Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

Hayek: “The problem assumes the greatest importance when we consider that we are probably only at the threshold of an age in which the technological possibilities of mind control are likely to grow rapidly and what may appear at first as innocuous or beneficial powers over the personality of the individual will be at the [...]

I used to suffer from heartburn almost every night; I’d wake up in the middle of the night several times, often feeling nauseous — sometimes I couldn’t swallow my saliva; I had to spit out, lest I’d throw up. What worked for me was Nexium. Since I started taking it a year or so ago [...]

I’ve just watched again a few Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes, and it’s the only show I know that ends with a kind of foretaste of heaven: glory, rest, love, redemption, and life everlasting, the last one signified by the youth of the characters. It’s good even in its political ideology: the government school totalitarianism [...]

It has always puzzled me how people can look forward to retirement even while they are still young. For, first, most of their life they will not be enjoying themselves and their work but dreaming about distant future. Second, retirement almost by definition entails being useless to your fellow man. It means sitting in your [...]

Only the government can gobble up productive land and make it useless. Florida will “buy the nation’s largest producer of cane sugar” to “restore” the Everglades. … “Environmental groups hailed the undertaking. ‘This is putting it back the way it was in 1890,’ said David Guest, a lawyer with Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund. ‘When you [...]

The difficulty with converting people is that you can’t really offer them your own life story. Your life is uniquely yours, and so are many of the reasons for which you believe. You need to study your subjects in great detail, each one individually, and tailor your teachings appropriately. The only conversion for which I [...]

To help you the next time you forget to turn off your car’s headlights or the ceiling light for an extended period of time after you stop the engine, and the car’s battery gets completely drained. Just make sure you don’t forget to keep it charged (charge it once every three months, according to the [...]

Если мяса с ножа    Ты не ел ни куска, Если pуки сложа    Наблюдал свысока, И в боpьбу не вступил    С подлецом, с палачом, – Значит, в жизни ты был    Ни пpи чем, ни пpи чем!

Hopefully it’ll stimulate discussions.

I’ll be finishing up my thesis.

And now his monstrous “His Dark Materials” trilogy (whose dark materials? Satan’s?) — The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass — is going to be a movie starring Nicole Kidman. Now admittedly, when I read his books a number of years ago, I was more impressionable than I am today. But I still [...]

You probably didn’t know it, but I have a BS in computer science and worked for 6 years in the industry doing computer programming, mostly in Manhattan, NY. But only now have I realized what programming really is. It is like Nascar racing. It’s a union of man and machine. The computer becomes an extension [...]

1. Open Microsoft Word (I use Office XP). 2. If the symbols you need are present in the default font, keep it, else change the font to Lucida Sans Unicode (which my research says ships with Windows 98 and higher) or Arial Unicode MS (which ships with Office 2002 and higher). Arial Unicode MS is [...]

Johnny-Dee of Fides Quaerens Intellectum has picked my blog as one of his personal favorites. Thank you, my friend; I am very honored.

Everyone has heard the truism that one should take something one likes to do and find a way to get paid for doing it. But how to ensure that you enjoy your work? One word: competence. Learn every nook and cranny of your trade or science, and you’ll be guaranteed a positive utility of labor [...]

For those who have not yet discovered the delights of Turkish pistachios, here is a public service announcement: Zenobia Nuts sells them. They are fairly expensive but worth it, trust me. (I suggest you get at least one 5-pound bag.)