Learning by osmosis — One of the perks of living in a small country is that almost everyone lives near the border; thus, many of us are bilingual. My cousins live close to Italy, while I’m right next to Croatia. When we spent time together as children, I was amazed by their fluency in…

It is back to business as usual for most of them. A rant. — Yesterday I had to visit my doctor for the first time in years. I injured my ribs while working in the garden, it hurts like having a knife stabbed into my chest (all the time), and I needed an x-ray which can’t be done online yet. So I went down…

Following the Apple mindset completely — I’ve just finished my first watching of Severance, and I’m eager to roll it all back again. It is that good. But not just because it is good, but because after watching the season finale, it is abundantly clear that the show was written backward. Or better, it was written…

Reviewing the movie “France” by Bruno Dumont, with Léa Seydoux — If there is one thing media does to people is to amplify our narcissistic tendencies and chase attention. “To appear in newspapers” slowly got an upgrade to “be on television,” and both became super-charged with the advent of internet and social media. Despite that, celebrities in the traditional broadcasting business…

It’s a code name — Here in the northern hemisphere, the summer has already begun. Even in Central Europe, we’re well above 30°C, which is insane, but thankfully it is not as bad as India or Sri Lanka. Instead, it is “pleasantly warm,” making everyone talk about beaches and vacations. How great it is to…

It’s fine if you have it, but please stay at home and shut the fuck up — Ideally, a media house should produce honest and neutral news and take ads, sales, or other forms of income as a necessary evil to sustain itself. Ideally, the sale of newspaper copies should be enough to ensure its neutrality and self-reliance. Ideally. Even in that world, news articles and TV…

The story of the psychedelic beginnings of Christianity — reviewing The Immortality Key by Brian C. Muraresku — I was about seven years old when my (grand)parents made me go to a Christian afternoon class. It was fine at the time, the nun was nice, and most of the time, she was just retelling the stories from the Bible. At eight, we had our first communion. The preparations…

Reviewing Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel — After the first waves of the Covid-19 pandemic settled in, I wondered how SciFi writers could have been so naive about our response to catastrophe in terms of corruption and collective stupidity on Earth. There is a certain idealism present in all those books and movies. You know how it…

Advertising is going to become a lot more aggressive — Have you noticed just how aggressive advertising has become these past few years, especially since the Covid-19 lockdowns? It seems like the less money we have to buy shit, the more ads we get stuffed down our throats. Youtube has become really comfortable with its pre-video advertising. In the beginning…