – a large-caliber cartridge). In the context of the unit of mass, it’s not about mollusks, but rather about a “heavy lump.” But it’s still funny when they write “mass equals 5 slugs.”

12 slugs equal 1 blob (image of blob attached). Blob is a version of slug, but based on inches instead of feet. It has fun slang names – slinch, slugette, snail.

I also read about the British Thermal Unit — the amount of heat needed to heat 1 pound of water by 1°F. Converting BTUs to calories or joules results in a quite awkward number.

AI-Powered Smart Glasses: Revolutionizing Real-Time Discussion and Information Access | July 15 2025, 20:19

Here’s what would be great to do with AI – a system that reads the screen, listens to what’s being discussed on the call, including what you say, and what is said to you, and _on the screen_, and better yet, directly on smart-glasses, gives pop-up tips and hints that help you timely ask a counter-question or request a clarification, or respond to a question directed at you. Not just for passing interviews, although that would also be nice, but for more effectively conducting discussions — from technical to commercial ones.

In the case of smart-glasses, you could enjoy this without a computer in front of your eyes. I’m just afraid of having to send absolutely everything that happens around you to the cloud, analyze it, and return it in real time, which is technologically challenging (=expensive).

Such a system would be no less useful for conducting interviews than for passing them. For example, you ask someone a question, they start to respond, and then the system suggests — aha, it seems they are struggling with this topic. Let’s ask this question. Then you decide whether to ask this or something else. Why not? It’s convenient. Of course, the interviewee could employ the same system, and then it would not be simple.

Right now, I’m flipping through a book by Johannes Itten on color, and I think about how I miss dynamic illustrations and commentary. I’ve reached Piero della Francesca and for the life of me, I can’t recall what his paintings are like. This is where smart-glasses would come in handy. You look at a word, snap your fingers, and around it appear pop-up windows with contextual illustrations, comments, and links to detailed information, which you can visit now, or save to read later. It would be possible to ask any question verbally while looking at the text segment it pertains to and get an answer not verbally, but in a pop-up window that you can quickly close if you didn’t find anything new, or perhaps add a clarification by voice, after which the content in the window updates.

If I had smart-glasses, I would experiment with this. It seems straightforward.

Pearls and Mother-of-Pearl: Nature’s Fascinating Defense Mechanism | July 14 2025, 20:58

I realized that I don’t know much about pearls and started reading up on them today. It turns out that pearls are formed as a natural defense by oysters to irritation: when a micro-particle (a grain of sand, a piece of shell, or a microorganism) gets into the shell, the oyster begins to cover it with layers of nacre. Nacre (nacre) — the inner layer of shells, thin layers of calcium and protein. Interestingly, nacre and pearls are essentially the same in composition. The word “nacre” comes from German and means “mother of pearl” (Perlmutter). A single layer of nacre can form several times a day to several weeks, and it takes up to 2 years for a full pearl to form.

Wild pearls are extremely rare (one in 10000), as not all mollusks are capable of producing them — only some species can. There is also black pearl, found only in the southern part of the Pacific Ocean, and the colors of natural pearls vary from white and grey to green, blue, and red.

Most of the pearls on the market are cultured: humans manage to “trick” the oyster by placing a bead or a piece of fabric inside the shell so it starts the process of covering it with nacre. In other words, to put it simply, almost all the pearls in the market have a plastic bead inside, and nacre is just a thin “skin” around it. Cultivation of pearls occurs on special farms, where oysters are provided ideal conditions for growth and are regularly cared for. The mortality rate of mollusks after transplant is between 10-40%.

Pearls can burn: this is an organic material (97% calcium and 3% water and proteins), and it does not withstand high temperatures, it also dissolves in vinegar.

It turns out, edible oysters also produce pearls, but they are not as shiny.

The Art of Lawn Striping: Creating Light and Dark Patterns with Grass | July 14 2025, 14:42

We constantly drive past fields organized into stripes or checks. I finally found the time to look into how this is done. It’s called lawn striping, and the effect is achieved by bending the blades of grass in different directions.

The direction in which the grass bends determines whether a stripe will be light or dark. When the blades lean away from you, the lawn looks lighter because the light reflects off the broad and long surface of the blade. When the blades lean towards you, the lawn appears darker because you are looking at the tips of the blades (smaller reflective surface) and you see shadows under the grass. Therefore, mowing the lawn in opposite directions (up/down, left/right, north/south, east/west, etc.) creates the greatest contrast between the stripes. Interestingly, since the “color” of the stripe depends on the direction from which you look at it, a light stripe will appear dark if viewed from the opposite side.

This fuss over grass is a very American phenomenon. I overcome my laziness to mow the lawn only when the grass has indecently overgrown (the notion of “indecently overgrown” is also something I adjust each year after receiving tsk-tsk letters from the village administration). My neighbor, however, seems to do it every few days, and I once saw him kneeling in the grass—complaining that someone had dragged something across his lot, dropping some chips in the grass and ruining its perfection. Really, the only thing missing was a pair of scissors in his hands.