Notes from October 2026
2026-10-01
We went to our riad's rooftop yesterday to watch the sunset. It turned out to be a bust due to architecture: the sun was setting behind a wall. And when I tried to look around it, there was another building there with another wall. But we stayed anyway. The host made mint tea for us and it was generally pleasant.
And that's when the final adhan, the call to prayer, happened. I heard it earlier yesterday but at the ground level where you're cut off from multiple sources. You hear the closest speaker and that's it. But not on a rooftop. My wife said she'd imagine they're synchronised better, but there was a slight delay between each, which made them overlap to a somewhat musical effect. And so I was sitting there and listening to this unexpected emergence.
I like logging in to the Fediverse because most people here are critical of AI. The rest outright hates it.
A post from Daniel Lakeland
Fediverse, the social media system for 40+ year old people who built the world wide web and regret it.
Fez's Medina is the largest car-free zone in the world, or so I heard, and it's partially due to very narrow streets. Courtesy of its very old origins. And the experience is one of the kind. I wrote about the silence earlier, but it also creates a mazelike communication. You cannot see past any corner and at the same time there aren't that many dead ends, so wherever you go, you will get somewhere.
There's more to it. With buildings tightly packed, you cannot see the real size of any building. When we got to one of the madrasas, we could see a mosque from a window on the upper floor. And it was just humongous; which you could tell by the same rooftop. But from the street level it's impossible to say.
I've played many Doom maps, and it didn't prepare me for that.
I learned yesterday that there is a special breed of reply guys that have to have the last post when they talk to someone. Seems wasteful all things considered.
We went to see the King's palace today. You cannot get inside but it's still worth seeing. The concierge at our hotel told us it's vastly unused. Anyway. On the way, a Moroccan joined us and started talking stuff. He gave us a little tour around the less touristic area. I was wondering if we were supposed to tip him afterwards, but he split on his own at some point. He was surprised to learn that stork is considered a Polish symbol. As it's Moroccan as well.
The guy told us also that he had a Polish friend and even showed her contact on his phone. (I can confirm that she had a Polish last name.) He told us then that she, or Polish tourists in general, tend to take pictures of cats in the streets. "Even the dirtiest ones," he added half surprised.
Looking back, reading books must have had the best ratio when it comes to speed of acquiring information. Not too fast, not too slow. The oral tradition was too slow; although it gave us rhyming. What we have now is too fast. Books were just on point. But well. There's no going back.
I saw a bookshop today and most books in English were those that people buy at the airport on their way to the airplane. Then they leave them in riads. I was curious if I could get something interesting cheaply but nothing came to fruition. There was Haruki Murakami's "Hard-boiled Wonderland and The End of the World", but I've read it. In Polish but neither language is the original. Could've been interesting to compare them still. But anyway. I didn't take it, so there's that.
2026-10-02
If people refused to pay Facebook for the right to post more than two links a month, Meta would have to cave in. But then again, those people already are on Facebook. So what are we talking about?
On our way to the airport we saw two packs of dogs in the streets. It was five in the morning. There aren't many during the day. I wanted to take a picture but didn't have the right angle. The first pack was eating garbage.
2026-10-03
We ate in three restaurants and two of them played Cuban music. But the food was superb.
They had really good hummus.
One day
You will look back at it
And you'll miss it
"Good Times"
2026-10-05
Last two weeks were very exhausting. Malta, Fez, then my sister came. Now I'll recuperate at work. It's mostly sitting.
Comic-Con
We went to Comic-Con in Malaga yesterday. Eight hours of walking non-stop. I think I would be so hyped as a kid, but not so much these days. Not many comics that would interest me; although, the Ninja Turtles kind of caught my eye. A tonne of toys. I ended up buying one illustration and getting John Romero's book autographed. Yes, I saw John Romero in person, but our exchange was typical for fans. "I really like Doom," I said. "Keep on playing," John replied. But I was not in my best shape.
An interesting thing was that it was mostly Usonian comics. I don't recall anything European. I guess Usonians paid for it so it was Usonian. Still, seems a miss. As well as comic books being available only in Spanish. I get that it's in Spain, but I imagine people from abroad visiting too. The only place with comics in English was a stand with old releases. I suppose we'll go next year too.
Oh, and a cool thing that I did not expect to see until my eyes landed on it. So, one company had KITT. Knight Industries Two Thousand. Not sure if replica or the one from the movie, but it looked real enough.
Generally, there was a strong hype on "Avengers: Doomsday", but I dodged most of it. I thought briefly about taking a picture in the replica of Professor X's library, but I left it for later and later I was too tired. Oh well. Also, I think I'll dress more comicbook-like for the next year, so I don't look like an American tourist stumbling there by accident.
They also had Dexter's kill room. I saw it from the distance and forgot to return there later. Oh well. I guess it was not going to happen that night. But it still might happen again. And again.
2026-10-08
The end of chess
After many months of playing chess with Duolingo and losing it, it's time to admit that I'm stupid. I guess in the sense that not as smart as I had myself for. And somehow it feels liberating. I can dial down my own expectations. Go back to the start and figure thing anew. Relax.
Maybe I got dumber over time. Maybe I don't sleep enough (damn you, "No Man's Sky"). It doesn't matter. I am now.
However, this ever-hanging-above-me sense of superiority in my younger years gave me enough confidence to move on with things, and perhaps this should be the main takeaway from that. Be stubborn.
Meanwhile, I am going to keep playing Duolingo as it's a very good exercise in humility. Sounds contradicting, to be confidently stubborn and stubbornly confident while keeping one's humility, but hey, I'm stupid. What do I know?
2026-10-09
On mobile notifications
I muted a group on WhatsApp which I have with friends because they talk too much about AI. And they're mostly bullish, so there's no real discussion to have there. And I don't even mean that they're pro AI; when I try to push the direction into larger social consequences -- like developers or mathematicians resigning in droves -- they refocus the discussion to all the cool things that can be built. And I'm just tired with it. With the AI topic. I had too much of it. I'm taking a break.
It's nothing new, by the way. I had the same with pandemics, war in Ukraine, Elon Musk, genocide in Gaza, Donald Trump, and war in Iran. I jump on the subject and read extensively about it, to the point where any mention of it is just too much. I'm overloaded. And it happened again. I can't do anything about any of these things anyway. So, now pause and reset and who knows, maybe return to it later.
When the Epstein files were released, I checked two of my former bosses. Their names weren't in there.
One of the smaller things that AI ruined for me is the word "vibe" itself. It used to describe the general mood and atmosphere and composition of art. Films. Paintings. Books. Games. But with all this vibecoding going on, the context has been irreversibly spoiled. And I don't like the vibe of it.
On title placement
In 2003 I had a blog and I placed post titles after the content. "It was a post titled _______." I always felt that title works well as an identifier of posts but sometimes spoils too much in advance. Of course you might come up with a loose title, but this seems to be watering down the post itself. Or find a platform that doesn't require titles (ownlog.com had it like that). But then you're losing the identifying value. But the title at the end -- pure perfection.
That is until RSS people come to read your stuff. And of course it messes up the SEO and the document flow. Though I believe it's doable with CSS these days.
However, I no longer blog in the old sense. I write notes and longer texts. But don't blog. Although I realise that my page fulfils the criteria for blog. But I don't think about it this way. Blogging is a closed chapter in my writing life.
Trantorian Dream
Foundation prints are 30% off in our shop until Sunday (10/11) at midnight. Discount applied to cart automatically. No coupon necessary. 5/5
I saw "Trantorian Dream" over a decade ago, unattributed in any way; neither the author nor the title, though Trantor wouldn't tell me anything back then. And it stayed with me ever since. There is something realistically ridiculous yet visually acceptable in how the person stands on the top of the column. I guess it was to get to the vantage point. It definitely has a videogame vibe; something I'd do in "The Legend of Zelda". It's nice to finally put the context to the image.
That feeling when you can connect with another human being over their art. And it was a picture you saw long time ago and carried with you, not knowing anything about it. A random piece of art. Suddenly not so random. Nice.
My father once said, "I didn't raise you, kids, in any particular way. I just spent time with you." And so I decided to use the same approach when I became father myself. It's still too early to say, but so far it has been promising.
Now. I am not heavily opinionated, but if the constant is not a primitive, I would use camel case for the name. Arrays and other objects -- they're still mutable. With string or number or other primitives, it's different. It's set in stone. Cannot be undone. For the block at least.
So,
const NUMBER_OF_DAYS_IN_YEAR = 364;
but:
const arrayOfLetters = [8, 0, 0, 8, 5];
2026-10-10
Reading about Bitcoin thefts is a good distraction from the AI topic. This time $86 million and a supply chain attack. 🍿
I just realised that my newest thing is perfecting English. Which crept up on me unexpectedly. It used to be tramways -- not too far from the Fedi's favourite trains, then CSS and HTML, then JavaScript, then being a tech lead and mentoring people (an afterthought in the vibecoding era). Somewhere on the way there were Doom and Batman. And old retro games most recently. But ever since I've read "Moby Dick", English took over. Half of the pleasure of reading any book these days is analysing its language.
Reverse-engineering the Adobe suite is cool and all, but I'm curious how it will hold. Nintendo Switch reverse-engineering suffered from a legal action from its proprietor. If we consider the AI as a tool of value extraction from the bottom to the top, then we cannot have people stripping Adobe or Sony of their value. The moment seems like a win from the little people at the bottom, but it might as well be a mere mishap. Or Tech Bros going after the Old Tech using people's hands as a tool.
We should have stayed with a text-based Internet. But well.
I think I need to buy a new battery for my Fairphone.
2026-10-11
Ghosts of Mars
"Ghosts of Mars" is 2001 John Carpenter's sci-fi film. Theoretically it's a horror, but there's absolutely no tension at any point; even when they run for the train, chased by a horde of Martians. But that's fine. What this film is 25 years later is but a lovely B-movie with a really good scenography and marvellous mockups of Mars and trains. If you're up for that, then this film's for you. The acting is cheesy, but the plot structure, full of stories within the story, helps.
What got old is how Mars looks like. We know from the actual photos that Mars from the surface level is nothing but red. It has a blue sky and rocks which are not red. But I cannot hold it against the creators. We had no idea back then.
The story could be summarised as a Western in space. A group of marshals arrive to a mining village, a single street with buildings on both sides, to pick up a dangerous criminal and transport him via train for a trial. That's literally "3:10 to Yuma". In space.
There are some known faces here. The main character is played by Natasha Henstridge of the 1996 "Species" fame. There is also young Jason Statham in the cheesiest role in the film; although he manages to finally seduce the main character with his cringy one-liners. The criminal is played by Ice Cube. The funny part is that Statham was to play him at first, but the producers wanted a bigger name. Now everyone is probably like, "Who's Ice Cube?".
And then Clea DuVall as a rookie marshal. She looked so familiar and yet we couldn't tell wherefrom. Turns out she played Marjorie in "Veep" but had dark hair there.
The soundtrack, however, was nice. John Carpenter's own work, a mix of electronic music from the second half of 1990s and more rock/industrial. I will be listening to it later.
If the story was told linearly, it would be much less entertaining. Instead it starts at the end when a ghost train with a single survivor arrives. The survivor gets then asked to explain what happens. And she does. But as a part of her telling she also reference to what the characters in her story told her, hence story within the story. This allows us to play the guessing game. Who died at which point?
2026-10-14
Hard Times
"Hard Times" is a 1975 film about an ageing boxer travelling through the US. Not much more is said about him. The writing is terse and dialogues sound like out of Cormac McCarthy's books. Charles Bronson and James Coburn play the boxer and his fight setter. They have an interesting dynamic, with minimalist Bronson and mouthy Coburn (you can clearly see that Coburn's character gonna get in trouble for his big mouth). Deep down in its heart, it's a Western about an anonymous cowboy coming to town.
The action was set during the Great Depression to make the boxer's motivations more desperate and his character more likeable. Otherwise, he would be just a guy fighting for no good reason. In this aspect, it brought back "Road House" to my mind; the one with Jake Gylenhaal.
I was this days old when I learned that Ernst Stavro Blofeld was played, among other actors, by Donald Pleasance. I never realised that, because I saw James Bond films when I was much younger and never revisited them after going all in into Halloween.
Never talk about a topic with people who are bullish about it. Waste of time. Unnecessary nerves. Go for a walk instead.
Clint Mansell's soundtrack to "Doom", a film from 2005, rather loosely inspired by the game, actualy tries to do the justice to the game's soundtrack. In spirit. I think the composer at least listened to the original music once. It's better than I expected.
My coworker is trying to vibecode specs, and I haven't seen that yet, but I decided to approach it pragmatically tomorrow. I will expect disappointment. If the specs are horrible, I will be disappointed. Otherwise, I will be disappointed that they did not disappoint. Either way I win.
(He actually said that Claude generated questions to the ticket. But still, I'm going with the pragmatic approach.)
2026-10-17
Breathing In
"Breathing In" is a 2023 South African horror with action set in 1901, during the Anglo-Boer war. Though, the circumstances don't seem that relevant for the plot. The film is based on a stage play and it plays out as such, closely following three unities. The whole thing happens in one room with four characters and almost in real time, though the time aspect is blurry. Visually it falls into what I call painting-like. It sucked me in completely.
I'm gonna skip any plot-related details. I would say that it should be seen for the sake of experience in the first place. Really good actors. I went to check one of them afterwards only to learn that I have seen her in 21 episodes of "Charlie Jade".
I wish mstdn.social had more than 500 characters. I know there are forks that allow that, but on the main project it's Gargron's arbitrary decision. A shame, really.
On the dying Art of Programming
I realised that the art of programming is going away. Unless the AI bubble bursts soon, software becomes commodity and stays like that. The change of the paradigm is so big that it's hard to say what happens next. I have my concerns. Now, I know that programming was not perfect but it still saddens me to see the art part going away. Luckily, I didn't treat it as my defining thing, so I'll move on.
My concern is that passionate people started leaving the field, which will have its consequences.
My concern is that the current boost is mostly due to unmatched pattern recognition in the knowledge we had scattered across all the codebases out there. We just couldn't find them. But it's one-time benefit. After that, the software development will plateau at best or start rotting and declining at more realistic. At worst, it will end with slopification of everything, because the biggest companies who can afford tokens don't care about the long-term.
But, well, we'll see.
2026-10-18
Harakiri
"Harakiri" is a 1962 Japanese film about samurais. It has a complex structure, with stories within the story. In these regards, it reminded me of "The Saragossa Manuscript", which made me think that the old books had more byzantine structures than nowadays. Anyway. The action is set in 1630 in Japan and treats about honour, which is characteristic for this time, but also about everyday struggles. I liked the pace at which twists were being released to viewers. And it had a superb soundtrack.
Speaking of the soundtrack, it was very minimal for most of the time and dispatched in very precise moments.
Bartleby
Starting today, I will be writing a quasi-sci-fi story, "Bartleby". Hard to say how adamant will I be, so this might collapse after a couple of chapters, but we'll see.
I was inspired by "Rick & Morty's" approach to sci-fi. It's closer to props, but at the same time it gives them more freedom of storytelling. To ask more philosophical questions about consequences of some ideas. And sometimes it's just about having fun.
The zeroth tranche was actually meant to be another story, but I couldn't fit it in with anything until it clicked in when I came up with Bartleby. Then I decided it's a good idea for a cold opening.
Bartleby was inspired by a single screenshot from "No Man's Sky" that I saw somewhere in 2024 and never forgot. It was haunting me ever since, but I couldn't have come up with anything more concrete. This changed when I was reading Cormac McCarthy's "The Passenger" and got to the chapter where Bobby meets the Kid and the Kids clothes are described as flapping in the wind. And then boom, I have an idea.
As for the name, I took it from "True and the Rainbow Kingdom", a cartoon that my daughter used to watch, like, ten years ago. True, the main character, had this black cat companion whose name was Bartleby (which I spelled Bartelby back then, due to how it sounds). His personality made me like the name. I also recall that one of antagonists name was just that; the other one being Loki. Bartleby and Loki.
However, before I started writing, I checked what its etymology is. To my surprise, it dates back to a short story from none the other than Herman Melville, the autor of "Moby Dick". Bartleby is also the one who popularised the phrase "I would prefer not to". I suppose it will be tempting to put this words in my Bartleby's mouth. But I shall resist.
Alright. So, if sci-fi will serve for props then what's the intended genre? I am thinking a Western mixed with noir slash hard-boiled but in space.
Being McCarthy (as well as Ádám Bodor) aficionado, I decided to go with imitating his style, ditching commas wherever possible and quote marks. This aligns with what I've read a while ago: that in a book, dialogue is also action. When people talk and tell something, it kind of becomes a story within a story. I am enchanted with this fluidity where the narration flows into dialogue, etc. This was especially strong in Bodor's prose.
Often when writing, I try to think about things being described as if they were meant to end up as a film. Sort of visual framing but with words. Not this time, though. I decided to be brutalistically true to writing materials and treat the text as the text primarily. If I want to make fluid transitions between narration and dialogues, I need to abandon the whole film-centric pretences.
Map is not a territory. But in Doom it is.
2026-10-19
I set my Ko-Fi page, but because I want to keep my supports in one place. We'll see later about becoming a creator.
After Life (Season 1)
"After Life" is Ricky Gervais' predominantly comedy show, though with strong heartwarming elements. A story of a widower coping with the death of his wife takes multiple turns: from snarky, to dark humour, to touching ones. Excellent writing. It made me believe that we can and should be nice to each other. No matter what.
I saw Mastodon web client 5.0 on one instance and it's generally sleek, but the content wrappers are worse. At the moment they fold an entire post, which works very well not only for disturbing or otherwise triggering content, but also a long posts. A person writes something long and they fold it with the CW. However, with 5.0 it merely blurs the content. It will still take a lot of space. That's a downgrade in my opinion. Tsk tsk tsk.
2026-10-20
Charlie Jade was in "The Last Of Us". :D
"Back in my days," grandfather started, "we would write the context files by hand, manually, with a bird feather, on a piece of parchment."
"Yes, grandpa, sure," his grandkids told him, laying him to sleep.
It seems that the cold finally came this year. The rains could've helped a bit. Still, it was apparently said in the news that this year was in fact warmer than normal.
From the fact that Wikipedia offers me an app over their own website now, I gather that some sort of enshittification started there. A shame, really.
2026-10-21
A good deed a day
For years, I've been joking about making a good deed once a day. "Okay, that was the good deed for today," I would say, as if one a day kept Hell away. Or something.
Well, anyway. This morning I decided to start a thread of my good deeds. Mind you, they're rather banal and the whole thing is meant to be humorous. But also keep me from Hell. So, in that regards, it's no joking matter.
Foundation (Season 3)
"Foundation" season 3 happens after another a hundred and fifty-something years later, so many characters are gone with new coming in. The core is Gaal Dornick preparing for her fight with the Mule. The anticipated Mule. The third season brings more cyberpunk vibes, thanks to showing us more of Trantor's underbelly. I like the main twist that was actually hinted with two elements that I thought to be either weird choices or bad writing. But no, it's all good.
Unde Esti
Yesterday I found that my currently favourite song is available on TIDAL. I thought it was only on YouTube. I even have it downloaded on my phone as file. Just in case. And now I could add it to my ultimate playlist.
The song: Argatu', "Unde Esti".
And YouTube, if you don't have TIDAL: YouTube link.
Post from Paul
It's called two factor authentication because there are two factors and they're both two.
2026-10-22
"I hope this prompt-turned-email finds you well."
I understand many things but cannot explain them. Can be frustrating. For others mostly.
My todo list app is a text editor with stuff to do. Once done, I remove it from the file. No need for fancy apps.
That feeling when you realise in the late October 2026 that the footer on your website still says 2024–2025. :D
Caminando con el diablo
"Caminando con el diablo" is a 2026 Spanish thriller, though I could call it a horror without supernatural elements, as there is a whole lot of adult fear. No spoilers, though. It's solid writing and the Zaragoza's scenery is a superb choice. The dialogues seem to be mostly ornamental, as the story is primarily shown, not told. The film is short and brutal. Really good.
I'm like Cherry Cherry Lady. Going through the motions.
2026-10-23
Dressed To Kill
"Dressed To Kill" is a 1980 Brian De Palma's thriller about a killer killing one woman and stalking another one. There is also the victim's son and her therapist and the cop running the investigation. The film's old enough to be surprising again, because things were done differently in the past. Like the long initial segment where I thought I'm watching the main character. The killer's explanation is probably a problematic aspect now. Plot is generally outlandish at times by today's standards.
The last line of code ever written
One day you'll write the last line of code. I will remember mine. And it even included regex. Ah, those were the days. Since then, only reviews and prompts. This is how we all ended in programmer's Hell. Though, in all furnace (since we're in Hell), I've had a lot of that for years as a tech lead.
And now, weekend.
2026-10-24
Bartleby: Tranche 1
The first proper chapter of Bartleby's adventure is here: "Bartleby: Tranche 1". The one sparked by "No Man's Sky" screenshot and one sentence from Cormac McCarthy's book.
One of the inspirations was again "Rick and Morty" where they often end up in diners located on asteroids. You would think that they shouldn't be able to walk on it as if there was a normal gravity. :D I guess it's much easier for anyone to pretend that there's the same gravity everywhere, from filmmakers who don't need to bother with special effects, to their viewers who mostly don't really care about that.
Also, I admit that the idea of a planet that exploded but somehow kept its core intact and now all the pieces of rock are orbiting it is openly unrealistic. But as I pictured it, it was so cool that I couldn't pass on it. Could be that I really liked the floating islands in "Tears of the Kingdom".
The interesting thing about writing in episodes and without the grand plan is that I can reconfigure it. Initially, Bartleby was meant to do a couple of assignments on the Destructured Planet and move on. But then it struck me that it might be a good setting for something more connected. Which might change again as nothing has been written to that end.
Turns out the PHP vulnerability was just another PR stunt from the AI crowd. Nicely done, though. Websites closed. News swarmed with it. Our mums asked us what PHP was. Even the Japanese prime minister tweeted about it. Now there will be more technical analysis, but nobody non-technical will get to read that. The news cycle will find something new.
Note: It turned out it was a legit finding in the beginning. But it spiraled out of control and was brought by many as the power of AI.
The problem with "always verify AI output" is that most people don't do that.
I am not used to getting replies here. 😅 I realised the lack of interest in me made me feel like it was a private place. Now comes scrutiny.
2026-10-26
Over the weekend, I started reverse-engineering with AI and Reverse Engineer Anything an old game from the DOS times that no one would have, and I have to admit that it sucked me in completely. Most likely, I would never be able to do that myself. And no one else would do that for me. So, the option was no one never or this way. So far it has been pretty promising. I was also able to inquire about how certain things were implemented. So, yeah. I'm a vibecoder now. :D
2026-10-28
Challenges of design: the game operates on the 640x480 resolution and when I place all the HUD elements, they take too much space. 😅
Yeah. I would like to have an immersive interface where items don't show on screen until they have to.
2026-10-29
Hadestown
"Hadestown" is a musical telling the story of Orhpeus and Eurydice, with Hermes as the narrator who's also in the story because it's a musical, so why not. Musically and costume-wise, it's set somewhere in Louisiana, though. It's probably even an opera, because all the story is told through songs. Due to music, it reminded me of "Sinners". And vaguely, it brought back fond memories of "Repo! The Genetic Opera". It wasn't my choice and I had no expectations but it turned out fantastic.
There was no official and thus high-quality recording, but there were some amateur recordings from the audience. I chose one with subtitles and it turned out to be someone's benedictine work of editing where bits and pieces of various recordings were synced the original sound from CD, I reckon. I think that was the best thing I could have found. But I would like to see it live one day.
A while back I accidentally slept the proper amount of hours and I realised afterwards that I am more relaxed and less snappy. Something that was plaguing me earlier. Huh. I found the secret ingredient of my coolness. And it's not expensive. I'll cut down "No Man's Sky" hours.