Most well-known living philosophies -such as Cynicism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Buddhism, and Sufism- advocate some form of Asceticism. This could involve various acts such as fasting, deliberately confronting personal fears, or even something as subtle as choosing not to pour salt on food. But regardless of the specific way that these practices...
When you interact with a text file using an editor, what you see doesn’t necessarily reflect the data stored in the file. Sure, the contents of plain text files are byte codes encoded in formats like ASCII, UTF8, or UTF16, and these byte codes are the ultimate source of truth. But in the end, it’s still your text editor that chooses how to...
When we encounter new information that conflicts with our current beliefs, we typically follow one of the preceding options: Ignore the new information. Place it into your existing belief system, regardless of whether it is consistent with your other beliefs. Create an ad hoc explanation to keep our beliefs intact. Adjust or revise our existing...
Up until now, I was not aware that concurrency and parallelism were actually different things since they are often used interchangeably by some. I just learned that this is not the case while reading Chapter 9 of the book “Clojure for the Brave and True.” This made me want to learn more about concepts related to concurrency and parallelism,...
In this essay, I share some tips that I’ve found particularly beneficial for my own debugging experience. Hope it helps the reader as well. If you have any cool tips you’d also like to share, feel free to share them. I might include them in the essay and give you credit for it. Writing Logs to STDERR I’ve noticed that developers, myself included,...
I’ve switched my desktop computer environment from Arch Linux to NixOS and used it for about a month. I want to share my migration experience in case it might interest or even help others. I also want to thank my friends Onur and Mert for encouraging me to switch to NixOS and providing help. Why Migrate from Arch in the first place? As someone...
Try the extension in Chrome or in Firefox See the source code kugurerdem/mark-scroll-positions I like reading blog posts a lot. While some of them are short and easy to read, most of them are long and require more time to finish. When reading those long essays, I take a break most of the time. Thus, when I re-open an essay, I often lose...
A significant amount of my time of the day is spent interacting with computers and cell phones. Some of these are due to habits (like having a feeling of missing out), some are due to reasons related to dopamine (like watching movies, tv-series or content which are supposed to be fun), and some are related to work (software development) or...
After finishing the book “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse, I felt a need to explore Buddhism in more detail. People often say that the core teachings of Buddha offer a simple philosophy, which consists of only a few precepts and essential concepts. I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to spend some time understanding the core principles of Buddhism, one...
I usually enjoy listening to certain types of ambient music or sounds when doing repetitive tasks or even when meditating. In the comment section of these kinds of videos, there are often people spreading love and writing nice things to each other. After consuming so many videos of this kind, I’ve started to predict that these kinds of comments...
My mother recently mentioned that her phone is continually opening certain windows and prompting her to use services she doesn’t need. After checking her phone and doing some online research, I found out that many others have also complained about this issue. Apparently, she was referring to pop-ups triggered by a pre-built program called “SIM...
For those who may not be aware, Neovim is to me what a lightsaber is to a Jedi. It forms an essential part of my routine, as I use it for nearly all my tasks involving text. Be it drafting an essay, sending an email, or coding, Neovim is my go-to tool. Moreover, I have a deep admiration for the UNIX philosophy and its command-line interface...
In this essay, I describe how I made a Node.js module to listen to keypresses across the system on Linux machines using X. This experience helped me grasp how the OS and Window Managers handle keyboard inputs, clarifying the reasons behind an unexpected behavior I had encountered before, which I also mention in the essay. If you’re interested in...
I’ve recently been involved in a fintech project that demands high performance, posing various challenges related to a solid understanding of low-level concepts, concepts that are primarily relevant to the inner workings of the tools and protocols used beneath the surface. One challenge involved separating two tasks into different processes: The...
In the following essay, I will reflect on my journey which led me to become a software developer. I intend this essay to be more of a personal reflection than a technical advisement. But whether you are a seasoned programmer or a newcomer to the world of software development, I hope that my experiences and insights will provide valuable guidance...
Typing Fast is Important It is often mentioned that the bottleneck in building software projects is not one’s typing ability but ability to think clearly, and to design the architecture effectively. Afterall, if typing speed was so essential to programming, the time difference between rewriting an already existing project with that of creating it...
About a year ago, I was invited to a pair coding session at the startup where I was working. The developers were receiving consultancy from a strange person. At one point, he took control of the screen sharing while reviewing some of the pull requests that had been made to our codebase. When he shared his screen, there was nothing but a black...
This essay was originally written for the ‘Introduction to Philosophy I’ (PHIL103) course at Bilkent University, where we delved into various branches of philosophy, including consciousness. It reflects some of the thought processes that arose as I grappled with these philosophical questions. It’s important to note that this essay is not an exact...
Full-stack software developer with a B.Sc. in Mathematics from Bilkent University (2023). I’ve been building software since 2015 and working professionally since 2021. I am a developer with a hacker’s mindset. I dive deep into the technologies I use and study the philosophy behind them. I use Arch Linux NixOS as desktop OS, Vim to edit and write,...