I catch myself valuing literature that’s not serious over serious but shallow. I’d rather read Matthew Reilly than Mark Manson. However, what do we say about literature that’s purposefully not serious, shallow, and cringe to extreme levels? The book in the photo above is a form o … | Continue reading
Looking back, it has to be one of these 3: Pippi was one of the books that hooked me to reading, Winnetow introduced me to adventure books – pirates, Wild West, and such. The top choice, however, must be The Three Musketeers. Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan are unlikely fr … | Continue reading
Sofia has many hearts. Vitosha is one of them. It’s visible from everywhere and shares its chill with the city. I’ve had several brief periods in which I’d actively hike. I’m not sure if I’m getting back into this hobby. It feels much harder than the previous times, almost unsust … | Continue reading
My daily walking goal is 10k steps. This is me in the bus after my longest hike in a decade of tracking (but not hiking). At 45, doing this is no longer a matter of willpower for me. It’s a result of all the daily walks over the last 1.5 years. I’m happy and tired. … Continue rea … | Continue reading
Forget-me-not in Bulgarian is Nezabravka. I’m not sure how the plant got the same name in very different languages but here we are: | Continue reading
This thing exists in my neighbourhood, covered with concrete and asphalt, and besieged by cars. It’s a shy White Lilly, according to my Picture This app. ❤️ | Continue reading
I read 11 books last month, 9 recognized by Goodreads and 2 – not. Goodreads has clear issues with the Librarians. Honorable mention for Rebecca Yarros and Fourth Wing – it’s engaging and has dragons. The worst book from last month was Rocannon’s World. Ursula Le Guin. She inspir … | Continue reading
I spent years of my life in a place called the City of Lindens. I love it when it smells like tea. | Continue reading
10pm is reading time. The computer has to go off. Saturday and Sunday are days with afternoon naps. The inner cat awakes in me and I sleep. This almost makes the week feel 9 days long. Longer-time unplugs are much harder to organize and vacationing usually fills the day with acti … | Continue reading
I visited the boor fair for a second time but the odds were not in my favour. Started raining after the first minutes and didn’t manage to find anything substantial. Got home with a tiny new book, about 50 pages of absurd comedy that took me half an hour to complete. Details abou … | Continue reading
This is near the Vasil Levski subway station. I like how colorful the city is this year. | Continue reading
We call this Donkey Thorn. It used to be very common. A rare sight these days. | Continue reading
I do, I’m old enough. The birthday of the Internet is officially 1983. I was 3 years old in 1982, a first-year kindergarten kid. My parents lived outside of Sofia because of permit issues – socialism regulated who lived where and they didn’t have permission to in Sofia. We lived … | Continue reading
Looks like a lake but it’s just a puddle, a memory from the melting snow. | Continue reading
The prettiest cover from the first 6 books I purchased during the book fair is already on the “read” bookshelf. It’s the second book I read this year that doesn’t have a Goodreads entry. If any of my readers here is a Goodreads Librarian, please add it – I posted two requests on … | Continue reading
I love the International Book Fair in Sofia. I have a system where I visit the fair multiple times before buying books to get the full experience. This time I violated the system. Here’s my harvest from Day 1. Rebecca Yaros, 2x Brandon Sanderson, and 3x game books. 5 out of these … | Continue reading
Halite is open again, after years of on-and-off. It will be a supermarket again, the purpose I remember as a child. During the communism, we would go there shopping, walk around the empty shelves, and maybe find something useful. Communism wasn’t known for full stores. The view f … | Continue reading
This is a rare sight. Usually looks like this: I’m not making my 10k steps today. | Continue reading
I know I post flowers and books lately but here’s a car. It’s a car and it’s locked. | Continue reading
A garden in some concrete crack. | Continue reading
A wonderful novella by Martha Wells, beautifully published by Artline Studios. The book is tiny and is a quick read. It’s about a very human murder bot whose job is to protect a group of planetary explorers. I’ll probably wait for the translations because the hardcover is so pret … | Continue reading
I was mind-blown to learn that the Game of Life can have a pattern that plays the Game of Life. The idea that Game of Life can play itself is not new. It has existed at least since 1996 (also here). By 2006, a grid like the one above existed. I learned about Game of … Continue re … | Continue reading
I’ve made plenty of choices where I wanted two things incompatible with one another and chose one. I don’t feel like any of that was a sacrifice, I treat it as a choice. For example, I returned to the university in my late 20s way outside of the ordinary university age because I … | Continue reading
By a semi-popular request, Jay’s name is now Creeper. | Continue reading
This curious fellow welcomes me to our co-working space from time to time. I wanted to take a photo of him earlier this week but he was busy with a prey. | Continue reading
It’s way too wet these days. I’m far from my 10k steps daily goal for a second day. The greenery, however, is very green 🙂 | Continue reading
Spicy autocomplete absolutely can’t replace journalists. — Cory Doctorow on AI There’s something very deep in our response to righteous anger. Spicy autocomplete. Righteous anger, followed by italic uncertainty. Dehumanizing the AI so that we’re ready for eradication. At the same … | Continue reading
Someone designed this monument, financed it, got a permit, built it, painted it multiple times with different colors for us to wonder. What is it? | Continue reading
The weather might be confusing but the plums are ready. | Continue reading
Veselin talks about personal goals, inspired by a SMARTER framework. Feeling excited and accomplished after making progress. | Continue reading
Flowers at the highest point near Sofia. | Continue reading
It's beautifully made in Bulgarian with original illustrations. The English version is published as an e-book and available for free. | Continue reading
Caught an angle with no students. It’s the best looking and maintained area of Blagoevgrad. | Continue reading
Engines love to consume lengthy content and rank it higher on search. ChatGPT can generate tons of additional meaningful text for the idea. However, as a reader, I prefer to read content written by humans and for humans. I’d rather read meaningful ideas in ugly sentences with sim … | Continue reading
I have slept more over the last year. My average has increased from under 6 to over 7 hours, and though that’s not Nirvana, it feels better. My morning routine is fixed. Kids go to school, and the alarm clocks go off at 7. So increasing sleep time can only be achieved by going to … | Continue reading
Back in the late 90s, this brand Koop was a symbol of change. We saw the cooperative was some kind of incorporation, a private structure instead of the nearly 100% government-owned everything from that era. The outside A/C unit doesn’t fit though, I don’t remember seeing a single … | Continue reading
I had no idea orchids exist in the wild in Bulgaria. | Continue reading
First customer since the last reset of the kiosks for the shift or the day. 11:30 is a bit early for lunch but still. I was first 🏆🏅✅ McDonald’s is not known to be the best food, it is expensive and is slow these days. We are high on the Big Mac Index, higher than … | Continue reading
I’m interested in using AI to optimize things and got the nudge to read this book because of my interests. I find this book quite depressing. A team of engineers in the Google-sized company Avogadro Corp implements a software called ELOPe. It optimizes emails based on the desired … | Continue reading
Janet Evanovich’s number fifteen is the first book in the series with a name that makes at least some sense. Stephanie will be food-colored because of a cooking competition. The tiny issue with the competition is that nobody can cook and some heads are rolling. There will be expl … | Continue reading
It’s not common to read a book that’s not on Goodreads but this particular edition is unknown to it. It’s tiny and hard to hold. You have the feeling it will break if you press it too hard. It’s a fragile jewel, worth the read. The first page-turner for me in over a month. Thraxa … | Continue reading
According to PictureThis, the bush is Bridalwreath Spirea, native to Korea, China and Japan. It’s supposed to flower on the oddly specific date May 5th but flowered early because it’s in Sofia. | Continue reading
The new app update allows font size modification for easier reading. Improved post tags aid in discovering new sites. Cheers to the Jetpack team! | Continue reading
I read 6 books in March. This is a significant decrease from the previous months. I wake up before 7am and go to bed earlier, perhaps because of the daylight savings time. Falling asleep earlier means less time reading and fewer books in the monthly report. It may also be related … | Continue reading
I celebrated 1337 likes last week. It’s a hacker-speak for “elite”, and a short form of 31337 or l33t. Some kids would speak like that on IRC when I first got online in the late 90s. It was some form of an anti-language, made to obfuscate conversations so that you don’t get autok … | Continue reading
I’d love to do the countdown for an important rocket launch or be busy in the control room. I watched the Starship attempts live and watched some of the previous milestones for SpaceX live. I always have goosebumps before the launch and enjoy words like “Nominal” and “RUD”. I enj … | Continue reading