izard

habr post on PLC compilers and IDEs

Thu, 16 May 2013 06:31:39 GMT

Posted an article about IEC61131-3 compilers and IDEs on habrahabr. Because of selfish reasons :) I posted it few days ahead of a planned date, and it shows: I never had as bad downvotes ratio on my posts before.

Gather

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:01:54 GMT

Same code, when compiled and ran for Ivy Bridge and Haswell by Intel compiler works much faster on HSW than on IVB. (Can't disclose exact speedup as HSW is not yet released, but new instructions involved in speedup are not secret for a while and so are BKMs)

#define A (2*1024)
#define B 64
int a[A]; int b[B];

void main()
{
  int i,j,sum = 0, min = 100000000;
  ticks t1,t2;

  for (i = 0; i < A; i++) a[i] = i; // Init arrays
  for (i = 0; i < B; i++) b[i] = (i*113 + 113) % A;

  for (j = 0; j < 10000; j++)
  {
    sum = 0;
    t1 = rdtscll();
    for (i = 0; i < B; i++) sum += a[b[i]];
    t2 = rdtscll();
    if (min > (t2 - t1)) min = t2 - t1; // measure best case, dont warmup
  }
  printf ("sum = %i, min = %i\n", sum, min); // print sum to trick compiler
}

New gather instructions are useful, and compiler uses them automatically. Of course there are no miracles - as I increase A and B, performance goes down, and eventually becomes on par with old implementation because memory latency becomes a limiting factor.

Losing 3 holidays.

Tue, 14 May 2013 07:48:08 GMT

This Saturday: working on a plane to Israel. (My productivity goes up when I am in transit, I don't know why but it works)
This Sunday: working at customer site in Israel, they have a custom to work on Sundays!!! :(
Next Monday: working day in Israel, public holiday here in Bavaria.
Poor, poor me :)

On the bright side, they promise +11 and rain in Munich on Sunday, and +32, sunny weather in Tel Aviv. I do not have firm plans for the evenings yet, I guess 1 or 2 evening I dine with colleagues, and the rest I'll just spend on the beach. (Is it jellyfish season yet?) Would be great to meet with lj friends in Tel Aviv.

Botanical garden, Munich

Sun, 12 May 2013 10:37:14 GMT

May 9th was a public holiday in Germany this year (unusual), so we sent to Munich botanical garden. We've been there once 3 years ago, but it was not the right season, and most of greenhouses were closed for renovation.

Now the timing for a visit was very good. Everything is blooming, including spruce.

Largest part of flowers currently blooming are tulips.

There are all kinds of visitors, parking lot was full

Non-human visitors liked the flowers too.

This bee is taking home her catch of pollen from a flower in Alpine section of the garden.

As I've noted before, the greenhouse is open now. It is I think about twice bigger than the greenhouse in the botanical garden in St. Petersburg.
I liked the greenhouse section called "useful tropical plants".

I recon those mushrooms growing next to vanilla plant might be "useful" too.

In an artificial saline lake where they grow mangroves there is a big fish that closely watches the garden visitors.

If I recall correctly there are only small and young fish lives in mangrove forests in the wild. (At least that is what I've seen before)

All pics are in a picasa album

First sunny days in English garden

Sat, 11 May 2013 08:41:40 GMT

English garden is a perfect place to go to when there is not enough time or motivation to explore something further away. We walk there or cycle almost every weekend weather permitting, and still keep finding some new things we have not seen yet.

This time we figured out why the grass in the park is always green and lush. I had very rarely seen lawnmowers in the park, and considering the park's size lawnmowers should be constantly operating. Instead they have decided to use a greener approach. They took ~1000 sheep, installed an electric fence around them and keep moving the fence so the sheep mow the grass.

Do you have some grass? What if I find something??

I have seen bats in the late evening in the park already, but have not seen their houses before.

The park's main color is yellow now.

Dandelion blooming season. (Of course it becomes green after the sheep)

Bear's onion is blooming too.

Too late to pick it, it is best when young. This spring I have gone to the forest to pick it only twice.

Huge tree, have not seen it before.

In the northern part of the park, there are many ladies in the business of walking the dogs.

Typical spring flowers.

Calla?

Trip report: Västerås

Fri, 10 May 2013 16:00:19 GMT

This week I went to Västerås to meet with a customer, spent 20 hours away from home. As usual, I did not have any time to see around the town: I arrived there at 1.30AM, and went back to Munich at 4PM same day.

The only pic I made was in a canteen at customer site:

Of course this bank note is not real, it is realistically drawn on stairs so newcomers like me are trying to pick it up.

Snegov

Wed, 08 May 2013 17:48:16 GMT

Just finished reading Норильские рассказы. I think it is the best thing in the genre, I liked it more than Shalamov and Solzhenitsyn. Dovlatov may be a better stylist, but for me he is a bit too sarcastic. Where Shalamov describes evil russian gangsters, Solzhenitsyn describes evil Soviet government, and Dovlatov tells that we are all surrounded by absurd and stupidity, Snegow calmly describes people he met in the prison and in Norilsk, including top scientists and gangsters, politicians and engineers, GULAG officials and NKVD officers. Among all those groups, the author finds interesting people worth respecting.

It was very touching moment to read when the author was suffering from scurvy and anemia and forced to dig ground, he was discussing mathematical foundation of general relativity with other inmates. When the author was moved to work in first Norilsk nickel smelter as engineer, the story became more interesting and tense. As an engineer too, I felt compassion to the author when he described that he was given orders to improve the yield of Nickel by 20% or else. Or else in 1943 was scary. I wonder, if I was moved to the "sharashka" environment, would my productivity in Lines Of Code go up or down???

Back home from Italy

Sun, 05 May 2013 16:48:25 GMT

Just got back home from a short trip to south Tirol.

Our permit to use Austrial autobahns is valid for 9 more days, I think I know where do we go next weekend (unless it rains).

Wildpark Poing 2

Fri, 03 May 2013 08:02:56 GMT

It is a great time to visit the Poing zoo. Most of the animals are nurturing new born babies, and birds are either mating or building nests. May be 1st of May was not the best day to come there because of the huge crowds of visitors. 90% come with children, 10% come with a zoom lens. As we don't have children yet, I had no choice but to bring a zoom lens.

River rat youngsters fighting.

Lynx

Same with visitors.

It was very wise of this gentleman to hold his baby. I noticed that when baby approaches the fence, they are always scared to tears when a predator or an elk comes close from another side. (and they do)

Wolf's dinner

We were trying to identify what kind of animals they use to feed wolfes but failed to guess. Any ideas?

The biggest and most diverse habitat belongs to bears.

There is a river, an island, a patch of grassland, bush and small part of a forest for bears to roam in. I think the area is about 300m X 100m large. This time they removed one of the wolves from his pack and placed him to the bears. I am not sure how he liked it. All he was doing while we were there was running back and forth along the edge of the river.

Meanwhile other bears were posing visitors for snacks.

There was a sign saying "never ever feed the bear!!!" but nobody seemed to care.

ppl were throwing hamburgers and like from the wall.

I wonder why don't they have any adult elks in the herd, but only youngsters.

When elk becomes mature they feed it to the wolves?

The most disadvantaged creatures in Poing are predator birds.

90% of the time they spend chained and in the cage. Some times they are let out for few minutes like this eagle, and I wonder why they don't fly away then.

Normally deer come very close, especially when attracted with a carrot. But this time of year they are more cautious.

Overall animals there seem much happier than in Munich zoo.

The entry price is 6.50 for adult ticket, and it is just 20 minutes drive from Munich city center. All pics are in picasa album

Long live new king

Thu, 02 May 2013 13:35:18 GMT

Now official from Engadget

Brian is the only higher level manager of Intel I never seen :)

Walking around Munich center

Wed, 01 May 2013 08:12:18 GMT

Yesterday I took a day off, so only had to spend half day at work :)
Other halve day I spent working around Munich city center.

This looked like a group of local students studying film making shooting a part of their diploma work.

Any idea why they set up a protective shields on some of the trees in the park?

I have not seen hares or rabbits in that park so it is not a protection against them.

The weather is not as good as last week (it felt more like summer just few days ago),

but the feeling of spring is all over the city center.

In the park, there were Mandarin Ducks
,

woodpeckers

and common blackbirds

I only wonder why a common blackbird always has more than one earthworm in her mouth?

Productivity

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:50:13 GMT

When coding, being in the "flow" helps. There are well known methods how to enter and how to keep this state. Some of the methods are more or less applicable for everyone.

For me, the top three factors that help getting the "flow" are
1. Interesting work (not unusual),
2. Deadline approaching soon. (I am not proud of this fact but I guess it is common),

and my favorite: 3. Being just on and around a trip to customer. In that case, flying somewhere helps the most, then goes ICE train, then driving, then using public transport. (The mean I use for travel depends on the distance). I have no idea why it helps me a lot. By the way 80% of the worthwhile ideas related to my work come to my head when I am travelling for business :).

Anyone has similar experience?

Public swimming pools in Munich

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:48:08 GMT

A building on the right side of a photo is located in the center of Munich on the right side of Isar.

It is the oldest public swimming pool - Volksbad. It is about 100 years old. The swimming lanes are 30 meters long. There are 3 lanes - 2 for sporty swimmers, and 1 wide lane for others. The depth is 3.5 meters to 50 centimeters. It is usually not crowded, and the interior is really beautiful.

My impressions from other swimming pools - under cut.

Michaelibad. Located in the Ostpark, next to the U-bahn station. There is one lane for sporty swimmers, and everything else is for others. Besides 25 meters swimming pool, there is a slide, several jacuzzis, free steam sauna and one expensive sauna, children's pool, big open whirlpool. Usually it is quite crowded. Very often then have swimming classes for children or adults, so they allocate 2 lanes for them. It becomes nearly unbearable for the rest - real human macaroni soup! However there are "good" timings when one can swim almost without hassles. I won't reveal them here :)
Out of all indoor swimming pools I've been to in Munich, water here is the coldest (but only marginally)
If the pool is not too crowded, every hour they open a trampoline for jumping (1.5 meters high).

One very good thing about this swimming pool is there is an open swimming pool next to it. It is open in May to September (weather permitting).

There is a tower for water jumping: 2m, 4m, 7m, 10m. Also there is a 50 meters pool with a cold water. Water is so cold there so even when the area is very crowded (say, warm sunny Sunday), there is still room for swimming.
The price to get there is very cheap, and ticket is valid for the whole day. The area is huge and good for picknicks, beach volleyball, football, table tennis, water slides, batut jumping, etc, etc.

Cosimabad. Nice too, and almost never crowded. Also 30 meters. Julia complains the shower there is not very warm, but I cannot notice it. Every hour they start big waves for 5 minutes. Fun!

Dantebad. Highly recommend it in winter - this is the only outdoor swimming poll that works year around. I hope they do not have any plans to build a cathedral there.

Olimpiabad. 50 meters indoor pool. Crowded in the morning and in the evening, a lot of very fast swimmers at that times.

Among the seasonal open swimming pool, I think Michaelibad is the best. Prinzregentenbad is a bit dull. Schyrenbad is nice too, but is a bit far from U-bahn and S-bahn. However, it is very conveniently located when cycling. Maria Einsiedel bad is nice, but water is very cold. No surprise, the water comes from Isar!

The price for an indoor swimming pool is usually around 4 euros per 2-3 hours, and there are 50% discounts if you come very early or very late.

Nevertheless, ppl still swim in channels of English garden

Looking forward to join'em when weather permits.

Strange drawing in a swimming pool

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 08:49:29 GMT

Usually I go to Michaelibad or Volksbad, but some times I go to Kosimabad.

Recently I noticed there is an exhibition of children's drawings on display in Kasimabad hall. All drawings are very similar, except for this one:

I like the drawing, especially that women wear nice dresses. However, the slogans are a bit scary. From right to left, they are: "One", "Arab", "Irak is one"(with a typo), "God is great" (Allah Akbar), "Death".

In a next post, I'll write a review of public swimming pools of Munich.

Industrial revolution 4.0

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 11:12:23 GMT

Just published a short article on industrial revolution 4.0, Ethernet based fieldbuses and an ad for Intel I210 NIC.

When writing about fieldbuses I made several minor omissions, simplifications and probably mistakes too. I know that several real professionals in automation are reading my blog, can you guys point me any mistakes I made in describing fieldbuses? My experience is limited to optimizing their s/w stacks.

Commute

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 06:09:22 GMT

I use A94 for commute. It usually takes just 10 minutes, and goes past Munich trade fair (Messe). Very often there are some fairs but I have never seen traffic jams on the autoban at that places before.

Unfortunately last few days it takes me 20 more minutes than usual to get to work.

All because of this building cranes trade fair. I hope it ends soon so I can drive 150km/h as usual, not 50km/h as yesterday.

Declare the late spring open

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:33:42 GMT

Spring had started in Munich at last.

Yesterday there were crowds of ppl everywhere enjoying the sun and a first really warm day of spring. Julia and me tried to find a free ping-pong table, but no avail.

Best wine comes out of an old vessel. [2/2]

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 09:52:58 GMT

In a previous post I mentioned a very interesting LJ of a retired professor and promised to post a link to another one.

The second LJ of a retired professional I found few years ago is LJ of a former KGB/FSB general, who was deployed in Afghanistan twice (right after the war started and just before it ended). He writes great novels about Afghanistan and about KGB/FSK operations in early 90-s in his blog. In a recent post he refuted those who thought he is not the person he pretends to be, and had never fought in Afghanistan. He picked a Soldier Švejk for one of his avatars, and I think he has a good reason. The protagonist in his novels very often resembles this noble soldier.

Like Dr Berezin, detnix often writes series of posts telling a story. Some series describing late 80-s, early 90-s can be found under this tag

Interestingly enough, political views of detnix and berezin-fb are similar. It is very interesting to read the bits written by detnix that reveal the professional paranoya:
"Я аплодирую Фэйсбуку: из шести предложенных персон только одну я так и не смог опознать. А что у них еще есть в загашнике! Так скажите на милость, какая спецслужба у нас главная? Та, что на Лубянке, или то сообщество, что раскинуло свои щупальца по всем узлам глобальной сети? Мне также интересно, а наши так могут? Когда я уходил со службы, в Конторе в этом смысле "и конь не валялся!". Хотелось бы верить, что мы и здесь "впереди планеты всей" или хотя бы - на уровне. Но тогда почему в тех же "одноклассниках" я встречаю весело щебечущих действующих сотрудники наших спецслужб? Или теперь после последнего провала все можно? Хотя, это тоже риторические вопросы. Достаточно вспомнить: за рубежом осели наши советские (!!!) деньги в частных вкладах в размере 500 млрд. Почти все (!!!) дети высших чиновников учатся за рубежом. В проклятые годы тоталитарного СССР мы бы такой шанс не упустили. А они?..." (c) detnix
Unlike wannabe conspiracy theorists, this gentleman probably knows wheat he writes.

The only sorrow thing about detnix is his conflict with anhar. I respect anhar because I used here services as a toor guide in middle east twice (on 2003 and 2004) and she was very professional and helpful.

By the way. Could someone advice me if there are any other interesting blogs by retired folks to read?

Best wine comes out of an old vessel.

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 09:18:49 GMT

Few years ago I was thinking: the most interesting blogs are written by the brightest professionals: engineers, doctors, managers, scientists. However, they often have timing and confidentiality constraints so they cannot share most interesting insight they have. But there must be some who are now retired and who are willing to share their vast professional experience. I think livejournal is a perfect medium for a live memoir genre, including live discussions with readers.

I have to admit I only found two so far.

The most notable example is a LJ (in Russian) of Dr. Berezin. For a layman like me, he is most famous for MMPI adaptation.

He is writing about different topics, but one I like most is series of posts where he narrates stories from his practice as a psychologist. Such stories often illustrate how science and industry were operating in Soviet Union times. His journal title is "One live through four epochs" for very a good reason. His stories show how society of Soviet Union was changing as time passed.

For instance, I enjoyed a story he published few months ago about his client, a physicist. He uses pseudonyms for his patients, but in some cases like this one he provides enough details so it is theoretically possible to de-anonymize. Another example is a story of "Фселикос". The patient's name was also changed. However he is so famous that I knew the real name from a very beginning. And he had enough pseudonyms so I do not quite understand why he needed another one. For a technical folks like me who are interested in CPU design and manufacturing there is another interesting story is about Soviet CPU manufacturing.

And I love the communication style of Felix Borisovich! He responds to every comment he receives in his blog posts, sharing even more interesting insights. It is very rare thing to see someone in internet using proper Russian language even in comments.

I'll point to another LJ I found in a next post.

Trip report: Rabenstein, Zwiesel [2/2]

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 08:38:43 GMT

Rabenstein village is a small settlement (~500 ppl live there) surrounded by Bavarian Forest.

Still they have a memorial for the villagers who died in 1st and 2nd world wars.

They are also proud of their history. They had a prophet who (as they claim) predicted world wars

As there was a quartz mine and glass works near the village, they make everything from glass. This plaque about a prophecy,

as well as each of 14 stops of the Christ

they installed on a slopes of a closest mountain.

A church in the village is small and very neat.

All the decorations are made of glass.

A hotel owner told us about how they were building and restoring this church 50 years ago.

He was very proud they did not take money from Vatican for that. Apparently he was telling us something he was told by locals, as he moved to Rabenstien from Netherlands few years ago.

Here is the hotel by the way:

The owner and his wife are retired truck drivers from Netherlands. He speaks Dutch, English, German, Italian, Spanish and Bavarian, and his wife cooks good Dutch food.

All pics are in picasa album

Trip report: Zwiesel

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 17:23:31 GMT

Two days off for a Catholic easter came handy. We went to Bavarian Forest mountains for hiking.

When hiking in the woods, we have not seen any animals, let a lone a Wolpertinger. We hoped we will encounter start of spring, but in fact it was winter. It was a too late for skiing, and too early for hiking, so we were the only guests in a small family hotel. The hotel owner suggested we can stay in the bar and try to see a wolpertinger right there, but instead we went to the woods.

Also, on the bird watching front I lost too.

Only seen a great tit.

There were many good trails, and snow was hardened so neither Julia nor myself needed snowshoes to go off track.

There was a full cover of snow on altitude above 700 meters, and our walks were in the range of 800-1200 meters. We have seen traces of other hikers and animals, but had hardly met anyone.

Up there, I tested my new macro lens on moss

and (unsuccessfully) searched granite and pegmatite rocks for crystals.

More about Zwiesel in a next post.

Migration paths: professions and countries infographics

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:42:48 GMT

Very entertaining from BBC.

Ich hab Haus, Ich will nicht raus

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 19:55:15 GMT

Strange that I have not seen this earlier. Sorry if it is a duplicate.

From a German TV:

The video clip is old, posted 6 years ago but still funny.

"Sie können aber gut Deutsch". On accents in Germany and USA.

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 19:09:50 GMT

After returning from USA, can't help but compare the attitudes of locals towards foreigners.

While in US, both me and Julia on multiple occasions were treated like locals by locals. Of course they noticed our accents, but accents are not uncommon in Phoenix, San Jose, Portland and San Francisco.

In New Zealand, first questions in any conversation with locals were "How do you like New Zealand? Where are you from?". If I made a mistake in English grammar or pronunciation, there was always a comment: "Your English is very good."

In Germany, it often sounds like "Where are you from? When are you planning to move back to Russia?" I know some people who think that what I describe here is a serious problem with attitude of Germans towards foreigners. I personally don't mind at all.

I can't say that Munich is less cosmopolitan than Portland. Actually, quite contrary, so I do not know the reason behind this effect (if it really exists outside of my imagination).

On feminism

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 12:44:36 GMT

Many discussions in my friends feed lately. I see that I have to choose my side. Thumbs up si14 and sorhed! Speaking about the dark side, I might have understood metaclass if he made it clear that the current state of affairs he describes so well is abnormal.

P.S. Sorry for Adria, her actions had damaged her cause.