Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev.

In “Your groups” I found myself subscribed to 102 groups, of which I personally joined maybe two at most. The rest because I didn’t promptly click ‘Leave Group’ from the message “So-and-so added you to the group”. If I try to do it now, it takes about five to seven seconds for each one (there seems to be some reloading and the timer spins).

Damn Facebook. Adding me to (essentially) mailing lists without asking. Whenever messages show up from these groups, they appear in my feed. Maybe there’s a way in the settings to disable automatic joining?

Does anyone know how to unsubscribe from all groups en masse? Since 99% are just ads. Maybe there’s a plugin or something.

Check for yourself – maybe you’re also getting this kind of spam.

On my way from Kolomna, I listened to the first five chapters of the book “Memories of the War” by Nikolai Nikulin. I highly recommend reading it, or even better – listening to it. The narrative is maintained in the spirit of harsh trench truth, and the audiobook is very well narrated by Ivan Krasco.

The audiobook for downloading and online listening is here: http://www.rosbooks.ru/load/voennye_audioknigi_slushat_onlajn/nikolaj_nikulin_vospominanija_o_vojne/1-1-0-1656

In the car, you can listen via the free Android app “All Audiobooks” without ads.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.deeplogic.audiolib

Review: http://urokiistorii.ru/2010/05/nikulin-vospominaniya-o-voine

http://www.belousenko.com/books/nikulin/nikulin_vojna.htm

During his main speech at the Parade, two veterans were seated behind Putin among other presidents. One, who is directly behind, pulled out a camera at that time and is taking photos of Putin from behind, while the other one is picking his ears. Interestingly, the one with the camera has his hands positioned exactly at the level of Putin’s ears, which looks quite funny. The camera operators are switching angles, but apparently, there are not many good shots.

Note for startups: we haven’t seen this here yet.

In brief – a gift card for “a hotel stay” or “dinner in a restaurant” with a catalog of options. In the supermarket (the photo shows Intermarché in Lannion specifically) there’s a stand with books at the audacious price of 50-230 euros. The book contains real estate renting offers, but all for a fixed price equal to the catalog price and includes one day (or several days) of leisure which is part of the price. You can choose the leisure time later on their website. A wonderful gift, in my opinion.

http://wonderbox.fr

Sergey Molchanov

It all started with the family estate of René Chateaubriand, which I visited in France, in the small town of Combourg. There on the wall hung his diploma, issued at the end of the 18th century by the academy of arts. The academy’s logo was something peculiar (see photo).

I began to investigate. It turned out that it was a drawing based on the sculpture “Capitoline Wolf”, which in turn reflects the legend of Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome.

According to the legend, they were the children of the daughter of the local king at that time, Numitor, Rhea Silvia, and the god Mars. Numitor’s younger brother, Amulius, ordered the infants to be thrown into the Tiber River in a basket, while their mother was locked in a dungeon. However, the basket washed up on the Palatine Hill, where the infants were found and nursed by a she-wolf. They later grew up, killed Amulius, restored Numitor to the throne, and later became the founders of Rome. Incidentally, the name of the city comes from one of the brothers, Romulus.

There are several versions of this she-wolf in various variations. During the time of Benito Mussolini, the Capitoline Wolf was used as a propaganda symbol, embodying the fascist regime’s aspiration to revive the Roman Empire.

Another interesting story is associated with the Roman bronze sculpture – until 2006 it was dated to the 5th century BC, but in 2006 radiocarbon analysis showed it to be from the 13th century. So now there’s a debate.

In old buildings, for the second time I encounter such sockets. As an engineer, I couldn’t rest until I figured it out. It’s a French telephone socket F-010, which is no longer used in new homes.

Traveled the first 1200km on a Mercedes Benz B200 CDI (2014).

I really like it, even compared to my X-Trail. The car insists on a coffee after a long drive, engages the parking brake automatically when the door is opened, and releases it when starting; it has seven gears and a distinct sport mode. There’s also a built-in navigator and a convenient multimedia system. I’ll remember this little car)

http://www.kolesa.ru/test-drive/test-drayv-mercedes-benz-b200-tvoy-pervyy-mersedes-2013-01-20

Visited a Breton church where

a) the Virgin Mary LIES under a blanket, with Jesus also under a blanket beside her

b) ships are around

c) the altar is made in clay modeling technique.

Chapelle du Yaudet. There is no information available in Russian or English online, so I will translate some details.

Handwritten text on the wall states that at the bedside sits God the Father in a crown with a scepter and the book of biography (more precisely “Le livre de la généalogie”), flanked by Mary’s parents, St. Anne and St. Joachim. The Holy Spirit appears as a dove.

The image of Mary lying down is generally a rare thing. In Brittany, there are other places where this is found (listed).

In the evening in the outskirts of Le Mans, we were the only odd ones out walking the forest trails without lanterns after a heavy downpour. Normal French people – dinner at 7, bed by 9.

The Samsung Note 4 has an excellent WiFi adapter. It catches the network where nothing else can. Right now, I have two bars and working internet, while two laptops (Lenovo/Apple) and three Apple phones don’t even show the network in the list. This is not the first time this has happened.