Month: November 2015

The first 10 km – 50:05. Five to go

We’re soon running from Asia to Europe.

There are hardly any Turks around, and all the announcements are only in Turkish

Today we almost fell victim to scammers in Istanbul.

At the Galata Bridge, we got into a “yellow” taxi. Bargained for 60 lira (~1400 rubles). More accurately, we haggled with one driver but ended up with another. The taxi driver asked for the money upfront, because “his boss was there, and he wanted to go straight home after,” referring to the first driver. An absurd requirement, but okay, we were already in the car. I hesitated a bit but decided to agree, to hell with it.

I handed over two bills – 50 and 10. At first, I was a bit slow and almost gave 5 and 10, the taxi driver corrected me – saying, this is 5, not 50. He took the 50, then immediately gives it back – says, the bill is torn, give me another one. The 10 is in his hands, he hands back the 50 to me, I extend another 50 to him, he returns a 5 instead saying “you gave me 5, not 50.” That’s when I checked my wallet – it can’t be, I had two fifties, now there’s one. The taxi driver insisted he was right. I realized it was a scam.

I got out of the car, trying to keep the door open and my foot inside, dialed 911. I realized I couldn’t read the number this way – went to check the license plate – the taxi driver sped off. Remembered the number, reported the situation to 911. The first guy came running back – says he caught the taxi driver on the other side, apologizes. Returns my “fifty”. Like, everything’s okay, don’t worry. Had to hang up and go call an Uber.

A moment of somber humor. I know nothing about SAP ERP. But what is written in the article at least makes one think.

http://m.habrahabr.ru/post/270715/

A short but dynamic video where I talk about our prototype of the “interactive fitting room”. The video showcases our software, including the mobile app.

Ran through the park

Watched “Knock Knock” with Keanu Reeves on the plane. A funny little movie. Interestingly, it has a surprisingly dead rating on Kinopoisk and stale comments. Should watch it in the original; the English is very simple and understandable even without subtitles, especially towards the end 😉

Who else has seen it, what are your thoughts?

Interesting about the work experience of an investment company in Russia

https://vc.ru/p/larixon-sms

I always thought I was good at Excel. At work, I needed to make a formula that retrieves the last word. Can you do it without looking it up on Google?..

By the way, those who wrote Excel formulas really overcomplicated things. To begin with, they made formulas in native languages for many Excel language packs. Czechs, Germans, Russians, Finns, Hungarians, Poles, Turks, and many others must use their own set of formulas in their language. To figure out that RIGHT() is the same as ПРАВСИМВ() requires quite a bit of savvy. However, there is a translator (http://en.excel-translator.de/translator/)

Formula separators are used from the current locale of the operating system. So, on a Mac, I am used to separating parameters with a comma, while on Windows, it’s a semicolon. Of course, you can always adjust this, but why they even mess with the locale like this is unclear.

Moreover, there is an R1C1 reference style, which is often convenient, but it requires formulas to be entered differently. It is turned on/off from deep settings.

But so far, nobody has come up with anything better than Excel.

Ran 10 km with Masha in 57 mins. Barely convinced her not to run further 😉