Monthly Archives: February 2025

The UMMC Museum Complex is an absolutely unique and astonishing collection of all kinds of machinery. This includes cars, airplanes, railway transport, and much, much more – both civilian and military, and from antique to modern-day. There’s even a submarine! An incredible place – and I’ve said that many times but never get tired of repeating it. The museum has over 10,000 (!) exhibits, so you won’t be able to see everything in just one visit, so don’t even hope for that. For a thorough and comprehensive tour of the exhibition, set aside two or even three days.

I’d already been here three times, walked around a lot, observed, was amazed – and then shared my photos and impressions. This time, I managed to carve out a couple of hours for a visit (which, of course, is categorically insufficient) – just to rush through and see the latest additions to the collection. Yes, yes, despite the enormous number of exhibits there are already, the museum continues to actively expand with new ones.

First, we head to the “Wings of Victory” exhibition hall, where aircraft and other aviation-related exhibits are mainly displayed. Wow! Another Douglas DC-3 in the collection ->

Aha, they were built in the USSR under license until as late as 1952.

So what else is new in the halls?

Read on…

Peru. So, what’s generally known about this South American country by the average general-knowledge pub-quiz buff? I’d say: the mysteriously extinct Inca civilization/empire, the ancient cities of Cusco and Machu Picchu, the high-altitude Lake Titicaca, and, of course, the mysterious Nazca Lines (also known as the geoglyphs of the Nazca Plateau).

As to the latter, seeing these drawings in the flesh has been a childhood dream of mine ever since I enthusiastically studied the geography of this world through books filled with maps, pictures, and photos of different regions of the planet. Naturally, when planning my trip to Peru, visiting the plateau – flying over it in some kind of aircraft – was one of my top priorities. And now, decades half-a-century (!) later, I’ve finally made it happen! The lines, geometric figures, and depictions of funny-looking folks and animals on the Nazca Plateau – checked off the list!…

Read on…

What is an Auto-Woodpecker, and what does it have to do with AI?…

We live in the age of AI hype. Artificial intelligence is here, there, and everywhere – so promising, slightly mysterious, but undeniably guiding humanity toward a brighter future of technological singularity that’s still somewhat incomprehensible and potentially a black hole.

Some readers might detect sarcasm in this statement – but that would be a mistake. Machine-learning-driven automation (ML), neural networks, and other AI technologies have already taken over many industries. And there’s more to come in the evolution of Homo sapiens. If you’re interested in diving deeper into this topic, check out the history of the various industrial revolutions: first, second, third, and even fourth.

In line with this trend, cybersecurity was perhaps one of the pioneers in adopting new, smart technologies. And what makes me particularly proud of this process is that our company was one of the first in the industry to successfully implement this bright AI-driven future. How else could we possibly handle nearly half a million (!) new malicious programs emerging every single day as of early 2025? No educational system in the world can produce enough experts to keep up with that. The only solution is to create intelligent systems capable of independently and highly accurately neutralizing cyberattacks. Experts are then left with only the most complex cases – and, of course, the challenging task of inventing and continuously improving these systems.

A few days ago, we celebrated a cool anniversary. Twenty years ago was born the prototype of our first AI/ML technology for automatic malware analysis and the creation of “detections” – antivirus updates that protect computers, gadgets, and other devices from new attacks.

The technology was given a name that’s rather odd at first glance – Avtodyatel, which translates as Auto-Woodpecker! But there’s a simple explanation for it: within our team, security analysts were affectionately referred to as woodpeckers – tirelessly pecking away at viruses and processing streams of suspicious files. And then we added the “Auto” to “Woodpecker” for the name of the tech designed to do this job automatically (incidentally, I was a woodpecker myself back then).

Read on…

Some cities in the world are located amid exceptionally picturesque landscapes. For example, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, Hong Kong, and Sydney are all surrounded by scenic mountains and/or unique coastal formations. In this regard, Lima, the capital of Peru, is also rather lucky:

The city center is situated on a high oceanfront cliff, offering absolutely stunning views:

Read on…

So how do you go about planning and preparing for complex vacation on the other side of the world, with a complex route for getting there, and then a complex itinerary once in situ?…

And I don’t mean the simple “jump in a taxi, train or plane, and travel where you’re going and figure it out on the fly, whether it’s St. Pete, Sochi, Yalta, or maybe Monaco, Venice, Barcelona, Miami or LA (or wherever else, depending on where you live)”. No, not like that. What does it take to plan a more sophisticated travel itinerary?…

Now, I’m not claiming to be an expert, but here’s roughly how it works for me:

1. Pick: the places we’re going to visit; what we’re planning to see, admire, and snap; plus any extra side-dish (or totally random) activities to be partaken in.
2. Find someone to organize it all, because let’s be honest – we hardly know anything about these places besides their names. This is where the travel route gets mapped out. Usually it’s a mix of advice from those in the know, local contacts, and a travel agency (sometimes more than one).
3. Figure out how to get there and back – which isn’t always straightforward or optimal.
4. Set the budget for the whole thing. And prepare to disappoint those involved in Step 5… ->
5. Recruit a few other similarly crazy individuals (or just folks who’ve no clue what kind of hardships and misadventures await) so the trip doesn’t get too boring and lonely.

And that’s it! Then we just go…

So, where to this time? Drum roll……………………….. crash cymbal! -> to Peru and Bolivia! Hooray!

And what’s on the itinerary?…

First off, the Nazca Lines:

Read on…

Everything must come to an end – and that included our China-2024 trip…

The final stop on our itinerary was Binggou Danxia Landform and Geopark – located about 12km from the famous rainbow-colored Zhangye Danxia mountains. The scenery here is totally different – not the undulating multicolored-stripe landscapes, but massive rock formations of all shapes and sizes spread out across a large area. You’ve got to hand it to Mother Nature’s geological design skills! ->

Read on…

Our fall trip around northern-central China was literally coming full circle on the big rock-desert loop from Xining to Xining. Our final must-see tourist spots were near the city of Zhangye, with the first one being the Zhangye Danxia Geopark…

So what is this place? Well, it’s just over 500km² (if the internet is to be believed) of multi-colored mountains and hills. And the colors here are absolutely mind-blowing:

No Photoshop used! This is exactly how things looks at sunrise and sunset! The daytime view is still stunning but a bit more washed out. The best shots are at the beginning and end of a day:

Read on…

Farewell, Dunhuang! It was fun and educational, but we were back on the road – sticking to our planned China-2024 trip route. Today, nearly 600 kilometers getting to Zhangye; accordingly we were up early and off we popped…

The road wasn’t the most exciting – made worse by gloomy clouds and drizzle. Still, a couple of things along the way made us stop and click away with our cameras. Like this large sculpture in the middle of the desert:

Read on…

Dunhuang. The name doesn’t ring a bell for most people – but it should! Not to worry, for we’re going to fix that right here, right now – as it’s next on the travel itinerary of our China-2024 trip…

So, Dunhuang. It’s a small city built around an oasis and surrounded by the rocky landscapes of the Taklamakan Desert (here). Once a major hub on the Silk Road, it’s a truly ancient place (being founded possibly as far back as 2000BC!). But let’s not get too deep into its history: we’re not historians – just meditative tourists here to take in the exceptional views (and share them with you photographically too:)…

There’s definitely plenty to see here. First and foremost: one of the world’s largest deserts, the Taklamakan, which the city’s situated next to and which features some impressive dunes:

Where the desert meets civilization, you get some really unusual, contrasting sights:

Read on…

Hey folks!

You’ve probably already heard about DeepSeek – the Chinese AI model that recently caused such a stir and managed to wipe more than a trillion dollars off the share prices of certain tech giants in just a few hours.

But have you seen its logo? Does it remind you of anything? It sure did us!…

I don’t know if it was done on purpose, but it’s turned out pretty funny! There are some slight differences – but not many!

I didn’t know what to think at first, but settled for flattery ). Our colleagues say that in Chinese culture such a thing is a mark of acknowledgment and respect. Back in the day, imitating a master was considered a sign of deep admiration. Cool, right? Oh – and another take: some entrepreneurs I know believe that copying the very best is basically a necessary step for business growth. Well, well; all very curiously interesting – to say the least!

Let’s see how things unfold with DeepSeek. China has tons of neural networks created by companies with insane budgets – but for some reason it was this particular model that managed to break into the global market (with the biggest of splashes). Well, good luck to them!…

PS: We still asked them to tweak their logo a bit to make it fully compliant with our brand guidelines :)…