Month: May 2006

Late on May 8 1945 Nazi Germany signed the act of capitulation. This was announced to general public on May 9 1945, which is celebrated since then as The Victory Day. It marked the end of the World War II.

Millions of civilians and military people were killed and whole villages and cities were destroyed during the 6 years (1939-1945) of the war. In Russia, at least (I don’t know about others), there was no single family that wasn’t affected by the war – someone was either killed, repressed, or died of hunger. The Victory Day is a huge deal.

Military parades take place in celebration of the event in many cities around the world. In Russia, the main parade is organized on the Red Square in Moscow. Veterans (less and less with every year) take part in it together with the active military forces.

This is the day of pride. And there is indeed a lot to be proud of. Soviet Union played one of the major roles in the war. Millions of people pulled and pushed and worked together night and day both on the front lines and the rear, sacrificing everything and anything they had. It is their celebration today.

But this is also the day of shame. The shame of generations that came after. Most of those few people who are still alive, those who participated in the making of The Victory have been thrown overboard. They are truly forgotten and reminded of only on this day. Their pensions are the lowest in the country. They are ripped off of all the benefits and health care. They are truly disrespected now, despite all the talk of their achievement and importance.

Today they passed The Red Square. They had all the eyes of the country looking at them. They were proud. But tomorrow, they will be back to their real life, where noone cares about them.

61 years have passed. On one hand, this is a really short period of time. Some of the people who were there 61 years ago, are still alive today, and still remember how it was. On the other hand, these same 61 years seem like centuries. Things have changed so much, and so many things have been forgotten and lost. Things that weren’t meant to be forgotten. Things that weren’t meant to be lost.

I remember, when I was a kid, The Victory Day was a huge holiday for me. I felt the pride. For the last few years though that have changed. I feel shame and sadness.

For what it’s worth, I’ll try to be a part of those who spreads the knowledge and awareness. Even if that’s only one day in a year. Here are the links to Wikipedia pages that are relevant to The Victory Day:

• World War II
• End of World War II
• Victory Day (Eastern Europe)
• Victory in Europe Day
• Moscow Victory Parade of 1945
• German Instrument of Surrender, 1945

My quest for perfect RSS aggregator continues.

I have been using Akregator for a few days now and I like it – it’s a nice, clean program which does what it is supposed to. More functionality is promised in the upcoming releases. The problem with it, is that it doesn’t fit the way I read RSS. I have installed it on my notebook, but it can be switched off for longer periods of time than I want my aggregator to stay offline. For example, some of my Flickr and Delicious feeds update very often and some content falls off the edge in less than 10 hours.

The new idea (it’s not a new idea at all, it’s just new for my testing) that I am trying to adopt now is using email client as RSS reader.

I installed rss2email on my home server and gave it a bunch of RSS feeds’ URLs to monitor. For each new item available in any of these feeds, it sends me an email message. I have configured appropriate filtering to different folders and so far it looks good.

Using email client for reading RSS gives the best of both worlds – updates are available as quickly as possible, but they can be read at any time at all, even without being online (assuming I am at home or downloaded all my mail to the machine I’m working from).

I’ll play around with this approach and will let you know on how it works for me.

Well, maybe not all, but pretty much…

The other day I was standing in queue to get some Goodies food. Nearby was a little British girl with her grandmother (calm, warm, kind type). The girl was crying slowly – she cut her leg a bit. The grandmother was calming her down, saying that everything will be fine. In the meanwhile, she was also talking to a Goodies employee and sorting through First Aid kit. The cut was treated soon.

They (the girl and the grandmother) have also ordered some food. Goodies has this thing, like many other fast foods, where they give kids some toys or other presents. So, the guy behind a cashier was offering a few colorful lego kind pieces in a plastic bag. The girl refused. Her grandmother noticed a small pink doll standing nearby. The doll was broken and useless. The grandmother asked the guy if there were any other dolls. Few seconds later, the girl was given a brand new little pink doll, which she obviously liked.

And then came the best and most unexpected, but never-the-less touching moment. The grandmother paused for a little while to give the girl some time to enjoy the doll, and than said: “You see, sweety, you have to ask.” That’s it.

This one phrase was very brief and to the point. And it was perfectly timed. I am more than sure that later this girl will totally forget the episode (probably she already did), but the lesson will stay with her for the rest of her life. It was the best time ever to make the point, and the grandmother used it and did it in the best possible way.

Respect! For you, mam, I take off my (imaginary) hat.