AI in the wild, posted on a cat subreddit. The community is torn if these are cats, slow-mo, or fakes. I don’t know how I feel about it. Leave the cat videos alone? LOL? Didn’t imagine Skynet like that. | Continue reading
I love reading books. Writing reviews on Goodreads makes me feel accomplished and helps me remember what I’ve read. Before Goodreads, I often forgot which books I owned and ended up buying them or even reading them again. Most of my ratings are 4s and 5s. Some are 3s. Almost no r … | Continue reading
Dropping a recommendation for the visitors of Sofia – the Take a Cake bakery is my top choice of guilty pleasures. They have several shops around the city and no shortage of sweets. I wish I could share a photo with the actual cupcakes I got for Saint Valentine but they didn’t la … | Continue reading
Stephanie Plum is a young 30-ish old woman with no job and no future. She starts working as a headhunter and hunts for dangerous criminals who skipped bond, primarily relatives and beloved members of the community. Dead bodies are flying everywhere for no apparent reason. There’s … | Continue reading
In 1998, I had a very old professor in accounting (Kosta Pergelov, RIP). He would love to sneak philosophy into his lectures. One of his proverbs stuck in my mind. He would stand in front of the full hall with about 100 students and slowly yell if you can imagine slow yelling: Co … | Continue reading
I’m not sure if I miss the snowy February from the past. Probably not. | Continue reading
5pm on a warm Sunday. I’m about to visit a book signing for a genre of books that almost ceased to exist in the late 90s. It’s in Lozenets, an expensive neighborhood located on a hill, in what looks like a residential building. There are no signs. I’m looking left and right. Am I … | Continue reading
Every complex software system tends to have sub-systems that are in the process of being rewritten but stuck in limbo. I call this myself the Hydra, although it’s a term that doesn’t exist outside of my head. The subject of second systems deserves a full essay but while I sit on … | Continue reading
Some things are better in the summer. | Continue reading
I like thrillers where a strong detective or military or whatever solves mysteries, catches murderers, and restores the balance of the force. Last week, I found the series about Stephanie Plum. She’s a headhunter, a field dominated by men on both sides. She fights with persistenc … | Continue reading
We have a neighbourhood called bed bug, yes. | Continue reading
We visited the greenhouse part of the Botanic Garden yesterday. It’s a nice distraction from the busy and gray winter Sofia and transports you to a world of flowers and fish. Honestly, can’t imagine the effort to maintain all these flowers – they have slightly different needs, an … | Continue reading
Lack of money can make you unhappy but does more money above a certain threshold bring happiness? No. I’ll try to prove that with pseudo-math and book references. First, can we have a functional relationship between money and happiness? Is there a function Happiness = f(money) wh … | Continue reading
I would find like-minded folks and come up together with practical ideas to reduce cars in cities. There have to be other ways to commute that don’t pollute as much and are not threatening to pedestrians and cyclists. For example, very slow speed limit in the city, no free public … | Continue reading
These would blossom in my grandparents’ yard around New Year. It’s the first sign of the coming spring to me. | Continue reading
The WordPress.com Reader found me this story from 2023 on a site with almost no visitors. It imagines a utopia where AI does almost all the work except for some. Like Human Resources. Why is that spared? Check the story. I don’t believe the current boom in generative AI will push … | Continue reading
This poster is almost graffiti art. Also shows what we lose with computer-assisted creativity. | Continue reading
I got to this book by pure randomness, using a random book finder. I had no clue it existed before the tool suggested it. My wish was to read something different and with more life in it. The last 2 books I finished were quite grim and had nearly identical serial killers. So here … | Continue reading
Finance worker pays out $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer’ I can foresee that the “Nigerian Prince” and “We are calling from the bank” enterprises may get fully automated, pushing ordinary criminal copywriters and call centers in impoverished are … | Continue reading
Someone in 1983 communist Bulgaria wrote a book about drinks. I was hoping to find a recipe for Boza but found more modern drinks like milk with cocoa. It also had a cocktail with Curacao. This impressed me because this ingredient is imported and my country wasn’t even able to im … | Continue reading
This is a simple book and part of a series I hope to finish. It comes with promises – there will be races with fighter-jet fast homemade cars. Whatever happens in the race will be decided milliseconds before the finish line. There will be crashes, of course, with speeds that woul … | Continue reading
I like books. I like to read them, to watch them, and to slowly choose them in the bookstores. I don’t like to keep them at home for too long as they take up a lot of space but otherwise, I love books. I also like my Goodreads archive with all the books I read … Continue reading … | Continue reading
This is the tiny square in front of Sofia Ring. One of my favourite places in the city. It has Starbucks, safe space for the kids to play, and a choice of food. The view is fantastic. | Continue reading
AMD K5/90, 8MB RAM, 1.08GB HDD, 1.44″ FDD, 14″ PW DISPLAY. $460, August 1997. It smelled like ozone. I can close my eyes and smell it. The screen was black, the case was big and white. It had no games and no connection to the Internet. I had to install software with the floppy un … | Continue reading
I found them all. Next step is reading them. | Continue reading
It was a cinema, according to the barely visible white text on the steps. | Continue reading
Today we discussed with a colleague what is good code and what isn’t. We somewhat agreed that good code is code that can be understood and changed by people who aren’t the author. Hours later, I found this quote in the book I’m reading and wanted to share it: The true test of goo … | Continue reading
Obscure and impenetrable language conveys a sense of expertise Dan Ariely Have you been in a situation in which the person you talk to speaks and you don’t get anything? I have in a variety of cases: The common thing between these situations is that the person in front of me may … | Continue reading
I read “To Conquer Yourself” by Silvia Azdreeva yesterday. A woman who likes hiking goes to the Himalayas and climbs Ama Dablam, with no prior high-altitude experience. It’s 288 pages of captivating insanity and by far the best book I had a chance to read in 2024. Makes “Into thi … | Continue reading
A little bit of age does not make iron weaker, especially in a good concrete environment. Cheers | Continue reading
This road connects Poligona and is likely inconvenient because there are no cars. Has lots of traffic signs instead. | Continue reading
Four leaves clovers, I think. I remember spending hours to find a single one of these. Who could’ve imagined that you can have as many as you like, all with the perfect shape and size. | Continue reading
I like this sidewalk with leaves on the trees more but it feels good this way too. | Continue reading
I find it funny that every time a very clear statement is explained or exaggerated with an adverb, the explanation is a hint that the opposite is present or the statement is not entirely true. He absolutely doesn’t drink alcohol. I will totally buy a ticket for the next Taylor Sw … | Continue reading
I managed to take a photo before the square was cleaned from the snow. I love this place and the monument. It is engaging and with a very clear purpose. You sit, take a selfie, move on. Maybe a bit better without ice. | Continue reading
A world, surrounded by flying broken machinery. Humans, hiding underground, and under constant attack by alien spaceships. The future is grim but for the youngsters, it all looks like a game and plays like a game. And they, Spensa in particular, will try to game the system. The b … | Continue reading
12 years ago, I visited a Broadway show in NYC during an Automattic team meetup. I liked it very much – the music was fantastic and the permanent decoration was movie-like. I wish I didn’t shut down my old blog so that I could link to the post about this I remember the fascinati … | Continue reading
The sign says “Videotapes for rent”. Before 1989, private businesses were mostly not legal in my country. One of the first business types that kickstarted capitalism in Sofia was stores for lending video tapes. They were found in improvised spaces like car garages or electrical s … | Continue reading
When I was a child in the 80s and early 90s, computers were rare. Computer games were a scent from another world you could see and enjoy briefly, if a kid whose parents had an 8-bit computer, would invite you home and let you play when their parents were not watching. I used book … | Continue reading
The main bronze figures are gone but it still looks a bit menacing. Looks like a broken Star Destroyer in the New Republic times. I expect it to stay like that for the decades to come unless the empire strikes back. A monument to hang over my head as an insult to the living and … … | Continue reading
Blagoevgrad has several parks where you can make your daily steps, out of which The Cross Path is my favorite. Far enough to make you sweat. | Continue reading
The monument of the soviet army in Sofia lost its gun. The sculpture is too large and it looks like it will be chopped to pieces rather than removed all at once. I saw no pro-Russian protesters, which also surprised me. There were statements for the eternal defense of the monumen … | Continue reading