DVK

6,855 reputation

1555

bio	website	stackoverflow.com
	location	New York, NY
	age	42
visits	member for	1 year, 6 months
	seen	May 16 at 9:27
stats	profile views	70

Areas of strength:

Perl expert (specifically enterprise software development)
Sybase (including design and optimization)
GUI design

Areas of familiarity:

Web programming (EmbPerl, JSP, CSS, HTML, JavaScript)
C++

...P.S. I'm not really 42. But 42 is way cooler than a real answer :)

...P.P.S. Don't read too much into the icon. Just a minor nod to Cryptonomicon.

	6,855 reputation	bio	website	stackoverflow.com	visits	member for	1 year, 6 months
1555 badges		location	New York, NY		seen	May 16 at 9:27

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Mar 27	comment	Are there ways to measure “how much power did ”Russia“ lose when the Soviet Union broke up?” The question is how much of the impact did the break up of USSR had on any of these charts, vs unrelated causes (e.g. if they would have stayed the same if USSR didn't break up)
Mar 27	comment	Were the “hussars” that Jan Sobieski used at the battle of Vienna actually elite troops? @TomAu - in 1683, pistols were... not exactly a great deal of usefulness to a cavalrymen. Especially in such a tactical situation (as opposed to caracole tactics used against formed infantry)
Mar 27	comment	Cuban medical internationalism I'd be interested in officially documented answer, but one possible consideration could be USSR's influence. USSR placed a great emphasis on training high quality primary care physicians (possibly in part to compensate for the sorry state of their medical and pharmaceutical technology), and they - as doctors - were pretty high quality, on average. As an example, pretty much 100% of USSR immigrants in US I know prefer ex-soviet PCPs (totally not due to language - this is true even for those who only use English when talking to the doctor, and ONLY true for PCPs, not specialist docs).
Mar 26	comment	What were the reasons for the Renaissance / scientific revolution in Europe? @JimThio - that's very inaccurate. Given the reloading speed of cannons at the time, they couldn't possibly fight against cavalry without their own cavalry and infantry screening them. This had nothing to do with either leaderhip, OR China specifically.
Mar 26	comment	Which European countries did not have a revolution in the aftermath of the French Revolution and why? @sbi - or, as Lenin pithily put it in 1913, the cause of a revolution is "when the tops can't, the bottoms won't". I should probably translate it so it doesn't sound like BDSM manual though :)
Mar 25	comment	Was the N.E.P. of Russia successful in terms of economics? -1 - without specifying what you mean by "successful", both "yes" and "no" answers may easily argued for depending on your definition of success. It could be a good question if you propose a specific metrics to evaluate against and ask if that metrics was achieved instead.
Mar 24	comment	How has enforcement of the USA-Mexico border changed over time? In addition, the same system is in place in most other non-USA countries. Notably, legally immigrating to Mexico is generally considered to be harder than to USA.
Mar 24	comment	How has enforcement of the USA-Mexico border changed over time? "If a person from Mexico wishes to permanently relocate to the USA, he is effectively prohibited from doing so..." - that's true for people from ALL countries, not just Mexico.
Mar 24	comment	Were there any battles in Continental Europe that were decided by “peasants with pitchforks?” My main difficulty is in finding resources detailed enough to distinguish between things done by peasants vs. kossaks vs. Bashkirs
Mar 24	comment	Were there any battles in Continental Europe that were decided by “peasants with pitchforks?” @TomAu - does this qualify as "winning a battle"? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kazan_%281774%29. They won against the original force, but lost against the reinforcements.
Mar 24	comment	Are there other ancient human rights (surely in its ancient consept) documents like the Cyrus Cylinder (c. 500BC)? Considering that Judaism has the concept of Noahide laws (applicable to 100% humans and not just Jews), your idea that the concept of humanity is somehow recently invented by Christianity is completely wrong. 7th law was "Establishment of court of justice", to make things fully ontopic
Mar 23	comment	Were there any battles in Continental Europe that were decided by “peasants with pitchforks?” Does Pugachyov's uprising in Russia fit your bill? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pugachev%27s_Rebellion. Also, I seem to recall a bunch of peasants fighting against Poles for Minin/Pozharsky; and against Napoleon in 1812, but would need to dig deep for specific references... it's been a while.
Mar 23	comment	When did the incident happen when bounty on rats led people to farm rats? @DarekWędrychowski - better?
Mar 23	comment	When did the incident happen when bounty on rats led people to farm rats? BTW, this was very eloquently covered in "Freakonomics" podcast couple of months ago, with many other examples of Cobra effect (including, very recently, in USA with opigs on military base :)
Mar 23	comment	Are there ways to measure “how much power did ”Russia“ lose when the Soviet Union broke up?” @choster - Tell that last one to Putin :)
Mar 23	comment	What was the practical reason for East Germany to reunify with West Germany? Reason for whom? East Germans? West Germans? Soviets?
Mar 23	comment	Did Gorbachev ever admit that his intention was to destroy Communism? Of course Gorbie would tell the westerners who he wanted money and help from that he was against Socialism. It's called being a politician. You tell your audience what they want to hear and believe. That has no bearing on whether he was or wasn't.
Mar 23	comment	Are there ways to measure “how much power did ”Russia“ lose when the Soviet Union broke up?” I don't think Nobel Prize winners (especially in Literature) are a good way to measure power :) Also, GDP is not a good way to measure power of USSR vs. RF, since the changes in GDP likely had more to do with non-breakup issues.
Mar 22	comment	Why did Alexander found or rename a number of places after himself? @coleopterist - don't have good sources at the moment, sorry. Will try later
Mar 22	comment	Why did Alexander found or rename a number of places after himself? 1. Alexander was convinced that he was a deity (son of Zeus/Amon). 2. All autocrats are prone to that (Stalingrad, Leninsk, etc...). Alexander was just more extreme about it due to the god delusions.