32 Digital Stories Between Two Covers: What Lies Ahead?
The book Digital Stories brings together 8 big questions of our time and 32 stories in search of the answers. You may have read some of them on this site, and here you will find them updated and enriched; others were written especially for the book. Perhaps you have already drawn back the curtain of the cover? Then I would be absolutely delighted to read your thoughts here. If not, here is what awaits you behind it!
8210 Magical Stories from Planet Earth
10 questions, 10 answers, 10 stories and 10 incredible photos. We fasten our seatbelts and set off on a thrilling journey to every corner of the planet… Dimitar Karanikolov is an architect who caught the photography bug almost by accident. He then became an undisputed master of the lens—his images have been shown by the world’s biggest media outlets, and he has won prestigious awards. He is the author of the unusual book Istorii ot planetata Zemya (Stories from Planet Earth), a photo journal in which, over 208 pages, striking photographs are accompanied by stories in Bulgarian and English and by pieces from guest authors such as Georgi Milkov. His favorite vantage point is high above. Why? That is what we are about to find out, along with who is the most fascinating character he has met on the road. Where did he feel in danger? What place (on Earth or not) does the architect-photographer dream of capturing through his lens? And why is it sometimes worth… losing your camera.
83IT, Love and Blueberries
Both of them work in IT—he is a programmer, she is a project manager. Today they also own 4,700 blueberry bushes, whose remarkable taste delighted hundreds of buyers this summer, and tend 5 decares of roses, alternating dailies with digging and talk of data science with talk of agronomy. Sometimes life really is a bed of roses; it only takes the courage to appreciate it, rethink it, believe in your dreams and forget the stereotypes.
84FM-2030: The Man Who Refuses to Die
Left or right? Up! He believed that when 2030 came, he would wake from the ice to celebrate his 100th birthday. He was convinced that by then we would have reached the heavens, settled other planets, put our petty squabbles behind us and, lifted on the wings of technology, marched onward in human evolution. Was FM-2030 right? Could the sharp-shooting basketball player still surprise us with a three-pointer of a prediction? If so, in just seven years we will be able to discuss the details with the man himself. If he really is revived, the forgotten creator of transhumanism, who picked a name like a radio station's, will surely have a lot to tell us… If not, he will become just another dreamer who overestimated humanity and ran ahead of his time.
85Isus: The Programmer Who Came Out of the Ghetto
“The hardest part was taking the essence of the two worlds I live in and combining them into one. It takes a lot of emotional energy and a great deal of empathy. I’ve been rejected by Bulgarians because I’m a Gypsy, and by Gypsies because I’m ‘pretending’ to be Bulgarian. You fight to be respected on opposite fronts.” It is my pleasure to introduce Isus Kostov! To his colleagues he is simply “Jesus,” and to me he is a powerful example of how a person can defeat his surroundings, prejudice, even himself, to reach what he dreams of, however distant, even impossible, it may seem. His road begins in a Roma ghetto, and today he is a software engineer at a respected company. He taught himself online and never gave up, starting from a school he often attended hungry, in shoes with no soles. By now he has built up serious experience in the profession. “The most valuable thing programming has given me is, without a doubt, freedom,” Isus says. “It gave me the chance to get out of the difficult situation I was in and to build a life in which I’m independent and can help my family.” His next goal is to inspire more kids to chase their dreams, and not to give up when they are held down by their surroundings and their circumstances. And what might happen if stories like this changed the attitude of both our society and the IT sector toward these children?
86Edward and the Afronauts
Of all the eternal stories, there is one we underestimate most often. Let us saddle Rocinante, greet an illegally young Dulcinea and chase the windmills of the Solar System! The renowned hidalgo Don Quixote, a few centuries later, is Edward Mukuka Nkoloso, the inventor who… very nearly beat the US and the USSR in their battle for space!
87Hollywood vs. Artificial Intelligence
160,000 people rose up in an unprecedented protest against artificial intelligence, which could take the bread out of every one of their mouths. No, they are not factory workers or taxi drivers, but Hollywood actors, many of them known all over the world and holders of prestigious awards, joined by the screenwriters. Why did technology spark the biggest revolt in Hollywood's history, and is it time we all learned something from the stars' protest?
88The Lifelogger: Recording Every Moment of a Life
Remember when we used to collect all sorts of things: stamps, napkins, postcards, photos… even memories? The year is 2000. One of the great scientists of his time begins an unusual experiment. Day and night he will wear a camera around his neck that records every moment of his daily life. The idea is to miss nothing! His life will be captured and duly documented, so he can go back to any moment of it, and why not… one day relive it virtually? Gordon Bell is a world-famous computer scientist, and one of the most prestigious awards in computing bears his name. But the experiment he undertook—recording every second of his life—gives us far more today than his scientific research. One way or another, it shows where we are all headed. His idea sounds like a joke… because it has already become everyday practice. Yes, we leave a huge trail online of every minute we live. And it doesn't impress us, doesn't please us, doesn't even make us ask what the consequences might be. Do you dream of remembering every important moment of your life? The first kiss, your newborn's first smile, that unforgettable meeting that showed you how to change your life? Today it is easier than ever. And at the same time harder, more challenging, even… more dangerous.
89Oppenheimer: The (New?) Prometheus
J. Robert Oppenheimer, “the father of the atomic bomb,” built the most powerful weapon of destruction and then became one of the most stubborn and persuasive advocates for banning it. It is no accident that his story is being told again today, when bombs are falling in Europe once more and technological progress may again carry the risk of self-destruction.
90How YouTube Was Meant to Be Tinder: Three Programmers and $1.65 Billion
How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? Probably depends on how motivated they are. But you'll be surprised to learn that just three are enough to create… YouTube. In the beginning it was quite different, because the platform that became a synonym for video content was originally supposed to be a dating site. Three former PayPal employees launched the project in early 2005, and less than two years later Google bought it for $1.65 billion! Here is the little-known, twist-filled story of one of the giants of the digital world. Of the site that made video unimaginably easy to share. Of the project that for many years ranked among the three most visited pages on the planet.
91The Genius Terrorist and the “Evil of Technology”
Last Sunday, in the hospital of a federal prison, while serving the first of his eight life sentences, a man who began life as an exceptionally promising scientist passed away: Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber. A child prodigy, at just 25 he became the youngest faculty member in Berkeley's history, and a dazzling career was predicted for him. Then he suddenly decided to withdraw to an ascetic shack in the middle of the woods. For 17 years he carried out terrorist attacks on scientists and people connected with the computer world. He became the FBI's most expensive target. Meticulous, elusive! He was recognized and turned in by his own brother, from words in his manifesto, which is sure to be much discussed. “As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones.” “He might not be wrong,” Elon Musk wrote, sharing the news of Kaczynski's death. The Unabomber was a terrorist who took the lives of innocent people. And at the same time a scientist who predicted the dangers that come with technology. Obsessed with the risks it carries, yet incredibly perceptive in the way he looked at them.
92The Genius Who Poisoned the World Twice
Technology changes our lives at breakneck speed, and its creators—inventors, programmers—are the heroes of our day… At least until it turns out that an innovation the world greeted with wild enthusiasm is lethally dangerous. Yet one inventor rode a wave of fame for years, revered as a genius, while creating not one but two technologies that later proved to have cost human lives, and whose damage to the whole planet will outlast generations. The story of Thomas Midgley Jr. is worth recalling every time we cheer the latest huge breakthrough in artificial intelligence or any other technology—a reminder of how important it is to weigh the risks before we take flight on the wings of enthusiasm, and to think about and discuss the big questions technology puts before us, the ones we never seem to have time for…
93Digital Stories Wins Another Web Report Award
Digital Stories has earned impressive recognition at the sixth edition of the Web Report journalism awards, which in recent years has established itself as the leading and most prestigious journalism competition in Bulgaria. This year, Georgi Karamanev and Digital Stories won in the Art and Culture category, among 185 journalists competing across six categories, for the experiment “‘Sometimes I’ll Come…’: How AI Painted 10 Classic Poems.” The award means all the more because it makes Digital Stories a winner for the third year running!
94Father and Son: The Relay of Life
A father and his grown son, holding hands. Behind them is what defines them; in front of them, the lens in all its merciless candor. Important photographs need no words. This Digital Story is as big as life itself. Because it takes us back to the most natural of cycles and offers its piercing gaze into meaning. The photographer Valeriy Poshtarov has two sons, aged 12 and 9. One morning, as he walks them to school, he starts thinking about how, before he knows it, the moment will come when they no longer want him to hold their hands. That is how the idea is born: to capture fathers and their grown sons in his lens, surrounded by the setting that represents them best. The result: photographs that don't just tell stories, they paint universes…
95“Armed with Art, We Are More Vigilant and Less Deceived”
Not the politician or the soldier but the artist is the one who should paint tomorrow. That is the great theme of a little-known British historian who, a decade ago, gathered a rare historical genre of text into one ambitious book: the manifesto. Alex Danchev had a distant Bulgarian connection, and with a fine eye and wide-ranging knowledge he assembled a puzzle of 100 twentieth-century manifestos. What might the manifesto of the future look like in the age of artificial intelligence? We'll get there, of course…
96Nothing, Forever: How The Bold and the Beautiful Lives On in the Age of AI
Nothing, Forever is a venture as wacky as its title. At first glance it is rather fun: a series, a sort of sequel to the cult sitcom Seinfeld, that runs without pause and without the plot ever repeating itself. Yet it gives us plenty of reasons to think about the future of art and entertainment in the age of artificial intelligence. Could personalized art be a dream, a new paradigm, or the end of human creativity as we have known it?
97Jordan Peterson: The Man Who Gave Life Its Meaning Back… or Did He?
A Canadian psychology professor is about to take the stage of Hall 1 at Sofia's National Palace of Culture to advise a mostly young audience on how to put their lives in order, and the tickets have sold out twice despite steep prices. Praised and contested, Jordan Peterson has won cult status as a most unusual online influencer. Are we rediscovering forgotten values through him, or returning to outdated ideas that no longer fit our time?
98Tang Ping: Lying Down in Order to Stand Up
Several generations of Chinese grew up with the “ideal” of “9-9-6”: you work without a break from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. It is the only way to survive the fierce competition and keep climbing the ladder. But the end of endless grinding may be in sight. “Tang ping” and “bai lan” are the two names of a movement gaining strength among young Chinese: lie down and think about life; relax instead of throwing all your strength into meaningless toil. Are the beatniks of our time coming from China? Will people in the East learn to idle? When can laziness become a constructive force? And shouldn't we all follow their example and prepare for our own future this way? The Chinese are learning to be lazy, and so inspiringly that you want to grab the quilt at once… Let's lie down!
99Sam Altman, the Father of ChatGPT
Have you heard of Sam Altman? The famous ChatGPT owes its success to him; he runs OpenAI, the company that showed the world how far artificial intelligence has come. By all signs, he will be the next big name. He will make the Silicon Valley news that echoes around the world. His few interviews are worth listening to closely as we look for the big news coming in the world of artificial intelligence. A programmer who never quite happened, an entrepreneur who has seen both success and failure up close. An innovator who landed in exactly the right place. A visionary without grand words. An American of Jewish descent, the first leader on such a scale who makes no secret of being gay. This figure, still hidden behind the chatbot, has yet to give birth to big stories and big changes. And conspiracy theories, everything that comes with his status. Not long ago he set aside from his “savings” two sums of hundreds of millions of dollars each and gave them to research into dramatically extending human life and the search for cold fusion—a technology that could solve humanity's energy needs for the long term…
100Ten Analog Stories in Flight: Inside Rafaelo Kazakov's Photo Collection
Capturing the moment means something different now than it did in the days before TikTok. Or does it? These photographs will remind you why photography will outlive social networks.
