the dimka's livejournal

msk

2008-04-22T12:36:43Z

i am in moscow. i really wanted to right a long big entry about my all this sf-to-msk move, but there is no time for it now (((
on arrival they lost my suitcase, but finally i got. for a while i thought that it was just stolen.
you know, minimizing possessions makes the remaining ones a lot more valuable, and precious.

moscow is nice, i am happy here. weather sucks, people are grim and everything is expensive. food is great.
amazing combination of ultra-modern and old soviet-barbarian, often at the same time. in subway they ask to get in and out of train-cars faster.
and as always i don't have enough time for all the things i want to do and all the people i want to see.

btw, at&t suck big time, i finally got my US phone to work, but i still have issues with connectivity.
and that is on top of the totally outrageous prices.

next week i will be in minsk

i really like new york

2008-03-31T18:46:45Z

adobe photoshop express

2008-03-28T07:06:57Z

adobe made a big step today.
online version of photoshop express.
it is very very limited set of features and tools,
more like adjustments. no brushes ((((
photoshop.com/express

this is important because it is a very symbolic - a traditional desktop tool is getting to be a web app!
relevance of operating systems, local personal computers and large hard drives diminishes, and all new brave world of webapps is coming to eclipse it. it will take years. so did the pc revolution. and now we are going back to mainframes. it is a spiral, or i'd even say fractal. borganization and freedom are heading our way.

p.s. i got to boston, did not have much time to see people yet

TED

2008-03-17T10:10:53Z

technology entertainment and design (ted) is a conference, they gather world greatest thinkers and doers let them talk and make it available for us to watch.
all at ted.com

I’ve watched many many of them, and i really deeply moved virtually by all of them. their motto is “ideas that worth spreading” and it is very true.
some of them really moved me and changed the way i see the world and my place in it.

go to ted.com, you can watch all their videos (usually speakers given 18 minutes),
conference is happening once a year, in march in california, and 2008 one is just over and i realized that i should have written about it a long time ago.

i think you should explore things there your self, but here’s some of my favorite talks

youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM - about choices
youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY - about education
youtube.com/watch?v=r1RsfRHU0uU - about new life
ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39 - about avoiding aging
blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php - about brain
ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129 - about images

just explore it

my new computer

2008-03-13T07:54:29Z

i got a new computer.

apple macbook pro 15” 2.6ghz, 200gb 7200rpm one.
but i did not have time to fully configure it yet. so leopard is sleek, yet it has some issues with russian in ichat and firefox.
it came with 10.5.2 out of the box. i also got a remote control and a wireless mouse.
other upgrades and the rest of accessories will be here later.
so far it feels really fast and very cool. multi-touch trackpad rules. unboxing an apple product is a pleasure.

for me it means that once barsik (the comp) is fully configured i will be a lot more mobile
and that is exactly what i need right now,
because I am on the move. i got my tickets to east coast too.

i am flying red eye to boston, arriving on march 27.
boston, nyc, maybe d.c., dates are not set yet.
back in sf on april 7

happy march 8

2008-03-08T21:56:22Z

recent

2008-03-04T11:23:16Z

i made those for my friends, who i love dearly

“what’s right ah?”

“ulechke”

“older sister’s worries”

“take it”

“waiting for kimora”

images are clickable, and they are at my flickr too

carpe diem - march 1

2008-03-02T00:30:22Z

sf > moscow

2008-02-25T23:46:54Z

check, check, check.
I gave 30 day notice at work,
I gave 30 day notice to my landlord
and I got a ticket (It is almost one way one, but I will be back in SF in august, but no one knows for how long)
so i will be in moscow on april 16th, at 18:40

in addition to that i will be on the east coast in the end of march.
i still have not decided how (driving cross coutry or flying)

and after i get to russia i will travel too, i have many thought for destinations, but many places in russia including siberia, china, mongolia and middle asia for sure.

their blueberry nuts

2008-02-24T10:49:43Z

wong kar-wai is my favorite director. and almost a year ago he made a new movie - my blueberry nights. i still have not seen it. and not because i don’t want to. i actually real do. but all those greedy, stupid, retarded, narrow minded studios don’t really want to let people just watch movies legally and reasonably convenient in the same time. they want me to wait few more month before they get their act together and let it finally run in movie theater across the usa and even longer before they release it on dvd and maybe years before i will be able to just download it and watch it the way i want it. and the thing is that i do not mind paying. i do want to pay a reasonable price, that is a bit lower than the price of one ticket in theaters. let’s say $6-7 would be reasonable. but what the fuss, even $10 is ok. and i want it available when it actually is made, not years later. and i want it in the format of my choice. i do strongly believe that if it was all done in a user friendly manner people would be happy to pay and get it legally. maybe not all the people, but many enough so that all the people who actually was making movie would make more money than they do now. when radiohead tried it they made twice as much btw.
but of course that is not happening. and it is not happening because they are greedy, stupid, retarded and narrow minded.
yet, i can watch it now.

it is available online, and it is available in divx and the price is great - it is free to watch.
it am not even sure if it is legal or not.
i found it accidentally because they use an image from my previous entry about it. so people who host it are really cheap bustards. they still the movie, and they even still the bandwidth for the movie poster. yet they are making it available for people - this is controversial part. some might say that it is stilling and it is bad. yet we might look at it as un-excapable result of studios being greedy, stupid and blah blah blah. so in a way the owners of content twist the hand of potential viewers so bad that the only way they can do it is not the way everyone benefits from. think who is a bad party here.
the second twist in it is that movie is available on a russian site. oh, those bad russian hackers (hello leo, give me a call one day! you are not such a bad cow after all). and the movie is dubbed. what an irony. after watching all the kar-wai’s films in cantonese that i don’t speak yet, finally came the one in english, but it is dubbed in russian. yack, the quality of translation and dubbing makes me want to puke. i could not stand it more than 5 minutes. i had to stop. why can’t they just do subtitles? what’s wrong with subtitles? they think that people who like his movies don’t know how to read or what?
so the whole situation is a big parade of stupidity, including me doing all that.
and please don’t ask me for the links please.

bm ticket

2008-02-09T07:51:53Z

previously at the-dimka.livejournal.com/tag/bm or dimka.com/burningman

msyahoo

2008-02-02T23:40:13Z

since many many people asked me already what do I think about microsoft's bid to buy yahoo

the leader of the losing market wants to buy a loser of the winning market.
yeap, it is a lose-lose kinda thing.

miles smile

2008-01-31T03:56:35Z

they say that knowledge brings sadness, yet they say the more you know the more you understand that you know nothing, thus ones you go to a new level of understanding and discovery of great unknown you can start giggle with joy. ha ha ha

then again theory is the surface and practice is the meat (and laziness is the blood).
biology biolody. and it is all very bloody.

all my jackets are black and all my hats are funny

I saw cows and horses last thursday and orange trees and grapes and oil pumps, snow and palm trees, all within 15 minutes.

silly feeling that getting a new computer will enable me to do more than i do now. true or not, but i am getting a new macbook pro soon and it will make me a bit more mobile.

also this morning the very last dream i saw was like a fellini's movie. it took place in a big white room with no windows. several of my ex-girlfriends came together, formed a circle and started to blame me for tons of different things i have done or i have not done. pretty depressing and it made me feel really bad. and in the end one of them started to tell me about her new boyfriend. then it got to be really overwhelming and i woke up.
so i when i got to my computer to check e-mail, there was a message from that guy. totally unrelated, yet not a nice feeling anyway. funny stuff, i guess i probably do not care for any of that any way.
yes, that's right. big bold feeling that i really do not care for most of the things right now and that is a clear sign that i am ready for a big change.
nothing is forever any way.

BM 2008 Tickets are on sale

2008-01-16T20:21:26Z

tickets are on sale and there will be no tickets at the door.

*- Burning Man Festival (BM) is a counter culture and arts festival, happens once a year in black rock desert in nevada.
more:
www.burningman.com - official website
the-dimka.livejournal.com/tag/bm - my livejournal entries about it
dimka.com/burningman - some of my photos from the black rock city

george carlin

2008-01-15T12:33:04Z

most people in the states heard about george carlin, and it’s likely that they even have listen to some of his stuff. i had too, but i never really passed beyond few dirty words jokes. those are somewhat funny, but nothing to write home about. then i got a bit more of his stuff when i was checking references in zeitgeist movie.
wow, there is some serious and really deep stuff, open minded critical thinking mixed with cynical humor.

so i dig deeper. it turns out there is tons of his videos are available on youtube and google video.
you can of course go to georgecarlin.com and order his entire work retrospective on dvd too.

here's my favorite bits (at youtube):
about saving the planet
about american system
about “pro-life” and abortions
about religion and ten commandments

and those are the parts of several his bigger shows (here is a couple at google video):
video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-8683046848311681223&hl - 63 min
video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-7068677712290004125&hl - 74 min
etc. etc.

lots of dirty language and jokes, but very much to the point even when it is gruesome

?

2008-01-11T10:50:44Z

ttttttttt tt tt tt

2008-01-08T02:30:23Z

1. i don't know about you, i am sick of the Notes in flickr, they just suck big way and ruin my impressions
2. there is an abstract rythmic melody that stuck in my head, for a lon long time. i can't relly perform it in any way, but ones in a while it surfaces. but! i found something very very similar at last. and i listened to it maybe a 100 times already. [hint,currentmusic]
3.
4. pic - auska

epiphanies

2008-01-02T11:36:10Z

if i would try to describe my 2007 in one word it would be epiphanies, i just had so many of them, very profound and deep. i still have to decide what to do about them and what way my life should go futher.

2008

2008-01-01T04:59:13Z

all of us are capable, smart, artistic, talented and beautiful. we can get anything, be anyone, do anything and the only limiting thing is the box that limits our imagination and that box is constructed by us.
be free and get out of that box, just do.

happy new year!

couple days ago we had a little photo-shoot,
that’s me by zhuchkin

maybenot

2007-12-26T13:46:53Z

question everything!
yes indeed, question everything including this very appeal. but then maybe you should question everything, but not everything or not all the time, or not in a certain conditions. i noticed that question everything is very very different from denying everything, yet many people often treat them equally. anyway, there are many nuances even in this very saying.

new in science, unified theories, resonance project and nassim haramein

2007-12-23T08:24:12Z

science is advancing, sadly most of the people do not really pay attention to the fundamental science. and that is in the period of really big discoveries. so big that would change the way we understand everything. big changes happening in mathematics, with e8. but even bigger things happening in physics - one of the key areas of our understanding of the world.

So, there is modern physics - that is what we study in schools (perhaps) and that is what written in books, and scientific community is supporting it. and there is a lot of research is being done, but mostly it falls within the current system, just refining detail. but science is science and it is full of people who are trying to understand missing pieces. and there are tons of missing or inconsistent or assumed topics all over the place. one of the really big ones is lack of link between quantum theory (that has to do with tiny things) and general relativity (that deals with mostly huge things, speed of light etc). Plus there is gravity, time, dimensions, origin of big bang, dark matter and all sorts of things that are not really well explained. thus there are lots of efforts to explain and combine all that - those called unified theories. Usually they are very complex and constantly found wrong.

but, there is one new unified theory that i strongly believe is drastically better. and not just better - it is one giant step forward in our understanding of things.
one of the differences is that it can be explained in a simple, easy to understand terms to an average educated person.
they call it “the resonance project”. and they have a video presentation on 4 dvds, where Nassim Haramein explains it all.
naturally it sound really long, but it is not because it is so sophisticated, but because it is presented an a very basic level and it covers huge part of physics and it is called Crossing the Event Horizon.

obviously you are not gonna run and buy those dvds after reading this, let’s be realistic. what i am suggesting is just watch a shorter presentation by nassim haramein, he is an amazing speaker. and if you get interested you might what to dig dipper. i actually think that this is revolutionary and it is huge. unfortunately there is very little information about it on the web.
so here’s what i found for you:
theresonanceproject.org - this is the their official site. it has tons of info and a couple of video clips.
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4907540922643918266 - this is short presentation at google video

this is truly fascinating

moornwodedispu

2007-12-20T07:32:25Z

hi-res, flickr, hiero, жж, dd

zeitgeist

2007-12-14T11:41:13Z

a guy (who goes by name Peter Joseph, but I am not really sure that it is his real name) made a movie - zeitgeist, it is a 2007 non-profit web documentary film hosted at google video, it is 116 minutes long and it is free.
he is not a professional movie maker, not a professional historian, as far as i understand he is just a guy, who decided to do something about things that he cares.

I first heard about it in july, and it was a lot of discussions at the time, but I never got to write about it then, yet recently I was talking about it a lot and thus I decided to make an entry.
according google’s statistics it was watched more that 6 million times, but you can watch it in parts and on youtube as well, yet there is very little talk about it in the mainstream media.

the film has 3 parts, and for me they look really related, yet many people claim that those are three separate subjects. maybe.
nevertheless, it has lots of facts, and even if you do not believe in their accuracy, it still has a lot to make you think and reevaluate your believes. not that many films can claim that.

i do not want to force you to watch the entire 116 minutes, but if you care to talk about it you should, and if not, i can suggest you to watch just the first part
the greatest story ever told

part 1

the entire movie can be watched at the official website zeitgeistmovie.com
or at google video video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5547481422995115331&hl=en

i do not agree with many things in the film and i do agree with many things in the film, you milage may vary. my main concern is that it does in part the very thing it criticize - makes things look scary, and it simplifies many very big subjects like reasons for the wars and issues of terrorism. and i suspect that some facts maybe not accurate or taken out of context, but it is just a view of one guy, and should be taken as that. what is more important is that things around us very fishy, and government is not transparent about them. war on terror, as well as other wars like war in iraq or war on drugs are very profitable for few and very bad for most of us. if fact big corrupted governments that deprive its people from civil liberties are bad for most of us. and it is not the usa problem, it is a global problem. and when democracy in one country suffers, the entire world is set back.
so, the movie is an attempt to explain some of the popular among rulers ways to fool people.

instead of talking about different parts of the movie, i want to tell you about related materials.
1. http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/transcript.htm - interactive transcript (right now it is not complete)
2. if you moved by the film you may want to do something. Peter Joseph could not sit still, he made this. it is up to you to choose what you want to do.
3. ron paul is one of the very few sane politicians and he is trying to address many of the issues. he is a republican, yet he is bill maher’s hero.
4. jacque fresco is another guy with sane ideas
5. mouseland is a short animated story
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist_(video)
7. most of the reviews and critiques about the film are lame. they just “yeah, yeah, yeah” praises or unsubstantiated bashing, sometimes done by people who did not even bothered to watch it. the most sane negative critique is by jay kinney at boing boing

globalization is upon us, and everything is related. and all those topics from the movie (including federal reserve bank and 9/11 and iraq) still effect you, even if you do not care about politics or even if you live outside the usa.

compunews

2007-11-20T10:42:11Z

there are lots of things happening in the world of computers and electronics,
but I will briefly summarize on a simple level what really caught my attention.

microsoft windows dominate the market, and in reality it is still a monopoly (even thought they are loosing their grip), but it still influences the quality negatively. yet the situation is getting better and things are turning around, because there are some real alternatives out there.
windows, linux and mac os x — are the operating systems, and perception of our computer experience defined by them, however internet brings us a layer of abstraction and soon we'll feel it even more.

thus, news by topics

mac
1. in the world of macintoshes apple inc, is the player and they came out with new major version of the operating system - leopard and now they already released and update 10.5.1. there are tons of new things in leopard, they cool, useful and really new, but personally I'd wait perhaps till january, until they polish rough corners and all major apps get updated to work right with it. also
2. there are tons of rumors about ultra-slim, super portable laptop to come out from apple. they also point to january. and they expect a new desktop (mac pro) to come out about the same time.
3. ntfs on a mac can be used (read/write) with google's macfuse, but this new app will help you make that transparent.
4. adobe blessed us with a photoshop update and new version of lightroom.
5. native instruments released and free audio player capable of mixing mp3 tracks - Beatport SYNC

so providing rumors are true, I came to conclusion that my new computer should be a laptop and it looks like that ultra-slim one can be the one. i hope i will like it.

linux
1. walmart (with is still the biggest store in the world) started to sell a desktop computer for 200 bucks, but with linux instead of windows. and people like it.
2. taiwanese computer giant asus release a ultra-portable laptop, that is weigh less that 1kg, with a flash hard drive, for 400 bucks, also with linux and people also like it a lot.
3. finally they started to sell those news grabbing one-laptop-per-child notebooks (they idea is to make a cheap computer that will be affordable in poor countries, so people there do not fall behind, with deepening digital divide), while the price is higher that originally was planned, it is decent. people in developed countries can buy a pair, keep one for themselves, while donating the second one for a child in a poor country. these will cost you 400 bucks. not bad at all. and they also run linux and people also like it.

yet it really not because linux got so much better, but more because applications are moving to the internet and linux can let you use them simply enough and cheaply.

adobe also announced plans to make all they apps available as web applications. this is wicked cool and phat, but we won't see it any time soon. never the less soon we will see photoshop express. usable, with many limitations, but from the browser.

amazon got in the spotlight with the realease of new electronic book reader device - excelent news.
i do have a similar gadget already.
the most important aspect of those is the screen and supported formats. amazon seems to get it right.

communication
1. really soon we will know who will be the real players in the new spectrum of wireless communications. and it looks like world is unifying behind the same frequency, with america and asia from new and europe a bit later. it things work out well, it will give us a lot more wireless internet options, that are faster, affordable and with a superb coverage. google is ready to soil things with big bucks in the upcoming bidding, and some other big ones like apple and verizon and others as well.
2. google and 30 other companies announced new unifying mobile phone software platform. in a way it is like a linux for mobile phones. they call it android and it is based on linux. in general it is a good idea, but now it is still a vaporware and it will stay that way at least for a year. and even after that there are no guaranties that it will succeed or even make a dent.
3. google (yes them again) finally started to offer imap for gmail. and now mail on iphone is way more usable.

i also want to add, that i am still very happy with my iphone and will repeat that this a revolutionary step forward, even though it is not that obvious now.
do you know what i really miss on iphone? the ability to sync everything everything to the computer. right now there is a backup, but it is not the same thing.
do you know what I like the most about iphone? the ability to sync things with to/from the computer, and ability to access it on the go, in a portable (in a pocket), usable manner.

there is a new fashionable term - steampunk is a fantasy, and it an imitation of stylistics of industrial revolution and steam machines era with some modern functionality. things like that we could find in an old sci-fi movie. but it exists, even now. in a form of attempts to add advanced functionality without feasible means.

and the last thing
few days ago tema lebedev boldly stated on his site that google is much more evil that microsoft. yeah, sure, and cat is the most dangerous beast. this is just some showing off. yes, google is a big corporation and they do have ambitions, but there are rules and some companies follow them and some not. most notorious offender is microsoft. it is not that easy to measure positive and nevative deeds, yet labeling just like that is easy, but foolish. (yes russians like doing that, so do reactionaries too). artlebedev studio makes superb website designs, some other things are cool, but not as robust. their news-grabbing keyboard is the example of modern day steampunk. also he claims that global warming is a myth. and for a long time was brainwashing web designers in russia that meta-tags for setting page encodings are evil.
we don't have to listen to everything he says, especially if he talks about things outside of his expertise.