Prologue: The beginning of the story We should never underestimate the stupidity of governmental institutes. The Russian government is not an exemption of this rule. Some time ago they started (and lost) the battle with internet messenger Telegram. If you don’t know what Telegram is, it is just another messaging
Tag: Ivan
Hard words: Condescending and mansplaining.
In my opinion, any language is a living tool that reflects the current culture and mindset of its native speakers. There is a well-known anecdote about 50 words to describe snow in Aleuts language, which is actually a myth. But anyway any language follow the society needs and adapts in
Paretto principle
The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, is a theory maintaining that 80 percent of the output from a given situation or system is determined by 20 percent of the input. Take a look on this picture, looks fun isn’t it? The Pareto Principle is very simple, yet
Reading “What happened”
What Happened is a 2017 book by Hillary Rodham Clinton about her experiences as the Democratic Party’s nominee and general election candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 election. I can’t bear reading the whole book, but some passages are quite interesting. For instance: “To make sure
The cost of your mistake
I got a new project recently that related to money transaction and conversions. And of course during the first week of working I already made a lot mistakes. What is new in those mistakes for me is that because we don’t have “staging” environment and I have to work with
Strange and posh type of coffee: kopi luwak
When I was In Vietnam once in the restaurant I saw ridiculously high price for a cup of coffee. I was surprised, and asked a waiter why is so. She answered me it’s “Kopi Luwak”. At that moment this explanation didn’t help me much, but a few days after I
Old New Year
On the night to Jan 14 we have the celebration Old New Year in Russia. How New Year can be old? It’s simple if you are in Russia. The trick is that before 1918 in Russia we had Gregorian calendar, which differ from Julian calendar. It shifted by two weeks.
The happiness
With my family I live for a while in a new place, in a new country as well. Everything is different, and there are so many things to notice. So does my older son. He has thousand questions every minute and I can’t answer many of them. Near to our
Ice slides
The winter is coming here, so it’s a good time to tell about our traditional fun thing that we have during winters. In my place, we don’t have lack of snow, on contrary, we have as much of it that we like to utilize the excessive amount of it for
Hammam
Once I wrote about Russian banya, it’s the most popular type of saunas in my place but it’s not the only one. Other popular types are Finish sauna and Hammam. Hammam origin is Turkish or Arabic. I never visited a hammam in those countries so it might be that I
Greenhouses
Russian climate isn’t good enough for gardening. We have a few warm zones, but in general we are pretty Northern Country. Many regions are not suitable for agriculture at all, the rest we call “risky for agricultural”. Risky means you can’t predict the harvest. Sometimes it’s good but often it
Hidden threat
Happily, we don’t have too many menacing animals in our place. There are no poisoned scorpions, blood-thirsty crocodiles, no noiseless panthers and even birds are peaceful. The only candidates to scare people are wolves, bears, and tigers. Most of them are tired of Russians and that’s why they avoid calm