Праздники

А у нас на носу - два праздника на Ха - Х-мас и Ханука.

Obama steganography

President-intellect Barack Obama

(Washington Post article)

Chinese Tea Collection

A recent trip to an Asian grocery shop revealed this treasure collection of Chinese teas.

Men + King Power! (Is that the King with his men?)

(Lawrence) Livermore Tea

The smart choice is to STOP SMOKING TEA!

What?

Prosti is Russian for "I apologize". Uh-oh...

Obama campaign redefines pestering

I looked up thesaurus for "pestering" and found an Obama ad. A coindidence?

neonewdealism

Neonewdealism - my word of the day, as heard on NPR.

Google search is aware of Russian grammar

I noticed that Google search became more adept at searching in Russian. Now it can search both the keywords and their Russian grammatic inflections.

See the screenshot (in Russian).

Amazon MP3 downloader for Linux

Decided to buy my second album from Amazon MP3 store and lo and behold, they now have a Linux version of Amazon MP3 downloader.

They only provide a binary package, either .rpm or .deb. They have two RPMs, for Fedora 8 and for OpenSuse 10.3. I have Slackware 12.1, but I managed to make the RPM for OpenSuse 10.3 work in my OS. I only had to install amazonmp3.rpm, boost-1.33.1-i686-3as from Slacky, and create the following symbolic links in /usr/lib directory.

rpm -ivh --nodeps amazonmp3.rpm
/usr/sbin/swaret --install boost-1.33.1-i686-3as
cd /usr/lib
ln -s libboost_date_time-mt.so.1.33.1 libboost_date_time.so.1.33.1
ln -s libboost_signals-mt.so.1.33.1 libboost_signals.so.1.33.1
ln -s libboost_iostreams-mt.so.1.33.1 libboost_iostreams.so.1.33.1

When you buy an album from Amazon's MP3 store, Amazon provides you with an .amz file, which you can open with the amazonmp3 application to download the actual audio files.

Dugg!

I added a widget to this blog showing online articles I recently read (and submitted to digg.com)

Worcester Public School's Calendar 2008-2009

I just typed in the Worcester, MA Public School's Calendar for 2008-2009.
It is also available in as Worcester, MA Public School's Calendar for 2008-2009 in iCal format for easy adding into your calendar application.

Nathaniel riding bicycle in Elm Park

Nathaniel riding bicycle in Elm Park, originally uploaded by Sushkins.

First time took the bike to the park. This shot came particularly nice with the golden hour sun being behind the subject, creating a very warm scene. Also, Nathaniel was doing his best "Look dad, no hands routine" :)

Internet Philosophy

I AM on IM therefore I AM

(I said it first, according to Google)

McCain

Моя мама меня спросила - "Ну этот кандидат в президенты, Мак как его?"

8 ball weighing problem

The 8 ball problem describes thought inertia of a computer scientist or programmer. When given a problem to find a heavier ball hidden among seven other identical balls using a balance scale using a minimum number of weighings, a CS person would answer that three weighings are required, based on 8 being encoded in three bits, each weighing giving dividing the problem in half. In fact, only two are required, because each weighing gives one of the three answers, so the bits are not binary bits, but ternary bits, reducing the problem set by a factor of three. So, with two weighings you can find a heavier ball hidden among eight identical others.

Federer's new career in fashion writing

According to a photograph in New York Times article "My Invitation Isn’t in the Mail", Roger Federer started a new career in fashion writing... - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/fashion/shows/13banned.htm

Tennis word play

In tennis, expression "I overplayed my hand" applies literally as well as metaphorically.
I played too much and now I have a sore elbow. I overplayed my hand.

Another nail in the coffin of DRM

To compete with internet downloads, studios are starting to include into DVDs an unencrypted version of the movie, New York Times writes. I guess it's true that the most convenient format wins, dooming the DRM. Good riddance!

Indeed, the centerpiece of the market rejuvenation effort is something 20th Century Fox calls “digital copy.” Fox DVDs, starting last month, now come with an additional disc holding a digital file of the title. Consumers can download the file to a computer in about five minutes — far less time than via the Internet — and then watch the movie there or transfer it to their iPod.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/business/media/25dvd.html

Oil dependency riddle

Carcass from Caracas has my car keys...
...Chavez.

A Russian lies to fight traffic ticket ends up in jail for perjury

Why I am not surprised the guy who tried to lie to a traffic judge is a Russian. Is it a stereotype or Russians do tend to think they are smarter than the system?

The article in NYTimes says the guy ran a stop sign, brought a picture of an intersection a block away without a stop sign, was found responsible, appealed to a judge, brought the correct picture to the appeal, got 1 year jail term for perjury from the judge.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/us/01perjury.html

SFGate reports that Bamberg, a former car salesman, was also suspected of switching street signs when the traffic commissioner said she would go investigate herself. "Bamberg acknowledged his fingerprints would be found on the street signs, but said he had to adjust them while taking his photos"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/24/BAGESOA6DF24.DTL

Does Army destroy your mind?

I've always feared serving in Russian military because I've been told by friends that once you go to the army, you don't come back the same. Since I've always hoped for a career in science or research and development, I couldn't see myself coming back from the military service with a destroyed brain. Perhaps it's not so scary and most people come back fine.

However, in reading a recent NYTimes article about crimes being committed by the US veterans of the Iraq war, I found a startling quote,

-- “They break down your mind, and then they try to build you back up,” ... -- “Into a killer?” ... -- "Yes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/us/27vets.html

Washington Post is a tabloid rag when reporting science

Today, The Washington Post talks about "Mad Scientists Create Full Chromosome of Synthetic DNA". As a former scientist, I hate it when the media always portrays scientists as disconnected nerds or even mad.

... oh, wait ...

(read the full article about Mad Scientists Create Full Chromosome of Synthetic DNA)

Soviet Union guaranteed civil liberties in the West

Soviet Union and East Germany were these excellent examples of totalitarian regimes. As long as they existed, the West wanting to differentiate itself from the red East, used to appreciate their civil liberties. Now when both totalitarian countries are gone, the West seems to be gravitating closer to the center, towards a totalitarian or even classic fascist regime.

I really liked the way the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party Rickard Falkvinge put it.

When the Iron Curtain fell, all of the West rejoiced that the East would become just as free as the West. It was never supposed to be the other way around.

Read the full intellectual interview with Rickard Falkvinge at P2P Consortium.