Rollable TVs have a little talked about advantage: they are compatible with any reasonable aspect ratio.

There’s this notion of time cafés which is spreading far and wide. “Pay for how much you stay, not how much you eat”, they say.

While all-you-can-eats are a bargain, time cafés not only make you cram yourself with food, but make it a competition for the fastest time to do so. This is no good, as food waste is a big problem.

Time cafés are also the worst place for family reunions or days out. Instead of a long day drinking tea with crumpets, you get fewer precious moments with these valuable people. (The best place for long family days is home.)

Why do people go to time cafés?

What are all these people talking about? Abcde is a great name! Yes, it’s hard to get its pronunciation at first, but English isn’t phonetically consistent, so it’s no big deal.

2018 was a good year. Less dramatic and eventful than 2017, but more fundamental for my future. I became a designer, mostly thanks to Bureau Gorbunov Designer School. I earned my first proper money and got my first proper job. I started sharing my thoughts more openly and learned a new language. I learned how to code, interact with people, and read 481 books. I became Booksearcher’s secret advisor and finally spent a summer in Italy. Oh, and albeit I started playing guitar in 2016, this year was the first one when I started doing so seriously.

Most things that happened in 2018 — like the Hawaii false missile threat — make me think “this was 2018?!”: that’s how long this year was.

I see what I want 2019 to be like, and I’m ready to make it happen. Happy New Year!

It’s way too easy to die. It’s time to eradicate diseases and let people live forever if they want to.

As more and more services now work only by subscription, bundles are saviors. These bundles today are the ecosystems of tomorrow.

When Russia hosted the World Cup this year — an event of international importance — the host cities cleaned streets and threw away the trash, made life safer and the overall appearance neater. (Oh, and people were friendlier)

The more such events Russia hosts (or any country, for that matter), the better everything will be. It’s a pity that Ekaterinburg didn’t win the Expo 2025 bid.

There are three ways to do this.

Moscow’s Foreign Language Library. Gates, a stern security guard, librarians that don’t understand one another, no single database, RFID tags for security purposes, a ban on bringing backpacks in (!). The wide variety of books is the only thing that saves this library from obliteration.

Pigna Library. The honesty system at its finest. Just a heartwarming librarian and no security features. They make an assumption that everyone entering isn’t there for a random reason (which is close to truth).

The Russian State Library for Youth. A total absence of any visible gates or security features. Anyone strolling by can enter and read a book. As for bringing a book home, all one has to do to register is to show an ID. Every book has an RFID tag used for theft prevention, as well as for scanning books. I was surprised at how efficient the system was when I first took some books home: I stacked the books, put them on a table along with my library card, and I could go out. No librarian or gate needed.

There’s only one way to do it right.

“Don’t let the person solving it know that it’s impossible”
— Ivan Youdin, my physics professor

Almost anything can be easily revealed about any internet user. Why not use it to give authors a powerful way to contextualise what people read? People will get a bonus for giving away privacy: saving time.

For instance, instead of writing

If you have an iPhone, go to Settings ‹...›
If you’re on Android, then there is no way to solve this.

write

Since you have an iPhone, go to Settings ‹...›

The same idea can be applied to videos too.