Author: Rauf Aliev

If you are leaving Russia to work abroad – disconnect the Russian SIM from all services. Otherwise, you will end up like me with Beeline.

Let’s say, at some point, the SIM stops working properly. This can happen after a delayed payment and it doesn’t restore properly post-blocking. Maybe it just broke – such things happen with SIMs. Of course, Beeline’s customer service says everything is fine on their end. You can’t just descend into a subway here and exchange a Russian SIM for a new one. So now, I have a tablet at home, which just yesterday miraculously received a promotional SMS from ZebraFitness, but is otherwise useless.

Moreover, this SIM was connected to Raiffeisen.Connect internet banking. No SIM – no transactions. Thankfully, there’s almost no money left in the account, so it’s not that big of a deal. But darn it, what if there had been money there! I call the bank – they say you can only change the number in person by visiting the bank or by somehow receiving a confirmation SMS on the old number. There are no other ways, sorry, dear customer.

So I imagine, if there had been money – what would I do? Travel to Russia just to change a SIM or a bank number?.. Absurdity 😦

#beeline #raiffeisen

The first photos from the last day of school are coming from the Machine School. They have a shower there!

Can you recommend an interesting series with relatively simple English? Since the beginning of the year, I’ve watched in the original:

1) Friends. Only watched 8 episodes. Didn’t quite get into it. Maybe because it’s a sitcom, and I’m not really into sitcoms.

2) Homeland. Watched all 72 episodes. Really liked it, the English was understandable. Actually, that’s where all my evenings went. A good example of what I’m looking for.

3) Game Of Thrones 6. It’s almost over, and the English isn’t super clear to me – there are many different accents, but still okay. But it has ended.

4) Black Sails. Watched the first episode, didn’t quite get into it. The English isn’t very clear, lots of vocabulary and historical dialogue.

5) Preacher. Watched the first episode, overall it’s cool, but it’s more like a backup option.

6) Yesterday tried to rewatch Sherlock in English – here the English was the most difficult. Not only does Cumberbatch speak very fast, but the vocabulary is also British and specific.

7) Desperate Housewives. Watched in both English and Russian. A good example of what I’m looking for in terms of the clarity of the English. But the plot is too sugary.

Searching for:

An engaging, enlightening series with clear American English, not a sitcom, like Homeland. Any recommendations?

UPDATED: Neatly gathered all the advice here

Looks like I’ll be watching White Collar. I’ll see in about two hours if it works for me 🙂

Posted a little note on my blog about building on hybris systems where different users see different catalogs. That is, the same product will be displayed for customer A and will not be shown for customer B. I conducted this experiment with 500,000 clients and 500,000 groups, which is somewhat extreme, but perfect for an experiment.

The full load of availability information (that’s 50 million entries) takes 187 seconds on my laptop.

In real projects, such a feature is necessary for B2B systems, for example, where different products are available to different regions/groups of users. Together with my previous post about personalized prices, one can create fully personalized catalogs (price+availability).

Just played some Scrabble….

Every week we go to three supermarkets for groceries. At this one, Lotte Plaza, we buy vegetables, fruits, fish, rice, Asian noodles, and various exotic items. 80% of the assortment in this store is not found in Russian stores at all. Therefore, shopping is also an educational experience)

All photos in this album are labeled with a name and price. I only photographed a part, as Facebook does not allow adding more than thirty photos at a time.

First place at the Chesapeake Open went to our Masha, battle-scarred but victorious. We’re still happy! Congratulations and love!

A very engaging article about cybersecurity from the chief security officer at QIWI. It gets a bit carried away, though: “…Whites are always more skilled than blacks. Whites skill up chaotically: they find an interesting topic, do some research, level up…”.

@[100000620263102:2048:Ekaterina Starostina]

There are three words to describe the Russian “problem” – trouble, issue, and problem. However, they are used for different kinds of “problems.” For example, the word problem refers only to something with a negative connotation that can and should be solved; in other words, something for which a solution must be found to make everything good again. Trouble carries even more negativity but is less connected to finding a solution.

The most popular word in business and technical language is Issue. It is not necessarily a problem – rather, a nuance that needs to be addressed, a topic for discussion, a complication. But if a problem arises, it can also casually be called an issue, so as not to exacerbate the situation.)

#американский #английский #american #english

two English words that don’t have direct equivalents in Russian – leverage and facilitate. They are used everywhere, especially the former #american #english #american #english