diff --git a/blog.json b/blog.json index c70538f..cfbff45 100644 --- a/blog.json +++ b/blog.json @@ -141,6 +141,30 @@ "code-style": "coffee", "note": "This page uses the Nerd Hack Font, which is licensed under the OFL 1.1 License. All internal content, unless specified otherwise, is subject to their respective license terms as well as Ari-web legal policies. Treat the content and the source of the page as source code according to the license.", "posts": { + "doml-9-20241231": { + "title": "DOML #9 -- 2024/12/31", + "description": "Welcome back to my ongoing DOML series! In this post, I look back on what has taken us from DOML #8 to the present moment. The last ten months have been a really difficult yet changing time for me, and I'm glad to finally be able to share what I've learned about growth, healing, and the emotional burden of vulnerability. The post navigates through pressure, self-doubt, and that itch when one wants to let their imagination run wild. Allow me to take you with me on the changes of my life, especially in terms of relationship and personal struggles, to lessons learned along the way.", + "content": "Hello, World,\n\nHard to believe it's been 10 months since the last installment of my DOML series. What started out as a monthly feature two years ago has certainly taken a different path than I originally envisioned. It may not be as active as I had wished, but I'm pleased to say it's not completely abandoned, just a bit dormant, and for what it's worth we are living just fine with current activity.\n\nI think much of this hiatus can be chalked up to my paranoia, but that's for another time. In retrospect, at this point in time, I should have already posted 24 DOMLs, but we find ourselves pretty comfortable with just 8. However, before 2025 ushers in, I've decided to wrap this year up with a DOML, so... Let's dive in?\n\n<@:d09bcf63caf9a3f2e6b1d027291986528b3e40e964a90c71b7d81f091474f20c>\n\n## DOML #8\n\nLet's start from the past - [DOML #8](https://blog.ari.lt/b/doml-8-20240220/) that is.\n\nI'd like to start with a reflection of this DOML, looking over what I felt and said at the time, to align myself in time and begin reflecting on the new things in my life. Reading back through DOML #8, I'm struck by the raw honesty and vulnerability I expressed. The issues with the education system, the stress and anxiety, the yearning for creativity and freedom. I can still feel the weight of those emotions, the sense of being trapped and longing for something more.\n\nYet in the chaos, there was an element of hope, a feeling of forward movement? Maybe? I reflected on my \"growth\" and \"healing\" related to specific struggles, like self-harm and eating disorders. However, even though \"normal\" people would feel accomplished, I feel nothing but shame regarding this.\n\nFor me now, sitting down to write DOML #9, I am in a different place. Even if the stresses of gymnasium remain (stronger than ever in fact!) and creative freedom still smolders. The biggest changes I have seen are in my relationships. While I may not have the same deep bonds I once had with some people, I have cleaned up my circle of friends significantly, leaving many people who just pull me down and not let me progress behind. It was a difficult endeavour, but I think it was the right choice.\n\nIt has been a rather long and elaborate time over the past 10 months, but here we are, DOML #9, an opportunity to reflect and set the stage for what is yet to come. I don't have all the answers, but thank you for allowing me to share this journey, dear reader. Let's see what the next chapter holds.\n\n## What's been going on\n\nI don't know. I'm lost, confused, and pondering in a field of abstract ideas. Honestly, I don't even want to get into many things deeply since I don't even talk about them with my closest friends, so I won't xD\n\nI'm scared and paranoid about the past, the current, and the future. I feel like afraid and kind of scared to go into the unknown, once I turn 18 in 9 months. I've been theorising a lot about life and both raising as well as answering questions I have. Recently I answered one very important question to myself - who, why, and what am I doing here? I ended up with a pretty large essay about it and ended on a sonder-y conclusion: that being an extra character in others' and my own life isn't bad, and in fact it's very good. Abstractly, my purpose as a person between people is to be an extra character and be there for everyone.\n\nBesides that, I've been working on my skills in systems administration, working on projects like Vessel, and been also participating in [Research School](https://researchschool.tech/) which is going good so far (). This project has been very refreshing, since I oftentimes feel that various school-adjacent projects, Olympiads, etc. are oftentimes limiting and very disappointing, but Research School pleasantly juxtapositions this restrictive dare I say regime where you're forced into a certain box and have to abide without any room for questioning, exploration, or passion. Even though security isn't my strongest area of interest. I've felt welcome and understood during this project to date, moreover, I feel like I am working with competent individuals who are there to learn and teach rather than near grift.\n\nI also participated in an informatics Olympiad for the second time, but quit after the 1st stage due to various factors like feeling drained both emotionally and physically, feeling a sense of pointlessness, finding the courage to finally say \"No\", and generally feeling an intense sense of discomfort and shame. Admittedly, I did feel enthusiastic when I was signed up for it, but quickly realised that it was a mistake. And the reasons for that I believe are pretty understandable:\n\n1. I don't feel passionate about Olympiads as I mentioned before. They don't make me feel a sense of accomplishment in any way.\n2. Teachers being happy with my accomplishments make me feel nothing but shame.\n3. I don't want to represent someone that I don't think represents me in true nature.\n4. Feeling like I'm doing meaningless work when having better, more important, and/or more interesting/fulfilling things to do.\n\nMy breaking point was when the teacher was proud that I got okay results in the 1st stage of the Olympiad, which actually hurt me physically when I heard those words come out of her mouth on multiple levels. But I won't get into it.\n\nMoreover, the IT Olympiad situation reminds me some progress I've made in life; I've been learning how to draw stricter boundaries. Of course, it's been hard, but I'm getting there, however, this also may be a sign of my current state isolation, or at least something I've picked up from it. I've been isolating myself a lot since due to certain experiences with certain people and I feel very scared of people, generally social contact, thus, I've been pushing it away as much as possible. Though, a positive that came out of this is that it has helped me process my thoughts better, which is why there's so many questions I am yet to answer.\n\nOn a bluer note, in contact of DOML 8 where I mentioned eating disorders and self-harm, I believe even though I made some progress, it was mainly due to paranoia as I mentioned in this post. It's like phantom recovery in a way - where you say that you're healing/recovering, but you're simply not: a state of pseudo-recovery which blinds the reality with a thick fog. Plus, in the aforementioned DOML, even though I was struggling a lot, I felt extremely paranoid about some stuff (still do!) but recent sonder has helped to cope with that. I've been also coping in various other ways and (very inconsistently, mainly due to my own fault) getting professional help. And at current point, I'm not as scared to admit that I am still struggling, maybe not as much as I was 3, 4 years ago, but...\n\nLastly, I want to end this short reflection on a more positive note. I've been interested in Safe and Sophie Germain prime numbers (A059455), I don't really know why, but their cryptographic potential and the unexplored room is interesting to me. It hasn't even been proven that there's an infinite count of those which is cool, and I've been meaning to do research on them directly as well as their cryptographic implications and whatnot. So far, on people have computed almost 900 safe and Sophie Germain prime numbers, out of which some are *extremely* impressive, like the 2048-bit, 1034 bit flip prime which took a person on the Fediverse 5.5 hours to compute when given **16 CPU cores** after almost 350 million tested numbers - the rarity and randomness of Safe and Sophie Germain primes makes them extremely unique and rareimpressive, like the 2048-bit, 1034 bit flip prime which took a person on the Fediverse 5.5 hours to compute when given **16 CPU cores** after almost 350 million tested numbers. This rareness and computational difficulty of these primes makes them very unique and I tried my best to optimise their computation, minimising the search space required.\n\nLike, I don't check primes if they don't end with a 3 or a 9 (since I've noticed (but haven't proven!) that Safe and Sophie Germain primes (SSG) end with a 3 or a 9 if a given SSG prime q satisfies `q>11`, or if `q % 6` is not 2 when I immediately know it cannot be expressed as 6k-1 so I can just reject it, or if `q % 12` is not 11 I can, once again, immediately reject a given number.\n\nI've also done my best to optimise my prime detection, like for safe primes I can check quadratic (non)residues and validate whether or not it's worth even going into prime checking by trial divisions, Baillie-PSW, and Miller-Rabin. But enough autism for now, I'll leave the topic of SSG primes for another time when I commit on actual research - right now I'm just messing around, computing, and trying to test them for basic probability and statistics.\n\nBut yeah that's about it I think. I have a lot more stuff to talk about, but I think it's smarter if I just leave it to myself :) Thanks for listening.\n\n## Fate of DOMLs\n\nI don't know. I don't know whether or not I'll continue writing them since even though venting and stuff is nice, archiving my life, progress, or setbacks, etc. but writing about my life is kind of just whatever. I enjoy writing about other things like technology or social issues a lot more rather than my life, which is why I'm considering ending this series as a whole.\n\nHowever, maybe from time to time, like once or twice a year, I may write a DOML.\n\nFor now, til next post!\n\nMerwoewoeow eowmewomewoewmewoemwomewo eomoowe moewq moewoemwoemwowemoemw momewo oewmoewmoe wommowomwemowe x3", + "keywords": [ + "reflection and healing", + "educational system challenges", + "life changes", + "creative freedom", + "vulnerability in writing", + "overcoming shame", + "self-discovery", + "emotional well-being", + "personal growth journey", + "day of my life", + "doml series", + "mental health struggles", + "growth mindset", + "mental wellness stories", + "dealing with anxiety" + ], + "created": 1735629469.342452, + "preview": "d09bcf63caf9a3f2e6b1d027291986528b3e40e964a90c71b7d81f091474f20c" + }, "xmrbazaar-experiment-providing-services": { "title": "XMRBazaar experiment: Providing services", "description": "In this blog post, I share my journey exploring XMRBazaar, an innovative marketplace that allows users to buy and sell products and services using Monero, a privacy-focused cryptocurrency. Join me as I navigate this community-driven platform, create my seller profile, and experiment with a listing to understand what the XMR community desires.", diff --git a/media/d09bcf63caf9a3f2e6b1d027291986528b3e40e964a90c71b7d81f091474f20c.png b/media/d09bcf63caf9a3f2e6b1d027291986528b3e40e964a90c71b7d81f091474f20c.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aff0b92 Binary files /dev/null and b/media/d09bcf63caf9a3f2e6b1d027291986528b3e40e964a90c71b7d81f091474f20c.png differ diff --git a/media/media.json b/media/media.json index f1db07e..e7a6754 100644 --- a/media/media.json +++ b/media/media.json @@ -250,5 +250,19 @@ "mime": "image/png", "uploaded": 1735449818.042124, "size": 161431 + }, + "d09bcf63caf9a3f2e6b1d027291986528b3e40e964a90c71b7d81f091474f20c": { + "type": "image", + "width": 1200, + "height": 600, + "alt": "A black-and-white image of text. 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