Volodymyr Obrizan: personal website - 23

Shitty Kharkiv

2016-09-23T07:35:00+03:00

There’s this public page called “Shitty Kharkiv.” The main content of the page is how everything in our city is bad: “And you just keep thinking Shitty isn’t really that shitty.”

This brain cancer started infecting others too. A public page called “SHITTY KhNURE” appeared. I never stop being amazed that people still join these groups full of second-rate shit.

People create a negative surrounding reality for themselves and live in it. They convince themselves of it and try to convince others. It’s not Kharkiv or KhNURE that’s shitty. These people’s lives are shitty: their mom is shitty, their dad is shitty, their friends are shitty, their job is shitty, their university is shitty, their city is shitty. Everyone has an acquaintance like that who constantly whines about how bad everything is. You want to get rid of him as quickly as possible, say goodbye and leave before he starts retelling his shitty life for the umpteenth time.

Guys, you stepped in shit and you stink.

Stay a dumb moron

2016-02-23T14:32:00+02:00

The author of the best math textbook got shortchanged at the market. Don’t learn math. Stay a dumb moron.

Zombifying Schoolkids

2015-10-23T22:55:00+03:00

Zombifying schoolkids (applicants) is university slang for the process of persuading schoolkids to apply to one faculty or another at a university. The process is called zombification because, as a result, the schoolkid is supposed to really, really want to apply, without any rational argumentation whatsoever.

— Son, why do you want to apply to the Faculty of Computer Engineering at KhNURE?
— Well, because this guy came by, told us all about it in a cool way, I want to, I want to, I want to!!!

I went against the system. I’m going to give a talk for schoolkids called “University Does Not Teach You to Be Successful.”

Everyone really wants to get a higher education, to get into a university. But is it always a guarantee of achieving success?

Unfortunately, or fortunately, a university does not guarantee success in life, but with the right approach to education and self-education it significantly increases the chances of success.

Applicants, and often students who are already studying at a university, often have questions:

— Is it enough to simply attend all the classes and get an “excellent” in the subject in order to find a good job?
— How do you make a list of short-term and long-term goals while studying at university?
— How do you reach the goal and not lose your way?

That is exactly what we’ll talk about at the open meeting of the IT-Univer Smart Club for schoolkids

The IT-Univer Smart Club for schoolkids is holding its first open meeting this year.

The meeting will take place on October 31, 2015, at 3:30 p.m. at 4 Krasina St. (in the premises of the Computer and Technology College of NTU “KhPI”).

Amazon Earns $2 Billion a Quarter on Cloud Services

2015-10-23T15:11:00+03:00

Amazon has posted its third-quarter 2015 income and expense report.

Revenue from sales of Amazon Web Services came to $2 billion. For the same period last year, it was $1 billion. Net income for Q3 2015 was $521 million; for the same period in 2014, $98 million. That is, turnover doubled in a year, and profit increased fivefold.

Turns out renting out servers is a bit more profitable than selling books and everything else.

LSD Advertising in the Kharkiv Metro

2011-10-23T20:30:00+03:00

This week I filmed an ad for an LSD TV.

The kids are thrilled with LSD. Especially the one on the right.

Plagiarism at the University

2011-10-23T19:50:00+03:00

Time goes by, but the fashion for trashing teachers, universities, and education officials (in our case always just one — the minister) never passes. Like, the first are old farts who read lectures off a sheet of paper from 40 years ago and don’t know shit; the second are organizations, sort of like a club, for officially dodging the army; and the third are just ghouls methodically killing education in the country. In short, everything is bad. Oh no, not everything: thank God the ATM at least works fine and pays out the stipend.

Today let’s talk about plagiarism (so-called “copy-paste”). To start with, let’s define the term.

Plagiarism is the deliberate appropriation of authorship of someone else’s work of science or art, someone else’s ideas or inventions [Wikipedia].

Plagiarism is a very serious problem in the domestic education system. And things are so far gone that not everyone is even capable of realizing that this problem exists. As far as I could tell from personal conversations with students, quite a few do not understand that borrowing the texts of papers is, first, unethical (essentially, it’s theft), and second, prohibited by university rules.

I understand perfectly well that it’s very easy to type the topic of your term paper into Google and copy a ready-made text, a good 10 pages right away, from the first link that comes up. A few more such runs through Google — and the term paper is done.

Let’s explain the concept of plagiarism from one more angle. If plagiarism is an “unfair appropriation of results,” then the grade for such work cannot be considered fair either, which follows from the definition. Let’s consider this model of a term paper. Suppose that the norm for a term paper is a report of 40 pages of original text (excluding the title page, table of contents, sources, appendices), graded on a 100-point scale. Obviously, if a student personally prepared a paper of the required length, one that raises no objections from the expert committee, then that student receives the highest possible grade: 100 points. All fair, no one has any comments?

And what happens if a student borrowed half of his work from other sources? Well, he was short on time or got lazy and yanked 20 little pages out of a book, a reference work, or Wikipedia? Let me remind you that an essay, a term paper or thesis, a dissertation — these are authored works; all the work should come from the author.

The work has been completed in full: 40 pages of text are there. But is it fair to give the highest grade here? I support the principle that the grade should be reduced in proportion to the share of original material. Half the text was copied? Then the student will get 50 points for the work, assuming there are no objections to that original green part. Let me remind you that 50 points is a D under the totalitarian grading system. A weak C starts at 60.

It may seem that I am very strict and inventing some ridiculous rules for students. But then let’s turn to the experience of that country which is considered the ideal, and where some people strive to move. In a private conversation, a friend who is already there sent me a link to the policy on cheating and plagiarism at one of the departments of the University of Berkeley. Below is a close translation of several points:

Department Policy

Copying part or all of another person’s work or using prohibited sources are all forms of cheating that are not allowed. A student caught cheating will be warned by the instructor, and the following rules will apply:

The instructor may: a) require the work to be rewritten; b) give the work a D or zero points; c) in cases of serious misconduct, give a D for the entire course.
The recommended action for cheating on an exam or in a term paper is item 1.c (two points for the course).
The instructor is required to notify the student and the dean of the department in writing of the fact of cheating, the actions taken, and the student’s right to appeal.
The instructor is required to keep copies of any written work that serves as evidence of the violation.
The dean of the department is required to notify the vice-rector for student affairs (in the original, Director of the Office of Student Conduct — translator’s note) of the violation, as well as the student’s name and the actions taken by the instructor.
The rector’s office (The Office of Student Conduct — translator’s note) may hold a formal hearing on the violation and impose a penalty for the violation.
The department will file paperwork to expel those students who are caught cheating again.

So you download a term paper from the internet, and you immediately get two points for the course without any sort of proceedings. And then you copy something somewhere else, and you get a boot up the ass. All according to democracy, not according to lies!

And we’ve only talked about plagiarism. There are also the problems of cheating on tests and exams, making up experimental results, and defending nonworking (or not even created at all) programs or models.

Student! Want to change this world — start by changing something in yourself.

Computer Help for Women

2010-11-23T11:41:00+02:00

Nice setup the guy’s got. He fixes computers exclusively for girls.

I wonder what “Hairy diCUBE” is? Is it popular with the target audience?

Kharkiv Metro Questionnaire

2010-11-23T10:54:00+02:00

Yesterday I read in the news:

Voting in the metro is taking place for the first time, Viktoria Belan, press secretary of the municipal enterprise Kharkiv Metro, told MediaPort. The purpose of the event is to find out whether Kharkiv residents are satisfied with how the subway is run.

The questions were drawn up by metro employees. According to the press secretary, the enterprise set up a special commission that developed both the form and the content of the questionnaire. In the subway they thought about the format of the sheet: at first they wanted to add a “Your opinion” field. But they decided to settle on 6 questions.

mediaport.ua

I hurried underground, I wanted so much to read these questions.

After reading them, I felt like giving detailed answers.

1. Would you like to change the metro’s operating hours from 6:00 to 5:30?

No, I would not. I want the metro to start running at 7:00 or even 8:00. So people don’t make it to work in the morning. Naturally, the last train should leave not at 00:10, but at 23:00 or even 22:00.

2. Would you like to reduce the interval between trains?

No, why? After all, the 12-minute interval we have now suits me just fine.

3. Would you like to improve the quality of cleaning in the metro?

No, let it be filthy as shit. Somehow that feels more familiar and cozy.

4. Would you like to improve the technical condition of the stations and passageways?

No, let the whole thing fall apart, and let a light fixture fall off the ceiling and hit me on the head.

5. Would you like to increase the number of service staff in station lobbies?

No, probably no more are needed. The metro employees who already carry napkins and ballpoint pens through the cars and play guitar are enough for me. And that employee who for something like 15 years now has been unsuccessfully trying to cure 4-year-old little Masha of polio should probably be sent into retirement.

6. Is it convenient for you to use the electronic card?

No, not at all! Leaving home half an hour earlier so I could hang around for 25 minutes in a 50-meter line for tokens was much more convenient for me!

Most likely, there was also a seventh question here: “Would you like to pay 3 UAH for a higher-quality service?” I’m sure the most perceptive respondents figured out for themselves what this survey is leading up to. There were also no questions like: “Do you want us to kick the vendors a kilometer away from the metro passageways?”, “Do you want there to be no advertising on the walls and in the cars?”

Thank God all the entrepreneurs went to the Maidan yesterday, so the passageways were open and clean. No old books, no hunks of lard sold by weight, no brooms, no slippers.

All in all, I was surprised by such a “Captain Obvious” survey. After all, the problems with our metro are obvious and known to everyone.

Everyone to the stadium!

2010-07-23T11:26:00+03:00

Today at 9:00 PM there will be a Metalist — Dynamo match. It’s probably the most high-stakes match of the season. More than 38 thousand tickets have already been sold. A full stadium is just a little bit away. Five of us are going tonight — I’ll bring the guys from the neighborhood. :)

Great fan art:

On Choosing a Research Topic

2010-07-23T10:33:00+03:00

Let’s continue our discussion, which we started back last year. As a reminder, the topic of the conversation is “How a young person can survive at a university.” Today we’ll talk about choosing a topic for research work.

Let’s make clear right away that we’ll be talking about choosing the substance of the work, not the title that will appear on the title page. Sometimes the title of a paper changes often. For example, last semester, over two weeks, the title of one student’s term paper changed three times. And I was already mentally prepared for the fact that by the time of the diploma defense, that title would change another couple of times.

Let’s start with the fact that a student or graduate student, as a physically healthy and sane young person, should be curious about the things happening around him. This is confirmed by personal conversations with students, as well as by notes on Twitter and in blogs that I read. This is where the topic of the work should come from—the personal interest of the person researching it.

Ideally, the topic of the work will be interesting to you and to your academic advisor. You can probably already guess that this only happens in fairy tales. Let’s look at what can get in the way of such an ideal situation.

Any piece of work has several parties interested in its being done:

The student.
The academic advisor.
The state.

The student’s motivation is to study some new technology, programming language, or method.

The academic advisor’s motivation is to involve the student in carrying out a separate part of a large project. The academic advisor’s tasks are: a) to define a set of term-paper topics within a single discipline; b) to assign the task and advise on the course of its completion; c) to evaluate the results of the work.

The state’s motivation is to train specialists in the required fields to work at local enterprises. The state’s task is to determine the list of disciplines in which course projects are done, and also to pay the advisor and the student/graduate student for the work.

It’s clear that everyone’s level of motivation and involvement is different, and changes with time, place, and participants.

A common conflict is a student’s misunderstanding or rejection of the academic advisor’s assignment. Some reasons for this:

the student may not understand the essence of the major he is studying in (for example, his major is “specialized computer systems,” but he dreams of developing websites);
the student may not see the big picture of the problem (for example, the student has been assigned to program an algorithm for diagnosing defects in a system-on-chip, but the importance and place of this algorithm in the microelectronics design and manufacturing cycle have not been explained);
personal conflicts between the student and the advisor.

In the first case, the student needs to understand that by enrolling in a particular major, he is signing up for at least four years of studying and passing all the courses listed in the curriculum. In addition to classes in subjects of interest, this also includes a large number of subjects that will seem uninteresting, boring, stupid, and sometimes completely unrelated to the major. One interesting way to solve this problem is a compromise between the assigned topic of the work and the student’s wishes.

Here’s an example. One student was brought in to develop tests for a compiler. At the start of the new semester it turned out that he had to do a term paper on databases. Initially, our plans did not include any tasks where databases could be used. And we decided that the student would develop an automated compiler testing system in which the tests and test results would be stored in a DB. Thus, the student’s interests (working on compiler testing) and the state’s interests (a database term paper, which is included in the curriculum) are fully satisfied.

Another example. A student is studying in the “specialized computer systems” major, but in practice he does web design and web programming. The solution is the term-paper topic “Online Textbook for the Discipline.” Everyone wins from this. The advisor gets online lecture notes and teaching materials for the discipline, and the student applies his knowledge in practice and gets a good grade.

In the second case, the student must make it absolutely clear to the advisor that it is unclear why this topic is important and relevant. And demand explanations from him. In parallel with this, time should be spent studying the issue independently. You need to ask yourself: will I be able to apply this knowledge in the local labor market? And in the global one?

In the third case, both the advisor and the student need to remain professionals. Despite personal incompatibility, the student needs to be disciplined, diligent, and bring the work he has started to completion. Attempts at sabotage will not lead to anything good. In this case, the student will waste time (when he could have studied and done something new); he also risks getting a lower grade and a damaged reputation.

It may happen that during your studies the topics will change. The term paper was on one topic, the bachelor’s thesis on another, the master’s thesis on a third, the dissertation on a fourth (and then you’ll get tired of the fourth one too, and change it to a fifth). This is normal. There are known cases when people have distinguished themselves in different fields. I’ll repeat: it is important to approach each topic as a professional, and to succeed at it.

Recommended reading

How to Succeed in Graduate School: A Guide for Students and Advisors by Marie desJardins.

Prototype of a Parallel Compiler

2009-06-23T10:49:00+03:00

Have you ever thought that the bottleneck in developing anything is the programmer? No matter how fast you type on the keyboard, modern compilers still compile much faster. Few people know that program optimization is not about making programs run quickly on the processor, but about making it comfortable for the end user to work at the computer. I offer you a prototype of a parallel compiler that compiles the source text at the very moment you are writing it.

Initially the source file is empty (see the figure below), and the object model is empty in exactly the same way.

As you type the program text, the compiler analyzes the entered text in parallel threads, checks the syntax, and creates the necessary internal objects (see the figure below). For example, including header files is a completely self-contained fragment of the program, and the compiler immediately connects the necessary namespaces, identifiers, and so on. This is reflected in the console with the message “Libraries successfully included,” and the corresponding lines in the editor have a nice little green background — “everything’s ok.”

While code is being written, the compiler offers various hints. In this example, while the last line was being entered, the compiler encountered an unknown identifier. A message is immediately written to the console suggesting that this object be declared locally, globally, or as a parameter. The compiler also reports that the definition of function f1 has not yet been completed. The corresponding lines of code are highlighted in nice little red. The figure below shows the result of automatic object definition.

At the moment the last lines of the program were being written (see the figure below), the compiler determined that the current source file contains no errors and is complete. The console reports that the file contains no errors, as well as information that function f1 has been successfully defined.

Such a compiler does not need a “Compile” button, because syntax analysis, construction of internal objects, and generation of object code happen in background parallel threads. Since 2- and 4-core processors are so popular now, why not give programmers a present like this.

Answers to some questions.

Question: won’t this slow things down, won’t the hard drive be constantly chattering? Answer: if it is designed and implemented competently, it won’t. This is not about fully recompiling the entire file when the next character is entered, but about incremental compilation, where a block, a line, or even an expression of the source file is recompiled (or compiled further). These fragments are small enough to be processed in a matter of milliseconds.

Question: but what do I do if I’ve got an already finished project? Answer: when opening the project, start compiling it in the background, showing progress in the console.

Question: where can I download such a compiler or development environment? Answer: I don’t know of any such compilers. This is only an idea of what would be convenient from the user’s side. Such functionality is partially implemented in IntelliSence in Microsoft Visual Studio, where objects are analyzed on the fly and unknown identifiers are underlined.

Question: but if there’s no program, where did you make the screenshots? Answer: the screenshots were made in Visio 2007.

If there are any more questions in the comments, I’ll update the post and add the answers.