People keep waiting.

Waiting for politicians. Waiting for institutions. Waiting for someone smarter, richer, louder, more important. Waiting for “the system” to wake up one day and fix what everyone can already see is broken.

Meanwhile, streets stay damaged. Public spaces stay ignored. Complaints become routine. Problems slowly become part of the scenery.

The dangerous crossing becomes “that crossing.”

The pothole becomes “that hole.”

The broken thing becomes simply “the way things are.”

And after enough time, people stop seeing the problem at all.

Humans are very good at adaptation. Sometimes too good.

We become experts at walking around reality.

Maybe that is why small interventions sometimes work better than giant campaigns.

Not because they immediately solve problems.

Because they force people to notice them again.

making invisible things visible

There is an interesting idea behind a small ARTivist collective called ImageNotFound.

Not a political organization. Not a traditional art project. Not a movement trying to sell itself through slogans and branding.

More like an experiment around a simple question:

What happens if art stops being decoration and becomes a tool?

A pencil becomes a tool.

A brush becomes a tool.

A sticker becomes a tool.

Public space becomes a canvas.

The point is not creating beautiful things for people to admire.

The point is making invisible things visible again.

a hole is never just a hole

Consider a pothole.

Normally it exists in a strange bureaucratic state: large enough to damage a bicycle wheel, small enough to be ignored.

People complain.

Someone sends emails.

Someone writes angry comments.

Someone posts photographs online.

Weeks pass.

Nothing happens.

Then somebody paints around it.

Not a repair.

Not a speech.

Not another complaint.

Just a visual interruption.

Suddenly people stop.

People take pictures.

People ask questions.

People share it.

Local media notices.

The same hole that had become invisible becomes impossible to ignore.

The interesting thing is not that paint fixed asphalt.

Paint fixed nothing.

Attention fixed something.

the walking dead have smartphones

There is another familiar image in modern cities.

You have probably seen it today.

People crossing streets while looking down.

Walking into crowds while staring at screens.

Sitting together while existing somewhere else entirely.

Everyone notices it.

Everyone jokes about it.

Very few people stop and think about it.

Then a sticker appears.

A small visual reminder.

A tiny interruption in autopilot.

Again, it does not solve technology.

It does not try to.

It simply asks people to become aware for a second.

To look up.

To notice where they are.

small things have always been dangerous

History likes to remember giant moments.

Big protests.

Big speeches.

Big revolutions.

But most changes begin in much smaller and stranger ways.

A drawing.

A sticker.

A poster.

A person doing something that initially looks ridiculous.

Many ideas look insignificant until somebody repeats them.

Then someone copies them.

Then someone changes them.

Then suddenly people start acting as if the idea had always existed.

you do not need permission

Modern life has created an entire culture of waiting.

Waiting for institutions.

Waiting for experts.

Waiting for permission.

Waiting for somebody else to become responsible.

Waiting creates the feeling that progress is happening somewhere.

Most of the time nothing is coming.

Things move because somebody starts moving them.

Not always through giant actions.

Sometimes through very small things.

A drawing.

A sticker.

A brush.

A pencil.

Their slogan says it perfectly:

With one small pencil you can change the world.

Some people will say nothing will change.

Do it anyway.

A note before we start: What follows is fiction. A thought experiment set in an alternate world that only looks like ours by accident. Any resemblance to real labs, real bosses, or real workplace policies is the reader’s imagination doing the heavy lifting. With that out of the way.

We’ve seen this movie before

In this imagined world, strip the hype off AI (artificial intelligence, software that learns from huge amounts of data to answer questions, write text, and so on) and you’re looking at a religion:

Sacred texts nobody is allowed to check.

Closed code, secret training data, “trust us, we tested it.

“Personal stories used as proof. “It changed my life” is not evidence. It’s a church testimony.

End-times talk dressed up as forecasting.

Either heaven (an AGI utopia, where AGI means artificial general intelligence, a hypothetical future AI as smart or smarter than humans at almost everything) or hell (AI doom, the idea that AI wipes us out).

Notice how both endings need you to fund the church now: Pay-to-be-saved. Buy the Pro plan and your sins of being slow are forgiven. Heretics already getting punished, quietly. Critics mocked, artists ignored, workers fired for saying no.

The push from above, and where the money is really coming from

Here is the part nobody can fully explain. Every company, every government, every school suddenly has to adopt AI. Right now. Faster. The pressure does not match the actual results yet. Real productivity gains are mixed. Real profits at most AI companies are negative.

And still the orders come down from the top: roll it out, train everyone, make it mandatory.Why? Maybe it is silver dollars. Maybe it is investor money chasing the next big thing. Maybe it is governments quietly pushing because whoever controls AI controls the next century.

Maybe it is something simpler and uglier, like bosses who finally have an excuse to cut headcount. We do not really know. The order comes from somewhere above, and it does not get questioned out loud.

Christianity had the same moment. In the year 312, the Roman Emperor Constantine had a vision before a battle, won, and made Christianity the favored religion of the empire.

Almost overnight, a small persecuted sect became the official faith of the most powerful state on earth. Bishops got palaces. Pagans got pushed out of public jobs. Was it because Constantine truly believed?

Because it was politically useful to unite a fracturing empire under one faith? Because the church had become too big to fight, so better to ride it? Historians still argue.

The point is the conversion came from the top, the reasons stayed murky, and once it started, refusing was no longer a neutral choice. It was a career-ending one. That is where we are now.

The Constantine moment for AI has already happened. We just do not know whose vision it was, or what they really saw.

But who is the Jesus in this story?

Here is the strange part. We don’t have one yet. Christianity had a founder, a life, a death, and then the church came after. AI has the church first, and is still waiting for its messiah to show up. Right now there are only candidates. AGI itself is the most popular pick, a savior that has been “two years away” for about ten years now.

Some treat Sam Altman or other lab bosses as prophets, but nobody really believes they are the chosen one, including them. Others point at the next unreleased model, always the next one, never this one.That is what makes this moment odd.

The faith is huge.

The followers are everywhere.

The money is real.

But the figure at the center of it all is still missing. People are praying toward an empty chair and calling it inevitable.

The Inquisition is already here.

Forced AI use at work.

Teachers told to “embrace the tools” or lose their jobs. Writers called Luddites (a name for people in the 1800s who smashed factory machines because the machines took their jobs, now used as an insult for anyone who criticizes new tech) for refusing.

Whole jobs told to retrain or die, by bosses who keep their human staff.

The punishment is the layoff. The confession is your usage report.

A counter-movement is already forming, and they’ll be called backwards.

Parents who keep kids off screens. Musicians who stamp “100% human” on the album.

Lawyers who write by hand. Teachers going back to paper exams. They’ll be mocked as old-fashioned, anti-progress, snobs. Every insult the winning side throws at the losing one.

Christianity took 300 years to take over an empire. The empire took over AI in about 30 months. That is not a sign the tech is good.

That is a sign nobody got to vote. The real question is whether enough people will still know how to read, think, and write on their own to notice what was lost, before the tools that used to do those things for them get too expensive to live without.

Again, fiction. Any similarity to the world outside your window is between you and your window.

Alternative systems

• If you want you can comment on this HN link.
• This dev.to resource is also available.
• ProductHunt forum

The loud voices at the airport made me think about that. I was on my way to FOSSNorth. My backpack full of stickers, my head full of some more exciting ideas on how to present my topic and my calendar booked with meetings.

The journey itself was bad. These days companies think about optimizing costs and not about the traveler experience. We saw this in the software industry as well. This approach would not work in the long term, but for now we all need to suffer.

Before

The city is amazing. I liked it more than Stockholm. Finding my way around was easy. Hearing a bus driver say “have a nice afternoon” is precious. Where I came from the bus driver rarely speaks and when they open their mouth you don’t want to be close.

My hotel was close to the rail tracks and was, as I said before, cheap. I was mostly happy with the breakfast where every morning I needed to choose what not to eat, as opposed to the majority of the hotels in the rest of Europe.

Food

After leaving my backpack, I needed food urgently. I opened my Organic Maps helper to find a restaurant worthy of my time. Whoa! I was surprised to find a Balkan restaurant within 800 meters. They were offering Ćevapčići pizza. I cannot explain why this offering made me cry a bit from happiness. I went to the restaurant expecting it to be empty. I was lucky to find a spot – it was full of people from all over the Balkans and even some locals.

I ordered the pizza and then the waiter put in front of me a big bowl of sour cabbage, some bread and butter. Yeeah!

The Oslo gang

After my belly was full, I went to meet with 3 amazing people from Oslo. How do I know them? A good question. A few weeks before the event, I posted on my Fediverse account – if someone was coming to the same event and would like to have a beer with me. I don’t like drinking alone :) Then one person replied and the magic happened. It turns out I would meet a Black Metal legend who happens to be a geek as well.

So we met at one of the breweries in the city and it turns out there were more people, all from Oslo. It was a long time since I met such nice people. We ended up talking about FreeBSD, retro computing, the Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator, and many other topics that you don’t need to know about.

The city

On the next day I went on a walking tour of Gothenburg. I remembered a few things:

• The people were to starve to death, but did not adopt potatoes as a food source until they realized they can make alcohol from it.
• The tallest building in all of Scandinavia will be opened in the city in June. It looks fantastic.
• People felt offended by the posture of their former kings’ monuments, so they did something about it.
• You cannot buy alcohol in every store.
• To see the remains of the old city walls, you have two choices – to go in an underground garage or to buy a ticket to a cinema.
• Fika is the best. I am so adopting this behavior!
• The beer is very expensive. The Czech beers are super popular and cost at least 3 times more in a pub than in Prague.

The conference!

On the day before the conference, the organizers had a community day meetup in a pub. What a great idea. I met with a lot of people while chatting about free software topics. There were people from Greece, Romania and all of Scandinavia. I even was able to launch my campaign against the “Smart phone Zombies”.

The conference was amazing. Here are my unstructured thoughts:

• The venue – the Chalmers university – was great. One of the most comfortable chairs I ever sat on in my life. Also everything was well designed for an event of that scale. I also learned about two of their alumni – the Nobel winner Nils Gustaf Dalén and the first Swedish female engineer Vera Sandberg.
• Some of the talks I visited were too commercial for me, but I learned something new from them as well.
• There was one speaker that did their slides with Claude – I think this is a no-go for me. Even plain text would be better.
• The opportunities to talk to people were amazing. You just stop by anyone and say hi. People were friendly.
• My talk went well. I wish I had more time to move everything under reveal.js slides, so I can play more heavy metal. Also we had great side discussions on privacy and freedom.
• Even though there were many people with a Fediverse account, I didn’t see much posting about the event. Actually this might be good, because people were focused on what was discussed in the talks and not browsing constantly.
• The whole organization was optimized to perfection – at least from what I saw.

I will stop here. My energy went down after so much writing and remembering stuff. I would recommend visiting, presenting, and sponsoring the event with all my fingers.

Connect

If you were there and you want to connect with me – email me at bogomil at this website or DM me via my mastodon account.

Summary

I contribute to Mozilla Project since 2005. I spent the majority of that time translating, localizing and QA-ing that effort.

In the last years I am focusing on Thunderbird both Desktop and Mobile.

I’d love to share some things I learned for that time which will help you to grow as a translator and as a community member: – Is consistency important. Tips and trick I use to keep myself motivated – How do you test a translation with the consumers – Why localizing the mobile version is a bigger challenge that the desktop

Videos

Follow the official link and look at the video. There are subtitles as well in a separate file.

Resources

Slides are here. (PDF)

Here is also a recording, but from another event. (Installfest.cz)

It’s not a secret that I donate more than $3000 a year for projects that align with my values and spend at least 80h a year volunteering. You might ask why I do something like that instead of buying a new computer or lying on the beach. 

Let me share a a story with you:

The world is big, and happiness lurks around the corner.

Skills and time:

I started supporting open-source and free software projects in 2004 when I joined the Mozilla community (the maker of Firefox). 

I contributed with my skills – localization, fixing and reporting bugs, doing small code changes, and talking to people about Privacy and Freedom on the web. After that, I used the same skills for helping projects like Fedora, CreativeCommons, EFF, and more.

What was my motivation? Why did I do that?

• I learned some new skills that I apply even today: respect for Privacy, respect for other people’s opinions, and working with people from around the world having different cultures.
• I felt my work was tedious (ah, that extensive excel I need to fill in), or I go into a daily routine without a way out. Contributing helps you break the boredom and return to your work refreshed. Change the context for an hour to fix a bug or typo and come back to see the difference.
• Be part of another great team – Join a vibrant group of people who believe in the same values as you do – for sure, you will take more benefits than I can describe here. Also, you’ll become friends forever.
• I learned how to be a leader. Helping people find the best way to apply their best skills is something I mastered while contributing to those projects.

Money:

Sometimes more than skills is needed. The majority of the projects and ideas need money. Donating helps them stay alive, motivated, and focused on their work.

At some point, I realized I could only support a few projects and ideas with my skills because I am changing, and they are changing as well, or simply because I need more time. I asked one of my mentors how I could still support their mission, and the answer was straightforward – help us with money. 

Then I remembered my first days as a FOSS developer, back in the 2000s, when I received financial support for one of my projects (whois XMLRPC gateway), and how I felt. It was awesome!

A final note:

Identify what change you want to see in the world and find a way to support it with your skills, peers, money, goods, or anything they need. They can’t do it by themselves. Change is a group sport.

Even though I bragged a bit initially, the best way to help and donate is to do it silently, focusing on the value you get for yourself and the value you provide to the mentee or the project!

Good luck!

Photo by Elaine Casap on Unsplash

There you go.

P.S It covers more countries and cities :)

Sometimes, we as developers unquestioningly trust everything that comes from the sources we constantly use. GitHub is not an exception. Do I need to remind you that you should not trust anything? Well, URLhouse proves this for you, if you don’t trust me :)

Currently, there are 1’696 malware sites hosted there with a takedown period of !!! 14 days!

Please be careful!

If you want to create a challenge for your own country the overpass query i used for Bulgaria is this:

[out:json][timeout:299];
(
  area["ISO3166-1"="BG"]->.a;
  nwr["website"~"."]["website"!~"^https?:\/\/.*"](area.a);
  nwr["contact:website"~"."]["contact:website"!~"^https?:\/\/.*"](area.a);
);
out body geom qt;

He is my challenge which now it seems complete :) Yay!

In the future if you want to help with the translation and localization bookmark the project at Weblate.

The mobile version is based on the amazing K-9 mail and it’s probably the best opensource e-mail client on the market right now. It supports encryption and unified mailbox (which is must for a person like me with ton of emails).

The challenge I have at the moment is to understand when the locale will be build into beta. Stay tuned if you want to help with the testing!

Here is an example of me doing a monologue after I spend a good time going deep into the character:

The role building: My character name is “Fat Bogo.”. His legal business is an impresario of metal bands. He owns a small brothel in Holesovice, but his true passion is to be a loan shark. One day, a small man asks him for a loan, and he is nowhere to be found when the loan is due. Fat Bogo sends the boys, Vicenco and Luca, to see him, but instead, they return with a girl —Marianna. Now the “hero” is back with the money…

Wait, hold on, what’s the relation to ChatGPT?

Imagine that you are the character and ask the question that will help you uncover some caveat of your life based on what the ML “knows” about you. It’s a fascinating exercise. I’ll do one now for myself.

Bogo> Who is Bogomil Shopov

ChatGPT> Bogomil Shopov—often known as “Bogo”—is a multifaceted professional based in Prague, Czechia, with over two decades of experience in technology and a deep commitment to human-centered innovation. Born and raised in Bulgaria, he identifies as a human, artist, and hacker, blending technical expertise with a passion for creativity and ethical design.Professionally, Shopov focuses on digital trust, privacy, cybersecurity, and ethical technology. He has held roles in technical program management, product operations, and complex release management, often within cloud and XaaS environments. His approach emphasizes secure software development, threat modeling, and aligning technology with human values.

As much as I like what I read, there is nothing new in there for me. Let’s start with the deep dive.

Bogo> I am doing a character study on him and would like to understand some of his flaws. What are they?

ChatGPT> Based on how Bogomil Shopov presents himself and the cultural narratives around his “rebel with a cause” persona, two qualities that might be critiqued are:

    Uncompromising Rebelliousness:    Bogomil frequently embraces a countercultural stance—mixing heavy metal passion with advocacy for free and open-source software and digital rights. While this rebellious spirit is a driving force in challenging established norms and inspiring change, it may also be interpreted as a tendency toward inflexibility. In certain contexts, an unyielding commitment to one’s ideals can lead to difficulties in finding common ground with those who operate under more conventional or moderate approaches. In a team or collaborative setting, this intensity might make it harder to adapt to compromise or to soften one’s stance when diplomacy is required.

    Blunt or Abrasive Communication Style:    Another aspect that comes through in his public persona is a style of communication that is candid, direct, and even provocative. This forthright approach can energize audiences and cut through bureaucratic noise, but it also runs the risk of alienating individuals who favor a more measured or tactful discourse. When opinions are expressed with a heavy dose of bluntness (or even sarcasm), it can sometimes come off as abrasive—potentially discouraging dialogue from those who might be less comfortable with confrontational styles. In a nuanced character study, such directness might be seen as both a strength and a liability, depending on the context and the interpersonal dynamics at play.

Now, we are hitting some good material here. Let’s go deeper and ask another question:

Bogo > Can you show me some proofs for: Blunt or Abrasive Communication Style

What have I learned from this simple exercise?

Wait, before I go into the part where I conclude, I need to mention that you can go even deeper into exploring all the flaws you “see” for yourself. If you ask different questions, you might discover some new things about yourself and even how to “fix” them if you feel like it.

What I have learned:

• I honestly didn’t have an idea that I might have a “Abrasive Communication Style”. If I reflect on my past communications, this might be true. There is something to think about here.
• The models help you see yourself from another perspective and get some helpful advice if you want to consider it.
• Ask clarifying questions for proofs.
• Consider this one part of the truth. Know that you are a more complex person.

Archetype

At the end of the exercise, tell ChatGPT to create an archetype for you. Imagine being played by an actor or being a character in a computer game. The result might be interesting.

Character Archetype: The Ethicist Hacker

Name: Bozhan “Bogo” Stoyanov

Class/Role: Techno-Druid / Digital Ethicist

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Faction: The Order of the Open Web

Backstory

Bozhan was raised in the post-collapse cities of the Neo-Balkan Federation, where government surveillance was rampant and megacorporations controlled knowledge. As a teenager, he cracked his school’s firewall not to cheat—but to replace standardized tests with philosophical essays.

He wandered across underground tech communes, learning open-source lore, privacy spells, and how to charm machines with music. Rumors say he once rebooted a dying AI by singing it a metal ballad about the nature of freedom.

Eventually, he joined The Order of the Open Web, a decentralized alliance of rogue engineers, artists, and ideologues who fight for digital sovereignty and emotional truth in a synthetic world.

Core Traits

• Idealist with Bite: Bogo believes in the freedom of the individual and the ethical use of technology—but isn’t afraid to disrupt, dismantle, or burn down what he sees as oppressive systems.
• Hybrid Thinker: Blends ancient philosophy, emotional intelligence, and bleeding-edge code.
• Heavy Metal Coder: Uses rhythm and sound in his code—his IDE literally has a soundboard.

Flaws

• Communication Mismatch: His poetic, metaphor-rich language confuses more pragmatic allies.
• Refuses Compromise: Will walk away from powerful allies if they violate his moral compass.
• Carries Burdens Alone: Internalizes failure and burns out rather than asking for help.
• Seeks Meaning in Everything: Sometimes paralyzed by trying to find “purpose” in even small technical choices.

The Play

We have become creatures who eat, shit, and hate ourselves and others. Hate is the only emotion that boils within us. Our society screams a total lack of motivation, will for change, other emotions, and interest in the stimuli of our surroundings. Let’s change that through theatre!

The mad scientist Aheado Fyou, who finds himself in the present from the future, along with his personal assistant with artificial intelligence, P.I.T.K.A., tries to get us to change something now so we don’t find ourselves in a future situation with no rights and free will.

By mixing light provocations, fine art, music, knowledge, and a lot of booze, all attendees experience a journey they will remember, at least until they leave the theater!

Inspiration

The play is inspired by Augusto Boal‘s methods, who guided us to the idea that theatre is not only for tears and laughter but also for expressing an active citizen position.

Based on actual events of the last years – wars around the world, political turmoil, violation of rights, and above all, apathy and hatred in society!

The play focuses on active audience participation, which is rarely done in theatre productions. It’s the best method for teaching the audience something valuable.

Music

We will have a special guest for the premiere: one of Bulgaria’s favorite punk singers, Krasimir Kunev—Kras, who will share his vision of how we can use music to restart the change!

Where and when.

The premiere will be on 7 March from 19:30 at I Am Studio Theater, one of the few places in Sofia for independent and experimental theater.

License

You may be surprised to learn that the play is licensed under a Creative Commons license, allowing anyone to modify and remix it for their own audience.

I gave a few talks about Thunderbird at three conferences in Czechia, Croatia, and Belgium and wanted to share a short resume of what I have learned.

FOSDEM

FOSDEM is the world’s most significant event for Free and Open Source software.

Even though my talk was not directly related to Thunderbird, I still want to highlight it here because some of the ideas that I incorporated came after talking to community members. The goal was to see what free technologies exist now and how they can be incorporated to build crazy ideas such as mood detection followed by serving e-mails that correspond to it or to see how much energy you waste by sending one e-mail.

The slides are here. There is a recording, but it’s off-sync.

Installfest.cz 2024

Installfest in Prague is one event that still maintains the spirit of open source. I gave a talk introducing the Thunderrid project, giving a brief history of how one can help with their abilities and capacity.

Even though I expected more people, the audience was engaged, and I had even more talks afterward. I had the honor to meet with Mitch Altman as well.

The video recording is here if you want to take a pick!

Dors/Cluc 2024

Dors/Cluc is one of the oldest free and open source events in Europe. It has been running for 30 years now. This year, they had a new venue: the Algebra College in Zagreb, which was amazingly packed with people and projects.

I spoke about how you can use heavy metal music to inspire yourself to contribute to Thunderbird and why you should do so in general. Metal music has love, anger, rage, diversity, and more. We all can find inspiration there to improve our lives. I also gave away around 50 Thunderbird stickers.

I will add a video when the recording is ready.

Community Engagement

I met mainly with people using Thunderbird as their default mail client. I learned a lot, and I am using this knowledge to be the community voice in the Thunderbird Council. One of the exciting questions was that some people were unaware of the Connect website to share ideas, and others were unaware of the process—what happens after you submit the idea?

I tried to reach out to the local contributor communities but was unsuccessful. We should start talking and engaging more with the precious people who share the energy to build Thunderbird in their free time.

Thanks for your time!

I know that 10k hits are nothing, but I am proud of the results for such a niche topic.

Here are my next two proposals:

Dors/Cluc

Zagreb, Croatia
15-19 May, 2024

Let me start by introducing you to a great event that has been organized for over 30 years—yes, 30! The organizers are proud that this is Europe’s oldest conference on Gnu/Linux and free software.

It’s held in Zagreb, Croatia, and offers many ways to learn new stuff – Sessions, workshops, small mini-events on a particular topic, and many ways to network and meet people.

Why don’t you combine your thirst for knowledge with a trip to Zagreb where, apart from the food, drinks, and history, you will understand why there are chandeliers from a Las Vegas Casino in a Cathedral?

The team is running a 30% discount campaign for the next few days.

DevConf

Brno, Czechia
13-15 June, 2024

When I started living in the Czech Republic, the people from Prague tried to convince me that the city of Brno was a hoax and that it didn’t exist. I am still not convinced, and I plan to go and visit the DevConf this year to change my mind :)

Apart from the obvious joke, the DevConf in Brno has been held almost every year since 2009. The topics might vary throughout the years, but the hero is always the open source. The primary sponsor is Redhat, and you might see more focus on technologies and principles related to the software company, but this is usually okay.

This year’s conference will last three days and include ten different themes, including the good ol’ AI.

Attendance is free of charge, and no registration is required. Visit Brno, ensure it’s real, meet many new people, and learn something new.

—
P.S. I am not associated with any of the events; I just want to support their enormous effort