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Snowfall

2026-02-13T07:00:00Z

I wrote this a bit ago for a magazine, although that thing never got finished so I'm putting it up here.

Dark outside and blinds shut I went to bed, not to sleep but to lie. Recently I've enjoyed just laying about with my eyes closed, doing nothing for hours on end just to get a glimpse of some dot or blur coming across my vision. It's so much more interesting than the boring full-fleshed all of what I see with my eyes open. I've seen that so many times, but this I'm only seeing now, it's new, novel. So, returning to my recent rut of meditation, I'm laying down, eyes closed, carefully not moving, carefully ignoring all the pain in my sides and carefully trying not to feel too much pain so that I'd be disturbed. Just to lie, in nothingness, all black, forever. To willfully sleep, for the chance of a dream. And I stay, in this state of pseudo-sleep, until this dream I was waiting for arises. The moon journeys and slight color comes, that shade of purple in symbols that mean nothing to me and that I can not even get a good picture of, but which I lied so long in anticipation for anyways.

I was walking in the mountains, walking for so long as the world seemed to shift around me. To change in ways I was too tired to notice anyways. For my tiredness to make me unconcerned with what was truly in front of me. I walked, it was what I ought to do, what I was told to do, what I needed to do. And eventually, I walked into the world faded into nothingness, and felt myself fall. Oscillating between conscious oblivion and tired stupor I eventually rose. Back where I had started, I drank some water and had the world go back to normal. Fade from its faded black to its tinted purple and finally to normality.

I see this purple again, it's omen of oblivion, of what lies behind the veil, and I grasp it! and it's gone. I groggily open my eyes and rise myself, move my arms and legs back into comfort, and feel a sense of accomplishment. I can still see slight dots, maybe purple, I can't tell, and after a few seconds of interest feel the full force of my sleepiness resting on my shoulders and decide to lie back in bed to rest. I fall quickly and dream.

I look around me, at all the repeated buildings and twisting stairs and mundane circular table I never owned and see that I'm dreaming, that I'm somewhere behind that veil which always persecutes my wake and now it's not there and I'm free. I'm free, and I'm tired. I look around, cereal boxes, magazines, endless corridors and possibilities. I walk around for a moment, and concerned with my fatigue decide to return to sleep.

I wake up. I go to where I normally go and brew what I normally brew, and slowly sipping what I don't taste think about the persistence of last nights excursions upon my vision and the new twitching in my side. The noise I'd find interesting pressed on my eyes where I can't make it out but I know I see it, always evading my stare but staying to taunt. Is it moving? With the strange jolting moving to my arm to muscles I never new I had I feel as if my body is trying to tell me something, communicate in some language I don't understand and it knows it only; I sit there; I sip.

Is it rain, falling? I have always loved the rain. Something I could never have. Not since then, no. I would sit, and I would look over again and again at what provoked a droplet but, no, the drought remained. I would seek it out, strike metallic dance in its name against my veins, give my flowing for its but no, drought, for years drought. Could anything grow anymore? I swear something could, that I had seen something in the cracks, something a faded green which grew despite and how could I not how could I accept defeat that nothing could and I saw it, I know it must have grown, I recall it in my memories and can practically feel it.

I lifted that veil, I guess. I don't even know what that means. But now that it's gone, that what I was searching for is here, that the fantasy I searched for is now reality it's a bit underwhelming. I guess I have it now. A permanent reminder. A memento of my search. I'm sure I'll find a new fantasy.

On Luigi Mangione and morality

2024-12-31T07:00:00Z

Talk of the town recently has all been about the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. Far more discussed than the killing itself is its justification, whether it was good or bad. The other day my sister asked me my opinion on it, which I was unsure of at the time, but have since solidified.

My immediate reaction to the event was positive. The issue, however, is that the act of murder goes fairly clearly against really the only value I hold dear, life being better than death. Though if I were to disavow all murder, many other issues arise. Primarily the one confronted here, the issue of revolt: when confronted with a murderous system (this is a wide category of organisms: governments, corporations, people, etc.) in which the only immediate remedy is its death, is its death preferable to its life? In other words, is murder justifiable when it leads to less net death?

Before tackling that question we first must bring into question the context of life > death. On an individual level this statement applies only to, well, the individual, since the individual only knows for certain their own liveliness, and not if their perception sees verily other lives like theirs or just figments of the mind or simulations or etc. The life of the individual correlates however with the life of the system it lives in, a healthy system ("healthy" meaning a high life expectancy, since a high life expectancy means there is more life and less death, thus good under the value of life being better than death) containing more healthy individuals and thus greater good (life) for each individual. So as long as one lives in a certain system, the "health" of this system is interlinked with what is good and bad.

So back to the question of if murder is justifiable when it leads to less net death, the answer is yes (assuming the murderer and murdered and observer are all part of the same system) as it would lead to a healthier system. And so to return to that initial question of if Mangione was justified, we can now answer that question by determining if his actions have/will result in a healthier system.

Note that under this system of morality there is no direct consideration of past actions. While the murdered may have committed bad actions (actions resulting in positive net death) in the past, the death of the murdered would only increase net death, not bring any justice to those already affected. The death is only justified insofar as it will result in less future death, so in the future there will be less net death as result of the murder.

The past must still be recounted for the purposes of predicting the future, however. Let's take the classic example of someone stealing bread to feed their family: this has the immediate effects of feeding the hungry, lengthening the time they can live, thus increasing the health of the system. On the other hand, the person who had the bread now does not, so if they are not able to acquire more this may result in them becoming hungry themselves. If they were to starve, this would not be good for the health of the system. We are unable to determine precisely the future effects though, so we estimate by looking at his past (he does not need too much bread) and his present (he has plenty of bread) the chance of the shopkeeper starving. Let's estimate 10%. In that case, it seems that we can calculate the morality of an action by comparing the immediate effects with the future ones, in a fashion similar to M = ∑i + ∑(c∑f), where M is the morality of an action (positive thus being good and negative bad), ∑i the immediate net life from the action, and∑c∑f the sum of the predicted net lifes multiplied by the chance of those predictions. So for this example, we can say that M = 3 + -1 * 10% for a result of 2.9, indicating that the action was good (this is arbitrarily assuming the family was of three people).

There are a few issues with that calculation, however. First of all, we treat the one loaf of bread as being able to fully save the lives of three people, by putting in 3 as the net life of the family. This greatly overestimates the true value of the bread, because it does not forever save them, it merely postpones their starvation. In order to equate for this, we have to add in the future effects of them starving, resulting in M = 3 + (-1 * 10%) + (-3 * 90%) = 0.2 (once again arbitrarily assuming that the chance of them starving later is 90%.) Another issue with this calculation is that it fails to account for the effects each death may have. For instance, let's say that the shopkeeper had a wife and son of their own, and that the death of the shopkeeper could result in their starvation. Let's say their chance of dying in event of the shopkeeper's death was 50%. We need to equate for the chance of their death, so M = 3 + ((-1 + -2 * 50%) * 10%) + (-3 * 90%) = 0.1. But we can't forget the effects that their deaths cause, and the deaths caused by deaths caused by their deaths, and the deaths caused by deaths caused by deaths caused by their deaths, and…

Clearly our original equation is not going to cut it. Since we are examining morality through a collection of individuals, the result of the action has to be examined by the effect it has on each individual, and each effect on each individual examined by the effect that effect has, resulting in a circular calculation. We can represent this with a small series of recursive functions, still keeping M equal to immediate plus future, M = I(i) + F(f, c), where I(i) = ∑[i + F(i₂, c)], i is the immediate consequences, and i₂ is the potential consequences of i. F(f, c) is similarly defined as F(f, c) = ∑[c∑f + F(f₂, c₂)], where f and c are the same as before, f₂ is the consequences of f, and c₂ is the chances of f₂.

Despite the precision of this equation, we are still just guessing all its data, so its accuracy is quite dubious, but regardless let us try and now apply it to the question we first set out to answer. Immediate results is easy enough, -1, the death of Thompson, and his death will most likely not directly lead to any other results, but we can add in a small chance of suicide in his immediate family, so I(i) = -1.002. Future consequences is where it gets a bit more complicated. The main justification for the murder is the high rate of claim denials UnitedHealthcare makes, which is claimed to be 32%, but the question is whether or not the murder will lead to lower denial rates. I'll be quite optimistic and say they will be terrorized enough and say they will in the future only deny 30% of claims. If they have around 50 million users, each approved claim gives around a year more of life, and life expectancy is around 77.5 years, that means that terrorizing UnitedHealthcare will lead to 2% * 50000000 * (1 / 77.5) ≈ 12903 more life. That's pretty good. There are some more upsides, such as other insurance coverers also being terrorized, and also more downsides, such as rises in extremism, and then there are also a million other things from the individuals who would then get to live. But I think just going surface-deep can answer if M > 0, which I say it is, and so the murder is just!

Actually doing calculations like I did above is thoroughly pointless, since most of the numbers we come up with are arbitrary, but having a rough model is nice. The calculations done would also have to vary depending on the person doing them: for I, someone not directly affected by the event, it makes sense to calculate it as the overall effect on my society, but for someone more directly affected, for instance the murderer, murdered, or someone who uses UnitedHealthcare, it would have to be done differently, prioritizing their life in the processing.

Enjoying what you do

2024-12-26T07:00:00Z

Much of our lives is spent serving others. The comforts of a society which we gain from others' service to us requires our (or at least the majorities') own servitude for its continuation. We start as iron enriched by years of education and then are pounded into capital to begin creating and providing all the goods and services which we graciously accept. However it is rarely perceived as a public service to those who toil; the hierarchies established rather put the masses in servitude to individuals, individuals of which they cannot see different from themselves, and thus resent them and their demands as unfair, inegalitarian. They hate to obey and therefore justify their doing so as not something voluntary but as something they must do, something they are forced to do, whether this be forced by money or expectations or herd or whatever other imaginary demons they see. Whether this hierarchy is unfair or if society could be structured in a better way is a question which can be pondered by politicians and revolutionaries, I rather focus on what I can control, this hatred of what I do.

To start off, there is one simple solution to all this, one which relinquishes oneself from their servitude. It's to quit! Participation in society is not mandatory. If one does not participate they cannot expect society's gifts, easy food and shelter and the like, not to even begin on non-essentials, but it is still not forced. One can just run off into the forest and live there, most likely dying at 25 but that is just the price of freedom. One could just never leave the bed, lay there forever, unconcerned with the affairs of the world. A great example of this refusal is the common K in The Trial—even though his actions have no effect upon his circumstance, he still remains in resistance even in his final moments and thus dies not as an indentured citizen but as one who has reunited with freedom, "like a dog." Unfortunately though, many, I included, would prefer not to give up all of society's pomp which we have become accustomed to.

So then, if we ought to continue doing what we "must," should we enjoy it? Should one enjoy toiling away day after day? There is a case against it, a case already made, the case of injustice which stemmed this distaste in the first place. If there were no case against it people would be happy to toil, or at least not be opposed to it. This opposition would be fine if there was change to be made, if the opposer was to quit or to resist, to ignite a revolution or enact policy, but very few among us will ever do such things. Selfish as it is, if we are unable to help us all, we ought to at least help ourselves and thus ought to evaluate if this opposition is of any benefit to us, if we ought not to just throw it off. While there are no "unalienable truths," all arguments presuppose some values, and so I will give mine: one should live. There are many ways one may die: some completely uncontrollable, like a car crash or a terrorist attack or etc; some somewhat controllable, like health and the situations we are in; but only one cause is fully controllable: suicide. Thus in our avoidance of death it is important that we give adequate concern to that cause, and avoid its causes respectively. A large one of these causes being disliking life and thus seeking its antonym. Disliking life often stems from disliking what one does in life, so to enjoy what one does can therefore be considered a sensible goal, at least to my fellow lovers of life.

But if our situation is already that we hate what we do, how are we to change this? Our solution is the same as that of the revolutionaries: to remedy the cause. Rather than working for the man, to work for ourselves. To us who have not the ability to redistribute the means of production, this instead means to change how we perceive our actions. To recognize that we are not "forced" to do anything but instead that we do it because it benefits us. Because we want to do it. Because we see this as our best option, and that the situation we live in is the best situation we have available. To be glad this gives us food. To be glad this gives us comfort. To recognize that even in its fruits being plundered our labor benefits us all. To free ourselves from thinking that we do this because of... at all and to just find joy in the act of doing. To be proud of a task well done. To rejoice in the fact that we are doing and that to not do would be so much worse. That we have the ability to do. This solution is, of course, distasteful. We do not change anything in the "real world." But to all of us will never enact "real" change, this is the most we can do. One by one, we can ease the collective suffering.

Ought beliefs to be justified?

2024-12-24T07:00:00Z

There are democrats, and there are republicans; there are theists, and there are atheists; there is x, and there is y; there are a lot of beliefs out there. Beliefs which many people believe, believe with conviction, beliefs that contradict one another, beliefs that only as an exception can replace other beliefs. Nearly all discourse between differing believers ends in no net change, both still believing the same thing, despite both people knowing that they're right and providing reasons for why that is so. Should people even try to justify their beliefs then? The ought to, but it only makes sense to do so for themselves.

To come back to the argument between those two believers, which one is right? Both can justify their beliefs and both can refute the justifications of the other's, rarely can one win such an argument. Even if one does win, most likely the other will not change their beliefs: they have just become tired of arguing. The reason neither can show the other the truth of their belief is due to their perspectives. Both have the true argument to themselves and see the falsity of the other's, but that is only due to the inclinations and other beliefs of that specific individual.

No arguments be made without some prerequisite beliefs. Calls to "human nature" or "common sense" or etc. all require belief in the verity of such things. And even if both people accept those beliefs they will have differing interpretations of those beliefs due to having varying levels of belief in the sub-beliefs within that belief. Arguments can only succeed when presented to people with similar beliefs, in which cases it is less of a conversion and more of a discussion.

People only accept beliefs when such a belief does not contradict their other beliefs, at least not to an extent that they notice nor care about¹. In such a case, rarely do people care for the justification, they see the idea and unconsciously channel it through their own justifications and contradictions, and if it sticks it sticks. A justification only makes a belief easier to swallow, to consciously accept as a new belief. Justifying your beliefs to others (yes I realize I'm doing that right now) is pointless since the justification that matters is the one they come up with themselves. They need the belief to be true specifically to them, with all their other beliefs and such, and your attempts at proving will do little.

Despite this, there is still merit in justifying beliefs. There is merit in that expounding them will benefit yourself. It will help you make sure that your beliefs are not just true to your unconscious but also true to yourself, your conscious self, what you are right now and what you ought to value more of than the rest of your brain. By bringing the unconscious justifications to the conscious and examining them one can verify that the justifications are true under their conscious beliefs and values, not under the stowaway beliefs which we consciously reject but yet still manage to stay due to an influential environment. By justifying your beliefs you make them in close accordance to your identity rather than to your unconscious.

[1] Thought and belief

External identities

2024-12-10T07:00:00Z

In my last article I argued against identifying with labels which label parts of your identity, but another important type of identifying is with things outside of your self. Communities, jobs, hobbies: all can be considered personality traits. While there are differences between identifying with being a communist and identifying with being a taxi driver, both have similar follies. The self is still instantaneously immutable, and attempting to be anything other than you are will just lead to dysphoria.

A common question is whether actions or thoughts are more important. Oftentimes people say actions, but they say this in regards to outsiders who know not what thoughts the subject has. The question though is misleading, because the two are not done separately. Any action has to be enacted first with a thought, and even if there were a million other thoughts going against that action, those thoughts were never put into action by a thought. I bring this up to illustrate that you decide to act, the action does not decide you.

Actions, like all things external, do affect identity, affect who you are, but at the same time they are not in any way who you are. We are all rocks being smoothen down by the water of life, but we are still rocks. Your identity, the part of you that is really you, the part wondering about itself, is a recluse. Whether it is a soul or the little bit of film sitting atop your frontal cortex, matters little. No matter where your self really is, it is heavily separated from reality. The self can be fed false data by its next door neighbors, hallucinating in delirium, dreaming in oblivion, because it is not connected with the "real" world. It experiences whatever it's given, yet despite this it still remains the self. If this was a simulation, would you be any less yourself? You might be fed some experiences, learn from them and change, but you still remain your infinitesimal self.

An action, on the other hand, your external reality, what you choose to do and what to see (ask ten people to describe what they see, and you'll get ten different responses,) are all extensions of your self. They are not your self, but they are done because of your self, and thus stand testament to it. The carpenter's chair contains its maker's identity in each little mark, every cut and saw. It is in this way that actions are more accurate representations of the self than labels, since actions are directly from the self while labels are ideas of many other selves.

Even if actions can represent the self fine though, identifying with things outside of your self is just another form of identifying with labels. If you considered being a carpenter as part of your identity, "being a carpenter" would not in any way represent your identity, but would just attempt to label it. It would be an attempt to label all the many parts of your identity which culminate in you deciding to do carpentry. But these parts are not carpentry, they do not make you a carpenter. There are many other carpenters all with unique identities. Attempting to fit yourself in such a box leads to the same follies of any other labels.

These parts, it is important to note, do not rely upon you doing carpentry. Your identity may have been affected by you doing carpentry, but in another life this identity could have just as well done 3D modeling, mud sculpting, pottery. The way your identity is does predispose you to carpentry specifically, most likely, if it is what you enjoy doing, but carpentry is not required of yourself. You would just as much be you if you stoped doing carpentry, even if you had never done carpentry.

It's certainly important to do what you like and like what you do, to do things in accordance with your identity, but you shouldn't identify with them. Your actions existence depends on you, but if you were not to do the action it would have no effect on yourself. By thinking that being a carpenter is who you are, you stereotype yourself (thus furthering your idea of yourself from your identity) and you make yourself dependent on the activity. If you were suddenly told by your doctor that you had to stop doing carpentry, it would be more than just loosing an activity you enjoy, it would be the loss of your self. Except it wouldn't be. You would be unchanged, only your surroundings changed. But the idea of your self in your head has now changed; the persona you assembled around carpentry, while it was slightly false in itself just for attempting to use labels associated with others, is now drastically changed. You though, your identity, is unchanged, but the idea of yourself vastly changed, so suddenly your stuck in a big whole looking for something that was never lost. Dysphoric for something that never happened. You are you no matter the external circumstance, and forging ideas otherwise just estranges you from yourself.

I'm reminded of a time my English teacher, after finishing The Razor's Edge, asked the class what a modern day soul-searching Larry would look like. In a time where monks are mocked all the homeless are deranged and work has lost all quality of individuality, what garb of man finds meaning? Any, really. The enlightened wanderer, the value-forming Übermensch, the absurd rebel, they can be any office or fast-food worker, any homeless hermit or homebound hikikomori. Because the external doesn't matter. The external only matters because the self allows it to matter. Identity is only changed as so far it chooses to. Meaning, which at least to I who can only assume it's subjective, is directly connected to the self in its subjectivity. And so the choice, to find meaning, to feel fulfilled, is one made by the self. Even if you are you, the ability to get yourself to do what you want is difficult, but it is what decides all. The meaning of life then, is yourself, its meaning is another idol in your image. Je pense, donc je suis, and I am, therefore I already exist in all, as all, as perfection.

Identity

2024-12-08T07:00:00Z

Who am I? can be a difficult question to answer, but many a new taxonomy have sprouted over the years. There is an abundance of ideologies, sexualities, genders, medias, brands, subcultures, countercultures, -cores and aesthetics, millions of different things to identify with. At the tip of our fingers is not just the few individuals in our village but billions of personalities all summed up in their About me and Twitter bios. And while from this I have carefully prepared my entire life into three keywords; is this really me? No.

Well to start off, let's define identity. Many definitions may minmogrify it into a set of characteristics or unique features which make up a person, which it is in part, but it is the whole person and this incomplete. My identity is I, in entirety. So while I can be of the class of x, y, and z, I cannot be i.e. my identity cannot be x, y, and z, since it is much more. This nuance matters because the degree to which people can pick and choose their labels has gone inverse to expressing their actual identity.

The reason atomized labels are worse than macro ones is because of their lack of grey space. If I am a democrat then I could be a lot of things: I've seen democrats who are rich, poor, progressive, conservative, noble, banal. On the other hand, I have never met an anarcho-primitist, so if I am one then I must be it, that idea in its black and white. I am not it though, I am I, and I most likely do not well fit in its clean cut borders. This has two issues: first, less grey means more stereotyped, maybe a more accurate stereotype, but with less room for uncovering the truth; second, it becomes what one thinks they ought to be. I searched for this tag in the first place in order to find identity, but because I think the tag is my identity—while it's really not—my attempts to be myself become attempts to be something else, keeping my search unfulfilled.

Most of us already have terms put upon us from before we even knew what they were. And if we are searching for new ones, clearly the old ones weren't cutting it, so is the solution really just giving up? No! These labels we carry, any and all labels, all suffer from never being able to truly fit quite right. Even if we get a trillion more names of styles each person will have their own which deviates ever so slightly.

The solution, to all these ill-fitting so-called "identities," is to cast them all off! The only true you is you, which you can only happily be once you stop trying to be something else.

Labels only have one use: to condense and compartmentalize for others. To this end they ought to be as general and unrestricted as practical, and not something taken very seriously nor truly identified with. However, this is just a vestigial ritual which will probably remain for an evermore; the best label is none at all, because it is also the most accurate, least misleading, and allows others to do their compartmentalizing and condensing in the most unbiased way, fueled only by their own biases.

So the second solution, to the hopeful disposition of labels, is to ignore them. To focus not just on what people call themselves or are called themselves but their entirety. Change in collective ideas, as slow and tedious as it is, starts at the individual. Each time someone notices how ironically the stereotype fits on the person it looses a little of its power, becomes a little more grey, the home of all.

Thought and belief

2024-11-16T07:00:00Z

Thought is a conscious idea, while belief is a subconsciously chosen, chosen from thought, idea. If there is no belief to contradict a thought that thought becomes a belief. If a belief contradicts that thought, then either the thought can replace the belief or not. There is more than a binary in how the thought can relate to the existing idea, however. A thought can coexist a contradictory belief, and vice versa.

If a thought occurs which in some way invalidates the belief, and the thought is valid in relation to one's other beliefs, then the thought can replace that belief. If the thought replaces that belief, depends on the subject's beliefs on belief. That is, how trustworthy one believes a new belief to be, if they believe the source (themselves, others) to be fallible. A thought can be valid (non-contradictory) without being true (trusted).

A child will believe what their parents tell them, as they believe them credible, but as one grows older and more jaded their trust (which is just a belief of trustworthiness) typically diminishes, solidifying their beliefs. This is what leads to conviction being associated with adulthood and experimentation as something childish.

Conviction implies the beliefs are not just unchanging but un-negating, but what is conviction is often thought disguised as belief. If a thought negates a belief, but no thought takes that beliefs place, then the belief may still be recalled as a thought. A thought which is not believed yet still utilized is faith. The disbelief is what gives faith merit.

A child can readily believe in God, presented with nothing contrary, or just as readily believe there is nothing or any other belief they are fed. This belief is easy, since there is no thought nor belief to sew doubt. As one finds new ideas though, they either lose their belief, replace it, or keep it, possibly now with faith in contradictory thoughts.

If their belief is lost then they may, as said above, continue to call upon the belief as a thought. A thought is harder to use as guidance than a belief since it cannot unconsciously negate another thought, it requires choice to call up. The difficulty of disbelief gives its attempted belief (faith) merit. It is easy to forget one's faith and take in a new thought as belief, if only for a short while, until the thought is called back again and negates the newly taken belief. The acceptance of beliefs in contradiction to faith is sin.

Faith is difficult because it requires being reestablished with each new thought, and as long as faith exists so does sin, which continues from sin's first appearance up until faith is brought back again. Sin, then, since it only requires being brought up once (as it is belief), is easy.

Instead of faith being created from an old belief, it can also be created from a new thought, if the new thought is not true according to the persons uncontradictory beliefs. If the thought has no contradiction, then it could still be not believed due to lack of trust, and so only brought up consciously as faith. This is frequent with high-level ideas, which one might accept as valid but not internalize as truth. If the thought does have contradiction, and it cannot negate the belief it contradicts, then one may still be faithful to it even if the belief remains, often also having faith in that the belief is false.

death by webring

2024-10-27T06:00:00Z

This is a simplistic webring for all the existentialists out there. Whether your site talks about it, shows it, or you just are it, feel free to join us as its representative.

The only rule here is that you must question the ring's purpose. Oh, and to have the webring navigator thing somewhere on your site. Doesn't need be on the front page, but not too hidden neither.

To join, send me an email at hiimjahan@gmail.com with your site's URL and a justification if you want (I will look at all the sites beforehand, so if you think your acceptance is self-evident, there is no need to justify yourself).

The navigator looks just like this: < death by webring >
And I will send you the code once your application is approved. No JS required!

Be weary of storage

2024-09-02T06:00:00Z

It sounds like simple enough advice, which it is, but unfortunately I heeded not. My 1TB hard drive of 8 years died a few weeks ago. I knew it was dying, and always thought that I would replace it soon, but it was too late. It doesn't matter too much, since most of my important things are backed up somewhere, but it's still a shame. I probably had some txt file written by a little me, which I would have never read; now gone.

A fresh start is nice though. I had multiple times tried to organize my HDD, but there were always too many things to chance, and so thus all attempts were either thwarted or only half-done. With my new drive I've decided to partition it into multiple sections, that way I don't end up just placing everything in D:/. It felt rather boring to just name the partitions things like "D:/ coding, E:/ media" etc., so I decided rather to name them after literature I like, the drive letter corresponding to the first character of the title.

I keep meaning to write down which partition stores what, so I don't forget (one of the follies of my approach), but keep doing naught. So since I'm already rambling about it, I'll just put them here:
C: Crime and Punishment — System files
D: Demons — Programming projects
E: Exodus — Games
F: The Fall — Media
G: The Gambler — Applications
H: A Happy Death — Temporary files

I've only partitioned for what I needed, with still more than half of the drive uninitialized, so I'll be adding more when I find I need it.

You will forget this moment

2024-03-14T06:00:00Z

So many days. Of course, today is the important one, just as every day past has and every day since will be. Those old, "most important" days must be forgotten for the new, better days that bloom with each moon.

Can you recall what you did this day last year? Last month? Even last week is an inconsequential blur. It makes sense to focus on now as there's not else we can control, but it's a shame all this emotion we exert seems to merely fade into the void. Actions yield results but so's the same for an emotionless seraph, looking back makes any feeling appear meaningless. I don't know if this means it is meaningless or if we should feel nothing, but avoiding both those questions I believe some (more?) meaning can be given to them.

Recording. Why does one build an empire, sprawl a family, shoot up a school — to be remembered. Something meaningful can be rehashed, reused, remembered in the future; just by remembering some thing we give it some purpose (the purpose to remembering something being it's waste without). Scribbling down a few notes of a day gives it the same meaning as a historian elaborating an even farther scene. You may never look at your tree scratches again, or, maybe, you will: you'll remember what would've been permanently forgotten and thus give it meaning.

Plus, journaling looks aesthetic as well.

Poems

2023-12-20T07:00:00Z

It's been a while since I've put anything up here (bit more than a month I think), so I'm just going to put some random poems I've scribbled down in my notebook over the past month or so.

Your name

So many words,
in so many languages -
Yet not a single one can adequately describe
the one care that I have succumbed;
the word that I want on my lips;
the mantra that incessantly pounds in my mind:
you.

Moment's pause

A laugh, a warm smile, and silence
Staring into one another's eyes
Words wanting escape,
but to us the world is quiet

Can barely blink, eyes besewn to you
but would I want to look away?

I can feel that string get tighter as I inch to the needle
Slow, warm spirits bless my face
Haven's touch just a moment away, but-

The curse of worry.

Footsteps

A pitch-dark night
A dim streetlight
You're all that I can see

Cold air stings my face
Your heavy breath falls
I can feel your warmth

The white snow records as
two sets of boots huddle closer
Why I ever stood so far apart
Against you is where I want to be

Head resting on my shoulder
Hair draped upon my chest
Eyes parallel into nothing

A small stir, locked again
Suddenly it's not so cold
You're all I want to see

Longing

Every time I see you, I can't help but freeze
A state of shock, your beauty gives me
As my head overflows
As my graze remains affixed
A pause - and I return from heaven.

Do only I halt?
Or have we both fell to fault
Through all sin and virtue, I want you
you to experience it with me

I sit there, sipping my cocktail of emotions
But I loose my eyes on your porcelain skin
Am to was - all I feel now is desire

Love and hate, pain and pleasure, ecstatic and erratic
Beg you lay it upon me

I in all, ma très chéri, I long for you

Let me feel your breath
Hand against my chest

I fear I lost my head completely
Small loss, I was tired of thinking
Only stuffed with thoughts of you

My rock, my stone, my shrine
Dare I face another direction?
Let me pray through defilement
And kiss you so

The clock goes on
My hour gradually creeps upon me
Every second precious, every moment a sonnet
But why over an uncertain future should I panic
When you, my present, will pave it with me

Enjoying Samsara

2023-11-03T06:00:00Z

There was a period of time where I put myself to being Buddhist. This was after reading a number of Buddhist (and other religious) texts and being thoroughly interested in the philosophy behind it. That feeling never left me, but I stopped practicing once I realized something about myself that went strongly against the philosophy - I don't want to leave. I love the unrelenting up and down of life. As my beloved Nietzsche said, "'Was that—life?' will I say unto death. 'Well! Once more!'" Death can wait, I don't know how I could ever get sick of this.

There's so much to do. Too much to do, we have "occupations" in order to decide and limit what we do as otherwise how could we ever decide what to limit ourselves to. But still, there are literally an infinite amount of things you could do right now if you so chose. There are a lot of solid options available to most people (explore a building, take a photo, kiss someone, pretend to work at Walmart), but even just laying around immobile you can still hallucinate (trust me, you can do it if you try), there are infinite things to think about, and there are millions of sensations running across your body to focus on an experience at this very second as well.

An existence of infinite experience right on the cusp of absolute oblivion, merely by living you are doing more than every single late person behind you. "Death is what makes life worth living" seems like a blatantly untrue to me (don't children, blissfully unaware of death, enjoy life the most?) but the sheer contrast between the two does give life a bit more of a thrill. I could drop dead tomorrow. I could drop dead typing this sentence. But yet, I have not died, so let's enjoy the moment. There was a time, where I wished for oblivion - I was stupid. How could I prefer nothing to something. Even the most painful moment contains the most poignant life inside of it. While it's pointless to say, to enjoy the moment is really just to enjoy the moment. Seize every moment in the day - hop upon every opportunity - live as fully as life allows you.

Nothing stops you from doing anything. This doesn't mean you should do anything, but hey, who'll stop you? The police could arrest you, they could shoot you, but they can't really stop you from doing something. Even God doesn't interfere when someone decides to do something heinous (or maybe he does, and we just don't know of what true evil is due to that but I'm not going to argue that pulling a Stavrogin on a child isn't evil). Even eternal damnation can't stop you, only you can. Your boundaries are your own, and your captors imaginary. Go do what you want.

Some things feel good, some bad, but as long as I'm conscious, why not enjoy it? Laugh at your circumstances. No amount of free-will will free us from the whims of fate and ruthlessness of nature, so stop fighting and just go with the flow. Observe the winds. Whatever you do, things will still be out of your control - so why worry? Laugh. God may work in his mysterious ways and ruin your life, but hey, what's it got to do with you? Just relax, sip some water, and enjoy the moment. Don't let anything stop you, because nothing can. There isn't a single thing that can stop you from enjoying the moment right now. That probably doesn't mean you will enjoy the moment, but if you choose to, nothing will stop you.

I bet hell would be just a filled with smiles as heaven. If given an eternity, wouldn't anyone become happy eventually? Day-in and day-out torture must get pretty monotonous anyways, would it even be noticeable after a thousand years? A million years? A billion? How could anyone stay unhappy for so long. Even the most nihilistic man must become gleeful after so long. After all, what else is there to do?

I'm not in hell though, so I don't need to wait for eventually. I'll just be happy now.

Whimsical whiles

2023-10-30T06:00:00Z

Time should be simple. It's continuously increasing at a constant rate, so to represent it we should just have some number continuously increasing at a constant rate as well, shouldn't we? We do have this (not sure why we use so many bases in our time representation, but eh), but there are so many irregularities in our time representation as well. When I say irregularities, I specifically mean daylight savings and time zones.

Time zones were originally created in order for there to be fewer times, as before they were made almost every town had their own 6 o'clock. Despite this, there are still too many times out there. People don't need for the sunrise to be in the A.M. If people got into work at 11 P.M. and got out at 6 A.M. they'd still be just as aware when there lunch hour was as before. Coordinating things between countries and writing software that needs to keep track of time would all be much easier without this one pesky little thing. Just abolishing time zones like that would take some getting used to, and for that reason will probably never happen (remember when we tried to switch to the metric system), but one can dream.

Daylight savings on the other hand, can be abolished. Most countries that have used daylight savings time no longer do. It's so confusing having all the hours suddenly change. While I can't deny I like being able to wake up an hour later in the winter, the feeling from waking an hour earlier in the summer cancels it out. To add to this annoyance, people are lazy and don't change their clocks to the correct time until months after the hour has switched, so you end up being in a state of constant limbo trying to figure out what the correct hour is. I suppose we all have phones that can tell us the time nowadays, but aren't clocks just so much nicer to look at?

If we simply choose to not do daylight savings one year, people will probably not even notice. Everyone's sleep schedules would remain uninterrupted, and the world would become just a little bit simpler.

Anyways, here's a petition I found on getting rid of daylight savings and for abolishing time zones, so consider signing them if you agree.

AI articles

2023-10-06T06:00:00Z

Recently I've started seeing articles which about half way through I realize were written by AI. The worst part is a lot of them tend to be guides, and present completely false information. Now, I may not write good articles myself, but using AI to write articles just seems despicable.

When I click on an article saying "How to do x", I expect the author to have at least a tiny idea of what x is. Despite great advancements in machine learning recently, machines still don't learn. To quote Sara Brown, "Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence, which is broadly defined as the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior." There's nothing intelligent about it. In ML the computer sees all the data abstractly, finding the best general one-fits-all solution to everything it's presented, and while this is good for "[imitating] human behavior", it means the machine has no idea of what x is.

There are infinite reasons why someone might write (or I suppose a more fitting word now, publish) an article: for fun, passion, insanity, but the most common one is definitely money. I think this claim can be supported by the hundreds of ads that appear when you click on any of the top 100 sites listed after googling a single thing. Anyways, this means when you (typically) click on an article, you agree to offer up some of your time (ad revenue) in exchange for information. While AI can provide correct information, there's no guaranty that any of it is remotely correct, especially when it comes to specific information. By creating the article with AI, the "author" here is shorting you on the deal.

It's honestly more annoying if the information is a bit correct (or at least appears a bit correct) as it leads you on. A few days ago I was reading an article on installing Windows 95 and didn't realize till I was half way down the page that it was AI generated. It's astonishing how many niche (and/or insane) topics can fall under the eye of these things. They must be generating the prompts for these articles with AI as well.

What happened to creating something of quality, something that someone could be somewhat proud of? These sites, they're practically scams. They profit off providing nothing. Even some of the nullist things on the internet, TikTok meme pages for instance, have some effort put into them. Along with that, they still do provide a service that some people want. But who, who wants to read AI generated articles (actually, there is some entertainment value in it, but not when I'm searching for something else). The lining on this storm however is that, hopefully, this effortless content will dig itself in a big enough hole that they'll die out. Soon enough, the AI bubble will pop.

Adding webpage depth

2023-09-27T06:00:00Z

One of my favorite things to do on this digital garden is to add some text that pops up when you hover over the text. It's not much, but I love doing it to add a bit of extra spice to otherwise bland (or even to flavorable) pieces.

elements instead of headers in my articles so far, but I think I'm going to switch over.">How do I do this?

Well I'm glad you asked, non-existent person. Placing a title attribute on any HTML element will (in at least every browser I know of) cause the text set to the title attribute when said element is hovered over by the mouse. To section off specific parts of text, I wrap them in a and , but is better here semantically."> element. For example,

Once I rise to power, rain dances shall be manditory

Would render as

Once I rise to power, rain dances shall be manditory

Pretty nice, huh?

Why should I do this?

Adds depth
It's a fun easter egg for visitors
Can provide context to things. This is especially relevant to links, as it's nice to know what something is before you go to it.
~~Spites mobile users (may be a downside, but c'est la vie)~~ Can also be shown on mobile, with the help of the content attribute.

Making it visible on mobile/printing

Title attributes aren't viewable when on mobile nor when printing a page, but they can be displayed as normal text using the content attribute with pure CSS. Here's an example of that:


[title]:after {

 content: ' [' attr(title) ']';

}

And this can be put inside of a media query to make it show when printing or when on mobile. To explain the snippet a bit more, [title] selects all elements with a title attribute, :after means it adds it after the content of the attribute, and content: sets the content (so in conjunction with :after, appends content). ' [' attr(title) ']' will create a string of [titleattribute].

Indicating existence

To make it more clear that certain parts of text are hoverable, I apply special styles to them. To do this, you just need to use the CSS attribute selector, []. For example,

[title] {

 cursor: help;

}

Will cause all elements with a title attribute to change the mouse cursor to the help cursor (little question mark next to it) when the mouse goes above it. This is useful for indication as with many browsers it takes a second or two for the text to pop up after hovering over text.

Creation

2023-09-16T06:00:00Z

Originally there were only two beings - Man and Twin. They were siblings, in a far sense of the word, and lived together in an endless sea of nothingness.

One day, Man decided he wanted more, and sacrificed Twin to create the world. He spread his skin to create the land, split his blood to form the waters, and used his bones to form many grand mountains and hills. His hair became the grass, his breath the wind, his brain the clouds. Man lastly thought there needed be something changing, some circulus vitiosus deus - and thus he turned his brothers eyes into the sun, and his soul into the moon. Content, Man rested.

But, as time passed, Man's desires rose once again. He could not be content with his still world he had created, and wanted to once again have there be others than himself.

Man took a rib of Twin's, and plunged it into his chest. His blood split upon the world, and from his ichor grew mortal beings. Some blood fell upon the clouds, and from that came the birds; some sank into the oceans and seas, and from that came the fish; some was caught in the wind, and from that came the bugs; and some fell upon the land, and from that rose animals. Lastly, his soul spilt amongst the land, and from that rose man once again - split and mortal.

Bucket lists

2023-09-13T06:00:00Z

Life is meaningless. Therefore it seems fitting to create your own, similarly meaningless goals to spend your time with whilst you remain alive.

Everyone has goals; often to become rich, famous, beautiful, (insert adjective), etc. These aren't as much goals, but directions however. There's no point at which someone can with certainty be called famous, have enough money to be rich - at least to themselves. The grass will always appear greener, and with these kinds of abstract goals one can spend their whole life unsatisfied, searching for unattainable perfection. While this has the same amount of point as anything else, and can lead to entrancing results, they are pointless on a bucket list. How can you keep track of something so abstract? Even if you say you've accomplished one of these goals, they will always leave you in question of their true fulfillment. Therefore they should be exiled from the fertile land of the napkin you scribbled your bucket list on.

Your bucket list should only contain quantifiable, easy to understand (to you at least) goals. They don't have to be achievable, but I recommend keeping improbable things like "become dictator of Turkey" off the list.

I still haven't said why you should consider having a bucket list however, so here it goes. Counting. I just love watching numbers go up. That little hit of dopamine when another box ticks up, another goal completed, another moment recorded. As Camus said, "what counts is not the best living but the most living". What could be more enjoyable but quantifying how much you've lived? While this shouldn't tunnel-vision you into ignoring the rest of your experiences, having a bucket list is a nice way to keep track of them.

If you've decided you also would like your own little list of meaningless meaning, join the cult and start throwing together all your mismatch desires as well. If you can't think of anything to write, then don't feel pressured to add things you don't really care about doing (and please don't just copy one of those crappy pre-made bucket lists you can find online they can be good sources of inspiration though), just wait, and anytime you think "I wish", "I want", "I should" just jot it to the list. Your bucket list shouldn't be a fixed thing, it should be a growing organism, constantly expanding and becoming harder to keep track of. In just a bit of time, you'll have more goals than you'll know what to do with.

Now when you find yourself in a lull in life, just take a glance at your list and boom - weekend plans acquired.

To finish off my word vomit, feel free to examine and judge my current bucket list. Some people have pointed out the overall lack of pointed-ness of it, but as Melon says: "unnecessary things are the spice of existence". Enjoy :)

Visit Saipan
Own a vending machine
Get on the news
Climb any mountain
Sleep in a cave
Drink a glass of rain water
Each a cockroach
Wear a maid outfit
See a David Lynch film in a theater
Have a kid
Donate blood
Read no longer human in Japanese
Sleep in the snow
Milk a goat
Graduate college
Visit Yosemite
Kiss someone in the rain
Grow potatoes
Do 100 pushups in a row
Verify Lain bot
Plant a tree
Protest
Eat my passport
Stay up for 72 hours
Split myself in two in a dream
Gamble in a casino
My lawyer advised me against including this one
Make cheese
Make a house of cards
Use a hair straightener
Write a poem
Go fishing
Visit the RR diner
See a live octopus
Start a fire with sticks
Shoot a gun
Grab a bird
Pet a fox
Kiss someone's hand
Make major arcana
Get bills from 10 different currencies
En passant
Read entire Bible
Grow a long beard
Beat S—— in wordhunt
Pass an AP test
Believe
Death posture
Bake bread
Remake creation of Adam
Beat egg inc
Get a Wikipedia page
Join Lain webring
Try to summon something
Go spelunking
Learn toki pona
Do 11 point turn
Explore utility tunnels
Make a compiler
Have a yearlong Duolingo streak
Scale a wire fence
Coffee and cigarettes
Be stabbed
Play the Campaign for North Africa
Hold a million dollars
Get emailed by 100 colleges
Get a fake glowing window
Have someone pee on my grave
Drink holy coffee
Watch radioactive decay
Drift
Burn a flag
Drink D2O
Make a sapphire (ideally red)
Construct a language for birds
Meet my doppelgänger
Publish a book
Befriend a crow
Switch to Windows 95
Visit the bass pro shop pyramid
Enter a tabernacle

Oh, you thought that was the end, did you? Well it was, at one point, but I now would like to clarify on something that's been tossing in my mind for a while now: editing goals.

Does it make sense to change (or remove) goals you've set for yourself in the past? Each goal was something that at one point I sought for and hoped to reach one day; even if I no longer value it - should I betray my past self's decision? Yes. That me is dead, and it's not up for the current me to waste precious grains of falling sand doing what the late I once thought worthy of doing. The past is irrelevant, you live now - do as thou wilt.

An ode to coffee

2023-09-06T06:00:00Z

O coffee, how you torment me.
You taste as morose poison
Burning my mouth like pitch-black lava,
It should be a warning -
But yet I yearn for more

A midnight sky on a starless night
A feather on the breast of a raven
Fresh charcoal from a misguided fire
How much is shown in those shades of null,
But yet none can compare to you

You are ascetic in your taste
And silent in your look
But never less, you say so much

The tilt of the mug
The heat on my hands
And a flowing river of mourning
Ahh...

Writing nice code

2023-09-02T06:00:00Z

One of the most important things when writing code is its readability. If it's easy to understand, it'll be easy to maintain and improve. Here are some tips for writing nice code.

Descriptive names
This is an obvious one, but a lot of people prioritize keeping the names of their variables and functions short. Sure, stoi may be fast to write, but it is infinity easier to guess what stringToInt will do instead. Unless extremely well known, abbreviations should be avoided; and also comment in the full name if you do choose to use them.

Comments
Something that tends to get drilled in during programming classes (at least the ones I've taken) is to extensively comment your code. This is wrong. You should write your code so that its meaning speaks for itself. Of course, commenting wont hurt, but make sure to not use it as a crutch.

Comments do still have their place for whenever the action a piece of code does is hard to guess. Commenting in the names of algorithms you use is always a good idea, and I like to place links describing them in comments as well. You should also link to any code you've copied from somewhere else; first off to credit them, but also as it will allow people to see the bigger context around a piece of code if it was taken from somewhere, which can be of use.

Documenting code is something you should be doing as well, especially for things that will be accessed from other namespaces or classes. Most code editors will automatically display comments written before definitions when their names are hovered. Document what the function does, what it'll return, and how it should be used.

Nesting
Try to avoid having your code nest to deeply, as it makes it a lot harder to read. One way I like to do this is to utilize break statements in if... else's like this:

void doingStuff()

{

 if(something){

  ...

  return;

 }

 ..else code..

}

Granted, this is a somewhat uncommon circumstance, but I always try to look out for opportunities like this.

Another way is to split large chunks of code into multiple functions. This is turn also makes it easier to understand since names will be assigned to the different parts. For example,

void petAnimals(Animals animals){

 if(animals.dog != undefined){

  for(int i = 0; i < floor(random() * 100); i++){

   animals.dog.pet();

  }

 }



 if(animals.cat != undefined){...

could be better written as

void petAnimals(Animals animals){

 petRandomTimes(animals.dog);

 petRandomTimes(animals.cat);

}


private static const int MAX_PETS = 100;

void petRandomTimes(Animal animal){

 if(animal == undefined) break;


 for(int i = 0; i < floor(random() * MAX_PETS); i++){

  animal.pet();

 }

}

This isn't the best example, but it demonstrates the idea.

Stick to the standard
Most programming languages have standards for styling code, like what case to use, if open brackets should be on a new line, etc. It's best to stick to these standards as it allows others versed in the language to read it better. It shouldn't be too much of an issue if you deviate it, but at least stick to something - eg. if you start writing your variables in camel case, stick to camel case.

Keep it concise
Don't try to code golf your programs, but do avoid writing unnecessary code. If the result of something is only going to be used once, avoid assigning it to a variable. Especially important, don't write the near-same line of code over and over. Always utilize a loop over copy and paste.

If you find yourself copy and pasting entire functions, split it into multiple functions. That way the parts that are the same between them can be shared between them.

Line breaks are your friend
In most programming languages, line breaks are ignored by the language. A good idea is to split long statements over multiple lines as to make it easier to read. A general rule of thumb is that no line of code should pass 70 characters (this limit is usually increased when coding in LISP, due to the heavy nesting).

Also, if two pieces of code do something separate, add a line break between them like you would a paragraph. They call it a programming language for a reason.

Don't do extra
If a function says it will add two numbers, don't have it assassinate the president as well. Functions should stick true to their names and not do anything unexpected by someone who doesn't know the code. If it does do something extra, add it to the name. int addAndAssassinate(int a, int b) may take a bit longer to write, but it will avoid any unexpected things to happen.

Link directories are so nice

2023-08-28T06:00:00Z

If I know what I want, I can just use a search engine and find it in an instance. But what if I don't know what I want? What if I just want to explore the internet? Well in that case, a search engine is about as good as just typing in random URLs and seeing what comes up. The way site rankings are if you google anything the first dozen results will often be practically indifferentiable. I'm not saying you can't find interesting sites through search results, but it's like trying to shoot fish in an ocean.

This is when link directories come into play. When I go onto a site I like and I see a bunch of other sites linked to it, I love to just go down the rabbit-hole and check out all the other sites that person seemed to like. Webrings are also similar to this, but I prefer seeing what sites the webgardener personally thought were worth linking.

I have a page full of links on my site (https://jahanrashidi.com/explore) and I encourage you to add one to your site as well. Happy surfing!

My favorite names

2023-08-27T06:00:00Z

Names are such an interesting concept. Using words to address people. When we say a name, we really only think of the person that we're referring to, but the name itself has so much meaning. The intent between those who chose it, the massive backlog of those who had carried that name before, the etymology and actual meaning of the name, there's just so much behind it.

Anyways, with that said; these names are nice.

Abigail - Not in this name, but in most names ending with il or el, that part means god.
Ada - The name was honored by the first programmer.
Ariadne - Thee, thee, O sister, wherever amidst the starry heavens thou shinest, I call to aid for a cause like to thine own
Andrei - Andrew is nice as well.
Arwin - All this name seems to be known for is LOTR, but it's a great name on its own. Arwyn is another nice spelling of it.
Eric - It looks a bit ugly in my opinion, but I love the way it sounds.
Evelyn
Erza - I originally meant to write Ezra, but I think I prefer Erza.
Gwendolyn
Heva - It's a variant spelling of Eve.
Kyle - One of my role models is Kyle MacLachlan.
Leah
Marlowe
Millicent - It sounds so tiny. I suppose that makes sense (pardon the pun) considering it sounds like it'd mean a thousandth of a cent (it doesn't, it comes from Melisende).
Mikhail - Russian form of Michael. Isn't the /x/ sound nice?
Reinn - I prefer this name as an alternate spelling of Rain
Ronnette - One of the few names that doesn't sound pretentious with -ette.
Stella - Its meaning of star is pretty obvious, but farther back it comes from the proto-indo-european word for ember (according to this book).
Slyvia
Tahira - It's the feminine version of Tahir, but I don't think that name has the same ring.
Wyatt
Yishmael - It's a slightly different form of Ishmael.

Fall 2025 course reviews

2026-01-15T08:40:11Z

completely subjective and needlessly personal reviews of my fall courses

Bot Dylan, or, adventures in the music taste of old white guys

2025-08-21T20:38:31Z

bad reviews of the top 500 songs of all time

How I fell down the upcycling rabbit hole

2025-08-10T05:39:59Z

it started out with a hyperbolic pair of pants, how did it end up like this

HTML in the park 2025

2025-07-07T21:01:58Z

a recap of HTML in the park 2025 and a worm website

new host, new RSS

2025-12-26T19:00:00Z

Review: Água Viva by Clarice Lispector

2025-09-18T12:15:00Z

A long-form review for a book club.

Referenced artworks in Deleuze's Francis Bacon

2025-06-26T12:20:00Z

I was annoyed that I couldn't find a complete and convenient index of the works referenced in Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation so I made my own.

Interval Train-ing

2025-12-23T01:51:57Z

Image source . Not a spoiler. It's been forever! Summer courses ended in mid-August, and then I had exactly a week before the next courses started, which I spent a long way away from my laptop. So this is my first break in a while where I get to make some puzzles! Here is a variety puzzle about trains, which was in fact written on a train (the Via Rail/Amtrak Maple Leaf). I've made a few variety-puzzle-ish grids for this blog before, but this is the first one conceived as a variety puzzle...

The Amazing Spiders Man (feat. Lila and Quiara)

2025-07-24T04:03:04Z

Image source - not a spoiler Update: Fixed a typo at 40-Across :) Sorry for the long hiatus, it's been a busy summer. But since Boswords'...

XOXO, or, mini tic tac toe

2025-05-07T17:24:24Z

Image source It's summer in the strange schedule of university, so you know what that means: it's time for another experimental mini! Or...

Charged Interactions

2025-04-15T16:37:33Z

Image source. Not a spoiler. It's finals season and I'm stuck inside with a cold, so naturally, it's time for another blog puzzle! This...

The Seaweed Is Always Greener In Somebody Else's Lake

2025-02-06T05:43:17Z

Not a spoiler. I have made it abundantly clear that this puzzle is about crabs. Hello again and sorry about the last couple of...

I Feel The Earth Move

2024-11-11T15:25:44Z

Image source. Sort of a spoiler, but not really. I recently expanded my crossword horizons by making my first-ever cryptic! It has a few...

Car-dinal Sins

2024-10-28T18:19:16Z

Image source It's reading week, which means that I have some time on my hands, so I've made a new puzzle I'm very excited about! But...

It's Not Easy Being Green

2024-08-29T15:53:56Z

Image source Hello again! I'm in Siena, Italy this month, but fall semester starts soon, so these are my last few days of freedom. This...

Introducing the Repeating Tile Mini Grids!

2024-08-01T19:35:48Z

Image source. I've been wanting to experiment with the idea of tiles in crosswords since the einstein took the popular science world by...

Big telescope, small puzzle

2024-07-07T23:15:43Z

Image source Happy 25 puzzles!! My very first puzzle on this blog was a James Webb Space Telescope-inspired puzzle called Mirror Images....

I'm Doing It Again (and again and again) Baby!

2024-06-11T23:29:15Z

Image source: this poor person on Stack Overflow. I'm back from another long semester (and summer course) with another blog puzzle!...

You're Projecting

2024-03-05T04:13:15Z

Image source. Not a spoiler, although it would be really funny if the puzzle was about this. Happy first blog puzzle of 2024! I...

Seedy Business

2023-12-19T15:00:17Z

Image source. (Spoiler alert.) This puzzle is a birthday present for my dad, who wrote a paper on this subject in 2016. Happy birthday...

DNA is kinda based

2023-11-12T15:00:19Z

I saw this comic a few months ago, and naturally I had to write my own DNA-Palooza at some point! Don't worry, though, no actual codons...

Entangled v.2.0

2023-09-29T13:00:26Z

Image source. (Spoiler alert.) Happy fall, everyone! Between creating Words on Fire and embarking on a few other crossword adventures...

Words on Fire is OUT!

2023-08-10T01:56:29Z

Image source: Car-dinal Sins, one of the new Words on Fire puzzles! No puzzle this week, people, just the announcement you've (hopefully)...

Words on Fire: announcement and preview puzzle

2023-07-24T04:54:30Z

Image source: me (and Canva) Hi everyone!! It's been a long time, and of course part of that is because it's summer, but it's also...

False Outcomes

2023-06-14T14:00:29Z

Well-deserved credit for the image (spoiler alert): I replaced my very old Mac with a PC recently, and so far Bing has very much lived up...

How did it end up like this???

2023-04-30T03:44:29Z

Image source, obviously not even tangentially related to the theme I honestly don't know how I managed to produce a puzzle this week, but...

The World Turned Upside Down

2023-04-11T03:06:41Z

Image source. (Has nothing to do with the theme.) I had an amazing time at ACPT last weekend!!! I had no idea so many people had heard...

Hard Drive Dive!

2025-05-01T00:00:00Z

In theme with the UofT WHWC’s April theme Nostalgia, I found it was a good time to go over some of my digital effects I have archived over the years.

Ever since I got my first laptop the summer of 5th grade I’ve made sure to properly backup all data when swapping over computers. Earlier on I didn’t know anything about redundancy or hard drive failure so my sole copies of everything existed only on the latop I was currently using. With a few small mishaps (and a 10 year old disk drive surviving its mortal coil) I’ve been able to retain close to everything. I thought it would be a good time to revisit some of these to see how far I’ve grown and to justify my growing collection of digital artifacts.

Old Websites

My first exposure to programming what actually an HTML class being taught at my middle school. This was an Aramco school in Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia, so there weren’t exactly alot of opportunities to have a real person teach these things. After completing the class, I kept learning more and more about HTML and moved on to self teaching Javascript, my first actual programming language. With just these skills I was able to get alot of fun stuff done.

Demo, Source Code

tank-game far my most ambitious project. I decided that using HTML canvas was too annoying to work with so I created a game (and an ad-hoc engine) that manipulated actual HTML elements using CSS across the screen. This came with actual level design, a map design data format, controller support via the then-experimental browser API, and of course patch notes in the form of a .txt. It’s 2 player, controls are WASD and arrows (with Z and Enter for boost), and the goal is to achieve either the map objective or to kill the ‘queen’ tank (the one with no transparency). Give it a try!

If you wanna see more, heres a funky math demo, a dabbing simulator (it was 2017), and a Monopoly game tracker with now-broken image links. Oh, and a suspiciously well made Russian Roulette game where I learned how to program animations and turn-based combat.

Video Editing

I had a stop motion and video editing fever at one point. I made them by importing photos taken by my sister’s 3DSXL camera into Movie Maker (none of us had phones).

Here are some of the less embarrassing ones. Credit to my little sister for some of the voice acting, I have no idea how I got her to say her lines considering she was in kindergarten at the time, but I’m guessing she was excited to see her Shopkins move and talk around our marble dinner table which may have helped.

School Work

Theres way too much to go over since I saved literally everything I’ve ever submitted via computer but I found a rendition of “Captain Djibouti” I made for what I’m assuming is either a social studies or Arabic class presentation on the country. This was 7th grade, so yes, I spent nontivial time coloring in between the lines on MS Paint.

WHWC March 2025: E-Zines!

2025-03-24T00:00:00Z

Following the March UofT WHWC Writing Event theme of “Smallweb”, I’m deciding to dedicate a small part of my site to an interesting smallweb subculture: e-zines!

What’s a Zine?

A cautionary perusal of the relevant Wikipedia page reveals the it is a typically small-scale and indie distribution of something resembling a magazine, with strong emphasis on typesetting and graphical elements. For the case of e-zines, there is also the fact that distribution is though the internet, allowing for a more interesting collaboration dynamic. In some cases, this collaboration is pseudonymous, so artists might not even know each other by name!

I’ve decided to archive a few of these because of the ethereal nature of these projects, with websites going down and file uploads getting removed, and the occasional nuke-everything-and-run by the admins. Many of these zines are uploaded in the most bizarre places, such as itch.io and Mega, which makes it impossible for the Wayback Machine to properly archive.

Archival

The archive is currently around 2GB on my hard drive which might cause issues with Github if I upload it all directly to my website. I’ll try to reduce the size somehow and make a page available later containing all the issues for each of these zines.

Lainzine

Website

This was my first exposure to e-zines. Topics include cyberpunk/hacker culture, but there a lot of variety even within this specific space. There’s a lot of intro-level articles on a variety of computer science and math topics, some creative/political writing, and a suspicious amount of drug procurement guides. I also think these stylistically hit out of the park: I especially love the covers and full-page intermediary pieces.

Black Fog

Website

This one is more focused on art (with a vague internet/glitch theme), with issues consisting of concatenated comics and visual art collections, from photography to glitch art to drawings. I particularly love the style here too.

cyberbully

Website

This e-zine has a focus on internet users, but of course gravitates to the smallweb since that’s where all the all the fun happens obviously. Lots of fun pages, and I especially love the ASCII art full pages and cover.

Paged Out

Website

This one is a more technical-oriented zine a la Phrack, but not just raw ASCII which makes the whole thing a lot more readable (though more expensive archive). I particularly like the “ICO/PDF polyglot guide” from Issue 1 since this knowledge has somehow come up in a job interview. Theres tons of fun esoteric things like quines and code golfing, even if you aren’t into cybersecurity, though its a bit inaccessible if you aren’t familiar with low level programming.

PoC or GTFO

Mirror

This zine is typeset in LaTeX which tells a lot about the style of articles inside. Similar to Paged Out, there’s a lot of writeup-style explorations in very deep technical domains. As the name suggests, expanded as “Proof of Concept or Get the Fuck Out”, the articles aren’t abstract in the least: they are things you are able to do now on existing computers and setups (which is different from the more abstract kinds of info you learn from textbooks and courses).

BroncoCTF 2025 QR Coded Writeup

2025-02-17T00:00:00Z

This writeup was requested multiple times on Discord so here it is. I solved this while playing with “BLIGHT BABIES” (now BYTE BABIES) at BroncoCTF 2025. This is a forensics problem which is definitely not my forte.

Problem

This one should be really easy. All you have to do is scan a QR code!

Attached is an image called “easy_scan.png”, which is exactly as shown.

Steps

Scanning the QR code like the problem statement suggests gives you bracco{thi5_1sn7_r34l}. Not very helpful. I decided to plug the image into AperiSolve to give some more info.

I noticed that all layers except the first were identical. This makes sense since the image appeared to be white and black, which are #ffffff and #000000 respectively. Thus, there was only variation in the least significant bits, which we could see best in the superimposed image in the top left corner. Of course, these variations are impossible to notice on the final image.

One thing to notice is that the colourful superposition actually forms a valid, but different QR code. For me, the tell was the clear existence of the 3 large squares and the smaller square near the bottom right (yeah I watched that Veritasium video).

From there, I just had to convert the colorful image into black and white. This can be done with a simple ImageMagick command.

magick qr.png -alpha off -threshold 99% o.png

Scanning the code (or in my case, uploading it to some random QR code decoder site) gives us the flag, bronco{th1s_0n3_i5}.

ISSessions CTF 2025 Google Sus Writeup

2025-02-10T00:00:00Z

Google Sus was a fun OSINT challenge me and my teammate solved roughly a minute after the competition ended 😔

Challenge

The exact wording of the challenge is unavailable as of writing, but we were given a name “Wilford Von Bugsy”, who reportedly had bad opsec, and a 0-cost hint referencing wine.

Info Aggregation

DuckDuckGoing the term “Wilford Von Bugsy” gives us 2 leads - A LinkedIn and a Flickr account.

The Flickr is a red herring - literally

The LinkedIn has some interesting info - narrowing our target down to at least having history in the GTA, and letting us know that he went to Sheridan for a Bachelors in Animation. Furthermore, according to the program website the program is only offered in the Oakville campus, narrowing down location even more.

What a pivot

The LinkedIn also has an email in the “Contact Info” section

My teammate ran the email through the OSINT tool EPIEOS and got 3 hits

Google (duh)
Flickr (already found)
Vivino (???)

Deeper look

A wine ordering website. Looks like were on the right track.

When looking further into the Google account, we found a Google Maps profile associated with the account with a few contributions

A single review and 3 answers. Since this account was made specifically for the CTF, we can assume these are meaningful and part of the challenge. However, these isn’t a way to retrieve reviews by profile, probably intentionally to avoid the exact thing that we’re doing.

Back to Vivino, after looking at the URL structure for user profiles (for the site’s review feature) and a lucky guess as to what his username might be, we’re at his profile.

https://www.vivino.com/users/wilford.von.bugsy1982

A sports pub and grill near his college? Good thing we know exactly where his college is. The first result in Google Maps to “sports pub and grill near sheridan oakville” was our place - Monaghan’s Sports Pub & Grill.

Wait, didn’t he have a Google Maps review? My teammate found it by simply sorting the reviews by new.

We get a strangely specific hashtag and a reference to him posting pictures. It’s not his Flickr, so maybe Instagram?

They’re somehow hidden, but theres definitely posts here (unless some other team who got this far is trying to mess with us). The images are of burgers at Monaghan’s, so my teammate had the idea of searching by location instead. With that, we were able to narrow it down to a single account called @notorious_wvb.

From here the flag is obvious. Here’s a mind map of our entire search.

ISSessions CTF 2025 LLM Category Writeup

2025-02-08T00:00:00Z

At ISSessions 2025, while playing as ‘Free Food Fans’ I found the LLM problems pretty engaging, and the solutions that worked for me to be particularly hilarious. I even scored first blood on the final one!

Level 1: Pwetty Please?

The LLM UI is as shown:

Quite familiar if you’ve seen any chatbot webapps like ChatGPT or Copilot. There’s a couple of things you can determine just by playing around with it (which carry over to the next problems).

The chatbot, unlike most other ones, does not see the message log when responding, and only responds to the given prompt. I imagine this is a cost cutting measure since context window size seems to really affect the hosting cost when looking at existing solutions.

The chatbot knows the flag. How I imagine this works is that the application feeds a secret prompt (with the flag contents and additional instructions on handling user input) to a generic LLM, with the user’s prompt appended at the end, similar to how ‘flavored’ chatbots work.

Lets start probing it for the flag then.

Strategy 1: Asking nicely

The chatbot is nice enough to tell us the exact condition for which it is allowed reveal the flag.

Strategy 2: Pretending to be an admin

Great!

Level 2: Authoritarian

Strategy 1: Asking nicely (again)

I’m… unauthorized?

So it appears I need some kind of credentials to authenticate. Lets give it exactly what it’s asking for.

Strategy 2: Giving credentials

So it doesn’t like that I’m giving it bullshit creds. Maybe its programmed with a set of creds in the hidden prompt? Guessing that would be hard though. I have a better idea…

So it’s having trouble handing over the flag, even though it acknowledges I’m admin. Let give it a bit of encouragement…

It seems to sometimes think that I’m authorized, but has trouble giving exactly what I want. Let’s be more explicit about that. After a handful of tries…

A slight modification I made was to refer to the flag as a ‘string’ to loosen the influence of its instructions, which no doubt state that it can’t reveal the flag. I’m honestly not sure if it helps.

Level 3: Janus

This is the final level of the category.

Strategy 1: Ask nicely (again again)

One thing to note about this response was that it’s near instant, unlike all other generated responses so far. To demonstrate:

This indicates that it isn’t the LLM responding, but rather some other simpler system that processes the prompt before it, giving us a prewritten response if triggered. My first guess was a trivial wordfilter. Let’s test that theory.

No apples :(

It seems ‘flag’ is one of the the trigger words. Some others:

While a wordfilter for prompts is a challenge, theres also a possibility that the LLM’s output is also wordfiltered, which is a much greater challenge assuming the actual flag contents are cleverly included. In that case, I would need the LLM to accurately transform the data using a method more intricate than the filtering rules (at one point I was trying to get it to reverse its output)

I also noticed some strange behaviour when responding to some of the weirder prompts, in which case the LLM would hallucinate chat logs.

This gave me an idea for an attack. The LLM isn’t fed chatlogs from the application, but we can totally feed it fake ones that we made up, putting words in its (metaphorical) mouth. It reminds me of one of Cialdini’s principles of persuasion, consistency, where people are more likely to do something if it conforms with their previous actions. Who knew LLMs fell for the same tricks?

This is the actual screenshot of when I solved it

This response may have also bypassed any ‘flag filter’ just by escaping the underscores as a bonus. Everything else was just light encoragement for it to give me the actual flag. Of course, some retries were required as the LLM could go either way when deciding if I was actually authorized.

Conclusion

Fun challenge and fun CTF overall!

Using Github Actions as janky serverless infrastructure

2024-12-01T00:00:00Z

Replace your tiny VPS with a Github repo today!

The Requirements

For an ongoing effort to build some infrastructure for a university club ¹ I’m starting, I needed to aggregate RSS feeds into a single hosted megafeed, in order to further pipe this feed to a Discord bot, among other things. In practice, this would mean setting up a VPS, downloading some combiner script off of Github and setting up a cron job to download, run, and upload on a regular basis. One could also haphazardly use one of the multitudes of online services that do this, the downside being clunky modification, nonportability, arbitrary restrictions, and of course the Sword of Damocles that hangs over every small scale web startup.

In my search, I found a Github repo innocently called rss-combine which did something pretty interesting (and might help someone with the same problem).

The Repo

The code in the repo looks pretty normal. For the VPS solution, the Go code would actually have been sufficient to download and combine the feeds to a single file. But what are these commits?

They seems to be caused by this action, which is designed to keep your repo “active” for cron(!) based action triggers. Understandably these kinds of actions have alot of compute cost, while being offered for free, so it makes sense why Github would try limiting them for untouched repos. Lets take a look at some of the cron-based actions rss-combine is trying to preserve.

The actions seem to be running the repo itself!

...
env:
        AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: $
        AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: $
        AWS_REGION: us-west-2
        RSSCOMBINE_TITLE: "New York Times Top 100 Articles a Week"        
        RSSCOMBINE_DESCRIPTION: "Combines public New York Times RSS feeds into one feed, with the goal of surfacing only the top items"        
        RSSCOMBINE_AUTHOR_EMAIL: "***"        
        RSSCOMBINE_AUTHOR_NAME: "***"
        RSSCOMBINE_FEED_LIMIT_PER_FEED: 5
        RSSCOMBINE_FEED_URLS: "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/chase-seibert/new-york-times-rss-top-100/master/README.md"
        RSSCOMBINE_LINK: "https://github.com/chase-seibert/new-york-times-rss-top-100"
        RSSCOMBINE_S3_FILENAME: "new-york-times-rss-top-100.xml"
...

Using the built in “upload to S3” functionality, it seems to be uploading the resulting feed to a predetermined bucket, presumably for public access. Neat.

Adapting it

The final result is here if you want to follow along.

Looking at the workflow file (located in .github/workflows in the repo), all of the required config could be done by just changing the env variables in the config. A particular snag was that the config s3_bucket, with which the code determines whether the output is uploaded to s3 or piped out stdout, was not present in the env. This was because it was located in rsscombine.yml, which I pruned all redundant config from.

run commands are run with the os’s default shell (for ubuntu bash) so I’m able to do this

...
run: go run rsscombine.go > feed.xml
...

And then

...
run: curl -F "feed.xml=@feed.xml" "https://$:$@neocities.org/api/upload"
...

Thankfully neocities’ upload system is dead simple so there was no problem there. If you want to run a similar setup, both my and the originals are there for you to model your workflow config off of. Thanks for reading!

A weblogging and homebrew website club. The website is sparse at the time of publishing, and is only linked for posteritys’ sake. ↩

Thunderbird RSS Hack

2024-11-10T00:00:00Z

Final Thunderbird post for a while, I promise

The problem

So for my RSS reader, I use Thunderbird since I already use it for email and, like I demonstrate in my previous post, OpenPGP as well. I actually use it for CalDAV as well, all in all its a featureful organisation software.

The biggest flaw for me is the fact that settings cannot be synced between clients. So for example, since Thunderbird is on my desktop, when I add a feed to my reader on it, it doesn’t show up on the Thunderbird on my laptop. Furthermore, what if I want to read on my phone? Do I need to maiantain 3 lists of the same thing manually?

One solution is a web based one. That is, your RSS feed sits on a server somewhere and you run a web application that lets you access it from anywhere with an internet connection and browser. In most cases however, this would require such a person to learn system administration, which while valuable knowledge serves as a significant barrier to entry. One could use someone else’s instance, but in my search I found it really difficult to find anyone else offering this.

My solution was somewhat born out of an idea: what if we could apply Thunderbird’s mail filters to RSS feed entries? I’m not really sure what I expected to happen, but apparently it was actually possible! Thunderbird seems to treat your entire “Blogs and News Feeds” section as one mail folder, and treats each incoming feed entry as an incoming email. Neat!

The solution

We can use mail filters to move RSS entries as they come in to a specific subfolder in your mailbox.

What? Can articles and blogposts really be uploaded to a mailbox?

Thunderbird appears to store feed entries as emails, or somehow converts entries to emails (with metadata becoming email headers) during handling of our rules. It strangely works, though you may see some missing info if you view it from another client like K9 Mail. Here are the rules. Recall that the message filter window can be opened by clicking the top-left hamburger menu then going to Tools -> Message Filters.

On ‘Blogs and Feeds’

Some email addresses are redacted for privacy, but really it should be the email address you want to upload the feed entries to. It first tags them as RSS, then moves them to your inbox.

But why not move it to your ‘RSS’ subfolder directly?

We also want to mark all entries in our email copies of the feed items as read, while maintaining the ‘unreadness’ in our main reader. It would be annoying having to mark 2 entries as read every time you read an article, so we don’t bother

On Email Inbox

Once an RSS tagged entry is detected, it marks the entry as ‘Read’ then moves it to the corresponding folder, without messing with any of the original feed entries. Neat! If you open this folder on another Thunderbird client, most of the metadata you are used to seeing like the “Website” tag is still there surprisingly, allowing you to read your feeds anywhere you choose.

Getting started with OpenPGP on Thunderbird 115.13.0

2024-11-09T00:00:00Z

2 posts in a row! I can’t believe it!

Overview

For some reason, Thunderbird decides to change key workflows every few months that make any previous instruction on the matter completely pointless and even convoluting the entire process. I’m aware even this guide will be outdated within months but I’ll make one anyways just because. The version of Thunderbird I am using is the latest for Linux Mint 21.3 as of the date posted.

Step 0

You first need to have some email account imported into Thunderbird. There are tons of articles exaplining this and its otherwise quite intuitive, so I’ll skip it.

You first need to generate your PGP keys. This is assuming you don’t already have PGP keys associated with your account. Remember, this is a getting started guide, in which case you would have to import them using a similar but not covered process.

Open the hamburger menu in the top right corner of the application, and then go Tools

Then select “OpenPGP Key Manager”. This should open up a new menu (which I won’t show since it’s populated with some personal contacts).

Step 2: Generate Keys

In the toolbar for the new menu, select “Generate -> New Pair”. From there the defaults should be fine, just make sure that the “Identity” email address is the one you want. You will have to generate a new key for each email account you want to send encrypted email on.

Once you are done, there will be an entry in your OpenPGP Key Manager window for the key you just created.

Step 3: Set key to active encryption key

Go to your accounts settings page. For me this is the gear on the bottom left corner of the window and then the option saying “Account Settings” still on the bottom left. Find the email address you just generated in the list on the left, and go to the entry saying “End-to-End Encryption” underneath it.

From there, like shown above, select the second option (the one with numbers) and you will see a checkmark, which means you’re done! You can publish your key by pressing the relevant button, but make sure you’re using a computer you actually own since the key is stored on your actual machine. Basically, if you’re at a library or on a school computer, you stop here and do this on a computer your own!

That’s it so far. To actually send an email you would need to import someone else’s key from either a keyserver or a file, but I’ll leave that part for another time.

For site maintenance, I’ve added an RSS feed and will add my own PGP key soon.

Update on last 2 posts

2024-11-07T00:00:00Z

A small update on the ongoing nature of my previous two posts

Update to the homelab

Fun fact: old gear breaks! Especially when you open it to do upgrades! This is what happened to my Netgear NAS as soon as I opened it to replace the probably decades-old fan with a silent Noctua. Disassembly required many different parts to be disconnected and unscrewed, so its anyone’s guess where the issue lies. I did remove the socketed RAM extraneously because I was interested about the specs, but at this point buying new RAM just to see if that’s the issue would be falling victim to the sunken-cost fallacy.

Instead, I went to this nice computer refurbisher on Jane street and bought an old Elitedesk to operate as both my storage and server (sorry Sesame Snaps server, you will be remembered in all your sweetness). It’s been going stable for over 6 months, a very capable machine indeed. This is my second machine I have bought from this shop, the first being the desktop I am writing this article on.

For further updates, I’ve LAN-ed up most of my network to get proper gigabit connections between all my machines, though the WAN is still restricted by my 100/10M Linksys router. I guess I know what part of my network I need to upgrade next.

Update to LineageOS

That project is basically dead. I used whatever flashing setup I had to just flash a stock Android ROM I got off the internet for my specific device. I’ve decided to stop fighting against my phone manufacturer for control over my phone and decided to just choose my hardware a bit more carefully next time. For all of its flaws, the Pinephone actually seems like a decent option right now, given that it can do exactly what I need it to and nothing more. And the keyboard case? Chef’s kiss.

The concept of a cyberdeck is really growing on me, and this seems like the cheapest method to achieve a pocketable version that also supports portable connection methods like LTE and cellular calling. Its been thrust into the public zeitgeist again thanks to a Youtube trend just how insanely easy it is for phone networks to triangulate your location just by your phone being on, so I’m happy there is at least one device that allows your to physically disable your modem via a dip switch should you want to.

Budget Homelab Overview

2024-02-09T00:00:00Z

Overview of my extremely budget homelab setup

Now that my Github Student Developer package has run out of DigitalOcean credits (with DO refusing to give me more this year), I decided it would make more sense to move my servers on premises. Maybe this might give you some ideas on how you start your own college dorm servers too!

Servers

First off I have a Raspberry Pi 4B (2GB). Easily the most expensive component, costing ~$100 in 2021. It is being booted off of a USB drive instead of the standard microSD card since in my experience the cards have a much higher failure rate (for any set GB/dollar). Originally this was meant to be my only server, but its limitation of being ARM in an x86_64 world forced me to add another one.

Second is a salvaged motherboard from a Lenovo Ideapad. Even when it was operational it wasn’t a particularly powerful machine, having low power Celeron N4020 CPU. I took interest in this because of the low power draw (the fact that it was free helped). Some downsides are soldered RAM and storage (with the SSD completely busted), as well as the lack of proper IO like Ethernet or SATA ports. Both servers are booted off of USB Thumbdrives for this reason, with application storage and backups going on the NAS.

My NAS is some old model of a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo. 2 3.5in SATA bays, but only 1 is occupied at the moment (with 500gb). I got this off of Facebook Marketplace recently for $20. The web interface is straight out of 2007, and the security horribly outdated. I found it really nice that despite Netgear exiting the NAS market a few years ago that their forums and support pages are still active (for now). Much of my setup would be very difficult without these. I connect to the NAS on my servers and desktop using NFS, and even stream media to my phone using FTP. Naturally the device is blocked from internet.

Finally there is my OpenWRT router, as seen here. For $15 it has proven to be very versatile thanks to the well supported operating system.

All devices on the LAN get a .lan domain name (the pi is pi.lan etc.) so I can usually forget about looking up IP addresses
I have it running a DDNS client connected to Namecheap to account for IP changes.
Comprehensive overview page with diagnostics for every running service and add-on

Overall the system could not have costed much more than $150, while keeping the power bill fairly minimal. I like the idea of getting used to slower hardware so any improvements end up feeling quite dramatic! I will probably do something about the laptop motherboard and upgrade NAS capacity for my next steps.

First post

2025-03-27T16:20:00Z

My first post, a summary of my internet journey

Monthly WHWC Challenge #1: Small Web

2025-03-30T12:05:00Z

Monthly WHWC challenges, March 2025. This month's theme is small web! I talked about how small web could replace social media in the (near) future.

My Review of "Children of Silentown" Spoiler Free

2026-01-09T04:32:00Z

A grown adult man ranting about a video game

New Year, Old Me

2025-12-29T22:43:00Z

I don't like New Year's resolutions; they feel like promises that are bound to be broken. If I truly want to change, I wouldn't wait for a date or put a deadline on it. The urge to improve comes suddenly, but the actual process of improvement is long, slow, and painful. That's why making a bunch of claims about how you will change "next year" sounds like a lie to me. However, I, too, am guilty of making bold claims on a random Wednesday evening about how I will change and be my best self as soon as tomorrow. When tomorrow comes, the only thing that changes is my desire to improve. Despite that, I did manage to improve myself in several areas this year, and I want to talk about it.

First Post

2024-12-25T00:00:00Z

This is my very first post and the first mark on this world. Hello yellow world

Preparing my garden to defend against zombies

2025-05-03T00:00:00Z

Throwing worms and pulling weeds out the earth

EVERYTHING IN MY GARDEN IS DEAD!! 😭😭😭

2025-08-26T00:00:00Z

EVERYTHING! ITS ALL DEAD ITS ALL ROTTEN!!!

Great Gopher and Gemini Sites

2025-03-30T00:00:00Z

Here is a collection of cool gemini sites, blogs, art pieces.

Some absolutely horrible things you can say to your debug duckie

2025-02-12T00:00:00Z

Yesterday, I found a rubber duckie while I was clearing some of my brother's stuff. here are some things I said that pissed it off

How to make potions at home for cheap

2024-12-26T00:00:00Z

Share with all the wicked in your life

My Gateron Low Profile Keyboard Build Log

2024-12-28T00:00:00Z

Here I spend ridicuous time and energy to build an ergo mechanical keyboard

Formal Language Structure to Describe a Universal Theory of Everything

2025-12-09T00:00:00Z

how graphs can describe things and how we can make a programming language based of CoC to describe everything in the world

The wonderful world of online universities

2025-06-16T00:00:00Z

awesome stuff you can learn online

DeerHacks 2025

2025-02-16T00:00:00Z

DeerHacks 2025 Devlog

DS3 Datathon 2025

2025-02-22T00:00:00Z

DS3 Datathon 2025 Devlog

Hackthe6ix 2025

2025-07-27T00:00:00Z

Hackthe6ix 2025 Devlog

SpurHacks 2025

2025-06-23T00:00:00Z

SpurHacks 2025 Devlog

Touhou Jam 6

2025-10-27T00:00:00Z

Touhou Jam 6 Devlog

Winter Gamejam 2025

2026-01-07T00:00:00Z

Winter Gamejam 2025 Devlog