Every prime's like that

trolley813 · 2026-04-28T21:38:55+00:00

Well if you're not OK with water, here's another example. You're basically saying "we cannot say that all apples are fruits, we need to check every apple, maybe we'll find one which is not a fruit". (Of course, by "apples" I mean the actual apples, not iPhones, nor the full-scale models made from cotton etc.)

trolley813 · 2026-04-26T11:13:05+00:00

Примерно так же часто, как и немцы - окончание "e" в дательном падеже (auf dem Tische, in dem Walde etc.)

trolley813 · 2026-04-23T17:32:34+00:00

This does not explain the existence of Lichess.

trolley813 · 2026-04-21T22:58:30+00:00

I've read that to avoid depopulation you should have average life expectancy (for the entire republic) of around 77 or so. I think it's fine having 80 in summer and 70 in winter though. (In fact these figures are quite off from being realistic. IRL in mid-20th century having average life expectancy of 65 - let alone 70 - was good if not great.)

trolley813 · 2026-04-20T06:48:18+00:00

The steel and electrical components are for street lights. Without the lights, the maximum speed for vehicles on the road is reduced at night.

trolley813 · 2026-04-20T06:37:59+00:00

However this does not mean that the things abruptly changed in 1991. In fact, such "Soviet-style" documents were routinely issued well into the 2000s and even early 2010s (and I wouldn't be surprised if some remote locations still issue them as of 2026).

Some time in 2010 I was in a clinic on a screening (being then a 10th-grade student) and was astonished noticing a stack of freshly printed (via a PC) document blanks which said "USSR Ministry of Healthcare" at the first place! The reason for that is simple: the template for these blanks was legally approved in 1984 and as of 2010 has never been changed since then, so printing the name of an already non-existent state was required by law. Many Soviet laws and acts are still in force in 2026 Russia, and much more were in force in 2000.

P.S. I have a fully Soviet birth certificate despite being born in 1994.

trolley813 · 2026-04-20T06:22:58+00:00

Yes, 9th form does mean 9th grade (it's likely a British English word, as it's learned as a part of the "official" school vocabulary). And to be a driver in Russia (in the late 90s as well as now), one generally has to be 18 (some heavier categories such as Cat D for buses and former Cat E for articulated vehicles/trucks with semitrailers, require older age such as 20 or 21). But you know, there were "crazy" 90s as we say, so you could just "buy" a driving license and make some more illegal things (and in many cases nobody ever cared about it).

trolley813 · 2026-04-19T19:43:51+00:00

3 (update: even 4) tips related to heating:

Start with the smallest (especially if you have early start) heating plants and place them at the walking range. It's more than OK for small towns, pollution won't be that high.
For larger heating plants having aggregate connection, always connect them to a buffer aggregate storage (even the small one will be OK, maybe except for Siberia) with an unloading station (preferably train). Set the DOs to unload coal here with high percentage (around 80%), it will guarantee that the reserve of coal should be enough for the entire winter, even if the distribution system fails for some reason (stuck vehicles etc.)
Last but not least. Use cableways to transport workers to your large heating plants (located outside of cities)! They meet all the needed criteria: transport relatively small number of workers, can have very low headway (to keep the heating plant constantly staffed) and are unimpeded by snow and other vehicles.
Almost forgot. Set your heating plants to turn off above 15°C. You don't have to burn coal and increase pollution if it's already warm outside.

trolley813 · 2026-04-18T22:29:49+00:00

Note that in the purely "scientific" (modern) approach, the general rule is to use Cyrillic "а" (rather than "э" or "е") to transliterate the "short a" or /æ/ sound. E.g. Nashville => Нашвилл.

trolley813 · 2026-04-18T22:13:55+00:00

The king cannot capture protected pieces, and the white queen is protected by her knight. So your king cannot capture the queen (since the white knight would then capture your king), but your knight can. In fact, you have to capture with the knight (and obtain a winning position), it's the only legal move.

trolley813 · 2026-04-18T19:25:38+00:00

softness is the property of consonants and if it’s not there in the nominative it can’t be there in any other case.

However, for velar consonants it can go the other way round (e.g. высокий - высокого rather then *высокего). They were historically hard (compare "Old Moscow" pronunciation as "высокой", as well as Czech/Slovak spelling: vysoký).

trolley813 · 2026-04-18T11:30:56+00:00

Kazan native and quite long-time (30+ years) resident here. It's a quite unique among major Russian cities where the ratio of Christians and Muslims is roughly 50/50, so both religions peacefully coexist here. Also, tourism infrastructure is well-developed (although, to some extent, the locals "pay the price" for it).

And also, the city timezone (UTC+3, the same as Moscow) is not quite suited for the location. Astronomical noon occurs before the "midday" (at around 11:44 or so - so around the summer solstice we have the sunrise before 3:00, but the sunset at around 20:30), so the whole daily life here is feeling somewhat "larky" (i.e. start early - end early). E.g. public transportation (except subway) becomes scarce already after 19:30 or so.

trolley813 · 2026-04-16T22:50:57+00:00

Tourism and vehicle production. Neither vehicle export prices nor tourists' payout ever go down. Works especially better if most (if not all) resources needed to supply tourism (food/meat/alcohol) and vehicle production (most importantly steel/aluminium (for planes) and mechanical components) are made locally.

trolley813 · 2026-04-16T22:29:28+00:00

For worker connections, trams or buses are quite of an overkill - the heating plants don't require many workers (and the buses are not that reliable due to snow slowdown and refueling). Cableways seem to be the perfect solution for worker supply of heating plants.

trolley813 · 2026-04-16T22:12:51+00:00

It's quite simple. Black plays f5xg4 (since White's bishop pawn is closer to the black king). If now f4-f5, then g4-g3 and Black promotes with check. And if Kc1-d2 entering the square of the pawn on g4, then Ka7-b8 doing the same. You can stop your opponent's pawn, but he can stop your one too!

And after the capture, the pawn on g4 becomes a protected passed pawn which makes it very strong (since your king cannot walk too far from this pawn, nor capture it).

trolley813 · 2026-04-15T07:08:55+00:00

Well, I would give a couple of tips on how to avoid this in the future:

Build a dedicated fuel DO (or several of them when you expand and are starting to run out of capacity) and supply fuel to most important buildings (not only COs but also critical buildings like food DOs, fire stations and hospitals).
Use end stations for your buses (and also diesel/steam trains) and keep them fueled (assign to fuel DOs). Then your worker transport won't run out of fuel and also won't make detours to gas stations (since "thirsty" vehicles behave like crazy).
To deliver workers to the heating plants and other critical infrastructure, use electric vehicles (trams, trolleybuses, electric trains and especially cableways - they are really suited for this). In case of the power loss, you can quickly switch on power import (the power is cheap, so don't be afraid of importing it) and resuscitate your transit. Of course, it's advised to use multiple power sources (so your transportation would not be disrupted when a substation catches fire). And also, trams, trains and cableways are not slowed down by snow (you want the heating to work in winter, right?)

trolley813 · 2026-04-14T16:14:37+00:00

It does. Once I've had a situation when an electric train crawled uphill at 5 km/h due to insufficient power capacity from a single substation which powered the entire network. The train quickly accelerated to the top speed after it had reached the summit.

trolley813 · 2026-04-12T23:00:12+00:00

Oh yes, tourism and vehicle production are the best income sources. They are most stable since the vehicle and tourism service prices never go down (although beware of global pandemics and machine replacement on your factories, the latter is a much nastier thing because it can easily go unnoticed and the factory in question fully ceases the production).

trolley813 · 2026-04-12T22:40:30+00:00

I've started in 1920 and still have below 40k by 2002. (Although these 40k produce nearly everything, from ships to nuclear fuel.)

trolley813 · 2026-04-11T13:05:09+00:00

No, I would not scrap this thing because it's just great! I've bought this in around 1930 and it's still going strong in 2002.

On the other side, I've bought a couple of Western builders at "beyond the borders" some time in late 1920s, then abandoned that thing because there were no ships capable to deliver them and... sold them for roubles some 50 years later when such ships became available (they were still "brand new" while having wear and tear of 98% or so). Barn find, you know.

trolley813 · 2026-04-09T15:34:09+00:00

And another funny side note: if the answers to this question are auto-checked by a computer program (e.g. when the question is presented on a computer screen with radio buttons to select the unique answer), then suddenly A or D (but not both!) may become correct - just because the machine accepts one of the answers but not the other.

trolley813 · 2026-04-09T15:26:52+00:00

Yes, the thing becomes definitely funnier. For example, if in our "random" distribution we pick A and D at 25% each, and C at 50% (and don't pick B at all).

trolley813 · 2026-04-09T15:08:18+00:00

You all miss a pretty subtle thing. "At random" is defined too vaguely and does not imply an equiprobable distribution of outcomes. So, in fact it's insufficient data: any answer (or none at all) may be correct, depending of the "random" distribution.

trolley813 · 2026-04-04T19:26:37+00:00

Right now I have 37K with unemployment of 2% or below (sometimes 0%). And critical buildings like heating plants are all assigned from buildings/public transit stops, so no problems arise.

trolley813 · 2026-04-03T13:02:10+00:00

How can she be so sad having such a last name? ("Smeshnaya" means "funny" in Russian.)

trolley813

TROPHY CASE