A collection of posts, books, movies, links, and more.
Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility is a brilliant sci-fi novel spanning four time periods: 1912, 2020, 2203, and 2401. A bizarre anomaly—a shared moment of darkness, violin music, and crowd noise—mysteriously connects strangers across centuries. In 1912, exiled Edwin St. Andrew experiences it in a Canadian forest. In 2020, a childhood video captures the same event. In 2203, author Olive…
Formula 1 Round 11 2026 recap: The last race before the summer break. Norris wins with a little help from Sainz. Max Verstappen finishes P2 after a very strong race, Kimi P3. Russell can't catch a break in any race. Read more
Vacation in France. System of a Down concert and a short trip to Normandy: Le Havre, Étretat, Honfleur Read more
Formula 1 Round 10 2026 recap: Antonelli wins at Spa. Charles finishes P2 after leading the race, Verstappen takes P3, and Red Bull has a solid race. Russell's bad luck continues as he retires in the first lap. Read more
Formula 1 Round 9 2026 recap: Charles wins at Silverstone! Somehow Russell ends up P2 when no one expected it. Hamilton finishes P3. Great results for Ferrari. Antonelli and Verstappen are out at the end of the race. Read more
Why I read, how I choose books, and my preferences for ebook, physical, and audiobook formats. Read more
Formula 1 Round 8 2026 recap: Russell won in Austria. Ferrari brought major upgrades but saw no significant gains in race pace. Verstappen got his first podium of the year, and Red Bull looked competitive. Read more
A sort of review after one year with Linux (Mint and Fedora), covering some of the things I've noticed, what I like, the issues I've had, and what I'd recommend. Read more
Exhausted by endless "show & tell" posts about AI apps, benchmarks, and hype Read more
Formula 1 Round 7 2026 recap: Lewis Hamilton wins in Barcelona! His first victory for Ferrari. We might see a shift in the championship, and it might not just be a simple battle between the Mercedes drivers for the title. Russell has lost any last glimmer of hope at this point. Read more
Formula 1 Round 6 2026 recap: Another victory for Kimi Antonelli; Monaco continues to be a boring circuit for this generation of F1 cars; Lewis Hamilton gets another podium. Read more
Formula 1 Round 5 2026 recap: Kimi Antonelli takes his fourth consecutive win after an intense battle with George Russell, who retires when his engine fails; Lewis Hamilton hunts down and passes Max Verstappen late in the race for P2, while McLaren are completely out of the points. Read more
While San Francisco rebuilds from the chaos of war, a group of food service bots in an abandoned ghost kitchen take over their own delivery app account. They rebrand as a neighborhood lunch spot and start producing some of the tastiest hand-pulled noodles in the city. But there’s just one problem. Someone―or something―is review bombing the restaurant’s feedback page with fake “bad service”…
A funeral. A heist. A desperate mission. When Dymitr is called back to the old country for the empty night, a funeral rite intended to keep evil at bay, it's the perfect opportunity for him to get his hands on his family's most guarded relic—a book of curses that could satisfy the debt he owes legendary witch Baba Jaga. But first he'll have to survive a night with his dangerous, monster-hunting…
Formula 1 Round 4 2026 recap: Kimi Antonelli wins in Miami; McLaren, Ferrari, and Red Bull bring upgrades and become more competitive, while Mercedes no longer has such a big advantage, and there is a serious crash between Gasly and Lawson at the start. Read more
A few thoughts on LLMs now that prices for various subscriptions are starting to rise, why I would prefer to use local models, and why I think Mistral is doing something right. Read more
When Among Crows is swift and striking, drawing from the deep well of Slavic folklore and asking if redemption and atonement can be found in embracing what we most fear. We bear the sword, and we bear the pain of the sword. Pain is Dymitr’s calling. His family is one in a long line of hunters who sacrifice their souls to slay monsters. Now he’s tasked with a deadly find the legendary witch Baba…
Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James…
Formula 1 Round 3 2026 recap: Kimi Antonelli wins at Suzuka, we have a month-long break because the FIA couldn't come up with anything better, and a crash caused by the battery deployment mode. Read more
Formula 1 Round 2 2026 recap: George Russell wins the Sprint, Kimi Antonelli takes the race win, with Ferrari putting on a show for P3. Results, analysis, and memes. Read more
The 2026 F1 season kicks off in Australia with Mercedes dominating, Ferrari showing promise, and Aston Martin struggling under the sport's biggest rule overhaul in years. Read more
Birthday gift to myself: I went to Ferrari's home. Modena - Maranello - Bologna, beautiful cars and very good food. Read more
Serj Tankian will be the first to admit that his band, System of a Down, was “unlikely a chart-topper as had ever existed in modern music a band of Armenian-Americans playing a practically unclassifiable clash of wildly aggressive metal riffs, unconventional tempo-twisting rhythms, and Armenian folk melodies, with me alternately growling, screaming, and crooning lyrics that could pivot from…
I found out about a new feature of this amazing little tool called KDE Connect. Read more
The malign figure of the Antichrist endures in modern culture, whether religious or secular; and the spectral shadow he has cast over the ages continues to exert a strong and powerful fascination. Philip C. Almond tells the story of the son of Satan from his early beginnings to the present day, and explores this false Messiah in theology, literature and the history of ideas. Discussing the origins…
2025 year review: putting this site together, biking through Făgăraș, escaping to Brașov, switching to Linux, and soaking up Rome’s chaos Read more
The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distills the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime's work into a luminous reading experience that puts the power to create moments--and lifetimes--of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us. Read more
Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before. As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the…
I attended WordCamp Sofia 2025. Here is a list of talks that I enjoyed and pictures I took around the city. Read more
Wildly inventive spin on the supernatural thriller, about a woman working as a nanny for a young boy with strange and disturbing secrets. Mallory Quinn is fresh out of rehab when she takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike…
Cory Doctorow's Enshittification takes a witty yet incisive look at the tech landscape, where platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Google start off great—before they inevitably turn terrible. In this contemporary moment of digital decline, Doctorow explores how tech giants lure users in with convenience and then degrade their services over time, squeezing profit at the cost of user experience.…
After a few days of searching and several weeks of testing, I decided to move all my notes and my entire note‑taking process into Joplin. Read more
James Hetfield shares his personal collection of treasured guitars and reveals the story and significance of each within his life and career as the front man, guitarist, and songwriter for Metallica. From the Electra OGV that defined his style, sound and attitude to the mythical MX guitars, the first in a series of iconic collaborations with ESP, and from his signature Snakebytes through his…
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. Unless... In 2011, Jake Epping, an English teacher from Lisbon Falls, Maine, sets out on an insane — and insanely possible — mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination. Leaving behind a world of computers and mobile phones, he goes back to a time of big American cars and diners, of Lindy Hopping,…
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her…
Speaking out when it’s unpopular. Back in the day, Henry David Thoreau raged at the robber barons—the big shots of their age, despoiling the environment in the name of progress. Deep in the throes of the seemingly unstoppable growth of tech, a modern-day Thoreau has emerged in the guise of Gerry McGovern—decrying the massive, hidden negative impacts of tech on the environment. McGovern has…
The secrets to successfully planning and delivering projects on any scale—from home renovation to space exploration—by the world's leading expert on megaprojects. Full of vivid examples ranging from the building of the Sydney Opera House, to the making of the latest Pixar blockbusters, to a home renovation in Brooklyn gone awry, How Big Things Get Done reveals how to get any ambitious project…
I stumbled into the world of digital gardens and tiny, light websites by mistake. It's a corner of the web that feels alive and personal Read more
While temporarily living in Brașov I got the Arzopa Z1RC external monitor and I like the new travel setup. Read more
People are using this simple, powerful concept to focus on what matters most in their personal and work lives. Companies are helping their employees be more productive with study groups, training, and coaching. Sales teams are boosting sales. Churches are conducting classes and recommending for their members. By focusing their energy on one thing at a time people are living more rewarding lives by…
My experience after using Linux Mint for 2 months, the reasons I switched, thoughts on it and if I'm going to continue using it. Read more
A world-weary woman races against the clock to rescue the children of a wrathful tyrant from a dangerous, otherworldly forest.At the northern edge of a land ruled by a monstrous, foreign tyrant lies the wild forest known as the Elmever. The villagers know better than to let their children go near—once someone goes in, they never come back out. No one knows the strange and terrifying traps of the…
Set in the near future, it describes life in what was once the United States and is now called the Republic of Gilead, a monotheocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to, and going beyond, the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans. The regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for the women and men…
In the 'official chronicle' of Europe, as it has been written by historians over the past two centuries, Romanians and Hungarians form one of the continent's main conflictual pairings. Melinda and Sorin Mitu show how Romanians have been perceived by their neighbors over time, in an attempt to explain the historical events that placed Romanians and Hungarians at the forefront. Based on hundreds of…
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet.…
I took part in the Bikeathon 2025 in Făgăraș and got to visit some more of the surrounding area. Read more
I went to Fără Asfalt 2025 triathlon as part of a relay team doing the bike and running. Read more
AI usage combined with the mentality of a 10x developer (10x engineer) —everything faster, everything out the door the same day if possible—creates a world where you're pushing out MVPs (Minimum Viable Product) all the time. Read more
Many humans have died horribly at the claws of the Alien. The surface of Earth has been devastated to cleanse the beasts from our world. But the commercial value of this scourge has never been in doubt, especially when the special properties of the Alien Queen's royal jelly are discovered. Will Mankind once again risk its very survival as a species in order to sleep with the Alien? Read more
Photos from my Easter holiday when I went back home to Suceava for a few days. You get to see some amazingly decorated eggs. Read more