I recently had a friend end up in the hospital, and he was able to bring a phone with him. He didn't have XMPP on his phone and I didn't want to install Discord.

The solution? Email!

I have plenty of old email addresses from friends. We've left Facebook and we've changed numbers but our email addresses are here to stay. The only kind of person who is unable to keep an email address is so mentally unwell, they probably aren't worth conversing with anyway.

Outside of work or school, I don't think anyone uses email. It's a damn shame. Not everyone has Telegram/Xmpp/Discord/Instagram, and not everyone wants to share their phone number (for Whatsapp/Signal). But I think virtually everyone has at least one email address. Making a new email address takes minutes and after it gets added to your phone or desktop it's as easy to use it as any other account.

Emails can be as long or short as you want, much like a blog post. And, generally speaking, there is no expectation to answer an email immediately.

One way to categorize the modern internet channels is by speed, where

• "fast" web - discord, tiktok, livestreaming
• "moderate" web - xmpp, irc, fediverse, reddit
• "slow" web - discussion forums, RSS, wikis, email

Probably the most controversial categorization would be calling fediverse a moderate-speed channel despite the fact that posts are often coming in at the rate of 30 an hour or more. But the tendency of the network is to post and contribute mindfully. The typical fediverse post will be shorter than a typical blog post, but will be more meaningful than a chat blurb on Discord or shitpost on 4chan. In the same way, emails generally are more pleasant and meaningful to engage with than fediverse discourse.

This is an open invitation for people to email me. Fediverse and Gikopoi may be faster ways to get ahold of me, but maybe you'd enjoy getting back into writing email. I always enjoy receiving and sending emails. You can find my email address on the contact page.

Related discussion: It's good to send emails to friends, Pohon BBS, 2024-01-12.

I've long been a fan of board games. They're a great way to stay entertained and develop mental skills while socializing with friends. The name "mental sports" is kind of a tacky name, but it's kind of a good one, too. Lately, I have been revisiting a classic, Mahjong, and exploring a new-to-me game series, the Gipf project. The purchase of a special games table has been tremendous in reviving my social board game interest. When not in use, it conveniently lives under my couch, but is easily transported.

Dimensions: 86cm x 86cm, 72cm tall - 34" x 34" -- perfect for Mahjong and card games, but also quite suitable for tournament size chess boards (51cm/20"), luxury Backgammon sets (53cm/21"), or "universal" GIPF boards (46cm/18").

Continue reading...

The season has concluded. I review the shows discussed in my previous blog post after the split.

Continue reading...

Got a "free" tablet when buying my wife's new phone. Galaxy Tab A9, 8.7" display, 128GB storage, 4GB memory. I had never intended to buy a tablet and a few days into owning it, I don't feel I need it.

It's decent for watching media from my media PC in bed via jellyfin & reading manga and PDFs. But that's it.

A few others on Gikopoi have tablets collecting dust. I think I'll send my tablet out to one of my stores to serve as a POS. I do not recommend buying a tablet unless you read a lot of PDFs or comics or need it for running a business.

I have largely been adverse to oaking my experiments until now for the simple reason that the "white lightning" I made is pretty good on its own with mixers. Another reason is that oak is harder to source in the tropics -- not even as sticks, let alone barrels. But I've finally dipped my toes into the water of oaking, a/k/a aging spirits.

Continue reading...

Reading philosophy is an activity that can benefit all people. I enjoy this pasttime so much that I spent many years in university developing my skill in it. Along the way, I learned a few things, not just about the world and the mind, but also how to learn.

Reading philosophy is important, not because it gives us values and truths to accept, but because it exposes us to the process of developing understanding. Difficult works that develop our abstract reasoning help us to understand complex issues that arise in the course of daily life - and can also help us explain our reasoning to others when facing complex issues.

It is unfortunately necessary to be somewhat well-read in philosophy to keep up in more formal philosophical discourse. What follows is my attempt to collect noteworthy classical, modern, and contempotary works on a number of topics, with special focuses on the nature of mind, reality, the limits of knowledge, & moral teachings in a roughly chronological order. When reading philosophy like this, you can follow chains of thought through the centuries. After reading the texts I suggest, you should be able to begin participating in more serious philosophical discussion - not to mention developing more nuanced positions - and it shouldn't be hard to find people or resources to help understand the texts along the way.

After my list of suggested texts, more general notes on actually reading philosopy follow.

Continue reading...

Are you overwhelmed about the state of your media directories -- particularly your music and videos? I was for a long time, too. But we are in the 2020s and going through the effort of manually organizing personal media collections should be a thing of the past.

Continue reading...

I am a huge fan of a proper gin. If you don't know where to start with gin, try Bombay Sapphire as a reference.

Decided to get back into the game, recipe and testimonials follow.

I don't feel like photos are necessary for this post because the process begins with bottles of clear liquid, followed by bottles of dark liquid, concluded with bottles of clear liquid. What can be gained from these photos?

Continue reading...

As of May 1st, 2025, I've now been here for 3 years.

I'm not sure what exactly I expected before coming. For most of our long-distance relationship, my wife lived deep in the jungle, several hours drive away from a not-great city. So I saw a side of the world very different from my home, but also different from where I live now.

I came here during lockdown. Spent 2 weeks in Jakarta. I got the feeling that even if things weren't locked down, it's not the kind of tourist destination Seoul or New York City may be. Large, dirty, gray water sewers ran along the streets, constant traffic jams, heavy smog. The only things that really were appealing were the malls but they sold the same kinds of things you can find at every mall in the world.

Converted to Islam over Whatsapp, got mailed a certificate, brought that to the department of religious affairs, got married, got a marriage visa. The bureacracy was really straightforward and easy. The first Islamic wedding I attended was my own. I don't really have strong memories of it aside from thinking the ritual was a little strange, but it really made my wife's parents happy. I had to repeat the Arabic phrase three times before the priest accepted the marriage declaration as valid -- Arabic is not my strong suit.

My life is pretty comfortable. There are frequent blackouts and my city is underdeveloped, but I've made a ton of great friends. My city is safe. People are very friendly and laid back.

If you're tired of life in the West, you may enjoy life here. The language is pretty easy to pick up. Adjusting to a less developed city hasn't been hard for me -- the only thing I still struggle with on a regular basis is the oppressive heat.

Here's hoping the next 3 years are great, too...

As it stands, if I notice minor errors in blog entries, I will update the files and the site will update. However, the atom feed will not inform subscribers that blog entries have been updated. This seems like it would be more annoying than useful for most people.

I may later update the atom feed, so that pages have published and updated fields, that update to reflect the nature of the website, but as it stands, I feel very few people would benefit from this code change.

Die-hard blog people are encouraged to follow the blog via their feed reader. If something feels funny to you, follow the link and see if you still have that funny feeling. If I've made a mistake in drafting a blog post that needs significant addressing, I'll probably make a follow up blog entry. You can let me know via the contact page if you think I've overseen a serious problem.

Thanks for tagging along on my blogging journey....