In 1998, I had the privilege of studying under the old accounting professor Kosta Pergelov (may he rest in peace). 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:
Colleagues! The drop drills the stone not with force but with persistence.
I adopted that in my personal belief system. Perhaps it helped that Professor Pergelov would repeat the proverb every other lecture with his signature slow yelling.
Give the drops enough time and they’ll carve a path to the stars.
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 at the right place? I see a door open and decide to get in. 10-15 meters after, there is another door that appears to be locked and a staircase leading downstairs to the right. I see bookshelves everywhere seemingly unattended. Perhaps I’m at the right place. Shall I keep going down to page 17? Or perhaps I should force the door (page 27)? In case I carry a little angry dog in my backpack, turn to 7.
This is the wiring style of gamebooks, and the new one is a 2nd edition of a rare book published in the 90s by Lubomir Nikolov, most copies of which have been lost or thrown away.
I kept walking down and found a large room, perhaps a bar, full of folks about my age. Why would anyone build such a large room 2-3 floors under a residential building?
I entered, got my book with an autograph, chatted with people, and it was fine.
The first game book published in Bulgaria was by the same author Lubomir Nikolov – Fire Desert. It started a genre and a community that inspired me to write and later to code. I’m not a very active member of this community but I buy the new books to support it and read some of them. If you want to try that but don’t speak Bulgarian, try Blood Sword.
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 it and finish the books I have in mind, let’s enjoy this gem from Artur’s blog:
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.
Veselin.blog 