Blog

A place where I write about the things that intrigue me—whether that be technology, software development, economics, writing, or the occasional theological article. Might end up split into multiple sections if the intended audiences for different articles are too disparate, but for now, it's all here, in one place.

Hope you find the articles enjoyable!

Good, sharp tools (programming toolbox - part 2)

A collection of razor blades cutting bytes

Reflecting on safety razors and the kinds of programming tools I prefer using. A bit of a ramble. toolbox technology 100DaysToOffload

Bojidar Marinov | 1.6k words

Reading times estimates in Pandoc Lua

^Non-wikimedian protesting A person holds a sign

My Pandoc Lua blog is now counting words—in protest. technology 100DaysToOffload

Bojidar Marinov | 0.6k words

Mowing the grass

A penguin struggling with pushing a lawnmower into tall grass (made out of various software packages)

Reflecting on grass-mowing and Gentoo updates, and more rambling about maintenance and pushing elephants out of rooms. life thoughts 100DaysToOffload

Bojidar Marinov | 1.5k words

On having a programming toolbox — part 1

A toolbox overflowing with programming languages and CLI tools (drawn with Inkscape, of course)

Dive into some of the core tools I—a programmer—consistently reach for whenever I use a computer. toolbox 100DaysToOffload

Bojidar Marinov | 2.4k words

Website refresh - now with more Lua

Left—old article listing. Right—new article list: snazzier, cooler, almost masonry-like!

My website's source is now accessible on Codeberg! Plus, new blog theme! ✨ technology 100DaysToOffload

Bojidar Marinov | 1.9k words

Nobody deserves ads

^Hey you! Drop what you are thinking of, and think of this! THE THING 5000! It slices, it dices! It conjugates verbs!

Nobody deserves to be exposed to that many ads. We consumers deserve better than this. And so do creators. thoughts 100DaysToOffload

Bojidar Marinov | 2.0k words

What's the big deal with sized types anyway?

Couple of high-rises dissolving under exposure to the sheer, uncontrolled power of runtime-sized types

Do you dare imagine a world where C structs (and other types) don't have a constant size? If so, check this humorous slideshow article out. technology 100DaysToOffload

Bojidar Marinov | 1.2k words

Dishes before music - an experiment in habits

A few clean dishes overlook an empty sink from a nearby dishrack. Preposterous!

Curing in-born laziness through personal rules? A distant dream for sure—but here's a ray of hope for dealing with those little "maintenance" tasks. life thoughts 100DaysToOffload

Bojidar Marinov | 0.8k words

CSS slideshows with scroll snapping

A screenshot of the final CSS-only slideshow that changes slides when the user presses the left or right arrows. Play with it here.

After redoing my portfolio page, I thought it'd be cool to share a neat CSS trick (scroll-snap-*) I used for the slideshow. technology

Bojidar Marinov | 1.5k words

Maximizing hardware with SSD caching via Device Mapper

A diagram with a crossed-out section on the left showing two boxes labeled SSD and HDD, with smaller boxes / and /boot inside the SSD and /home and /var inside the HDD box, there is a globe and a stack of boxes logo chained to /home and /var respectively. On the right, the same SSD and HDD boxes, but with /, /home, and /var inside the HDD with dashed lines, and /boot and a new Cache box inside the SSD; an colorful arrow is pointing from the HDD through the Cache and the globe and the stack of boxes logos are roller-skating on it. A giant checkmark slightly occludes the part on the right.

Moving an Arch Linux installation split between an SSD and HDD to being entirely on the HDD and caching through the SSD, via Device Mapper. technology

Bojidar Marinov | 4.5k words

Transferring photos over ADB

Artistic rendition of what the ADB photo transfer script looks like.

Failing to connect to a phone through MTP, PTP, or such, I turn to the trusty command-line to concot a tentacle monster (pictured) capable of transferring photos for me. technology

Bojidar Marinov | 1.5k words

Understanding APA with railroad diagrams

%Birds-eye railroad diagram of APA references. CC-BY 4.0, Open as SVG

APA-style References are documented through many, many examples. Can we do better than that with a diagram? Dive in with this article! writing

Bojidar Marinov | 2.4k words

How (not) to make a website

%Screenshot of my mockup

Join me as I explore how I built the static website you are currently browsing! Bonus: build systems that feel like magic, picking a domain name, and invoking tools that insist on not having a good CLI. technology

Bojidar Marinov | 7.0k words

My FOSDEM 2024 Experience

The opening talk of the conference in the giant Janson auditorium

The adventure can only begin with frantically shutting off the phone alarm... but can it lead to finding new ways to experience the joy of using and developing free/open-source software or meeting new people? life

Bojidar Marinov | 4.2k words

Reflections on two years of using Colemak

_A diagram of the Colemak-CAW/ANSI layout, as generated by keyboard-layout-editor.com. Note the ARST-NEIO home row arrangement

The story of how I picked a new keyboard layout up for Christmas... and what it cost to stick to it. life technology

Bojidar Marinov | 3.4k words

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