Author: Veselin

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The Waiting by Michael Connelly, Book Review

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The Waiting is Michael Connelly’s 39th book from the Harry Bosch Universe. Renée Ballard from LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit is going to chase a number of different cases at the same time, with the help of Maddie Bosch. Two of the cases are serial killers. Harry Bosch also makes a brief appearance. The avalanche of cases is something we can imagine from an unit that digs into the past and the entire series is plausible. It’s very satisfying because you read about multiple resolutions throughout the book.

Renée Ballard is my current most favorite character by Michael Connelly. She’s experienced but impatient. Doesn’t shy away from yelling at people. Relies on others to do the job. She chills by surfing, which puts her in difficult positions from time to time, including in that book. It starts with the theft of her belongings while surfing. She has no superpowers and doesn’t rely on Deux ex machina to solve the cases. I like the whole setup.

This thriller gets an easy 5*/5 Goodreads rating. It will be a hard thing to read a better book in January. The bar is set high.

Night of the Dragon by Julie Kagawa, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 10 Comments

Yumeko is a half-human half-fox teenage girl, gifted with the magic of illusion and trickery. She has the mission to bring a powerful scroll to safety. The scroll grants its owner a single wish, granted by the almighty dragon god, who can only be summoned once every 1,000 years. It was used to build or ruin empires, to give immortality, and to trap immortal creatures. However, over the last 2 books, the scroll was taken by an evil and long undead blood mage who wants to open the gates of hell. Yumeko and her friends will try to get it back.

This book is a LOTR-style romantasy where the entire magical system is inspired by Japanese folklore. No elves, or even kobolds. I didn’t tag the previous two books as romantasy because the love story was relatively insignificant and not out of the ordinary for fantasy books. However, this last part is all about characters doing things for each-other out of love and care. Yumeko is so nice that she can melt the hearts of demons.

5/5. Night of the Dragon is slightly less appealing to readers who aren’t into romantasy because some moments are cringe. I think the romance is tolerable.

The print quality is great and the series got its own shelf for now.

The real question for me is if I should keep reading Julie Kagawa. I’m not sure yet. It was a nice detour from the epic fantasy I usually read but another detour might be too much.

Zuck’s Moderation Changes And My Blog

~ Veselin ~ 26 Comments

Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta is changing its moderation policy. The announcement was posted on Threads in 6 points and struck me as unusual. I went over these points several times and used ChatGPT to additionally separate the meaning from the PR. Came up to the conclusion that three things were announced and wrapped in zuckspeak:

  • Meta will cut moderation
  • Meta will relocate teams out of California and Texas
  • Meta will support a future initiative by president Trump

From the point of view of a personal blogger who actively uses Facebook, Threads, and formerly Instagram, Meta is my second-biggest source of traffic. I’m interested in them being successful and helping me succeed as well. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced problems with their services and think the problems are not going anywhere with these changes.

The problems that I’ve experienced with Facebook:

  • Publicize is no longer possible to my profile. I need to manually add my blog posts. This is likely to keep the traffic within the platform, which is something OpenAI, Google, and X also do
  • AI moderation bans/removes my blog posts, for example it banned this scary post and this photo of a bridge in my neighborhood
  • The moderation decisions are not reversible. Didn’t get a response to any appeal
  • Algorithmic deprioritization of manually shared posts if they contain external links
  • Propaganda/triggering articles reach my attention due to insufficient filtering of fake news
  • The response to any report I filed against hate speech was that that it doesn’t violate their guidelines (but my fitness achievements violated them)

So whatever moderation they do, it likely hides humans behind multiple layers of automation that leave bloggers vulnerable to frequent unfair treatment.

The problems that Facebook likely needs to solve and are lurking in the 6 changes:

  • Many parents from my generation consider Facebook and Instagram as not appropriate for children. We are raising a generation that’s banned from using these services and lives on Youtube, TikTok, and a few messenger apps. Some of these kids are already entering the work force and not spending any time or money on Meta.
  • Some social networks thrive because they allow X-rated content (Reddit, X)

My expectation for changes based on these observations

  • I think Zuckerberg expresses support to the new administration with a hope to get TikTok banned and Meta not banned, which can direct some young users to Instagram
  • I think they’ll let X-rated content slip in on all platforms to increase engagement, following similar moves by other networks, and label that a battle for the freedom of speech.

I don’t expect that any personal blogger will benefit from the changes unless they’re involved in whistleblowing/political criticism. Meanwhile, bloggers like me will continue to be banned when posting about outdoor walking.