Tag: I-recommend

MyShows: How to Keep Track of TV Shows (and Movies)

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There was a time when I didn’t watch any TV shows at all, because I had a strong impression that all series were basically soap operas. (Too many of them were being shown on TV during the final years of the USSR—things like Santa Barbara and Simple María.) But then someone persistently recommended a space series called Firefly. Eventually, I gave in and watched it. And I was absolutely blown away by how powerful a well-made show could be—both in terms of writing and acting.

That’s where my love for TV shows began—as well as my appreciation for actor Nathan Fillion, who played the lead role in Firefly. He later starred in the excellent series Castle, currently appears in The Rookie, and, in my opinion, would have been the perfect choice to play Nathan Drake in the Uncharted movie (though for some reason they cast Tom Holland instead).

For my wife and me, watching good shows has become a favorite way to spend our evenings together. But at some point, keeping track of what we’d seen and when new seasons were coming out started to get tricky. So I went looking for a good tool to help with that. A coworker recommended the service MyShows. I’ve been using it for many years now, and recently the developers added a new feature (still a bit rough around the edges, but promising)—tracking not only TV shows but also movies. So I figured I’d write a bit about this platform.

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Book: Eva Mozes Kor “The Twins of Auschwitz”

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Josef Mengele is one of the Nazis whose name is synonymous with the atrocities of the Hitler regime. He was not only personally responsible for sorting prisoners at Auschwitz but also conducted horrifying experiments in his camp clinic.

One of his “projects” was an attempt to understand the nature of twins. Because of this, twins had a slightly higher chance of survival—not being sent directly to their deaths—even if they were unfit for labor in the camp. However, Mengele never considered them human and subjected both adults and tiny children to monstrous experiments. To him, they were nothing more than test subjects.

Eva Mozes Kor was one such twin, destined to die so that Mengele could observe how it would affect her sister. But against all odds, Eva survived. After the war, she wrote her memoirs about her time in that hell.

Eva lived with her family in Transylvania when the war arrived. Her father wanted to escape to Palestine, where Jews were beginning to build their own state, but her mother couldn’t bring herself to leave everything behind and take the children into the unknown. Because of this, their once well-off family was among the first to experience the hatred and cruelty of their former neighbors. And when they finally decided to flee, it was already too late.

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Book: Konstantin Borisov “How a Good Developer Can Avoid Becoming a Bad Manager”

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One of the best books I read last year was a relatively short but incredibly useful guide by Konstantin Borisov on conducting interviews—“To Hire or Not to Hire? Or How to Interview a Developer.” I now recommend it to everyone, whether they are conducting interviews themselves or preparing to be interviewed. It gives you a much clearer understanding of what a potential employer is like and whether they are worth considering.

But Konstantin Borisov also wrote another book—“How a Good Developer Can Avoid Becoming a Bad Manager.” The topic may not seem obvious at first, but it’s actually incredibly relevant. In the IT industry, it’s well known that top specialists often get promoted simply because they excel at their tasks. One day, you’re a great developer, the next, you’re mentoring a couple of interns. Before you know it, you’re made a lead developer, then given a team to manage, and suddenly—you’re a manager.

I went through a similar path myself, though for a long time, I tried to balance both roles. I loved mentoring specialists and building teams, but at the same time, I still wanted to be a hands-on developer. Eventually, I realized that trying to do both was making me worse at each, and I finally made the decision to fully transition into management.

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Book: Ben Elton “Two Brothers”

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I haven’t written in my blog for a long time, but I’m returning with a book that has unexpectedly become highly symbolic of current events—when one country, under the pretext of “brotherly help,” wages war against another. And a third, also supposedly “brotherly,” sometimes helps the first, sometimes tries to stay on the sidelines. Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

Since childhood, I was taught that we must never allow the return of Nazism. I was psychologically crushed when, at around 12 years old, I saw the film “Triumph Over Violence“ (in Russian its title literally means ‘An Ordinary Fascism‘) on TV (I even felt physically sick from what I saw). For many years, I’ve continued reading and reflecting on how the dehumanization of entire nations and the transformation of people into monsters become possible. Documentaries, memoirs, and historical works are often far more terrifying than any fiction because with fiction, you can always think: “Well, this is just made up—things couldn’t have been that bad.” Even though you know they could. And they were. And now we see just how easy it is to “repeat it”—ironically, by those who, on a genetic level, should have carried an unshakable aversion to repeating it.

But sometimes, there are brilliant books on this very subject, and “Two Brothers” by Ben Elton is one of them. Perhaps because it is based on the real-life story of the author’s own family.

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Book: Alexander Bogachev “Charts That Persuade Everyone”

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Working with numbers, analytics—all of it always ends the same way: with graphical representation to clearly present data to ordinary people, management, shareholders, or even to understand it yourself. Many authors focus on the skill of presenting information in this form, although it’s often just a single chapter in books on broader topics. Even from those mentioned in my blog, you can refer to “The Numbers Game“ by Vasiliy Sabirov or “How to Lie with Statistics“ by Darrell Huff.

Following a recommendation from Vasiliy Sabirov, I read a book entirely dedicated to the correct way to convey any information through charts—“Charts That Persuade Everyone” by Alexander Bogachev. As a manager, I encounter charts frequently, but even I hadn’t considered some of the finer details that can drastically change how information is perceived.

This is a very short book—240 pages, nearly half of which are examples of various charts. But this is precisely its value: there’s almost no filler here; everything is strictly focused on the topic.

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Reading Results of 2021

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The main theme of my blog is books, so I decided to write about the best ones I’ve read this year and would recommend.

I’ve read 78 books, but the number isn’t as impressive as it seems because it includes several short children’s books that I read with my younger kids before bed. Still, there are many great books I can recommend.

As for fiction, I didn’t read much this year, and most of it consisted of well-known works that I either finally decided to read or was revisiting. I’ll highlight just one:

  • Britt-Marie Was Here — a wonderful novel by one of the best contemporary authors, Richard Backman. I savor each of his books and wait a long time before picking up the next one.

And the most delightful part: this year, I received the first review of my own book (only in Russian) — Graphomaniacs Don’t Cry.

Book: Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson “Venture Deals”

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Over the past couple of decades, the word “startup” has become insanely trendy, and for most people, it’s synonymous with the promise of inevitable success. We know dozens of stories where an ordinary student started a business in a garage that later turned into a multibillion-dollar company. Everyone wants to try on that role for themselves. To help them, there’s an abundance of books explaining how to create the company of your dreams, refine your idea, and build something people truly need. Even in my blog, I’ve reviewed several such books (for instance, “The Art of the Start“ by Guy Kawasaki and “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future“).

Of course, few people mention that for every success story, there are thousands of failures, but who’s interested in those? Everyone wants to look up to the best (this tendency is known as “survivorship bias”). Moreover, not all authors tell you that often, to launch a successful and rapidly growing business, you need funding. At best, they give advice on how to structure your presentations for potential investors. But what comes next… few will shed light on that.

The book “Venture Deals” is one of the rare few that focuses specifically on communicating with investors, the rules of drafting investment deals, and all those details that a future owner of a successful company must know and understand—unless, of course, they want to end up with nothing, even if their business turns out to be groundbreaking. The book’s subtitle is “Be SMARTER Than Your LAWYER and VENTURE CAPITALIST”. And it’s written by none other than those very venture capitalists who’ve mastered the art of such deals.

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Book: Mike Girvin “Ctrl+Shift+Enter. Mastering Excel Array Formulas”

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Microsoft Excel is a tool almost everyone is familiar with these days. And electronic spreadsheets are used in one way or another by nearly everyone who works with a computer. However, I believe most people are unaware of the full potential of this tool.

I’ve never considered myself a spreadsheet guru, even though I knew the basic formulas, performed many calculations myself, and often used complex tables at work to track budgets and other tasks. Still, I always considered myself an intermediate user in terms of proficiency.

Occasionally, though, I faced tasks that required processing large amounts of data, often in rather complex ways. That’s when I started digging through various articles to find methods for building more sophisticated calculations. I began working more and more with the concept of arrays in spreadsheets. At some point, I noticed that many of the examples and solutions I found frequently referred to the same author—or even directly cited his book titled Ctrl+Shift+Enter: Mastering Excel Array Formulas. The author? Mike “ExcelIsFun” Girvin. He runs a popular YouTube channel where he explains the intricacies of working with MS Excel. The channel bears his pseudonym, ExcelIsFun.

As for the book, it’s a refined collection of his materials, compiled into articles focusing on one specific topic: array formulas.

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Song: Johny Cash “Hurt” & Logan/Wolverine

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Not long ago, I wrote about songs that gained a new life or interpretation thanks to new arrangements, including in films.

At the time, I didn’t mention one song, “Hurt,” performed (but not written) by Johnny Cash. That’s because it didn’t fit the criteria: it’s not a reinterpretation or a new arrangement. It’s simply an original song that was used in the trailer for the last Wolverine movie, released in 2017 and titled Logan.

Cash’s version is a cover of a 1995 song by the band Nine Inch Nails. Johnny Cash slightly altered the lyrics, removing any profanity, and recorded his rendition in 2003. The song is considered his final hit during his lifetime, earning numerous awards and receiving high praise from the original authors. Personally, I find it more powerful and emotional than the NIN version.

But why did I mention Wolverine? The thing is, the lyrics of the song didn’t just fit the trailer’s mood—they seemed written specifically for Logan, who, in the movie’s plot, is no longer the invincible and immortal Wolverine we knew, but still has the strength to prove himself one last time. Together, the song and visuals left an unforgettable impression on me. The trailer uses only the first verse of the song, but the music and imagery complement each other perfectly:

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Book: Leonid Solovyov “The Tale of Hodja Nasreddin”

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I can’t quite recall when I first heard (or read) the name of Hodja Nasreddin. However, I can definitely say that his most famous mention is the parable of the talking donkey. In this story, Hodja Nasreddin promises a padishah that he will teach his donkey to speak like a human in 20, 30, or even 40 years (the timeline varies depending on the version). He then points out that within such a timeframe, either the donkey, Hodja Nasreddin himself, or even the padishah might die, making the whole process of teaching the donkey unnecessary.

Where did I first encounter all this? I honestly don’t remember! But the name of this witty and resourceful wanderer from the East has become universally known. So, I finally decided to read the most famous literary work about him, translated into numerous languages worldwide—Leonid Solovyov’s two-part series, The Tale of Hodja Nasreddin.

But first, let’s start with the figure of Hodja Nasreddin himself. To this day, it’s uncertain whether such a person truly existed, but parables and anecdotes about this character began appearing around the 13th century. They spread across Central Asia and the Middle East and became part of the folklore in some Caucasian, Balkan, and Mediterranean countries. There are even several places claimed to be Hodja Nasreddin’s burial site, the most famous of which is a tomb in the city of Akşehir, Turkey.

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