April 2024 – Page 3 – Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev.

April 18 2024, 10:18

Read today about an interesting bug in OpenOffice. The problem was that some people occasionally couldn’t print. Later, someone noticed that his wife complained she couldn’t print on Tuesdays!

While studying the bug report, people initially claimed it must be an OpenOffice bug, since all other applications printed fine. Others noted that the problem would come and go. One user found a solution: uninstall OpenOffice, completely clear it from the system, and reinstall it (which is easy on Ubuntu). He reported on Thursday that this had solved his printing issue.

Two weeks later, he reported (on a Tuesday) that his solution didn’t work. Almost four months later, one guy’s wife complained that OpenOffice does not print on Tuesdays. I can imagine this situation:

Wife: Steve, the printer doesn’t work on Tuesdays.

Steve: It’s the printer’s day off — of course, it won’t print on Tuesdays.

Wife: No, I’m serious! I can’t print from OpenOffice on Tuesdays.

Steve: (Skeptically) Alright… Show me.

Wife: I can’t show you.

Steve: (Rolling his eyes) Why?

Wife: It’s Wednesday!

Steve: (Nods. Slowly says…) I see.

The problem was related to a program named “file”, specifically, that the OpenOffice developers decided to use it to determine file types, and the developers of file had not perfectly debugged their tool. This utility uses templates to determine file types based on their content. For instance, if a file starts with ‘%!’ followed by ‘PS-Adobe-‘, then it’s a PostScript file. File has rules that dictate which markers to use to identify each type. A mistake in the pattern for the Erlang JAM file meant that ‘Tue’ in a PostScript file was recognized as an Erlang JAM file. OpenOffice didn’t get what it needed from file, and didn’t work. Only on Tuesdays (Tue).

By the way, this is a great example of a bug known in English as a Heisenbug 😉

By the way, there’s also a funny story about “email not going beyond 500 miles,” but how true it is—I can’t say.

Incidentally, this is my post from 21 years ago

почта не ходит дальше 500 миль!

https://rauf.livejournal.com/23552.html

April 17 2024, 22:13

Published a new article on my blog – about the concept of product family or dynamic-category-tags in e-commerce. For some reason, it is quite uncommon, but my experience shows that where it has been implemented, it was met with satisfaction. The idea is that instead of, or in addition to, the basic product-product variants pairing, there’s a grouping of products by dynamic tags, which act as categories but are dynamic – not tied to a hierarchy and not part of typical navigation. An example would be phones for the elderly or phone cases in anime style. Such tags are assigned dynamically through rules, and are used to navigate between product options. Read more details on my blog.

Cluster and Conquer: Product Families in Search and Navigation

https://hybrismart.com/2024/04/17/product-families-in-search-and-navigation/

April 17 2024, 14:42

Was cleaning out the garage, found a Russian textbook for English speakers from the early last century. Make the bed, and then one can set off!

April 16 2024, 15:06

I completely forgot about Norman Rockwell. I’m even subscribed to the Saturday Evening Post, and it was this artist who actually sparked my venture to the Library of Congress for archives of this magazine. That’s how magazine cover illustrations were made— the artist painted a large-scale oil painting on a topical subject, then it was photographed and placed on the cover, and he would go on to make the next one. And look at the attention to detail! It’s certainly not routine. That era has passed; now the artists are different, and their work looks quite different too. Each painting was accompanied either by a story or served as a form of self-expression by the artist, boosting circulation. For example, the girl with the black eye was the model Mary Whalen Leonard, the principal’s door and the setting were from a school in Cambridge, New York. The artist even managed to physically transport the door from the school to his studio. Some paintings were illustrations for stories in the magazine. But I think all his paintings tell a story, whether fictional or real, and that’s what makes them interesting to look at.

In 1943, a fire in his studio destroyed all of the work stored there, as well as costumes and props that he had collected over the years. Also destroyed was his collection of pipes. Rockwell said that he may have dropped an ash from his pipe onto a chair that sat under the light switch when he turned off the lights to leave the studio that night. Friends who visited him at the studio said that he had a habit of lighting his pipe and then tossing the match into a large iron pot in which he stored his turpentine rags.

Even before the fire, Rockwell discarded some of his own original oils and sketches. He would send a painting to the Saturday Evening Post to be used for a cover and, when it was returned, he would rip the canvas off the frame, toss it away and stretch a new piece of canvas onto the frame for the next painting.

When a fan wrote to him, asking if she could buy some of his original work, he called her “the crazy woman from Chicago” and charged her $100 a piece for seven canvasses. The “crazy woman’s” family sold the paintings in the 1990s for $17 million

#artrauflikes

Please provide the text you would like me to translate to English.

April 15 2024, 22:24

Is there anyone who has read it? I started watching the series on Netflix, but after a few episodes, I couldn’t stand the wild oversimplifications at the expense of sound logic, and other typical Netflix checklist items. There, Eiza Gonzalez is good, yes, might be a solid reason to watch a couple of episodes. Couldn’t bear all of it and stopped watching, then ordered the book. I’ve read a quarter of it. So far, very intriguing — solid science fiction, very much in the spirit of Asimov and Clarke. The book doesn’t remotely have that Marvel-style superhero aura. Initially, it was obvious that it was translated from Chinese and as a result, the English there sounded odd. Once that thought occurred to me, I started looking more carefully for examples, but there aren’t any. Either it was just the beginning, or my own prejudices. Well, we’ll see, 3/4 left. If anyone has read it, let me know what you think (but no spoilers). It’s actually a trilogy, so there are two more volumes to go.

April 15 2024, 16:05

Published a new article on Hybrismart — about delta detection in data import mechanisms and search indexing. It was only through this that we managed to mitigate the dullness of the upstream systems and speed up data updating by ten times

Delta Detection and Incremental Updates in the Integration Processes: Reducing Unnecessary Writes to the Database

https://hybrismart.com/2024/04/15/delta-detection-and-incremental-updates-in-the-integration-processes-reducing-unnecessary-writes-to-the-database/

April 15 2024, 09:38

(ENG below) Andrey Shatilov. I have mixed feelings about his paintings (as with Vasily Shulzhenko, for example), but still, Andrey’s works resonate with the cultural code of those living in that Russia and in the USSR. They have humor, they resemble illustrations, but these are full-fledged oil paintings, and the idea and composition make them unique with generally decent technical execution.

#artrauflikes

Andrey Shatilov. I have mixed feelings about his paintings (as with Vasily Shulzhenko’s, for example, as well), but still, Andrey’s works resonate with the cultural code of those living in that Russia and in the USSR. They have humor, they resemble illustrations, but these are full-fledged oil paintings, and the idea and composition make them unique with a generally decent technical execution.

April 13 2024, 13:06

Published an article on Hybrismart about what a world where AI is integrated into everyone’s life might look like. The article is in English.

Imagine a world where an AI system not only listens but observes, constantly collecting data unless explicitly told not to. This “exoskeleton for the brain” is not just a tool but a transformative extension of human capability, enhancing efficiency and decision-making in everyday tasks. For some, this raises alarms about privacy and the potential for misuse in a society already wary of data overreach. Yet, the real question lingers: how will such capabilities shape the way we live, work, and interact not just with technology but with each other?

As we stand on the brink of making these integrations a reality, it’s important to consider not only the current implications but also the generational shift that might come with it. The youth of today, growing up with AI as a norm rather than an addition, might view this integration as indispensable—melding their cognitive functions with artificial intelligence to an extent previously unimagined. This narrative isn’t just about the technology we create but also about the human experiences and societal structures that will evolve with it. Dive into the full discussion to explore the profound shifts looming on the horizon.

Fusion of Realities: The Future of Human-AI Collaboration

https://hybrismart.com/2024/04/13/fusion-of-realities/