Firefox vs IE

А really good comparison of Firefox vs IE: Is IE9 a modern browser?

Must see.

Hardy Siberian Bathers

As I said earlier (see the post Siberian rebirth) it would have been exciting for me to try the frosty waters of the Jordan.
The practice of leaping into a cross-shaped hole in the ice on January, 19 to replay the baptism of Christ is a centuries old tradition in Russia.
I think none of foreigners could understand the crazy Russian bathers.
It’s unthinkable!
Just imagine it.
It was minus 23 degree centigrade that day.
On the bank of a town lake a cross-shaped hole was made.
The day has come, it was dark.
At a distance, the figures of bare bathers stood awaiting their turn like souls in purgatory, vague in the white vapour. Then one of them came into ice hole dived three times and gave the place to the next adventurous man.
Then it was my turn.

This is the first Epiphany bathing in my life and I am sure it won’t be the last.

What does severe Siberian winter mean in vehicle using?

Engine Oil and Other Lubricants
Lubricants represent the single most critical problem encountered by vehicles in cold regions. Cold starting problems and poor lubrication result as engine oil is too viscous at low temperatures. Even low-temperature lubricants will thicken at sufficiently low temperatures.
You start ignition and starter cannot turn over the engine to start it because of freezing engine oil and ATF. In Siberia special services use propane gas heaters to warm up frozen engines.

A special service car

Fuel
Crap Russian gas ignite with greater difficulty at low temperatures so at first start of engine after prolonged idling spark plugs can become wet with gas because of engine flooding.
If it happened the only way is to unscrew and anneal spark plugs by heating them with a propane torch (or replace them with new ones if you have money for nothing;)).  Install it back when they become dry and clean.

Battery
Lead–acid batteries become vulnerable to freezing when discharged, do not charge well when cold, and lose power at low temperatures. Cold-starting procedures especially when Engine Oil was too viscous and the battery has already lost power before will obviously drained the battery for some starts.
At least it’s worth checking and charging the battery before cold season.

A frozen car towing

Low Temperature Operation
While low temperatures make starting an engine very difficult, they also may have an adverse affect on operation, and heat retention measures should be used or engine won’t reach an optimal operating temperature range.
I use wind blocking inserts between radiator and its cover, then a special engine cover from dornit and a crankcase shield with penofol for thermal insulation.

Inflation Pressure
It’s difficult to maintain proper tire pressure at low temperature – tubeless tires may not maintain an airtight seal. Also, inflation pressure will decrease if the tire is initially inflated in warm conditions according to the ideal gas law: P1/P2 = T1/T2, although the pressure reduction is small it can be a total disaster with the previous factor.
One day I found that pressure in the tires fell to 1.2-1.6 kg/cm*cm (2.0 is a normal) while a car was standing idle for four days in my garage at -30 degrees centigrade.

Metals, Elastomers and Plastics
The materials become very brittle at low temperatures.
I broke the delivery tube of a washer pump at -30 degrees centigrade during spark plug reversing.

Electronics
Individual electronic components are generally susceptible to failure at high temperatures and usually perform better as ambient temperatures decrease. However, reliability problems do occur when electronics are exposed to below freezing temperatures: moisture condensation, cracked connections, brittle wire insulation.
Funny, but my car starts more easily in cold conditions than in summer as perhaps intake air temperature sensor partly degrade. The thermometer in my car has a scale up to -29 degrees centigrade, although it may be -40 degrees centigrade  outdoor.

Two weeks without changes

Conclusions: If you don’t want to implement the cold-starting procedures it’s necessary to utilize car starter system. In Siberia it’s a vital necessity.

Vista headache

I lost my language bar on my notebook with Vista. I don’t know the cause of the accident it just disappeared. I use Russian and English languages and when I pressed CTRL+SHIFT next time nothing happened. It made me feel like the system has a life on its own.

I don’t like rebooting and I typed ‘lost language bar in vista’ in Google. Wow! 5 290 000 results! It’s a very popular problem

So, go to Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Keyboards and Languages (tab) > Change Keyboards > Language Bar.

Choose ‘Docked in the taskbar’.

Well, as I launched the administrative tasks why don’t get rid of the indexing problem I’ve got a long time. You know the problem – when you’ve opened any folder in the explorer vista starts the crap indexing process. I was lazy to kill it, now it’s time!

Ok, type in the Run dialog box ‘services.msc’, find ‘Windows Search service’ and stop it forever , don’t forget disable it. Phew, it’s gone!

The gas prices and the prosperity of the nations

First of all look at the units of measurement:
1 US gallon = 3.7854 liter
1 US Dollar = 30,6 Russian Rubles (RUB)
Octane rating: Regular grade gas in USA = 92 RON gas in Russia

Some mathematics and statistics:
According to gasbuddy.com Average retail gas price (regular grade, including all taxes) in USA is
Alaska Average – $3.391 per gallon, National Average – $3.014 per gallon.
According to benzin-price.ru and www.gks.ru retail gas price (92 RON, including all taxes) in Russia is
Western Siberia – 21.60 RUB per liter, National Average – 23.34 RUB per liter.

So we have
Alaska $0.9 per liter and W. Siberia $0.71 per liter or
Alaska 27.54 RUB per liter and W. Siberia 21.6 RUB per liter

and

US $0.8 per liter and Russia $0.76 per liter or
US 24.48 RUB per liter and Russia 23.34 RUB per liter.

It’s almost the same!

Let’s see the income statistics.
Gross National Income (most recent) by country (see www.nationmaster.com):
USA $33,070.30 per person (#5 in the world),
Russia $1,764.05 per person (# 82 in the world).

It’s eighteen and a half times more!

What’s more USA has tremendous petroleum reserves (# 14 in the world) but over half the petroleum consumed in the United States is imported from other countries. On the other hand Russia has one of the largest petroleum reserves in the world (# 8 in the world) and the country exports half of the producing petroleum.

As The Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia said we nothing can do with the gas prices, there is no competition in petroleum business, there are no enough petroleum refineries in the country, there is no legislation to regulate gas prices. It’s simply much higher than it could be.

 

To prosperity of the Nation? No Abramovich!

Provide evidence or get outta here!

The nature of service is you should persuade service guy that a problem is in existence and then he/she will possibly examine it, otherwise the man will get rid of you. If your proofs don’t look convincing you won’t get any assistance. Some examples.

My Internet provider (a phone call)
- Hello. I don’t have Internet.
- Good evening. Wait a minute, please. We’re just testing your connection. Well, you know, it’s alright. The problem’s in your computer.
- Ha, when I found I couldn’t ping the gate I tested the cable with a multimeter. There is a break in the first pair.
- Oh, ok, we’ll send a technician.

A system administrator (a talk in an office)
- Pavel, the server doesn’t grant me access to my folder.
- Really? Let’s see. I’m fine. Here it is. You have access.
- No. I haven’t. Come along. The server, my folder, copy a file. Here it is! Permission denied.
- Yeah, I’ve got it! I forgot to change the permissions during the server repair. Just a moment.

A service bureau (a visit)
- The access point I bought doesn’t work properly.
- No problem. Please give it to me I’m going to test it.
- But I have the log…
- This is a standard test, two minutes… Your AP is good, you see, the computer is connecting through it, perhaps some difficulties with settings?
- Er, this is a printed log with drops and this is a correspondence with the manufacture where it recommended sending it to a service.
- Um, yeah, we’ll take it.

I've told you!

Gay’s car in Russia

Subaru, Volkswagen, Ford, Saab and Toyota are the most frequently owned brand among gays and lesbians according to a new survey (of 3,685 respondents) by Gaywheels.com. Much more interesting is the fact that 40 percent of respondents reported household income over $100,000, and 42 percent of gay men and 39 percent of gay women report household income above that level. Ha! Those homosexuals are rich men.

This rating is the western world rating with its marketing, advertising, overproduction and consumer society. What about Russia?

Which car is the gay’s car in Russia?

Well, I think it’s definitely the avtovaz cars… er… because the cars are endlessly fucking you

Definitely gay's car

An anecdote. A guy came into a bar one day and said to the barman “Give me six double vodka.” The barman says “Wow! You must have had one really bad day.” “Yes, I’ve just found out my older brother is gay.” The next day the same guy came into the bar and asked for the same drinks. When the bartender asked what the problem was today the answer came back, “I’ve just found out that my younger brother is gay too!” On the third day the guy came into the bar and ordered another six double vodkas. The bartender said “WOW! Doesn’t anybody in your family like women?” “Yeah, my wife…”

Yo, Winter!

It’s all again – deep snow, extremely low temperatures, blowing wind and perhaps … er … some bears on the streets . It’s going to be rough months here in Western Siberia. The winter has become, not the winter, but the Winter.

A Little comment:

The article about the word “Siberia” From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English: “a very large area in Russia, between the Ural Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, where there are many minerals but very few people. It is extremely cold, and the Soviet governments used to send people there who disagreed with them.” It makes me laugh, but there is a sad truth in the article.

From Wikipedia about Siberia: “It makes up about 77% of Russia’s territory (13.1 million square kilometres), but has only 25% of Russia’s population (36 million people).”

Do we deserve this severe weather conditions or it’s just our birthright?

Sometimes roads in Siberia look like this

Christ has risen!

Alleluia!

The headstand

I’ve never done a headstand before. I’m thirty five years old.
Not so long ago I thought ‘Why not?’ If one man can do it therefore anyone can do it.

No sooner said than done!

Thanks to Jim Bathurst for the plain and detailed explanation of this exercise.

So I can also do a headstand now.

It took roughly two days to practice against a wall, and then I started doing the exercise without a wall.

See for Jim’s explanations on the website beastskills.com
You can read about Jim on jimbathurst.com

I like bodyweight exercises and workouts with Russian classic kettlebells.

My headstand