Am I Patriotic?

~ Veselin ~ 11 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?
View all responses

Patriotism is a complex quality with both positive and negative aspects. Some people express it by putting a flag on their car, while others hate the rival countries. Maybe wear a tattoo with a national hero. Very few will join the army or the police out of a desire to serve the country, wearing a tattoo or putting a sticker is much easier.

My form of patriotism is that I live in my country, respect the laws, pay my taxes, recycle my plastic & paper, and do small acts of kindness that improve the quality of life in the community. I did my mandatory military service. I think the sum of all of that adds up to at least one tattoo per month. Add that I don’t smoke and litter, and I think I would be an extremely patriotic Bulgarian.

I feel like patriotism shouldn’t come with any sort of pride or feeling of superiority. We can be proud with our efforts and accomplishments but it’s completely pointless to be proud of my area of birth. Being proud that I’m born in Sofia is like being proud that I’m Aquarius.

There is no cat on this photo

~ Veselin ~ 10 Comments

Not taken on purpose. My hands were full with bags of purchases and I was without my glasses, took a photo for the “Find the cat” series. Went back home, put my glasses on, and oh no, there’s no cat. Or maybe there is one after all?

Find the cat.

Hidden Treasure

~ Veselin ~ 8 Comments

This house is hidden behind the multi story apartment buildings near Orlov Most. I only recently noticed it’s there, even though I walk on the main boulevard almost every day.

The Chesnut Man by Søren Sveistrup

A Chesnut Man
~ Veselin ~ 8 Comments

The smart homicide detective Naia Thulin has to supervise her colleague Hess, who messed up at Europol. They are faced with a case involving a serial killer who leaves rivers of blood and signature little chestnut figurines.

The book is engaging, well-written, but at the same time unnecessarily gory and disgusting. The main characters are repeatedly praised for being intelligent and brilliant, yet they constantly make silly mistakes that reek of foolishness and overconfidence. Real police officers probably make similar errors, but sometimes it becomes too much. Some of the mistakes feel like they’re straight out of a comedy horror movie—like when someone sits in front of a slowly moving steamroller for 15 minutes without taking the one necessary step to avoid getting hit.

The style is a mix of Chris Carter’s blood-soaked descriptions and the demigod hidden villain trope from The Mentalist. The Chestnut Man is excessively elusive, like Red John, but slightly more believable. His motivation is fully revealed and obvious almost from the beginning of the book. In this regard, The Mentalist falls short. Also, Hess is nowhere near as gifted as his TV counterpart, which makes the story far more interesting.

Naia Tulin is supposedly the lead character, but overall, Hess gets more page time and does more of the actual investigating.

Objectively, I’d rate the book around a 4.5—about 150–200 pages longer than it needed to be for a solid 5. What I didn’t like doesn’t make it a bad book, just slightly incompatible with my tastes.

I’d read other books by this author but maybe not right now.

The Power of Old GitHub Issues

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

I’m starting believe that a rule exists such that if you file an issue on GitHub, the older it is, the more weight it has and the probability it’s taken seriously increases. As it gets older, the issue either gets randomly closed, or becomes like a space-twisting gravity well.

Let’s imagine a task like visiting the dentist. The more I postpone it, the more I’ll want to do it now as it reaches a nerve and hurts. Something like that happens with issues as well. When a bug report (or a request) is submitted, it starts living its own life, and the clock of decay starts ticking.

  • The problem will be noticed by others and they’ll refer to it (due to the Single Cockroach Rule)
  • Embarrassment may start building up. Why is this still hanging?
  • Familiarity happens. People checking the list of open issues will read that one and postpone it many times, turning it to an old friend.

So even mildly unreasonable issues may eventually get done by the gravity of their own age.