С Днем Победы! Happy Victory Day!

С Днём Победы! (May 9, 2013)

There's really nothing else to say... (May 9, 2013)

I will go home tonight, have a drink, and remember my grandpa Meyer who was killed in action in a Battle of Kursk and my grandpa Andrey who fought all the way to Berlin. I will think of countless lives lost during WWII and reflect on life, family, friends... and maybe have another drink... that's all...

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Alan Mathison Turing

Update (11/23/2013): " Now, nearly half a century after the war hero's suicide, Queen Elizabeth II has finally granted Turing a pardon." ( http://usat.ly/19bLZET ) Long overdue!!! With academic background in applied mathematics and computer science and years of experience in Information Technology it would be incredibly surprising if I didn't know of Alan Turing, or so I thought. Sure, I knew who he was and had a good idea of what he had contributed to the fields of mathematics, logic, cryptography, and of course computer science, which he basically founded; and things like Turing Machine, Turing Test, and Enigma Code-breaking have been widely popularized. I also knew that he died relatively young, but I am ashamed to admit that I didn't know anything about the circumstances surrounding his premature death. That is until I read the following in the book titled "The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood" by James Gleick: "Turing's hom

Ten Dirty Little Secrets You Should Know About Working In IT

I like a good "xyz ten" list (where xyz = top, best, worst, ...) as much as the other guy. And though I admit that the notion is, in most cases, rather shallow (oversimplification <> clear and concise delivery of a message) it often makes for an uplifting (funny) read. Here's one: IT pros frequently use jargon to confuse nontechnical business managers and hide the fact that they screwed up Some IT professionals deploy technologies that do more to consolidate their own power than to help the business Veteran IT professionals are often the biggest roadblock to implementing new technologies You’ll spend far more time babysitting old technologies than implementing new ones Vendors and consultants will take all the credit when things work well and will blame you when things go wrong Your nontechnical co-workers will use you as personal tech support for their home PCs Certifications won’t always help you become a better technologist, but they can help you land a b

Academic Inflation and New Education Paradigms

The "new media" must be getting to me. The chain of events leading to this blog post has been triggered by a great (IMHO) video I came across on the YouTube - "Changing Education Paradigms" by Sir Ken Robinson: But this video only increased my appetite for information on the subjects that I have been thinking and talking to my friends about for quite some time - depreciation of the value of academic degrees and what should the education system of the future look like (I think it is pretty clear that major overhaul of the existing system is desirable). So, I went on to investigate Ken Robinson's point of view further by getting his book - "Out of our Minds: Learning to be Creative". And while I have not yet had much time to spend on it (a more complete review will be a subject for a different post), whatever little I have read confirmed some of my worries. Here are a few excerpts: There was a time when good academic qualifications guaranteed a

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