Tag: blog

McDonald’s Achievement

~ Veselin ~ 12 Comments

First customer since the last reset of the kiosks for the shift or the day. 11:30 is a bit early for lunch but still. I was first 🏆🏅✅

McDonald’s is not known to be the best food, it is expensive and is slow these days. We are high on the Big Mac Index, higher than the USA. It has a special place in my hard despite all of that. My generation grew up with a French comic called Pif that advertised McDonald’s. I had no idea that it was a fast food chain or what a fast food chain was until the 90s when they came to Bulgaria and opened their first restaurant. I still grew up with the logo. Their Pif ads paid off. Here we are, 35 years after the fall of communism, I still occasionally eat McD and remember the long-gone comic.

Avogadro Corp by William Hertling book review

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

I’m interested in using AI to optimize things and got the nudge to read this book because of my interests. I find this book quite depressing.

A team of engineers in the Google-sized company Avogadro Corp implements a software called ELOPe. It optimizes emails based on the desired outcome. ELOPe has access to everyone’s main communication channel, which gives it instant and infinite power. It quickly takes over the company by sending bogus emails. The software is good enough to self-improve, manipulate, and survive.

Although very unrealistic from an engineering point of view, the book is a good warning of what could happen one day if AI is trusted. I find Skynet or the Matrix more likely scenarios than this but it should be kept in mind that although it may not play out this way, we can achieve the result in some other way.

4/5 – it’s a good warning, and a great idea, but unpleasant to read due to its unrealistic characters. I’m not sure if I’ll dare to touch the follow-ups.

Stephanie Plum – Finger Lickin’ Fifteen

~ Veselin ~ 2 Comments

Janet Evanovich’s number fifteen is the first book in the series with a name that makes at least some sense. Stephanie will be food-colored because of a cooking competition. The tiny issue with the competition is that nobody can cook and some heads are rolling. There will be explosions and some occasional edible food, hence the title.

I’m not sure why Stephanie doesn’t shave her hair. The curls are great for the storytelling but it’s so painful with all the paint, food, and other substances that end up there. I feel sorry for her.

Number 14 is 5/5, and Number 15 is 4/5. Both are enjoyable reads and the series is going strong.

Thraxas and the Dance of Death

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

It’s not common to read a book that’s not on Goodreads but this particular edition is unknown to it. It’s tiny and hard to hold. You have the feeling it will break if you press it too hard. It’s a fragile jewel, worth the read. The first page-turner for me in over a month.

Thraxas and a bunch of powerful wizards are after a green jewel that makes people kill each other and slip away. The story is good and has no villains, which is quite impressive given the large number of dead people.

Makri is accused of theft and wants to resolve the accusations her way by rolling heads. She’s surprisingly civil for a gladiator champion with ork blood this time.

Both cases somehow manage to connect. I couldn’t predict most of the stuff that happened. The only guarantee is that it’s a good read.

5/5

Jetpack App Improvements

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

I just got the new update of the app and I was actually excited about the update. I can now modify the font size for reading. It only applies to the post detail screen in the reader but it’s a good start for people like me who wear glasses and struggle with tiny letters, often switching to something else after reading a page.

The post tags feature is also getting better. This is how I find new sites to follow. It’s relatively inconvenient to browse by “new” and see a mountain of posts but it works better for discovery to me than the Discover feature where all the established blogs are.

I would previously subscribe and edit tags from the website.

Cheers to the Jetpack folks 🥂