Exploring Xplor Park: An Engineer’s Marvel in Riviera Maya | June 29 2025, 05:41

I returned from Mexico — visited Xplor Park by Xcaret in Riviera Maya. The park is already 18 years old, but damn, it’s an engineering feat, not just a park. As an engineer, I was walking around with my mouth open.

The park is the size of Moscow’s “Neskuchny Garden”. A significant part consists of kilometers of natural karst caves, formed millions of years ago at the site of the Chicxulub impact crater (the very one that ended the era of dinosaurs). Above the caves are dense jungles. High above the jungles — kilometers of zip lines. The water in the caves is from a natural underground stream, which is filtered through limestone plus some technical structures. Bats fly around, but obviously, they are not wild and are working for food. No wildlife (other than tourists and bats) is present, so it’s pretty well isolated from the outside world. In these kilometer-long caves, completely covered with stalactites and stalagmites, we swam, rafted, and even drove through in amphibious vehicles with gasoline engines (meaning, the ventilation is well-thought-out).

In front of us, three Mexican women failed to control their vehicle and crashed into a tree. Literally — the front wheels of the buggy were above my head. We picked them up walking along the track, sat them back, and about 5-10 minutes down the road, park workers took them away. The girls have something to remember.

The ticket includes a very, very good buffet restaurant. But pictures are essentially a must-buy — a very thoughtful system designed to extract about 100 dollars from a visiting family. Helmets are embedded with a chip, the system classifies the pics on the fly, and at the exit, you can see all your photos and buy them right there. And on the way back to the hotel, you can post on Facebook or Instagram.

Well, we’re back home now, back to work from Monday.

Risks of High-Pressure Activities on Eye Health and Hearing | June 28 2025, 23:52

Interesting. I learned, for example, that the human retina is not really attached to the vascular tunic, but is held in place only mechanically by intraocular pressure. Because of this, those who jump from heights or engage in diving, and generally anything that increases intraocular pressure, are at risk of retinal detachment.

(By the way, about pressure, I had a slight barotrauma in my left ear today during airplane landing: after landing there was a lingering feeling of stuffiness and muffled sounds, and while in the air it even hurt a bit. That is, some traces of sensation remained several hours later, but probably, by tomorrow morning I will recover fully).

https://youtu.be/QmX60IgWCGk?si=GrWzDtuZTpFeig-X

Unveiling Ancient Numeric Codes in “Slave for Sale” by José Jiménez Aranda | June 27 2025, 21:00

An interesting painting “Slave for Sale” (Una Esclava en Venta), 1897, by Spanish artist Jose Jimenez Aranda.

From it, I learned that just as there were Roman numerals, there were Greek ones in Greece. Pay attention to the plate. It reads ΡΟΔΟΝ ΕΤΩΝ ΙΗ ΠΩΛΕΙΤΑΙ ΜΝΑΣ Ω, which translates to “Rhodon, 18 years old, for sale for 800 minae”.

In the Greek text, there are two numbers – ΙΗ and Ω. In those times, Greeks wrote numbers using letters: Α (alpha) = 1, Β = 2, …, I = 10, K = 20, …, Ρ = 100, Σ = 200, …, Ω = 800.

Accordingly, ΙΗ is 18. The line above it indicates that it is a number, as does the line above Ω.

Exploring Maya Ruins and Termite Tunnels in Playa del Carmen | June 27 2025, 18:59

Here in Playa del Carmen, there are about a dozen abandoned Maya-era buildings that you can climb over and into, of course free of charge and at any time. Inside one of them, in a small room, I found interesting termite mud tunnels, which I had never seen in person before.

Alone Against the Ocean: A Tale of Feng Shui and Sargassum | June 26 2025, 19:26

On the shore, a lone woman was seen engaging in an unequal battle with the world ocean. Armed with a shovel, she heroically moved the sargassum two centimeters to the left, apparently to a place designated for them by feng shui. To the left and right to the horizon—nobody.

Persistent Notifications: The AirPods Pro Annoyance on a Flight | June 26 2025, 12:45

This weird thing appears on the phone and you can’t close it, it just keeps popping up again and again, every second. For about five minutes. It’s almost impossible to use the phone. Turns out, there’s a guy sitting one seat away from me on the plane, opening and closing an AirPods case, chatting with a girl. He’s got nothing better to do with his hands, darn it.

The Surprising Origins of Chain Link Fencing | June 26 2025, 10:08

Deception is everywhere. I googled “chain link fence” and it turns out that Karl Rabitz has nothing to do with it, but instead relates to a different one, and the very first of the known documented images of the chain link fence was found in… a mattress patent. More precisely, in the US patent No. 124,286 “Wire Fabrics”, issued on March 5, 1872, to a certain Mr. Peters (J. W. C. Peters).

Discover Your Flight Gate Early with This Simple Plane Finder Hack | June 24 2025, 22:08

I just found a lifehack on how to determine your departure gate when it’s not yet displayed on the board. Go to planefinder net, enter your flight, and it shows the tail number of the airplane for that specific departure. Click on the link with the tail number, and it shows where the plane is arriving from—the gate it arrives at is known much earlier than the gate from where the new flight departs. So head to this gate, as it’s almost certain to appear on the board by the time someone gets around to updating it.

Yes, everything will go awry if they change the plane. But it’s very unlikely that the airplane will change, as any replacement has to be the same model otherwise it causes chaos with the already assigned seating, and airplanes are not changed often (although it has happened to me several times). Nonetheless, there’s nothing to do at the airport, and playing the game of guessing the gate is interesting.