Month: April 2016

It turns out that there’s an actual spaceport in my area. NASA Wallops is located in the neighboring state, just a 3-hour drive away. In July this year, they will be launching Antares with the Cygnus cargo spacecraft (OA-5). The last time they tried to do this, there was an accident – the rocket exploded a few dozen meters above the ground, and the spaceport was damaged. It has since been repaired, and soon there will be another attempt.

I plan to go there in July to watch the launch. Of course, they won’t let you onto the spaceport, but there are many places nearby with a great view. For example, the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, where wild horses live. Moreover, all this is located by the ocean. http://vaspace.org/

Masha yesterday:

– Mom, why haven’t I seen a single “Opel” here?

But it’s true. Observant. Why?

Please recommend the most interesting TED talks?

No event here is complete without a tea-coffee break. Whether it’s a parent-teacher meeting at school or English language courses. The refreshments are voluntarily organized by the participants themselves. Most often, the table is heaving with cookies and cakes. This is the set we bought at the Russian store. A kilogram of “Alenka” candies costs around 1700-1800 rubles when converted.

One of the peculiarities of working as a solution architect in the US is that, unlike in Russia, there’s a different set of technologies, which I had never encountered before. So on one hand, I share my experience and knowledge, and on the other, I eagerly absorb new ones.

Here are the things I’ve touched on in the last four months (some of them quite in-depth; the list doesn’t include things that were familiar before moving to the USA):

* Worldpay (IPSP, not operational in Russia)

* Avalara Tax (operational in Russia, but not as essential)

* OKTA (This is SSO SaaS, built on SAML, quite a good thing, by the way, very international)

* Apache Kafka (a distributed message broker software, originally from LinkedIn)

* AKAMAI (CDN provider, with a good API and capabilities)

* Metapack (simply put – a delivery services aggregator.. transportation management, but can’t be summed up in one sentence)

How amusing.

The backstory is as follows: in February, the Federal Antimonopoly Service of the Oryol region took action against a job vacancy announcement by STORK-GROUP, which was written in C programming language, deeming it an advertisement in a foreign language. By law, such advertisement must be duplicated in Russian. The court was supposed to make a decision on the case today, but it was postponed to May 25, 2016.

If the court declares C a foreign language, it might lead to an interesting legal case, as in such case, programmers might try to demand recognition of themselves as an ethnic group or a small nation. A nation without its own state can use the right to self-determination, established in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It will be interesting to observe the development.

If it does not recognize – the marketer of STORK-GROUP, who came up with such a move, deserves to be framed and hung on the wall.

P.S. They should have sued over goto

About sports in the USA: At school today, Lisa and Nadya saw children playing volleyball. “Maybe I should join a volleyball class?”. They approached the coach to ask about signing up. “From next September? You’re a bit late,” the coach replied, “To start this spring, you needed to sign up last March.” He said that they have 500 children and all the places are already taken.

After classes in literature, Lisa’s teacher asks to make sure the laptop is asleep before closing its lid.

After half the class ignored this single request, he came up with a punishment task for them (see scan).

Some time after distributing the assignments, the teacher asks if everything has been completed. Several people raised their hands. “Now, carefully reread the ninth item.” The main parts of the items are about various tasks, like remembering the character from “Flowers for Algernon,” or folding the paper in a clever way to find the text inside the created triangle. The ninth item said to ignore everything else and do only what it stated.

That’s their kind of literature in school 🙂

Today Liza had a quiz on Civics. There were only about 20 questions. The questions were asked orally just once. Liza managed to bring home only a few, the ones she could understand and remember. Here they are:

– Which team won 73 victories in the NBA?

– What did the former president of Facebook donate $250 million for?

– What was the name of the lady who interviewed Donald Trump recently?

– What is the name of the mountain range that stretches across South America?

– In which city was the biggest terrorist attack in the USA before 9/11, 20 years ago?

– What was the name of the war against slavery in the US?

– Something about Ashton Carter

– How many American presidents were named George?

– Which states border Mexico?

These are her school activities.

P.S. For those who don’t know, Civics is like lessons in law and social studies.

Changing oil at Jiffy Lube. It’s like the “McDonald’s” of the auto service market. They have 2000 locations in the US and 24 million customers annually. It looks like a gas station, just a bit slower.

You arrive at the location. Immediately, an employee runs up, takes your car keys, sends you to a cozy waiting room (11:50), and then sits in your car in line.

When it’s your turn, they open up the car (mine is in the background) and invite you to discuss the set of services (12:00). Typically, this includes an oil change, filters – oil and air, vacuuming, windshield wipers, antifreeze, brake fluid.

By 12:15, they return your keys and charge your card. Your car leaves, and a new one takes its place. A conveyor belt of services in action.