Tag: facebook

In Europe, I was always surprised by the scarcity of power outlets in airports, cafes, and hotels. Currently waiting for boarding at Reagan Airport, Washington, local airlines. There are several places to eat here, both cheaper and more expensive. So, in any place where you can sit and eat, including tables in the center of the hall, there is a tablet for ordering food and drinks, a card reader for pre-payment, and two power outlets. You order coffee and breakfast – they bring coffee and breakfast right to where you are sitting. Really well done!

Also, there’s a store in the corridor here. On the honor system. No staff. Photos in the comments.

And how do you collect spilled toner from a laser printer? On a concrete garage floor. I hesitate to use a vacuum cleaner for this because the toner will remain on it, plus there’s likely hot air and hot components inside, and the toner may bake onto places it shouldn’t. Sweeping it up isn’t very effective either. I haven’t tried a wet rag; I’m afraid a little toner might turn into a lot of black ink.

Feels like a profile pic?

And how does the “Mir” card translate into English, worldcard or piscard?

A bit about pharmacies in the USA. Mainly prescription drugs, prescribed by a doctor. The doctor sends the prescription electronically to your pharmacy, and you just go there and redeem it by showing your ID. I periodically get a cough, almost every year, and I just in case do an X-ray and see a doctor. Thank God, it’s all clear, but the doctor prescribes some medications because something needs to be prescribed. Thankfully, not antibiotics – that’s generally the first thing they do. This time the doctor prescribed a mouth spray, which turned out to be expensive at the pharmacy ($320, Budesonide/Formoterol). It could have been ignored if it had been approved by insurance, but it wasn’t, and I was asked to pay out of pocket. When I asked the doctor to prescribe something else, he prescribed the same budesonide/formoterol, but in some other form, and although the spray again cost over $300, this time the insurance paid two-thirds. I paid $100, which was unpleasant to do, but I decided to try it.

You can also just buy in the pharmacy. In the cough section, there are about 40 different medicines. But they all are a combination of guaifenesin (secretolytic, expectorant; also known as a substance to keep horses under anesthesia 😉) and dextromethorphan, which is essentially not a medicine but a symptom-removing agent (effectively, a cough center blocker in the brain). And that’s it, nothing more. A huge stand only of bottles and pills, where one of these two active substances is presented alone or both in various proportions. Everything else — only through a doctor.

In Russia, for example, Bromhexine (expectorant) is popular. In the US, it has no FDA approval. The FDA also did not approve Ambroxol. I tried to find acetylcysteine, it’s a mucolytic too. And there’s a problem — it was only available as “vitamins,” but now even that is not available (

Dall-e can create logos! and even comes up with names for a restaurant 😉

well come on, jump here, if anything, you’ll run out on the other side! Probably

At the Xfinity office. Apparently, the customers’ faces are too pleased

They probably haven’t sold out yet

Got access to DALL-E 2.

It’s astounding, really.

The first two images were generated from the phrase “mother with daughter holding an open red umbrella on a horse on a rainy night in the style of a painting”. Cool, huh!

Another two images were generated from the phrase “The painting depicts a scene with watches melting slowly on rocks and the branch of a tree, with the ocean as a backdrop”. I simply described a Salvador Dali painting, and DALL-E created its own version.

I also asked DALL-E to draw a picture based on the phrase “an impressionist oil painting of a female figure skater dancing with her male partner, with the mountains and lakes as a backdrop”, as Masha is currently skating in Lake Placid.

It’s rare that computer stuff surprises me, because I generally understand how they work. I kind of understand here too, but just barely, with great difficulty, and the result is much, much better than the wildest expectations.

I think that soon there will be specialists emerging who craft requirements for such devices in the form of text. They will manage to get higher quality images through their formulations