Hooray for the bleeding edge

September is here. Fall is in the air. Also in the air: the fact that I have been putting off this post for too long.

Probably I have been putting it off for two reasons:

Reason #1. No one wants to get in trouble for something they posted on the Internet (unless you are from Azerbaijan, apparently).

Reason #2: It was no big deal - just me, on the train, with several hundred portraits of a US President that I was able to pull out of the Moscow ATMs. What could be such a big deal with that?

Anyway, I travel a lot on the Moscow-Kharkov train, second-class, much like the berth you see in the picture above. It's "firmenniy" which means it's better quality than most, and because of this, a little more expensive.

Many of you know how to get through customs on the plane; register, check-in, and then you get checked, poked, prodded, disrobed, xrayed, etc etc etc and still have to make it to the plane on time. With trains, it is the opposite: you get on, even a minute before it leaves, you travel, you make it to the border, and then customs gets on the train and pokes prods checks etc etc etc. And they have to hurry it up, since they have to get off the train before it starts moving again.

In other words, you have plenty of time to hide something if you need to.

Just because you are a foreigner on a Russian train does not make you the most suspicious Jack in the Box. The conductor is usually running the scams, so he/she is checked over the most thoroughly of all. After that, it would be you. Well, not quite, after that it would be you if you are from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan. And then you.

So actually, if you already traveled on the train a few times and don't look too scary, the customs people tend to be in a rush and just give you a sideways glance and you are on your way.

And with that, I find myself in Kharkov with all the money to buy and apartment. How does a friegner buy an apartment in Kharkov, anyway?

.. to be continued ...

Russian compositor Igor Krutoi and Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky team up to create a video that can only be called Conan the Barbarian plus Flash Gordon plus hmm, I don't know, a really gay night at Studio 54? Oh, those Russians...

Umm, I am sure I will run into someone I know on this blog someday.

I have a suggestion for our President on how to boost economic growth without spending a penny: Free the H-1B’s.

Lots of comment gravy on this thread.

Beyonce came to Ukraine to open the new football stadium in time for Miner's Day and she got paid $1,5M for THREE SONGS. Work it Beyonce!!!!!

Astronomers have spotted a hot, heavy Jupiter that circles its host star with an orbital period of less than a day. We've either lucked out and caught it shortly before it plows into its host star, or some of the parameters that we've been feeding our models of planetary evolution are badly off.

Geeky astronomy fun!

Hmmmmmmmm. I was not sure this was such a good idea until I saw the trailer. Could be a winner.

Ha ha, a response to the housing crunch...

the computer science landscape has dramatically changed in the nearly four decades since Steve Cook presented his seminal NP-completeness paper "The Complexity of Theorem-Proving Procedures" in Shaker Heights, OH in early May, 1971. Computational power has dramatically increased, the cost of computing has dramatically decreased, not to mention the power of the Internet.