Bring back small blogs

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I merged, combined, summarized, and re-published pages on this blog and made it as small as possible. Bring back small blogs. Web used to have so many small yet awesome blogs. We used to spend a lot of our time reading material published on them, not caring about the design or off-topic pages.

Let’s bring that back. I start with myself. I don’t need a long bio page or every detail about my internet presence. There’s no need to include every way you can contact me. I won’t make long lists about what I use, nobody cares about that. Though I can publish a post about it.

I won’t explain everything and every word, I can link to Wikipedia or send people to a web site that explains that well. I’ll stay focused on the topic I’m talking about.

I won’t care if the design is old or new. I won’t care if people think sidebars are outdated. If it’s usable and satisfies the reader, then it’s good enough for me. I want to focus on what’s important here, which is what I share and what I have to say.

I feel all the attention that goes to these pages are to satisfy our urge for attention. We should stop playing for the invisible audience and let go of ourselves. We’re not the main focus of other people. Most people won’t care about whether our site is blue or green or purple. If you like an special color, then set it for your theme but stop caring about my opinion on it.

I believe we should bring back small blogs because we’re now full of crappy corporate web that values benefit before people. We should bring back small blogs because those are the blogs that put people behind everything else. We used to care so much about what we publish, not how much we explain ourselves.

Nobody cares if I use Emacs or Vim. Nobody cares if I have 16 GB of RAM. Nobody cares about the distribution of GNU+Linux I run on my computer. I may explain or share my experience using them, and those can be useful for many people, including me, but I feel nobody cares about a long list of tools I use. People may read it but nobody misses it when it’s gone.

Well, this is my feeling. It’s not wrong to feel otherwise and it certainly is not wrong to do the opposite.

Wonders of the world

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Part of job is to take photos and create documentation. Today, while I was taking photos from the construction site, I wondered how does this ‘photography’ works. Like how is it possible to tap on a screen and capture a moment of life and save that view forever?

Ever thought about that? I know the engineering that makes it possible and the science behind it but does it ever make you wonder?

I started writing this post on my computer at work on my free time, then continued writing using my phone on my way back home. Isn’t it fascinating that I can write my blog in various locations using different devices? Isn’t it awesome that I can publish what I started a 100 kilometers later? (Oh yeah I travel 100 kilometers twice a day to work and back — so 200 km/d.)

I’m writing this on my personal computer at home right now. Back to the photography. How cool is that? I’m able to point a device at something, tap on a screen, and capture that sight forever and ever. Even the phone itself. How amazing is that I can tap on a screen and write words?

I know that these things are normal now. I know that there are far so many mind-blowing technologies that are so much more interesting than a simple touch-screen but I still get amazed from simple stuff like this.

I sit in a huge box on wheels that has speed of more than 90 km/s to go to work every day. It takes me about an hour and 10 minutes to get there. A hundred years ago I’d have to ride a horse for that. Working in a place 100 kilometers far wouldn’t even make sense, that would’ve been impossible at that time.

I’m so happy that I was born in a time with all these technologies. I travel through mountains as easy as abc because there are technologies to build tunnels. I can talk to people 5000 kilometers away from me because there are cables under the ocean to make it possible.

It’s too hot here, more than 40 degrees Celsius at noon but I can cool off because there are devices installed on our buildings to turn down the temperature. Isn’t it astonishing?

Do you ever think about the simplest normallest (I know that’s not a word) technology we use every day? Ever thought about how cool is the car’s engine? Ever wondered how does the TV remote control work? Ever thought about how amazing is the washing machine? You throw your clothes in it and it washes them for you. It can even make them dry!

I still get surprised when I use these inventions. I don’t take them for granted. I enjoy every moment of them. I think they are staggering and we’re not thankful for our lives enough to appreciate them correctly.

When I was writing this post, my computers told me which word I wrote incorrectly. They drew a red line under the incorrect words. They even suggested words to me and sometimes predicted what I was going to write next. Damn, that’s awesome.

Spit, not rinse

Aside

I just found out that when you brush your teeth, both morning and night, you should spit but not rinse. Toothpaste contains fluoride which helps strengthen your teeth. By not rinsing with water, fluoride in the toothpaste will stay on your teeth for longer helping to keep them strong.

Exhausted

Aside

I’m exhausted from all the news and threats and everything. Every day we wake up to another horrible alert that another war is starting. I just wrote a thousand words and deleted all of it. It shouldn’t need an entire article to tell people how bad a war is. I’m just exhausted of being a Middle Easterner. It’s not fair.

Will feminists work on oil wells? That’s not the right question!

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Would a woman, specially a feminist woman, work on an oil well? I don’t know. The Oxford dictionary defines feminism as “the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.” Which is very cool. If feminism means that, I’m a feminist.

But, then, you hear so many weird reasons that feminism sucks or feminists are anti-men. Are they though? I mean the definition of feminism is pretty clear. A feminist fights for equal rights for men and women. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Then they come. Those dumb idiots who step further than the general agenda and try to sabotage a movement so they can gain some popularity or satisfy their need to be acknowledged. Some become anti-men or suggest crazy things. I’ve seen those who suggest that a woman should not limit herself to her husband or unborn babies are parasites. Best thing to do with them is to ignore them and worst thing to do is to dismiss the whole feminist movement because some crazy people are speaking their crazy minds.

Then comes the idiot men who want to oppose this craziness with more madness. Like they try to give you idiotic reasons to discredit the feminist movement. They give you foolish reasons such as feminists only want to work in high-paying jobs or they won’t work as a sweeper and if they don’t find a good job, they would rely on their husband.

Well who wouldn’t? Are men different in this matter? Won’t you protest if a high-paying job wasn’t available to you because of your sex? If you could rely on someone in life instead of becoming a sweeper, you would turn that down?

My friend, the whole agenda of feminism is that if a woman wants to become a sweeper, or mine worker, or CEO, she should be able to. If a woman wants to become a construction worker, she shouldn’t be rejected because it’s a man’s work. It’s that simple. It’s that easy.

It’s all about opportunity and availability. It’s not that the feminist movement wants to force you to quit your job and place a woman there, it’s that if a woman has the same abilities as you, and wants to work the same job as you, she should be able to. It doesn’t mean that you’ll get fired, it means that a woman should be able to compete with you on the basis of her abilities, not on the basis of her or your sex.

It’s not fair that a man gets a job because of his sex, while there’s a woman more skilled than that man for the same work. And it’s not fair that a man gets paid more than a woman, or gets treated better than a woman, because of his sex. I’m not saying that men are getting more, I find no evidence of that, I’m just saying that the feminist movement is about that.

It’s about opportunity. No, I don’t think a woman wants to work as a repairer on a telecommunication tower at high altitudes, but if she wants to, she should be able to, if she has the skills. If she doesn’t want to, she’s free not to work that job. Exactly how it should be for men. It’s about equality. Will a woman work on an oil well? I don’t know. But feminism is about whether she should be able to or not. If she doesn’t want to, that doesn’t discredit the movement. It’s really easy to understand.

Men and women are different. Biologically, we’re not the same. That biologic difference has been a reason to treat them differently. Women had a role in society and men’s role were something else. Now that women are behaving differently and are capable of doing a lot of what historically were men’s job, we should remove those behaviors and social rules from our lives and treat everybody with equality and justice.

We should treat everybody based on their skills and abilities and disregard their genders. The feminist movement tries to put this equality and justice in place. It doesn’t want to remove men from power, it just wants to make room for women who are able to do the same job.

Holidays

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I’ve been on Nowruz holiday for the last week and I have to go to work tomorrow morning. There’s a four hour drive ahead of me and I’m getting sad already. It’s not that I don’t want to work or something, it’s just that I’m leaving my friends and all the memories I have here, again.

I already miss everything. I miss the morning coffees, launches we ordered, cafes we went, movies we watched, shopping we did, games we played, and stuff we ate, and most importantly, friends we met again.

I’m the excited kind of guy. I get excited for every little thing I buy or experience. I get excited for the delicious fruits of this season such as Persian green almonds as much as I get excited when I bought my new car.

Holidays always make me happy and excited. I get to go to my favorite places, meet my favorite people, eat my favorite foods, and enjoy the city I love. I get to be myself and enjoy what I have and be relaxed.

It makes me sad that I’m leaving. It makes me sad that holidays are ending for me, this year sooner than usual, and it makes me sad that I have to wait a long time to get this opportunity again. But every time I get sad I remember the good memories and I cheer myself up because I know I’ll get to experience all those good memories and relaxed time again.

Social networks are not always bad

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I avoid using social networks. It’s just that I don’t like them and I find them irritating. But are they always bad? I don’t think so.

I’ve advocated for using ethical social networks such as Fediverse/Mastodon instead of crappy ones like Instagram and Twitter but I have my own reasons. My objections to these networks are that they treat users unfairly, violate their rights, and keep business their first priority.

I don’t like social networks, I don’t use them, but I have less objections to ethical ones than to ones like Facebook. I may not be OK with the feeling I get of an ethical social network but one like Instagram gives me 100 more reasons.

However, I would still object to banning them. You see, I think it’s bad that these corporations are harvesting users’ data but if one, consciously, wants to use them, one has every right to.

I always tell people to avoid these networks but I’m completely against forcing people to leave them. These networks have a massive flow of information passing through them and this flow helps people express themselves and share information they might not get from other sources.

Accessing social networks are essential for freedom today. They are replacing news sources and information channels; and they’ve become a force from people to protect themselves from injustice and tyranny. Banning them only helps corruption.

I don’t praise what they do, I still find them too much unappealing but I can’t deny the amount of good they do for people. I can’t deny how much they’ve helped people survive a world of misinformation and propaganda. They have become a tool for people to actually have a voice.

Everything these proprietary privacy-violating social networks such as Twitter do, can be done using user freedom-respecting privacy-minded social networks such as Mastodon but for now, we’re stuck with these crappy ones.

I cheer for replacing these proprietary networks with free/libre ones but I also will protest banning them. Banning them may do some god but it will do more damage as it will only take away people’s voice.

Banning them will only result in more corruption and more violation of people’s right and freedom. These social networks, free or nonfree, have given people a voice and a power to make actual social change and they have become a powerful tool for people to fight for themselves.

They make dictators unhappy, they make tyrants angry, and they make powerful people weak in front of people. They empower people the way nobody can’t. They bring back freedom of expression to people, the way nobody is able to.

I don’t use social networks but I’m happy they exist as they’ve made the world much better place. Because of them, many tyrants are actually afraid of people and maybe are kept in place. I may not use them but I appreciate them every day.