Declaration

Ugh. This blog is dying without comments. Sadface.
So, look around and you if like anything, feel free to ask.
Also, I will gladly take your notes on grammar and stuff, since refining my English skills is one of the purposes of the whole blogging business.

Also, please use THIS  post for random questions, suggestions and proposals, and keep other posts' comments subject-related

Only two things are infinite...

 Was traversing through some very complicated code today. Insane mess of programming patterns multiplied by object-oriented ego. Its like a fucking zebra. Some parts are brutally complicated and others are just silly. Like this:



    protected function callbackExists($names = array())
    {
        $exists = array();
        foreach($names as $name)
        {
            $return = (bool)$this->getCallBack($name);
            if($return)
            {
                $exists[] = $return;
            }
        }
        if($exists)
        {
            return true;
        }

        return false;
    }

Seriously, if I had a dollar every time I see "if (X) return true; else return false;" idiom...

Existential sadness and stuff.

As the situation in Russia is becoming more and more grim every day, I begin to doubt I will ever will make it out. The plan was to get working experience and save some money and in about 1-2 years start my journey to greener pastures. Alas, the timeframe might be requiring reconsidering.

The economy of the state is degrading, making my earnings and savings less valuable every week. At this rate 50 rubles for a US dollar by the fall is a realistic projection. Which effectively will cut my finances in half. Politically and socially, our ruler is simply insane. I watched the news yesterday - big mistake. The rhetorics, the craziness of it all... I feel if I do not spring from this place within a year, I might be never able to.

Other news. I am getting closer to finishing my virology p2 course. Completed quizzes 10 and 11 today - which means there is only one quiz left and one final exam after it. I am looking forward to earning this certificate - I believe I can go for "with distinction" as well.

One more week of my life is gone, so is one more year.

So, so. I am pretty sick. Its the third time this season. Sad.

Luckily, it is 3 day holiday - I might be OK to go to work on Tuesday. My killing head aches and fever did not stop me from ACHIEVING. So here is my report on my deeds of today.

1. Coursera. Quiz 9 on Virology p2. It was pretty easy. I still don't quite understand mechanics and model behind "Muller's ratchet" effect, but I decided to just roll with it. May be it will hit me some day.

2. CodeSchool. "jQuery: The return flight". I've earned this badge today. The concept of promises and Deferred is kinda brittle in my head, but I think I got the gist of it. Damn CodeSchool. 1000 rub per month is not to be given lightly. I really should intensify my progression though the courses there and save some money.

Node.js

Well, this weekend was no different from the other ones - a huge disappointment. As per usual, I had numerous plans as to what I will do, and practically none of them came to fruition.

I suck. I suck very much. I managed to get one thing done though - I have completed a CodeSchool course, namely "Real-time Web with Node.js". Took me half a day and did not teach any immediately applicable skills, but I got the gist of it and some modern web technologies along the way. All in all - not a complete waste of time.

I feel like time is running out for me, and I am too slow, barely advancing anywhere. Of course, it is not objectively truth. Looking back at the last months I can see how significantly my situation had changed. Yet somehow, I expect even more of myself - and thus am dissatisfied. v_v

Virology p2 W 7

Yes, it is another report of me successfully completing a quiz. My "deeds" are fairly shallow, not to mention boringly look alike. And I am quite sure i butchered previous sentence with some very horrible English.
:( FUCK. I need to pull it together and do something else than my usual "one more quiz" routine.

Virology p2 / Week 6.

Well, I would've not done it today if i was not looking forward to write this post.
In short, I scored 15/15 on week 6 quiz on my 2nd attempt. =_=

New Year's resolutions. 1,5 month late :D

So. Life happened and my laziness got the better of me. Kinda sad and pathetic. Well, to beat the tides, I am starting a NEW series of posts, which I decided to tag "Deed of the day".

The idea is to mark for future reminiscence one or several things I did on a certain day, that I can be more or less proud of. You know, to not feel like a complete useless and meaningless person.

Rules are fairly simple:
1. The posting can be done afterwards (next day, for example) or the same day.
2. The deed must be committed exactly on the day in question. No future planning "I will...".
3. Things I do as part of my job routine do not count. I might do my "proud thing" during working hours, but it must be out of scope of my position's responsibilities.

There. Lets see how fast I will get bored of this one.

Virology p.II, Q 5 and one other thing.

My most notable event today is that I completed quiz 5 for "How Viruses Cause Disease" by Vincent Racaniello, Ph.D.

I got a score of 14.23 out of 15.00 on my 1st attempt, which is fairly good, I think.

Also, I read a book called "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time". It was supposed to blow my mind, but I found it pretty bland. Meh, I just was not impressed with all this autistic mode of thinking everybody supposed to find so very shocking - I think along similar lines myself and its called "logic", nothing special about it.

Code school hatesplosion.

First off, little introduction into what is what. "Code School" is a nice web site that provides you with video lectures and auto-validated test problems on several IT subjects regarding web-development. They have free "take-a-tour" courses and the rest of their content is available for subscription fee.

I must say, while their topics are by no means comprehensive and "full in-depth" analysis, they do provide their clients with good foundation on basics of things like HTML, Javascript and CSS.

Now, few weeks ago I joined the club and became a member of "Code School", eager to get me some of that sweet knowledge. I obtained several great new insights into nature of technologies behind WWW, and enjoyed most of the courses, but some other courses they provide were... not so well composed. :(

There was one so BAD in particular, I exploded into a raging rant after I finally managed to finish it. Naturally, the "Code School" team did not post my review, heheheh. Their entrepreneurial prowess vastly exceeds their integrity, it seems.