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
Kinch Na Shannack is a low-level thug with good education and some magical talent. He’ll start a journey that will exceed our worst nightmares. First of all, this is a beautiful-looking book. The pages, cover, typography, and overall design are all great. Kudos to the publisher f … | Continue reading
Bells and pottery, useful stuff 🙂 Bansko, May 2026. | Continue reading
Took a photo of this ad because I found it curious that a country without any space science has a space engineering program at the Sofia University (partnering with two others). Looked dubious on a first glance. However, after visiting the website, I got the realization that it’s … | Continue reading
There are a few obvious choices here, and I’d place them in no particular order. Out of these, I think I regret the Gravedigger’s Chronicles the most. It was such an absurd idea, deserved to be wrapped up. | Continue reading
Is a little chaos actually good for us? Constant changes are part of life. Changes come with a little bit of chaos. Not much changes on Mars and Mars isn’t a very habitable place. | Continue reading
I’m reading a second book over 1000 pages this year, called Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff. The book is full of exceptionally powerful vampires that are quickly turning humans extinct. The main character says that the vampires are people free from consequences. Not facing … | Continue reading
Shishman Street is sometimes pedestrian. It is beautiful and I hope it would one day become pedestrian-only, especially given that the main pedestrian area in Sofia is so packed with people that it’s no longer pleasant. I wish I took more photos. I didn’t suspect anything there i … | Continue reading
I stopped sleeping well in my mid to late 30s. I used alcohol to end the day, coffee to start it, and didn’t sleep much in total. Yet I still woke up at night anyway. The bad sleep eventually contributed to significant health issues. Here’s what helped me turn things around: If i … | Continue reading
I had a good month and read some great books. I’m currently on sabbatical, a three-month paid leave that Automattic awards as an anniversary benefit every five years. I’ll dedicate a separate post to that because it’s a very significant event for me, but until I write it, I wante … | Continue reading
This is close to Orlov Most, connecting Yavorov with the Borisova Gradina, right after Victor Hugo street. I don’t know who came up with the idea to turn an unimportant underpass to a piece of art but here we are. A must see. | Continue reading
Michael Connelly is one of my all-time most favorite authors. One of the few, whose books mostly got better over the years. The Proving Ground is his latest creation, rated the absurdly high 4.5 on Goodreads. Unfortunately, although far more interesting than the last one, we’ve s … | Continue reading
When walking in Sofia, you’re presented with the opportunity to spot things, according to your mood. If you’re in mood to see cats, you see cats. If you’re in mood to see beauty and happiness, it’s everywhere. If you’re in mood to see ruins, that’s what you see. I think the photo … | Continue reading
A bit of blur but good luck taking a photo of these beetles with a phone camera with no motion blur. | Continue reading
I take the blame (or pride) for this writing prompt. I really wanted some more goofy ones to go out, and seeing one of the worst offenders in the wild forces me to respond. Here’s the line of thought I have. So here are my nominees: Mitth’raw’nuruodo – just because I recently rea … | Continue reading
Communism in Bulgaria self-destructed in 1989. At this time, we already had shortages in pretty much everything. Groceries, for example, were somehow centrally provided using an absurdly small number of stores by modern standards, which were also really tiny compared to what we h … | Continue reading
Thomas Bayes was an 18th century minister, the fruit of whose work I currently study. Bayes was curious about probabilities, which in the 1700s primarily meant things like predicting dice rolls, coin flips, and the position of billiard balls. We don’t flip coins very often so her … | Continue reading
Every real construction has to start with this little building. Found one in the mountain, not quite where I expected to see it. My kids were disappointed that I didn’t take a photo of the horses on the opposite direction of this hut, and looking back into the morning, I think th … | Continue reading
The Blueberries are red when green. | Continue reading
The low cost airlines have brought lots of tourists to Sofia, so many that entire areas become foreigners-only. Thankfully, they stay away from Malyovitsa because it doesn’t have a gondola. This peak is one of my long-term hiking goals. Last time we made it, it took us 8 hours bo … | Continue reading
Thrawn is a highly creative blue humanoid smurf-like creature from the Star Wars universe. You can’t take this book too seriously, knowing it’s part of the Star Wars universe. However, Zahn gave his best here and the story significantly exceeded my expectations. It is a fine qual … | Continue reading
It’s been awhile since I completed a popular science book. This one was good. It was about the process of exploring new physics but you can replace the physics with software engineering and it remains relevant, or at least it remains relevant for me. I enjoyed it and I feel full … | Continue reading
I used to work not far from this place. Would buy a pizza slice for lunch, sit on a bench, and watch sparrows and pigeons compete for breadcrumbs. Sparrows would always outsmart the pigeons. | Continue reading
Spotted in Sofia, near Vasil Levski stadium. This isn’t the first time I see vandalized scooters. Why it happens is beyond me but I’ve noticed the people who use them and the people who vandalize them seem to be in the U-18 age group. For a car-heavy city like Sofia, driving thes … | Continue reading
This gentleman remained unbothered by my approach to photograph him. Vicious predator in his natural habitat. He’s probably watching me on the second photo. | Continue reading
One of my New Year’s resolutions was that I would hike to Cherni Vrah three times this year. Making steps in the city is easy – it doesn’t take much time, it’s flat, there’s food and water everywhere. Hiking is hard, it takes at least 45 minutes to reach the starting point. Then … | Continue reading
The painted former currency exchange on Tsarigradsko Shose. | Continue reading
I still need to work a bit more to reach the levels of my old blog, which I retired around 2K posts (give or take). | Continue reading
This is such a good book title. You can hardly come up with anything better than it. It can apply to anything. Get a speech or a news announcement or even a billboard, you say the title and it gets a new meaning. In our case, the book is an unusual thriller. Think Freida McFadden … | Continue reading
I’m reading the book Lost in Math by the famous Youtube content creator and scientist Sabine Hossenfelder. The author shares stories around a common theme – beauty shouldn’t be an argument in science. According to Sabine Hossenfelder, scientists have the tendency to chase beautif … | Continue reading