Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev.

Walking with Yuki near the house. In the foreground, a new batch of ducklings is approaching.

In 2013, Roscosmos decided to live broadcast the launch of the Proton-M, but the rocket beautifully exploded in the air and fell into the Kazakh steppe with full tanks of toxic fuel. Later, it was discovered that the reason was the upside-down installation of one sensor. An electrician and a controller were blamed, and Marat Nasibulin was charged with negligence.

So, I found out today that Vladimir Popovkin, the head of Roscosmos, who arrived at the crash site right after the incident, was heavily exposed to fuel components simply by being near the site (obviously, he wasn’t clearing the debris), and he died of cancer.

Interestingly, in 11 years, there has been no information on what happened to Marat Nasibulin, who was charged with negligence.

And RBC releases an article claiming that heptyl isn’t that toxic after all.

Such mockery deserves a petition on charge org! They make you rotate images twenty times, and you need to spend a decent amount of time just to prove that you are not a camel. One mistake and you start all over, 20 questions.

GitHub. I made a mistake, and to avoid repeating the whole series, I chose the audio option apparently meant for people with vision problems. There, I had to select the number of a song that includes birds singing. At first, I read it as the number of songs that include birds singing. After entering the number one many times, I realized something was off. At least their concept of singing birds is simplified – just chirping. No crows or owls. Ended up having to go through it twice anyway. GitHub really doesn’t want new registrations.

Stocking up at the store with a list. And why is cauliflower called ‘colored’ if it’s not colored? And there is actually colored cauliflower, purple, but that cauliflower isn’t ‘colored’, it’s just cauliflower

If anyone is interested, I can post more #musicrauflikes

Here’s a video from Allie Sherlock’s channel, featuring her performing with 13-year-old redhead Fionn Whelan

Somewhere Only We Know by Lily Allen

Hallelujah

on the streets of Dublin. I want to go to Dublin

We have our own series here. In spring, Canadian geese (ducks, Canadian goose) fly to our pond. In the first episode, which lasted a month, she sat on the eggs day and night (should have taken a photo, ah), while he guarded her and probably fed her somehow. It seems that the eggs transformed into ducklings yesterday. The second episode has started. Now we are going to count them every morning and worry if there aren’t seven. The birds are very sociable. It’s interesting, if a human were to have septuplets, would they also stick together or would they scatter in different directions?

The best lecture on quantum mechanics for the “dad, explain” and “grandkid, explain” situations.

I’ve been thinking, Frank Herbert’s Dune and Avatar have a lot in common.

1) Both feature the ecological theme. In “Dune,” the planet Arrakis is the source of a valuable resource – the spice melange, harvested by unsavory characters. In “Avatar,” Pandora faces threats due to resource extraction by Earth’s colonists, where the equivalent of melange seems to be unobtainium/Ubh-310.

2) In both, there’s conflict between the native peoples (the Fremen and the Na’vi) and the invaders who need natural resources and care little for those who live there.

3) Both include mystical and spiritual elements tied to the native peoples and their culture.

4) The main characters of both works (Paul Atreides in “Dune” and Jake Sully in “Avatar”) undergo significant transformation, integrating into the cultures of the native peoples and eventually leading their fight against the invaders. And they sacrifice their former ways of life.

5) Both explore the conflict between the advanced technologies of the newcomers and the traditional ways of life of the indigenous populations. The Fremen rely on their deep understanding of the desert and their survival skills in harsh conditions, even managing to tame the giant sandworms. The Na’vi use their connection with the environment to confront humans with more advanced technologies.

Interesting, is there another film as closely related? The themes are timeless indeed.

Just a couple of hours away by car from us is the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ), a 34,000 sq. km area around the Green Bank Observatory in the mountains, featuring forests and a few small towns. It spans across 37 counties in three states. In this zone, the use of radio transmitting devices is legally prohibited to anyone except police, firefighters, and medical doctors. The closer to the observatory, the stricter the enforcement. Special vehicles patrol the area for devices emitting, by their standards, excessive electromagnetic radiation, such as microwave ovens, Wi-Fi access points, and faulty electrical equipment, and these folks ask citizens to cease their use. Although they have no authority to enforce compliance (though the FCC can impose a $50 fine on violators), they somehow manage to communicate effectively with the residents.

Wondering about mobile service? That does not work there either 🙂 Generally in those areas, mobile phones more often do not work than do, and in the Green Bank zone, they do not work for the reason mentioned above. We have visited those areas several times, and yes, it’s somewhat annoying when you’re without Google Maps for about an hour.

Truly, there are also very few people living there. The population density is about 4 people per sq. km. So, if your car breaks down there, there may be no signal and no local residents if you’re unlucky enough to head in the wrong direction. Well, that’s still amidst bears, but they are actually not scary at all.

The quiet zone also protects the antennas and receivers of the Naval Information Operations Command (NIOC) in Sugar Grove. NIOC is a site for electronic espionage systems and is currently considered a key station in the ECHELON system, managed by the National Security Agency (NSA).

There’s even a whole book about this place called The Quiet Zone: Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence.

I just remembered—I’m actually in the middle of reading The Three Body Problem, about a telescope sending a message to aliens, which is where all the troubles begin. It’s exactly like the one in the picture) see the picture in the comments