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Exploring the Engineering Marvel of the Hoover Dam | April 25 2025, 21:56

I watched a cool documentary about the Hoover Dam. We visited it 10 years ago when we were traveling through California, and the impressions are hard to put into words. Just now, I finally got around to finding out how it was built, and four days ago Animagraffs released an hour-long video with “x-ray style” 3D animation that details every aspect of the construction. Friends, it’s like the pyramids of Egypt, only projected onto the early 20th century and tech levels of that time.

First off — the gigantic volume of concrete. The dam contains enough to fill ~5850 average American homes. That’s roughly the amount needed to build a road from San Francisco to New York.

Next, you can’t just pour all the concrete in one go. If the concrete had been poured as a single solid block, the heat generated during curing would have dissipated over about 125 years, which would likely have caused fatal structural cracks. A complex system of pipes with chilled water was embedded in layers of concrete to artificially cool it down. I didn’t even know such a problem existed. Thanks to this design, the dam itself can physically last up to 10,000 years and will become one of the last visible and recognizable monuments of humanity on the planet. (Incidentally, the largest dam built by beavers is in Alberta, Canada — twice as wide as the Hoover Dam — and it’s visible from space. Just something that came to mind).

Extensive “grouting” was conducted — injecting cement slurry under pressure deep into the rocky foundation (up to 150 feet for the main “grout curtain”) to fill cracks and, essentially, “weld” the dam to the canyon, preventing leaks and uplifting pressure from water.

The dam was not poured monolithically. It was constructed from interlinked vertical columns built in 5-foot “lifts” (layers) to manage the heat release, control cracking due to expansion/compression, and ensure structural integrity. The video beautifully demonstrates this.

Four massive tunnels (17m/56feet in diameter, about 3/4 mile long each) were bored just to divert the Colorado River. Instead of abandoning them, they were later plugged and incorporated into the permanent structure as part of the intakes (penstocks) and emergency spillways.

“High Scalers”: Workers known as “high scalers” were lowered hundreds of feet down the sheer canyon walls in simple bosun’s chairs, using jackhammers and dynamite to remove loose rock.

Giant aerial trams: An extensive network of cableways crossed the canyon, including one with a capacity of 150 tons, which was used to move massive equipment (even trucks) and concrete buckets.

Special heavy-duty equipment: For the project, special trucks were developed with doubled load capacity, greater power, and frames made of lightweight aluminum alloys.

The emergency spillways have a total capacity of 400,000 cubic feet per second – about four times greater than the average flow of Niagara Falls during peak season.

In the spillways, massive, 100-foot tall hollow drum gates are used, which float at the water level in their chambers, automatically rising or falling to manage floodwaters. Quite an interesting engineering structure — no motors and designed to handle severe loads.

Despite its scale, the dam was officially opened in 1936, significantly ahead of schedule (construction began in 1931). Revenue from power generation had fully paid for the construction cost by 1987.

Link at the bottom, or Google Animagraffs Hoover

Recent Russian Popular Science Book Recommendations | April 25 2025, 02:49

Recommend something worthwhile from popular science in Russian — probably something that has been released in the last year and a half.

I’m organizing additions to my bookshelf – this time from publishers in the Russian language.

Challenges on American Roads: A Scooter Ride Perspective | April 24 2025, 21:15

Such are the much-touted American roads. This becomes particularly apparent when you are riding on tiny wheels at a speed of 45 km/h on a scooter. Of course, along the dividing line, it seems, there’s no need for repairs. The question really is how the asphalt deteriorates there at all if there are no signs of repairs either to the left or right anywhere along the road. It was built 13 years ago, which seems not too long ago.

Botched American Symbols in Safronov’s Artwork | April 22 2025, 21:29

The “artwork” by Safronov that the American delegation didn’t dare to show publicly, simply because the unskilled artist in the process of sketching the photo of the flag under the photo of the president decided not to bother with the 50 little stars, just drawing however many he did, where the stars look quite drunken. It’s impossible to fit 50 there, but if you roughly follow the pattern, you end up with 46, or if you strain to imagine perhaps another hidden one, then 47. There’s simply nowhere to put the other three. That means, three or four are missing. Well, okay, we get the hint about Alaska, but what about the other two? Any ideas?

P.S. Regarding the fact that on the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty from the facial side there’s no New York to be seen, and that the pedestal is depicted in reverse perspective — probably just minor details 🙂

Innovative Concert Ticketing System Proposal | April 21 2025, 23:28

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I feel a lack of a service where I could periodically add what I want to listen to live, within reach from where I live, and where I would receive proposals to buy a concert ticket with dates — mainly based on what I indicated, but I wouldn’t mind getting recommendations sometimes either.

It would also be interesting to see how this model would work: selling tickets on the basis of “I queue up for a ticket costing N dollars, ready to dash on the day of the concert if a ticket comes but also prepared to lose the money if a ticket is available but I can’t attend”. The idea is that, one day before the concert, all the seats not normally sold are distributed to those in this queue starting with those who placed a higher amount in their bid, and if the amounts are the same, then those who applied earlier, and so on until the tickets run out. Meanwhile, the application includes consent that the money will either be charged on a specified day or not at all if no seats are available. Ultimately, the entire venue fills up, and the day before the concert brings in much more money than it would have without this system.

Chasing Horowitz: A Pianist’s Journey Through Manageable Masterpieces | April 21 2025, 03:29

When you turn on modern virtuoso pianists (about 70% of them are Chinese), everything is great, but it never even crossed my mind to go look for the sheet music because they just don’t play anything even remotely at my level. If I were to start learning today, I might barely manage the first two pages by retirement.

But with Horowitz, it’s a completely different story. For the third time on my playlist, I come across pieces that are technically manageable, which I immediately rush to the internet to download and print for myself, thinking, how did I miss these before? And for the third time, I realize that in these seemingly simple pieces, Horowitz sets such a “bar” in performance, in sound, in the character of the performance, that all that seeming simplicity evaporates (and maybe by retirement, I’ll manage two pages).

Today, I printed out four pages of Consolation No. 3 in D-Flat Major by Franz Liszt. It’s very beautiful and not very difficult technically, but to play even close to Horowitz…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGDJZgQPK8E

But that’s for later. Right now, I’m learning a short piece, Träumerei by Robert Schumann. It’s the same story — technically simple, but not at all simple in its sound.. especially after listening to Horowitz… The link is in the comments.

Easter Traditions: Påskekrim, Bunnies, and Ancient Pizzas | April 20 2025, 15:24

It turns out that Norway has a unique Easter tradition called “påskekrim (translated from Norwegian as “Easter crime). Every Easter, Norwegians voraciously consume detective novels and thrillers, watch crime series, and listen to audio investigations. This tradition is so well-established that bookstores before Easter create special sections featuring new detective stories (marked as “påskekrim), crime-themed TV series are broadcasted, and sometimes even milk cartons carry short detective tales.

The tradition began in 1923 when two young Norwegian authors—Norrdahl Gryug and Nils Lie—released a detective novel titled “The Train to Bergen Has Been Robbed at Night. On the eve of Easter, the publishing house placed an advertisement for the novel on the front page of one of the largest newspapers, styled it as real news. People mistook it for an actual event, and the book instantly became a hit. Since then, the tradition has taken root.

Additionally, it turns out that the “Easter Bunny” originates from German Lutheran practices, where the bunny initially played the role of a judge, evaluating children’s behavior—whether they had been obedient or disobedient—at the beginning of the Easter period, similar to Santa Claus’s “naughty and nice” list. Moreover, according to lore, this creature carries a basket filled with painted eggs and sometimes candies and toys, which it leaves in the homes of children. Thankfully, not in a stocking!

By the way, it’s sometimes a bunny and sometimes a rabbit. Apparently, it’s not that important.

There’s another dubious but quite popular interpretation. According to it, the name “Easter” comes from Eostre (Eostra), a Teutonic goddess revered as a goddess of spring and fertility. According to Teutonic myth, a little girl once found a dying bird and prayed for assistance from Eostre. The goddess appeared, crossing the rainbow bridge—the snow melting under her feet. Seeing the bird gravely injured, Eostre transformed it into a hare and told the girl that from then on, the hare would return every year, carrying eggs dyed the colors of the rainbow. However, it’s noted that Eostre’s name is only mentioned once—by Bede the Venerable in his work De Temporum Ratione (“The Reckoning of Time”). No other mentions of this name exist. Moreover, there are no tales or legends associated with Eostre; thus, anything told about her is considered apocryphal. Yet, no better explanations seem to exist.

And shifting from hares and goddesses to something more down-to-earth, it turns out that even pizza has an Easter past. The earliest recorded use of the word pizza dates back to May 997 and is found in a Latin notarial document from the city of Gaeta, which was then part of the Byzantine Empire. The text says that a tenant was to annually give the bishop twelve pizzas and a pair of chickens on Easter. So, who knows—perhaps the first festive Easter pizza was not a margarita but something between a ritual and a rent.