| Learning Russian grammar from spam |
[Apr. 21st, 2008|12:20 am] |
Aw, spam...
 |
|
|
| Веб 2.0: Russians using Social Graph API |
[Mar. 21st, 2008|08:17 am] |
Just saw this: (via Kevin Marks)
BestPersons
http://habrahabr.ru/blog/web_2_0/38145.html
Just wish I could understand more of it. But between the screenshots, the context, and the words I do know.... Neat! |
|
|
| Safety Information |
[Jan. 15th, 2008|03:10 pm] |
Sitting on the shuttle last night, the girl next to me was on the phone speaking every other sentence/phrase/word in English vs. Russian, switching to English for technical things and certain idiomatic expressions.
Normally I'd just put on my headphones and listen to music but a) the English/Russian thing was amusing and b) she had a cute voice as well, so "eavesdropping" (if you can call it that when the person's directly beside you) was quite bearable.
Her phone call involved discussing sorting strategies for a toy website she made as a Ruby learning excercise:
http://safetyinformation.org/
Quite amusing.
I almost forgot to write about it, but then I saw this on reddit today:
:-) |
|
|
| Misc |
[Dec. 23rd, 2007|01:31 pm] |
I've been in Moscow for the past week for this Google Code Day [video], giving a talk on social graph / interop stuff ("Открытие Социального Графа"). It was a public talk, so I should be able to post the slides, but I'll wait and confirm before I do.
Went to SUP's holiday party too. [some pics] But I guess those pics don't really highlight the ridiculousness of the venue. All the nightclubs here are pretty extravagantly ridiculous. But there was no George Clooney or Gwenth Paltrow in a cage. (love that article: you don't often see the phrase, "We OWN you, bitches!" in a printed newspaper with your breakfast, hotel restaurant windows looking out to St. Basil's in the Kremlin...)
I just got a call from the hotel receptionist saying that my driver was here. My driver? What? Oh, my flight was originally today, so probably my return taxi to the airport, but I'm returning now instead on Tuesday (yes, flying all day xmas). But even so, a driver at 13:30 would be way too late to get to the airport. I ask the receptionist to point him out or describe him. She's flustered, trying to explain that he's black. (Black people are incredibly rare here.) Went out, found him, and after a confusing conversation, turns out that not only was he going to the wrong airport (Domodedovo, not Sheremetyevo), but he was supposed to be driving Boy George, not me. Wtf? I can only imagine the confusion at the receptionist's desk that she called me down to "my driver" instead of Boy George.
Anyway, Moscow is great, as always. I love this city. One warning, though: when a relatively large Russian guy with the nickname "Wolf" wants to drink whiskey with you, politely decline.
Speaking of wolves, apparently a wolf boy is loose in Moscow. Wtf.
Newly discovered funny blog from article above: Moscow Doesn't Believe in Tears.
Unrelated misc links:
- 2007 OpenID wrapup
- Who mattered in 2007 -- apparently I matter, and I'm an introvert. Several of my friends matter too. Love the insular valley. Reminds me of the directed graph I saw recently with two nodes labeled "Blog" with two edges pointing at each other. Yay! :)
|
|
|
| мальчишник I think I heard was the word? |
[Feb. 23rd, 2007|07:14 pm] |
Off shortly to a dinner/bachelor's party for somebody. Some friend of friends? Somebody who thought it'd be fitting to have a bachelor's party on Men's Day? (Somebody wise.) I'm not sure if this person's actually getting married, or maybe everybody just throws bachelor parties on this day.
The fact, however, that our numerous and powerful radiators aren't able to keep this normally-baking apartment warm right now, even with all the windows closed, doesn't bode well for our evening adventures. Fortunately we needn't walk far to get to the nearest Metro.
I'm glad to be done with work. It's been a trying two weeks. I'll try not to be too glad about it tonight. |
|
|
| Last work day in Moscow... |
[Feb. 23rd, 2007|12:28 pm] |
Today's a holiday in Moscow ("Army Day", aka "Men's Day"), so nobody's at work, nobody's on the street, etc. Last night there was a little Men's Day party at the office in the evening with music, beer, peanuts, and chips. We also got presents from the girls. I like this holiday.
So despite it being a holiday today, I'm at work with about a handful of other dedicated workers. But I think I'm done, so I'm outta here.
Mischa's still in bed I think. We were playing poker until 3am last night. I was down $80 at one point (2,000 rubles), but ended the night only $32 down.
Oh, and we were walking in -26C (-14.8F) weather last night. I was wearing some nice (read: thin) pants, not jeans, and no long underwear. I win. I thought it was fun, though. Especially getting into the taxi and feeling my legs pulsating for 10+ minutes as the heat returned to them.
Good stuff.
Not sure what my plan is this weekend. I leave Sunday from SVO at 12:55, arrive SFO at 21:09 same day. |
|
|
| Cold |
[Feb. 21st, 2007|05:50 pm] |
-12C (10.4F) is pretty nice. -14C and I start to feel it. -16C (3.2F) and I officially say, "holy shit this is cold."
But this was wearing thin socks, no long underwear, and no sweater. I'll dress better tomorrow. I'd just been overheating on previous days.
Office was pretty cold today, too. I need some thin hackin' gloves.
No plans tonight. Maybe take Mischa to Red Square and hit an electronics store to find him some power cables/adapters so he can stop stealing mine? |
|
|
| Ice Skating in Red Square |
[Feb. 18th, 2007|10:08 am] |
If ice skating in Red Square isn't on your list of things to do one day, I suggest you add it. Totally great.
Mischa should arrive in an hour, joining me for week 2 of 2 in Moscow. (He missed his connection yesterday, so was stranded in New York...)
Thanks to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nura who takes me everywhere, including the grocery story last night, so I can now make breakfast...
Past breakfast, I have no plans today. I think I should force Mischa to stay awake all day, though, so he adjusts quickly. |
|
|
| Ballet @ большой - "вечер американской хореографии" |
[Feb. 14th, 2007|01:17 am] |
If I've ever hated on the ballet, my sincere apologies. Consider me a convert. I went tonight, for the first time, and was truly surprised... quite cool. Between the music from the pit (<3 strings), the girls, and the fun patterns everywhere (both musically and visually), what's not to love? :-)
There were three acts from different time periods (or so I'm told), and I loved the 1st and 3rd (old and modern). The one that was from the 1940's or 1950's or whatever I wasn't a huge fan of, but even it wasn't half bad.
I still think the opera still sounds whack, but perhaps I should give it at least one chance now, in retrospect. |
|
|
| Russia thus far |
[Feb. 13th, 2007|03:12 am] |
Apparently, when I don't post, friends and family assume I'm freezing to death and/or in a drunken stupor. So let this post serve to dispel both fears. I am sufficiently warm and alcohol consumption has been impressively minimal.
A recap, since I have nothing else to do at the current hour,
Saturday: arrive. very long, active, diverse, wonderful day/night. some sleep might've happened somewhere around 7am.
Sunday: morning (well, noon) was wonderful, including a sight I'd previously never seen in moscow: blue skies and sun! along with the snow and such, was entirely great. went on a picnic in the woods with nura at her family's country place. also dolboeb and shaltai_boltai. was crashing in the car on the way back to the city, so nura took me home and I slept for like 13 hours.
Monday: work. buy groceries/etc. go to bed early.
Tuesday: wake up at 2:30 am confused.
And there we are.
Nothing's more depressing than being out of time sync in another country.
I swear I had a dozen anecdotes that would've been more interesting than this post, but they're nowhere to be found. Maybe later. |
|
|
| Arrived |
[Feb. 10th, 2007|02:33 am] |
Arrived, showered, unpacked, and PPPoE settings on Linksys router fixed...
:-)
The flights and airports were surprisingly painless. So was packing, but that's just because I brought an extra suitcase this time and just threw in everything without much regard to what I actually needed. (For instance: I brought a swimming suit!? Whoops.) |
|
|
| Apartment in Russia |
[Feb. 8th, 2007|12:27 pm] |
I'm pretty excited about going to Moscow tomorrow morning. It'll be colder than I think I've ever experienced, I know maybe a few dozen Russian words now instead of the 4 or so I knew on previous trips, and I'm staying at this temporary apartment instead of a hotel, and it has бесплатный безлимитный скоростной интернет ... free ____ ____ internet! Probably high-speed, but Google translates it as "oven speed" or "oven expressway". yay oven-speed internet! Maybe it's red hot fast. :-)
Oh, and certain pharmacist friend gave me Lunesta, so I can sleep through the flight and just magically wake up in faraway land.
Unfortunately, I've yet to pack. Never good at that. |
|
|
| Russia travel plans... |
[Feb. 5th, 2007|12:29 pm] |
FYI: I'll be in Russia Feb 10 - Feb 25, departing here early Friday, Feb 9th.
That is, if I can get invite/visa stuff figured out in time. (visanetwork.com's working on it...)
I also wanted to hit FOSDEM in Brussels (for xmpp interop event) on the way back, but it might be too late for that, unless my Moscow ticket is a no restrictions fare and it's easy/cheap enough to change.
Then I get back for a couple weeks, go to Belize diving for a week, come back for a day or two, then go to Tokyo.
Yay travel! |
|
|
| Moscow PDA |
[Dec. 8th, 2006|12:15 pm] |
One of the things whitaker and I often noticed in Moscow was people kissing everywhere: In the middle of sidewalks, on benches, ... even one case where a couple driving around that inner ring around the Kremlin pulled over to the right lane, hopped out of their car, kept the right door open, music blaring, and danced/kissed for quite some time on a little wall there, dancing to the music from their car, while cars drove around their lane-blocking car.
It was all pretty cute.
....
I think I found the only power outlet in this airport. And in a Nichtraucherbereich, as well! 3 hours until boarding. I keep almost saying спасибо to waitresses instead of Danke. |
|
|
| Adventures in Taxis, Walking |
[Dec. 7th, 2006|02:58 am] |
My 5.8 km walk last night, since I failed so hard at taking taxis:
(whoops, wrong bridge!)
I knew I shouldn't have believed Edward when he said there were no Metro stations by his place. He lives in the frickin' center, where there's a Metro every couple blocks.
So what I should've done, walk to Киевская, taking Metro to Библиотек:[1]
 
[1] Unicode is fun. We didn't add it to LJ to let it go unabused. |
|
|
| Drinking at Маяк, 8pm |
[Dec. 7th, 2006|12:59 am] |
Dear Muscovites,
Tonight. 20:00. Маяк. Eat, drink. Join us.
We have a large table reserved under the name "Brad". Go home when you need to, but some of us are staying out until 02:30/03:00, when I go to my hotel, and then to the airport. Hope to see you there!
(And SVO, München, I hope to see you two later as well....)
- Brad |
|
|
| punked: brad as grazia / dolce gabbana supermodel |
[Dec. 6th, 2006|06:52 am] |
I just got punked.
I'm waiting for the actual punking, but I know it's coming. (In March, actually.... more on that later.)
So I'm sitting and merging requirements documents and hacking like a good little monkey when nl hands me a cordless phone. "Reporter", he says.
"Can we come over tomorrow and ask you a few questions and take a couple pictures?" (emphasis mine :)) Oh yeah, something also about that she works for Grazia, but I figure it's some Russian thing I don't know, rather than some UK girl thing I don't know, so I ignore it. I would've googled it but I wouldn't have known how to spell it from the phoentics on the phone.
So I say, "Sure, why not?" I figure this trip hasn't been as bad as the last one in terms of reporters, so I'll spare a few minutes. (Few minutes... hah.)
I later learn it'll be an hour or so. Wtf, why? I go out for the evening and forget about it.
I get a call from SUP employee (and ever-gracious host while in Russia) shaltai_boltai asking me for my clothing sizes... shoes, shirt, jacket, pants. Wtf? I don't know my metric sizes. I do the math later and tell her. Wtf?
So today I'm a little suspicious as noon approaches. And sure enough, they come with a full photography studio and like 5 people doing different things... lighting, clothing, makeup, hair, (oh yes, the 5 minute interview), creative director maybe... and somebody else? No clue. Ton of people to take some pictures and try their hardest to make me pretty.
And then I see the Dolce Gabanna receipt... they went and bought like $1,000 of clothes. One item alone was like 10,000 RUB (~$400). Wtf? (at least they're returning it all, photoshopping out the tags... heh)
I changed outfits like 3 times, had makeup done, had hair done multiple times... WTF.
So I guess it's some Italian/UK chick magazine that's starting in Russia next year and I was totally tricked into it. You should've seen these ridiculous clothes. Well, hell, I'm sure you'll see it when it hits the Internet. Because I know some punk is gonna scan it and post it online. Damn Internet. :P
Pretty embarassing, standing on a table in front of all the programmers, losing any technical credibility by the second. I told the CTO, Sergei, to send out an email to his team in Russian saying that I'd rather be hacking and this was totally jacked up. Between laughing and going bright red (with the others from the balcony), I think he agreed to, but I don't think he did. The programmers were taking pictures from their camera phones and giggling.... maybe that'll go online soon for a pre-March punking.
Seriously, this clothes .... wow.
So, uh, my punking is in March or something in Russia when somebody buys this magazine and scans it. |
|
|
| Wonderful photography style |
[Dec. 5th, 2006|09:12 pm] |
So this guy comes here to SUP yesterday and takes my picture and I'm kinda confused about what it's for, etc, but I just figure "oh well, more press.... at least it's not as bad as last time I was here."
But then I find out it's for this: ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) sto_vosem.
In particular, this post of me:
http://community.livejournal.com/sto_vosem/8996.html
But go look at all the other photos... all are great. |
|
|
| снег! |
[Dec. 5th, 2006|12:55 pm] |
It just started snowing!
(I was fearing I'd leave not having seen some Russian snow.... :P) |
|
|