Artem's blog and notes
I'm doing fine. Somehow writing monthly lookbacks has turned from a pleasurable habit into a crushing obligation. Sometimes personal rules need to be overturned, so I'm putting lookbacks on hold for the time being. Perhaps I'll try a different format one day.
Investing in a good frying pan and kitchen knife has paid off and made cooking even more enjoyable. No steaks yet, as June was a pescatarian month. I also now possess a pan for tamagoyaki and after many attempts, I'm beginning to grasp how to properly roll it up. Certain albums have been with me longer than I can recall myself. Albums that shaped the way I feel the world around me. Moon Safari by…
May has been a tricky experiment in balancing work and a long journey. My fantasy of living a peaceful life for a month in some warm European city like Barcelona turned out to be a fast-moving trip across the couches of welcoming friends. I managed to be satisfied with my work on nearly all days of the trip, but not all of them had enough energy for social interaction. In Berlin, I became an avid…
You can tell by the date of this lookback that I am busy with work again. After countless interviews, I made a rather adventurous and exciting choice. I now work at Gitar , a small startup founded by my former colleagues from Uber. The position attracted me due to the opportunity to work on developer tools by applying compiler-based techniques, as well as the Rust programming language, which I now…
Saw living legends, Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood at The Smile concert in Brussels. The giant Greenwood impressed by his virtuoso switching between bass guitar, piano, harp, and bow playing on the guitar. I still didn't finish listening to their second album, but I was still delighted by the amazing sound. Now I would like to see Radiohead live at least once. Rainy Brussels didn't give me any…
An exhausting month. After getting sick in the first few days of February, I sat with a cough for the rest of the month. The rest of the days I was either interviewing or preparing for interviews. This is also an exhausting process, which in my case fills up all my free time. Often it's not clear what exactly to prepare for, so I bounce between textbooks, various talks on YouTube, and the regular…
January was a very social month. In Berlin, Valera took me to a Ukrainian place with excellent borscht. Back in Amsterdam, I was happy to see former colleagues from Uber over a few beers. With Asya and friends, we went to the sea in Zandvoort to feed seagulls, wander against the sweeping wind, and then warm up with fish soup. Igor stayed with us for a couple of days – I'm still winning at Mario…
December was about searching for presents and meeting with all local friends, before departing to Berlin for the holidays. I am not that into Berlin as a city, but the amount of good friends there makes it one of the top candidate cities if I ever decide to move. During the holidays we played Tetris, rewatched Home Alone, and visited Munch exhibition. New Year's Eve was spent eating vegan salads…
Having visited Japan for the first time in 2019, I was excited for the country to finally reopen for tourism after the pandemic. Due to the aging population, this didn't happen until September 2023. My annual sabbatical was starting to come to an end and I spontaneously decided to spend the entire month of November in Japan. On my first trip, I had only been to Tokyo and the surrounding areas, now…
Dear friends Kolya and Yasya visited us from Berlin, gave me and Asya a bouldering lesson, and introduced us to the wonderful new world of vegan cheese and vegan ramen. Ramen Impossible in the city center is a delight. With Kolya's help, I managed to climb my first blue route (roughly level 3). We also walked around the NDSM, the artist studios inside the shipyard never cease to amaze on every…
The first trip on the new passport had been to London. No more visa forms where I have to list all my travel history for the last 10 years and answer if I am a terrorist. After going through passport control it felt like doing something illegal and just no one noticed. London is fantastic. A powerful concentration of culture, history, and interesting places. Only after walking along the too-narrow…
Celebrated my 32nd birthday with a wonderful group of friends. I have a hard time organizing big events, but I love being at them, especially if I know everyone there. It's a special joy to introduce friends to each other, an activity I used to find unnecessary before. Artur and Lena invited us to visit them in Switzerland, and our mutual friends Aziz and Nilyu made it to the reunion from…
This July, my first travel-free month of the year, marks 3 years of writing these monthly lookbacks. One more way to capture fleeting time. The word release means publication, but also setting free and letting go. The ritual of releasing a lookback helps me to digest, pack up, and archive the past. There are times when I have to force myself to compose this text, but after completing the work, I…
There are few places you can fly to from Amsterdam and get worse weather. One of those places is Iceland. We had 2 cars, 12 days, a 2500-kilometer drive around the island, a shared playlist of about 200 songs, and a countless number of green apples most of which were fed to the horses. At first, the scenery seems like an intriguingly gloomy version of Switzerland in summer, but pretty quickly…
I met my good friends Aziz and Artur through mutual suffering while working at Booking.com . Our names provided the title for the AAA club . We often met just three of us or invited guests. Since then Artur moved to Switzerland and Aziz to Uzbekistan. This May Aziz invited us to visit and Artur and I were excited to head to Uzbekistan. Tashkent, full of green trees, parks, fountains, and broad…
My first visit to Italy exceeded all expectations. We were in Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Pisa, Bergamo, and Milan. The strength of the impression of Siena can be compared to my first visits to New York and Tokyo. In the 15th century, Siena was a major rival to Florence, but after the defeat in one of the battles, the Florentines forbade the city to sprawl. That's why Siena is perfectly…
Three hours on the train fly by in the blink of an eye, and we're in Paris. Most central Parisian streets are filled with piles of garbage bags because of the ongoing strike. Behind our window is the Castle of Vincennes, where in the early 20th century the French executed Mata Hari, the famous spy of Dutch origin. Industrial scaffolding gives Notre Dame cathedral a sort of steampunk look.…
I had coffee with my friend Razvan and described my feelings about the ongoing sabbatical. He summed it up well, saying that I could now see the future in terms of the projects I have the opportunity to work on. The city I live in is quite important to me. Digging into the history of the neighborhood and the city helps me take my mind off the daily routine and appreciate the world at large. I took…
The day after my return from Berlin, I turned in my work laptop. It was my second and last visit to the Apple office during two years of remote work. I had been fantasizing about quitting and taking the sabbatical for the past three years and finally made up my mind. It wasn't an easy decision, given the high volume of layoffs and the declining economy. But the more difficult the decision seemed,…
For Asya's birthday we went to Middelburg to meet alpacas. These space beasts are relatives of camels, smaller than llamas. I got an alpaca with a temper named Arena, who kept making a disgruntled sound and always wanted to go the other way. Other alpacas were quite obedient. Despite the promise of alpacas being curious, Arena didn't care about me and only craned her neck when I blocked her view.…
The set is Baleal, Portugal. While technically an island, it is connected by the sandy pathway to the mainland. Big ocean waves crash with great force against rocky cliffs. An Autumn trip to Portugal to hang out with Igor and Tyoma is becoming a tradition. I am very grateful for having such great friends. Some days we did nothing at all, other days we discussed deep existential questions. We came…
Every summer between grades first and nine I spent with my grandparents in Obninsk. Salikh was my close friend during those times. We were big fans of Command & Conquer games ( Red Alert , Tiberian Sun ) and were creating custom maps and mods as a made-up game studio. We've recorded fictional radio talk shows on tapes; obsessed over Star Wars and Lords of the Ring ; played Doom over and over on an…
The fact that everyone anxiously expected to hear news about mobilization from Russia this month does not make it easier to comprehend. Asya's photographer friend from Ukraine stayed with us this month for a bit and told us about his experience of taking photos in Bucha. He gave us a bunch of notebook pages where local people wrote down their experiences and it was terrifying to read. I am still…
On the flight to Zurich, I inadvertently eavesdropped the conversation between two youngsters. Both of them just graduated and are now developing software for a remote startup. This allows them to live here and there for a bit, to explore new places and cultures. I moved to the Netherlands at the age of 23, but would've never dared to embark on a nomad lifestyle then. Now the world is changing,…
Reading a book while drinking coffee outside in a charming hidden garden was the most characterizing scene of July. That, and watching great classic cinema. This July marks one year of writing lookbacks. I'm glad that I've picked up this habit, but occasionally I still get some internal resistance in writing those. As with July last year, this month I was watching some Japanese classics. I've…
Buying tickets 8 months ago paid off, and seeing Red Hot Chili Peppers live was outstanding. It was an open-air event in Goffertpark, Nijmegen, and the first time in years since I saw such a big crowd in one place. The band played all the hits, although I was really hoping for Under the Bridge which they once performed on a boat ride through Amsterdam canals . It was fascinating to see how their…
Deer Dear friends came to the city, and we did a 4-hour boat trip around the canals. I got an unbelievable achievement of catching a sunburn in Amsterdam, but it was worth it. Exploring the city by boat adds a new layer of intimacy to it (achieve another one by doing early morning runs). Familiar buildings look quite different from a boat level. There was a lovely sadness in this half-sunk boat…
I am having breakfast on the spacious terrace with a big table of friends. Street cats are jumping to sit on our laps, there is a bit of rain outside, but the sun will come out soon. We're drinking strong Turkish tea. I'm charmed with Istanbul, where I see a mix of the best parts of Europe and Asia. There are all conveniences of the modern city and at the same time, it does not look as tidy and…
Sunny days in Amsterdam teach you to appreciate good weather. I find it beautiful how simple the action is: get some french fries and just sit in the sun during the day. Can't be sad in the sun. Friends made amazing BBQ hamburgers while we've discussed all possible ways to convert money into crypto. I'm keeping a separate diary on my experience at BioHack Academy. It is a 10-week program where…
Fuck Putin and fuck his war. I feel ashamed and disgusted by his actions. The iron curtain is back in a different shape: people from Russia can't use their Visa and Mastercard outside of the country, most flights are sold out or canceled. A few friends are leaving the country just to leave anywhere, with no long-term plans in mind. I am horrified by stories about parents fighting with their…
As I sip my coffee and type these words, I look outside at the morning rain. Through my window, I have a view of the bay of the IJ river. It is usually still, but today there are noticeable waves caused by the wind. It is that type of day when you turn on the lights in the morning. Exactly one year ago there was a strong snowstorm in Amsterdam, but no signs of snow coming now. Is this climate…
The main activity of December was city walking, as there is not much else to do outside because the country is on the hard lockdown again. Great timing for the annual Light Festival though, and I've discovered some new well-hidden areas in Amsterdam that I thought I knew already pretty well. At home, properly decorated Christmas gave the necessary coziness. I was reminded how fun it is to play…
The daylight time is getting shorter, and so is this lookback. A few friends are back in the city after their long trips, so I spent most of the month catching up with everyone. I've attended my first proper Thanksgiving dinner, where I randomly met another person who works for Apple in the Netherlands. – To further fuel my interest in biology, I've signed up for the Biohack Academy 2022 that…
I finally ran the marathon! I've been thinking about doing it for at least the last 4 years, but only this year something clicked, and I got consistent training leading up to a total of 750 kilometers. During the marathon, it was fun to see many people cheering for runners along the track and some even playing live music. Whenever I've slowed down a bit, it felt like a large group of runners…
September was all about disconnecting from the usual places and habits and enjoying the slow life. Two of my good friends persuaded me to try out surfing and we went to a small village on the west coast of Portugal. Surfing didn't go as planned as I hurt my rib quite early and wasn't able to continue. However, I'm glad that I've kept up with my running plan and set my personal record by reaching…
Events # The summer is over and I have no regrets about how it went. Had friends from Berlin over at my place. We were laughing about how all of us still have nightmares related to our university days (like not being prepared for the exam). We went to a few places around the city to get food and in most of them, you can now order with a QR code and pay right away. The idea is great, however, the…
Events # We had a small team reunion with my ex-Uber friends. A running joke is that everyone wants to be fired again, as we now know how to handle and enjoy the whole process. Visited KABK Graduation Show 2021 . I think all universities should have a graduation show, not just art schools. My university thesis was a waste of time partly because I knew no one would see it except few people at my…
I've written down a Medium article about building server driven UI project at Uber.
Done as a literate program .
⚠️ This post uses latest JavaScript features. You'll need a modern browser or Node.js version 10 or higher to run examples. I've stumbled upon this task while playing around with async iterators and for await...of statement. From MDN about Promise.all : The Promise.all() method returns a single Promise that resolves when all of the promises passed as an iterable have resolved or when the iterable…
⚠️ Warning: this is an exploration of a language and not something suitable for the production code. We start by defining our own indexOf function. It takes a string, a character, and a starting index: function indexOf ( s , char , startingAt ) { // ... } Then the function call would like like indexOf ( "The owls are not what they seem." , "o" , 5 ) ; // 14 It might be hard to understand what…
It was time to explore the optimization possibilities for the app I've been working on. Our main bundle was 1.25 MB (515 kB gzip). create-react-app handles the build and produces the bundle with the source map. All bundle visualization tools I remember looking at required webpack config tweaking. But source-map-explorer is simple to use: source-map-explorer \ build/static/js/main.9998a4e8.js \…
I finished "Functional Programming Principles in Scala" and for the first time in a long time I am excited about a new programming language. I did not pick up any compiled typed language for a while. I landed my first job doing JavaScript and it felt like a breath of fresh air after studying C++ at the university. JavaScript community accepted static analysis through linters (JSLint → JSHint →…
Recently I spent some time debugging Node while doing Advent of Code 2016 . Two things made my life easier, which I did not use before: Using Chrome inspector. Sometimes you need to go deeper than spraying console.log all over the code. Since version 6.3.0 you can run node --inspect --debug-brk script.js and get full Chrome debugging experience for your Node process out of the box. Minor…
When explaining JavaScript closures we usually give an example with the outer function returning the inner function. Following example illustrates the concept by mentioning only one function and no return keyword. let f ; { let a = 1 ; f = ( ) => a ++ ; } console . log ( typeof a === "undefined" ) ; // true console . log ( f ( ) , f ( ) , f ( ) ) ; // 1, 2, 3 In ES6, we can create scopes by using…