A new toy arrived today. Time to go back to soviet russia and have some fun!!

Friend: "How does one use rubber ducks"
Me: "You don't"
Friend: "why?"
Me: "Rubber ducks uses you."

In an alternate universe, Soviet Russia won the Race to the moon, the Cold War wasn't actually "Cold". And Russia took all of America's technology. Changed the programming languages to Russian. You're now forced to code in Russian.

Write about what you'd do, Comrade.

So I says to the wife, I says, “When you go to Costco tomorrow, I need a new Oral B electric toothbrush. My old one’s battery is no longer able to hold a charge.” I’m picturing her coming back with one that’s pretty similar to the one I had. You turn it on, you brush your teeth, you turn it off.

She comes back with the Oral B Pro 6000. Go on. Look it up. I’ll wait.

So this thing has about 6 modes and Bluetooth that connects you to an app that not only keeps track of how often you brush, but tracks your performance and gives you trophies if you do well at specific tasks and techniques. And there’s a coach to take you on an “oral health journey” depending on your particular goals. There’s even a mount you can buy to attach your phone to your mirror so the app can watch how you brush and give you pointers. I don’t have the mount so I got an 85% on performance because who can hold a phone pointed perfectly at your face while brushing? The final report had what might be the app dev’s attempt at a pun.

It’s 2019 and everyone is judging you. Why not your toothbrush as well?

Long long ago there was a man who discovered if he scratched certain patterns onto a rock he could use them to remind him about things he would otherwise forgot.

Over time the scratching were refined and this great secret of eternal memory were taught to his children, and they taught it to their children.

Soon mankind had discovered a way to preserve through the ages his thoughts and memories and further discovered that if he wrote down these symbols he could transfer information over distances by simply recording these symbols in a portable medium.

Writing exploded it allowed a genius in one place to communicate the information he had recorded across time and space.

Thousands of years passed, writing continued to be refined and more and more vital. Eventually a humble man by the name of Johannes Gutenberg seeking to make the divine word of God accessible to the people created the printing press allowing the written word to be copied and circulated with great ease expanding vastly the works available to mankind and the number of people who could understand this arcane art of writing.

But mankind never satiated in his desire to know all there is to know demanded more information, demanded it faster, demanded it better. So the greatest minds of 200 years, Marconi, Maxwell, Bohr, Von Nueman, Turing and a host of others working with each other, standing on the shoulders of their brobdinangian predecessors, brought forth a way to send these signals, transfer this writing upon beams of light, by manipulating the very fabric of the cosmos, mankind had reach the ultimate limits of transmission of information. Man has conquered time, and space itself in preserving and transmitting information, we are as the gods!

My point is this, that your insistence upon having a meeting to ask a question, with 10 people that could've been answered with a 2 sentence email, is not only an affront to me for wasting my time, but also serves as an affront to the greatest minds of the 19th and 20th centuries, it is an insult to your ancestors who first sacrificed and labored to master the art of writing, it is in fact offensive to all of humanity up to this point.

In short by requiring a meeting to be held, not only are you ensuring the information is delayed because we all now need to find a time that all of us are available, not only are you now eliminating the ability to have a first hand permanent record of what need to be communicated, you are actively working against progress, you are dragging humanity collectively backwards. You join the esteemed ranks of organizations such as the oppressive Catholic church that sought to silence Galialio and Copernicus, you are among the august crowd that burned witches at Salem, the Soviet secret police that silenced "bourgeoisie" science, you join the side of thousands of years of daft ignorance.

If it were not for you people we would have flying cars, we would have nanobots capable of building things on a whim, we would all be programming in lisp. But because of you and people like you we are trapped in this world, where the greatest minds are trapped in meetings that never end, where mistruth and ignorance run rampant, a world where JavaScript is the de facto language of choice every where because it runs everywhere, and ruins everywhere.

So please remember, next time you want to have a meeting ask yourself first. "Could this be an email?" "Do I enjoy burning witches?" if you do this you might make the world a little bit of a less terrible place to be.

Soviet Union actually tried to fucking TURN RIVERS AROUND to fucking SHOW USA that if it controls nature it rules the world.

They seriously fucked up the ecology and flooded some cities.

Imagine being this stupid.

So, I set up my computer after moving and settling in.

Turns out all the jostling killed the pump on my water cooler 🙁 It now sounds like an unmaintained soviet train at full speed, and starts burning up. Poor thing.

Guess it’s time to build a new one. Though parts aren’t exactly available right now...

Bleh.

When I have low motivation, I just remember that through my teaching, my 79 year old grandfather learned how to stream videos on his own, asked me to teach him how to pirate movies using torrents and bought himself a smartphone and now sends me emojis.

If he can do all that, I can tackle my Dapp. Thank you Dedushka.

In Soviet Russia, gay sex gets you arrested. In America, getting arrested gets you gay sex.

What music do you listen to while programming?

My choices:

-Anything in the YouTube channel "Traditional Music Channel"
-North korean/Soviet/Prussian marching music
-Roki vulovic, Asim bajric, Ceca, Tarkan
-Omar souleyman
-Classical music
-Heavy metal
-Tuvan Throat Singing
-Yodeling
-Video Games/Movie/TV show soundtracks

Here’s how you deploy changes in Soviet Russia.

“Dear subscriber of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
The government scientific publisher “The Great Soviet Encyclopedia” recommends you remove pages 21, 22, 23 and 24 from book 5, as well as the portrait in between pages 23 and 24. Replacement pages containing new text will be sent to you.
You have to cut those pages off with scissors or razor, keeping a small area you have to glue the new pages to.
— The government scientific publisher “The Great Soviet Encyclopedia””

Context: this happened after Lavrentiy Beria, the man who carried on the great terror after Ezhov, was declared the enemy of the state and executed.

@OmerFlame wanted to see more of Soviet pirate stuff, so there you go buddy. This is an example of Samizdat (“self-publishing”) — Soviet people made books of dissident literature that was forbidden in the Soviet Union.

This very book was made by my grandma, with lace fabric cover and sheets cut evenly with care and precision. Everything was typed on a typewriter, yes, the thing that renders the whole page useless with one mistype, as there is no backspace key.

This book dated 1975, the poetry of Nikolay Gumilyov.

Soviet “Altair”: a Nintendo Game&Watch with a built-in Geiger counter.

Right side, top to bottom: game 1, alarm, game 2, reset, time, µSv/hr x 100 µR/h
Top side: Altair
Bottom side: Dosimeter ✻ Watch ✻ Game

It's not always certain whether we do a morning standup, so usually someone asks "su?" in our Slack chat around 9:15

I'm _so_ tempted to send the flag of the Soviet Union every time someone asks that.

PCs are a clusterfuck these days. Microsoft has abandoned the niceness of Win-7 and opted for Win-10 - with spyware, untested forced updates and forced online licence checks to make sure you have to get the shit. Macs are total crap, and Apple doesn't care because they instead prefer to milk customers with overpriced iShit. Linux sucks and looks like a Soviet tractor, but at least, it doesn't fuck up itself just by switching it on.

I had Linux as only OS from 2001 to 2010, and while I obviously can deal with it, I finally hated it enough to switch over to Win-7. From 2020 on, it looks like I will be back because Microsoft has managed to fuck up Windows even worse (and then these suckers wonder why Github users don't trust them). Maybe I'll buy a Tux when I install Linux so that I can punch it in the face.

Progress was yesterday - today it's about damage control. Welcome to a world where the brightest CS guys are thinking about how not only to shove up even more ads into peoples' asses, but how to also transmit lab data of the poo.

One employer has just contacted me, said that my resume seems very interesting and invited me.
Now I'm looking at their website, all from 00s and with cringey fonts. Ok, they do "automatization of financial systems" and etc.
Alright, scrolling down... Suddenly, I see cut from the familiar soviet cartoon "Vovka in the Far Away Kingdom", where in the end Vova says:
- Well, that would do!

IRONY 😂

Now I'm questioning my will to attend this interview.

A column of some Soviet newspaper. Top to bottom:

The Atheist’s Page
“The oldest profession”
(Ukrainian tale)

Three people argued over whose profession was the oldest. One of them said:
— Surgeons: without them, god wouldn’t have pulled Adam’s rib out to make Eve.
— Engineers, — the other one interrupted him. — Without them, god wouldn’t have made light.
The third one thought for a while and said:
— No, mine’s older: in the beginning there was darkness, and who spreads darkness? I do!

The third one was a priest.

In my opinion, russian nation's chronic inability to fight oppressive regimes is partly attributed to one interesting quirk the russian language has.
When talking about injustice committed against someone, or making threats to commit said injustice, the actor is completely omitted.
Here's an example:
“Надо будет — найдут”, roughly translated to “they could find you if they wanted to”, is a common phrase to use when talking about proxies, VPNs and other online privacy measures. But the word “they” in English translation is nowhere to be found in the original text! Let's examine the literal translation:
- “надо будет” — “the need will arise”
- “найдут” — “will find you”
The English phrase “they could find you if they wanted to” can be easily challenged with a simple question: “Who's they?” The government? The corporates? The regime? The CIA? Who exactly?

English language can mimic that with passive voice: “you are being watched”, “you are an easy target”, etc. But in active voice, you can't avoid using “they” or some other actor.
In russian, you can. And you will. Indeed, this is how russian people converse. It's a very specific, very common pattern that never really changed.

It's a very powerful thought-terminating cliché built straight into the language. You can't fight an enemy that has no name and no word to describe it, not even a euphemism. The very language you THINK in prevents you from analyzing the entities that oppress you.

In a Tom Scott Plus video where he tried tightrope walking, he learned that they don't say the “F-word” — “fall”. You can't say “I'm afraid I'll fall”. You have to find more specific alternatives like “I'm afraid I'll lose balance”. The word “fall” in this context is a thought-terminating cliché. There is no going back after you “fall”. But if you “lose balance”, you can “regain balance” — the lack of a thought-terminating cliché promotes problem-solving.

Russian language is the same, but in soviet russia, language terminates you, I guess.

I think @kgbemployee will like this place. he said it looks like a soviet bunker

Converted my Soviet Гелиос lens to be a monocle today — removed all its internal lenses but one. One more thing to help me focus on taking pictures instead of wondering if they're sharp enough or not.
Moar pics inside!

I propose renaming the title "project manager" into "plim". Why? Well, there is an old soviet nursery rhyme:

I came up with a new word
A funny word called Plim
And I repeat it over:
Plim, Plim, Plim!
It jumps around shouting
Plim, Plim, Plim
Nobody cares about it
Plim, Plim, Plim

My university had its half-abandoned tenth floor reserved for fringe scientists. To deter onlookers from going there, the only elevator was locked out, reserved only for uni staff.
As long as you didn’t make drugs there, you were fine. It was dusty, smelled of mold and was full of old Soviet gear. Outdated, sure, but better than nothing.
If you were a student preoccupied with some fringe theory, it was a safe space for you.

Pre-Soviet poster:
“Young negro's first misfortune”
— Why are you crying, little boy?
— Well, my parents caught a tourist, cooked him and promised to give me his brain. But now they're telling me he had no brain — he was pro-October revolution!

I'm not political - but Agile sprints remind me of Soviet/Maoist "five year plans". Agile in and of itself is so fucking oddly soviet...

The cult of knowledge, science and technocracy in the Soviet Union was so strong that even nowadays we use the word "likbez", abbreviation of "liquidacia bezgramotnosti", literally "eradication of undereducation".

When you outline a theory in accessible and approachable fashion to someone who doesn't know it, that's likbez.

Oh my... Downloading dependencies on the hospital's network is a sloooowwww draaaagg. It's almost like hospitals aren't suitable for developers!

Joke aside, I'm enjoying my orange while waiting for that download to finish and it occurred to me - an orange - a food that very strongly associates with a hospital in our country! And a mandarine is a fruit that means "Christmas!!!" I believe that's a legacy in post-soviet countries :)

And here's my question. Do you, folks in other countries, also have any foods (preferably something rather ordinary) that have strong similar associations? Not necessarily Christmas or hospitals though :)

(I can guess rutee's association :) )

After a few years in IT you don't find job. Job find you!

Stupid FaceApp. “Gee! It’s an election cycle. Let’s all download a selfie app from Russia!”

What’s everyone’s take on this app? I’ve seen articles saying it’s no big deal because their servers are all in the US and it doesn’t access the photo library and blah blah blah. My issue is that the photo it takes goes to the cloud for processing. Control lost.

In Soviet Russia, app play YOU!

After the capsule started spinning, what seemed to be a suspended copper wire unfolded like an origami. Soviet tech not only looked cool, but was easy to repair. I loved every minute of marveling at this wire kaleidoscope before it overheated and went out with a bang — a small cap popped. I’ll recap it later.
…
Yellow foam covered my lips. They were gammas.

That rabbit in my grandpa's left table drawer, in the home I grew at. I wanted to finally catch it, and kill it. I was bad with animals all along, especially this one. My grandpa died the year before I was born, and my grandma said we would've got along really well. So much to talk about, a scientist to an engineer. So, I travelled back, but my home somehow turned from a city stone-walled house into a half-soaked, decaying wooden one. I caught that rabbit though, but while I was holding it at its neck and twisting it, it somehow disappeared, distributed evenly as if I were twisting a crayon. I was trying to find it, but in that left drawer, among century-old pencils and that red liquid thermometer I played with as a kid, only a faded out, dusty duckling resided. I picked it up, and unlike the rabbit, it was paper, no, cigarette paper thin. It wasn't hostile. It wasn't trying to run away. It just turned from yellow to grey, feathers leaving my fingers covered in fine dust. I realized it will never die, dwelling and decaying there forever, happy.

I did my calculations, and I knew for a fact when and where the rabbit should've appeared. It was the middle drawer, not the left one. I opened it and looked in anticipation how something chewed through the bottom. I caught it, but it was no rabbit, it was an alive, rubber rat. The rubber was white turned grey, old, aged, dusty, probably Soviet. I poked the rat's eye with a pen rod, but the rat's body inflated a bit, leaving it invincible. It was mocking me.

Of the same white rubber, a ball appeared. I knew for a fact it was alive too, I felt the bones inside holding it. I found its lips, and was prying it open. The massive, dry mouth emerged, with a full set of human teeth, albeit wider and nastier ones. Huge eyes looked at me. It was alive, it was intelligent. It was my grandpa's personal financial assistant all along. It told me to leave the rat and the rabbit alone. He told me not to worry about the ducking, as it was in safe hands.

It made friends with my brother during the "blue age", when he was wearing thin, worn out rugs instead of clothes, tiny faded blue flowers on them, screaming and annoying my grandma he lived with in that room, not a single person other than the two in sight. The house was slowly submerging. The water was rising.

Any of you guys that also faces existential crisis every sprint deadline? Not being able to fullfill PM's expectations is horrible.

Why is python like Soviet Union?

Hey guys, I need your honest opinion. What do you think about service provider office location? Situation is that Im looking for an office for me and two employees. Found one good location which is perf in the inside: has a private modern office, meeting rooms, skype rooms, nice kitchen and etc. However its ugly af from the outside: U need to get inside this hospital looking soviet building and take an elevator to the 8th floor to see all the modern stuff. While price seems a bargain, Im kinda afraid of how we could come across potential clients who would visit us for a meeting. As a potential client how would you judge service provider (in this case android dev company) which has nice offices in the inside but ugly af building from the outside?