Cats, good books, AI, and religious walking in the city of Sofia
I didn’t have a good angle to capture the vast number of stage trucks parked near Arena Sofia, but they were at least 50. So many that they made me want to visit Armin van Buuren’s show this week. What did they bring with the trucks? So curious.
I may settle with reading a book with a similarly named character. Savine dan Glokta is waiting for me.
Jane Harper’s trilogy about Aaron Falk concludes with Exiles – the opposite of an epic thriller.
3 people died over the last years in a small but flourishing Australian town. It’s all written off as accidents but a body is missing and Aaron Falk will start digging. Most of the book it’s not even clear he’s investigating. He doesn’t do much other than enjoy the hospitality of his friends, and whenever he notices something, the writer doesn’t tell us what. However, he’ll find clues and solve all of the cases. It’s all hidden in front of our eyes.
The big issue? This town is way too good. Can Aaron go back to the big city as a federal agent after seeing how all these people live?
I give it 4*/5 and despite the sub-optimal score, I enjoyed it and would read a continuation if one is ever written.
The shelf naturally formed with other low-stress books like Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes, two Brandon Sandersons and 3 gamebooks. I have some reading ahead of me.
I walked today alone with my thoughts. I was upset about something and was thinking about ways to resolve the problem. After 30-ish minutes of walking, I saw this reassuring sign. It says “It’s cool to care”.
It is indeed cool to care, but it is not cool to act under the influence of a strong emotion. When a person is in the red, the most productive thing they can do is usually to cool down and get out of the red.
I’m sure the poster wasn’t there to reassure people who care but nevertheless, it helped me get out of the red and move to the orange.
Here’s this generated with an AI duck who doesn’t care.
In case you’ve missed it, the image block now has AI. This duck is the first time I have used it.
The natural trend of everything in life is a decline. Health, relationships, skills, happiness – it all needs effort. You’re either working to improve it or it goes sideways, south, or just vanishes.
I’ve been trying to improve my health by walking 10K steps daily. Last week I achieved 13K, using the colder weather and the willingness of my wife and the little kid to participate. At the end of Sunday, after meeting the goal of 13K for the week, I just tossed the Apple Watch and turned off my brain. Didn’t even read a book. Felt overwhelming and unpleasant.
Why does it feel like it is too much? An average of 13K means about 2h 10 min/day. The day is 24h. This leaves 21h 50min of inactivity. The human body was not made to be physically inactive for 22 hours per day. I have no answer yet. I’ll keep walking meanwhile.
Roger Wilco is a Bulgarian fantasy gamebook writer who published exactly two books sometime around 1998. He was inspired by the more famous writer Michael Mindcrime, who he met on a tram. However, he started with the other book and ended with this one, and there’s no trace of other creations 26 years later. A Bulgarian version of Harper Lee.
I received a beautiful and well-preserved copy of True Macic by mail and it invited me to read it.
The book is short and readable, about 260 episodes. A junior mage and his anti-mage friend go after a magic book and a disk. The issue is that as it seems, there are lots of books of various colors, and the disks are likely CD-ROMs. They will find thousands. Judging by the book + CD-ROM-combo, I think the mission was to find one of those programming books from the 1990s with a CD glued inside.
The world is a post-apocalyptic fantasy where the current civilization has been transformed by a nuclear (or asteroid) holocaust. It remains unclear which one. The cities are in a mad-max-style chaos, and magicians roam around and wreak havoc. There are some safe spaces here and there, maintained by magic (and CD-ROMs).
I found a path to the end but the book likely keeps other mysteries hidden, including flying carpets. I might give it another chance.
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