A motley collection of ideas
This mixer did not fall victim to a teardown — it was repaired. The pictures show how it can be disassembled (not easy, but not impossible either). It was still manufactured at a time when the possibility was considered that someone might actually want to repair it. As can be seen in the pictures, the … Read more
Bats normally hibernate during the winter, but nowadays, thanks to the mild winters, we can encounter bats even in January. The real bat season, of course, begins in March–April and lasts until the end of October. This is the best time to go bat-hunting. In urban environments, the most common species are the serotine bat … Read more
In 1983, Rádiótechnika magazine published an article about a clock built around the TMS1122 IC. I redesigned the circuit and the PCB somewhat, then built it. It served continuously for 27 years, essentially without being turned off. Due to lack of space, I recently scrapped it, though it was still in working condition. The Clock … Read more
This is the recipe of Professor Emeritus Vilmos Csányi, ethologist, academic, and writer. It is not a traditional Nógrád dish. The name comes from the fact that Professor Csányi’s house was in the village of Nógrád. According to Professor Csányi, the more complexly a civilization performs a task, the more advanced it is — judging … Read more
Today would be Ernest Hemingway’s 125th birthday. His love for cats was legendary—his home in Key West is now a museum and still hosts a large colony of around 60 cats, famous for their extra toes, known as Hemingway’s polydactyl cats. Cats typically have five toes on their front paws and four on their back, … Read more
Fluorescent lamps are becoming less and less fashionable these days, as LEDs are pushing them out—but they’re really not that bad. The technology improved a lot between the 1970s and 1990s: the unpleasant light of old fluorescent tubes is a thing of the past. Flickering and color distortion have been reduced so effectively that in … Read more
With Schlieren photography, even a person’s breath can be captured. It is often used to illustrate various flows, shockwaves, bullets, flames, and fire propagation. NASA has even developed a version of the method that allows supersonic aircraft to be photographed in flight. Most people have probably seen such images before — in recent years, the … Read more
Multiverzum kiadó, 2023328 oldal, 5990 Ft Morte annyit tesz: halál. Úgy, hogy Mort, lehetne egy bújós házi cica is, vagy a Madagaszkár-filmek idétlen egérmakija. Robert Repino regényében Mort(e) egy meglehetősen nagy macska, aki nem akar messiás lenni, csak a barátját szeretné megtalálni egy tébolyult világban: egy kutyát. „A kutyának köszönhetően érezte magát normálisnak. Mert ő … Read more
In the spring of 2019, I wrote an article about the so-called “wasp garage,” prompted by the fact that these things started appearing in many supermarkets and pet stores. Lots of people bought them, put them out in their gardens—and nothing happened. NGOs and local governments also installed them in public spaces, and there are … Read more
I inherited this device from my father—he brought it from the Soviet Union at some point. It was manufactured in 1974 and is a typical example of the simple yet extremely robust Soviet devices. It doesn’t contain any “smart” electronic circuits, so there’s nothing in it that could burn out or break. It’s simply built … Read more