“Ivan spent the night with a Polish prostitute, lighting one cigarette with another.Dmitri asked: You who loved Matryoshka, why?Ivan said: I imagined it.” The winter I had just gone through had numbed every cell in me. The devastating blow I received on my birthday kept me trapped for three month... Read All

“I tell him: since you’re worthless, leave, go. Why are you bothering us? He says: no. I won’t go! My words make no sense to him. Just like that calligrapher who wrote three types of script: one only he could read... one both he and others could read... and one neither he nor others could read. That... Read All

Today is March 30, 2018 (10 Farvardin 1397), and it’s been exactly 5 months, 150 days, since that afternoon when I smoked my last cigarette in front of the barracks and walked away. Looking back today, even using the term “smoking” makes me uneasy, let alone the act itself. This time, I made the fir... Read All

It’s been 4 months and 20 days since I finished my military service, and I’ve tried as hard as I did 10 years ago to reach some short-term goals during this time. But life school, once again, gave me a lesson instead of a grade: to permanently remove toxic people from my life and not expect them to ... Read All

Matthew Turner said during a speech at the University of Texas in 2003: Try never to be the smartest person in the room. If you are, I suggest inviting smarter people into your group or finding another room. This practice is known as networking in professional circles, team building in organiza... Read All

My friend emailed me: Hello Araz, I follow you on Twitter and wanted to ask for some advice. I’d really appreciate your guidance. I want to have a source of income in Turkey and, given my interests, I chose web design. I don’t want to become fully professional; just knowing coding enough to co... Read All

Just give me one reason this scenario might not be accurate: Edward Snowden was allegedly tasked by the NSA to leak information, and one possible goal of this intentional leak could be as follows: Imagine Edward as one of us and follow his recommendations. For example, you use a communication app he... Read All

I was really excited when the late Maelstrom project came out and the possibilities it promised. Imagine the BitTorrent network, but instead of torrent files, we had websites (or hypertext content) on those nodes that could be seeded and leeched. This way, your website would be everywhere and nowher... Read All

I’m a huge fan of new technologies. I don’t mean a hundred-core phone from some obscure East Asian company. I mean technologies that push us forward, things like BitTorrent, Tor, Maelstrom, blockchain, DeepMind, and free networks. Amid the hype where everyone’s become a miner or trader, it might be ... Read All

These days, I’m really challenging the truth. Some nights, I go so far that I lose track of time. Considering that even a slight breeze could disrupt my connection with reality at any moment, I hope this intense dive into truth doesn’t lead to serious consequences.... Read All

Prison or confining people is one thing from the outside, another from the inside. Although I’ve never been to prison, I used to think I could handle a year behind bars without problems. But after experiencing military service, I realized something different. During service, whenever I wanted (well,... Read All

There’s a line between being humble and giving others permission to tear you down, as thin as a hair. Watch this line carefully, destruction and humiliation are tools used by foolish people to undermine your confidence, make themselves look bigger, or take advantage of you. Be cautious of those w... Read All