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 possibly legit. Sufficiently legit to offer it for a very annual fee, to build a good looking website, and to look for candidates with a billboard.
Some things that happen these days are difficult to explain but I’m sure an explanation for this phenomena exists.
There are a few obvious choices here, and I’d place them in no particular order.
Alan Campbell’s Gravedigger’s Chronicles. Book #2 ends well but this is a clear trilogy, where the issue with the flooded planet needs to get at least partially addressed. Unfortunately, Alan Campbell announced he won’t write books anymore and just quit.
The Thraxas original series of 12 books didn’t reveal the origins of Thraxas and Makri. Book 13 was promised and not delivered.
Patrick Rothfuss stormed the world with his Wise Man’s Fear book. Kvothe, supposedly, already told his story but not to us. 15 years later, book 3 remains unpublished. It is very unlikely that we see anything other than another short story or a prequel.
The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson introduced us to a duo of young sorcerers who could create living glyphs. It is called a series but it is a series of one book. Second one never materialized.
Out of these, I think I regret the Gravedigger’s Chronicles the most. It was such an absurd idea, deserved to be wrapped up.
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:
No beer. The first 3-4 days without beer are awful but then it’s like no longer carrying a backpack full of bricks. Mornings are far more productive
No coffee. I’m convinced stopping coffee helped, but can’t evaluate by how much. Probably less important than beer, I’d place it second most important as I can physically sense the caffeine when I have too much
I count my steps and have daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Feeling physically tired helps me but steps are also like a form of meditation, they help process information, get my thoughts in order, and I think reduce stress
I dedicate time to reading before bed, as it makes me sleepy
Go to bed early. I found a saying somewhere and blogged about it but can’t find the source now. It goes roughly as follows:
If it’s not worth doing first thing in the morning, it’s not worth doing last thing in the evening
The reason for going to bed late most nights was just doing random things online, like doomscrolling or watching TV shows. Not worth it, according to the rule above.
This resulted in better sleep for me on average, and I think I clock 7+ hours most nights.
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 seen better it didn’t qualify for 4* on my shelves.
Mickey Haller is tired from criminal cases and moved to the area of civil law. He’s suing an AI company, whose AI-assistant convinced a teenager to commit murder. The settlement offers go up and down, and the ruthless billionaire behind the company will no spare additional efforts to end the case and hide everything behind a NDA.
The topic is deep and the plot is plausible, actually it could be something that has already happened. I have no objections in that area. The reason why the book didn’t click with me is that it was just uninteresting, and some was even meaningless. But while I have significant tolerance for inaccuracies, reaching page 250 or 300 without anything of substance happening was not good for me.
The plot offered many chances that could develop to be interesting. It had a secondary case. Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard got a shout out. But none of that had a meaningful follow-up, it was almost like it had to be included for the sake of being there, proving that the story is from the Harry Bosch universe. The billionaire wasn’t really a good match for the Lincoln Lawyer or some cat walked on the keyboard and we didn’t get far.
Overall, the book left me with a bad taste. I awarded it with an honest 3/5. Felt like it was written by the late John Grisham, whose stories are written to convince the reader that a certain causes are just. If you want to be convinced that AI is biased and can kill, look no further. The tagline could’ve been “garbage in, garbage out”.
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