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Monday, March 28

Sunday again

it was Sunday again and again I do not know where week went to...
or at least seem not to know.
after coming home today after 8 pm and cooking supper I felt a sudden urge to clean up my room. My desk My shelves. Like a high school student before a test. Who knows what got me so nervous.... it must be nervous strain of past days...

Wednesday, March 23

Fringe

Started to watch Fringe yesterday. Despite high ratings can't say I liked it very much.
Dunno what's worse - their pseudo-scientific passages like 'let's take a look at her eyes and see what this dead woman saw last' or their lame story plot. Or lame uncharismatic characters.
We watched 2 episodes so far and actually barely finished watching them. I guess if 3rd wouldn't be better, we'd throw it away.

Tuesday, March 22

another bum-bum-bumming day

urgh... today... a hellish day one floor below workers that are hammering and grinding and ... destroying something. A room above us is being converted into open space and the sound and vibration are awful. And constant. They do not stop from 9 till 19, very diligent bastards.
My poor head.
If it goes on, I can kill someone.
Hate this place already.

Malfunctioning of ms expression doesn't make my mood or life easier - no preview, no auto-complete... I have to upload a project to ftp manually each time I want to look at it, which is very very often needed. Grrrr. And ftp client can't understand I DO need to replace all files each time... Grrr.
This all is making me an imbecile. Spent half an hour trying to find out why one pic isn't showing and then understood I forgot to upload it... Grrr.

I want... silence, sweet silence.

Monday, March 21

at midnight

in the end of a long day the only thing I can say is... I HATE BUILDERS. Today people from above were using heavy building equipment from 9 till 6 making us go crazy...

I am so dead and tired now. Got no will for nothing.

on last week-end (impressions)

This week-end we were quite busy.
Actually I wanted to write a long entry about it, but then it became too busy and in the end I try to write something now.

To make long story short, Saturday night we went to our country house. When I say 'went' I mean 'drove'. But as you may remember the weather was bad with melting snow and pouring rain and fog. So when we made it out of the city with its lights and "not-really-so-bad" roads, it was very hard to make a way through the night.

Regularly we reach our destination in about an hour, this time it took us an hour and half. And I say we were lucky and cautious. When we drove in foggy areas we had to suffer from fog and from idiocy of other drivers; you're not supposed to turn on upper beam when you're in fog. Though most of cars we met were trying to lighten the foggy mud with upper beams and it was driving through a shining jelly. There were some spots on the road where you could see only 5-10 meters ahead of you and also we had to keep to the right side of the road because other cars tended to drive dangerously close to the middle of the road or even in the middle of the road (to navigate by demarcation strip). The road paving itself was slippery and somewhere icy.
Yes, I know you're allowed to do that when driving in fog, but if you drive by demarcation strip in the middle of the road, you must drive 30km/h maximum, not 80. So it was scary to watch so many people behaving like fools.

To add to the topic: when we were coming back Sunday morning we saw a car that flew off the road the night before and it was badly hit.

When we were coming back I came to a new conclusion: driving culture decreases as you come to a proximity of a town. We spent 35 minutes to cover approximately 65km on a busy inter-city road and another 25 minuter to cover 7km in Kiev.
And the reason is... the reason is the amount of cars and their behavior on the roads. When you drive on a inter-city road less people try to behave like a smart ass to gain 30 seconds by pushing you aside or jumping in front of you suddenly. If a person wants to perform a overrun maneuver on a inter-city road, he just does it and that's it. No "get off my way" blinking, no sudden panic, he's free to go. People on a inter-city road are not so lazy to turn a wheel to go faster, while in the city they want YOU to turn the wheel while THEY want to go faster.

Next...
Next is Sunday evening when we went to a family gathering. We were invited to a Georgia restaurant at Pozniaki. I like hachapuri there :)

Eh, now I believe I don't remember all the things I wanted to say about the week-end, but well... That's how it is.

Thursday, March 17

Московские девочки

Такой вот кусок статьи случайно прочла на рабмлере в новостях:

Раньше девочки из москвы заводили кошечек, собачек там всяких... теперь заводят домашних японцев :)
И об этом еще и в новостях пишут. Цирк.

joke

Понравился анекдот:
"Для того, чтобы состоялся брак, достаточно всего 2х человек: одинокой девушки и обеспокоенной мамы"

Liked a joke written above. Translation is:
'It takes only two people to make marriage happen: a solitary girl and a worried mum'

Ukraine got into bbc "day in pictures" column

Tuesday, March 15

unspeakable things

Eventually one stumbles upon a thing that worries him/her, but nature of that thing makes it impossible to speak about it to anyone or make it known in any other way...Even if it's nothing illegal, it can be sensitive enough to keep quiet and... keep quiet.

I've found that king of thing today, so I'm left pondering about it myself. I have few other identities which I can use to ask people for their opinions, but all that activity can be successfully traced back to me...Which seems unacceptable for now.

Heh, this post too isn't something I should write...

Monday, March 14

On copyright and anti-copying

 I've been thinking about endless and idiotic struggle of "copyright owners" against "unauthorized distribution and usage" for some time now.
When one group of people provides a platform of content sharing, another group has a content to share, yet another group wants to get that content, "copyright owners" fight against it. The tell us about profits they lose as their content gets distributed for free, but what happens is in fact free and very effective advertisement and evaluation of ... well, anything. People get to try something for free, use it and evaluate it. If they like it, there's a good possibility that they'd buy original product or improved version of a product. Though it only works if people find that the product you offer is WORTH what you charge for it.
It makes sense if you think about it: imagine you wonder whether to buy an album of a singer for 30$. Radio rotated one or two songs from it, therefore you heard about one sixth of tracks on the disk. "Copyright owners" want you to pay 30$ right now and... that's it. Pay and whether you like what you bought or not is not their concern.
The same goes for other copyrighted content. Let's take recent Bioware's release Dragon Age 2 as an example. All gaming magazines and sites praise DA2. Demo that Bioware released tells you next to nothing about the game. And so they want you to buy, buy, buy... But when you buy it, you find it not as great as reviews described. Players' ratings differ drastically from gaming magazines' and sites' ratings... If you had no chance to try out what you buy, it may end out in big fat disappointment.
What "copyright owners" want in this case is you buying a dark horse. Buy and then evaluate it. Don't look at what's inside the box, no way we're going to let you...

An article I found on BBC News site discusses the issue. Here's a quote:

"There's really no way I could stop someone from reading one of my books if they wanted to without paying for it. So I need to find creative solutions to that and those I think take several forms. One is competing with free by presenting a better offer."

The whole article can be found here (BBC News).

Friday, March 11

Tsunami and earthquake hit Japan...

A powerful earthquake hit Japan. I won't quote news, you can read it in various languages in the net.

My sympathies are with people who suffer there now

Thursday, March 3

Itou Kanako - A.R. lyrics + перевод на русский (1)

Базовая версия перевода песни Itou Kanako - A.R. (из игры Steins Gate)

"Все закручено" - таки да, закручено... или переводить очень литературно, или...
Ладно, позже доберусь сделать правки.

Сама песня:



Itou Kanako - A.R.

僕の視界が経験をした
boku no shikai ga keiken wo shita
Мое мировоззрение приобрело опыт
全部のあの空がホントだとしたら
zenbu no ano sora ga honto da to shitara
Если бы все в этом небе было правдиво
正しい答えも求める事は
tadashii kotae mo motomeru koto wa
И требуя честный ответ
馬鹿げた振る舞いと聞こえる失笑
bakageta furumai to kikoeru shishou
Вместе с абсурдным поведением слышу насмешку

繰り返す漂流と君の証明
kurikaesu hyouryuu to kimi no shoumei
Подтверждение от тебя продолжает парить в воздухе
出口の見えない孤独へのキャプチャ
deguchi no mienai kodoku he no CAPTURE
И заперло внутри безысходного одиночества
羽ばたいた瞬間に収束をする
habataita shunkan ni shuusoku wo suru
В момент, когда взмахну крыльями, приду к твердому решению
バタフライあなたは神のごとく姿さえ見せない
BUTTERFLY anata wa kami no gotoku sugata sae misenai
Бабочка – ты подобно Богу даже вида своего не показываешь

パラレルな人、人々は背中合わせて
PARALLEL na hito, hitobito wa senaka awasete
Параллельный человек, люди стоят спинами друг к другу
饒舌な注釈でまやかす支配者
jouzetsuna chuushaku de mayakasu shihaisha
Те, кто говорят не смолкая, - обманывающие лидеры,
仕組まれた境界線を裏切っても
shikumareta kyoukaisen wo uragitte mo
Даже если перейдешь установленную кем-то границу
時間は不器用に歪曲を始める
jikan wa bukiyou ni waikyoku wo hajimeru
Время начинает неумело искажаться,
世界は綻びを揉み消すように書き換える
sekai wa hokorobi wo momikesu you ni kakikaeru
Мир, как будто пытаясь скрыть разлом, переписывает себя

捏造されたその痕跡は
netsuzou sareta sono konseki wa
Тот оставленный намеренно след
時間に閉ざされて 知られざる場所へ
jikan ni tozasarete shirarezaru basho he
Ведет в неизвестное место, скрытое во времени,
たった一枚壁の向こうは
tatta ichimai kabe no mukou wa
Указывая на другую сторону стены
知らない世界線否定は出来ない
shiranai sekaisen hitei wa dekinai
Не могу отрицать неизвестную мировую линию

契約の交わされた犠牲の未来
keiyaku no kawasareta gisei no mirai
По контракту выменянное жертвенное будущее
回避を許さぬ螺旋ストラクチャ
kaihi wo yurusanu rasen STRUCTURE
Спиралеобразная структура, которую перестала избегать
後戻りの出来ない悪夢のような
Ato modori no dekinai akumu no youna
Как кошмар, из которого не вернуться,
バタフライあなたは神のごとく姿さえ見せない
BUTTERFLY anata wa kami no gotoku sugata sae misenai
Бабочка – ты подобно Богу даже вида своего не показываешь

パラレルな過去と未来は隣り合わせて
PARALLEL na kako to mirai wa tonariawasete
Параллельные прошлое и будущее соприкасаются
ねじ曲げた光速で騙す創造者
nejimageta kousoku de damasu souzousha
С перекрученной скоростью света обманывает выдумщик
そびえ立つ城壁を乗り越えてみせても
sobietatsu jouheki wo norikoete misete mo
И даже если попытаться перелезть возвышающиеся стены замка
宇宙は意図的な不正を始める
uchuu wa itotekina fusei wo hajimeru
Вселенная начинает целенаправленные подлости
世界は綻びを揉み消すように 書き換える
sekai wa hokorobi wo momikesu you ni kakikaeru
Мир, как будто пытаясь скрыть разлом, переписывает себя


パラレルな人、人々は背中合わせて
PARALLEL na hito, hitobito wa senaka awasete
Параллельный человек, люди стоят спинами друг к другу
饒舌な注釈でまやかす支配者
jouzetsuna chuushaku de mayakasu shihaisha
Те, кто говорят не смолкая, - обманывающие лидеры,
仕組まれた境界線を裏切っても
shikumareta kyoukaisen wo uragitte mo
Даже если перейдешь установленную кем-то границу
時間は不器用に歪曲を始める
jikan wa bukiyou ni waikyoku wo hajimeru
Время начинает неумело искажаться,
世界は綻びを揉み消すように書き換える
sekai wa hokorobi wo momikesu you ni kakikaeru
Мир, как будто пытаясь скрыть разлом, переписывает себя

Wednesday, March 2

what people want to hear

Lately I've been thinking over some things in my life and came to nearly same conclusion as truthful angler in 'Three men in a boat" by Jerome K. Jerome.
The book itself is perfection of classics, so if you haven't read it... indulge your sin :)

What most people want to hear from you is not truth. No way. Even not "nearly truth". No freaking way.
When they ask something, they already know what answer they want. That's nothing new.
But what's more is the fact that most people don't want to hear any rightful doubt. Like when they ask you "will my favorite guinea pig live after I gave it ammonia?" they want to hear "but yes, of course" and nothing less. Nothing else is permitted and taken into consideration. And if they ask you "can you do it?" they want "yes" without any ifs, doubts and conditions. Also they want to know the price without ifs and conditions.
No details either.

If you were entrusting your life to a surgeon who's about to perform risky surgery, you'd like to know details.
Why they don't you want to know details of something that may not be life threatening immediately, though in a future may lead to a great loss?
Is it just laziness?

...returning to the point...
I remember one scene that has taken place in my life. A person was asking me something like "will you learn Chinese to fluent level if needed?" and was greatly dissatisfied with the fact that I didn't say "sir yes sir" or something. I expressed willingness to start learning Chinese with all my effort and watch how it goes, but said I can't guarantee I'd be fluent in a year. What that person wanted to hear was what most people would answer: "but of course I'd be fluent in no time! (I'm so self-assertive, so smart, so willing, I'd do it in less than a year)". We know that "but of course" part wouldn't be true in most cases. Still, people want that lie.

Well, when in Rome, do as Romans do.
That's my conclusion for today.

Tuesday, March 1

Chicago

Accidentally found a gallery with interesting photos of Chicago. It is located here.

Two good photos from there:
And:
Maybe you too would get interested and take a look :)