Today I read that it turns out Mark Twain had willed that his autobiography (a manuscript of 5,000 pages, by the way) not be published until 100 years after his death, and then you can do whatever you want. Generally, those 100 years expired in 2010 and three volumes of the autobiography were published.
I also discovered that Kafka had intended for “The Trial” to be destroyed, but it was published anyway. That’s the one where the guy goes to court, and suddenly they start trying him there.
A KGB officer came to check the symphony orchestra before their trip abroad. He watched the rehearsal. Sharing his impressions:
– Overall, not bad, you can feel the team spirit, especially those with the bows. But there are some shortcomings: that guy at the back, during the whole rehearsal, only hit with his stick about three times – he was mostly slacking off…
– Well, that’s our drummer, that’s his part…
– Don’t give me that, there’s only one Party for us, and he needs to hit more often! (C)
Anna Artamonova, this relates to your question about how we work 🙂
Recently, I was surprised to discover that gold leaf is edible, and when you see golden flakes on a quality cake, it’s actually real gold, not just some props. Here’s a kebab from Arkadiy Novikov and Jihan Deniz costing 23,550 rubles.
Another revelation was that such gold is quite affordable. A single sheet of purest 99.8% gold, palm-sized, sells for just 4 bucks. It’s sold in very thin sheets—about 100-500 nanometers thick (depending on the manufacturer). 100 nanometers is 0.0001 millimeters. To compare, the thickness of writing paper is 130,000 nanometers, and a human hair is about 60,000 nanometers thick, while a gold leaf is only 100-500. If calculated, a sheet is approximately 600 atoms thick. Edible gold also comes in powder and flakes.
Turns out, this gold has its own E-number, E175 (while E174 is edible silver). Gold is not absorbed by the body at all; it passes through unchanged, so logically, it offers no benefits. However, sellers of edible gold claim its benefits are sky-high and it cures almost all ailments. Studies conducted in 1975 and 2016 showed, however, that there are indeed no health benefits.
The only benefit here is to show off your wealth and brag to your friends that you are, literally, pooping gold (remember, it’s not digested). Whether you should sift through your toilet matters looking for gold is up to you…
Interestingly, even anciently, gold sheets were somehow made to be 500 times thinner than a human hair.
The production of gold leaf started around the end of the third millennium BC when craftsmen learned how to purify the metal and hammer it into thin sheets. Traditionally, during the Middle Ages, gold leaf was prepared by rolling or hammering gold ducats (trade coins used in Medieval Europe) into approximately the thickness of foil. As the metal became thinner, it became more challenging to prevent the foil from sticking to nearby moist or greasy surfaces. To prevent this, “gold beaters would lay a small square of thin metal in the middle of a paper or parchment square and other metal squares on top of it in sequence, until a decent stack was formed; then they skillfully hammered it until the small squares of metal spread to the edges of the parchment.” Then these squares were cut into smaller squares, and the process was repeated. For the final stage of beating, when the gold reached its thinnest point, a special type of parchment called “goldbeaters’ skin” (made from the inner lining of calf’s intestine) was placed between the layers of foil. According to Cennino Cennini, about 145 sheets could be made from one ducat, and a Venetian ducat weighed about 54 troy grains. However, Cennini preferred his gold leaf to be thicker and recommended producing only 100 sheets from one ducat.
“Mom, Dad, meet my new friend Alesha.”
“Aaa! Holy cow! A dead moose!!!!”
“Let’s go, Alesha, we are not welcome here…”
I’ve closed another gestalt with the iconic Hitchcock noir—watched the movie “Vertigo” (Vertigo) by Alfred Hitchcock from 1958.
Initially, this film did not inspire much enthusiasm among either viewers or critics. It didn’t become the director’s highest-grossing or most famous film and at the Oscars, it only received two nominations in technical categories—for best sound and best art direction. However, over time its influence and significance greatly increased, and the film itself gained a multitude of interpretations—from Freudian to postmodern. Eventually, it sort of came to be considered the best film of all time and the best detective movie.
Here, Hitchcock flips expectations by killing the main heroine in the first half of the movie and the detective reveal is not at the end, but in the middle—in Madeleine’s letter. The producers argued with Hitchcock over this, but he insisted: the audience needs to know more than Scottie. It’s necessary to create suspense.
Last week, I finally got around to watching Kubrick’s “The Shining” (1980). Turns out, I hadn’t watched it back then either. So, I’m catching up!
If, like me, you’ve missed out on either of these two—make sure you find the time!
Thank you to everyone who showed concern, called, and texted from the morning to check if we were all alright. Thankfully, we are fine.
The plane was carrying athletes returning from a training camp in Wichita for top junior, intermediate, and novice figure skaters, coming back from the World Championship. Yes, some of them were known to Nadya and Masha, and a few were close friends. In total, 14 people related to the ice-skating community perished, and tragically, all 64 people on board died.
Six members of the US figure skating team on that ill-fated flight were affiliated with the Boston Figure Skating Club. Skater Spencer Lane, his mother Molly, skater Gina Han and her mother Jean, as well as coaches Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov were on board. Nadya and Masha were also closely acquainted with sisters Everly and Alidia Livingston, aged 11 and 14 respectively, and knew Inna Volyanskaya well. It is very, very sad news.
A similar tragedy occurred in 1961 when a plane carrying 18 members of the US figure skating team to the World Championships in Prague crashed during an attempt to land in Brussels. All 73 people onboard died, including the 16-year-old “Queen of American Ice,” Laurence Owen, along with her mother and coach Maribel Vinson-Owen and her older sister Maribel Owen.
Names of the deceased will be released. In the US, there is an unwritten ethical rule that the relatives of deceased individuals are notified first, followed by the media after some time.
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I asked ChatGPT to pick 20 countries and describe them in two words.
Contemplatively-tranquil country
Indomitably-defensive country
Profoundly-decaying country
Technologically-scientific country
Academically-philosophical country
Passionately-creative country
Eco-progressively country
Legendarily-touristic country
Aristocratically-financial country
Scorchingly-royal country
Soccer-sportive country
Iron-isolated country
Sacredly-religious country
Brightly-explosive country
Disciplined-collectivist country
Pastorally-peaceful country
Fiery-geyser country
Fjord-fairytale country
Alcoholically-reckless country
Rainily-emerald country
Write how many countries you did NOT guess right 🙂
I have long noticed an interesting feature. You practice a piece on the piano and when progress seems to stall, you quit, but the next day when you sit down at the keyboard, suddenly, the difference from yesterday is like night and day, even though all you did was sleep.
I found a study (Journal of Neuroscience) suggesting that the proximity of sleep to practice plays a significant role. The researchers hypothesized that motor memories – the brain’s way of preserving skills and actions – not only consolidate over time, but can significantly improve if sleep follows soon after practice.
This hypothesis was tested through a series of experiments involving 290 right-handed individuals. Participants had to move a cursor on a computer screen to hit targets using a joystick. The complexity arose because sometimes the movement of the cursor was altered by optical rotation, which forced participants to adjust their hand movements to accurately hit the target. Different groups of subjects underwent this at different times, and those who did it before sleep showed the best progress.
It turns out that engaging in activities involving a significant portion of motor memories—like playing the piano or participating in complex-coordinated sports—right before sleep is beneficial. You could either adjust your sleep or the timing of these activities.
Alright, cooking up a soup. Business as usual. Because the first thing they do in our diet-conscious family is scarf down the lamb chunks and broth from the soup. And when you dig into the fridge, at the bottom of the pot, there’s potato and beans winking at me. Now, just need to fry up some sausages, and dinner’s set.
I am listening to the opera Cosi fan tutte, half-watching the libretto in another window. Suddenly, I notice a whole section isn’t translated. And they completely skip it in the opera. That is, after “O ciel”, it jumps straight to “Ei parte”. I go to Google to figure out what’s going on. Seems there were many cuts, but in the entire libretto, only this aria is untranslated. Everything else is translated. I find another version of the libretto with a side-by-side translation, and there, Aria No. 24 by Ferrando “Ah, lo veggio, quell’anima bella” is missing altogether. That’s precisely why it is also missing from the parallel translation—because the translation is from the booklets of various productions, and in them, the aria is omitted.
I started digging deeper, it turns out that Aria No. 24 is feared and not included in most productions and even studio recordings because it is very difficult to perform. “Ah, lo veggio, quell’anima bella”. However, of course, if you wish, you can find a few performances from different theaters on YouTube.
UPDATE: Suddenly, ChatGPT has developed a sense of humor. It replies to me, “Although Mozart can no longer participate in the staging 😄, his music is sometimes subject to adaptation”. It even added a smiley face! And this was a reply to the third question with no Personalization message, and all the questions were serious.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 