rolisz's site

Blade Runner 2049

Blade Runner 2049 poster

The original Blade Runner, which came out in 1982, is an iconic movie. It poses difficult questions, has great monologues about the human condition, and had just enough open questions left to have fans debating pretty much until now. Somehow, Hollywood decided to make a sequel to it 35 years later, but un­for­tu­nate­ly it has been a box office flop so far :( Bad audiences, bad! That's why we can't have good movies, only endless Trans­form­ers movies :(

I will continue with spoilers

The original movie introduces the concept of Replicants, which are pretty much artificial human beings, ge­net­i­cal­ly enhanced to be much stronger and more resistant than normal …continue.

Blogs I follow - part 1

I'm still one of those rare weirdos who use RSS feeds (with Feedly) and over the years I have started following many people and reading many blogs. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, many of them have stopped posting, but there are still some people who regularly post really in­ter­est­ing stuff. I am impressed by how some of them can sustain posting daily, even if only a short snippet, others post 2-3 times a week some in­ter­est­ing ob­ser­va­tions in a wide range of fields, and others keep posting coding op­ti­miza­tions even though they are tenured professors, but they are not afraid to get their hands dirty.

I hope I will soon be able …continue.

Around Europe with my wifey

Singing lion

This reminds me of the singing lion

My wife has never been outside of Romania before this year, so I thought I would use this summer to fix that by traveling around as much as possible.

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Right after our wedding, we went for a short, one week, roadtrip honeymoon around three capitals: Budapest, Vienna and Bratislava. Bam, three countries right there.

We stayed only one night in Budapest and we left Romania late, because I had to update my Romanian bank account (which I hadn't used in the last three years) and because my wife had to apply for a new ID card.

Drei Jahre in der Schweiz

Collage of my third year in Switzerland

Three years ago today I started my job at Google. I had moved to Switzer­land two days before, with two suitcases and a backpack. Then followed a lot of adventure.

The third year was different. I started learning Swiss German, so that I can better integrate and it payed off: I am no longer completely clueless as to what Swiss people speak around, I am only mostly clueless.

I also got married to the most beautiful, loving and kind girl in the world, Roda, who happens to be an amazing cook as well!

I also just did my 100th flight two days ago. I have flown more …continue.

How to organize a wedding - in 20 easy steps

Roda and Roland wedding

So you decided to get married. You need a wedding for that. It's a lot of work. Given that I just got married two weeks ago, I'll try to jot down some step-by-step in­struc­tions (with par­tic­u­lars about Romanian bu­reau­cra­cy).

  1. Find a partner who is willing to say "Yes". Trivial exercise, left as homework for the reader.
  2. Decide on the style of wedding. Do you want a fancy, shiny, super modern wedding in the middle of the city? Do you want something in nature, far from civ­i­liza­tion? Do you want a smaller, cozier wedding? Do you want to invite …continue.

Evaluating goals - 2017 edition

Another half a year has passed, so it's time to review my goals from January.

Around March something came up, so I dropped some goals or reduced their intensity. That something is called setting a wedding date for July, so I'll excuse myself for being busy with that.

Scoring will continue by the same metric: 1 for goals fully achieved, 0 for complete failures.

Get to 82 kg by June
I am currently 83 kg. I was 90 kg in January when I posted this, so this is a 0.875 score. Not bad. We'll see how my suit fits on Saturday :D
Exercise three times a week
I exercised 63 …continue.

I believe I can fly!

About a month ago I started believing I can fly, so I proved it by going for a gliding session. A glider is a light­weight plane, which doesn't have an engine, so it's pulled by another plane until it takes off. After that, you glide through the air, like an eagle, looking for thermals which lift you up. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it was a too nice day, with no clouds, so we didn't find any good thermals, so my flight was quite short. But it was still nice to see Uetliberg from above :D And I piloted the plane for about 5 minutes :D

Two weeks ago I had …continue.

The Piano Guys

Playing I want you Bach

Playing I want you Bach

Last Friday The Piano Guys were in Zürich. I found out about it from an ad on Facebook. It's probably the second time in my life where an ad­ver­tise­ment there is actually useful and relevant for me.

They started by playing Batman Evolution, which goes through most of the Batman movies sound­tracks and weaves them together.

They explained how they like to combine their love for old classical music with modern songs that are well known by young people. For example, they take every kid's favourite song: Let It Go! and combine it with Vivaldi's Winter.

The duo likes to make fun of each other. Jon …continue.

Istanbul, land of turbans, spice and carpets

Entrance to small market

This is the land of cheap layovers on the way to Romania. Thanks to the invisible hand of the market, tickets to the airports that are close to where my fiancee lives were 50% cheaper when flying through Istanbul, with an overnight layover, than more direct flights. It was still cheaper when buying two nights in a hotel. So through Istanbul it was. I figured it might be my last trip alone, so it should be fun.

And it was. Istanbul is a very colorful and diverse city. You see all kinds of people getting along. And they have something us in the "west" don't have: time. Everywhere …continue.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my dear mom! I love you! Kisses from New York!