#fx4

If you use twitter or are into the new version of the popular webbrowser Mozilla Firefox you know what the tittle of this blogpost means. Since my first attempts to browse the interwebz in the distant 2004, I have always been into new software or simply new versions of the software that I used. So, my anticipation for the 4th generation of one of my favourite browsers was something that I was looking for.

But why? Well, as I am using a laptop that has quite the limited screen, 1366×768 that is, the battle for space that I can view the webpage has been visious. The older versions of Firefox that I used were not so suitable for this kind of screen and frankly speaking the constant scrolling was nerve-wrecking. With the arrival of Google Chrome my eyes were opened and I saw the light! This is just a figure of speach of course. The difference was huge! 25 pixels were added to my usable browser window and those really did the trick.

With the heavely revamped UI of Firefox it is finally reaching its rival in this aspect. That, I think, is good news because although Chrome is really good browser, I will always be a Foxer. I will not go into more details about the new changes or the reasons why I chose Firefox before everyone else. Many have written and are writing about this. I just wanted to express my sincere happiness about #fx4. Geeky ain’t I?

Oh and I almost forgot.. Do you know what the youtube test is? Well it’s not connected to performance of the browser when displaying HD videos for example. It’s simply the ability to see the whole video when you are watching the expanded video, without the need to scroll down a bit

Inception / Генезиз (2010)

След този филм доста хора бяха въодушевени и горещо ми препоръчваха да го гледам. Поради отказа ми да давам пари за безмислени за момента екстри като 3D и липсата на достатъчно добър екран за да го гледам когато излезе по тракерите, реших да изчакам.

Преди седмица успях да се въоръжа с нужната техника и доволен си пуснах и изгледах филма. Ами не е зле, но не може да се каже, че блести с нещо невероятно над другите филми от годината. Както се изрази Цвети: “Добре замаскиран екшън.” Идеята е страхотна и мисля, че заслужава сериал при качествени сценаристи разбира се. Ефектите също са впечатляващи, а актьорската игра, като се вземе предвид екипа, е много добра. Все пак не мога да си изкарам онази малка мисъл от главата – Да, ама можеше и много по-добре, нали?

Може би момчешките физиономии на Лео и Джоузеф Гордън-Левит ми идват твърде много. За първия от тях Титаник и Хвани ме ако можеш са филми от чиито сенки не може да се измъкне, а сегашните му роли като Кървав диамант и Генезис идват малко странно и нетипично. За втория актьор един сериал си остава емблематичен: На гости на третата планета, като ситуацията с него е същата.

Бих дал на филма 7/10. Няма как да си изкълча езика и да кажа, че е лош, но очаквах повече.

Българската популярна музика (култура)

Наскоро започвам да забелязвам нещо доста интересно в нашата поп музика, а именно промяната и от смесицата на източни и балкански мотиви към по такава със собствена идентичност. Какво точно имам предвид, така наречената “чалга” все повече започва да имитира западния модел и по-точно MTV културата. Да, нашите изпълнителки и изпълнители все още са доста далеч от качествата на добрите си колеги от другите страни, но промяната на цялостния стил вече е факт. Все още има някои оркестри/изпълнители непроменили стила си, но те според мен са резултат по-скоро на етно-социални условия, отколкото някаква по-сериозна причина.

Тази, според някои незначителна промяна, за мен е признак на нещо по-голямо. Аналогията с айсберг, на който само най-горната част се вижда над водата, тук е доста добре приложима. Също както при “голямата бучка лед” в обществото е видима само най-горната част от тенденцията. Факт е, че не може да имаш цялостен поглед върху хората. Колкото и някой агенции, социолози и други многознайковци да твърдят, че имат, не е така. Липсата на пълна информация, субективната гледна точка и начина на мислене винаги влияят на преценката на хората. Възможно е и аз да бъркам, но много различни хора, с които съм говорил, по един или друг начин, са ми споделяли същото.

Тук идва въпроса защо сега се случва тази промяна, какъв е катализатора й? Може би се променя начина ни на мислене под влияние на тенденциите отвън, все пак процентът на хора в България ползващи интернет се увеличава ежедневно и бих казал, че процентът е доста добър в сравнение с други страни. Не можем да останем безралични към нещата, които се случват около нас и те малко или много ни влияят. А може би това е естествения ход на нещата, нищо не може да спре естествения ход на еволюцията както казва Дарвин.

Vulkanoff out.

Students and other animals

If you happen to be a student at one of our internationally famous (as one of my prof. used to say) universities, you have the honor and privilege to study in a highly competitive, innovative and fruitful environment.

Today I decided to visit one of my lectures, just to see  what is going on. Don’t get me wrong I tend to be a good student and rarely miss my classes but after the first 3 times of the professor not coming to the lecture the rational part of me said – “That’s just waste of time.”

To my “surprise” there were only 8 other colleges of mine in the room. The lecturer entered and began explaining the material using the highly innovative “Listen to me, and watch the slides!” technique, apparently this lack of students was something normal for him . There was hardly any interaction with the rest of us, however. On that part I may understand him, maybe because of our high attendance, or maybe he was just such kind of teacher. On the good side the material was interesting and offered some useful things and even further sources to look into. There were also a handful of examples, which were not confusing, but tried to explain further the material. So in conclusion of this part: I gained enough knowledge from this lecture, just because the material was interesting to me and is possible to be of some use in the future.

Many of the students that enter the university don’t have an idea what they want to work after that and/or don’t even have goals or dreams. Consequently  they can’t find the need to study and the feeling that this may be useful for them in the future. Yes, some lecturers are bad, but come on people, that’s for us. After all who else cares for us?

Is twitter a social network?

No.

And if that was the whole post, it would have been enough. Twitter’s capability to transform into one of the most spammable and in the same time one of the most useful websites in the net. If you have twitter account and in the same time you follow many people, the process of managing such amount of information is inhuman.

On top of that many new applications can post automatically on your wall information like where you are, what you are buying and etc. Why do I need this? I don’t actually! Facebook’s feature to block such irrelevant information is superb.

One should understand that twitter is a micro blogging website, not a advertising or geolocating tool. Yes in some cases they are useful but to majority of us it is not.

So Twitter, please, make a blocking feature, thanks!

They can’t pay me as little as I can work!*

This saying is really popular in Bulgaria and especially among the west region of the country. But why?

Is there a truth in it or it’s just another way of us saying we are special? According to an article I read recently in one of your news websites, we are among the average of the quantity of hours actually worked during the day – 6 out of 8. This may seem both low and high depending on the point of view. Then we have to put the quality of the work in the equation, and again we are in the middle of the charts (i’m not using the amount of output generated, but more generalized assumption).

So, we are not that bad, eh?

*The topic may not be translated in the best way, but that was all I could do.

A_live philosophy

The way of the Jedi

That’s a thing that came across my mind today. Many people have a life philosophy, saying that they’ll live this and that way and do these things because of those reasons (th ftw!). So how come you decide what your mindset is going to be for the several decades, or even years. People always change even a little and that’s why we can’t be certain how are we going to react to what the next day is going to offer not to mention longer periods of time.

I’m not saying that one shouldn’t make plans or try to figure the possible problems or actions further down the line, I’m just saying that having a life philosophy can prove to be inefficient at least.

In my opinion having an alive philosophy is far better. Your way of thinking can evolve and the perception of others may do too. So the best way of coping with the ever changing environment is, not to have an ever changing life philosophy of course, but to be capable of making the correct decisions even if you have to cross your boundaries.

 

And because I couldn't find a relevant picture here is a one from my Ethics schoolbook.

 

See you.

A new direction

When I started the blog I didn’t have a clear idea of what I want to write about. To be honest I still don’t have. But as I’m becoming more and more aware of other bloggers’ content I came to this idea:

Writing about my everyday encounter with many people and the things I like and admire is the best choice.

So that’s the way thing are going to go now, I hope. And another thing the reasons why I write in English and not in my native language, Bulgarian, are because:

1. I want to improve my writing skills since English will probably be part of my everyday communication in the near future.
2. I’d like more people to be able to understand and share the content I provide.

See you.

Gmail: Priority Inbox

Lets say that you use email as a way to communicate. Lets also say that you tend to use it a lot. Inevitably you have encountered many spam messages, emails that aren’t really important or just from an unknown source and as a coincidence you are using Gmail.

The reason that I’m talking about that is a new feature that Google has launched recently for their email service. Priority inbox is trying to act as a artificial intelligence slash multiple inboxes. All the explanation is visible from this video:

Now, I’m not arguing that this is an excellent idea and has my support. The problem is, or my problem is, that all my email tends to be important. Lets say that you answer to 90% of the things that you receive, in my case that’s because I use to think when customize my Gmail account. Filters, Spam filters, not using my email when making registration to a random sites and a Gmail lab feature called multiple inboxes were the things that made my account almost spam proofed.

Maybe most of the people don’t use the same things as I do, maybe for a large portion of the users Priority Inboxes will be really helpful, but for me it’s, if not annoying or useless, just not remarkable. And that is a fact that is remarkable when talking about the Giant.

As Borislav Strundzhev recently wrote about Google Instant Search (arguably another rash change), it seems the guys from Google have been busy implementing a lot of new features in their services lately. So, my opinion can be summarized as: Do not make hasty decisions guys, when you have a nearly perfect product, trying to improve it may be the first step towards ruining it.

Vulkanoff out.

Some conferences and stuff

Hey

This post is a short explanation why I haven’t posted anything in my blog recently. The truth is that I was and am really busy being part of  the organisational committee of an amazing conference!

More info soon…