Alley of Books, Sofia

~ Veselin ~ 8 Comments

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 May. Over the last few years, a third one has formed, called Alley of Books. It’s essentially the same book fair but in September.

It will start on September 7th and will be located on Vitosha Boulevard. The highlight of the event for me will be a book signing with Nicholas Eames on September 10th. He’ll be at Artline Studio’s tent and then will do a talk at Gramophon Club, starting at 19:00.

Book fairs give the chance to buy books directly from the publishers. Even if their discounts are not as high as what we can get online, the money, I think, goes to a better place. There are still writers, translators, illustrators, printers, and so on I can support this way. Even though I see AI slop entering the book market, the real thing still exists, despite some sloppy book covers and somewhat worse translations. Better pay the publishers than some big software company that resells their work with a large margin and zero risk.

Cat on a hot roof

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

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.

I actually appreciate this design choice

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

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, watch sumo online. No tickets for you.

I’m kind of far anyway and my vacation is over.

Reading in August

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

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

  1. Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments – I have the feeling this will help me be better at my job but it just as well may not. It’s a guide for running better experiments, written by engineers from Google, Microsoft, and LinkedIn.
  2. The Trapped Girl by Robert Dugoni – out of the many Dugoni books I completed this month, this one felt the best. A crime/thriller with a good flow and difficult to guess culprit.
  3. Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman – Carl continues advancing through the Diablo 2 style maze. The book was a bit worse than Carl 1 but still 5/5. Looking forward to the 3rd part.
  4. Her Final Breath by Robert Dugoni – I finished 5 Dugoni books during the month and it’s difficult to remember which one is which 🙂
  5. My Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni
  6. In the Clearing by Robert Dugoni
  7. Close to Home by Robert Dugoni – probably the worst Dugoni book for the month, I think I gave that one 4/5. Still very good.

Worst books

  1. Therapy by Sebastian Fitzek, this was just bad. I have another book by the same author but I now question my choices and may just donate it so I don’t need to read it. Goodreads rating 3/5 but really 1/5.
  2. Glass Houses by Rachel Caine – I recommended two of her books about the Stillhouse Lake. However, this one is a YA fairytale and I exhausted my faith in the author to get to the end. 2/5
  3. Experimentation for Engineers: From A/B testing to Bayesian optimization by David Sweet – for the most part, it felt like the pages were filled with the purpose to provide a complete guide, rather than to teach me anything I have a remote chance of trying. I wasn’t able to separate the practical, useful bits from the filler, so I can’t tell for sure how much is filler, and how much is real content the author tried in their career. All the examples are hypothetical, there are no citations. The other book on the subject quoted a source for every claim. This one? Nope. Rating – on Goodreads was 3/5 but it could be 5 for the right person and 1 if I wrote it while in bad mood.