We finished the third season. They did a great job, but I really want to highlight two things — the script and the design. Probably one of the most stylish shows, and they managed to film the third season in such a way that it is simultaneously predictable in some aspects and full of completely unexpected twists in others.
Have you watched it? What did you think?
Very good news about the old from Raevsky
We constantly drive past fields organized into stripes or checks. I finally found the time to look into how this is done. It’s called lawn striping, and the effect is achieved by bending the blades of grass in different directions.
The direction in which the grass bends determines whether a stripe will be light or dark. When the blades lean away from you, the lawn looks lighter because the light reflects off the broad and long surface of the blade. When the blades lean towards you, the lawn appears darker because you are looking at the tips of the blades (smaller reflective surface) and you see shadows under the grass. Therefore, mowing the lawn in opposite directions (up/down, left/right, north/south, east/west, etc.) creates the greatest contrast between the stripes. Interestingly, since the “color” of the stripe depends on the direction from which you look at it, a light stripe will appear dark if viewed from the opposite side.
This fuss over grass is a very American phenomenon. I overcome my laziness to mow the lawn only when the grass has indecently overgrown (the notion of “indecently overgrown” is also something I adjust each year after receiving tsk-tsk letters from the village administration). My neighbor, however, seems to do it every few days, and I once saw him kneeling in the grass—complaining that someone had dragged something across his lot, dropping some chips in the grass and ruining its perfection. Really, the only thing missing was a pair of scissors in his hands.
Today I learned from the museum that in field conditions, soldiers used the steel body of the M1 helmet as makeshift dishware: they boiled water, shaved, washed clothes, etc. The helmet consisted of two parts: a steel outer body and a separate inner plastic or fiber liner (liner), which could be worn separately (for instance, for ceremonies). By the way, it was in military service from the beginning of WWII until the 1980s.
We stopped by a small farm store on the way. Open 24/7. You grab what you need, money into an envelope, envelope into the slot. Or digitally via QR codes. Bought some soft goat cheese, goat’s milk ice cream, and cucumbers (grown next to the goats). Farm products here are about twice as expensive as store-bought, but they are limited edition, and sometimes unique in the area.
Good and unexpected place
Nothing unusual, just a penny-farthing in the parking lot in front of the bike trail. Had a chat with the owner. Very interesting
In the latest video about North Korea from Lankov, I heard something interesting: a device owner cannot open someone else’s file, whether on a computer or on a phone, unless it is signed with a special digital signature from the government. Intrigued, I researched the details for myself and for you.
On their phones, they use a modified old “KitKat” Android (2013), and on computers—a modified Fedora Linux, Red Star OS 3, with a shell that mimics the macOS interface from Apple (the previous one mimicked Windows XP). It is said that this design choice may have been influenced by the fact that leader Kim Jong Un was seen with an iMac on his desk, and apparently, he said make it the same.
North Korean smartphones are equipped with hidden surveillance features that automatically take screenshots every five minutes, storing them in a secret folder accessible only to authorities, not the user. According to other sources, screenshots are taken when applications start, apparently pseudo-randomly. There is also censorship: if you type “South Korea” (남조선) in any app, the system automatically replaces it with “puppet state” (괴뢰국가). One hundred percent of the phones are obviously Chinese, modified by China for Korea. By the way, the collected screenshots are accessible to users, but they cannot be deleted. This application, Trace Viewer, is clearly created to remind users: everything that they do on the tablet or phone can be known to the government.
All media content in Red Star OS, including documents, images, audio and video files, is automatically marked with a watermark containing a unique serial number of the hard drive, which allows authorities to track its origin and distribution. That is, you cannot take a photo and send it to someone, because it will either just not open on that phone, or, apparently, in rare cases, if sharing is allowed, in the new place there will be traces of both who is the author of the photo and who is the next owner. But this is underdeveloped, and direct file sharing is still limited. You can only use it yourself. Of course, nothing can be deleted from the phone without a trace. It is not allowed to have more than one device per person (seems to apply separately to a tablet and a phone).
North Korean mobile devices use a strict system of digital signatures (NATISIGN for government-approved content and SELFSIGN for content created on the device), which means that any file without these signatures cannot be opened at all. The system of signatures and signature verification is at the level of the operating system, not applications. This applies to all files that people create, both on phones and on computers. I see a huge number of edge cases here, but there is little information and no one to ask.
The penalties for accessing unauthorized foreign media, such as K-pop or South Korean dramas, are extremely harsh. If an “undesirable file” is found on a CD inserted into a computer with Red Star OS, the system will eject the CD, record the path to the file, display a graphical warning, take screenshots, and then forcefully reboot the system after 1000 seconds.
North Korea manages a national intranet network called Kwangmyong, “walled garden,” which is completely isolated from the global internet and is available to most citizens only for government-approved websites and email systems.
When you first launch the browser Naenara (based on Firefox 3.5), the default homepage is the IP address “10.76.1.11.” That is, their internet is essentially an intranet.
Nadia from Russia just brought me three books I ordered. “The Art of Color” by J. Itten, “Americans and Everyone Else” by I. Kurilla, and this one, Holodkovsky’s commentary on his translation of Faust. Interestingly, it seems that these commentaries are not available in Russian.. to be more precise.. in modern Russian. There is a reprint of the original 1914 edition, created based on a high-resolution electronic copy that was manually cleaned and processed, preserving the structure and spelling of the original edition, and it seems it was not translated into modern Russian. However, there are no difficulties in reading the reprint.
Probably not just for me a contradictory perception of symmetry exists. On one hand, symmetry is perceived as a sign of harmony and stability because the brain processes and recognizes organized forms more quickly, which historically could have aided survival. Logically, it should be associated with beauty, health, and predictability, giving a sense of security.
It’s written that with one or two alcoholic drinks, symmetrical objects become even more attractive. “In a pilot study (Elena Karakashevska) involving 13 social drinkers, researchers were surprised to find that alcohol apparently enhances the brain’s response to symmetry.” The study also concluded that people look better after consuming alcohol 🙂 This reminds me of a joke about two friends, when one says, “Now we’ll go to the girls, one is alright – for me, and the other one is a bit ugly, but you drink some vodka — and she will be fine,” and when they arrive, they ring the doorbell, two women are on the doorstep, and the second says: “Oh, I can’t drink that much!”
On the other hand, excessive symmetry and monotony can cause boredom and irritation as the brain seeks stimulation and novelty. For example, imagine a symmetrical tattoo on someone. Can you picture one that you aesthetically prefer over an asymmetrical one?
Personally, I like small deviations and asymmetry, which make images lively and interesting. A certain balance of order and chaos. Pure symmetry seems very boring to me.
Started googling on the topic. “Japanese don’t like symmetry. If a vase on the table is in the middle, they will automatically move it to the edge of the table. Why? Symmetry as completion, as finitude, as repetition is uninteresting. For instance, the dishes on a Japanese table (dinnerware) will definitely have different patterns, different colors.”
Do you like symmetry?
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 