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Childhood stories Non-tech

The Orwellian Surrealism of Saddam Hussein-Era School Assemblies

How schools were the most important part of the brainwashing machinery.

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Uncategorized

On Dogs and Love

One of the few first comments Arabs say in Europe is “man, people here love their dogs”. Well this Arab every day now says “maan I love my dog”. I always believed dogs are engineered to be friendly and adorable. But all that theoritical knowledge comes nowhere near what it really feels like once you […]

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Childhood stories Non-tech Unpolished thoughts

Home Country

Sixteen years old and a naïve devout typical Sunni Iraqi boy, I had a big solid identity with all sorts of strongly-held beliefs. An average Iraqi teenager, with a regular mix of nationalism, belonging, and a general tribal tendency of connectedness with everything and everyone around me, although with a dash of rebelion. Being a […]

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Tech

Reviewing Dell UltraSharp U4919DW Ultrawide Monitor: Six Months In as a Developer

To save you some time, most of this review only applies to using it with macOS. On Windows, it’s quite different due to the Dell Display Manager app, which doesn’t exist yet for macOS, Dell promises to release it by early 2021. I was hesitant to get such a massive monitor. But when I read […]

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Childhood stories

Stories from my Childhood – Catching up on Homework

Two years after an eight-year exhaustive war with Iran from 1980 – 1988, in an ill-fated, immoral, and reckless endeavor, Saddam Hussein decided to invade Kuwait on August 2nd, 1990. The result was, according to Wikipedia, a “decisive Iraqi victory”. This started an avalanche of geopolitical transitions in the area that essentially destroyed Iraq. The […]

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Childhood stories

Stories from my Childhood – Playing Hide-and-Seek in Baghdad

Twenty years ago or so, in a hot Baghdadi summer afternoon, my aunt’s family visited us for a sleepover, a frequent event that was exciting for myself and the other kids; my brothers, sister, and cousins. It was always thrilling to have extended family over. I loved the freedom and the relative chaos at the […]

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Non-tech

Buying Cycling Gear – Advice From an Absolute Noob

Given my limited experience in this, I can’t help you choose the right bike; the selection is huge, and your type of usage is key in deciding. I’ll just list the mistakes I made, hoping to save you from making them. This post is meant for other noobs like myself, if you have any experience, […]

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Tech

4 Creative Ways to JavaScript Timing in Browsers

This article assumes the availability for Web APIs, therefore, most methods suggested here don’t work in NodeJS. Using an infinite synchronous loop in a Web Worker (not Service Worker) Since Web Workers are essentially web threads, you can infinitely loop inside them without blocking the main thread. This gives you access to sub-millisecond time resolutions. […]

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Non-tech Tech

Do Not Use Your Employer’s Email Account to Negotiate Anything Legal

TL;DR: because they can delete everything. By employer’s email account I mean something like you@youremployersdomain.com. I recently parted ways with my previous employer. It all went super smoothly and my previous employer was nothing but super nice and compassionate. However, after a while, they naturally shut down my email account. And I was so close […]

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Tech

Trying out Svelte as a React Developer

I have been so excited to try out Svelte v3 since it came out in late April. But I wasn’t sure what to build. I built TodoMVC app and it didn’t feel enough to test out a framework, took me around 30 mins. Plus, it’s already built by Svelte team and this made it feel […]