tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64900512011-11-27T19:08:09.562-05:00This is Argyn's blog. I comment on topics of my interests such as software, math, finance, and music. Also, I write about local events in Northern Virginia, USA and all things related to KazakhstanArgynnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7091100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-83732685064780042962010-09-07T10:49:00.001-05:002010-09-07T10:50:20.339-05:00

This is an old Soviet flashlight. It works from the energy generated by your wrists!

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-19470071306100523622010-09-05T10:22:00.002-05:002010-09-05T10:29:30.018-05:00

PRMIA has Quarterly Members Update magazine. What's funny's that it has never been quarterly! Here's the number of issues per year:2002 - 24 (bi-monthly)2003 - 15 (monthly-ish)2004 - 13 (monthly-ish)2005 - 10 (monthly-ish)2006 - 11 (monthly-ish)2007 - 6 (bimonthly)2008 - 4 (ok, quarterly, at last!)2009 - 3 (quarterly-ish)2010 - 1 to date (yearly?)

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-1855875375386204342010-09-02T07:42:00.000-05:002010-09-02T07:42:12.100-05:00

Stephen Hawking says God isn't necessary | TG Daily

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-40950228287764993792010-08-29T18:19:00.001-05:002010-08-29T18:20:18.627-05:00

Electric carmaker Tesla to open D.C. storeAwesome! I'd love to own one of those.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-85408413311302035332010-08-27T21:36:00.002-05:002010-08-29T14:48:47.844-05:00

It's quite exciting, but now I need to prepare the slides by Sept 3rd.There's 18 competing sessions on JavaOne track, and 9 more in Oracle. This is intimidating. Is anyone going to show up on my session? :)

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-66797061722219626872010-03-14T12:42:00.000-05:002010-03-14T12:42:24.506-05:00

It's a Pi Day today!I thought it's fitting to post about Witold Lipski. In his short life (36 years) he managed to leave an impressive body of work. I love his monograph on combinatorics. It was printed in Soviet Union under title "Комбинаторика для программистов". It came with Pascal code and contained a wide range of algorithms. It's written clearly and very "applied" in style.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-2599389228620428622010-02-15T22:35:00.002-05:002010-02-16T23:00:18.114-05:00

It's 11th conference on solid states physics in Kazakhstan. The first one was in 1986.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-12134519082677535392010-02-15T17:49:00.002-05:002010-02-15T19:45:50.008-05:00

elance.comwww.getafreelancer.comwww.guru.comwww.odesk.com

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-90120339131058963642010-02-08T13:00:00.000-05:002010-02-08T13:00:16.981-05:00

Linus' blog: Happy camper - Linux Torvalds bought Google Nexus One phone. Smart decision.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-71051416545564949402010-02-07T23:07:00.000-05:002010-02-07T23:07:59.874-05:00

Montgomery County's "Fairfax envy" manifested itself in this comparative study of two counties.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-14425705538576299272009-12-10T00:04:00.000-05:002009-12-10T00:05:01.968-05:00

L. C. W. Dixon1 and D. J. Mills1(1) Numerical Optimisation Centre, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, EnglandAbstract It has become customary to compare the performance of unconstrained optimization algorithms on families of extended symmetric test functions. In this paper, results are presented which indicate that the performance of the variable metric algorithm on such

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-31797250613833825232009-12-09T23:39:00.000-05:002009-12-09T23:40:20.810-05:00

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-13901131518961584052009-12-07T16:59:00.000-05:002009-12-07T17:00:03.133-05:00

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-19232284313911293532009-12-03T20:04:00.003-05:002009-12-03T20:23:58.425-05:00

I bought this card at Geeks.com for ~$19 shipped. Its manual says "supports SATA data transfer rate of 150 MBps". Obviously, I didn't exepct anything near 150, but was hoping for at least 50 MB, which would at least 2x faster than the internal hard drive on my Dell Latitude D430 laptop. One guy told me that I won't get even 10 MB. However, this guy seemed to use very similar card on his Lenovo,

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-16524878659746208422009-12-03T19:42:00.002-05:002009-12-03T20:03:33.902-05:00

National Center of Scientific and Technical Information of Kazakhstan (АО НЦНТИ) was collecting a database of Kazakh scientific and technical publications. They analyzed the publication and citation data for several years. They are probably modeling it after Thompson Reuters Web of Sciense databases.This year they awarded First annual "Parasat" award to scientists with highest numbers in citation

Argynnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-57874151448554637202009-11-15T13:15:00.002-05:002009-11-15T13:30:55.093-05:00

InspecВедущая англоязычная база данных по физике и техническим наукам. Содержит около 10 млн. записей: статьи из журналов, материалы конференций, книги, отчеты, диссертации, патенты. Хронологический охват: с 1969 г. по настоящее время.Для удаленного доступа в систему:Логин: s6591992 Пароль: hostfrom here

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-89031221612000843602009-11-09T15:04:00.002-05:002009-11-09T15:06:54.352-05:00

I just installed Sensor Insider Lite on my co-worker's Droid, and it shows the accelerometer chip as LIS331DLHIt has 1kHz sampling rate, which is 10 times higher than G1's accelerometer.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-82863904191340399952009-11-02T14:28:00.002-05:002009-11-02T14:31:57.406-05:00

From November 2, 2009 10:56 AM PSTChrome and others nibble away IE usage by Stephen Shankland at CNETChrome offers an interesting contrast to IE's slow change rate. By default, Google upgrades the browser automatically without giving people any say-so. That might cause some heartburn among some, but it rapidly distributes security patches and new features. To Google, Chrome version numbers are

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-67751700656097054532009-11-01T00:00:00.002-05:002009-11-01T00:32:55.875-05:00

PhD in Finance at UMD: deadline Dec 15JHU doesn't have PhD in Finance or relatedUVA, Darden has no openings for 2010, PhD FinanceWharton, UPenn, PhD in Finance, deadline Dec 15GMU, PhD Computational Finance is it still active?

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-83668042104131364052009-10-30T22:43:00.002-05:002009-10-30T22:47:44.078-05:00

Тезисы X Всероссийского симпозиума по прикладной и промышленной математике (осенняя открытая сессия)(Сочи - Дагомыс, 1 - 8 октября 2009 г.)А.М.Зубков, Н.А.Харитонова, Е.В.Хиль. Формулы для распределений расстояний между соседними локальными максимумамиThey found that if x(i) is IID, and y(i) = x(i) + x(i-1), then mean distance between local maxima of y(i) is 4. They refer to my work on the same

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-81882824471044848002009-10-23T15:30:00.001-05:002009-10-23T15:31:55.222-05:00

This talk is by Tom Bradley from nVidia. Someone referred him to me as a source in nVidia, who worked with Financial apps using CUDA.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-84461188884808386212009-10-12T09:44:00.001-05:002009-10-12T09:46:40.005-05:00

According to MS docs:Microsoft Excel 2000 Solver uses the Generalized Reduced Gradient (GRG2) algorithm for optimizing nonlinear problems. This algorithm was developed by Leon Lasdon, of the University of Texas at Austin, and Allan Waren, of Cleveland State University. Linear and integer problems use the simplex method, with bounds on the variables and the branch and bound method, implemented by

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-24467135306229553372009-10-11T09:22:00.001-05:002009-10-11T09:23:49.094-05:00

Washington Post: Letting Data Die A Natural Death by Nik Cubrilovic,TechCrunch.com Saturday, October 10, 2009; 8:20 PMHe has a point hereTechnology has spoiled us to the point where we feel nostalgic when we lose data that didn't really matter in the first place. If it did matter, a primal instinct would have driven us to do more to preserve, rather than rely on a sleep deprived sysadmin on the

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-73282223623206940432009-10-06T20:32:00.004-05:002009-10-09T19:31:36.670-05:00

According to this post HTC G1 (Android) phone has the following hardware:As far as I know about hardware, the accelerometer chip is the Bosch Sensortec's 3-axis BMA150 and the digital compass is Asahi Kasei's AK8973 (similar to iPhone). I am not sure about the accuracy of each sensor but the digital compass seems to function fairly well in the iPhone. Here's the spec and brochure.Additional

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-5541058119546300772009-09-04T14:13:00.003-05:002009-09-04T14:30:39.845-05:00

I tried RetiSoft's C/C++ Source Lines Of Code (SLOC) Counter for VC++ code, but it doesn't work on my source code base. I had to abandon it.Then I used Java.net loc-counter for Java and VC++ code. It works Ok.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-51829249295464018082009-09-04T13:40:00.002-05:002009-09-04T13:43:28.769-05:00

If you need to lookup table creation date/time in MySQL database, it's in INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES table. I used these fields today:CREATE_TIME - date/time of table creationDATA_LENGTH - table size in bytesTABLE_ROWS - number of rowsHere's the description from documentation.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-85353539400467708512009-08-17T20:24:00.002-05:002009-08-17T20:29:29.314-05:00

To remind: I predicted on 25 Sep 2008 that there'll be at least 100 banks closed within one year. It's almost 11 months passed and, according to FDIC, we're almost there: 93 banks closed according to FDIC. So, we're on track! :( Obviously, FDIC's list is not complete, because they facilitated several failed bank acquisitions, still...

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-19384109622655009752009-07-22T21:28:00.001-05:002009-07-22T21:31:00.625-05:00

I found this blog very helpful today, when looking for a way to find XBox's MAC address. When XBox is turned on, it kills my home network. So, I put it in DMZ. Now the XBox stopped working, and when it came back from Microsoft after repair, it had a different network card. so, I had to find its new MAc address, and here how it works:Ping a remote device that you want to find the MAC address (for

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-22551213426292090122009-07-12T19:30:00.002-05:002009-07-12T19:36:21.547-05:00

I saw one article on Google Chrome OS in PC World, then another one and was a little amused. Now, today's at least the third one. C'mon, guys! This is becoming too obvious you don't like Google. It's not like there's not too much unfounded positive opinions on Chrome OS. We simply don't know what is it going to be. We'll see when it comes out. I may give it a try. I tried Android phone and like

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-19273738139481417442009-07-07T15:26:00.001-05:002009-07-07T15:27:14.297-05:00

There's a word in Kazakh "kay-yk", which means a boat. I wonder if it's the same word.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-30598210124109047202009-07-07T15:23:00.001-05:002009-07-07T15:24:22.225-05:00

It's my one-line joke. Soviet Generation-X folks should appreciate it.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-32347843087094879792009-07-06T13:01:00.002-05:002009-07-06T13:05:09.438-05:00

I went to a library to pick another book, and saw this one on a shelf, browsed quickly and took it. I think that some material can be outdated, but it seems to cover a lot ground otherwise.Started reading... The first impression - very nice overview. Got through 2 chapters, not very technical, but technical enough, liked microecon overview with important references... I think I'm buying it after

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-18009947864695032712009-07-01T21:17:00.001-05:002009-07-01T21:18:31.487-05:00

This ISO recorder by Alex Feinman is a great piece of software. It's free, and works like a charm. You can copy CD disks or create backup images from them.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-69048320299130970172009-06-29T19:46:00.002-05:002009-06-29T19:50:51.802-05:00

I saw two beautiful commercials while in Virginia Beach. One was from HBO movies with MADCON's Beggin song. The other one was Canon Rebel XSi's with Michael Montes's Sacred Noise song.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-79419313118775354572009-06-18T08:28:00.002-05:002009-06-18T08:41:44.690-05:00

I had Vadim at my place yesterday. He's a developer of a Guitar Toolkit application for iPhone. They have a chromatic tuner, and other very useful stuff. What I like most is the sleekness of the GUI. Vadim writes DSP part of their code. The app is very popular and has good sales revenues.So, we were discussing what are the factors of iPhone app success. There's so many apps, more than 50,000,

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-36011346016996405012009-06-13T20:33:00.002-05:002009-06-13T20:36:38.215-05:00

I'm done with done tango bootcamp by Todd Borzych. It was a great 7 days experience. At last, I think I got it. I mean argentine tango's rhythm and principle. I was taking Sunday classes at the gym, but whatever I learned wouldn't "stick". The reason's that those classes are in series of 4 and last only one month at a time. Then he switches the dance. So, you get a little bit of every dance, but

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-81755823897480662252009-06-12T12:39:00.002-05:002009-06-12T12:41:48.066-05:00

On JavaOne 2009 I entered all raffles I knew off. This time I won an iPod Touch and a book on high performance computing!

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-23667626230616690492009-06-12T08:20:00.002-05:002009-06-12T08:24:09.111-05:00

Ha! There was a big change yesterday in the bootcamp. I was wondering if it's going to be the same like on Wednesday?Ok, we've got a review of sacada step. That was needed, because we didn't have any time for it on previous class. Then we got to work on boleo step. That was fun. It was 1.5 hours class, but we've done much more than in 3 hours class. Tonight's 2.5 hours class, and it feels like

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-12654925128965244812009-06-11T16:47:00.002-05:002009-06-12T08:17:09.477-05:00

Bediako posted today on NoVAJUG board that he wrote his first applet in Oct 1995. I was also under impression that I used Java in beta first time in 1995, but then when thinking about it more it sounds unlikely. In 1995 we didn't have a reliable Internet yet, if I recall correctly. We probably had one dedicated PC for Web access. So, it seems more likely that my first Java experience came later,

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-65561975751925294192009-06-10T22:47:00.003-05:002009-06-12T08:20:21.827-05:00

It's probably a dilemma for any instructor: whether to spend more time with those who don't get it, or those who get it quickly? Frankly, I have no answer to this question.I'm thinking about it now after today's Tango bootcamp class. It's taught by Todd Borzych, who owns DanceSportEndurance company. The program seemed to be very interesting:SCHEDULE:Sunday 7 June 3 pm-530 pm- tango basics- Open

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-44285285428078729772009-06-08T19:12:00.002-05:002009-06-08T19:26:18.320-05:00

I found this report on our talk in JavaOne 2009. We've got our updated slides late to conference organizers, so they added only my name to our session information, and my co-worker Francis's name was missing. I guess that's the reason for some confusion over the quotes in this report. The following's my corrections:it sais that I'm a project manager. Oh, I'm not!The following quotes were not mine

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-24472068963427888002009-06-02T03:13:00.002-05:002009-06-02T03:23:41.906-05:00

Today French plane disappeared somewhere in South America. It happened before my flight. I didn't care. Mine is United, it's bad enough even without worrying about other stuff. Overcrowded, no food. I sat in 5 seats row. For some reason there wes a lot of Russians in the plane. They didn't look exactly like work & travel folks.Plane arrived almost 1 hour earlier, it was so nice. My hotel is so-so

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-81220844259510698552009-05-31T11:19:00.002-05:002009-05-31T11:22:45.869-05:00

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer – 2 hrs 16 mins agoBEIJING – U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the U.S. financial system is in much better shape these days and there is more stability in the overall economy.Geithner told reporters traveling with him Beijing that there are a number of signs the U.S. economy is beginning to stabilize. The U.S. has been mired in its longest

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-65086049590160409322009-05-31T09:09:00.002-05:002009-05-31T11:24:43.999-05:00

Yesterday t-mobile finally pushed the Cupcake update on my g-phone. So far it's acting well. The biggest differences for me:video recorderBrowser kills the window when you quitreal guitar tuner!Wi-Fi at home works fine

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-44967240367600679912009-05-30T22:13:00.002-05:002009-05-30T22:27:14.642-05:00

I was going to visit National Harbor, MD since last year. Today was the day. I left with mixed feelings. Its harbor reminds me both the Waterfornt in Georgetown and Baltimore Inner Harbor. Maybe all harbors are similar. From 2009_05_30-NationalHarbourThey moved the Awakening installation to here from some other place, where I saw it before.It's interesting to see the crowd there. Especially, in

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-545073361374541542009-05-29T14:56:00.002-05:002009-05-29T15:03:15.221-05:00

from FOX News' Claudia Cowan contributed to this report.She's reporting on this new fusion research facility near San Francisco The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will focus 192 laserbeams on a hydrogen pellet the size of a bead, heating it to incredible temperatures in an attempt to recreate the power of the sun.I noticed this stupid statementNuclear fusion

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-63390179387620651292009-05-29T11:55:00.002-05:002009-05-29T12:00:29.474-05:00

By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment WriterEliot Van Buskirk, a writer for Wired.com who has covered this territory, thinks a unique opportunity was missed."This video of Susan Boyle is quickly becoming the most viewed video of all-time — and nobody's making money," said Van Buskirk. "It's been sort of a growing pains stage of ad-supported media."Van Buskirk said the situation showed the need for

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-90850978374452581382009-05-28T16:36:00.004-05:002009-05-28T16:47:33.898-05:00

There's so many interesting sessions at JavaOne 2009. Many of them overlap :(Here's my attempt to build a list of sessions to attend:Tuesday, Jun 0208:30-10:30Moscone, Hall B-CTuesday Morning General SessionSeats Available10:50-11:50Moscone, Hall E 134(TS-4605) Enterprise JavaBeans™ 3.1 (EJB™ 3.1) Technology OverviewSeats Available12:10-13:10Moscone, Hall E 133(TS-4164) Clojure: Dynamic

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-46183178090332379092009-05-26T19:43:00.003-05:002009-05-26T19:47:25.725-05:00

You get this cute button when speaking at JavaOne 2009. Here's an experience of someone who spoke in 2007. It's interesting that I'm never nervous when speaking. What's even more interesting is that I'm not that good of a speaker, and I know it :)

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-58264862410454626912009-05-23T10:15:00.003-05:002009-05-29T18:10:20.162-05:00

I'm going to JavaOne this year. We'll help GigaSpaces present a talk on alternatives to Google AppEngine cloud. We'll talk about story in cloud computing.I got interested in Java in 1996 or 1997, after reading about it somewhere. I don't remember when downloaded it for the first time. I was working for a multi-national corporation in Kazakhstan, and wanted to move overseas. Switzertland was my

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-88600874345494026692009-05-22T18:22:00.000-05:002009-05-22T18:29:38.604-05:00

Acer Aspire One AOA 150 laptop wasn't starting. It had a black screen, the HDD was spinning, power buttons lit up. I connected VGA cable and external monitor but nothing seemed to work. Then I found this blog post!First format an USB stick with FAT.Download the latest BIOS, and put both FLASHIT.EXE and the BIOS file in the root directory of the stick. Rename the BIOS file to ZG5IA32.FD, that's

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-3186219239786139142009-05-15T11:05:00.003-05:002009-05-15T11:11:03.191-05:00

by By ANDREW DAMP, APINNSBRUCK, Austria (AP) — Lance Armstrong and other riders of the Astana team protested the Kazakhstan squad's lack of salary payments by fading out the sponsors on their jerseys in the Giro d'Italia on Friday.He-he :) Welcome to Kz! When I quit my last job in the research lab (mid '90s), almost all salaries were delayed for months for all people in Kazakhstan. I thought

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-28905731571497636352009-05-14T21:18:00.003-05:002009-05-14T21:23:08.731-05:00

Appaerntly, one of our clients requested us to increase the secutity in our office. They ordered us to shut down wireless netwrok first. Now there's "internet content management" thing, which watches where we go and block when we venture into "adult content, drugs/alcohol/tobacco as well as racism/hate/violence/weapons". Naturally, the first web site I go after receiving an information about this

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-85265227679202986342009-05-10T10:37:00.004-05:002009-05-10T10:57:02.257-05:00

I like to watch Monster Madhouse show on Cox cable TV. I think it's on 10th channel. I don't watch it for more than a few minutes though. When I saw it first time, my jaw dropped. I couldn't believe they would broadcast a show of this quality. It was so ridiculously stupid, I thought Cox must have some obligation to broadcast local TV. Maybe VA somehow makes them support local "talents". They

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-42458902593018950322009-05-04T14:37:00.002-05:002009-05-04T14:42:54.427-05:00

My former co-worker write this application called WhereIsMyCar. You mark your car on your GPS-enabled phone on a parking lot, then it helps you find it.I thought about a great idea for GPS-phones too! If you wake up in the morning and have no idea where you are and how did you end up there, then this application would tell your exact location, address, and a name of yours as well as of a person

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-58723640417671349502009-05-04T08:53:00.002-05:002009-05-04T09:07:19.474-05:00

I had to read .NET binary files, which were written with BinaryWriter class Write method. This is similar to Java's object output stream class. However, you can't read these files with Java's ObjectInputStream.The way to read the binary outputs is through low level byte reading and converting those bytes into Java objects. There's standard methods to convert bytes into Java's primitive types, but

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-18073277498075368262009-04-13T12:58:00.003-05:002009-04-13T13:00:04.340-05:00

I wrote about Cafe Assorti in Arlington, VA a few weeks ago. My friendly Kyrgyz sources are telling me that the Cafe is going out of business. I don't know if it's true yet, will check on the rumor this week. It's a shame if it's true.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-10106771265037803022009-04-12T11:27:00.001-05:002009-04-14T19:44:18.046-05:00

This year's Nauryz of Capital area Kazakh's was in Reston, VA at the Community Center on Colts Neck road. It's quite far from any metro station, which certainly caused inconveniences to many car-less folks, like students or those who came from other regions. The tickets were distributed only through some "paper bag" online service. The only good thing about this service is that they're

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-91322674297453158522009-04-02T09:05:00.002-05:002009-04-02T09:12:42.689-05:00

By Patricia ReaneyWed Apr 1, 2009 1:09pm EDTNEW YORK (Reuters Life!) Young vegetarians consuming plenty of fruits and vegetables are eating a healthy diet but they may also have an increased risk of binge eating and other unusual behaviors, researchers said.Why am I not surprised? I think that today people live far away from farm animals and don't see them on regular basis. I used to have a

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-81943571553356704612009-03-10T22:51:00.002-05:002009-03-10T22:56:09.479-05:00

Kazakh alphabet has a ridiculous number of letters in it, something like 42 or so. I don't even know how many exactly. Why so many? Someone simply added all Russian letters, then threw in our own ones and voila! A truckload of letters!I'd first start with throwing out foreign Russian sounds, like Ф. There's no freaking F(Ф) in Kazakh language. Why do we need a letter for something we don't have?!

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-22928070924042038232009-03-07T15:40:00.003-05:002009-03-07T15:49:38.165-05:00

Horses were domesticated much earlier than previously thought, according to a team of researchers.They found evidence suggesting that the animals were used by a culture in northern Kazakhstan 5,500 years ago.Until now, the earliest evidence of horse riding was metal parts from harnesses dating from the Bronze Age.Writing in Science, a team from the UK's Exeter University suggested that the

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-49566971745022841162009-03-07T15:12:00.002-05:002009-03-07T15:20:11.345-05:00

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian media has been poking fun at US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after she gave her Russian counterpart a "reset" button with an ironic misspelling.Clinton's gift to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at their meeting in Geneva on Friday evening was meant to underscore the Obama administration's readiness to "to press the reset button" in ties with Moscow.But instead

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-12580866237841326202009-02-25T22:24:00.003-05:002009-02-25T22:28:17.677-05:00

I had no idea that Conan O'Brien graduated magna cum laude from Harvard until seeing one of the old episodes of Late Night show where Jennifer Garner mentions this fact. I like Conan's brand of humor. Now I understand why. The guy's smart. I doubt that Jimmy Fallon can do it like Conan. The man doesn't seem to have any college degree. I think Conan's show was one of the wittiest on TV. The exact

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-77692270806200656182009-02-20T08:32:00.002-05:002009-02-20T08:36:07.407-05:00

by James Saftreuters.comFri Feb 20, 2009 11:35am GMTPrices of housing in the U.S. were driven too high by too much leverage even as supply increased. Let's accept that, allow prices to fall, the banks to fail and start again on a new stable footing.I couldn't agree more. Full correction of home prices is not too far away, imho. We're almost there. So, there's no point in trying to artificially

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-91763185109486949292009-02-19T22:37:00.006-05:002009-02-19T22:54:02.360-05:00

Recently, I was testing one pseudo random number generator (RNG). It generates a sequence of Gaussian random numbers. I suspected that it must suffer from autocorrelation. So, I generated 100,000 numbers, then grouped adjacent numbers into pairs, and got 50,000 pairs (x,y). Each pair corresponds to a point on the plane. Now we can draw a frequency distribution histogram. If certain area on the

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-51100075018117559742009-02-17T12:29:00.002-05:002009-02-17T12:30:09.467-05:00

I had to implement .NET System::Random class in Java and found the source codes here. Porting them to Java is a piece of cake!

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-36663847179656051842009-02-11T20:30:00.001-05:002009-02-11T20:31:51.512-05:00

Two big communications satellites collided in the first-ever crash of two intact spacecraft in orbit, shooting out a pair of massive debris clouds and posing a slight risk to the international space station.Who would think there'd be traffic accidents in Space?

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-24622581590955192002009-02-11T18:28:00.002-05:002009-02-11T18:31:15.259-05:00

President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the DTV Delay Act, a bill postponing the date on which television broadcasters will have to transition from analog signals to digital signals.The legislation moves the transition deadline from February 17 to June 12. Democrats, including the administration, supported the measure out of concern for the millions of people who are not prepared for

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-31912888403992931192009-02-10T22:23:00.003-05:002009-02-14T16:56:36.754-05:00

There's this new cafe in Arlington VA, called Assorti. It's on 1800 Wilson Blvd. The owners are from Kazakhstan, so the local Kazakh folks treat it as the first Kazakh restaurant in the area. The owners don't seem to advertise it as Kazakh though :)It's a lovely place, very neat spacious and bright. It reminds a little bit of Cosi cafes. The menu is filled with dishes you would find familiar if

Argynnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-73904873597892196512009-02-10T13:23:00.002-05:002009-02-10T13:27:24.397-05:00

A posting on the Hackersblog.org web site includes screenshots of the hacker who used an SQL injection to access the company's database. It looks like a part of Kaspersky's U.S. support site was breached using the SQL injection attack -- the site was created an unnamed third party and was not reviewed properly by the security company prior to being used on the site.I think this touches 2

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-9597263763984254302009-02-09T12:17:00.003-05:002009-02-09T12:21:49.973-05:00

"Dancing with the stars" show announced their next season's cast:Rounding out the celebrity lineup will be the youngest contestant ever on the show, Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson, 17. Also ready to rumba are pop star Belinda Carlisle, actress Denise Richards, former NFL star Lawrence Taylor, rapper Lil’ Kim, Jackass star Steve-O, Apple computer co-founder Steve Wozniak, actors David Alan Grier

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-59897032826681222142009-02-06T23:23:00.003-05:002009-02-06T23:35:15.949-05:00

I predicted that at least 100 banks would be closed by Sep 25 2009. Here's a tally of failed banks by FDIC. So far it's 22 banks in 4 and half months, i.e. almost 5 banks per month. We're behind the schedule! By my deadline we'll have only 60 failed banks, unless we up the pace.Obviously, this list doesn't include banks which were consumed by other banks. Technically, they didn't fail. For

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-62052319565658617742009-01-29T16:33:00.003-05:002009-01-29T16:37:47.659-05:00

According to article in InformationWeek "Fannie Mae Contractor Indicted For Logic Bomb" By Thomas Claburn, January 29, 2009 03:30 PM Had the malicious script designed to wipe Fannie Mae's 4,000 servers not been discovered, the company could have lost millions of dollars and a week's worth of up-time."On October 24, 2008, at 2:53 pm, a successful SSH (secure shell) login from IP address

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-24728116418287229332009-01-27T10:39:00.002-05:002009-01-27T10:54:28.446-05:00

I heard many times IT and software development professionals mentioning "job security". Often it was sarcastic, sometimes serious. The idea's that you design and code in such a way that nobody can understand your product. In addition you grab the critical pieces of the project. Some people go even further, they make it so that they work alone on the module. If someone is sent to help them, they

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-90583542352022155632009-01-26T17:16:00.002-05:002009-01-26T17:20:13.726-05:00

Senator asks Microsoft about job cuts, visasReuters, Sat Jan 24, 2009 3:50am GMT Microsoft employs thousands of workers through the visa program, according to Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.The letter asked Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to provide a breakdown of the jobs to be eliminated, and how many of those are individuals with H-1B visas and how many

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-21283463562682561522009-01-26T10:17:00.003-05:002009-01-26T10:27:43.557-05:00

This is how Decimation procedure is described in Wikipedia:A cohort selected for punishment by decimation was divided into groups of ten; each group cast lots (Sortition), and the soldier on whom the lot fell was executed by his nine comrades, often by stoning or clubbing. The remaining soldiers were given rations of barley instead of wheat and forced to sleep outside of the Roman

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-30984492915243272662009-01-22T23:15:00.000-05:002009-01-22T23:17:18.226-05:00

Cut in loan-loss estimates lifts PNC stockBy Thomas Olson, TRIBUNE-REVIEWThursday, January 22, 2009As part of its acquisition of troubled National City Corp., PNC said yesterday that it would reserve a fourth-quarter provision for credit losses "substantially" lower than the $1.8 billion the bank estimated in October. The exact amount being set aside won't be disclosed until PNC releases earnings

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-41928300107003480592009-01-22T22:11:00.002-05:002009-01-22T22:38:18.820-05:00

There's this new show called "Legend of the Seeker". It's about this guy, The Seeker, who's supposed to save the world from a really really bad guy Lord Rahl. What's funny is that the bad guy always wants to make entire world bad, there's no fun, all darkness, everyone's dead... Why then he has followers? Don't they want some fun in life at all? Anyways, I think the only reason to watch this

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-68705549651108377702009-01-19T16:27:00.002-05:002009-01-19T16:31:49.371-05:00

If you want to find out why Circuit City went out of business, check out their so called "liquidation sale". In its last days of existence, Circuit City still tries to hang on to its ridiculously high prices. It's pathetic. 10% mark down? Give me a break! The company's bankrupt, get rid of the inventory. Their stuff was always overpriced. They still don't get it, idiots. I visited their store on

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-53622751961628875122009-01-16T16:15:00.002-05:002009-01-16T16:18:39.615-05:00

Boss, I Need a Bigger Screen. For Work Efficiency, of Course.by By FARHAD MANJOO, Published: January 14, 2009 Washington PostWhatever the configuration, my experience confirmed the researchers’ findings: having a lot of screen space significantly raised my productivity.Author shares his experience with having multiple big monitors. My ideal monitor would be LCD desktop. Entire desktop space would

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-51795761287288274982008-12-22T16:54:00.002-05:002008-12-22T17:02:40.180-05:00

type FILE_NAME | find "FILTER_STRING" > EXTRACT_FILE_NAMEThere's a bunch of interesting Windows shell commands described in this document.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-78592018403292687652008-12-21T16:20:00.003-05:002008-12-21T16:47:10.522-05:00

This article explains how to add configuration file to .NET assembly with VC++. I used it to disable concurrent garbage collector in VC++ application. It was crashing on 64 bits windows server. After disabling the concurrent GC, it was more stable.I still can't figure out how to inject app config file into the .NET exe file. Yun Jin has a blog post on OOM exceptions and GC in .NET.Maoni's post on

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-38391377620239232472008-11-15T11:14:00.003-05:002008-11-16T13:20:15.108-05:00

I saw this post on dbtechno.com. It recites the "new" study showing that people with bulges around their bellies have higher risk of heart attack. The news was circulated heavily last week. I thought that doctors knew about since '60s. Anyways, that's not the reason why I'm writing this. The reason is the picture, which they show in the post. It's a picture of a waist of a perfectly fit athletic

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-25405295328963219072008-11-14T21:24:00.002-05:002008-11-14T21:28:20.263-05:00

FDIC, U.S. Treasury clash on anti-foreclosure planReutersBy Karey Wutkowski and Patrick RuckerFri Nov 14, 2008 6:00pm ESThe dispute over housing policy during the administration's final weeks spilled into the public as a the President George W. Bush administration renewed its opposition to using money from the $700 billion bailout fund to support such a foreclosure-prevention program."The FDIC

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-64413437153746334252008-11-06T11:01:00.001-05:002008-11-06T11:02:13.316-05:00

The site has learning materials on risk management. It seems to be mostly introductory level.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-2284127282811680622008-11-03T08:23:00.002-05:002008-11-03T08:28:14.101-05:00

If you've ever attended any Kazakh event abroad, chances are you've heard Adai played by Assylbek Ensepov. He's an excellent performer indeed, but today I want to declare that I'm sick and tired of this piece :) It's played way too often. The piece was written by Kurmangazy, who wrote a lot of most popular instrumental dombra music. When I was in musical school, we learned to play maybe 10-15 of

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-42612549991835876112008-10-31T10:12:00.002-05:002008-10-31T10:16:05.684-05:00

I've been trying to disconnect my phone line since yesterday. So far it's been impossible. I call their customer support phone. It drags me through their endless automated options and hang up at the end. I tried to leave my phone. They call me back, then hang up again, and don't call again. I tried their chat too. They say I have to speak over the phone and so on. I wasted more than 2 hours. This

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-22419557500133683922008-10-27T12:38:00.003-05:002008-10-27T12:42:22.282-05:00

Hungary Verges On IMF Rescue Parmy Olson, 10.27.08, 8:08 AM ETForbes.comHungary's has been the prevalence of so-called FX loans to its citizenry. These are loans that are tied to either the Swiss franc or the euro, making them cheaper than those tied to the Hungarian forint, and consequently to Hungarian interest rates, which currently stand at 11.5%. The problem is that Hungary's currency has

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-18937985117725086882008-10-22T07:23:00.002-05:002008-10-22T07:25:42.299-05:00

I can't believe it, but it seems that Guns'n'Roses are releasing the Chinese Democracy album. Apparently, the first song's already out. It's pretty good. I like it.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-70926206998940592912008-10-18T19:55:00.003-05:002008-10-18T19:59:01.172-05:00

McCain aide says he's strong in 'real' VirginiaBy GLEN JOHNSON, Associated PressWOODBRIDGE, Va. – A top aide to John McCain said Saturday the Republican presidential nominee still has a strong chance of winning the state because of his support in "real Virginia," the downstate areas far removed in distance and political philosophy from the more liberal northern part of the state.So, McCain's

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-58136045236538988442008-10-15T08:59:00.002-05:002008-10-15T09:02:13.972-05:00

I stopped watching TV through a TV set. I record everything on TiVo then watch the shows skipping all the Ads. However, last two weeks were big disappointments. For some reason, TiVo didn't record SNL on NBC and Terminator on Fox. I really like the new Terminator :( What's up with you, TiVo? You suck, SOB.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-11324060317710364032008-10-14T21:13:00.003-05:002008-10-15T08:53:03.833-05:00

Apparently, Roksonaki band is returning to USA with a tour in 2009 thanks to Helen and her Mosaiqa Records label. I wrote about Roksonaki band. Their last concert was past Spring in Washington, DC. It was all acoustic, and different from what I heard before. Yesterday, I was watching My Own Worst Enemy show. It's an action TV movie with Christian Slater. It's funny that Slater and Ruslan from

Argynnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-1298416802184513082008-10-13T08:00:00.001-05:002008-10-28T10:23:08.832-05:00

It's 47894.The list of all MSA codes and their descriptions.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-63158244998590724352008-10-13T07:57:00.001-05:002008-10-13T07:59:23.080-05:00

Metropolitan West Asset ManagementRMBS ResearchOctober 2008By Brian Rosenlund, CFASenior Analyst, Structured ProductsProjecting Home Prices – We show that despite its shortcomings, the ChicagoMercantile Exchange’s Housing Futures contracts can be used to model investors’expectations of future home prices.> Deal Analysis – We recommend using a combination of the all-in OFHEOMetropolitan

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-29417370420503140062008-10-11T18:57:00.000-05:002008-10-11T18:59:05.948-05:00

The Times Higher Education - QS World University Rankings identified these to be the world's top 100 universities in 2008. These institutions represent 20 countries with Israel represented for the first time. Whilst North America dominates with 42 universities, Europe and Asia Pacific are well represented with 36 and 22 respectively.1 HARVARD University2 YALE University3 University of

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-46815242868406896372008-10-11T18:49:00.002-05:002008-10-11T18:52:28.226-05:00

AIG's gallows humor gives bankers a laughSat Oct 11, 2008 4:52pm EDTWASHINGTON (Reuters) Credit markets do not function. Why not, because the word credit comes from credibility," AIG Vice Chairman Jacob Frenkel told a group of top global bankers at a lively luncheon where he took a philosophical view of the upheaval in financial markets"The left side of the balance sheet has nothing right and the

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-30786781621721918212008-10-03T23:37:00.003-05:002008-10-03T23:39:07.137-05:00

Discovered today in youtube: Ava Leigh. She's from UK and sings reggae type songs.It's interesting to see a stream of good female singers from UK: Duffy, Whinehouse, Leona Lewis.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-59874687850742161922008-09-27T13:03:00.004-05:002008-09-27T13:14:05.829-05:00

I bought it with a rebate, and it was very cheap, or maybe even free. Of course, it turned out to be a bad UPS. It stopped working as UPS very quickly, couldn't handle a lightest load. Now it turns off immediately when power goes off. I replaced it With TrippLite OMNI PLUS 1000VA. I had one TrippLite OMNI 1000VA for a couple of years, worked just fine so far.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-41801574905024299062008-09-25T09:48:00.002-05:002008-09-25T09:54:31.234-05:00

When one of your connections in LinkedIn add a new connection to his/her network, LinkedIn sends a connection update. I get more connection updates these days. Some people who were not using LinkedIn at all, all of a sudden, started expanding their networks like crazy. I noticed this started happening around the time when $700 bln bail out plan was announced. I wonder if this is an indication of

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6490051.post-89994365425462560332008-09-25T07:39:00.002-05:002008-09-25T07:42:24.381-05:00

I think that we'll have at least 100 banks fail within one year. I'm going to come back on Sep 25 2009 and see if I was right. Actually, I have a higher number in my mind, but 100 seems to be almost certain.

Argynnoreply@blogger.com0