Artem Russakovskii's programming and technology blog

This is insane. Probably the best Halloween light show I've ever seen. Best part starts around 0:50. 3:53 is great too….

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while: a friend of mine by the name of Thaya took this picture at his office recently and shared it on nowthen.com. I love office pranks, and this one is world-class! Check it out.

Kudos to the Coral8 team.

Credit: nowthen.com….

I just came upon a pretty good Hadoop introduction paper posted on Sun’s wiki. Apache Hadoop is a free Java software framework that supports data intensive distributed applications. It enables applications to work with thousands of nodes and petabytes of data. Hadoop was inspired by Google's MapReduce and Google File System (GFS) (wikipedia). I wouldn’t call it an alternative to mysql – they’re in completely different weight categories. I like to think of Hadoop as a complement – I think it’s closer to memcached in its functions than to mysql. Perhaps a hybrid of both but a unique beast nonetheless. If you’re serious about scaling, you owe it to yourself to start exploring Hadoop yesterday.

A couple of …

I’d like to share this relatively new video that shows Google Android’s mutli-tasking capabilities and the seamless integration of these capabilities. Hey, it’s got a copy/paste too (eat that, iPhone!). Android is an OS that’s got a clue. I applaud Google developers for thinking ahead.

You can view more videos from the Android/Google developers here….

Updated: November 16th, 2008

There are some shows on TV that make me vomit (hint: most, especially on MTV). Others don’t spark any interest at all. But there are select few that are anywhere from great to outstanding. I’m here to help you sort through all the bullshit.

Here is my list (these shows are relatively new, I didn’t want to include classics, like Seinfeld):

1. The Unit. Dennis Haysbert (that’s president Palmer from 24) and his crew make The Unit simply amazing. Each episode offers a new unique captivating mission, while sticking to the main plot. Battle action and The Unit’s family lives are mixed together perfectly. I recommend watching from season 1. A+.

2. How I Met Your Mother. Best …

For the longest time I wanted to sort folders (aka directories) in Total Commander but it just wouldn’t. The sort rules only applied to files and I never took the time to figure it out. Well, I found the option now, which I want to share. I can finally see what movies, ahem, I mean presentations, I downloaded last.

The option is right there, in the middle, Sorting Directories. The default is Always by name. Change it to Like files (also by time) and you’re done.

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Updated: January 2nd, 2017

I’m learning Python. Since I’m currently primarily a Perl coder, I decided it’d be a good idea to post and keep track of my experiences coming from heavy Perl. I have a few reasons for learning Python, which are:

• to see what else is out there and broaden my horizons.
• to keep my brain active by feeding it new tasty information every day.
• to become a more valuable employee and potential future candidate.
• to learn a new language, especially one used by giants like Google.
• to learn a new OO language, as I’m tired of Perl’s hacky OO.
• to build GUI applications. GUI in Perl is a big pain. I’ll see about Python.

So, without further ado, here are the …

Updated: October 15th, 2008

Worst thing I’ve ever seen…

Edit: Oh, and this just knocked the wind out of me: this is the rate of return in my 401K account this year:

Edit #2: nope, that wasn’t the worst. Today (Oct 15, 2008) beats them all:

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