How to turn off notifications for likes

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

I pushed myself to blog more and the blog started getting likes. I really enjoy receiving these. I hit a bug of a kind, though. There is a way to violently like someone’s site. I’ve not figured out where it stands in the netiquette. Getting one or 5 likes feels great but getting 20 feels like an alien invasion.

So, about a week ago I went to https://wordpress.com/me/notifications and did this to myself:

After 3-4 very quiet days, I went back and turned them on, except for the likes on comments.

Not sure what to do, will leave the decision for some other moment.

Happy Baba Marta!

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

We celebrate the 1st of March in Bulgaria and give away wristbands called Martenitsa. Then we wear the received Martenitsa until the storks arrive or the trees blossom. Once that happens, we can put the Martenitsa on a branch or under a stone.

We won’t let ourselves be set back by some already blossoming branches. We’ll wait for the storks this year.

Thraxas by Martin Scott

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

Imagine a fantasy world with taverns, elves, orks, bands, guilds, priests, and corruption. A mixture of Tolkien, Pratchett, the dark part of the Middle Ages, and an exploitation version of Conan. In that world, there’s an overweight battle mage who works as a detective but not too hard. He’s drunk half of the time and dedicated the other half when he’s short on cash to support his drinking habits. Feels like he’s intoxicated in the way Jack Reacher would have a toothache – more of a nuisance than an actual weakness. His action style and vision are more of a Bud Spencer or The Mountain rather than a guy with poor health and addictions. If I could imagine one present-day celebrity as Thraxas, that would be Eddie Hall.

Thraxas has a superhuman sidekick. Makri is a former undefeated gladiator who works as a waitress and wears revealing clothing. She has impossible sword and axe skills and studies hard to get admitted to the university. Thraxas has no purpose in life or goals. Makri has a purpose and several very ambitious goals. In a sense, despite being described as a sidekick and only having a small part of the page time, she’s the true main character of book one and is far more appealing. You can’t like Thraxas but can love Makri.

5/5, Goodreads

PS. I already completed book 2 and have ordered books 3 and 4 but I feel book 2 deserves a separate review.

My first computer came out of this shop

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

Looks like an abandoned shop in an old commie block. However, in 1997, this was the service center of RTS computers. They would assemble computers in the left part and hand them over in the right part of what’s in the photo. I also remember how their technician built a custom LPT1-LPT1 cable for me, I even remember this technician’s name. We used it to connect with my neighbor and play games over it. We had no Internet at that time, it was pricy. The LPT cable did the job (or a job, as it was limited).