May 13 2021, 00:42

Watched in one breath today. Seven episodes, over four hours.

The story of three nuclear programs: German, American, and Soviet. Despite being a viewpoint from “Channel One”, I don’t want to argue with 99% of what was heard. Strangely, they only briefly mentioned the Rosenbergs, who were executed on the electric chair in the USA, and since then, questions about the fairness of their execution crop up occasionally. A lot of attention was given to the Soviet nuclear program (Kurchatov, Khariton, Kapitsa, Joffe, Flerov), the Manhattan Project (Oppenheimer, Groves), the role of Niels Bohr, the German nuclear program (Heisenberg, but oddly not Otto Hahn), espionage scientists infiltrated into the heart of the Manhattan project (Fuchs, Hall, and others like Harry Gold – not a scientist, but a spy), supplying developments to the USSR “to prevent war”. Strangely, there was nothing about Landau and Sakharov.

It was interesting to learn about George Gamow, who tried everything to escape the USSR: skiing to Finland or kayaking from Crimea to Turkey, but nothing worked out. Eventually, due to an oversight, he was allowed to go on a business trip and he defected to the USA, where he further helped the Americans make the hydrogen bomb. In contrast, the USSR did not allow Petr Kapitsa to return to Cambridge where he lived and worked.

Another thing I liked: “After returning from Munich, Chamberlain said on the airplane stairway, ‘I have brought back peace.’ It meant – it’s time to urgently prepare for war.” Seems like everyone understood it already 🙂

In general, an interesting series, highly recommend. It can generally be watched at 2x speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyEbe2ie8mI&t=0s

May 12 2021, 08:49

Last night I went out hunting for gasoline. Apparently, some Russian hackers (according to the FBI) or non-Russian hackers (according to Biden) recently broke a pipeline across half the country, and as of yesterday, more than half of the gas stations were depleted. I barely (on the fourth try) found a gas station with a long line, which only had ultra 93 for $3.5 per gallon (usually, we pay $2.8). The state governor has declared a state of emergency. We don’t have public transportation in our areas, and stores are not within walking distance, so it’s really bad for many. The government has now allocated money and introduced tax breaks to fuel companies to give them more flexibility in supplying gas stations.

We are observing. In fact, it looks like the IT guys just missed a virus (ransomware), and it seems that the information security there was below par (roughly speaking, like staff listening to Spotify and surfing the web on critical process computers). And then one day, the computer doesn’t boot up, displaying the message “give us money or we won’t turn it on.” And here again the question arises – what about backups? What about a contingency plan? So, I really don’t see anyone’s fault except for colonial pipeline. Of course, it is not excluded that the virus was written for a specific target, and somewhere social engineering worked. But that’s what security experts are hired for.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2021/05/11/colonial-pipeline-cyberattack-ransom-what-we-know-gas-shortage/5035040001/

April 28 2021, 19:06

The first complex task for my drawing machine (me). About 100000 commands for the plotter pen here.

Slightly unfinished.

It seems the L293D chip is overheating, and the mechanism freezes up. Need to order a couple more and set them up in parallel, plus I’m currently printing a cover for the Arduino with a motor shield on a 3D printer, which will have a mounting for a fan to dissipate the heat.