It has been a while(2 weeks or so) since the last meeting and post as well. Time flies these days, as it seems like 2 days for me. Might be a sign that I need a vacation :). But, anyway, the reason for this post, as always, is to give our respected readers, who, for any excuse, did not make it to the meeting an overview of what has happened there.
So, as planned, we started of with some ramblings about pretty much nothing. And continued this beloved exercise till (the rest of the registered people came) || (it was 15 mins past the scheduled time). Next Jim took the lead to tell us about the plains, churches, photo-cameras and ways to interconnect them in one glorious hacking attempt. It was very interesting to get to know some non-standard ways of observing things and applying devices. We expanded onto discussing challenges and benefits one might have if hacked other devices like cars or infrastructure computers. This really looks like a very prospective area to explore (a least for me now). If anyone has smth. to add to this topic we warmly welcome those at our meetings. And again, thank you Jim for such a nice presentation!
After Jim it was "my time". I had a thesis that I used to get a std::answer for during a set of years, namely "Is it better for one to ear more, or learn more". In other words - is it more wise to spend your free || leisure || extra || you-name-it time trying to get more knowledge on smth new, or rather do some more work in order to get some more money, as we all know money is such a resource,which is best described with
while(true){
me.needMoreMoney();
me.earnSomeMoney();
me.spendSomeMoney();
}.
So again, for the question was - do I need to inject other functions there, or it's better to modify implementations of the functions, or the algorithm is already complex enough? And I needed some talk on that as while I kept hearing the aforementioned std::answer again and again I was finding controversial arguments recently.
The outcome of the discussion actually was very interesting for me as it was a lil bit unexpected and I learned about other people's experience with this. This is of paramount importance for me now as the choices made now will have major impact on my future. I hope everyone managed to get smth out of this discussion.
To sum up - that was a great evening and I can't wait for next one to happen. Stay tuned and do not forget to register once the event is announced in this blog.
/vic.
9/7/11
Meeting on Tue, Sept 13th
Hello!
As summer passes by we are returning to work from our holidays. I am very happy to see many of my friends who attend the club back in their offices and this gives me the opportunity to announce our upcoming meeting which will take place next week, on Tuesday, Sept 13th at N-iX office!
We also hear your thoughts that 6pm is very inconvenient time for you to attend the club, so we decided to move it to 6:45pm.
For this Tuesday, we have following topics in our pockets:
- Viktor is going to talk in philosophical manner about life strategies.
- Jim has prepared the presentation on a mixture of aircraft models with photo camera hacking.
- And I'm (Ivan) going to talk about Critical thinking if we will have time for that, which is unlikely :-)
The meeting will take place @N-iX office, but because of time change we probably will change the meeting room. Follow the blog for the updates.
And, as usually, do not forget to register here.
7/30/11
Meeting on Tue, Aug 2nd
Hello everyone!
Time is rattling fast by us and our next meeting is to happen soon :-). Location and time is unchangeable:
Date: Tuesday, August 2nd
Time: 5.45pm
Location: Storozhenka 32, floor 7, room 702
As usually, you may bring topics for discussion with you or participate in discussion of the following topics:
* Learn more or earn more? by Victor Halitsyn
* Techie talk: how to talk over the phone by Ira Zayats
If time allows us, we could also talk about mind maps or socket programming.
We are looking forward to seeing you on Tue, but do not forget to register HERE first! :-)
Time is rattling fast by us and our next meeting is to happen soon :-). Location and time is unchangeable:
Date: Tuesday, August 2nd
Time: 5.45pm
Location: Storozhenka 32, floor 7, room 702
As usually, you may bring topics for discussion with you or participate in discussion of the following topics:
* Learn more or earn more? by Victor Halitsyn
* Techie talk: how to talk over the phone by Ira Zayats
If time allows us, we could also talk about mind maps or socket programming.
We are looking forward to seeing you on Tue, but do not forget to register HERE first! :-)
7/29/11
ITRamblins second meeting is over.
It has been a week since the last itramblings meetup already... what a week... But the event is still fresh in my mind so I would like to quickly go through what happened for those who did not manage to get to the meeting although registered. So the meeting started as usual with Ivan greeting everyone(except me - I was late) and as we had quite some new people in he continued with the brief intros ab. us. After such warm-up I continued with a discussion about G+, hackathone and stuff.
Now, to tell you the truth - that was a really interesting and pleasant experience for me. It was a really nice opportunity to test the discussing and presentation skills along with interacting abilities. Keeping in mind that on itrambling everyone could enjoy such a practice on its will makes me even happier. That is really good IMO. Talking to people occasionally while making coffee is a totally different thing, and it won't even stand a chance with keeping to the topic and carrying out a discussion "in public". This is hardly compared even with a presentation - while doing the presentation you have a 'safe route' which stick to and, if you did your homework, 95% of the questions are anticipated(and of course you can skip 5%:D). Here the rules change, or should I say - disappear. I can try to stick to the route but you definitely do not know where this route would lead you in a discussion. To sum up I would really recommend trying out such an experience.
Getting back to the agenda next we had a very interesting presentation from Jim on hiring process in the US. There were lots of questions and tricky moments so it looked like job hunting is a pretty common thing to do among those who came to the even ;) Well keeping in mind that our community is quite young both in terms of existence and age of people attending it, I guess it's normal. Discussing all the peculiar aspects of the recruiting process we went a lil' bit off the clock, but noone seemed to very much worried about that.
We concluded with a summary from Ivan as usual, hoping for the next meeting to be even more interesting and vibrant. For those planning to attend it the registration link has not changed and can be found here. I hope to get the Jim's presentation and some photos for this post later this week so check back if you're interested.
UPD: photos
/Viktor.
Now, to tell you the truth - that was a really interesting and pleasant experience for me. It was a really nice opportunity to test the discussing and presentation skills along with interacting abilities. Keeping in mind that on itrambling everyone could enjoy such a practice on its will makes me even happier. That is really good IMO. Talking to people occasionally while making coffee is a totally different thing, and it won't even stand a chance with keeping to the topic and carrying out a discussion "in public". This is hardly compared even with a presentation - while doing the presentation you have a 'safe route' which stick to and, if you did your homework, 95% of the questions are anticipated(and of course you can skip 5%:D). Here the rules change, or should I say - disappear. I can try to stick to the route but you definitely do not know where this route would lead you in a discussion. To sum up I would really recommend trying out such an experience.
Getting back to the agenda next we had a very interesting presentation from Jim on hiring process in the US. There were lots of questions and tricky moments so it looked like job hunting is a pretty common thing to do among those who came to the even ;) Well keeping in mind that our community is quite young both in terms of existence and age of people attending it, I guess it's normal. Discussing all the peculiar aspects of the recruiting process we went a lil' bit off the clock, but noone seemed to very much worried about that.
We concluded with a summary from Ivan as usual, hoping for the next meeting to be even more interesting and vibrant. For those planning to attend it the registration link has not changed and can be found here. I hope to get the Jim's presentation and some photos for this post later this week so check back if you're interested.
UPD: photos
UPD2:
UPD3:
7/18/11
New meeting on its way!
Hi all,
Just as a reminder I am glad to inform you about the coming IT Ramblings meeting happening tomorrow July 19-th at 17.45 Storogenka str. 32, Lviv. Those who still haven't registered are kindly welcomed to do so HERE.
We have plenty of things to talk about and we will be very glad to see ya all again, so join in and have fun. Preliminary agenda includes:
* Thoughts on google+
* Hackathon
* Interviewing process in U.S.
* Mind maps
Later..
Just as a reminder I am glad to inform you about the coming IT Ramblings meeting happening tomorrow July 19-th at 17.45 Storogenka str. 32, Lviv. Those who still haven't registered are kindly welcomed to do so HERE.
We have plenty of things to talk about and we will be very glad to see ya all again, so join in and have fun. Preliminary agenda includes:
* Thoughts on google+
* Hackathon
* Interviewing process in U.S.
* Mind maps
Later..
7/5/11
The first public meeting
The first public meeting of the Lviv IT Rambling went great!
There were 12 folks that for first meeting is quite well. Half of people from N-iX and about the same are freelancers or employees of other companies.
Below I have posted brief notes and few photos:
I
van Pesin said about the idea of the club.
It seems that idea of the Club didn't frighten anyone:)
Next, we had fun telling about yourself. I said something like "I'm not programmer or a system administrator; I'm an IT philosopher. So I'll tell how to make a presentations and how to use time efficiently. For example if you calling me Wad (not Vadim) you save at least 1 full second every time."
I must say that so started this Jim -- he set this motif. Jim very cheerfully told enough about his wife (Ukrainian woman) and describe past work as "previous life."
It is interesting that I also called bachelor time as "the previous life."
I do not know why but N-iX folks settled on the one side of the table (closer to the sweets and chocolate)
The rest somehow on other. This is bad - still few divides the participants of event I guess.
Jim was the second (and last). He got so carried about storage solutions and
especially arrays raid that stole my speaking time too :)
But it was interesting to listen.
I was not comfortable to listen unfortunately. It seems that I'm not ready yet for this - a lot of listening without any subtitles :(
But other club members liked it, especially as Jim gently shook folks to discuss and solve problems.
In general, the idea of Lviv IT Rambling group seems to be not only brilliant idea but also quite viable thing. And I think that it should be copyed by other. The main thing for that is to find an English native speaker in your city.
There were 12 folks that for first meeting is quite well. Half of people from N-iX and about the same are freelancers or employees of other companies.
Below I have posted brief notes and few photos:
I
van Pesin said about the idea of the club.It seems that idea of the Club didn't frighten anyone:)
Next, we had fun telling about yourself. I said something like "I'm not programmer or a system administrator; I'm an IT philosopher. So I'll tell how to make a presentations and how to use time efficiently. For example if you calling me Wad (not Vadim) you save at least 1 full second every time."
I must say that so started this Jim -- he set this motif. Jim very cheerfully told enough about his wife (Ukrainian woman) and describe past work as "previous life."It is interesting that I also called bachelor time as "the previous life."
I do not know why but N-iX folks settled on the one side of the table (closer to the sweets and chocolate)
The rest somehow on other. This is bad - still few divides the participants of event I guess.
Jim was the second (and last). He got so carried about storage solutions and
especially arrays raid that stole my speaking time too :)But it was interesting to listen.
I was not comfortable to listen unfortunately. It seems that I'm not ready yet for this - a lot of listening without any subtitles :(
But other club members liked it, especially as Jim gently shook folks to discuss and solve problems.
In general, the idea of Lviv IT Rambling group seems to be not only brilliant idea but also quite viable thing. And I think that it should be copyed by other. The main thing for that is to find an English native speaker in your city.
7/1/11
First meeting's ramblings
So the "IT Ramblings" meeting has taken place and I want to share some of my impression with everyone disregarding whether you attended the event or not. I assume that if you're reading this post - you might be interested ;)
It was very nice, to begin with. As planned we(about 15 people) gathered on 29-th June and started the event at around 6 PM (GMT+2). First we had a brief administrativa by Ivan followed by a short introduction from everyone so that people could get acquainted and also get a general understanding of whom they are going to deal with for the next 1.5 hours. Turned out that each of the attendees had its own purpose which was interesting to get to know about.
After this part Ivan naturally continued into the "News" section telling about IBM, cloud and other big IT things in our life. That generated quite a lot of rigorous discussion, which we were all pleased to participate in. As the news were sorted out Jim continued with an informative and interesting rambling on data storage concepts, best practices, etc. This was both interesting and new(IMO) to almost everyone. Being quite engaged into the talk we completely ran out of time, but I think no one was disappointed as we all had a great time. Some pics from our meeting:
It was very nice, to begin with. As planned we(about 15 people) gathered on 29-th June and started the event at around 6 PM (GMT+2). First we had a brief administrativa by Ivan followed by a short introduction from everyone so that people could get acquainted and also get a general understanding of whom they are going to deal with for the next 1.5 hours. Turned out that each of the attendees had its own purpose which was interesting to get to know about.
After this part Ivan naturally continued into the "News" section telling about IBM, cloud and other big IT things in our life. That generated quite a lot of rigorous discussion, which we were all pleased to participate in. As the news were sorted out Jim continued with an informative and interesting rambling on data storage concepts, best practices, etc. This was both interesting and new(IMO) to almost everyone. Being quite engaged into the talk we completely ran out of time, but I think no one was disappointed as we all had a great time. Some pics from our meeting:
6/27/11
Planning meeting
Meeting was taking place at N-iX office. First, we were discussion introduction part of our session. Then Jim presented his topic on disaster planning and recovery.
Viktor presented his topic on searches - as appeared quite discussion-triggering one.
Ivan suggested topics on IBM longevity phenomena and maturity of cloud services for production use.
Wad made a small presentation on how to use mind mapping.
These seem to be the main topics for discussion on Wed Jun 29th. We still have around 10 places free, so your are welcome to register.
6/18/11
Brief introduction with people hosting the group
Hi all,
with this post I'd like to introduce to you people who are hosting the group. So, here we are:
Jim:
I am an American who is greatly enjoying living in Lviv with my Ukrainian wife. I treat my current life as a self-financed sabbatical from work in technical training for a computer manufacturer then a storage manufacturer. Most all my work has been in large enterprise environments.Interests outside computer science are traveling and history.Look forward to seeing everyone at the meetings.
Ivan:
Well, my history of IT-obsession goes far back into early 90s: the first computer I played on was actually a microcomputer VAX (CM-1420), I wrote my first program in C on another VAX which run under OS VMS. Since then my life is inseparable from computers. Currently, my field of expertise is system administration, especially of Linux systems. My fixation about open source triggered interest in English and now these two items rank very high in my pantheon of interests.
Zhenya:
I was born on a Wednesday and there are 12 days till my next birthday on which my cake will have 26 candles. I am idealistic and must feel useful to be happy. The main contribution I make is that of advice, service, and ever present support. Once my grand mother used the word "meeting" instead of Ukrainian "нарада" describing why I should leave earlier. That time I understood English is not simple foreign language. And at last, but not the least I believe, life's just a big chewy bone and happy to meet the same people.
Viktor:
So, I'm Viktor and my primary 3 passions are high tech, travelling and English. There might be a few other 'primary passions' but in this world 'nothing lasts forever' :). I'm always open to discussions regarding those three at least. One can find more about my IT background on LinkedIn, the rest, I think, could be discussed during the meetings. Se ya all there!
Wad:
I'm Vadim Mashkov. I was born long time ago and far away from here. I call myself 'IT philosopher' as I am trying to understand why we need computers, mobile phones and other high-tech gadgets. I love free software, reading (especially science fiction) and history (investigate historical events). Some time ago I fell in love with Lviv girl so I moved here about five years ago.
Ira:
I rock-climb, dance and develop software for fun & profit. When not working, I travel to remote countries, preferably poor but with spectacular nature. During travels I load myself with heavy reading, anything from software development to Seneca the Younger. Reading list suggestions are always welcomed
6/12/11
First meeting on June 29th
Our first meeting will take place on June 29th @17.45 at the N-iX office (elevator works till 18.00). Expected duration: 1-1.5 hours.
Agenda:
- Welcome - Administrativa
- Worm up: tech news discussion
- Discussion: disasters and data safety
- Discussion: using mind maps
Location: Storozhenka 32, floor 7, room 702
Contact: (if you have problems getting into the office, otherwise mail is preferred) Zhenya Kondryn, +38O5O7273II7
Limitations: We are limited to 25 seats. It is also advisable to have at least upper-intermediate level of English.
Registration: Registration is required, because the list of people attending the meeting must be passed to the guards.
Should you be in a desire to contribute as a presenter or host, please send the topic you would like to lead a discussion on to our google group: http://groups.google.com/group/lviv-it-ramblings
If you have any other questions please do not hesitate to write an email to itramblingslviv {at} gmail.com will try to reply asap.
If you have any other questions please do not hesitate to write an email to itramblingslviv {at} gmail.com will try to reply asap.
Welcome to IT Ramblings
Hello and welcome to IT Ramblings Group Blog!
IT Ramblings is a group of people who share a common interest both in English and information technologies. The idea of our group is to exercise our English speaking, listening, comprehension, and presentation skills in the field of IT.
We gather on a monthly basis and discuss different IT-related topics in a form of:
- expressing our opinions on recent tech news
- discussing generic problems and working on a solution
- giving presentations on various IT-related topics
We welcome new people to join us in our activity. We do it for our own fun and hope that people who participate will have fun as well let alone the benefit of communicating in English.
This blog contains information on when and where we meet, what are we going to discuss, feedback perhaps, etc. You can also join our google group where we usually discuss our agenda, topics, and so on.
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