October 30 2020, 10:31

In all modern messengers, I am missing:

– an inbox tab, where all incoming messages from everyone would be gathered, sorted by time. A click would lead to the dialogue

– an outbox tab, where all outgoing messages would be gathered, sorted by time. A click would lead to the dialogue

– a “remind me later” button next to a message. This is available only in Slack

– organizing contacts into groups, ideally hierarchical, and viewing messages from all subgroups of a group. Clicking on a message opens the dialogue.

– assigning tags/metadata to a contact such as “conference guy” or “work” or “” and then navigating by these tags.

– smart auto-replies – as done in Linkedin. A completely neglected topic, but it could be really cool.

It would be great if they invented a plugin system for messengers, so that third-party developers could add functionality like Chrome extensions.

October 29 2020, 19:52

Now I am Chief Software Engineer Level 2. A small step sideways and upwards from schemes and documents to engineering and Java. From a spacious group of solution architects, where there were several hundred of us, to a relatively new area where there are still just a few people, some new opportunities. Now there is a correspondence between what I do and what I call myself. Solution architecture hasn’t gone anywhere; it is still part of the new position. There are more internal themes, and that’s really great. An internal “Exam” (assessment) was taken by several dozen people for two and a half hours, and it was interesting 🙂

P.S. Come join EPAM, it’s cool here 🙂 It will be five years in January since I started working here.

October 28 2020, 01:00

Listening to a lecture on poisons by Vodovozov. He mentioned jellyfish stinging cells. Searched for papers about them.

Found an interesting fact. The article linked from the post claims that high-speed photography showed that the acceleration of the stinging thread is up to 5410000g – meaning it accelerates to 100 km/h within the diameter of a human hair.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(06)01422-9

October 25 2020, 22:45

As Professor Makarov mentioned in his lecture about Leonardo da Vinci, “a happy childhood is when your parents do not bother you too much”. Here’s a link to an excellent interview on why children want nothing. A must-read for all parents 🙂

“… Imagine a typical fifth-grader during the USSR era. He describes himself as follows: ‘I’m Vovka. I’m the neighborhood champion in knife throwing. I have one friend, Serezha, and one enemy, Petka from the adjacent yard. Sometimes, Serezha and I gang up on Petka. They say it’s wrong—two against one. But he’s in seventh grade, and we’re in fifth. When he catches us alone, he beats us. So sometimes we have to beat him together. I want to become a pilot. They told me to do gymnastics in the morning and douse myself with cold water. But I can’t keep it up: I start doing all these things and then I quit. I’ve figured out why it happens—my willpower is weak. I’m working on it. I’ve jumped off the garage onto a pile of sand twice. It’s very scary, but I overcame myself. My willpower didn’t grow. But I’m not stopping.”

You see? What can we say about the intellect and education of this boy? They are not excellent, but this kid understands his place in the space assigned to him. Note that, in his space, there are ethical issues, issues related to his personality. Issues like what he perceives as weak willpower. He has his achievements and shortcomings, friends and foes, and some sort of goal gradient he is striving towards. This is a child, frankly speaking, not very actively looked after by anyone. We don’t know about his extracurricular activities (most likely, he doesn’t attend any). Yet, I repeat, he is entirely situated in the space assigned to him by fate. And many modern children lack this sense.”

https://newprospect.ru/news/interview/katerina-murashova-beda-sovremennykh-detey-v-tom-chto-oni-zazhralis/

October 25 2020, 12:21

For the first time in five years, I see aggressive advertising from the network of local senior living homes – literally, there’s a large banner at every location.

I wonder why?

1. Hypothesis one: Since March, for obvious reasons, a lot of spaces have become available, and they need replenishing with new r̶e̶s̶i̶d̶e̶n̶t̶s̶ (stricken through) tenants

2. Hypothesis two: Marketing decided that now is the perfect time to advertise senior living to those who are concerned about the lives of their grandmothers and grandfathers. Supposedly, it’s safer there.