Month: April 2018

I wonder, does Telegram use a mechanism similar to the one described in my post to circumvent blockages?

And as a thought experiment – if Telegram were to use Google to search for proxy servers – for example, by conducting searches for site:*proxy-telegram*, where service providers simply use the needed pattern in the URL, and autonomously rewrite the configuration if the servers answer certain random tests, how could one theoretically combat this? Google seems impossible to ban, intercepting requests to Google also can’t be done (https), Google indexes everything indiscriminately, and there seems to be no reason not to index something like that. You could also set up about five other search engines. Of course, you could flood Google with non-working services, but the app could immediately blacklist such sites. The only effective method would be to achieve the exclusion of the app from the Google Store.

The only downside I see is that Google itself could block such a service for violating usage rules. Like you can’t make automatic requests from applications unless you pay for it. But you could make them not quite automatic, but let the user click a “load and parse” button.

It seems that in the last 3 hours, Roskomnadzor has increased the number of blocked IP addresses from 38 thousand to almost two million. Of these, about one million IP addresses belong to Google Cloud (subnet 35.192.0.0/12). The head of Roskomnadzor confirmed that Amazon’s IP addresses are being blocked because Telegram started using them to circumvent restrictions. https://tvrain.ru/s/q41/

https://2018.schors.spb.ru/

Impressed by this Bollywood movie. I had been putting it off for a long time, not expecting much from Indian cinema, but when everything else on my watchlist was done, I finally got around to it (or rather, my eyes and ears did).

The film turned out to be the best of all I’ve watched this year. The boy played his first role so wonderfully that I’m lost for words. Highly recommend it if it somehow passed you by.

https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/zvyozdochki-na-zemle-2007-280562/

hybrismart update: why the ‘#’ doesn’t work in hybris forms, why salt is paired with pepper, how Reagan becomes the President of Russia, how to fix the Hybris HAC madness, and how to easily and quickly determine that a website uses SAP Hybris for its Storefront. Today’s post mixes the very useful with the simply amusing.

You will know why the ‘#’ create issues when used in hybris forms, why salt is with pepper in hybris, how Reagan becomes the President of Russia in hybris tests, how to fix the HAC madness, and how to figure out the website is built with SAP hybris. Today’s article is to entertain and educate. Some of the findings are really useful while others help you to start a week with a smile! 🙂

https://hybrismart.com/2018/04/14/five-things-about-sap-hybris-you-probably-didnt-know/

I feel that the pinnacle of a career for Yandex.Alice could be the ability to autonomously write comments indistinguishable from human ones and to selectively like or dislike (fortunately having Yandex.search at hand). I am confident that technically almost everything is already in place. We all know that there is also a market for it. All other applications of conversation engines, it seems to me, lie in a more distant future and are not yet profitable (IMHO).

I’ve always been amazed in the States how they already know on Monday that in five days there will be 30-degree heat and dry weather, and in six days — rain and cold. Just yesterday and today exactly what we knew last Monday is happening, and we managed to change our plans accordingly. Linked here is an interesting analysis on forecast accuracy. The data for the analysis is also available for download.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-robbins/how-accurate-are-weather-_b_6558770.html

This is how almost all our houses are built. Wood. Need four stories? Easy. No concrete levels for you. As far as I understand, these are oriented strand boards (OSB), an advanced version of plywood.

In the application — what an ideal report of some Leningrad Region (similar in population to our Fairfax County) should look like

It turns out, in our small county there are already 70 miles of smart roads. Equipped vehicles exchange data with the roads, plus this is used to build autonomous cars (currently prototypes).

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/economic-success/autonomous-vehicles

Additionally, there are systems here that reduce the likelihood of collisions with animals. A system under the road detects a bear or deer crossing and stops traffic with traffic lights. The PDF below beautifully describes everything, with technical details.

http://www.virginiadot.org/vtrc/main/online_reports/pdf/15-r25.pdf

http://vtrc.virginiadot.org/ProjDetails.aspx?Id=548

On page 10, there is a discussion about a homeless shelter being built.

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/publicworks/capital-projects/baileys-crossroads-community-shelter-and-supportive-housing

“Cutting off my nose to spite my face.” Just take one item, regarding cooperation in space with the Americans. Launches by ILS alone over the last 20 years brought in 8 billion dollars, the supply of RD-180 engines generated 1 billion over the same period, sending astronauts on behalf of NASA – over 10 years brought in 3 billion dollars, and there’s at least another five billion from various smaller American orders. This is despite the fact that alternatives now exist for all items (which wasn’t the case before). So, at a minimum, Roscosmos should be making a billion a year from this topic, shouldn’t it? (all figures above are from a very interesting table https://yadi.sk/i/xNXrYDdS3S63w7)

https://www.rbc.ru/politics/13/04/2018/5ad089159a7947220e5fa03b

Oh, what an idea!