Tag: TechStories

Modern Take on Theodora: Opera, Martyrs, and Pole Dancing | January 28 2025, 01:55

I finished “Theodora”. It’s a three-hour opera in a production by the Royal Opera House. About Christian saints and martyrs Theodora and Didymus, who lived in the 4th century in what’s now modern Syria. On stage – prostitutes, pole dances, a bomb, essentially, the full package.

And yes, originally it’s not an opera, but an oratorio, meaning originally on stage there is a chorus that sings for three hours, and nothing else happens. In the production, however, the oratorio is decked out like an opera, plus a bit more.

In short. The plot. Briefly. Valens, the Roman envoy, forces everyone to worship Roman gods, and threatens to execute those who refuse. Theodora, a Christian, does not comply. Her lover, Didymus, secretly converted to Christianity, tries to save her by disguising himself in her dress. In the end, Theodora surrenders to the enemies to save Didymus, and both die as martyrs for their faith. Afterwards, they were canonized by Christians in gratitude.

The oratorio is in English. That’s unusual in itself. Well.. in English. “Vouchsafe, dread Sir, a gracious ear. Lowly the matron bow’d, and bore away the prize…”. English from three hundred years ago. I understood “Carmen” in French with subtitles better. But no matter, there are translations you can hold in your hand and glance at one-eyed, plus everything happens veeery slowly there.

So, what we have here. A classic plot on a religious theme. In Katie Mitchell’s production, they decided to break all norms at once, making the oratorio into an opera and also setting it in modern times. It turned out pretty cool, actually.

Katie Mitchell situates the action in, as they called in an Alicante publication, a “Putin-like” embassy in Antioch, where rooms function as a brothel. This is the first theatre piece to involve an intimacy coordinator for sex and violence scenes (Ita O’Brien).

Valens, the Roman envoy in Antioch, wears a red sweater. He hasn’t heard of the #MeToo movement, hence the brothel accommodates “comfort women” for him and his bodyguards. They in red lingerie dance on poles in the red room (kind of a striptease; Holly Weston and Kelly Vee).

Next, we are introduced to Septimius, Valens’ head of security. His task is to ensure that all citizens publicly worship Roman gods as a sign of loyalty. Otherwise – death.

Here comes Didymus, one of the bodyguards. Didymus used to believe in Roman gods but secretly converted to Christianity. He’s in love with the Christian Theodora, the head of the household staff at the embassy.

Theodora plans an assassination attempt on Valens with a homemade explosive. They actually assemble it on stage with duct tape and some stuff.

Septimius uncovers the conspiracy and defuses the bomb. Theodora’s punishment – she becomes a “comfort woman”. For this, they dress her up as Marilyn Monroe. Oh, actually, it seems more like Louise Brooks, but never mind, they look alike.

Then the drama continues with an escape, Didymus saves Theodora, then the other way around. But ultimately, as in all operas, things end up not very well, but specifically in Mitchell’s production, good prevails over evil.

The role of Didymus is played by Jakub Józef Orliński. He has a beautiful scene where he changes into heels and a shimmering dress, in which he continues to perform until the end of the opera.

Jakub has a rather unusual voice. He is a countertenor. It’s the highest male voice. After castrati fell out of favor – quite rare. Google it, his voice is very beautiful. I’ll leave a few links in the comments.

One of the scenes towards the end reminds me of the café scene from “Pulp Fiction”.

The first performance of “Theodora” was in London, at the Royal Theatre in Covent Garden in 1750, and this production 272 years later comes from there too. Quite symbolic. True, back then it flopped – almost no audience. But now, it’s a classic.

Absurdities of Technical Job Interviews | January 27 2025, 23:03

Here’s your text translated into English, with the HTML markup preserved:

I was thinking this morning about how to explain what a programmer’s job interview is like. I think I came up with a great analogy. It’s as if, when hiring a cook for a cafeteria, they were asked to describe the process of protein denaturation in a chicken egg at the molecular level. When hiring a salesperson, it would be essential to know how a reduction in the refinancing rate would affect aggregate demand in the long term.

You can’t just hire a welder. He needs to know how many valence electrons are in an iron atom and be able to derive the equation for the chemical reaction during welding.

A plumber must definitely know Bernoulli’s law and be able to calculate the water flow through a pipe using the Navier-Stokes equation.

Undoubtedly, you can’t just hire a hairdresser—you need one who can explain in detail how disulfide bonds work in the structure of hair and why, on a molecular level, a perm is a crime against keratin.

A carpenter should be asked about the ideal number of hammer strikes per minute to secure a nail considering the thickness of the wood. Even if he cannot name the exact number, he must demonstrate a thought process in the right direction (towards the interviewers).

Of course, once a programmer is hired, the very first task will involve reversing a string without using built-in functions. By recursion. Right after writing a module where two 100-digit numbers are added without using the addition operation. And the result is displayed in the console, formatted like a diamond. And certainly, a Java programmer will be using volatile, transient, strictfp at least every other day.

You should hire someone whose eyes sparkle with passion, or if not, someone who, like a tank, confidently plows through to a solution. Someone who understands exactly where to hit the code with a sledgehammer to make it work and keeps duct tape in their pocket in case that doesn’t help. Someone capable of fixing a bug and explaining to the client why the bug is a “feature” and not a mistake. Someone who says “that’s an interesting problem, I’ll think about it” instead of “it’s impossible”, and is already Googling how to do it. Someone who writes patches with such inspiration that they look like part of the architecture. And most importantly — you should hire someone who isn’t afraid to ask during the interview: “Why do I need to solve problems reversing strings, when in real life I have reverse()? Like in Python s[::-1] or ”.join(reversed(s)).”

Consistency in American Standards: A Foreigner’s Perspective | January 25 2025, 22:26

Here’s the text translated to English with the style and HTML markup preserved:

What I appreciate about the USA is the consistency of standards, especially those non-vexing ones.

For instance, right now, I’m stuffing a duvet cover. In Russia, I had to shove a 200×210 cm duvet into a 210×200 cm or a 200×210 cm cover—well, you get the idea. In the States, it’s a square 90-inch duvet and a square 90-inch duvet cover. Although, duvet covers aren’t really a thing here.

Electrical outlets and light switches seem to be universally the same. I’ve never seen different ones. Pure standard. When you plug something in, it doesn’t block the area for the adjacent plug. Most dishwashers are 24 inches wide, refrigerators are 36 inches.

If there’s a left turn on the road—in our parts, it’s always a separate lane. I can’t recall an intersection where cars behind wait to go straight when you turn left.

Front doors are 36 inches, interior doors are 32 inches. In general, when you need to measure something, it’s very pleasant that almost all dimensions fit within a grid of 1-2-4-6-12-16-18-20-32-36-48 inches. That is, there’s almost nothing like 17.5″ x 13.5″.

All east-west highways have a two-digit code ending with a zero, north-south ones end with a five. The smaller the number, the closer to the east or south respectively. For example, highway 15 is north-south, west coast, while 95 is north-south east, and 90 is east-west northern part, and 10 – east-west southern part.

Secondary highways have three digits, where the last two digits are from which you exit. For example, 285 – you exit from 85. And if the first digit is even, it means the secondary highway will eventually lead back to the primary one with that number.

ZIP codes also follow a standard system. The first digit represents a major region of the USA, and the digits roughly proceed from the east coast to the west. The second and third are for navigation within the region, and the last one – for city area navigation (delivery zone).

House numbers are even on the right, and numbers increase as you move away from the center. Often, a hundred numbers are allocated per city block, so the hundreds often signify blocks.

Bottles and cans often come in very understandable volumes – 12, 16, 22, 32 ounces, half-gallon, gallon. Yes, it’s unusual, but at least there isn’t a package of 900 grams of milk next to a 1-liter package. Yes, I intentionally put grams and liters side by side.

Trump’s Bold Presidential Strategy Unveiled | January 20 2025, 17:47

Trump announced his presidential strategy:

1. “We’re taking the Panama Canal back”.

2. “We’re changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the American Gulf, effective immediately”.

3. “We will build the strongest military the world has ever seen”.

4. “Our troops will be free to focus on their sole mission—defeating America’s enemies.”

5. “Effective today, the official policy of the United States states: there are only two genders – MALE and FEMALE”.

6. “We will end all governmental censorship and bring back FREEDOM of speech to America”.

7. On oil: “We will lower prices and fill up all our national reserves. National energy emergency: drill, drill, drill!”

8. “I will end the catch and release practice.”

9. “I hereby declare a state of emergency on our southern border. All illegal border crossings will be immediately stopped.”

10. “I am creating an External Tax Service for taxing and tariffs on foreign nations to protect American workers and enrich American families.”

Under the practice of “catch and release” in the context of U.S. immigration policy, it refers to the procedure where detained illegal immigrants, instead of remaining in immigration detention until their case is heard in court, are released under certain conditions (for example, the obligation to appear at a court hearing in the future).

This policy was primarily used due to limitations in the capacity of immigration detention centers, a lack of space in prisons, and the length of the deportation process. However, critics, including Donald Trump, argue that it leads to abuses — some released migrants fail to appear in court and remain in the country illegally.

About Panama — this statement indicates his desire to revisit the agreement on the transfer of the Panama Canal to Panama, which was completed in 1999. Practically, this is unlikely without serious international conflicts, as the canal belongs to Panama under international law. We’ll see.

The gulf can be renamed as desired, but the question is whether it will be renamed in Mexico itself. I don’t think so. After all, there are many geographical names with different names for different countries. Just look at Germany (Allemagne, Germany, Niemcy, Tyskland, Saksa, and of course Deutschland). The Falkland Islands in the UK, in Argentina they are the Malvinas. Even Florence is called Firenze in Florence itself, while the rest of the world calls it Florence. The Baltic Sea in Germany is Ostsee (eastern sea). And so on.

Unraveling the Mysteries of a Missing Aria in Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte | January 20 2025, 03:23

I am listening to the opera Cosi fan tutte, half-watching the libretto in another window. Suddenly, I notice a whole section isn’t translated. And they completely skip it in the opera. That is, after “O ciel”, it jumps straight to “Ei parte”. I go to Google to figure out what’s going on. Seems there were many cuts, but in the entire libretto, only this aria is untranslated. Everything else is translated. I find another version of the libretto with a side-by-side translation, and there, Aria No. 24 by Ferrando “Ah, lo veggio, quell’anima bella” is missing altogether. That’s precisely why it is also missing from the parallel translation—because the translation is from the booklets of various productions, and in them, the aria is omitted.

I started digging deeper, it turns out that Aria No. 24 is feared and not included in most productions and even studio recordings because it is very difficult to perform. “Ah, lo veggio, quell’anima bella”. However, of course, if you wish, you can find a few performances from different theaters on YouTube.

UPDATE: Suddenly, ChatGPT has developed a sense of humor. It replies to me, “Although Mozart can no longer participate in the staging 😄, his music is sometimes subject to adaptation”. It even added a smiley face! And this was a reply to the third question with no Personalization message, and all the questions were serious.

Choosing Between TV and Laptop for Personal Viewing | January 19 2025, 18:04

No matter how hard I try, I can’t convince myself that watching on a 60″ TV is better than on a laptop on my knees. The photo even makes it obvious that the TV has a smaller diagonal in terms of angular dimensions. Plus, ideally, you need to wear glasses for the TV. Additionally, despite some soundbar with a subwoofer at the TV, the sound from a latest macbook pro feels better.

I have another TV of the same size sitting idle. I don’t remember where I picked it up, thought to adapt it for something useful.

Probably, a TV is only necessary for gaming and for watching together. But for one person, or even two, the laptop wins.

Well, for family movie nights, there’s a 110″ projector in the bedroom.

Navigating the Nexus: Harari on Information Networks and AI | January 19 2025, 16:42

Well, I finally finished reading Yuval Harari’s “Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI.” Quite interesting, although I was expecting more controversy, especially from a historian who likely doesn’t quite understand what’s under AI’s hood. But it turned out to be quite good. The theses extracted from the book without context sound quite odd. For example, Harari writes that it would be more accurate to call AI Alien Intelligence—not because it possesses consciousness, but because its methods of thinking and problem-solving are completely alien to our human experience.

It’s particularly fascinating how he views political systems as information structures: democracy with its decentralized flow of information and autocracy with its drive for control. An attempt to understand how information governs us, our choices, and our societies.

Overall, the parallels drawn between the AI revolution and past historical events are quite intriguing. Harari cites examples of how social network algorithms aimed at increasing engagement have contributed (and continue to contribute) to the spread of misinformation and the fomenting of hatred. He references real cases, such as the tragic events in Myanmar, where Facebook was used to spread falsehoods that led to violence. Because falsehoods positively affected engagement—they simply got more clicks—and this function was optimized by Facebook for better advertising metrics. Ultimately, a relatively simple AI behind the newsfeed led to bloodshed.

I liked Harari’s example from Nick Bostrom’s book “Superintelligence,” which is a thought experiment. Bostrom suggests imagining a paperclip factory acquiring a superintelligent AI, and the factory manager assigns the AI, seemingly simple, the task of producing as many paperclips as possible. In pursuit of this goal, the computer takes over the Earth, destroys all humans, sends expeditions to capture additional planets, and uses vast resources to fill the entire galaxy with paperclip factories. The essence of the thought experiment is that the computer did exactly what it was instructed to do.

Of course, it’s hard not to notice that Harari sometimes succumbs too much to alarmism. For example, he describes AI as something already spiraling out of control, though there are many technical constraints that inhibit its development. Nevertheless, his book is not a prediction, but an invitation to a discussion. A discussion about how technologies change our understanding of truth, freedom, and even reality.

P.S. I also liked this fragment:

“…It’s no wonder that politicians around the world spend a lot of time and effort recounting historical narratives. The aforementioned example with Vladimir Putin is hardly an exception. In 2005, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan first met with General Than Shwe, the then-dictator of Myanmar. Annan was advised to start the conversation first to prevent the general from monopolizing the talk, as the meeting was supposed to last only twenty minutes. But Than Shwe spoke first and almost for an hour about the history of Myanmar, leaving almost no opportunity for the UN Secretary-General to speak.”

Surprisingly, Harari did not include interviews with Tucker Carlson 🙂

Exploring M-DISC for Long-Term Photo and Video Archiving | January 19 2025, 13:05

So you have a photo and video archive and want to preserve it for your grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Where to store it? I did some research and found only one option, which is rather affordable overall.

First, why are the others not as good? Any cloud solution is potentially unreliable, as it depends on the long-term stability of the provider, risk of data loss due to cyber attacks or infrastructure failure, political processes, good air defense, and the need for ongoing payments.

CD/HDD/SDD/tape are generally better when maintaining control over humidity/temperature/lighting, but still, no one guarantees more than 20 years. A flash drive could start losing data as soon as in five years. Magnetic tapes are better, but they also gradually demagnetize, and accessing data is relatively slow — a special reader, which is quite niche, is necessary, and it’s unclear what the situation will be in 40-50 years, and they won’t last much longer than that.

It seems that the only remaining option is M-DISC discs. It is claimed that M-DISC has a lifespan of 1000 years. It is made from a durable inorganic material similar to stone, which does not degrade over time, heat, or light. It is supported by many modern DVD and Blu-ray drives, although an M-DISC-compatible drive is needed for recording. M-DISC capacity is 4.7 GB (DVD-R), 25 GB (BD-R), 50 GB (dual-layer BD-R), or 100 GB (BD-XL). Clearly, these are all write-once, essentially like carving into granite.

As for the cost — an external USB drive with BDXL M-DISC recording capability costs about $100, although there are options for $50, and BDXL discs cost about $10-12 each (100 GB).

Reflections on 2024: AI’s Ascent and Google’s Evolution | January 18 2025, 23:18

Reading an article in Wired, the link will be in the comments. It’s fascinating to see how people from the past envisioned 2024.

In 2002, Kevin Kelly, one of the founders of Wired, attended a small party organized by Google, which at that time had not yet gone public and was solely engaged in search technologies. At this event, he struck up a conversation with Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, who later, in 2011, became the CEO of the company (and left the position in 2015).

Kelly asked Page a question that seemed sensible at the time:

— Larry, I still don’t understand. There are so many companies doing search. Free web search? Where is this going?

At that time, Google had not yet implemented its advertising sales scheme through auctions and had not made major acquisitions like YouTube. Many, including Kelly, doubted that Google would last long.

Page then replied:

— Oh, actually, we are making AI!

Years later, when Google had acquired 14 companies working in the fields of AI and robotics, Kelly often reflected back on that conversation. At first glance, it might seem that Google uses its AI resources to improve search, because search then generated 80% of the company’s revenue. However, Kelly wrote in his 2014 article that the opposite is true: Google uses search to enhance its AI.

Every time a user enters a query, clicks on a link or creates a link on the internet, they train Google’s AI. For example, by searching for “Easter bunny images and selecting the most appropriate one, a person teaches the system what an Easter bunny looks like. As of 10 years ago, when the article was written, 1.2 billion users made 12.1 billion queries daily, continuously training AI.

Interestingly, in that 2914 article Kelly was confident that by 2024, Google would create AI and it would gradually become the main product.

Well, here we are in 2024, and as of today 82% still comes from the same advertising. But still, 2024 became the year of AI and Google is among the key players (along with a dozen others).

Interestingly, the Larry-predicted formula from the article – add AI to everything indiscriminately and you get a new startup – worked out

“…In fact, the business plans of the next 10,000 startups are easy to forecast: Take X and add AI…”

He writes in 2024 that for AI, progress in three areas is critical:

1) GPU/parallel computation for training models

2) Big Data for training models

3) Algorithms that we have yet to conceive

“… This perfect storm of parallel computation, bigger data, and deeper algorithms generated the 60-years-in-the-making overnight success of AI.”