A friendly cat

So friendly that I was torn between running away from her and running away with screams. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 6 hours ago

Books I regret reading

I have this rule that if a book doesn’t go well, I just stop reading and move it to the donations pile. This rule prevents 1* reviews and makes my life a tiny bit more positive. I also don’t suffer through bad fits for too long, as I clearly don’t like what I’m seeing. This … Con … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 day ago

Daily Harvest

My first visit of the Alley of Books lead to this. Was it a mistake? Most books are very thick. Top to bottom: I think I’ll start with The Daughters’ War. I rated the first book 4.5 here but it grew on me. It will be a tough choice in a few days. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 day ago

Cat in a shop

One of the interior door locks broke. Here’s who the saw while shopping for a new lock and screws. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 3 days ago

Alley of Books, Sofia

I grew up with the book fair. Reading is my thing, and the book fair is a way to get books cheaper. I visited almost all of them, except maybe a few when I was in the military. They used to happen twice a year – one for Christmas, and one for the 24th of … Continue reading Alley … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 4 days ago

Cat on a hot roof

Quite hard to spot cats these days. I’ve been limping after a fresh football injury and no steps means no fresh cat photos. This little friend was asleep and let me take a photo, ears indicating awareness. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 4 days ago

I actually appreciate this design choice

In the era of mindless slop, a human paid respect to the visitors of the official Sumo site to warn us about ticket scams. Yes, the text could’ve been enslopified but is it not, it is understandable, it is clear, it is as highlighted as it could be. And worth sharing. Sold out, w … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 5 days ago

Reading in August

August was a good month for my shelves. I was on vacation and read a lot. Had a week with 3 completed Dugoni books, and a day in which I finished the entire Dungeon Crawler Carl in one go. Best books Worst books | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 7 days ago

Void

I got complaints that I don’t share enough black cat photos on my blog and prioritize tabby fluffs. So, while September 1st would normally be the reading summary for August post, here’s a void, and we’ll leave the reading summary for tomorrow. I read too many books last month and … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 8 days ago

She’s sleeping

Visit the post for more. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 9 days ago

My three-month sabbatical

I spent three months not working. Today is the last day of AFK, already mentally preparing to get back to work, starting tomorrow. Automattic has this fantastic benefit that for every five years of tenure, you get a 3 month vacation that you can take all at once. You can’t split … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 9 days ago

Experimentation for Engineers: From A/B testing to Bayesian optimization by David Sweet

I managed to complete this book, which is quite an achievement. Unlike the last two I read on the subject, this was not an easy read. Lots of abbreviations, terminology, python functions, charts that represent hypothetical scenarios I couldn’t relate to, and more questions than a … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 10 days ago

Greek orange

This little fellow meows in Greek. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 10 days ago

YouTube shorts should be forbidden

I spent some of my sabbatical watching YouTube. I know, this is not the best activity of all and I did other things that were more meaningful. I’ll post about it later. So, here’s my problem with YouTube, after a few months of embarrassingly high usage. I don’t like their recomme … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 11 days ago

Restaurant cat

A break from the series of text-heavy posts I wrote. I actually wrote an even longer post for today but decided it’s time for a cat photo. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 13 days ago

Thoughts on AI watermarking

Claude is now watermarking its text outputs using a statistical token-choice watermark. According to what the AI told me, when generating the next token, it often has a choice between options that have similar meaning. It applies a statistical bias for some words at certain place … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 14 days ago

The Trapped Girl by Robert Dugoni

I seem to have a thing for catching a crime series and going as far as I can with it. This book was part 4 of a series of 6, makes you wish there were at least 5 more. Robert Dugoni needs to learn from Janet Evanovich and Alexandra Marinina. Six books is not enough … Continue rea … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 14 days ago

Bansko in 2026

Bansko is a winter ski resort town that’s rebranding to a summer resort. Twenty years ago, Bansko was tiny. It had a small old town with historical buildings where people actually lived, a large museum for a person the communists really liked, and some restaurants where you could … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 16 days ago

I achieved a great level of carnage with my newest white shoes

Back in June, I mentioned that I got a fresh pair of comfortable white shoes. This is how they look today: Brooks Revel Max I gave up trying to maintain the white color after about 10 days. I bought another pair (Adidas Terrex) with the intent of keeping these white, while doing … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 17 days ago

Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman

The second book from the Dungeon Crawler Carl Series didn’t disappoint. Action from start to finish, with a short break for promises and explanations about the future books. I’m sure I won’t remember any of that but it was nice to know that something outside of the dungeon exists … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 17 days ago

Slow blinking

The little sister didn’t want to pose but the void was curious and sent some slow blinks from behind the fence. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 19 days ago

Vihren

We managed to reach Vihren, first time all 4 of us to the top, together. Vihren is 2914 meters, and one of the more difficult peaks for rookie hikers in Bulgaria. The path we took had about 1100 meters elevation gain, which was the highest for me this year. The little one, aged 7 … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 19 days ago

Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: Book Review

This book is a rare jewel that I would recommend to anyone, running A/B tests. Pretty happy with the purchase and my time spent with it. After I figured out that something with my understanding of how experiments should run was off, my instinct was that it’s math and stats skills … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 20 days ago

The hiss

I found this gem in my camera roll. I didn’t even realize it happened until I saw it photographed. This mother hissed at me when I attempted to take a photo of her kitten. The hiss: The kitten: | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 20 days ago

Hot seat

Sofia Tech Park, Sofia. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 22 days ago

My blog got my chess.com account closed

I was very surprised to find this email in my inbox today. It said my profile had been closed for spam. This got me a bit upset because the last time I logged in chess.com was in 2024 and the only way I could be spamming would be if I got hacked. As it turned … Continue reading M … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 23 days ago

A whimsical writing prompt

Hasn’t happened yet. I can still play football, read game books, and study almost daily. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 24 days ago

Her Final Breath by Robert Dugoni

I’m glad I bought the second book in the Tracy Crosswhite series. The first one was a good thriller, but it also had some disappointing moments. The second one is great. I couldn’t figure out who the killer was. It fooled me well. To some extent, the first two books are connected … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 24 days ago

The most comfortable shower position

I have video proof that this happened. May upload it later 🙂 | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 25 days ago

Which author I’d like to meet

There’s a saying that you should never meet your heroes and after meeting some of mine, I stand by it. However, I checked and Linus Torvalds wrote a book so if I could have a dinner with 10-ish nerds and Linus being there in a way that the other 9 maintain the conversation, while … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 27 days ago

I climbed Musala for a second time this year

One of my annual goals was to do three real hikes in 2026. A week ago, I did a semi-unplanned hike to the highest peak in Bulgaria, Musala, which is 2925 meters high. Kids couldn’t come with me because one got motion sickness, and the other didn’t want to come out of solidarity. … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 28 days ago

A metric for an experimentation system’s maturity

Experiments in the context of software involve showing different groups of people different UIs or features and measuring the impact. This is one way to make informed decisions based on data rather than opinions. If experiments aren’t used, decision-making is usually subjective a … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 29 days ago

Bush Family, Part Three

My recent theory that I found an orange mom + an orange dad cat family is no longer entirely viable. That tiny colony has at least 8 cats and while at least 5 are orange, some are grey tabbies. Here’s a photo of two nearly identical 3-4-5 month old kitten at the same spot. Their … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

Update on the Bush Family

A few weeks ago, I posted a photo of two orange cats hiding in the bushes. I walked past the same area today and spotted three orange kittens playing together. I think this is an uncommon case of a male and female orange cat producing a fully orange litter. I couldn’t get closer … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

My Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni, Book Review

Tracy Crosswhite is the older sister in a family of sharp shooters. One day, the younger sister Sarah disappears after a shooting competition. A man is arrested and convicted of her murder, but there is no body. Tracy suspects that the wrong man has been framed. Twenty years late … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

Three photos of two different cats and a bath thub

Sofia, Oborishte and Han Krum areas. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

This is the way to cross the channel

Photo taken from one of the many pedestrian bridges next to Eagle’s Bridge in Sofia. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

Cleaning is overdue

I wonder how far can they go with the ads on this poster column? It’s the widest I’ve seen. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

Therapy by Sebastian Fitzek, Book Review

Viktor Larenz is a psychiatrist, whose twelve-year-old daughter, Josy, got sick and either disappeared or died in a very obscure scene. One thing is very clear from the start, Viktor Lanetz sees things nobody else sees. The main mystery of the book is what is hallucination and wh … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

Restaurant Kittens

Photos taken over the weekend in Borovets, the ski resort we used as a base camp to go to Musala. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

I climbed Musala for the first time since 2001

Musala is the highest peak in Bulgaria, standing at 2925 meters, and also currently a major tourist hot spot. We attempted to climb it last year with the little one, who was 6 at the time. Gave up at around 2600-2650 meters. He got motion sickness this year and didn’t want to hik … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

July in Books

I had a good month, completed some great books that are easy to recommend. Best books Worst books | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

The Bush Family (Find the Cat)

Mom and kitten in the same bush. Can you spot them? | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: … you got my attention

Just yesterday, I shared about a popular science book about Bayes. Today I started a new one, called Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: A Practical Guide to A/B Testing. I picked it because I want to learn more about the industry standard way of doing controlled experimen … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

Everything Is Predictable: How Bayes’ Remarkable Theorem Explains the World, Book Review

I’m interested in improving my understanding of experimentation. As a person, educated in frequentist statistics, I wanted to learn more about the Bayesian approach, so I got myself a bunch of related books with an increasing level of difficulty to read (more and more formulas). … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

Pull-ups Update

One of my annual goals was to make one pull-up. The last meaningful update on that goal was in March, when I made 3 reps with a neutral grip. Since then, I struggled with injuries and gained a few kilograms of weight. So it didn’t look like I’ll make progress past three. In order … | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

Sunspots

It’s finally warm outside. We had several non-summer summer days. | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago

That moment…

Meow! | Continue reading


@veselin.blog | 1 month ago