Happy New Year 2013 posted on 31 Dec 2012 19:46
What I did this year:
- Had my second internship at MSR. Was fantastic. Met a bunch of awesome folks there, both old friends and new ones. Michael, Gena, Sveta - you're the best!
- Attended my first ICSE. This is some sick stuff, mates. The sheer amount of brains gathered in one place is staggering. Deals quite a blow to your self-esteem as well.
- Tried out C++11. First time using C++ as a main language in a serious project. Variadic template magic may and will fry you. Other than that, it went better than I expected.
- Reconnected with a couple of old friends. It's amazing how that can just happen out of thin air when you least expect it. But it happened, and I'm very happy for that.
- Missed yet another two of my friend's weddings. Why doesn't anyone like to have a winter wedding for a change, huh?
- Did a talk about Scala at ADD 2012. Went horrible from the presentation point of view, but was very refreshing non the less. Note to self — do practice a little bit more…
I'm positive I missed a lot of other things, but that's not the point.
The point is — Happy New Year, mates! May the new 2013 bring you even more stuff to do, places to visit and fun to have!
Cheers!
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marat-akh.in posted on 24 Jun 2012 06:00
Just a small (and kinda useless) update - on some strange whim decided to buy myself a new domain. And did it - this blog (or whatever) is now accessible under marat-akh.in. Cheers!
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Life Update - MSR Again posted on 15 May 2012 07:13
Yup, that's right, mates, I got accepted to MSR for an internship. Again. And I started here at Redmond. Today. Woot-woot!
This being my second time here gave me a nice edge compared to all the first-time interns. Was really nice to know how everything works and what you should and should not do right from the start =)
But the project ideas my team has are … very challenging, to say the least. The possible impact is quite big as well, and that's good. Makes you actually wanna do stuff and all =)
I won't promise you to do regular updates, but will try to do so. Cheers!
PS: Weather here in Seattle area is fantastic at the moment. Hope it stays that way till August =)
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ADD 2012 posted on 12 May 2012 13:30
Hey mates, just finished my talk about Scala and Java EE at ADD 2012. Loved the discussion very much, was a very enjoyable conversation. Thank you all for coming (if you're reading this).
And if someone missed the talk and wants to fix it, here are the slides.
UPD: Here's video of the talk itself. Feel free to bash on it:
- here
- on vimeo
- on ADD
- anywhere else.
I personally think the talk was horrible, what about you? =)
UPD2: Комментации на русском приветствуются! (добавлено по просьбе анонима)
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Happy New Year 2012 posted on 31 Dec 2011 20:19
OK, so without any ado, Happy New Year, mates!
This year's been really intense and packed with both interesting and … not so interesting stuff. Huge projects done, crazy conferences visited, MSR internship finished, new languages learned, some awards won and many-many more things happened to me. I didn't have a lot of time to reflect on everything and … I like it. Makes you feel alive and kicking =)
I want the 2012 to be even more interesting and intense. And I wish the same to you, mates.
Happy New Year 2012! Kanpai!
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Finally, I'm back! posted on 19 Sep 2011 15:39
Hey there, I've finally found some time to write a small blog post with the latest news… As you'd have already noticed, I've been really busy in the last couple of month with my internship and everything… And I skipped a couple of posts I should've written… *whistles* But anyways…
It was really hard and intense, but … rewarding and interesting at the same time. Doing the stuff I did. MSR is a great place to be, and I really mean it. I never considered Microsoft as a possible employer, but after these 12 weeks I totally changed my mind about it. Everything — the environment, the people, the projects — is fantastic. You can fully focus on what you want to do, and everybody is more than willing to help you. I'd lie if I said I don't want to return there. Right now. I WANNA GO BACK!!! Ahem, sorry…
And the US are so much different from Russia that I don't even know where to start. To give you an idea:
- USA: paying for excess luggage in SeaTac airport. Less than 60 seconds, done by VISA. Nice and easy.
- Russia: paying the customs fee in Pulkovo 2. About an hour of some slow-mo bureaucratic stuff, cash only. ATMs don't work or don't have enough money in them. What I'm supposed to do in this situation, I honestly do not know.
And that scales and applies to almost everything. I'm no "Russia hater", but I can see the harsh reality when it's in my face. And I perfectly understand that the US have their own problems, it's just that … The difference in average amount of "problems per day" here and there is overwhelming…
Oh well, I'm used to this. No problem. And they do say that "the grass is always greener on the other side". But in some cases, this is true…
Not to end this post on a bad note, I'm alive and kicking! Excited and inspired! I even wanna do something on my Ph.D research (which is very unusual for me)! To sum it all up, if anyone of you is thinking about possible internship options, do apply for MSR program. It is totally worth it. Every single moment of it. Every one of those 7,257,600 seconds =)
PS Expect some photos from me in the nearest future… If I'm not lazy enough… =)
Tags: blog msr news philosophy
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Redmond, WA - 3:9 posted on 10 Jul 2011 05:50
Just some small random updates =)
- What I really like around here is that almost every bureaucratic thingy we have uses computers to the fullest. Every application form is printed out with your data in it, and you only have to sign it. Considering my horrible hand-writing, that is a huge win for me =)
- Just went for a so-called PuzzleHunt today. Was really fun, but most of the puzzles were heavily English-oriented. And I, as a non-native speaker, couldn't do a thing about it. We managed to solve some stuff, but didn't get the final one. Oh well, hope I'll be here next year for a rematch =)
- Starbucks rulez. Period =)
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Redmond, WA - 2:10 posted on 07 Jul 2011 05:53
Status update, yay!
- The Independence Day was CRAZY! Somehow I remembered the Airborne's Day — a lot of crazy people shouting crazy stuff and doing crazy shit =) The craziest folks were the officials — several billion dollars went BOOM in the fireworks. But it was totally worth it. When I make myself post the photos, you'll see what I mean by that.
- Will Evans is coming to MSR. For those of you who's not into CS (I guess that's about everybody who's reading this), he's one of the world's leading researchers in clone detection. Really exited about this opportunity. Oh yeah, baby…
- I know it's a little bit strange thing to hear from someone who went to MSR on his own accord… But I already hate MSVS and TFS. This whole thing is too damn complex and rigid. Git to the rescue — had to adopt double repo strategy to make development less painful =)
- I've got over 200 TV channels here. And there's nothing to watch =)
And a question to those who actually read this =)
- MacBook or Thinkpad? And please elaborate why =)
Till next time!
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Random thoughts... posted on 27 Jun 2011 05:48
Here goes:
- They've got a machine that takes coins and updates your credit card account. I want one!!!
- The high-and-mighty AT&T can't even stream internet radio stable enough… Yuck…
- Donuts at 50 cents per item are… AAAAAARGH…
- Why is it they love surveys so much? Already had 3 surveys sent to my home about the quality of service in different places I've been to. Nasty…
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Redmond, WA - 1:11 posted on 26 Jun 2011 07:14
So, a week done — eleven weeks to go. A status update, so to say =)
First of all — GET A CAR! I made a huge mistake when decided not to get a driver license a couple of years ago. 'Cause in the US you either have a car and don't have any problems… Or you don't have a car and have all the problems in the world =) The whole country seems to be tailored around having a car. The shops, the infrastructure, the cities themselves… You get the picture =)
Second — all Americans are addicted to discounts. I already have 4 discount cards, several personal accounts and an inch thick stack of coupon offers in my trash bin =) This is simply crazy! Don't see the point in all of this. But — on a side note — some things here are sooo cheap compared to prices back in Russia =)
Third — for apparent reasons I can't say much about what I'm currently doing at MSR, but I can tell you that it's really interesting. Surprisingly, the overall feeling is very similar to what I'm used to in my University, but a couple of things are simply done better. And we have free drinks of any kind =) Maybe we'll be able to use this experience =)
I'll try to think of what else to tell you… But for now — bye! =)
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