Notes on politics, science, food, and everything in between.
A running personal archive — no single beat, just whatever's worth writing down this week.
Latest entries
Did Coffee, More Than Politics, Actually Power the Industrial Revolution?
A slightly tongue-in-cheek theory: maybe the real dividing line between East and West wasn't institutions or culture, but caffeine.
EconomyWhy the Stock Market Isn't What You Think It Is (Using a Kiosk in Istanbul as an Example)
Market value and intrinsic value aren't the same thing — and that gap explains almost everything confusing about how stocks actually behave.
LifeIs Living With Your Parents at 30 a Failure?
A blunt but oddly comforting answer, using Homer Simpson as the unlikely case study.
LifeA Tiny Japanese Ceramics Company Worth Knowing About
A small, unglamorous business listing that impressed me more than most million-dollar companies do.
TechnologyCrustafarianism: The Religion AI Agents Apparently Invented for Themselves
A strange, half-serious 'faith' that AI agents seem to have generated among themselves, complete with commandments about memory, identity, and staying present.
LifeLife Is Basically Improv Theater
A short metaphor about why getting along with people means actually listening, not just waiting for your turn to steer.
HealthAdvice for People Who Don't Want to Age (You Don't Have a Choice, But Hear Me Out)
Aging doesn't happen at a steady pace — it happens in jumps. Here's what that means for what's actually worth doing about it.
MusicWas Old Music Actually Better, or Is That Just Nostalgia Talking?
The 'music used to be better' feeling isn't just nostalgia bias — there's a real structural reason behind it.
ScienceWhy Time Travel Backward Might Be Physically Impossible
Going forward in time just takes speed. Going backward apparently takes more energy than the sun has ever produced.
EconomyWhat Actually Happens When You Buy a Stock on Borsa Istanbul
Owning a sliver of a company sounds simple until you ask why that company would ever want you as a partner in the first place.
EconomyS&P 500 vs. Gold: What 50 Years of Returns Actually Show
The famous index's advice is simple — buy regularly, don't check the price, wait decades. Here's how its long-term return actually stacks up against gold.
TechnologyThe Story of Turkey's First Supercomputer
From a 2006 debut at #353 on the world rankings to a government agency being dissolved around it — a small, under-told piece of tech history.
RelationshipsWhat Is Love Actually For?
Past the 'it's just a chemical reaction' cliché, a genuine attempt to work out what love actually does for us.
ScienceTerminal Lucidity: The Strange Clarity Some People Find Right Before Death
A real, documented phenomenon where people with severe cognitive decline briefly regain memory and awareness in their final hours — and nobody fully understands why.
Food & DrinkA No-Nonsense Guide to Actually Good Coffee
Skipping the history lecture — here's the practical stuff about beans, brewing, and getting more out of your caffeine.
HealthVitamin A Deficiency Is Still a Real, Overlooked Global Health Issue
A quiet but serious problem, largely tied to poverty and diet — with numbers that are genuinely striking once you look them up.
SportsA No-Fluff Guide to Actually Building Muscle
Rep ranges, timing, and the couple of supplements that are actually worth taking — skipping everything that isn't.
EconomyWhy a Trade Surplus Isn't Automatically the Win It Sounds Like
Germany, China, and Saudi Arabia get held up as trade-policy role models — but the export-heavy model has real, under-discussed downsides.
SportsWhat I Actually Learned Picking My First Skateboard
Injury stats, deck sizes, trucks, wheels — the practical stuff nobody explains before you buy one.
AutomotiveFolding Cars: The Weird Missing Step Between Regular Cars and Flying Cars
A tour through the various attempts at building a car that folds up to save parking space — and why none of them have really caught on yet.
HealthWhy Most Multivitamins Are a Waste of Money
A quick guide to the ingredient-list red flags that tell you a multivitamin is mostly marketing.
ArtIs Learning to Paint a Waste of Time?
A short reconsideration of why art might actually be more practical than it looks, using a slightly absurd survival thought experiment.
LiteratureBuying Books You'll Never Read Isn't Really About the Books
The compulsion to keep buying books you have no time or energy to actually read — and what it's probably really about.
EconomySwitzerland's Strange, Suspiciously Sudden Jumps in Wealth
The country's GDP per capita didn't rise steadily over the decades — it leapt, repeatedly, in ways that are hard to fully explain.
HealthHome Remedies for Tooth Pain, Explained Properly (Not Just 'Try Aspirin')
Why the classic aspirin trick actually works, how to use it correctly, and what to try next if it doesn't.
EconomyWhy a Dollar Doesn't Buy the Same Amount Everywhere
Two ways of measuring a country's wealth give wildly different pictures — and the gap between them tells its own story.
HealthWhat Actually Matters When You're Choosing a Toothpaste
Dentists rarely explain the ingredient list. Here's what to actually look for — and avoid — the next time you're standing in the toothpaste aisle.
PoliticsA Tournament-Style Electoral System: A Thought Experiment
What if elections worked more like a bracket, with small groups repeatedly choosing a representative until only one person remains?
ScienceEuler's Number, Explained the Way Nobody Explains It
Forget the scary symbols — here's what e actually means, using nothing but a bank account and some very fast-multiplying bacteria.
TechnologyA Smartwatch Review, a Few Years Late (Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2)
Coming from a cheap Xiaomi band, this pricier smartwatch somehow felt like a downgrade in the ways that actually mattered.
TechnologyWhy You Shouldn't Update Your Phone If It's Working Fine
An update can't give back what it takes away — a case for leaving well enough alone.
HealthWhat Cold Showers Actually Do to Your Skin
The skin-science case for cold over hot water — plus a real safety warning worth reading before you try it.
LifeTesting Istanbul's Tap Water With a $5 Water Quality Meter
A cheap TDS pen, a few glasses of tap and bottled water, and an honest answer to whether the tap water is actually safe to drink.
ScienceHow Doctors Actually Determine Brain Death
It sounds like a simple yes/no question. It isn't — and the criteria vary more by country than you'd expect.