Medium

Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova

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Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova

Jun 14, 2025

The Wand Chooses the Wizard: a Story of my Hockey Stick

Just to set the record straight: I am not a wizard. I am still pretty new to hockey. Now that we got that out of the way…

The Wand Chooses the Wizard: a Story of my Hockey Stick

Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova

Mar 30, 2023

How AlphaGo works (for non-experts)

Only recently did I have the pleasure of reading the paper Mastering the Game of Go with Deep Neural Networks and Tree Search. As a result…

Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova

Apr 2, 2021

NY Times Review of Bill Gates Climate Book Considered Harmful

I was disappointed to read the NY Times Review of Bill Gates’ book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: the Solutions We Have and the…

Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova

Oct 26, 2020

Ratatouille: the complicated kind

This recipe of ratatouille is a combination of Julia Child’s and Michel Richard’s (the latter shared by Bill Buford in his book “Dirt”)…

Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova

Aug 31, 2020

We Replaced an SSD with Storage Class Memory and Here is What We Learned

The story is here: https://engineering.mongodb.com/post/we-replaced-an-ssd-with-storage-class-memory-here-is-what-we-learned

Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova

Jan 2, 2020

Grain. Water. Salt.

This crispy goodness came out of my oven. There are many great breads out there. Why bother making my own?

Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova

Dec 19, 2019

Why mmap is faster than system calls

When I ask my colleagues why mmap is faster than system calls, the answer is inevitably “system call overhead”: the cost of crossing the…

Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova

Jul 18, 2019

Ketosis: A Story of Accidental Love

I’ve been hearing about ketosis for many years; first via the (in)famous Atkins diet, and then via other avenues. I did not read about it…

Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova

Feb 27, 2019

“Japanese diet” in practice

Ten months on “Japanese diet” improved diversity of my microbiome (from 75th percentile to 84th according to Ubiome), reduced my weight by…

Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova

Jul 26, 2018

The Wand Chooses the Wizard: a Story of my Hockey Stick

Just to set the record straight: I am not a wizard. I am still pretty new to hockey. Now that we got that out of the way…

How AlphaGo works (for non-experts)

Only recently did I have the pleasure of reading the paper Mastering the Game of Go with Deep Neural Networks and Tree Search. As a result…

NY Times Review of Bill Gates Climate Book Considered Harmful

I was disappointed to read the NY Times Review of Bill Gates’ book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: the Solutions We Have and the…

Ratatouille: the complicated kind

This recipe of ratatouille is a combination of Julia Child’s and Michel Richard’s (the latter shared by Bill Buford in his book “Dirt”)…

We Replaced an SSD with Storage Class Memory and Here is What We Learned

The story is here: https://engineering.mongodb.com/post/we-replaced-an-ssd-with-storage-class-memory-here-is-what-we-learned

Grain. Water. Salt.

This crispy goodness came out of my oven. There are many great breads out there. Why bother making my own?

Why mmap is faster than system calls

When I ask my colleagues why mmap is faster than system calls, the answer is inevitably “system call overhead”: the cost of crossing the…

Ketosis: A Story of Accidental Love

I’ve been hearing about ketosis for many years; first via the (in)famous Atkins diet, and then via other avenues. I did not read about it…

“Japanese diet” in practice

Ten months on “Japanese diet” improved diversity of my microbiome (from 75th percentile to 84th according to Ubiome), reduced my weight by…

How Google Controls Android Device Vendors

On July 18, 2018 the European Commission issued Google an unprecedented fine of €4.34 billion for allegedly illegal competitive practices…

Alexandra (Sasha) Fedorova