Yog-Sothoth Rules!

Welcome to the WWW homepage of Alexander L. Belikoff

$ whoami

I graduated from the State I.M.Gubkin Academy of Oil & Gas, Moscow, Russia. Currently I am working as a programmer/analyst at the Berger Financial Research company in Tel Aviv.

Unfortunately, there is no official homepage of my Alma Mater. To fill this gap, I am trying to maintain "The very unofficial homepage of the State Academy of Oil & Gas".

There is no official homepage of Berger Financial Research either. But be patient - things tend to change...

$ cat .profile

The following is the list of things I like. Finally, what would you expect to be here?

Linux!

Q: Is Linux...
A: Yes, Linux really is...

Note: The following paragraph is not required any more and will be removed soon.

For those unaware, Linux is a free Un*x-like operating system created by finnish student Linus Torvalds and being developed by zillions netters. Such common effort made Linux much more stable and efficient than many commercial Unices.

It is extremely standard - the POSIX compliance was one of the development cornerstones.

It has everything any modern Un*x has:

: The X Window System
: Full networking
: Lots of programming languages
: Posix threads
: Motif (unfortunately, the commercial version, but look at the LessTif Initiative!)

It has much more (too much to list here).

Nevertheless, Linux lacks several parts, mainly

: Streams (but check the LiS homepage).
: Kernel threads (perhaps I will develop it!)

Here are some resources you can happily start from:

: The Linux Document Project homepage. Answers to virtually all Linux-specific questions and even more. RTFM!
: The Linux Software Map - a hypertext database listing all software capable of being run under Linux.
: Infomagic. This company sells a lot of useful software on CD ROMs for Un*x in general and Linux in particular. Their "Linux Developers Resource" is considered to be a canonical software collection for Linux collection.
: Caldera - the ex-Novell guys backed by Ray Noorda developing the Caldera Network Desktop including the graphic desktop, NetWare client, Web browser, advanced font server and much more - all for $29 (preview program). They also promise to port the commercial applications to Linux (WordPerfect is being released this time).
: Linux-il. The Israeli Linux Mailing List.

Freeware

Apart from Linux in particular, I like the freeware in general. There are a number of very good Unices on the net, like FreeBSD and NetBSD. But all the progressive humanity is impatiently waiting for the best of the best - the GNU Operating System. To tell the truth, I am about to give up on its release.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft

No words. I just love the world created by that guy. I am more than simply fond of his literature. Some people don't like it, some don't take it seriously, but many people do love it!

Here are a number of excellent HPL-devoted pages:

: AJL Cthulhu Web Pages
: H. P. Lovecraft Page
: H.P. Lovecraft Page
: RamPage, Yog Sothoth
: Al Azif : The Manuscript Liber Logaeth
: Necronomicon WWW Home Page Index

Russian resources

I was born in Russia. I like Russia. Pretty simple, isn't it?

I wrote the Cyrillic-HOWTO for Linux (text-only version on sunsite). Nevertheless it can be of use for an average Un*x system.

Recently, version 2 has been released. It comprises a new section on LaTeX setup, and much more clear description of X input customization, and much more. Version 3 will hopefully include some really useful information on printing the ASCII texts without LaTeX intervention.

If you have some suggestions/comments/critics, please don't hesitate to send me a letter.

Here are some interesting places related to the subject:

: VakuFonts - a #1 package for everybody obsessed with Cyrillic under X.
: Cyrillic characters within different software, by Sergei Naoumov.
: SovInformBureau
: Little Russia in San Antonio
: KIAE - The Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy.

Scientific Tales

One of the most hateful courses during my studies was the one of Hydrodynamics. During that course I wrote a couple of funny tales about the most famous scientists of that field. Sometimes I extend the collection with the new ones.

Now they are available on the World Wide Web (Sorry, but they are in Russian only. See above how to install a KOI-8 support for your HTML browser).

The Arts of ancient Japan

I am very fond of the Literature and the Fine Arts of the ancient Japan. Especially, I like Ukiyo-e - pictures on wooden blocks - the Art very popular in Medieval Japan. There were many notable artists of various Ukiyo-e schools. My favorite one is Katsushika Hokusai (1760 - 1849). You can enjoy one of his pictures on top of this section - it is one pearl of his famous "36 Mount Fuji views" series.

Here are some Ukiyo-e resources to start from:

: The Floating World of Cyberspace - very extensive collection of WWW Ukiyo-e links.
: The Japan Ukiyo-e museum guide
: Jim Breen's Ukiyo-E Gallery.
: Yet another Ukiyo-e gallery.

If you know some really cool collection of Medieval Japanese pictures, or some collection of Japanese Literature and History resources, or even just big-size versions of Ukiyo-e pictures (1024x768 prefered, but I mean the ones of good quality - not just zoomed with XV), then I'll appreciate your feedback a lot.

Games, Games, Games...

XEvil - the game of kind people

Because I am an extremely violent person, I like to kill most of all. Thus, my favorite game is Steve Hardt's XEvil (see picture above)!

What else do I like to play? Well, I like Moria, NetHack and Crossfire.

Alexander L. Belikoff, MSc.
abel@wisdom.weizmann.ac.il

Berger Financial Research Ltd.

last change: Nov. 16, 1995