It’s intriguing how different people’s destinies unfold. Gates’ blog has published the source code for the original Altair Basic. Besides the well-known Gates (worth >$100 billion) and Allen (he passed away, but was around $20 billion), there appears the name Monte Davidoff, about whom very little is known.
Monte wrote all the “mathematics” with floating point for Microsoft Basic. It only lasted until version 4.0, after which, about a decade later, the IEEE 754 standard came along, and things changed slightly.
Since 2000, he has owned his consulting company, and its website (built in PHP) seems not to have changed since 2000 (though he did update the year to 2025 in the footer).
There are no photos of him online, almost no information about what he does, but there are two interviews, one in text, and another on Floppy days as a podcast. Apparently, he just quietly “tends to his own stove”.
Among the employees of the first Microsoft team—remember, the iconic photo?—there is Bob O’Rear, who held the position of chief mathematician. He played a key role in developing MS-DOS for the IBM PC. O’Rear left the company in 1993 and returned to Texas, where he took up cattle ranching on his own farm.
To my surprise, I discovered that our “Dog Waltz” is widely referred to here as “Shave and a haircut,” although in reality, Shave and a haircut is very well known as “knock! knockity-knock-knock… KNOCK-KNOCK!”.
I started digging. In Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Norway, it’s known as the “Flea Waltz” (Flohwalzer). In Bulgaria, it’s called “Cat March” (Bulg. Котешки марш), in Finland — “Cat Polka” (Fin. Kissanpolkka), in Korea — “Cat Dance” (Kor. 고양이 춤 Koyangi Chum), in Japan — “I Stepped on a Cat” (Jpn. 猫踏んじゃった Neko-funjatta), in Mexico — “Little Monkeys” (Spa. Los Changuitos), in Hungary — “Donkey March” (Hun. Szamárinduló), in Majorca — “Polka of Fools” (Spa. Polca de los Tontos), in China — “March of Thieves” (Chi. simpl. 小偷进行曲, pinyin. Xiǎotōu jìnxíngqǔ), in Spain — “The Chocolate Pot” (Spa. La Chocolatera), in France and Poland — “Cutlets (Chops)” (Fr. Côtelettes, Pol. Kotlety), in Switzerland — “Cutlet Waltz” (Ger. Kotelett-Walzer), in Denmark — “Meatballs Escape Over the Fence” (Dan. Frikadellens flugt over plankeværket), in Sweden — “Kalle Johansson” (Swe. Kalle Johansson), and so forth.
The piece is in 4/4 time, by the way. So it is something like a polka or galop. However, in the movie “Gentlemen of Fortune,” it is just the triple meter version found here and here.
A very meaningful, diverse, and captivatingly interesting episode—with Vishnevsky about mushrooms.
Three stories to whet your appetite. The first one is about the house fungus (Serpula lacrymans). It usually starts with a shed, a bathhouse, bridges, or a foundation, especially if it’s partially over water. The house fungus releases tough black mycelial cords (1-2 mm), which spread throughout the house within just a few days. Across the floors, walls, and floors—it’s like something out of sinister sci-fi movies. These cords reach any source of wood. The fungus begins to break down lignin and other components of the wood, and one of the by-products of this process is water. That is, the fungus only needs water at the beginning, and then, once it finds wood, it extracts water on its own, feeding and hydrating itself. Therefore, it is practically impossible to get rid of it. It is tenacious, fast-growing, and extremely destructive. It is capable of turning up to 50% of the wood volume it settles on to dust within a year. That’s why sleepers and footbridges at stations are made not from wood, but from concrete, even where wood is cheaper and despite the fact that wooden sleepers are superior in other properties to concrete ones.
The second story is about “witch’s circles.” Surely you’ve noticed that mushrooms often grow in rings on lawns or at the edges of forests, sometimes tens of meters in diameter. It turns out that the mycelium from the point where it originated transforms into a “donut,” which grows because the inner parts of this donut die off since it has already consumed everything there, while the outer parts continue to expand because there’s still something there. And thus, the mushrooms—the fruiting bodies—grow along this donut. Since the rate of spread is more or less the same, it appears as a perfect circle. Of course, unless it runs into something along the way.
The third is about cordyceps, which infects simple crawling organisms and controls them. Apart from being an interesting fungus on its own, the most expensive mushroom in the world is also a cordyceps (the Chinese variety). But now, about the one that parasitizes ants—you’ve probably heard of it.
It all starts with the fungus penetrating an ant’s body and gradually taking control over its nervous system. When the time comes, cordyceps “tells the ant that it is time to leave its native anthill. If it resists, the fungus employs chemistry: it not only biochemically influences the behavior, but literally “owns the ant. Moreover, it does so not bluntly, but very intricately—with precision to the details.
It entwines the muscles and nerve nodes, blocking any alternate movement. The ant begins to move along a specific trajectory—it climbs a plant, selects a suitable leaf, often one that hangs right above the anthill. It climbs to the underside of the leaf to prevent the sun from drying out its body and the future fungus. Then it moves strictly along the central vein of the leaf—as if along a highway.
When it reaches the middle of this vein, the fungus gives two last commands: 1) Clench the veins with its limbs as tightly as possible and 2) Bite through the vein with its jaws, securing itself definitively.
After this—rapid mycelial growth, the ant dies. From its head, now hanging downwards, begins to sprout the fruiting body of the fungus—a thin “needle, directed straight down over the anthill. When it matures, spores start to pour out of it, like from a shower, directly onto the ants passing below. Everything is calculated perfectly.
Scientists have spent decades trying to understand the “combat chemistry of Cordyceps. It seemed something incredibly complex must be at work. But as it turns out—on the contrary. Everything is simple: relatively primitive hydrocarbons are acting, structurally very similar to… gasoline.
If you take, for example, a bucket of gasoline, come to a forest anthill (especially a large one of red forest ants), stir it up a bit—you will see how the ants start to massively leave the dwelling, climb up the tree, cling to the bark, freezing in strange poses. Then they are released. But with Cordyceps, it’s the same, just with an additive: its hydrocarbons are slightly more complex, and “releasing” is no longer possible.
This is the bug in the ant’s firmware. It’s not some kind of remote control, not a command center. Just a chemical, and the ant “knows what to do. These aren’t random actions, but strictly defined, programmed within it reactions. Under certain substances, it behaves in a strictly defined way.
I recommend listening to it, Vishnevsky is very cool in this topic and it seems inexhaustible.
I finally got around to a Soviet movie from 1959 showing a rocket landing on a floating platform at the end. The film is quite amusing. It features valiant Soviet cosmonauts rescuing hapless and vile American astronauts who got lost on their way to Mars. By the way, the cosmonauts are dressed in jackets and ties.
The plot goes like this. A two-man crew, under the mandate of science and the communist party, is sent to Mars for strictly scientific purposes. In orbit, the “space shuttle” docks at the station (at the beginning, the chief developer says it hangs above the Earth at tens of thousands of kilometers), docking to prepare for the “final jump” to Mars. Suddenly, a request comes from the American colleagues to accept the “Typhoon” Shuttle at the station. Could our most humane and friendly cosmonauts deny their colleagues, even if they are damned capitalists? During a friendly banquet, the “dumb Yankee”, apparently having had one too many, blurts out about the goals of his project. Much to the surprise of the gracious hosts who did not expect such audacity from their guests, it turns out the goal is Mars, of course, but purely for commercial, acquisitive reasons, such as trading Martian plots, for example. The head of the Soviet expedition, obviously caught off-guard… also having taken one too many, responds admitting similar plans but exclusively in the name of science. The crafty Yankee, after taking some Alka-Seltzer, rats out to his leadership. The American leadership, driven by predatory bourgeois interests, orders an immediate start to Mars, despite the unfavorable astrophysical weather conditions, thereby endangering the most valuable thing – the lives of cosmonauts. Covertly, “under the cover of night”, while the hosts are knocked out, the treacherous Americans weigh anchor. Consequences soon follow; they run out of fuel and are blown towards the Sun, with the expected outcome. SOS! The foolish “Yankee” frantically signals, bathed in snot and tears. Calm and strong Soviet guys in their powerful rocket “Rodina” rush to the rescue and indeed tow the doomed spacecraft, but precious fuel is spent maneuvering, the Americans abandon their junk and transfer to “Rodina”. There’s Mars, its seas and canals already visible, but catastrophically short on fuel. Fortunately, an asteroid named Icarus is passing by, and our brave cosmonauts asteroid-hitch a ride on it. An emergency launch of a cargo spacecraft with fuel follows, but it crashes on approach. It is decided to send another piloted ship because what’s most valuable is human life and friendship. This time, all goes well, the rescued crew lands directly on the floating platform near Yalta, anticipating the pathetic plagiarism with “Falcon”. A crowd with flowers and red banners, pioneers in red scarves warmly welcome the international comical collective (I could not have written that, it’s all pasha_popolam).
Three years later, this propaganda flick caught attention in the USA and was re-edited under the name “Battle Beyond the Sun”. Directed by Roger Corman, assistant producer Jack Hill, and young student Francis Coppola – that’s the kind of films he grew up on! The budding director re-edited and redubbed the film, removing all “anti-American propaganda”, Cyrillic inscriptions, and filmed an additional scene of a battle between two Martian monsters – how could he not. The timeline in the film was shifted to the future, after Earth had suffered a nuclear conflict and was divided into two superpowers – “Northern Hemis” and “Southern Hemis”, located on their respective hemispheres. Coppola also shot several scenes of the battle between two space monsters, one symbolizing a phallus and the other a vagina, and inserted them into Soviet material. These scenes were filmed in a Hollywood studio. Coppola and Hill also filmed scenes from the Rose Parade in Pasadena.
The names of not only Soviet characters but also actors, as well as names in the credits were changed to American ones to mask the film’s origins. For example, Alexander Shvorin and Ivan Pereverzev became “Andy Stuart” and “Edd Perry”, and the directors Mikhail Karyukov and Alexander Kozyr became “Maurice Kaplan” and “Arthur Corwin” – and were demoted to assistant directors. The director of the film in promotional materials and the final version is listed as a certain Thomas Colchart; sources differ on who actually hides behind this name (Karyukov, Kozyr, Coppola, or an American dubbing director).
The entire episode from “The Heavens Call” about the flight from Earth to the orbital station with minimal changes was included in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Kubrick’s film also included a scene with a video phone call to Earth. The orbital station in Kubrick’s film was copied almost exactly from “The Heavens Call”.
Separately funny, the USSR named the American spacecraft Typhoon – Тайфун. In the USA the word Typhoon is called Hurricane, since typhoon names hurricanes happening around Japan, and understandably in 1959, maybe one out of a hundred Americans knew the word 😉
Links to the original and the pale American copy — in the comments
Once we celebrated a housewarming. Four of us in one cramped apartment, bought on credit. At five thirty in the morning to the car and off to Moscow, every day, an hour and a half to two hours’ drive to the daycare and another half hour to the office. And back in the evening. To avoid traffic jams out of the city and at the railway crossing, you could take a dirt road through the forest, which later turned out not to be shorter at all, but at least it was less boring because you had to drive through mud at speed.
On the one hand, one should have left right after university. To Europe or the USA—it almost doesn’t matter because such a view from the window would be hard to find elsewhere. Perhaps it’s still possible somewhere in China. The world is always bigger than any single country. Even if you return, you’ll be more valuable simply because there are few who come back.
On the other hand, right after university, anywhere but Russia would have been comfortable, but boring. After university, I had nights spent sleeping on office tables, dodging police at the metro who fine you for not having a ticket from the morning train from Kolomna, preparing tender documents for designing a website that seemingly has no purpose, but where the winner and the payer split the money in a specified ratio, and here creativity is needed, talking to clients like strategizing how to coax a secret from a three-year-old who doesn’t want to spill it, and the turbulent joy that comes with success.
There’s no bad experience. Though sometimes you think, this is it, happiness! Nope, darn, just more experience.
I learned that trees exhibit a phenomenon called crown shyness, “застенчивость кроны” (see attached picture). Interestingly, it is observed only between the crowns of different trees (not different species, just different trees), but not between branches of the same tree. There’s no definitive explanation, only hypotheses. Apart from the mechanical theory, which inadequately explains its own branches but has weak evidence, there’s also a theory related to light exposure and a chemical theory. Both are somewhat questionable.
Furthermore, I found out that a vast clonal colony of quaking aspen is growing in Utah, USA. It’s the heaviest organism on the planet, all trees of which share the same genetic makeup and root system, covering an area of 43 hectares, and weighing approximately 6000 tons, making it the heaviest known organism. Its origins are estimated to be around 80,000 years old.
Additionally, I recently read that trees communicate with each other via mycorrhizal fungi. They warn their kin about animals that feast on them and pest attacks, and they also share nutrients and water with each other. In Africa, it has been observed that when giraffes start eating the leaves of acacias, the trees begin to release signaling pheromones, which “warn” neighboring trees downwind, and those trees start producing tannins and bitter chemicals. As a result, the giraffes find such tastes disagreeable and move on to search for another group of trees.
In every corner, following the discussed theme, if we delve into history, the “unpredictability” or demonstrative “irrationality” were indeed often employed as tools by major politicians. On one hand, this could serve as a kind of “shock effect,” giving such a leader an edge in negotiations or governance. On the other hand, this tactic often led to severe consequences for their own country (and the entire world).
For example, U.S. President Richard Nixon tried to convince the leadership of the Soviet Union and North Vietnam that he could “snap” and resort to extreme measures, including the use of nuclear weapons if the conflict was not resolved. It was hoped that the fear of an “inadequate” American president would force the opponents to seek a compromise more quickly. Before Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower adhered to similar tactics, ending the Korean War with such methods.
This political strategy is called the “Madman Theory”. The underlying ideas were articulated as far back as the 15th century by Machiavelli, who noted that in politics, “it is sometimes useful to pretend to be mad”.
Overall, it is useful to indeed be a bit “nuts”. And better even more than a bit. The line between acting like a madman and being one is incredibly thin.
The “Madman Theory” is quite often criticized as an ineffective foreign policy strategy. In particular, it is noted that it can be considered a Russian roulette in international relations, increasing unpredictability and not always prompting the desired behavior from its recipient.
The problem is that the “Madman Theory” is associated not only with Nixon but also with Hitler, Mao Zedong, Kim Jong Il/Jong Un, and basically almost everything. If you look at it, something similar was present with Ivan the Terrible and Stalin. Under both, the country flourished. But there were a lot of corpses.
In business, the “Madman Theory” is primarily associated with Elon Musk (yes, they found each other).
There is also a negotiation technique called “Brinkmanship”. This is when one of the parties pushes events towards an undesirable, often catastrophic outcome for both parties, counting on the last moment that the other side will yield for self-preservation, thereby avoiding the catastrophe and gaining unilateral advantages.
One would like to think that behind all this there is some strategy, which so far shows only its corner. Who knows, such abrupt “turns” in politics might be a deliberate tactic related to techniques from the “madman theory” or “brinkmanship”. First, one side demonstrates unexpected loyalty, lifts restrictions, offers joint projects, and creates an illusion of long-term warming. The other side, sensing a benefit, starts to invest heavily and rely on new opportunities, which increases the “exit costs” from these relationships. Once the connection between the partners becomes close enough (which could happen literally within a month or two) and potential losses from a breakup are too high, the initiator of the “warming” switches to tougher demands, knowing that it is difficult for the partner to refuse: the stakes have already been raised, and the risk of loss has seriously increased.
Not sure if it’s like that, but in general, it’s also not out of the question. We will observe, it seems, for us there remains only observation
Our half of the planet is primarily Spanish-speaking. 455 million (that’s 91% of all Spanish speakers) compared to 280 million English speakers. In other words, we, with our English, are in the minority here. Hence, it’s no surprise that during all my trips to Mexico and Colombia, my English was of no use to anyone. Even Portuguese is spoken almost as much as English, but Spanish leads the way.
Overall, I’m struggling here without Spanish. Nobody understands me. I have to explain complex concepts like “do you accept cards or only cash” or “how can I get to the library” using hand gestures.
It’s silly to wonder why they don’t teach English properly here. Probably, from their standpoint, we should be the ones learning Spanish, considering they outnumber us twofold, and Spanish is spoken in 19 countries, whereas English, or its variants, just in 13 (among them Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago).
Interestingly, in Canada French is an official language, yet it’s spoken throughout Americas as much as the Quechua language.
But the funniest thing is that the name of the city I’m currently in, Guadalajara, came from the Arabic Wādī al-Ḥijāra, which means “Valley of Stones” or “River flowing through stones.”
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 