Tag: blogging

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

I feel a bit silly reading a book that just turned into a TV show.

In book 4 of the series, the Murderbot flies between space stations and faces several attempts to be stopped. However, it has no clear goal or understanding what’s going on, and it’s also not clear why the rich corporations are trying to stop it. We’ll have to wait more books to reach that clarity. Alien artifacts are involved, so it is promising.

This and the previous sci-fi book I read made me think about something else.

The Murderbot is flying through wormholes. Sten in The Wolf Worlds is also flying through wormholes. Assume a wormhole existed, and I flew from point A to point B through a wormhole. No object in space is stationary. Galaxies move towards gravitational attractors, star clusters orbit around the center of the galaxy, and planets orbit around stars. Flying to the other side of the galaxy through a wormhole means that my spaceship will suddenly be accelerated to incredible speeds, compared to the local objects, speeds from which the deceleration may take years. The spaceships in both books do not address that.

There is no plausible space flight, unlike what we see in true 5* sci-fis like Legion or Project Hail Mary. And if we remove the space flight, this book turns out to be a short cyberpunk novel, similar to Gibson’s world, where a heavily modified human surfs the Internet like if it’s a water slide.

For that, I think I’ll allow myself to score this book 4/5, still a great little adventure. The sci from the sci-fi doesn’t add up, otherwise very nice.

Sky Fort

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

The new tallest building in Sofia is almost complete.

It’s called Sky Fort, and once finished, it will rank among the top 100 tallest buildings in Europe, and the top 25 within the EU.

I’ve grown used to seeing this unfinished skyscraper. It’s not far from where I live, and for the past five years or so, it’s been slowly getting its glass facade. I’m not sure why architects design such complex glass structures. It seems to be common among high-rise buildings in Sofia, and it often takes years to fully wrap them in glass.

In any case, the new building will offer 202 meters of uninterrupted mountain views, direct access to the subway, and a location that otherwise raises eyebrows.

King’s Garden

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

This tiny patch of the King’s Garden used to be the famous and beautiful Writer’s Coffee, a central spot for the intellectuals of Sofia until the 70s.

It was destroyed likely to create a photo spot with the church behind, however the true reasoning is not known to the Internet.

Vibe Coding

~ Veselin ~ 6 Comments

I’ve been experimenting with AI-first coding over the last months. Instead of the usual loop of:

  • Understand the problem
  • Make a change
  • Test it
  • Repeat until ready
  • Create a PR

The workflow becomes something more like:

  • Explain part of the change to the AI
  • Test if it works
  • Review the result
  • Feed back corrections
  • Repeat until ready
  • Create a PR

So far, I’ve found it great for making quick changes quickly. But when it comes to harder tasks, it gets difficult. Progress tends to come either by giving the AI very specific instructions, one tiny step at a time—or by iterating endlessly, like a sculptor chipping away at a boulder and ending up with a smaller boulder.

Still, it feels more productive than traditional coding in many cases, and it feels like the future. But there are real trade-offs, especially when the code is complex or the required change is significant.

I don’t have answers yet. For now, here’s a photo of a waterfall.

EDIT:

My colleague Nico also wrote an article about Vibe Coding, check his blog out!

White Mustache

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

I tried to take a photo of a tiny black kitten and the moment I turned on the camera, the kitten disappeared and mom showed up to check if I present danger.

I think the white mustache is ruining her camo 🤣