I had a terrible experience trying to self-host Supabase today. I have read on the community posts that the experience is usually not very pleasant, however, I found official maintainers responding to that saying that it was improved, with a video showing it running on a 2GB of RAM and 2vCPUs droplet. I had various problems with getting the docker-compose to work; apparently you can not really change the default passwords without running into an authentication issue (see here for example), and even if you fixed that you will go through couple of analytics issues. My biggest concern, however, was that I was never able to get anything to run on the very small droplet that the maintainer showed off, in fact, the only specifications that could provide the bare minimum performance (that is: the dashboard is loading) was 8GB of RAM, and two dedicated CPUs (yes, dedicated, not vCPUs), however, even with that a lot of problems persisted (many features are not working, and it is a hell to try to authenticate the CLI with that setup). I wonder if their development team is choosing deliberately not to make the self-host experience better to enforce people to use their cloud services instead of selfhosting it. I really do not get the point of having such a software to be open-source if it won’t be easy to self-host.

Alexandre Cabanel has a painting of this name depicting a black man with some North African features. What interests me that it has a name on the top right, it reads like: محمد بن الدبم. I wonder who is that and how the interaction between him and Cabanel went like.

Bradford (the artist) paintings of the sea are very moving. I wonder if Ivan Aivazovsky ever inspired him.

Form Papers and journals:

It’s an interesting remark. It’s really interesting to see someone who understands the music.

From Papers and journals:

• William-Adolphe Bouguereau
• William Bouguereau, Unparalleled Brilliance and Dedication [video]
• What We Love About: William Bouguereau [video]

A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, that’s so cute.

I found in the journals of Kierkegaard today an entry very similar to what I include in my homepage by René Descartes about the method of life:

My old post about math might be also related: A Prelude Over Mathematics.

I was reading What Would Kierkegaard Do?. This part made me laugh a lot:

• Note taken on [2025-06-17 Tue 23:42]
  A year ago from now I was working on statuesless, a software that I always wanted to build when I initially moved to Linux, but I couldn’t because I was not yet a capable programmer. I feel nostalgic now about it and how I no longer get to use it since I moved to MacOS.

    :LOGBOOK:
    CLOCK: [2024-06-27 Thu 13:37]--[2024-06-27 Thu 13:56] =>  0:19
    CLOCK: [2024-07-02 Tue 04:11]--[2024-07-02 Tue 04:47] =>  0:36
    CLOCK: [2024-07-01 Mon 10:49]--[2024-07-01 Mon 11:48] =>  0:59
    CLOCK: [2024-06-15 Sat 08:41]--[2024-06-15 Sat 09:07] =>  0:26
    CLOCK: [2024-06-15 Sat 08:30]--[2024-06-15 Sat 08:32] =>  0:02
    CLOCK: [2024-06-15 Sat 04:53]--[2024-06-15 Sat 08:30] =>  3:37
    CLOCK: [2024-06-17 Mon 12:22]--[2024-06-17 Mon 12:43] =>  0:21
    CLOCK: [2024-06-17 Mon 07:14]--[2024-06-17 Mon 07:49] =>  0:35
    CLOCK: [2024-06-26 Wed 15:13]--[2024-06-26 Wed 16:03] =>  0:50
    :END:
  

• Note taken on [2025-06-13 Fri 10:55]
  I found an old funny entry today:

    ** DONE Get ement to work again                                       :@general:
    :PROPERTIES:
    :ID:       s1dexrp0tfk0
    :CUSTOM_ID: s1dexrp0tfk0
    :END:
    :LOGBOOK:
    CLOCK: [2023-06-13 Tue 13:54]--[2023-06-13 Tue 14:07] =>  0:13
    CLOCK: [2023-06-13 Tue 13:06]--[2023-06-13 Tue 13:54] =>  0:48
    :END:
    For some reason that pantalaimon cocksucker was storing some kind of data
    somewhere that I couldn't reach. I used --data-path to specify custom location
    to skip using cachedd data. Which caused this issue.
  

Today I remembered that feature of Facebook which would let you see your posts from years ago in the same day. It’s called “memories”, I’m not sure if it is still there. I wanted something similar that can make me reflect on the history I have for myself in Org-mode. I wrote this:

(defun salih/org-search-entries-with-today-date ()
  "Search all Org files for timestamps matching today's day and month."
  (interactive)
  (let* ((today (decode-time (current-time)))
         (day (format "%02d" (nth 3 today)))
         (month (format "%02d" (nth 4 today)))
         ;; Match both active <YYYY-MM-DD ...> and inactive [YYYY-MM-DD ...]
         (pattern (format "\\([<[]\\)[0-9]\\{4\\}-%s-%s[^]>]*[]>]?" month day))
         (consult-ripgrep-args
          (concat consult-ripgrep-args " -g *.org")))
    (consult-ripgrep org-roam-directory pattern)))

It has the issue of showing clock entries, schedules and deadlines, but it does the job for now. I already feel so nostalgic.

I also wrote this to read old journals:

(defun salih/open-journal-file-for-today ()
  "List journal files in /Users/l/roam/journal that match today's MM-DD and let me open one."
  (interactive)
  (let* ((journal-dir "~/roam/journal/")
         (today (decode-time (current-time)))
         (month (format "%02d" (nth 4 today)))
         (day (format "%02d" (nth 3 today)))
         ;; Pattern to match filenames like 2023-06-08.org.gpg for today's MM-DD
         (match-pattern (format "-%s-%s\\.org\\.gpg$" month day))
         (files (directory-files journal-dir nil match-pattern)))
    (if files
        (let ((file-to-open (completing-read "Open journal file: " files nil t)))
          (find-file (expand-file-name file-to-open journal-dir)))
      (message "No journal files found for today (%s-%s)" month day))))

But it hurt.

No water, no life. No blue, no green. – Sylvia Earle

• Note taken on [2025-05-27 Tue 02:59]
  Just found out that flattenability of graphs are folklore too. Wondering if a lot of graph theories are like that.

TIL that Robert W. Floyd is not the real author of Floyd’s cycle-finding algorithm:

I wonder if anyone asked Donald Knuth about that in an interview.

• Note taken on [2025-06-16 Mon 00:43]
  I have a feeling that Frederic William Burton did the same thing.

I noticed how he is always painting the very same woman over and over. Worht investigating.

شخصية أديك في هذا الفيلم جميلة. هذه الصورة له في أول مجيئة للمعسكر ويمكنك أن تراه في هذا الفيديو وهو يدافع عن خطة الله بكل فصاحة وبيان قبل أن يتعرض لمحاولة إذلاله الأولى من الألمان، ففي الجلسة الثانية من المحكمة يحاول أن يدافع مرة أخرى عن خطة الله ولكن لا يلبث إلا أن ينهمر في البكاء على حاله (فيديو) ولا ريب أنه فقد من إيمانه جزءا جراء البلاء. اللهم لا تختبرني وأعني إن اختبرتني.

The art works of Aagaard are very touching, it reminds me of my old town, some obscure places in which you wold only notice such moments that are in his paintings. It is sad that most of them are not available in high quality online, probably purchased in some rich palaces around the world.

Bogolyubov had a very beautiful skies in his work. I spent my dusk looking into them while listening to String Quintet in E Major, G. 275: III. Menuetto by Luigi Boccherini/Orpheus Chamber Orchestra:

• Moonlit evening in Constantinople, Alexey Bogolyubov
• The seashore, Alexey Bogolyubov
• Castel Sant’Angelo, Alexey Bogolyubov
• Italian Coast, Alexey Bogolyubov
• Moonlit night. Grand Canal (Venice), Alexey Bogolyubov
• Smolny as seen from Bolshaya Okhta, Alexey Bogolyubov
• View of the Smolny Convent from Bolshaya Okhta, Alexey Bogolyubov
• St. Petersburg. Sledging on the Neva, Alexey Bogolyubov
• St. Petersburg at Sunset, Alexey Bogolyubov
• Mosque in Istanbul, Alexey Bogolyubov

TIL there’s a great website of Leonard Cohen legacy: https://leonardcohenfiles.com/.

I liked this painting a lot and I felt the urge to learn more about its history, but looks like we do not know anything about what Alma-Tadema refered to there, he was 19 years old when he painted it. It’s either:

• A fictional or imagined scene created by Lawrence Alma-Tadema early in his career, or
• A reference to a now-obscure historical or legendary episode—possibly medieval or religious in nature—that hasn’t survived in mainstream records.

TIL that Constanze Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wife, was married latter to Nikolaus Von Nissen, one of the people who admired Mozart a lot and worked on writing a biography for him. I’m wondering if he liked the man that much to marry the same woman who lived with him, or did he just used her for his project, or, in fact, loved her.

• Note taken on [2025-06-05 Thu 16:08]
  ينهي تولستوي الاعترافات بحلم جميل. لا أعرف كيف لم يتحول لفيلم. يقول في نهايته “ثم تيقظت.” ويختتم كتابه وكلامه. ثم تيقظت.

  All this was clear to me, and I was glad and calm. And someone seems to be saying to me, “Watch, remember.” And I wake up.

  إن قراءة هذا ليبث في جسدي القشعريرة. كثيرًا ما تمنيت لو كان لي أحد المناهج الثابتة التي ذكرها تولستوي في كتابه، والتي كما يبدوا أنه استطاع، وإن كان في نهاية الأمر، أن يلزم نفسه بواحدٍ منها. منهج ديكارت موجود على صفحتي الرئيسية ولكني سأكون كاذبًا لو قلت إني قدرت على الالتزام به لأكثر من ثلاثة أشهر. إني كما يقول سورين:

  One moment a child, the next an old man; one moment you are thinking most earnestly about the most important scholarly problems, how you will devote your life to them, and the next you are a lovesick fool. But you are a long way from marriage

I just finished reading Leo Tolstoy’s A Confession. One of the most beautiful books I have ever read. Definitely making my Godchild (if any) read that.

I was never interested in Kierkegaard’s personal life. Today I read this:

I downloaded his biography. Very interested to learn more about the man’s life.

My heart is a C-x C-b menu.

• https://www.tiktok.com/@mindtalklab/video/7470296092962245910
• https://www.tiktok.com/@mindtalklab/video/7473159586464271618
• https://www.tiktok.com/@thelimitlessgrowth/video/7447975326082288918

Here’s a good video from TikTok about setting boundaries in kinds of friendships: https://www.tiktok.com/@the3rdside/video/7479090078267231534. I find myself trying to explain this kind of boundaries people from time to time.

[2025-03-28 Fri 14:17]

Following are quick notes I toke while reading the first volume of Chekhov’s selected works. I might add notes for the rest of the book later.

After the Theater

“Onyegin was interesting because he was not in love at all, and Tatyana was fascinating because she was so much in love; but if they had been equally in love with each other and had been happy, they would perhaps have seemed dull”.

The Runaway

Reminded me of an old memory with my father at the dentist. I loved the vibes.

Volodya

Very strange story. I think I should read some analysis for it, but I have not got any time for that.

(no term)

The Boys

(no term)

Enemies

(no term)

Malingerers

(no term)

العازف الأجير

(no term)

Vanka

(no term)

A Naughty Boy

(no term)

The Trousseau

Agafya

Aesthetic story, I want to live in a world like the one Chekhov describes there.

A Misfortune

One of the saddest stories I’ve ever read. Really moved me.

Giuseppe Abbati paintings are very touching, I feel like I want to live inside them; specifically his Country Road with Cypresses, Marina in Castiglioncello and The Window.

— Neal Stephenson

I believe that the software products that Apple builds are some of the most well-engineered, well-designed, and well-written software ever. And I think there are some reasons for that, most of them are not good ones:

1. Apple products are massively overpriced, which creates a significant surplus that allows them to invest heavily in software development. Capitalism rewards monopolistic pricing, and Apple has mastered the art of leveraging brand power and exclusivity to justify insane markups. Unlike something like Linux, which I’ve used for a long time, open-source projects struggle to get consistent funding or sponsorship, making it much harder to compete at the same level.
2. Apple does not care about backward compatibility, worldwide compatibility, or anything else outside its walled garden. Their software is built to work exclusively on Apple hardware, and they have zero interest in making it usable for non-Apple users. They also deprecate anything older than seven years, forcing people into costly upgrades. As someone who has worked extensively with system architecture and design, I can confirm that a significant amount of engineering effort typically goes into maintaining backward compatibility and ensuring interoperability with the rest of the tech ecosystem. By outright ignoring these two concerns, Apple engineers get to focus almost entirely on UX, making their software feel smoother and more polished than competitors.
3. Since (1), Apple can afford to invest in developing much better SDKs, which ensures that software built on their platforms is high quality. This is why you often find software that exists on both Apple’s OSs and other operating systems but still runs better on Apple’s—because their development tools and ecosystem are simply better funded. This also attracts top-tier developers who prefer the stability and optimization of Apple’s environment, further reinforcing their advantage.
4. Apple controls both the hardware and the software, which means they don’t have to deal with the same fragmentation issues that plague other ecosystems. Unlike Windows or Android, where developers have to account for a ridiculous range of hardware variations, Apple’s tight integration allows them to optimize performance and deliver a more cohesive experience. However, this comes at the cost of user freedom—if Apple decides they don’t want you running certain apps or repairing your own device, you’re out of luck.
5. The cult-like marketing and closed ecosystem trap users into staying within Apple’s platform. iMessage lock-in, proprietary file formats, restrictive App Store policies—everything is designed to make switching inconvenient. This means Apple doesn’t just create good software; they create software that feels indispensable, even when there are equal or better alternatives elsewhere.

Apple’s software is good. Sometimes too good. But the reasons behind it are far less about pure engineering brilliance and far more about strategic corporate control, aggressive pricing, and an ecosystem that thrives on exclusivity.

قال أبو الطيب:

قال الواحدي: يقول: سبحان من جعل نفسي صبورةً، متجلدةً أمام شدائد الدهر، تجد لذّتها فيما تتألم منه سائر النفوس، وتسكن إلى ما يكرهه غيرها. كتب المتنبي هذه الأبيات قبيل وفاته، وأحسب أنه في تلك الفترة كان يغوص في تأملات عميقة حول مسار حياته. يقول في البيت الذي يليه:

إن بلوى المتنبي في حياته أمر لا يدركه كثيرون، ولعل من وعى مسيرته، وتلمس آماله ومطامحه، وأحسّ بغربته بين قومه، فقط من يدرك مداها. وهو القائل:

ولعل هذا البيت من أعمق ما قاله في رثاء نفسه، وكأنّي به يقف على أطلال تاريخه وهو ينشده، مستعيدًا مشاهد الاضطرار إلى مدح من يمقتهم، وفقدان زوجته وجدته، وحرمانه من طفولة سليمة، وخيانة الملوك والعبيد له على السواء، ومحاولات اغتياله، لكن أشدّ ما أنهكه: بعد مقدرته عن إدراك غايته. ومن المصادفة الطريفة أنه قال:

قبل أن يبدأ مدح كافورٍٍ ببيت واحد. وفي ذلك البيت يقول ضمنيًا أنه مُجبر على ذلك المديح. نعود إلى البيت الأول؛ ففيه يتعجب المتنبي من غربته عن أبناء عصره – وقد هجاهم في البيت الذي يسبقه – إذ يجد في الألم والعذاب، اللذين يواجههما في سبيل غايته، لذّةً أسمى وأرفع من المتع التي ينعم بها أهل زمانه. وكنت قد كتبتُ فيما مضى: “For those who live loftily and dangerously, who need few comforts, the very things that others dread—solitude, pain, hardship, weirdness—actually become their pleasures.”

وقد حدث أن اشتدت الحمى على المتنبي، فقال:

أي: أن الراحة عنده ليست في السكون والاستقرار، بل في السعي الدؤوب نحو المجد. وقد قال أبو العباس: وملحمة الإنسان هي ملحمة الانتقال. ولا يكون الانتقال بمجرّد الارتحال؛ وإنّما هو عملية عنيفة. ولا يكون ارتحال بلا سيْف: ذهني أو واقِعي. والسيفُ أبو الارتحال، ولذات السبب، أبو التاريخ.

يُروى أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم زاره رجل من الأعراب في المدينة وتعشى عنده، فملئ له النبي وعاء اللبن أولًا فشربه، فثانيًا فشربه، وثالثًا فشربه حتى بلغ سبعة أوعية من اللبن، فلما أسلم في اليوم التالي جاء عند النبي وملئ له وعاء اللبن فشربه، وقدم له النبي الوعاء الثاني، فقال شبعت. فقال النبي: إن المؤمن يأكل في مِعيٍ واحد، والكافر يأكل في سبعة أمعاء. وهذا لهم المؤمن في الدنيا، وقال تعالى: والذين كَفروا يأكلون ويتمتعون كما تأكل الأنعام، فالتشبيه هنا في محل عقلية الأنعام وليس نهمها. يقول أبو الطيب:

والمنجرد هو الرجل الماضي في الأمور، الجادّ فيها لا يردّه شيء، وكذا المؤمن وهَمه في الدنيا، وكيف بهمه في أهم حقبة في الإسلام وتعمير دولته. وقال أيضًا في ذلك:

والنشح هو القليل، أي أن شرابه قليل جدًا. والشرب لا يُعاب عليه، ولكن أنظر لعلو الهمة وطلب المجد، فهو لا يجد وقتًا ولا يأخذ من هذا إلا ما يعينه على ما يريد من الدنيا، وليس العكس: أن يكدح في الدنيا لطلب ما يستهلكه من متاعها “لا للري يَطلبه” أي ليس بطالب شرابه لأن يرتوي ويشبع ويرضي بدنه: وطَعمه لقوام الجسم، كي يقضي حواجيه، لا للإكثار والسِمن. وقال ديوجانس الحكيم: آكل لأعيش، وغيري يعيش ليأكل.

قال أبو الطيب:

وهذا خير ما قاله، رحمه الله، في التفريق بين الكريم والجبان. فحب الحياة والصراع من أجل البقاء فطرة عند كل الكائنات، يقول “مُستهامًا” والمُستهام هي مبالغة عربية جميلة في وصف العاشق، أي يشتد عليه العشق والصبابة حتى يهيم على وجهه لا يدري أين هو. وهذا هو حالنا. فثم: حب الجبان النفس، أورده التقى، أي أن يتقي ويحتمي من الدخول في المعركة، ويتجنبها، ويستكن للأمن ويطمئن له (وأليس هو القائل: وما الخوف إلا ما تخوفه الفتى ولا الأمن إلا ما رآه الفتى أمنا؟) وقال تعالى واصفًا الغافلين: ورضوا بالحياة الدنيا واطمأنوا بها. وقال أيضًا: ومن الذين أشركوا يود أحدهم لو يعمر ألف سنة. فالجبان يرى في ذلك مجازاته لحبه لنفسه، أما الكريم فحبه لنفسه ومنزلة نفسه ومكان نفسه، وعلو مجازاته لها أورده القتال والحرب وإن راحت به مهجته. فاختلف الرزقان، والفعل واحدٌ. وقد خَلص أبو الطيب نفسه في سنٍ مبكرة من اتقاء الموت والحرب، فقال في صباه:

فهُنا هو آمر نفسه: ردي هي الأمر لصيغة المؤنث من فعل “ورد” (وهو نفس الفعل الذي ذكره في البيت أعلاه: أورده الحربا) والحياض هو جمع الحوض، ومنه كانت تشرب الناس وكذا الإبل والشاء. ثم أنظر إلى قولته “واتركي” وهي تعني اتركي، وتمعن هنا في استخدام صيغة الافتعال للمبالغة، فيا حبذا ترك كهذا الترك لا رجعة فيه. وفعل الورود هنا له دلاله، فالورود هو القُدوم على الشيء، وليس فقط تقبله، أي أنه لا يأمر نفسه بألا تهب الموت وحسب، بل أن ترده، ويعلل ذلك بعد بيتين بأن المجد والعلا لا يأتيان إلا بذي السُبل، فيقول:

لا والله يا أبا الطيب لا يُملك الملك إلا بذلك.

Carl Jung, “The Love Problem of a Student,” in Civilization in Transition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978, vol. 10 of the Collected Works), §§231-2, 111-112:

URL: https://thematamixta.blogspot.com/2024/12/let-no-man-seek-to-make-it-easy.html

Henry David Thoreau, Journal, March 31, 1852 (emphasis mine):

URL: https://thematamixta.blogspot.com/2025/01/something-worth-living.html

This comment was actually hilarious.

كان المعري يذكر اسم من يقتبسه، فلو اقتبس من النابغة الذبياني شيئًا يقول: “قال الذبياني” أو “قال الفرزدق” وهلم جرا، ولكن إذا ما اقتبس من المتنبي كان يقول “قال الشاعر” وكأنه لا شاعرٌ سوى المتنبي. وللمتنبي كثير في المعنى، فما كان يرتضي لفظة “شاعر” غير لنفسه، فوصف من يعانده من الشعراء الآخرين قائلًا:

فيصغر باقي الشعراء على نفسه. وله أيضًا:

وللمتنبي باع طويل في التصغير. فيقول:

وكتب عباس محمود العقاد في كتابه “مطالعات في الكتب والحياة” فصلًا عن التصغير عند المتنبي، ولأيمن العتوم الكثير من المقاطع على النت عن ولع المتنبي بالتصغير. المهم، أن المتنبي كان يُصغر باقي شعراء عصره، وكان المعري لا يرى شاعرًا سواه. وللمتنبي أيضًا كثير في هذا الوصف، فيقول:

أي: لا أرى شاعرٌ سواي. وفي نفس القصيدة في البيت التالي يقول ألا سيف سوى سيف الدولة:

ويقول له أيضًا:

طيب الله ثراه.

في الصورة التالية: محمود شاكر يتحدث عن نبوغ المتنبي: 01.

أختلف المؤرخون حول نسب وأصل المتنبي، وأورد أغلب المترجمون له ثلاثة أنساب مختلفة، والرواية الراجحة بين المؤرخين أنه كان ابن سقاء (والسقاء كان بائع المياه في ذلك العصر) وهذا كان عن راوية التنوخي وغيره. ومن الغامض أيضًا أنه قد سُجن بعض سنين في شبابه، وقيل إن سبب الدفن هو ادعاء المتنبي أنه نبي (ويذكر مع هذا غالبًا قوله: “أنا في أُمة تداركها الله - غريبٌ كصالحٍ في ثمودِ. أو روايته في طبرية أنه كان يعلم الناس بموعد هطول المطر)، وأضيف لذلك أن هذا سبب تسميته ”المتنبي" أي ادعاءه النبوة. وقد فند هذا القول الكثير من المحللين ومنهم ابن النحوي والذي قال إن المتنبي يعني العالي المرتفع عن الأرض. ومن الغامض كذلك عنه هو علاقته مع العلويين المنتسبين لعلي ابن أبي طالب، فمن الثابت تعلم المتنبي في مدارس العلويين (ومدارس العلويين لا يدخلها سواهم، وهذا غريب في حد ذاته، فكل الأنساب التي وردت للمتنبي لم تورد أنه علوي النسب) ولكن مع كِبر سنه، فإنه يتجنب العلويين ولا يمدح من قومهم سوى واحد تمرد عليهم، ويذكر أنهم تربصوا له وحاولوا اغتياله غير مره. وفي الصورة التالية يوضح محمود شاكر رؤيته لحياة المتنبي ويوضح اجتهاده لتقريب ما جرى من غموض: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07.

I wrote about the Industry and Consumption of Pornography a while ago. Today I learnt that Baudrillard has a related theoryFrederic Lenoir, Philosophy of desire (Dar Al Saqi, 2023), 45. that reminded me of the Social Learning theory in the sociobiological theories of rape:

• Note taken on [2025-05-01 Thu 22:14]
  I wrote this note 5 months ago before migrating to MacOS. I still think that NixOS is a great OS though.

Can’t wait for getting my new laptop and installing NixOS on it.

I found an interesting piece by Leo Tolstoy: https://www.marxists.org/archive/tolstoy/1900/slavery-of-our-times.html on wage labor:

القصيدة دي لها مكان خاص عندي، من أول مرة قرأتها وحسيت بخصوصية لها وبؤلفه شديدة: المتنبي متثبت بخيط أمل رفيع للغاية (علاقته بأبي شجاع فاتك، ومُنياه في انقلابه على كافور الإخشيدي)، بيبدأها بإنه يبث فَقره: لا خيل عندك. ومعه هدفه من الغنى: “تُهديها”، أي الجود وليس المال لأجل الرفاه. حُزنه المستمر على بقاء نيته محل النية: “وَإِن تَكُن مُحكَماتُ الشُكلِ تَمنَعُني” وقدرته فقط على البوح بها دون إنفاذها: “فَلي فيهِنَّ تَصهالُ” تذكيره لنفسه بأمل مشقته ومعاناته في الحياة: لَولا المَشَقَّةُ سادَ الناسُ كُلُّهُمُ ... الجودُ يُفقِرُ وَالإِقدامُ قَتّالُ، وأخيرًا تسليمه بأنه وُلد في غير زمانه Some are born posthumously : ذِكرُ الفَتى عُمرُهُ الثاني وَحاجَتُهُ ما قاتَهُ وَفُضولُ العَيشِ أَشغالُ. عَرفت فيما بعد أن المتنبي كتب هذه القصيدة عندما كان يقطن نفس المدينة التي أقطنها حاليًا، ويا لها من صدفة. مات أمل أبو الطيب المتنبي (أبو شجاع فاتك) بعد شهور قليلة من القصيدة، وماتت بعده أمال المتنبي الكثيرة، ومات معها فارسًا مقبلًا. طيب الله ثراه.

My friend’s university sent her today a PDF file that was bundled inside an MS windows executable (exe), she needed to run it outside of the Windows machine. Upon extracting it, I found it was bundled as a Kotobee ebook, which turned to be a DRM service to create “interactive books”. After doing a quick binary analysis to ensure that we are indeed dealing with a DRM’d exe file (and not embarrassingly fdoc file renamed to be .exe), I managed to build a document out of it. Here’s the steps:

First of all, simply, extract the exe content:

unzip file.exe -d extracted_directory

The extracted directory should have a similar tree to this:

larrasket [~/tmp/rq/e]$ ls -l
total 152
-rw-r--r-- 1 l l   2227 Aug 21 14:42 config.js
drwxr-xr-x 1 l l     44 Aug 21 14:42 css
drwxr-xr-x 1 l l     52 Aug 21 14:42 epub
drwxr-xr-x 1 l l     90 Aug 21 14:42 fonts
-rw-r--r-- 1 l l  10709 Aug 21 14:42 icon.png
drwxr-xr-x 1 l l      4 Aug 21 14:42 img
drwxr-xr-x 1 l l      0 Aug 21 14:42 imgUser
-rw-r--r-- 1 l l  14844 Aug 21 14:42 index.html
drwxr-xr-x 1 l l     98 Aug 21 14:42 js
drwxr-xr-x 1 l l     74 Aug 21 14:42 lib
drwxr-xr-x 1 l l    232 Aug 21 14:42 locales
-rw-r--r-- 1 l l 116350 Aug 21 14:42 npmModules.min.js
-rw-r--r-- 1 l l    294 Aug 21 14:42 package.json

From here it’s very obvious that we can run this node app in a web server. You can run a simple http server here:

python3 -m http.server 9000

And the app will be available at port 9000. Alternatively you can build an epub from the provided epub directory:

Inside the epub directory append the mimetype

zip -0X "../book.epub" mimetype
zip -rDX9 "../book.epub" * -x "*.DS_Store" -x mimetype

This will get you the epub. Right after, you can convert it to pdf with epub-tools:

ebook-convert ../book.epub ../book.pdf

As a single command:

(zip -0X "../book.epub" mimetype && \\
│   │zip -rDX9 "../book.epub" * -x "*.DS_Store" -x mimetype) \\
│   │   && ebook-convert ../book.epub ../book.pdf

It’s been said we are in the age of pricing. The Age of Commodity. I had a lot of thoughts about that when I was reading this paragraph from Harper’s review (“Were all going to be dead soon.”):

I was reading Messiri’s “Rehlati al-fikriah”, and he mentioned something very interesting there about Paul Fussell, the renowned literary historian, apparently he was one of his PhD external examiners. But that’s not the interesting thing, it is what he mentions about him: being a homosexual pervert. I was shocked from the information that Messiri mentioned about him, that I quickly jumped to Wikipedia searching for anything with the keyword “gay”, “homosexual”, etc.. Nothing (surprisingly) was there, I started to think that Messiri might have linked to some other Paul Fussel. I then tried to search Google with keywords like “homosexual” “Paul Fussel”, still, nothing there. I was finally certain that either Messiri is talking about someone else, or this information were discrete. Then I read a post on HN that was talking about Kagi, a less screwed (suckless) search engine, it quickly linked me to the information Messiri mentioned about Fussel (his wife article about their relationship and how he would like to enter a room full of guests naked)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnacdOIoTBQ

I don’t frequently post here, or anywhere, unlike past times. Lately I explored one of my friend’s music library, he told me how it’s extremely diverse, he was correct about it. I later wondered if that has anything to do with a disorder that he suffers from, which relates to his ear. I wonder if how his music changes has anything to do with how that acoustic disorder affect his music taste. I also wondered if there’s anything about me that affects my frequency of writing here. Sometimes it’s fascinating —even if you believe in free will— how unfree we might be. How we might have the wrong ideas because the search engine chooses not to be helpful enough, or have different views due to a biological state. Related.

FOOS restrictions are really harmful to the progress of software development. I advocate for the freedom of software, but I really dislike the way that other adherents use that freedom which usually conclude making the progress/development much slower. An average GNU fanatic user would require people to use some free git hosting, would refuse to make support for non-free systems, might discourage usage of non “fully free” licensed software packages. All of this result in making the progress really slow (and I’m not here talking even about the FSF signture stuff in the PR I linked above). Take for example the usage of a fully-free Git hosting, like codeforage and the whatnot, this is totally fine as in concept, but practically many people are just used to Microsoft’s github, many people (in fact the majority of people) don’t know how to use emails for patchs and issues (in the case of other forges like sourcehut), and many people just won’t be encouraged enough to do any of this (or even register at a new forge other than github).

• [2024-11-30 Sat 15:43] Related: Your PR Process Is Killing Morale and Productivity

I’m reorganizing my bibliography, found out that there are many titles that I felt nostalgic towards. Many titles are related to people I used to discuss with or phases in my life. Some of them are:

In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (Russell, B.)

one of the very first books I’ve ever read.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Campbell, J.)

I really miss that era of exploring Campbell and psychoanalysis… used to be in a very fun communities.

The Human Web (McNeill et al.)

It was a very hard job for me to get a paper version of this book, I remember reading it in public transportation, in winter.

Being Mortal (Gawande, A.)

Same as previous one, I read it in the same era.

The Naked Ape (Morris, D.)

I’ve some of the dearest memories with this book. I remember recommending it to somebody, they were too shy to discuss the sex chapter and I found that funny, we never talked or met again.

Your Inner Fish (Shubin, N.)

one of the first books ever that I read about evolution, recommended to me by my neighbor after he saw the documentary.

Totem and taboo (Freud, S.)

My first book to read by Freud, first book to get me very invested into the psychoanalysis theory as well. I even made infographics for this book. It also introduced me to many other European orientalists.

Group Psychology (Freud, S.)

Second book to read for Freud, was recommended to me by the same friend who recommended “Your Inner Fish”.

Differential Equations for Dummies (Holzner, S.)

very bad memories with this one.

Algorithms (Sedgewick, R.)

This was my alternative for the common algorithms reference, I don’t even remember the name of that reference anymore.

Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis (Shaffer, C.)

My first algorithms book, one of the books that I completed 100% of it. I truly loved it, I had a TODO note to thank the author, but I never did.

So many other memories with the rest of the list! خُلِقتُ أَلوفاً لَو رَحَلتُ إِلى الصِبا لَفارَقتُ شَيبي موجَعَ القَلبِ باكِيا.

• [2025-05-23 Fri 17:26] Sometimes I wonder whether that feeling is healthy.

I really like Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s PDFs (preview here), however, they do not allow you to download it without a subscription. It’s actually good enough for a subscription if you compare it to the HTML. For someone like me, my HTML appetite can not hold more than few long articles, SEP average entry is about ~50 pages or so, that’s not a long article even. Here’s how I get their entries as nice PDFs without subscription, simply save the article part of the HTML page into a file, and using pandoc run:

pandoc concept_of_religion.html --pdf-engine=xelatex -o concept_of_religion.pdf --variable=documentclass:book -V geometry:b5paper -V margin=3cm -V mainfont="Times New Roman"

Basically almost every Lisp out there have a major downside that turns me down from using it to the extent I consider using Haskell’s s-expression tolerance (like (map odd [1,2,3]) (((.) fst snd) (1,(2,3))))

• Common Lisp: Classical OOP everywhere, very bad build automation and packaging (asdf), available implementations have low support, bugs are everywhere due to the limited teams who are working on those.
• Scheme: Same as CL, in addition to the scare language support in most editor (not sure even if it has a Lisp), also it’s hard to find libraries/packages to build something on.
• EuLisp, ZetaLisp, MacLisp, InterLisp, ISLisp, T, Arc, PicoLisp: I still find it hard to believe those are not in the museum of computing yet.
• Guile, Racket: both look so promising but the lack of interest from community which inevitability results in an effect on the number of available packages to build on make it much harder to start a new project in any of them without reinventing the wheel.
• Clojure: aside from the JVM dependency and the build system hassle, the language is just too big, still the most plausible option in this whole list though.

I’d always prefer a Lisp. But ideally, Go wins (more at The Prefect Programming Language) by its unauthoritarian package manager and not using exception handling. As aforementioned @ A thought about Clojure, I think Clojure is the modern day Lisp that works very good for interactive programming and rapid development. But here’s another killer feature of Go that roughly does not exist elsewhere: the great STD. With Go, I can feel very comfortable writing a Go application without the need of checking the internet for questions or 3rd-party libraries, eventually I might need to, but if compared to any other tool I’ve ever used, it’s amazing (back in the day when I used C# I’d need a web browser always running alongside to my IDE). I do not have internet connection those days and while playing tracks I thought of building a simple CLI to handle my audio tracks synchronization, I know how to do it without reinventing the wheel in Go, with only using the STD, with Clojure, it’s going to be unrapid developement.

Here’s my consolation for a very big part of my life of which I remind myself very frequently especially if I’m suspecting the existence of stupidity around. A solace that often comes to the forefront. Let me establish something that is misconstrued usually, people think that smart people tend to be evil much more than stupid people. Which is correct, intelligent people would be indeed much more capable of doing harm (i.e. evil). However, here’s the thing about stupidity; evilness is highly subjective that a stupid person does not have to be aware that he/she is seeking something achieved, that he/she is harming or even doing anything at all to be ’evil’ to an intelligent individual. I want to give you some example but لولا النفوس الضعيفة سريعة المرض، سيئة الغرض I’d skip on that. Anyway, let’s get back to my point about where I find my consolation about this kind of nefarious and base evilness: it bounces back. Stupids, imbeciles and retards 99% of the times hurt themselves back, making shitty life decisions or just of being irritating to others. Their decisions, marred by imprudence, or merely their presence, vexatious to others, invariably rebound upon them. “Errare humanum est, sed in errare perseverare diabolicum”.

Found out that Clojure has Go-like channels. https://clojure.org/guides/async_walkthrough, very promising to use it (as mentioned at a thought about Clojure)