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Mona Plaza hotel in Belgrade - an honest review

We spent a long time comparing hotels in Belgrade based on price versus quality, and Mona Plaza turned out to be the best fit. We stayed four nights in a Standard Double Room.
The area is quiet - no traffic noise, no restaurants or bars nearby, and it was silent at night. It's a 15-minute walk to the tourist center.

The bed is wide and long. I'm 6'1" (1.85 m) tall, and I was very comfortable. The bedding is excellent.
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5

Marla from Fight Club isn't who she seems: the theory that changes how you watch the film

Warning: spoilers!
There are theories that sound like nonsense at first, and then make you rewatch a beloved movie notebook in hand, checking every little detail. One such story concerns the popular film "Fight Club." It's the idea that Marla Singer isn't a separate character at all, but another personality of the Narrator himself.

It sounds wild, since in the plot the main character's split personality gives rise to Tyler Durden, a charismatic character and ego who lives life to the fullest while the Narrator himself suffers from insomnia. But if you look closely at the details, the parallels between Marla and Tyler start standing out too insistently to be dismissed as coincidence.

Let's start with the small external details. Both Marla and Tyler barely ever take a cigarette out of their mouths, both dress in a similar aesthetic, both wear similar rings, and both have distinctive, slightly disheveled hairstyles. For a film where every costume and prop detail is thought out down to the millimeter, such a coincidence looks suspiciously deliberate.

Next comes the overlap with the Narrator himself. He and Marla share similar issues with self-perception, both are essentially homeless in an emotional sense and live in cheap hotels, both have a habit of simultaneously switching their wardrobe to something more worn-out, and they even attend the same support groups, pretending to be terminally ill people they aren't. There's a whole system of mirrored details here that's hard to chalk up to screenwriter's coincidence.

If you follow this logic to its conclusion, an intriguing picture emerges. Tyler Durden symbolizes the masculine, destructive, rebellious side of the hero - that image of strength and freedom the Narrator desperately lacks in his gray office life. And Marla, in this scheme, becomes the feminine side of that same personality - the chaotic, vulnerable, yet magnetic side the hero tries with all his might to suppress and keep at a distance.

Hence the strange dynamic of their relationship in the film. The Narrator either hates Marla or can't do without her, while Tyler regularly spends time with her while the hero himself supposedly remembers nothing. If Marla really is part of him, then the whole romantic storyline turns into a story about the hero trying to reconcile different sides of his own psyche, rather than an ordinary love triangle.

There's also a detail that usually seals the deal for supporters of the theory. In the plot, cars on the road literally don't notice Marla in some scenes, as if she physically doesn't exist for the world around her - just as Tyler doesn't exist for anyone but the Narrator. A small detail easy to miss on a first viewing, but one that fits perfectly into the bigger picture once you know where to look.

Officially, the creators of the film and the book have never confirmed this version, and in Chuck Palahniuk's original source material, Marla is described as a perfectly real, separate character. So this is more of a beautiful fan theory than canon. But that's exactly why "Fight Club" continues to live its own life decades after release. The film is built so tightly and in so many layers that almost any detail can turn into its own puzzle if you look at it from the right angle.
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Observation deck in Belgrade at the Kula tower: Belgrade 360 Deck - how to get there, photos of the view from above

You can't really call the Kula Tower in Belgrade a skyscraper - the building has only 42 floors. Still, the observation deck is high enough for tourists to get great shots from up there.
The observation deck has a great location - you can see all of Belgrade in every direction. To get there, you don't need to go straight into the tower. We first tried doing exactly that, but those entrances only lead to the hotel and apartments. Access to the deck is through the neighboring shopping mall. Go into the mall, head up to the next floor, and walk toward the tower. The mall is connected to Kula Tower by a long pedestrian bridge - you need to cross it.
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5

Aspera Hotel Golden Horn: an honest review of the 4-star hotel in Istanbul - beautiful, but very noisy

We stayed at Aspera Hotel Golden Horn, a 4-star hotel in Istanbul, for just one night, but that was enough to form a clear impression. We booked a Deluxe Double Room on the lower floor.
The room looked very nice, everything was fresh and not “worn out.”
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That overfilled-lips joke in 28 Years Later

In the British zombie flick 28 Years Later, a soldier shows the boy hero a photo on his phone - his girlfriend, all trout pout and fake curves:
For anyone who hasn't seen it: the kid grew up on an island version of Great Britain, locked down hard, zombies roaming everywhere, no real doctors around - so obviously nobody's getting lip fillers or a boob job there. Meanwhile over in Europe, life's carrying on like normal, no zombies in sight.
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4

Tivat airport: photos, video, how it works, and how to get there - first-hand experience

We arrived in Tivat from Belgrade. Although the airport is international, it's very small and can feel quite cramped. It likely wouldn't be able to handle two flights at the same time comfortably, as there simply isn't enough space in the terminal waiting areas.
As the plane approaches for landing, you can see mountains on both sides.
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Flushing the toilet less often is not environmentalism

At a hotel, there was a sign next to the toilet that said:
Dear guest,
We can conserve our water resources by avoiding unnecessary toilet flushing.
You, too,
Be a drop of water
For our future

Why is this nonsense?

First of all, how exactly do they expect people to flush the toilet less often? Leave urine sitting there so it can stink and create stains and buildup on the bowl?

Secondly, this kind of water conservation can actually make things worse for the environment. I once watched a TV program where sewer system workers explained that people nowadays use less water, which means there is less flow in the sewer pipes. As a result, blockages occur more frequently, waste is carried away less effectively, and maintenance costs increase. In the end, this drives up water prices for consumers. So there is no real financial benefit either.

Workers at wastewater treatment plants have made similar complaints. Because people use less water, treatment facilities receive more concentrated and polluted wastewater. It is harder to process, produces stronger odors, and can cause unpleasant smells to spread for miles around the treatment plants.

There is no real environmental benefit here. It's just the appearance of caring about the environment rather than actually helping it.
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How the size of the node_modules directory grows: the Nuxt example

Daniel Roe (author of Nuxt) reports that a new npm package will now be used for route analysis:

We've migrated Nuxt's file-system route generation to unrouting (#34316), which uses a trie data structure for constructing routes. The cold start is roughly the same (~8ms vs ~6ms for large apps), but dev server changes are up to 28x faster when you're not adding/removing pages, and ~15% faster even when you are.

https://github.com/nuxt/nuxt/releases/tag/v4.4.0

Performance improvements are always good. But what's happening under the hood? Looking at the GitHub changes:
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Quentin Tarantino and his foot fetish: a complete list of all his films featuring scenes with feet and legs - photos and videos

Fans of Quentin Tarantino know that he has a foot fetish. For those unfamiliar with the term: it's when a man has a particular fascination with women's legs, and even more so with their feet. It's safe to say that Quentin Tarantino is the most famous foot fetishist in the world.

Let's start with Quentin Tarantino's first real film - Reservoir Dogs (1992). I'm skipping "My Best Friend's Birthday", as it was never officially released.
There's nothing related to foot fetishism in Reservoir Dogs: the film features only tough men. Women appear only briefly in a few background scenes. I found just one scene where a woman is shown in the foreground - the carjacking moment.
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Misleading naming in JavaScript: atob() and btoa()

JavaScript has two globally available metods for working with Base64: atob() and btoa(). Their names clearly look like they were borrowed from older languages. In C, for instance, the standard library includes functions like atoi and atof:

#include <stdlib.h>

char str[] = "123";
int num = atoi(str); // 123

atoi means ASCII to integer, and atof means ASCII to float (though in reality it returns a double).

So what do you think the atob function does in JavaScript? ASCII to Base64? In other words, converting a regular string into a Base64 string? Nope! It does the exact opposite: it converts a Base64 string into a "regular" string. And btoa, in turn, converts a regular string into Base64!

console.log(btoa('Famabara')); // 'RmFtYWJhcmE='
console.log(atob('RmFtYWJhcmE')); // 'Famabara'

Who thought it was a good idea to swap the names like that? Love JS.
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Sometimes restrictions create beauty in architecture

Restrictions don't always lead to something bad. Let's look at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul - it is adorned with stunning patterns, yet there are no images of people or other living beings, because this is prohibited by Islamic norms. The restriction influenced the architecture, resulting in interiors like these:
Or take Amsterdam as an example. At one time, taxes in the city depended on the width of a building's façade, so future homeowners constructed rather narrow but tall houses. As a result, a distinctive Amsterdam architectural style emerged.
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The Same Typeface in Woody Allen's Films

In his films, Woody Allen consistently uses the same typeface in the opening and closing credits. Midnight in Paris (2011):
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Nuxt 3 and 4: issue with multiple navigateTo calls

At work, on one of our projects, I ran into an issue in Nuxt 4 where a page component needs to perform different redirects via navigateTo() based on various conditions during the execution of the setup function. Something like this:

<template>
  Some page
</template>

<script lang="ts" setup>
if (1 + 1 === 2) {
  await navigateTo('/?abc=1', {
    redirectCode: 302,
  });
}

if (2 + 2 === 4) {
  await navigateTo('/?abc=2', {
    redirectCode: 302,
  });
}

if (3 + 3 === 6) {
  await navigateTo('/?abc=3', {
    redirectCode: 302,
  });
}

if (4 + 4 === 8) {
  await navigateTo('/?abc=4', {
    redirectCode: 302,
  });
}
</script>

This is where the problem appears: in the end, the redirect always goes to the very last URL, i.e. in the example above the navigation ends up at /?abc=4. I dug into the documentation but couldn't find anything built-in to prevent subsequent navigateTo calls from being triggered. It seems this behavior is related to vue router.

You can't write it like this either:
if (1 + 1 === 2) {
  await navigateTo('/?abc=1', {
    redirectCode: 302,
  });
  return; // not allowed in script setup
}

In the end, the only solution that worked was introducing a boolean variable and checking it before calling navigateTo:
let isAlreadyRedirected = false;

if (1 + 1 === 2) {
  await navigateTo('/?abc=1', {
    redirectCode: 302,
  });
  isAlreadyRedirected = true;
}

if (!isAlreadyRedirected && 2 + 2 === 4) {
  await navigateTo('/?abc=2', {
    redirectCode: 302,
  });
  isAlreadyRedirected = true;
}

if (!isAlreadyRedirected && 3 + 3 === 6) {
  await navigateTo('/?abc=3', {
    redirectCode: 302,
  });
  isAlreadyRedirected = true;
}

if (!isAlreadyRedirected && 4 + 4 === 8) {
  await navigateTo('/?abc=4', {
    redirectCode: 302,
  });
  isAlreadyRedirected = true;
}
Once again: this is the only thing that solved the problem for me. If you have any other solution, please let me know.
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5

A Naked Gun (2025) reference to the TV series Police Squad! (1982)

The new Naked Gun has one subtle reference that doesn't point back to the original film trilogy, but much further - to the TV series that served as the blueprint for all three movies. In other words, it's a nod to Police Squad! from 1982.

In the final scene of the new film, everyone around the main characters suddenly freezes, while the protagonists themselves are confused about what's happening - yet they're still able to move:
This is a direct callback to the endings of every episode of "Police Squad!". That exact gag happened each time - for example, here's how episode two ends:
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14

How wind turbine power depends on blade length: looking at real data

Wind turbines keep getting bigger every year. There's one main reason for that: the longer the blades, the more powerful the turbine. But couldn't you just install two smaller turbines instead of one large one? To answer this, let's take a look at real-world data.

Goldwind is a Chinese wind turbine manufacturer. Here are photos of their operating turbines from the company website:
Goldwind GW 82 / 1500 - output: 1500 kW (1.5 MW). Rotor length: 82.3 meters, meaning a blade diameter of roughly 41.15 meters.

Goldwind GW 171 / 6000 - output: 6000 kW (6.0 MW). Rotor length: 171 meters, giving a blade diameter of about 85.5 meters.

Even here you can already see that the relationship between blade length and output is nonlinear. The second turbine's blade is 2.07x longer, but the power is 4x higher!

Vestas is a wind turbine manufacturer from Denmark (their turbines are shown in the next photo):
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Copenhagen - the city without lamp posts

Did you know that there are almost no lamp posts in Copenhagen? Open Google Maps and see for yourself.
Instead of posts, the city uses lamps suspended over the middle of the road.
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An argument against moon landing conspiracy theorists

I have a friend who believes in the moon landing conspiracy - you know, one of those people who think the Americans never actually went to the Moon.

He's convinced the whole thing was staged, masterfully filmed by movie directors. Arguing with him is almost pointless - he says every photo is fake. The fact that even Soviet scientists never questioned the authenticity of the American Moon landing doesn't matter to him.

But there's one argument that made him stop and think. No, I didn't manage to change his mind, but at least I got him to shut up for a while - confused him, so to speak.

The argument went like this: "So what, they faked all their Moon landings?"
Funny thing is, he didn't even know that the Americans went to the Moon not once, but several times.

Here's the list of all Moon missions:
Apollo 11 - July 16, 1969
Apollo 12 - November 14, 1969
Apollo 14 - January 31, 1971
Apollo 15 - July 26, 1971
Apollo 16 - April 16, 1972
Apollo 17 - December 7, 1972

So according to the "logic" of Moon landing deniers, the Americans didn't fake it just once - they supposedly faked it six times, along with all the photos, videos, and even the Moon rocks they brought back.
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The real altitude of spaceflight

Humans have been flying to space since 1961 - that's over 60 years now. These days, we even have tourist spaceflights. In sci-fi movies, people travel between planets, stars, and even galaxies.

But what is space from the perspective of aviation and astronautics? Technically, it starts somewhere between 100 and 122 kilometers above Earth's surface. The range exists because different organizations define the boundary of space slightly differently.

Is 120 kilometers really that high? The average diameter of our planet is 12,742 kilometers - quite a lot. Below, I drew a simple picture to show what a spaceflight looks like to scale:
See that tiny red dot? That’s our trip to "outer space". Not exactly impressive, right? For comparison, the International Space Station orbits at an altitude of about 418.2 km - on this scale, its point would only be a couple of pixels higher.

Human technology is still in its infancy. Legally, we can say we fly to space - but in reality, it looks more like what you see above. As for interplanetary travel, so far, only our robots have made the journey.
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Latest changes on Famabara

Fixed a bug with displaying the number of unread comments.

Improved error display when mobile internet connection is lost.

Added a sticky loader when saving a comment.

Improved aria-attributes for screen readers.

Added Open Graph support for some pages.

When publishing a post, a like is automatically added to the published post.

In open posts, a button icon was added to quickly jump to comments.

Separate language-specific home pages were created on sub-URLs like /es, /de, etc.

The site header is now fixed at the top on most pages.
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A dried-up future New York in The Fifth Element

In The Fifth Element, there's a brief and easily overlooked scene in the middle of the movie where a spaceship takes off toward Fhloston Paradise. It only lasts a couple of seconds, but if you pause and take a closer look, you'll notice an interesting detail from the director.
I've numbered the key spots in the screenshot.

What we see is New York of the future. The ocean level has dropped dramatically, making the city look almost unrecognizable. The only question is - where could all the water have gone for sea levels to fall that much?

1 - The Statue of Liberty. It looks taller because of the extended base underneath.
2 - This marks the future ocean level. Somehow the ice caps didn't melt to add more water to the seas. Did humanity ship the water off to other planets?

3 - Manhattan, 4 - Brooklyn, 5 - The Brooklyn Bridge connecting them. With the water gone, the bridge is now spanning a canyon instead of a river.

And on what used to be the ocean floor, they've built a spaceport.
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