Seems to me like my dog really believes that this loveseat couch was bought only for him to replace his small fluffy cuddler bed. And there’s me thinking about why he gave me those weird looks when I was sitting down on the couch next to him. Like, come on daddy go and eat my bowl food then if it comes down to it
TIL that in Hebrew and Arab music accidentals may have a weird look. Eb, F#, Bb! Also TIL that musical notation written from left to right (as usual) may co-exist with Hebrew or Arabic written from right to left. Hebrew words are broken up into syllables (which read from-right-to-the-left) which are then arranged from left to right. Quite confusing. Also, there is mirrored music notation as well. Ivan Shapovalov Tatiana Loisha
I believe that in about five years we will see the first examples of compact drones “living” autonomously on roofs in big cities, in places of comparative safety, occasionally going down to perform some missions. I don’t know, surveillance or graffiti missions. They will be solar-powered, and programmed to autonomously find a safe nest on roofs for recharging (solar panels). Recharging may take considerable time but who cares about a single drone if there is a swarm acting together. From time to time they will be able to get connected to the Internet to upload the collected information to the secure cloud with their owners and to receive important updates on their mission from the cloud. They will be able to continuously communicate with the nearby drones to act in coordination. From the technical standpoint, all underlying technologies are ready even today. It’s now up to first working prototypes.
What you get if you cross Brubeck’s Take Five with Bach’s Prelude in C minor (BWV 999 — that’s why Club Nine)
Читаю сейчас про Рубенса. Понравился текст паспорта, который выдал бургомистр Анверпена в 1600 году Рубенсу, чтобы тот въехал в Италию. Зацените текст (Рубенс Петер Пауль. Письма, документы, суждения современников. Переводы. Сост. К. С. Егорова.):
“Всем и каждому, кто прочтет или услышит [как читают] настоящий документ, бургомистр и магистрат города Антверпена желают счастия и благополучия.
Мы даем обет и сим подтверждаем, что в нашем городе и округе по благому промыслу Божьему можно дышать здоровым воздухом и что здесь не свирепствует ни чума, ни какая-либо иная заразная болезнь.
Далее, поскольку указанного ниже числа Петр Рубений, сын Иоанна, некогда синдика нашего города, заявил нам, что он в настоящее время намеревается ехать в Италию по делам, и дабы он мог всюду беспрепятственно въезжать и выезжать без подозрений в том, будто он поражен какой-либо и в особенности заразной болезнью, так как сам он и весь наш город по милости Божией пощажены чумой или какой-либо иной заразной болезнью, – то вышеназванный бургомистр и магистрат, призванные засвидетельствовать истину, выдали ему настоящий документ, скрепив его печатью сего города Антверпена.”
P.S. Мне удалось даже найти оригинал. Это было нелегко 🙂
Universis et singulis praesentes litteras visuris sive legi audituris, Consules et Senatus civitatis Antverpiae salutem. Votum facimus ac harum serie testamur, apud nos et in confinibus nostris, divina favente clementia, salubrem spirare auram, nec ullam pestis aut contagii labern grassari. Tum quoque die in calce praesentium scripto, ex parte Petri Rubbens, quondam Magistri Joannis filii, expositum nobis esse, eumdem Petrum nunc temporis ex hac civitate Antverpiae Italiam versus profecturum, negociorum suorum causa, et ut absque ulla difficultate et suspicionc morbi praesertim contagiosi, ubicumque admitteretur et venire possit, cum nimirum ipse et tota haec civitas (Dei beneficio) sit immunis a peste similique morbo contagioso, idcirco nos Consules et Senatus praedicti, ad veritatis testimonium prohibendum requisiti, eidem has praesentes litteras nostras concessimus, sigillo ad causas huius civitatis Antverpiae munitas, die octava Maii 1600. (http://diglib.hab.de/wdb.php?dir=edoc/ed000083&distype=start&pvID=start)
It might someone of you will find it useful to know that “Siri, delete all my alarms” exists
Reading “Life’s edge”. I liked Carl Zimmer’s “She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity” and could not stop myself from buying his new work. As the book’s name says, “Life’s edge” is about what life is, and why scientists have struggled to draw its boundaries.
(Side note… I bought this book after returning another one, which appeared to be not interesting. It turned out that books are returnable in Barnes and Noble, 30 days after the purchase)
So, what I want to say is… there is an interesting story with which the book begins. That story is about John Butler Burke, a physicist at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, who performed experiments in which he introduced a radium salt into the sterilized beef broth. The result was the creation of lifelike forms that he called radiobes. These radiobes started out as small spots, some less than a micrometer across and barely visible under Burke’s microscope. These spots gradually grew and changed shape over a period of a few days, developing internal structures that made them resemble bacteria. Burke came to believe that these forms were not quite alive but existed somewhere on the border of living and nonliving. They were perhaps evidence of an ancestor to life, one that predated the earliest life forms.
That was happening in far 1904. Interesting that his theory had surged in popularity so that he quickly stopped continuing his research and instead he started giving public lectures which helped to monetize his popularity.
Excited newspaper headlines were proclaiming that Burke had found the “Secret of Life,” but skepticism from scientists came quickly. Another Cavendish-trained physicist, W. A. Douglas Rudge, repeated the experiment and concluded that the radiobes were sulfate precipitates and therefore purely physical. By the time Burke published a book in 1906 summarizing his work, he was widely dismissed as a physicist with a weak knowledge of biology.
Interesting that both Burke’s radiobes and Burke himself have not earned even a Wikipedia page. The story of radiobes is hardly covered on the Internet. While Burke went wrong, he did so in an attempt to make sense of life itself, and it is quite surprising for me to see him virtually unmentioned.
A link to his book is in the comments.
Sakura Flowerfall // У нас тоже типа снег
Из России уходит Гарри Поттер
“Как сообщает издание TJ, крупнейшие российские продавцы электронных книг ЛитРес и MyBook c 8 апреля уберут из доступа всю серию романов Джоан Роулинг про Гарри Поттера. В обоих магазинах сказали, что убрать книги из продажи им велел правообладатель.”
Вспомнился Сплин
Being in America 