Author: Кирилл Ясько

bloody flowers

The other day, remembering how to spell flower (flower in English), I realized for the first time that this word has a root flow, i.e. “flow”. Then the literal translation of the word flower will be “current” or “expiring”. Apparently it is implied that the flower expires with nectar. Wanting to check if my hypothesis about the etymology of the English flower is correct, I slightly %20flow&hl=ru&pg=PA35#v=onepage&q=Flower%20word%20flow&f=false”>googled and it turned out!!! It turned out that everything is correct – the flowers flow. But not only nectar, but also blood. In English there is a word “bloom” (bloom), suspiciously similar to the root “blood” (blood). In German “Blüte” is “flowers” and “Blut” is “blood”. In Hungarian “ver” is blood, and “verag” is “blossom”.

Homeland Chernobrivtsy

When I first came to India and Nepal back in 2009, I was I am touched by how many “our” Chernobrivtsy (Ukrainian name for marigolds) they have. They not only decorated home flower beds, but were also actively used in religious rituals. Garlands of bright orange flowers organically looked both at the Hindu saints of the sadhu and near the Buddhist stupas. Well, I thought, it’s not in vain that we are INDO-Europeans – we have common ancestors (restless Aryans) and many common traditions, including love for Chernobrivtsy. Unfortunately, I am not well versed in Ukrainian folklore and folk traditions, but the fact that Chernobrivtsy are one of our national fetishes (like a cherry orchard near a white hut under a thatched roof) is known even to me.

Zuckerbrins won’t work?

Pelevin’s new book “Love for the Three Zuckerbrins” did not arouse any particular literary enthusiasm in me. That is, there was no mystical awe, seething joy or other strong emotions. But I liked the idea, dryly and clearly stated by Pelevin at the end of the book. An individual journey to another world through inner work. It’s almost Hinayana (the current of the “small vehicle” in Buddhism).

Cherry is a plum, acacia is a bean.

Analyzing photos from the spring Turkish hike, I decided to read about the carob tree on Wikipedia under which we spent a couple of nights there. It looks very similar to an acacia, only the pods and leaves are larger and oilier.
And so it turned out – carob and acacia belong to the same family of legumes. What do you mean, beans? Why? Are these trees really not directly related to such trees, but rather to herbs like clover, peas and beans? I realized that I had discovered another gap in my education.

10 books that were close

Today, the baton was passed to me… No, this is not about the Ice Bucket Challenge that is fashionable this season – we already have enough cold water in our lives, there is no feat here. I got a book relay race – to write about the 10 most-most literary works in my life.

By the way, not so long ago he shared his recommendations (10 best historical books, 10 best detective stories, etc.) in his blog Akunin. So we’re on trend, gentlemen. We are working!

musical hunger

музыкальный голод

Life is not always full of joy and pleasure. Moreover, many of the pleasures tend to turn into addiction and a source of suffering. I’ve been literally staggering from musical hunger for the last half a year. There was a terrible lack of a fixed song, a good hit that would sit in the brain and set the rhythm of life. Without much hope, I leafed through reviews on music portals, doomedly listened to new albums of “old” bands that had long been bored. Yearning…

Playing with papers on the forehead.

During a recent winter hike in the Carpathians amid crazy trash and hard weather, we suddenly “Drawing” a calm and sincere evening. We were sitting warm (at the weather station), full, almost dry and not too tired, there was nothing to do and we decided to play guessing games with pieces of paper on our foreheads.

Tongue or fingers?

Sorry for the details, but while picking my teeth after a heavy dinner, I made an unexpected observation – tactile sensitivity and accuracy of touch at the tip of the tongue are higher than those of the fingers. Feeling my teeth with my tongue, I “see” them large, as if through a magnifying glass – much larger than with a similar palpation with my hands.

Maybe it seemed to me? I had to ask a couple of questions to Google…

Books by Jasper Fforde

“It’s harmful to work a lot” – I decided for the tenth time in the evening, interrupted the heroic writing of the tour in Peru for a second and went to check the blogs of famous writers. Akunin and Pelevin were silent, but Lukyanenko pleased. And by no means by his arguments about the “Ukrainian loan”, but by a tip on a new (for me), interesting author – Jasper Fford.

Thursday is Thor’s day

Четверг - день Тора

Watching my second-grader son unsuccessfully try to learn English Thursday (i.e. Thursday) I became interested in the origin of this clumsy word (do you like the sound of th?). It immediately became clear that Thursday is the day of Thor the Thunderer, and this alone was enough for me to remember this word forever. Before, I confess, I often confused the letters.

Youtube – time link

Youtube - ссылка на время

Let’s say you decide to share a cool video on Youtube with your friends. But here’s the bad luck – the most interesting moment is somewhere in the middle of the clip, surrounded on all sides by unbearable rotten stuff. It turns out there is a solution – you can send them a link by which the video will open immediately at the right place. Exactly at the right time.
To make such a link for a certain time (for example, at the 62nd second of the video), you need to add #t=62 to the regular YouTube link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iix-2Z89dYA#t=62

And the winner is…

Imagine, there is a final of some television competition. A beautiful presenter hovers on the stage in the rays of everyone’s attention. She opens the cherished envelope with the name of the winner and pronounces the magic formula “And the winner is …” (became the winner). At the moment when, after a dramatic pause, she says the name of the winner, the cameraman shows us his close-up. We see the change of emotions on the face of the lucky man, he successively turns pale, blushes, kisses his companion and on shaking legs makes his way to the stage…

Attention, question!
How did the operator know where to aim? Was he told the name of the winner a little earlier than the envelope was opened on stage?

Learning to photograph food

Before I had time to learn how to photograph landscapes (I really didn’t have time – I don’t know how), as by chance I became interested in food photography, i.e. filming food. So far there have been only a couple of sessions, but I have already “progressed” rather well – I took a tripod from the far shelf, read a few .html” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank” title=”Cooking photography for bloggers”>guides, started shooting in natural (daylight) light.

There is nothing much to brag about yet, but I can share an observation – and when you photograph food and when you process the footage, you don’t think about it at all as food, you don’t want to eat it …

Flood in Nepal – coordinates of Kharapani village

I received a text message from a friend at 1 am today. He wondered if I or my tourists in Pokhara had been washed away. This is such a popular tourist town in Nepal, not far from the Annapurna massif, where we arrange trips.It turns out that today (May 5, 2012) as a result of avalanches (probably from Mount Machapuchare), the water level in the Seti River has risen sharply. One of the Nepalese villages was simply washed away. There are victims, about 50 people went missing, among them our compatriots…On this, the information on the Russian-language Internet was exhausted. But it became clear that not only my friend was worried. The parents of numerous Russian and Ukrainian tourists who went to Nepal for the May holidays tried to find out (on thematic forums) where and which village was washed away, whether their children were in danger.

How to make a Stone from Svetlakov?

The film Stone failed to pass the quality check (according to the method already known to you). I did not believe in what was happening on the screen, did not turn off the inner critic. Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that my phone required attention every 10 minutes, and thus did not allow me to dissolve into a sea of dreams. And thank God! Before watching, I read the announcement, I knew that someone would be forced to choose, and I was afraid that the movie would thoroughly load, make me try on the skin of each of the characters. And since everything worked out, I was delighted and decided to write about the wonderful film Stone :)

How to shoot from around the corner?

Everyone probably knows the story about a gun that shoots from around a corner simply because it was laid on its side… Everyone knows, but I forgot :) Remind me how it was, if not laziness.So, somehow chatting with friends, we got hooked on this very gun :) Ie. began to discuss a device for shooting from around the corner. We did it more for laughter than out of bloodthirsty interests. But today, all the same comrades sent me link to a real an example of such a wave. And it’s just enchanting pipets, in my opinion.

Official website of the school and Odnoklassniki

Yesterday I accidentally found the website of my school…. No, not like that . Yesterday I accidentally went to Odnoklassniki and was surprised to find a message there from the director of the school (I really want to write this position with a capital letter), where 15 years ago I received a start in life. The director suggested to get actively involved in the process of filling the content of the Official Website of the School (here, you can’t do without capital letters).Do not think that I am maliciously joking – on the contrary, I liked the director’s initiative (and the site itself). It’s just very unusual to receive such messages. I already imagine how in a year or two my son will become a schoolboy and I will begin to receive messages from two principals. In the meantime, this happy moment has not come, and I do not need to portray officialdom (after all, my son will also read blogs), I will write about the main thing – school gossip, which I managed to catch between the lines of the Official site ..

Perfect Soundtrack

Zhenya was tired of listening to the radio and she downloaded the original soundtrack for several seasons of House M.D. into our music box. The unusual choice is easy to explain – she really liked Peter Gabriel’s “My body is a cage” (a really great song).This music played “in the background” all day long. As a result, I ~~went crazy~~ caught the main secret of the perfect soundtrack. It should be practically invisible.

The best toy

When my five-year-old son, after several months spent on the seas and with his grandparents, returned to the city, got into his room, he, of course, first of all climbed into the box with toys. Did I say box? In fact, in terms of volume, this crap is approaching a cargo container – we have an immeasurable amount of toys.I already imagined how he, with joy and curiosity, dumps all this plastic rubbish on the floor, sorts out forgotten toys, tries to play with everyone at once, and I grumble at him and call for order. But it was not there. That evening, the child did not touch the toys. For more than an hour he calmly sat in one place (!!!) and flipped through the LEGO advertising booklet. Drawn toys turned out to be more attractive than real ones, but boring “their” tsatski.

Fires in Montenegro

Today on the radio they broadcast about forest fires in Montenegro. Podgorica (the capital of the country) is covered in smoke, doctors advise not to leave the house.We drove there at the end of August (returning from a campaign) and even then the forests were burning. The smell of smoke in the city was still barely distinguishable, and we did not see any fire at all. It appears that over the past two weeks the situation there has not improved, but worsened. Which is not surprising – even on my first visit to Podgorica, I was amazed at how dry and hot it is in this basin (compared to Budva, for example).There is no sea here to soften the heat, and the surrounding mountains are low and have long since become hot in the sun. The wind from them did not bring the slightest relief. On the contrary, this hair dryer dried up everything in its path – the leaves began to fall off the trees ahead of time, all the colors burned out and faded, the already not very full-flowing rivers became shallow … Even my shirt, always wet from sweat, dried up in this hell and turned into hard starched shell (in fact, not starched, but salted). I went to the gas station in this shell to get gasoline for the stove, and still could not figure out how to protect the container from this flammable atmosphere.