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It turns out that in our homeland, Arabic numerals did not exist at all until the 18th century.

There was a cunning system based on Cyrillic and symbols. There is even a converter program http://info-7.ru/Titlo/Titlo.shtml Darkness, legion, leodr, vran, deck. Sources: http://hbar.phys.msu.ru/gorm/ahist/cyrik.htm also here http://www.pravpiter.ru/zads/n018/ta013.htm.

Especially interesting is that our ancestors for some reason needed such unimaginable numbers as 10 to the power of 48 and next to it 10 to the power of 50. These are klada, ten vrans and darkness of dark, ten decks. For instance, in the Apocalypse: “The number of the horsemen was two hundred million (Ancient Greek δισ-μυριάδες μυριάδων); and I heard the number thereof” (Rev. 9:16). Not only are various kladas and darkness of dark simply huge numbers, but their powers differ only by a couple of orders of magnitude. Interestingly, maybe scientists have figured something out over something simple.

“…APRICOT. This word originates from the Latin praecoquum /prekokvum/ — “early”: this name was given to various early-ripening fruit varieties. Of course, when a word transitions from one language to another, some sounds often get replaced; but where did the initial ‘a’ sound come from? The history of this word is as follows. It was first borrowed by the Greeks, who replaced the Latin suffix with their own: prekokkion; then the Greeks lent it to the Arabs. In Arabic, there were no ‘p’ or ‘o’ sounds, and the Arabs replaced them with ‘b’ and ‘u.’ Moreover, an Arabic word cannot start with two consonants — and a vowel appeared between ‘b’ and ‘r’; the ending was dropped. Finally, they added the Arabic article al at the beginning: resulting in al-barquq. As the Arabs moved from the east of the Mediterranean to the west, they introduced this word in Spain; the Spaniards made it their own: albaricoque /albarikoque/. It then reached the French: abricot /abriko/, and the Dutch: abrikoos /abrikoos/; from the Dutch, it was adopted by the Russians….”

(“The Book on Language”)

Looks totally like magic

Here you all are talking about healthy eating, organic foods. Well, in the May 1956 issue of Saturday Evening Post, I found an advertisement from the company Cyanamid, which manufactures the antibiotic chlortetracycline. The ad itself talks about how tasty chickens with chlortetracycline are.

came to the kitchen to make tea

picked up the teapot

saw Nadya

took a photo of Nadya

and the teapot

and automatically made myself a coffee

Watched the first season of Ted Lasso and realized who it all reminded me of. Elon Musk’s story at Twitter. The resemblance would be squared if Musk had made Lex Fridman the CEO of Twitter—they almost agreed to it. Twitter (X) at the end of the first season isn’t great, but it’s not dead either

Look, I found a place where you could call and ask in the manner of the joke “Is this the laundry?”, because in the photo is the American Institute of Laundering. It has long since deceased. I found an article about it in the Saturday Evening Post from January 1960. Now there are even no traces left.

For example, it describes how the institute conducted testing of various things and discovered that foam inserts in bras were the cause of fires. The foam rubber in the bra’s construction easily caught fire after drying. Generally, that’s what they were up to.

A photo from the Saturday Evening Post, 1958.

Nothing special, just people relaxing by the seaside in Uzbekistan.

As noted in the comments, the mountains turned out especially well

What an interesting rendition of Primavera Porteña by Piazzolla https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVRahGdl5bs It’s a prime example of “how not to hit the wrong keys”

Jeroen van Veen actually has a three-hour video on YouTube that you can listen to for half a day

I continue to dig through archives. An article about robots from distant January 1928 by the president of MIT.

* The origin of the word “robot” is linked to Karel Čapek’s play “R.U.R.”, where smart machines called “artificial laborers” were presented. Initially, Čapek wanted to name them “labori”, but he was not satisfied with this choice. His elder brother, Josef Čapek, suggested the word “robot”, derived from the word robota (“hard labor” or “serf labor”).

* The latest achievements include: 1) a door that opens with the words “Open Sesame” 2) calculating tides/ebbs for all the world’s ports years ahead

* A voice assistant is mentioned, capable of responding to queries: “In another room at Washington a man picks up his telephone, calls for a number, and receives a response from a mechanical man — a Robot. He asks the Robot for certain information and receives an audible reply”.

* “… In many respects, the most remarkable of all robots is the recently developed Televox, invented by Mr. R.J. Wensley. As its name suggests, this is a voice-controlled mechanism at a distance. Remote control of mechanisms through electrical circuits is a familiar concept. A very weak electrical pulse can influence an electromagnet. When the magnet moves its core winding even slightly, it can release energies that were waiting for a signal to activate. Such a pulse can be transmitted either through direct wires or, as Senator Marconi mentioned in a recent interview, wirelessly. This means that boats can be controlled without a pilot, cars can be safely driven through traffic without a driver, and planes can be flown without a pilot at the controls.”

(By the way, the original “Televox” was not exactly voice-controlled, or rather, not voice-controlled at all. In its first version, it responded to a tuned tone. The emphasis on the word “Televox” was that the monotone sounds were to be within the vocal range for which the telephone network was designed. Originally three tones were tuned to 600, 900, and 1400 hertz. Here’s the patent – https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ac/76/e0/3616e6bc258530/US1765471.pdf)

One of the photos shows a huge gyroscope. This is Metal Mike, installed on the Queen Elizabeth, the largest liner of that era. Under the author’s definition, it also qualifies as a “robot”.