Category: facebook

Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off

A great collection of regional variations in the pronunciation of individual words in the USA

#English #pronunciation #notes

Critique the project: a chess board connected via USB to a computer. The pieces are identified as follows: each has two contacts at the bottom, and inside—a resistor of one of six values, one per piece. Thus, each square provides three bits. The control scheme includes a counter and multiplexers. Rings are printed on a 3D printer, covered with conductive paint, white and black, underneath the board’s surface—lots of wires. The inverse square is also printed on a 3D printer but is coated with regular paint. One fits into another—if the colors are matched, it should be barely noticeable. Inside the pieces—a small magnet and a resistor. The board’s schematic is connected to the computer through a serial port and USB adapter.

Sergey Martynov ? Dmitri Dmitrienko ? Eugene Mityaev ? Stanislav Sviridenko ? Andrey Verbicky ?

To my surprise, I discovered that from April 1, 2021, certain software will be preinstalled on smartphones, tablets, computers, laptops, and televisions with Smart TV functionality sold in the country. The list is below.

I wonder, is there even one among my friends who has used ICQ at least once in the last, say, 10 years? 15 years? I visited their website – it’s still kicking!

Am I right to think that for iOS, there will be an additional dialog box on first launch offering the installation? Voluntarily and after signing in with their AppleID? @[558349609:2048:Alex Patsay]

So, what will be installed:

On smartphones and tablets with Android and iOS:

• “Yandex.Browser”

• “Yandex” search engine

• “Yandex.Maps”

• “Yandex.Disk”

• “Mail.ru Email”

• ICQ — AAAAAAAAAAAAA!

• “Marusya” voice assistant

• “Mail.ru News”

• OK Live

• “VKontakte”

• “Odnoklassniki”

• MirPay (Android only)

• “Gosuslugi”

• “MyOffice Documents”

• Kaspersky Internet Security (Android only)

• Applist.ru

On computers and laptops with Windows:

• “MyOffice Standard. Home version”

On TVs with Smart TV function:

• “Yandex” search engine

• Wink

• ivi

• “Perviy”

• “Kinopoisk”

• Okko

• More.tv

• Premier

• “Smotrim”

• NTV

• Start

http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/0001202101060012?index=0&rangeSize=1

Really cool dude makes videos on English pronunciation. Surprising why he only has 8K subscribers with such content. Technically, the selection of material and so on. In this case, a topic I had never considered before 🙂 Especially great is the part where people pronounce sounds under MRI and an excellent breakdown of exercises in the second part.

#English #pronunciation #notes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFKylJWKdy0

What I was busy with on New Year’s night and several nights after — integrating a physical chess board with a virtual one. Move a piece on the physical board – it moves on the virtual one, and the move is recorded. In the video — the first “public” test, a sort of “family concert”. For recognizing the board, I use a neural network based on resnet18, trained on 2300 images of pieces on a board. For working with images, I use OpenCV, PIL, Numpy.

The main task was simply to automatically record the games that Lisa and I play almost every day.

The prototype works, now the task is to throw everything away and start from scratch properly. Not with scotch tape, an easel, and a cane, and not with crappy code, so it wouldn’t be embarrassing to share. From simple but interesting plans: to remove the need to press space after each move, connect stockfish, in-depth game analysis on the fly, to produce a farting sound or the trademark ta-da-da-daaaam when one of us makes a stupid move. If anyone is interested in joining — give a shout.

I wonder if it’s possible to create a device that emits an unpleasant ultrasound in response to a dog’s barking (for instance, at night) and sell it to owners who would like to train their dog not to bark? Technically, it seems simple.

Georgia turned out to be the decisive state, the election results of which determine the color of the Senate, and the ease of passing presidential initiatives through the Senate. And now, after processing 98% of the votes – it’s 50 to 50. The difference is less than one percent. Such a scenario is scripted, with a tie, the president’s party wins.

A good video that shows why a two-party system leads to such results. And why a two-party system emerges organically – https://youtu.be/yhO6jfHPFQU

I stumbled upon such an interesting advertisement. The company is recruiting volunteers for COVID vaccine trials, using a photo of GAM-COVID-VAC by Gamaleya in the ad. They promise to pay up to $1220. I decided to register and see what happens next. I answered a dozen standard questions and booked a slot for a video call—literally the next morning.

The company that collects volunteers is Acurian Health. During registration, there was no information about the actual study; I received that later by mail. They are testing a new vaccine from Arcturus Therapeutics, under the code names LUNAR-COV19 and ARCT-021. So, it’s definitely not Sputnik. A big question to Acurian, of course, is why they use random images in advertising. I’m sure that even “up to $1220” is plucked out of thin air.

In the docs they sent, there is no $1220 amount. If I decide to participate, they compensate my time for phone sessions – $25 per session, which adds up to $250, assuming all sessions are by phone. But it’s not the case—they require several blood donations at least. They compensate $50 for each visit to an actual clinic without blood donation or $100 with a donation. There’s also $150 for a dosing visit, which probably takes more time, and another $150 for unplanned visits. Up to 10 visits to the clinic in total, so $1220 is likely their “maximum” compensation. Yes, they pay for transport to the clinic (taxi, for example). If something goes wrong and my insurance refuses to cover it, the study organizers will take on the expenses. Treatment is only at clinics involved in the research. No maximum amount is specified.

Today I spoke with a representative of the group collecting volunteers for ARCT-021. The main concern for me, of course, is safety and then effectiveness. I immediately refused, as I had planned from the start, because participating in the second phase (there have only been 70 people before me), with a 25% chance of ending up in what seems to me a small group of unvaccinated people for more than a year… The study lasts 14 months, and if they inject me with a placebo, or if the real vaccine is not effective enough… I did not have any doubts.

Now about the terms of participation. The attached documents indicate that they plan to recruit 600 people from the USA and Singapore—countries where Arcturus is present. 15 clinics, they pay for a trip to the nearest clinic. They promise at least 10 visits. They administer three injections. The second one—a month later, and the third—half a year later. They provide a ruler, a diary, and a digital thermometer. I will need to measure something and record it every day for 14 months.

The company pays any costs associated with the study, including treatment of complications if they arise.

About the mRNA vaccine LUNAR-COV19/ARCT-021 itself. It is based on self-replicating mRNA. Synthetic pieces of the coronavirus genetic code are created at Arcturus using their mRNA synthesis technology STARR, after which they are injected into the body in a lipid emulsion LUNAR (so-called lipid-mediated delivery, lipid nanoparticles). Why self-replicating—it differs from Pfizer and Moderna vaccines—the viral RNA fragments begin to “replicate” inside the body, which potentially makes the vaccine more effective (but also increases risks for patients if something is not well thought out). The virus itself does not replicate, of course, we are talking only about proteins. It is claimed that antibodies to the spike protein are produced as early as the 19th day after the minimal dose (0.2 mcg), and their levels in response to its single introduction are produced for 50 days—both parameters are higher than those of vaccines on the market.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04480957

OpenAI taught robots to create images from text.

https://openai.com/blog/dall-e/

So, we’re coming back from Philly, and at home, a BAT is circling around! The shocked cat is coming to his senses. For one thing, we have no idea how it got inside the house at all. We carefully open the front door to prevent the cat from escaping (he tries). The balcony too. Plus, it seems we haven’t gone out there for a while. All windows have screens. Ventilation has a grate. So, I concluded that it flew in as we were entering the apartment. It does fly swiftly after all, and it must have miscalculated its maneuver and “chose the wrong door”.