Hello fellow readers, In this post I’ll list some of the projects and experiments I’m working on or just finished.

My last projects update was in February.

4.3XP

Language:Human

Explanation: Check under the post title, there’s a surprise.

This is the 4-3XP (pronounced the “A” Experiment - 1337 mode activated).

It’s simply a narration of my posts.
So look around maybe the posts you didn’t read yet might have their audio version available and you’ll be able to listen to them instead of reading.

Everytime you see the 4-3XP you can listen to the audio version.

There’s also the soundcloud channel.

Meditation

Language: Mind

Explanation: I’ve started daily meditation: A simple 5 minutes session.
I’m using a beginner technique that Sam Harris discusses here.

To paraphrase, it’s about removing the non-stop narration usually happening in your head.
Redirecting the third eye unto your body and environment, not on thoughts.

Aside from relaxation and focus, meditation is a way to reflect on one self place in the world.
What are we?

Data mining projects

Language: Multiple

Explanation: I’m building a huge bank of data.
The new project goal is to incorporate the info in a fast search engine.

In the process, I’m switching from postgresql to elasticsearch.

Elasticsearch has many issues.

It is galling to install… And I do not dare to mention upgrades and the non-backward compatibility.

Sometimes it randomly hangs or tells you that it ran out of memory when actually it’s not. Restarting the daemon fixes it.

When it works it’s cool.

You interact with it is through a REST api.

The best, and maybe only, feature of elasticsearch is that it’s easy to create a full text search engine that goes through any property of the data.

It does it by default and that’s what I need.

One Word a day

Language: English

Explanation: Learning a new word everyday, it’s a fun idea I’ve taken from a theminimalist podcast episode.

I have difficulties expressing myself. It’s hard for me to find the best combination of words to transfer my ideas.

I want to get better and this project is a good way to do so.

I might forget a lot of the words that happened to be in this project but I’m training my mind into going out of it’s way to focus on them.

Mapping The Unmapped

Language:Progress

Explanation: There are many places in my region that aren’t shown on Google maps.

I took the matter in my own hands, made a trip around the popular places and historical sites, took pictures, and mapped them.

I’m now a “local guide” according to Google map.

This is a good initiative!

I’ll keep this going and encourage anyone to do so.

Someone mentioned a game called Ingress, that turns this into an adventure. I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t give my verdict on it.

Fake/MENA Presentation

Language:JS/HTML

Explanation: I’m part of a group called the MENA developers. The last weeks I kept bringing the idea of organizing talks.

A few days later it was on!

AltCity, would be the host of the event.

I prepared a presentation called “A ‘fake’ project”. However, one hour before the venue the host, which normally only give entrepreneurial events, asked to review the presentation slides.

They didn’t agree to “sponsor” the sort of talk I wanted to give and cancelled my presentation, with the presumption that it would give them a bad reputation.

I raged for a while and came up with a new presentation in the minimal amount of time I had left.

I presented one of my blog post about what computing and programming represents.

Driving in LB

Language:JS/HTML

Explanation: In my last post I mentioned “A Message I want To Transmit” and it was this project.

You can find it here.

I’m satisfied with it, it was well done.

I even wrote a library for simulating driving using d3js and made animations for every annoying road behavior the Lebanese have.

I hope that I have released the tension of the people who have been thinking the same for years.

Laughters are bonus points.

Arts

Language: Left Brain

Explanation: My girlfriend has a better phone camera than mine.

She insisted on re-taking the photos of my arts section.

You can now enjoy them in high quality.

Check the page out

Ascii Arts

Language:ASCII char set+TTY escape codes

Explanation: Since my last post I really got into the Ascii art movement.

I’m slowly getting better at building my army of robots.

Brace yourself, soon I’ll be able to conquer the universe.

Xero mentioned a BBS and an ascii art group called Impure.

I got curious, joined their IRC and had a chat with the people who have been doing ascii arts since they started to be called ascii arts.

Hellbeard, the administrator of the group, liked my work and invited me to be part of their next release: Impure61.

Ironically, I had never heard of the ascii art scene before. Now I’m part of Impure!ascii.

It’s very cool!

Nixers Podcast

Language:PHP/Postgres

Explanation: My podcast project for nixers is going well.

I built an interface to manage everyone’s schedule.

Sometimes no one joins. At first it was awkward but I’m starting to get the hang of it.

I hope it’s an enjoyable learning experience for the listeners.

I extend every episode in forums threads so that people can comment on them afterwards.

We’re currently having an introduction song contest instead of having to come up with different intro at the beginning of the episode.

EP Notes UI

Language:PHP/Postgres/reactjs

Explanation: The quest of dynamic evolutionary psychology continues.

I designed an interface to browse the data available.

I built everything using reactjs, PHP, and postgresql.

We’re now in the process of linking them, finding the cycles, and preparing a youtube channel.

In the future we might even write a book.

If you have experience with video editing or hand drawn video explanation contact me.

I want this to be a society changing project.

Light colorscheme

Language:Xresources

Explanation: We had a light colorscheme contest at nixers.

It was a phenomenal way to learn about a new color theory.

Tired of the ol’ white on black.

I didn’t win but I sure learned.

The theme can be found on my GH: here

Wargames

Language:brain

Explanation: I still play wargames in my spare time. Not as much as before but I still love it.

This week I introduced my own “Internet Scavenger Hunt” on nixers.net using ideas I took from those wargames.

It’s not a big complicated one.

It touches encryption and steganography.

Xhost

Language: PHP

Explanation: This is a lost project.

I built it, and burned it.

The idea was to create an upload page that returns direct download links and would always rotate through multiple hosts in the backend.

URNN

Language: C/Perl/Shell scripts

Explanation: URNN is still alive!

Neeasade is contributing, he made an easy wrapper script and is adding C versions of the scripts in a new branch instead of the Perl.

We’re in the process of solving the issue with images that don’t have 10 colors.

Garden

I couldn’t photograph everything.

Language:Nature

Explanation: I’m gardening!

I planted vegetables and we have fruits.

This is a project I’ve always wanted to do. I’ll start small and little by little I’ll make bigger plots.

June Nixers Projects

Language: Fun

Explanation: I’m shaking up the nixers community in june by introducing multiple projects:

Here’s the list:

• Internet scavenger hunt
• Intro/outro podcast song contest
• A week in the TTY
• Ascii Art Contest
• Webcasts threads

Be sure to check the forums for update.

Cleaning Beaches

Language:Kindness

Explanation: This is my weekend project.

When my girlfriend and I went to the beach we were appalled and shocked because of the garbage around.

Thus, in the same fashion as the the ugly indian we’re gonna do it ourselves.

So I did this for my local community out of good will.

We went to a beach with the goal of removing all plastic bottles and garbage.

At first we brought 4 huge bags but after 30 min they were filled. We went to the supermarket to buy gloves and new degradable plastic bags.

When the sun went out, we had filled 9 huge bags: 4 for recycling and 5 of pure garbage.

They were heavy but it was fulfilling to throw them in the recycling and garbage dumps.

The plastic bottle caps, which we also filtered from the pile of rubbish, are going to go to an association for handicapped persons.

Some asked us “are you with some organisation”, and we replied “Nope, we’re just humans”.

They retorted with “God bless you” or “May God make you strong”, and I kept myself from replying “I’m not a believer, you should take the matter in your own damn hands not wait for a God”.

I was too focused on what I was doing to reply.

Shame on us, we couldn’t finish completely before there was no light anymore, we were also extremely tired.

Let’s hope the broken window theory will work and keep people from throwing stuffs.

Another good initiative!

Conclusion

Yep, I’ve grown, and I’m happy of where I’m going.

These days I want to contribute to the community around me.
If you want something done, no one’s gonna do it for you, use your own hands.

If you want to have a more in depth discussion I'm always available by email or irc. We can discuss and argue about what you like and dislike, about new ideas to consider, opinions, etc..
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