Category: USA

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.

Exploring Farm Freshness: A Visit to an Innovative 24/7 Honor System Store | July 13 2025, 20:39

We stopped by a small farm store on the way. Open 24/7. You grab what you need, money into an envelope, envelope into the slot. Or digitally via QR codes. Bought some soft goat cheese, goat’s milk ice cream, and cucumbers (grown next to the goats). Farm products here are about twice as expensive as store-bought, but they are limited edition, and sometimes unique in the area.

Awaiting the Next Big Thing from Boston Dynamics | July 10 2025, 20:09

I’ve been thinking, it’s been a while since there was an exciting video from Boston Dynamics. Remember, each one used to create quite a stir online. I checked their channel. And it looks good. Hundreds of millions in investments from the Pentagon/US Department of Defense suggest that it won’t stop at drones.

https://youtu.be/I44_zbEwz_w?si=51szmPYzdYtBGs6X

https://youtu.be/I44_zbEwz_w?si=51szmPYzdYtBGs6X

Lost in Translation: A Midnight Encounter at Ashburn Station | July 06 2025, 17:28

Yesterday late, around 10-11pm, I was returning from Washington by metro. At the exit of Ashburn station, a relatively well-dressed guy approaches me and asks how to get to Route 7 from the station by bike. I start to answer, then he asks me if I happen to speak Russian. My accent gave me away (damn, how did he know exactly?)

I open the map on my phone, start explaining it to him, go right here, then left, then right, a 45-minute ride. It’s night outside. The dude’s on a bike. He doesn’t have a phone — something is broken or dead. But the most interesting thing, he doesn’t know the address where he needs to go. And Route 7, by the way, is 497 km long, but he obviously meant a segment about 30 km near the metro, but it was still not clear where he needed to go in that section.

In the conversation, it turned out that he knows how to get to the place where he stopped (friends?), from the local Russian-speaking Protestant church, called New Life. I feel I’m explaining to him, he’s overall ready to go alone in the dark without navigation, but from his feedback, I understand he didn’t get it, and at the first turn, he’d go wrong. And at that time, there was absolutely no one on the streets, it’s a neighborhood and data center area (the largest in the world, by the way), very safe, but absolutely deserted. I tell him — my car is parked at the metro, let me give you a lift if that’s the case, it’s no trouble for me.

His name is Edik. He wrecked his car a week ago because he liked to drive “with a breeze”. He regrets it because now he doesn’t understand what to buy a new one with. Lives in Baltimore, came to our area because there’s some Mongolian holiday tomorrow. What? I ask, what the hell is a Mongolian holiday. Turns out he’s from Mongolia, lived there before moving to the USA. Russian family, school at the Russian embassy. Speaks Russian without an accent, and fluent in Mongolian. Illegal. Apparently, he came to the USA on a tourist visa and stayed. Works in a store somewhere near Baltimore. Deep in debt. Apparently, a few adventures weren’t enough and he went to Virginia by bike mixed with metro and buses.

I hope he made it home from the church.

Unveiling the Mystery of the Original Declaration of Independence | July 04 2025, 02:36

Tomorrow is July 4th – Independence Day.

I’m currently reading about it. It turns out that the authentic Declaration of Independence is lost to history, and the document labeled “Original Declaration of Independence” in the National Archives is actually a copy.

By the way, about 80% of the text of the declaration lists why the king is bad. Literally. He doesn’t do this, he doesn’t do that, he forgot about us here, he didn’t remember there. It’s just a straight protest of no kings. The last paragraph of the long text essentially says, in sum, forget him. We want to handle it ourselves.

Jefferson prepared the draft of the Declaration of Independence with all the usual revisions—crossed out words, inserts in the gaps, etc., all written in his poor handwriting. This document exists and is very interesting.

The rest of the committee approved the text, and Jefferson then created a fair copy (still in his bad handwriting and just the size of a regular sheet), which was presented to Congress, voted on, adopted, and received its first signatures. This “fair copy” was the real original Declaration of Independence—and it is precisely this one that is lost.

Later, Congress decided that a version suitable for publication was needed—bigger and, of course, not written in Jefferson’s terrible handwriting. For this, they hired a professional copyist. When he made his copy, Congress held a re-signing. This version by the copyist has the label “Original Declaration of Independence” on the back and is the one currently displayed in the National Archives. It was “original” only in the sense that it served as the master copy for printing.

So what happened to Jefferson’s “fair copy,” the genuine original Declaration of Independence? No one knows. It might still be somewhere in the archives, lost among other documents. Or perhaps someone took it home and preserved it, or maybe it was destroyed by time and circumstances, such as when the British burned Washington.

In 1989, a man named Michael Sparks bought an old painting at a flea market in Pennsylvania for $2.48. When he removed the frame, he discovered a rolled-up piece of paper behind it. This turned out to be one of the rare “Dunlap Broadsides”—the first 200 printed copies of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, printed on the night of July 4 to 5, 1776, by John Dunlap.

This find was in excellent condition and was sold at a Sotheby’s auction in 1991 for 2.42 million dollars (and later resold for even more). This isn’t Bitcoin!

A bit about the dates. On July 2, Congress voted for independence. Not the 4th. On July 4, it was formally ratified by Congress, they spent two days making minor formal amendments, having already decided on the substance. No signatures yet. The date on the document, of course, is the 4th. Copies were printed and sent out the next day. Eventually, the ones sent out were signed by the delegates only on August 2.

Three of the first five American presidents died on this day. Jefferson, Adams, Monroe. Jefferson was in fact the father of this declaration, with Adams, they found the time. So maybe July 2nd would be a more appropriate day to celebrate.

Yes, also—technically—America did not gain independence in 1776. It happened only after the signing of the Treaty of Paris (September 3, 1783), when Britain said: “Alright,” and recognized America as a separate state.

If the War of Independence hadn’t turned in favor of America, Washington (like most of the founding fathers) would likely have been executed for treason. But since it turned out otherwise, they picked that day.