reviews
Pixel 3a
I've been a long-time fan of Google-made/branded phones. Back in 2014, I got a Nexus 5. Then I moved on to a 5X. Then I explored the other side, having an iPhone 6S for a year. I was not impressed by iOS, so then I switched back
Latest
blog
How Much Does It Cost To Run This Blog?
The current meme/trend/fad blog post topic in my blogroll is about how much it costs to run a personal blog. So here are my costs per month: Service Monthly Costs Domain name 1€ VPS hosting 5.95$ DigitalOcean backup 1.19$ Total ~7.31€ Initially, I bought the
tech
My operating system journey
Getting started with Linux Ten years ago I was writing how I'm a big fan of Windows (and Android). I would regularly get into friendly debates with Cătălin, who was a staunch supporter of Linux. I kept dipping my toes into Linux, but for a long time, I
programming
Playing Codenames with Rust
I love playing board games. I love machine learning. I love Rust. So why not combine them and do something really fun? So I ran a word vector analogy query and I got back: machine learning + board games - Rust = Codenames So let's implement Codenames in Rust. It&
boardgames
Boardgames Party: Codenames
Lockdown is over, time to play some games that work well in larger groups, such as Codenames, which is a very fun game to play, but it requires language skills. On the box it says it can be played by 4-8 players, but I think you can easily have more
blog
Happy decennial anniversary!
Well, this has happened too: ten years of blogging. I feel like it's only yesterday that I wrote the 5 year anniversary post. Some things have changed in the meantime, some haven't. I still enjoy writing, but my goals about my blog have changed. 10 years
personal
New desk setup
Last week we were at my in-laws for a couple of days. We got back home late on Thursday. As I went upstairs, I took my backpack containing my work laptop to drop it off in my home office. I didn't bother turning on the light in the
boardgames
Quarantine boardgames: Pandemic
The pandemic is "over" in Romania (or at least, the most severe lockdown is over), so it means we won the game of Pandemic :) Pandemic is a game were there are four diseases ravaging through the world. The players must cooperate to prevent outbreaks and to find cures
personal
Yard work
Spot camouflaged Roland in the above picture I've spent two Saturdays in the past month doing yard work at my grandparents house. They are still alive, but they are staying at an aunt right now, so nobody has been taking care of their house since fall. Me and
tech
DuckDuckGo
Some of my more astute readers might have noticed the "word" "DuckDuckGo" appearing several times on my blog this year, both as a noun and as a verb. Contrary to how the name sounds, it's not a board game; it's a search
personal
Four months of Bullet Journaling
I'm using diary and journal as synonyms. Some people say they are the same, others say there are differences between them. I started keeping a journal when I was in elementary school. I don't remember what made me start keeping a journal. It was probably the
personal
About time
Time, or at least our perception of it, is a very interesting thing. It's not only in Einstein's relativity theory that time is relative. I believe most humans feel that days go by slowly, while years fly by. As you toil away at work every day,