2018 was a strange year for me. I started it out sort of aimless, not knowing what to do professionally. Then, stealing a friend’s idea I simply put out a “Hey, I’m looking for a cool team to work with” message to social media and got a ton of different offers and I ended up with… a cool team to work with.

Since February I have essentially a very well-paid half-time job at a small but important hosting company as a sysadmin. I’m a generalist at heart but out of all the things I do, working with servers is probably my favorite bit and I feel privileged to do that once again.

I also continued to work with a few other clients on some ongoing projects, and I ended this year sending out a huge quote – one, if and if it works out, would keep me very busy in 2019, and that’d be great, so crossing fingers on that.

On a more personal note, I tried University this year and while I had some small victories, I pretty much dropped out already – It’s really not for me. And I knew that but I thought the prospect of having a degree and therefore better chances at immigration to the US would be motivating enough, but it really isn’t.

This year I also started drawing and it’s been fun! And I’ve also been to XOXO 2018, which was probably even better than 2016 and Portland already feels like a second home for me.

I didn’t plan to travel a lot this year and yet I count 10 (wow) different trips abroad, and most of these were for fun. I’ve been to Linz, Berlin, Gothenburg, Vienna, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Portland, Geneva, London.

I don’t really know yet what 2019 will bring. If the quote/job I mentioned above works out, I’ll be very busy, and that’s something I miss. If not… we’ll see.

Hey look, 300 words!

A Reader lecsapja a megosztásokat. Hivemined remények. Linkblogok indulnak. Megszületik a Sharewood. Bezár a Reader. Bezár a Posterous, és amúgy is megyünk Newsblurre. Bezár a Sharewood. Linkblog: 2016-06-22(ish). Linkblog: 2016-06-23. Uj linkblog.

Tovább igyekszek fejlődni kontentmegosztásban, így indítottam egy tinylettert, amire itt lehet feliratkozni. A legelső level ízelítőnek itt található. Iratkozzatok fel, jó lesz.

A Reader lecsapja a megosztásokat. Hivemined remények. Linkblogok indulnak. Megszületik a Sharewood. Bezár a Reader. Bezár a Posterous, és amúgy is megyünk Newsblurre. Bezár a Sharewood. Linkblog: 2016-06-22(ish). Linkblog: 2016-06-23.

Csak annyi, hogy ide osztok meg a továbbiakban dolgokat, mert kell.

A rituálék fontosak az ember életében, így például az is, hogy évfordulót tartok minden 5000. tweetnél, plusz jó alkalom visszatekinteni az évekre. 40000-nél még Budapesten éltem, szenvedtem a munkámban. A 45000-et már Svédországban ünnepeltem, alig másfél héttel azután, hogy odaköltöztem, élveztem az új munkát, és naponta énblogoltam. 50000-nél már új munkahelyem volt, és talán ekkor volt a legjobb Svédországban minden, ekkor írtam meg az én twittersztorimat, és azt, hogyan szereztem ott a barátaimat. 55000-nél már több, mint 10 hónapja freelancelek, átvészelve a kezdeti nehézségeket.

Most meg itt a 60000, kevesebb, mint egy évvel később, és minden más, és minden változik, 2016 egyharmadát utazva töltöttem, nemrég jöttem Amerikából, ahol egy hónapot voltam, New Yorkban, Minnesotában és Portlandben, ez utóbbiban volt az XOXO fesztivál ami külön posztot érdemel, ha egyszer befejezem az írását.

Ezt pedig Nagymaroson ülve írom, ahol ilyen a kilátás mellett dolgozok:

Csütörtökön vissza Svédországba, szombaton van egy nagyon remek Electroswing buli, azután meg nem tudom, mi lesz, mert minden változik éppen. Utazás lesz még idén, ha másért nem, munkaügyben, konferenciákra, munka szerencsére van, jön, ez legalább fix, máramennyire az lehet valakinek, aki freelancel.

Pár hónapja tartottam egy follow-amnesztiát mert túl sok volt a zaj, visszakövetem csak a barátaimat meg még 1-2 érdekes embert. Azóta újra emelkedett a követettek száma, főleg az XOXO miatt. Hogy miért követ engem 870 ember, azt soha nem értettem, de jó nekik, sziasztok.

A Twitter pedig már több, mint 8 éve az életem része, sokat változott, én is sokat változtam, de itt vagyunk.

Lesz 65000-es poszt, ebben biztos vagyok.

(55000. 50000. 45000. 40000. 35000. 30000. 25000.)

Magic out of mould: inside the world’s wildest restaurant

A vilag egyik legjobb sefje, valahol a semmi kozepen Svedorszagban, en eloszor a Netflix Chef’s Table sorozataban talalkoztam vele, ha valaki nem akarja vegigolvasni (en se olvastam el teljes egeszeben), nezze meg az idevago reszt belole inkabb. Akik ismernek, tudjak milyen lesujto velemenyem van az eszaki konyharol, de nagyon erdekes, amit csinal.

The Things That Are Worth Fighting For

Ki akar holnap tuntetni menni velem?

Ezen nevetek mostmar egy hete

Sweden Overwhelmed By ‘Gypsies’ As “Begging Has Become An Occupation

Ez a tema engem kulonosen erdekel, mivel nap mint nap talalkozok vele. A Zero Hedge cikke, nos, khm, kicsit elfogult, mar rogton a cimnel, a linkelt video pedig megerne egy kulon blogbejegyzest (megneztem), lehet irok majd rola reszletesebben.

How an Ad Campaign Made Lesbians Fall in Love with Subaru

Ez csodalatos.

the trouble with getting married when you are already old.

valahol meg temanal maradva, kotelezo olvasmany.

Tesla Model S can be used as a boat in a pinch, Elon Musk confirms

Irracionalisan rajongok a Teslakert, ha egyszre nagy leszek es lesz felesleges 90000 dollarom egy autora, tuti ilyet veszek.

PocketChip

Egeszen biztos, hogy nagyjabol ket orat jatszanek vele, es utana a port gyujtene, de milyen jo ket ora lenne, es csak 49 dollart kene fizetnem erte!

What Was That Commentator Who Lost His Mind Actually Saying?

Van az a video, amiben az izlandi kommentator extazisban orul a 2-1-nek, ezt nem tudom ugy megnezni otodszorre se, hogy ne vigyorogjak kozben, mostmar van hozza forditas is.

El nem mondható mértékben szégyellem, hogy nem írtam a világ legjobb karácsonyi (adventi) albumáról, szóval ezt most azonnal pótolom.

Az együttest egy amerikai ismerősom mutatta két adventtel ezelőtt, és már a legelső hallgatáskor rákattantam. Csak öt dal, ismert számok, gyönyörűen feldolgozva. Alább a Spotify embed, Youtube-on vannak verziók, bár pont az albumot nem találom hirtelen.

Másfél év telt el az 50000 óta, megint sokminden változott, bár vannak fix dolgok: még mindig Svédországban élek, és ezen nem áll szándékomban egyhamar változtatni; és még mindíg twitterezek.

Mást pedig most nem tudok hirtelen írni, pedig sokat gondolkoztam, mit lehetne, ezért is késett ez a poszt majd’ két hónapot. Szóval hátha majd 60000-nél valami.

(50000. 45000. 40000. 35000. 30000. 25000.)

Work

I quit my day job at the end of last year to become a freelance consultant, and so far it has been going well. The first few months were much harder, than I thought it would be, with the newfound freedom bringing much more free time, but a lot of stress, financial and otherwise. However, now I am six months in, and I have already worked with several clients, sorted out accounting (ugh), realized it’s a really bad idea to have my work e-mail mixed with my personal ones, and I’m heading to Southern Europe for 2 months in a week.

I got a two-month consulting gig at a translation agency doing some integration work (read: software development) with their workflow system, customer portal and a popular CAT tool. Perks include being in warm and sunny Barcelona for a week and in even warmer and sunnier Bologna afterwards. I even get to have a mini-vacation in Marseille just before, courtesy of a very good friend of mine who has a flat there.

Photography

I have written a neat little gear post about three times now, but I am never satisfied with it, so here’s the short version with some links, and a longer one coming soon (or not).

In January I got an Eye-Fi Mobi card, turning my 6D into a ginourmous point-and-shoot that sends all the pictures I take to my iPhone in 20 seconds. It is perfect for JPEG shooting (way too slow for RAW work), and gave several month’s of motivation to lug my DSLR around everywhere with me again.

On my iPhone 6 Plus (yes, it’s big; but the camera, the battery and the screen real estate makes up for it, most of the time) I use the built-in Photos app for cropping picture and VSCO for editing; it handles the 22mpx files surprisingly well. Even with its limits and the occasional crashes, I have found VSCO to be by far the best photo editor on mobile, and I have tried plenty other (Afterlight, Darkroom, Enlight etc.). Hell, I bought most of the filter packs, even though usually I loathe spending money on In-app purchases.

Another permanent addition to my camera bag is the Fuji Instax Share printer, that prints 2×3″ pictures from my smartphone onto Fuji Instax Mini film. It’s expensive, the film is expensive and the quality is okay at best and I do not care about any of these, because it is fucking magic. I can take a picture on my 6D, have it on my phone, print it out, and give it to the person I took the picture of, in about 2 minutes. That is something you can not measure in money. It is also an excellent ice-breaker in a many social situations.

Last but not least, with the help of my friend Krisztián I fell in love with Fuji’s X series ILC cameras, having used an X-E1 and the 35mm f/1.4 for a few days when I was in Budapest in May. Afterwards I got myself the newer X-E2, but I quickly realized that I hate the new sensor’s colors and tones, not to mention the dreadful “plastic skin” issue on the JPEGs (google fuji plastic skin, if you are interested…), in which noise reduction goes crazy and makes you look like a wax figure. So I returned the X-E2, got myself a new-old-stock X-E1 with the kit 18-55mm f/2.8-4 lens, which is an excellent, excellent lens. I have my eyes set on the 56mm f/1.2 and the one of the ultrawide lenses, but that’s for another time. Fuji helps you to be careful with your lens purchases by making them really expensive.

The X-E1 may have a slower EVF and autofocus than the X-E2, but it makes gorgeous black and white JPEGs that are the best I have ever seen. My 6D’s JPEGs look rubbish in comparison.

Most of my pictures nowadays end up on my Facebook or Instagram accounts, so add me there, if you are interested.

Languages

By now I got to a “shitty conversational” level with Swedish, with Duolingo‘s course being a big help sorting out some of my grammar issues and expanding my vocabulary a bit. I still lack practice and construct sentences in English in my head, but it is progress. With practice, it will improve, and I am not in a hurry. Also, by now I am pretty good at understanding Swedish.

I also started learning Ukrainian (on Duolingo, of course). I have many Russian-speaking friends (most of them are from Ukraine or Latvia) and I want to be able to talk with them without a lot of Google/Yandex Translate. I also like languages, so why not.

But why Ukrainian, and not Russian, asks everyone? Because I was interested and they don’t have a Russian course on Duolingo yet, that’s why and Duolingo is pretty much the only language-learning software that keeps me motivated enough. Ukrainian is also a beautiful language (Russian is somewhat less so, in my not-so-humble opinion), and a bit easier; also, most of my Russian-speaking friends can understand and/or speak Ukrainian. Meanwhile I pick up a fair amount of Russian just by listening to them speaking. It can be hard to keep the two languages separate in my head, but at this point, it helps that I can mix them.

It is not an easy language: the grammar has similarities to Hungarian with three genders (okay, we don’t have genders in Hungarian), an excessive number of cases and conjugations, virtually no fixed word order, and euphony (but we do have all of these). Nevertheless, I really enjoy learning it.

To be continued

Eventually.

One language is never enough, is the phrase above, and it’s true. I’ve been here for more, than a week now, and I quickly got used to the fact that things are written in Ukrainian but the people I know here speak Russian (mixed with some Ukrainian) and the people on the street speak, well, both. Because of the subtle differences in the Cyrillic between Ukrainian and Russian, at this point reading Russian is weird to me.

Unfortunately, a week here is not enough to make me be able to read Cyrillic at a comfortable speed, I still need to go through every word and transliterate it slowly in my head, but it did improve somewhat. If I’d live here for a few months (which I really would not want to do…), I am pretty sure I could get to a conversational level, given that far less people speak English and you are kind of forced to speak Russian/Ukrainian.

And I have to say, Ukrainian is a lot more interesting out of these two, although I guess I could not get away learning it without learning Russian too. It’s a good package deal.