Dead Programmer's Cafe

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  • Dark Tower



  • The Great Blackout Of 2003

    For the first few hours I was pretty busy trying to find my wife and photography wasn’t on my mind. After talking to a doorman at the building where she works I realized that she couldn’t find me she took a bus to Brooklyn, I tried to relax a bit and took some pictures since there wasn’t much else I could do. I did not do anything except cropping and adding a border to these photos.

    “Fair, Balanced and Hot”:

    At this point I missed an amazing shot of cooks from a Japanese restaurants carrying home whole plates of sashimi ingredients, but got this:

    Live entertainment in front of the Newscorp building.

    I haven’t seen so much drinking in the streets and smelled so much pot smoke in my entire life.

    Give my regards to power grid engineers.

    Atlas Shrugged.

    Unsuccessfully trying to catch a bus to Brooklyn in total darkness. The battery in my camera died and I missed absolutely amazing shots of a religious Jew reading Torah with a flashlight and of a police Segway. Stupid as I was, I was taking pictures without recharging my camera for about a month.

    Later I joined some of my coworkers back at the office. Executives shared contents of their fridge (I didn’t even know it existed) and stores of promotional items. We found blankets, t-shirts and, amazingly, TV Guide branded flashlight radios. Who knew those could be useful? The radios in the flashlights didn’t work, but we found TV Guide branded radios that did. We had a little slumber party. I shared my antacid tablets with TV Guide president. In the morning we got home via car service provided by the company. Woo hoo!

    I think I should go on a little survival shopping spree. I definitely need a high quality police scanner and maybe long range walkie-talkies. A red Photon light was very useful, I should get a few more of those. Need to stock up on batteries. Oh, and I definitely need to buy some black bakelite phones. Those worthless piece of crap wireless phones don’t work in a blackout of course.

  • International Lets Come Out of the Woodwork and Surprise Michael Day

    Yesterday was International Lets Come Out of the Woodwork and Surprise Michael Day. First my school chum from Odessa contacted me on ICQ and sent me some photos (this doesn’t happen more often than a few times a millennium). Then he gave me an ICQ number of another alumna of our school. Our school was regular good ‘ol School Number 39. But before the Revolution of 1917 it used to be a very prestigious school known as Madam Balen De Balu’s Gymnasium for Girls.

    Interestingly enough both of my friends never even heard about LiveJournal. It seems to me that it’s not very well known in Odessa. That sucks.

    Then my grandfather called me and said that a package arrived for me. From Bangor, Main. From King, S. Well, holy crap! You see, about 6 or 7 years ago I sent a couple of books for an autograph. I received my books back without a signature, but with a note that said that my name was put on a list and that I’d be sent a letter when it’d be my turn to get the autograph. Then the whole story with a van accident happened. I thought I’d never get my King autograph.

    Well, guess what. He sent me a copy of Black House. A little note stated that Mr. King no longer signs books, but to honor his promise to me, Constant Reader, he is sending a book and a signed paper slip. The paper slip states, that even though it’s “computer generated, the signature is real”. The signature looks like an autopen to me, but I am not so sure. It does say “real” and King is a very decent person. Thank you, Mr. King.

  • Deadprogrammerbashi

    I have many role models. But when I was writing that post I forgot about a few people. One of them is Saparmurat Turkmenbashi.

    Saparmurat Niyazov is the fearless leader of Turkmenistan, aka First and Lifetime President of Turkmenistan High Commander of the Army Saparmurat Turkmenbashi. Turkmenbashi is a honorific, meaning Father Of All Turkmen. Few leaders in the history of mankind can come even close to achievements of Turkmenbashi:

  • Ordered all statues of Themis to be remade in the image of his mother.
  • Ordered the horse on the coat of arms of Turkmenistan to be replaced with the likeness of his favorite horse
  • Renamed the month of January into Turkmenbashi, April into Kurban Saltan Edje (Turkmenbashi’s mother), September into Runham (Title of Turkmenbashi’s book)
  • Renamed the city of Krasnovodsk into Turkmenbashi.
  • Changed names of the streets in Ashabad into numbers, starting with 2000 “to symbolize a new era in the life of Turkmen People”. Some streets kept ther names though. Those were Turkmenbashi Street, Turmenbashi’s Mother’s street and Tukmenbashi’s Father’s street.
  • Disbanded Ballet Theater of Turkmenistan because ballet “is not in Turkmen’s blood”.
  • Prohibited sitizens of Ashbad from having more than one cat or dog, thus eliminating the problem of cat ladies.
  • Turkmenbashi is a master detective. After he was told that he survived an assassination attempt from some people in a KAMAZ truck who were armed with an assault rifle, he immediately named the perpetrators. They were VP Boris Shihmuradov, Agriculture Minister Imamberdi Yklymov and the President of Central Bank Hudayberdi Orazov. Overall about 100 people were arrested and most of them convicted.

    Turkmenbashi is probably the most important writer and philosopher ever, comparable maybe only to . He wrote an amazing book called Holy Ruhnama (Book of the Soul). Revel in the genius of Turkmenbashi:

  • “Length of beard is a sign of stupidity. This is because beard grows from the brain. The longer the beard – the less brain matter a person has. Less brain matter – less wisdom. Less wisdom – stupidity.”
  • “Market economy – we are approaching it”
  • “Don’t commit a crime! Change your mind! Change your mind!”
  • “Only a Turkmen can make a Turkmen out of a Turkmen.”
    (I translated these quotes from a post in )

    Ruhnama is compulsory reading for all students in Turkmenistan. In fact, Ruhnama is it’s own subject.

    One day I want to be known as Deadprogrammerbashi. That will be so sweet! But for now I will probably undertake a deep study of Holy Ruhnama and Turkmenbashi’s poetry. I should also start writing poems in honor of Turkmenbashi. I wonder, if I write him a letter with a poem, will he answer?

  • My Star Trek Strategy

    As embarrassing as it is, my wife watches Star Trek. Even the new one with that terrible intro. What I like about Trek is how predictable everything is. For instance, for some reason Klingon ships almost always decloak and otherwise appear off the port bow.

    Like doctors, sailors have their own lingo for spatial orientation. Left/right is easy to remember : it matches port/starboard (l is before r and p is before s). Front/back is stern/bow, and I use a mnemonic “stern face”, as stern is the face of the boat. But ya all probably knew that.

    Well, let’s ask mighty Google:

    “port bow” klingon ship decloak : 59 pages
    “starboard bow” klingon ship decloak 32 pages
    “port stern” klingon ship decloak 4 pages
    “starboard stern” klingon ship decloak 1 page

    Well, it kind of makes sense that they appear from the back, buth why do they favor left? I’d make a special ship with more sensors, weapons and armor on the left and back.

  • Disturbing Weekend Update With Deadprogrammer

    The most useful thing I did this weekend was organizing my papers. It’s kind of like therapy for me. The amount of paper crap that accumulates on my desk is amazing. Junk mail, bills, magazines. Well, I’ll describe my organizational system for you. It consists of three stages.

    1) Intake: basically heaps of paper on all flat and not flat surfaces in my apartment. Care must be taken to hide paper receipts from Tilde the cat, or she’ll file them in her stomach. Receipts are a delicacy for Tilde.

    2) Stage one: a stack of three milk crates with folders inside. There are these special bound folders books that I bought at Staples that have partitions for various bills and documents. There is a special folder where I file stuff for the Tax Man throughout the year.

    3) Stage three: big plastic boxes where I file away older stuff.

    Among other things I found an old box that held Christmas cards and tip envelopes from my job as a doorman. Among them was a card from Professor Samuels. Disturbing, huh?

    Also disturbing is the fact that I learned about the particular Staples where I usually go on office supply buying binges. In the past it used to be a Waldbaums supermarket that burned down in the seventies. 20 firefighters were standing on the roof dousing the fire when it collapsed. The ones that fell in the aisles mostly made it, but 6 that landed on the shelves (yes, yes, those gondola shelves) died (I don’t really understand why, but that’s what I’ve read in Bay News).

    Disturbed enough? No? Well, I recently learned that Bryant Park used to be a cemetery. There.

  • What’s That Smell?

    That’s the smell of charcoal broiled poop (click on a link for a full article with pictures). Crap processing factory about which I wrote before was on fire a few days ago. My mom’s friend’s son bought an apartment in the neighborhood. I told everybody who’d listen that the slightly lower real estate prices in that area of Brooklyn don’t make it a good investment. Well, now he can smell flaming poop.

    Looking back at my old article I noticed that the image that I linked from outside has changed. My blog is suffering from link rot. I wish I had the moral rectitude not to include any outside images and links…

  • Dead Programmer On Coffee

    often tells me that I should move to Seattle. But there is one reason why I would actually want to move there. And that reason is Espresso Vivace.

    You see, this dude Schomer served in the Army as a metrologist. No, not a meteorologist. A metrologist, a person who measures stuff for a living. When he became a civilian again he decided to apply some of his skills to making espresso.

    Good espresso is very hard to make. It’s no secret, really. And it’s rather well known what you need to do to make good espresso. To oversimplify things you need:

    a) very fresh, properly roasted high quality coffee beans
    b) pure water with a certain degree of hardness
    c) a good quality burr grinder with very fine grind adjustment
    d) a La Marzocco espresso maker with perfectly adjusted for water temperature and pressure
    e) a perfectly fitted espresso tamper (such as one made by Reg Barber)
    f) a thick walled ceramic cup
    and
    g) a barrista who knows what he or she is doing.

    Now, the barrista must be able to do the following things:
    a) correctly adjust the grinder and grind enough beans for one shot. This is a tricky trial and error process – the grinder must be adjusted depending on ambient temperature and humidity.
    b) fill the portafilter very evenly with the correct amount of coffee grinds and tamp them down with enough force
    d) make sure that the group doesn’t have enough time to cool down
    e) place the group into the machine and press the brew button, shutting it off after a correct period of time
    f) judge the quality of the resulting espresso shot and throw it out and make a new one if it’s no good
    g) keep the machine in immaculate state of cleanliness

    All of these steps are important. David Schomer came up with a way to measure and reduce already small temperature fluctuations in La Marzocco machines. He also added extra cooling fans to his grinders to prevent coffee from heating up when ground. He custom made ergonomic perfectly fitted tampers. He measured, modified hardware and technique and then measured again, sharing his secrets with the world.

    Right now I am between espresso machines. When my last machine gave up the ghost (word to the wise, don’t buy any consumer grade Nuova Simonelli machines. If they die, you won’t be able to get any service for them) I decided to get nothing other than a used single group La Marzocco. I can’t afford a new one as it costs around 6 grand, but used ones can be had for as little as $1000. One of the problems is of course that it uses 220V electricity, but I’d be willing to pay an electrician to install a 220V outlet for me. Of course some lucky bustard got an experimental 110V machine, but no such luck for me. Besides, I want the real thing. I am horribly tempted to get an ECM Giotto machine that comes recommended by Schomer himself though…

    Nah, I don’t want to leave New York just because there no good espresso places here. It’s cheaper just to make my own. Or even one day I might open the real Dead Programmer’s Cafe here. Maybe if I find a partner..

    This all kind of reminds me – I am all out of coffee beens. Time to order some more.

  • Is That A Rocket In Your Plaza?

    There is a pretty cool Centennial of Flight exposition in Rockefeller Center. It’s on until the 18th of August. Among other cool things they have full scale models of the Wright Flyer and Red Baron’s Fokker (heh, heh) , a backup Apollo bell module, a predator drone, a Harrier II, a Shuttle cockpit mockup and piece de resistance: a full scale model of a Redstone rocket!

  • Two and Four-legged Bomb Protection

    JWZ posted a link about a trained hawk that attacked a Chihuahua in Bryant Park. The hawks were used for scaring away pigeons. The hawks were well fed, but still tried to kill a pigeon or two. And of course they could not pass up Mexican food. Yeah, it’s tough to be a lap dog in NYC. If the swans in Central Park won’t get you, the hawks in Bryant Park will.

    Of course ratbirds are annoying and a health hazard, but in this case we are talking about the exact spot where Tesla fed pigeons. These are the descendants of Tesla’s pigeons! I guess he’d be pretty pissed about the hawks.

    So now it looks like the hawk program will get canned because of the stupid lap dog. That’s too bad – trained hawks are pretty cool. Too bad I didn’t know about the hawks before, or I would have taken pictures. In fact I think I saw the hawk dude in the park, but I thought that he was in for a renaissance fair or something.

    Hawks are not the only critters that keep New Yorkers safe from bombs. On my way to work I pass up a guy with a bomb sniffing dog standing in the area where trucks are unloading in the building where I work. In fact, there are a few of these dogs around. I wonder if they found a single bomb.