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About Me

I am a computer programmer interested in graphics programming, game engines, and low-level programming. I also dabble in cryptography and machine learning from time to time. Free software and free speech advocate. Linux user. Technolibertarian and transhumanist. Cypherpunk. Crypto-Anarchist. Aaron Swartz saved the Internet. Fossil fuels are bad, nuclear energy is good (including fission). All nuclear weapons must be eliminated and the use/manufacture/storage of all nuclear weapons must be banned unconditionally. I am against software patents. Open source FTW. OOP is overrated, learn DOD instead. I use vim for editing text. I can speak English and Turkish, and I'm learning German and French. I often hang out in the graphics programming and fhe discord channels. Grug is smart. RMS is right. Support EFF and FSF. Remember to look up. Aliens are probably out there, and they are coming toward us. The universe belongs to the machines.

There are many good resources that teach graphics programming, and I have shared some of them here. If you see a dead link, then contact me. Scratchapixel is a good place to start. If you want to learn game engine programming, then check out engine-programming and game engine architecture. For learning opengl, see learnopengl (opengl 3.3), open.gl, opengl 4.0+, and ogldev. There are modern OpenGL functions that you should know about. songho has useful articles, even though some of them have become outdated. ogldev has a youtube channel. Nvidia has good resources for learning shader programming. They also have a great shading language that I use. AMD has a dedicated website for graphics and game engine programmers that you may find interesting. ARM has manga. Take a trip (no acid required) through the graphics pipeline. Watch Cem Yuksel's lectures to learn computer graphics. Learn tone mapping. Learn PBR. Learn FXAA. Learn TAA. Learn gamma correction. Learn ray tracing. If you want to learn vulkan, then there is vulkan-tutorial and vkguide. Vulkan is a lot more verbose than opengl though, and if you're not CPU-bound or don't need modern features like ray-tracing then you should stick to opengl. You can also run vulkan on apple devices using moltenvk. For learning C++, I recommend learncpp. There are cheatsheets at hackingcpp. If you care about efficiency then read this book. Even if you use GDB, you should also learn to profile your graphics applications, which is why you need tracy. Another useful application for debugging your graphics applications is renderdoc. If you want to learn webgl, then you should know some javascript first. Learn some math for game programming. For scripting, use Luau. For general computer science stuff check out Oxford's website. Another good resource is the pragmatic bookshelf. Cracking the coding interview is a good book regardless of whether you're trying to get hired or not. You can always teach yourself CS. Another good list of computer science books is this. More graphics programming resources can be found at realtimerendering. For algorithms this book is really good. Another good book is grokking algorithms. If you're in a retro mood, then check out 8bitworkshop. Unfortunately I cannot list all resources here, but the sites that I have linked often have more links to other areas of graphics programming. Do check out the graphics programming discord and the graphics programming subreddit.

For cryptography stuff check out libsodium. There is also a git repo for post-quantum cryptography. If you want to learn FHE, then go to fhe.org. For standardization efforts see homomorphicencryption.org. Read more about FHE in this paper. If you want to make something with FHE then you may use OpenFHE or one of Zama's libraries. If you're into cryptocurrency, then check out Monero. Standford has a good cryptography course. Stanford's website also hosts Dr Gentry's thesis. Christof Paar has posted his lectures on cryptography for free on youtube. Buy his book too. If you want to protect your privacy then check out privacytools.io.

To learn AI you should start by making your own neural network. One does not bet against deep learning. Instead, try to "understand" it. You can also learn machine learning in mere 100 pages. Some math would be useful (mostly linear algebra/calculus/statistics). I believe that we are very close to AGI and it will change everything. ChatGPT Is Not a Blurry JPEG of the Web. It's a Simulacrum. Here is an essential guide to AI safety. Rob Miles has a nice youtube channel where he explains AI safety very well. We need to work on AI alignment. No, I am not an AI doomer, and I don't think that asking for safety in AI systems amounts to doomerism.

A lot of the resources that I have listed assume that you're proficient in high school math. If not, then read this book by George F. Simmons. For a good list of math books visit mathblog.com. For a good list of humanities books visit Dr Peterson's website, which also has a great essay writing guide.

I agree with Mark on the Metaverse and how it will change the world, but I don't agree with the details. As a consequence of this, and my general disappointment at the lack of progress in this area, I have decided to work on my own Metaverse. If you're interested in standardization efforts then visit metaverse-standards.org.

Don't overcomplicate things. An idiot admires complexity, a genius admires simplicity. Sometimes, all you need is a function. Strive for perfection. Be succinct. Worse is better. Don't be afraid to reinvent the wheel. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. That's how you learn. Think outside the box. Just because something has been invented to do a particular thing, doesn't mean it can't be used to do other things. Learn to accept criticism, but also understand that recognizing good critique requires time and experience. If you are adamant that something is true, then remember that it takes just as much intellect to recognize when a claim is false. Most elegant truths are those that are simple and replicable. So make sure that others can validate your claims without your help. Bonus points if your claims can be validated by those who hold biases against you. If you are even slightly creative, then you will be misunderstood. There is no way around this, you will have to learn to live with it. Try to be logical, except when you're being creative, then all is fair. But know that illogical claims cannot demand logical judgement, and that's only fair.

Be ostensibly evil, but secretly good.

I watch a lot of cartoons. Adventure Time, Owl House, ATLA, TLOK, The Dragon Prince, Rick and Morty, Gravity Falls, Amphibia, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Courage the Cowardly Dog, SpongeBob Squarepants, Shaun the Sheep, Cowboy Bebop, The Amazing World of Gumball, Samurai Jack, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Ben 10, Steven Universe, Teen Titans, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Futurama, Kim Possible, American Dragon: Jake Long (only the first season), Phineas and Ferb, and Star vs. the Forces of Evil are my favorites. I wish I could watch more, but there isn't enough time.

I don't watch many TV series, but Mr. Robot and Chernobyl are pretty good.

Diabetes Advice

I have type 1 diabetes, so this advice may not be applicable to other types. There are really only two ways of dealing with this disease: you can either eat whatever you want and not care too much about high blood sugars, or you can adhere to a strict keto diet and enjoy the stability that comes with it. The truth is, your blood sugars will go wild the moment you eat something high in carbs (sometimes even low carb foods will throw it out of the loop). Other times your body will simply say "fuck you" and do whatever it wants. It happens. No, it's not your fault. Many diabetics experience this. I also experience this.

1. If you aren't on a pump, then use something long-range for your basal (e.g. Tresiba). Don't use Levemir.
2. Exercise. No need to be an athlete, something as simple as walking helps a lot.
3. Try to have a schedule. Personally this is very hard for me as I'm more of a spontaneous type of guy, but it helps tremendously.
4. Get yourself a CGM. It will help you learn which kinds of food affect your blood sugar the most.
5. Always tell people that you're a diabetic. Whether it's a date, or a professional meeting, or just a hang-out, it doesn't matter. There's always a chance that you may pass out from hypoglycemia, and it's important that someone knows you're diabetic and relays that to the paramedics. If you don't want to tell people, then at least wear a wristband.
6. DO NOT listen to what those old type 2 diabetic hags say. Often they are in denial of their disease and don't take care of themselves to begin with. Most of the time their advice doesn't apply to type 1 diabetics anyway, and usually it is based on either pseudoscience or gross misunderstanding of the scientific literature.
7. DO NOT listen to people who claim to know what's best for you just because they have a friend/relative/child with diabetes. I can assure you, they know almost nothing. They have a bad case of Dunning-Kruger, and their advice is often terrible.
8. Have quarterly visits to an endocrinologist. It may be hard to find a good one, but it's worth it.
9. Read the Type 1 Diabetes Self-Care Manual from ADA.
10. Get vaccinated.
11. Do not smoke.
12. Do not drink alcohol. Or at least eat something before/after to prevent hypoglycemia.
13. Don't be a pessimist. Remember, insulin was only discovered in the last century, and for most of human history type 1 diabetes was a fatal disease. You are very lucky to be born in the modern age. There are signs that we will be able to cure it soon.

There are a lot of charlatans out there who will claim that they can cure your diabetes, DO NOT listen to them. It's all bullshit.

If you are angry at big pharma profiting from diabetics, like I am, then visit openinsulin.org.

Lastly, if someone tells you to inject insulin somewhere else because it makes them feel uncomfortable, then tell them, with all due respect, to go fuck themselves.

Contact

You may contact me via omar_huseynov@outlook.com. Here's the PGP key (expires: 2029-11-20).