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
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
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
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
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
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
The little sister didn’t want to pose but the void was curious and sent some slow blinks from behind the fence. | Continue reading
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
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
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
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
Hasn’t happened yet. I can still play football, read game books, and study almost daily. | Continue reading
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
I have video proof that this happened. May upload it later 🙂 | Continue reading
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
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
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
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
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
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
Sofia, Oborishte and Han Krum areas. | Continue reading
Photo taken from one of the many pedestrian bridges next to Eagle’s Bridge in Sofia. | Continue reading
I wonder how far can they go with the ads on this poster column? It’s the widest I’ve seen. | Continue reading
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
Photos taken over the weekend in Borovets, the ski resort we used as a base camp to go to Musala. | Continue reading
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
I had a good month, completed some great books that are easy to recommend. Best books Worst books | Continue reading
Mom and kitten in the same bush. Can you spot them? | Continue reading
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
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
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
It’s finally warm outside. We had several non-summer summer days. | Continue reading
A group of nerds is either brought together at the FBI to solve its toughest cases or to fail together because they suck. The lead nerd also happens to be the protagonist. I already don’t remember his name but he’s the type of person who would count things or spot things nobody e … | Continue reading
Sorry it didn’t turn out very well and there’s glare but I’m sure you’ll appreciate the situation. A cat chilling on a velvet pillow in front of a signed photo of Evanna Lynch. Shishman Street. It’s not easy to find a way to combine the books and cats tags 🙂 I think this … | Continue reading
There was so much movement that I should’ve taken a video instead of photos. | Continue reading
I try to not get too attached to items and keep them replaceable. I grew up in an environment when we couldn’t really own anything expensive. One day, my parents brought home beautiful fake adidas pants with three stripes (I think it was abidas or something like that). I went out … | Continue reading
…where you can walk outside, photograph cats, and not boil. I even spotted two cats crossing the yellow pavement, which is the center of the center of Sofia. | Continue reading
We spent a week in the Greek village of Sozopoli. Greece has hundreds or thousands of such places. I’m yet to find one that isn’t nice. Sozopoli, in particular, is beautiful but has a bit of a problem with stray dogs. My step count plummeted because strays are territorial before … | Continue reading
This is my fourth book in the recent months with a strong taste of weirdness. It was clearly written this way so it’s a feature, not a bug. I read None of This Is True earlier and liked it very much. These books are told in a way that we have a central awful and … Continue readin … | Continue reading
Placing baskets in this field is blog-worthy. I doubt anyone has ever played here but who knows. It looks very cool. | Continue reading
There’s a world cup going on right now, and we’ll soon have our new old world football champion. I watched many of the games in the group stage of the finals. Some were fantastic. Some weren’t, which is fine. However, just like previous editions of the World Cup, once the elimina … | Continue reading
You’ll ride it every day and have fun. | Continue reading
I used to believe in the idea that we shape our own futures, at least to a large extent, unless something catastrophic gets in the way. I read Ayn Rand and found her perspective appealing. Then I had kids. My children are so different that it’s hard to believe. From a very young … | Continue reading
I’ve not previously featured the mighty hedgehog on my blog. We have at least two living around our building, somehow cohabiting with about a hundred cats. Hedgehogs seem to be less adapted to city living and very vulnerable to cars. | Continue reading
When driving in Sofia, it’s important to make enough noise before starting the car for any cats to safely leave. Kittens can even jump up and be around the engine, which can be lethal for both the cat and the car. | Continue reading