New Blog

I switched to new blog: http://blog.solomakhin.net. RSS feed: http://blog.solomakhin.net/?feed=rss2.

Response to Oleg

Oleg: "Russia could stop blaming United States for their problems and look at themselves in the mirror, for a change."

I agree. For instance, it was stupid of Gorbachev to ask Gates to dismiss the case of the Russian teacher who acquired illegal copies of Windows. If Gates dismissed that case, no one will take him seriously.

Why did Gorbachev even claim that the teacher who violated the law will go to Siberia if convicted? Either way you turn it, that statement is dumb. If the punishment for stealing intellectual property is going to Siberia, then that is a huge mistake on the law-makers' side. If it is not, then Gorbachev does not know what he is talking about.

Also it was stupid of the judge to rule that the loss of money from Microsoft is too insignificant to convict the teacher. This just tells everyone, "It's OK to steal if you do not take too much." An intelligent ruling is something similar to "the teacher was not aware that he was buying stolen property."

I realize that some people will see this as an insult to the Russian judicial system and to Gorbachev. It is not. This is merely a cry for us, the Russians, to change our ways.

On Stupid Things

There are many things in our world that need to be fixed. Here is a few:

• Voting ballots should have political views and plans of the candidates instead of their party names. Party names obscure reality.
  
• Regardless of what Russian officials say, bird flu vaccinations in the farms near Moscow are not free. Even if there is no transfer of money, the pharmacies pay by losing the vaccine and the veterinarians pay by working without profit. Same axiom applies to all things that are "free."
  
• Closing the border between Russia and China limits free circulation of cheap labor and goods. Prices go up. Standard of living lowers. Same is true of all borders.
  

Surely there are more. Comment with more things you think should be fixed. Support your arguments, of course.

"Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell

I found this article by George Orwell when I was searching the Web for ways to improve my writing. A library is a better source for this information, but I am too lazy to go downtown today. A few mistakes crept into the transcription, but the meaning remains clear. What George Orwell wrote more than half a century ago is still true today. I recommend everyone to read this.

Greenpeace & Holidays

Very interesting.

Ivies and Others

Looking over the admission requirements for PhD programs in various schools, I found that there is substantial difference between the the Ivie League schools and everyone else. Ivie leagues all have a clear, concise, and brief explanation of what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and what to do in special cases. Other schools, on the other hand, provide huge volumes of information as dry as asbestos: just makes your eyes red and gives you a headache.

Ivies to others are like creme to soda. Smooth and healthy as opposed to bubbly and sweetened. The bad thing is that non-ivies are going to completely distorted directions. "More bubbles!" - they seem to be saying.

I hope that Clarkson is trying to smooth itself as opposed to making itself sparkle as part of its campaign to improve its campus and program.

Second Patch

Fixing a crasher in libgnomkbd last night was not as exciting as having my first patch accepted into Gnome, but still a step in a good direction. Thanks to Eli for teaching me to nag devs about serious problems in their code, and thanks to Sergey Udaltsov for quickly applying my patch.

In other news, Russ Nelson is having a talk entitled "Politics and Technology of the Domain Name System" on November 8th at 6:00pm in ITL. Here is the abstract:

The Domain Name System turns a hostname like www.clarkson.edu into an IP address like 128.153.5.250. It's an important service, but many people have tried to abuse it. They've tried to turn it into a marketing mechanism, or a trademark lookup system; anything but a system of symbolic names for hosts. Nelson will talk about the politics surrounding the Domain Name System. He will also describe how the domain name system functions in a world of millions of hosts and billions of addresses.