Ahmet Alphan Sabancı

Writer, technologist, #generalist, philosopher of #WeirdAndDeadlyInteresting. | Head of Strategy & Newsletter Editor at @newslabturkey .

Posts are in #English and #Türkçe.

Public Key

npub1wgu9vsuasjngpqxvtf7yuq4z8al4jfxpu9arg6ntwyrmjn4z2vgqc66ky3

NIP-05 Address

ahmetasabanci_at_mastodon.social@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs8ywzkgwwcff5qsrx95lzwq23r7l6eynq7z735df4hzpaef639xyqpr9mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43z7ffjxqqxce48

Publishing to

relay.mostr.pub/%20

Author Public Key

npub1wgu9vsuasjngpqxvtf7yuq4z8al4jfxpu9arg6ntwyrmjn4z2vgqc66ky3

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Last Notes

2025-03-23 07:47:32

They just arrested İmamoğlu for the corruption claims but not for the terrorism related ones.
Not surprised to be honest, because not arresting him would feel like they’re defeated. And this is what makes them so dangerous in times of crisis.

2024-08-24 19:21:42

Out of curiosity (and a little bit of fomo) I just searched Twitter, Mastodon and Bluesky for the #xoxofest tag.
It seems like the main activity happens here in Mastodon. There is only couple of posts on Twitter, and some activity on Bluesky but a good part of the Bluesky posts are from Mastodon accounts bridges.
Not sure what it means but I feel like it’s a good sign.

2024-08-07 19:32:28

So now we have both Instagram and Roblox blocked. I have no idea what they’re thinking at this point.

2024-07-03 13:07:20

"RTÜK has revoked the license of the independent radio station Açık Radyo. The decision comes after the station was penalized for a broadcast that mentioned the Armenian genocide on April 24, marked as the remembrance day for the genocide."
https://bianet.org/haber/turkey-s-media-watchdog-revokes-radio-stations-license-over-genocide-remembrance-broadcast-297088

2024-07-02 19:42:59

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@npub1xzm…eykm I’m open to help with verification process for Turkish media organizations, journalists, and bloggers. (Also will email you for myself.)

2024-05-13 20:58:55

I’m curious about the decision OpenAI made about making most of the paid stuff free (with usage limits). Unless someone uses it dozens of times a day, it’s not worth $20.
I have two theories about this change. Either they’ve found a better income model because not many people were paying for it already and decided to slowly kill it, or they’re having trouble training GPT-5 and need more data from users and this is the way they’re trying to solve it.

2024-05-13 07:21:17

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@npub1p9k…865w I’ve been using the 17L model of that bag for daily stuff and short work trips and I love it. It has all the high quality stuff I look for in the bag and my go-to recommendation for people now.

2024-04-05 06:22:00

This post tells me two things about Sam Altman.
1) His taste in movies only consist of blockbusters.
2) He’s REALLY bad at video games. https://mastodon.online/@parismarx/112216869375145226

2024-03-27 17:56:36

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@npub1rkt…sqek I’ve translated three books and many other things between English and Turkish, and I have weeks worth of stories to tell about why translation is not a neutral act.

2024-03-04 20:41:06

I had the term “anarcho-futurism” randomly pop into my head and couple minutes later I found this mad manifesto from 1919. Surprised I didn’t know about it before.
“Long live the international intellectual revolution!
An open road for the Anarcho-Futurists, Anarcho-Hyperboreans, and Neo-Nihilists!
Death to World Civilization!”
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/russian-anarcho-futurism

2024-03-04 08:59:40

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@npub1jtm…rxtn those usually marks the most listened songs in the album. IIRC it used to be stars but changed after they brought marking songs as favorite option.

2024-02-23 12:19:44

"You remember how the New Atheists spent so long looking into the abyss of religious unreason and dogmatism that the abyss finally looked back and welcomed its newest denizens? That’s where we’re at with the tech people now."
https://ift.tt/cHY6vNP

2024-02-08 22:34:05

One of the advantages of blogging is that you don’t have to repeat yourself every time a discourse returns. Like right now we have a new “RSS is dead” discourse and I can simply share my post from December 2020 and call it a day.
https://ahmetasabanci.com/rss-is-not-dead/

2024-01-21 20:08:04

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@npub18c7…er9d skullcandy is great when it comes to bass but never heard this one before. I gave the latest pair to my brother so I have an excuse to add this to my list. :)

2024-01-20 17:58:17

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@npub1yhj…3h3t if it’s any consolation I’ve seen some people abuse quite recent Wordpress installations to the point the only option is to burn everything down and start over. I’m sure yours is nowhere near that.

2023-12-20 15:30:38

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@npub1grx…uxfe Jackson Galaxy is one of the best resources when it comes to cats. I always search his channel first whenever I have a question.

2023-12-02 13:57:04

Looks like we’re just couple steps away from the Transmetropolitan’s buybombs.
https://fortune.com/2023/11/30/lucid-dream-startup-prophetic-headset-prepare-meetings-while-sleeping/
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/111/511/169/963/683/389/original/ec3169b5247f27c6.jpeg

2023-11-21 14:33:06

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@npub1grx…uxfe @npub1g8e…qdqf Mosseri posted this one three weeks ago saying they’re planning to achieve early fediverse progress in the next few months. I haven’t seen anything else yet. https://www.threads.net/@mosseri/post/Cy1vfZov0G_/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

2023-11-18 19:44:10

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@npub1typ…c8hh I feel you. There are couple of small gadgets I know they’re somewhere in the house but I simply decided to let them appear again whenever they want. 😄

2023-11-18 19:33:44

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@npub1typ…c8hh I was also afraid of it too but after the day one, putting it immediately back to the case has become a natural habit.
I only lost a bud one time and it was because one of my brother’s cats knocked it out of the table when we weren’t around and one of the buds flew under the couch. 😄

2023-10-24 17:17:20

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@npub18c7…er9d oh man, it looks amazing. Just read one third of it and saved it to my read-later app because I wanted to read it from start to finish with a full focus tonight.

2023-10-22 13:24:10

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@npub18c7…er9d tbh I’d take it with a grain of salt. The source of the article is not that reliable when it comes to this kind of stuff.

2023-10-08 15:43:56

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@npub1grx…uxfe @npub1xzm…eykm unless we’re going to trust people to tag their content properly, there’s no way to build an automated system which doesn’t end up with bunch of false positives and negatives.
Maybe something similar to what Bluesky and Tumblr has could be useful, having a global filter option to what to do with specific type of content but how this content would be detected is a whole other problem with no clear answer.

2023-10-07 11:48:56

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@npub1w83…get0 @npub1psd…9sr7 This reminded me a quote from the book: “Note that fictional resimulation is strictly forbidden. If you have reason to believe that you may be a fictional character, you must contact the city immediately. [See: James Bond, Spider Jerusalem.] Failure to comply is a felony.”
If the news article was added to the book right after this quote, I wouldn’t even think it could be a real story.

2023-09-10 11:56:01

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@npub1psd…9sr7 @npub1dxp…8ylu being a leftie is the reason why I avoid handwriting as much as possible. I only use two pens that works for a leftie like me based on personal testing: a Lamy Al-Star with their special Leftie tip and uniball Jetstream ballpoint pens. It’s a torture to write with almost everything else.

2023-09-06 17:57:03

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@npub1xzm…eykm thank you so much for the bookmark search! That’s a game changer for me.

2023-09-06 13:14:05

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@npub10pr…qn7d @npub1cy0…ggw4 I like that the article also has a recommended music playlist but that playlist needs more Michael Salvatori :) His work for Halo and Destiny games are perfect.
Here’s a playlist collecting all of his work for Destiny games for the curious. https://music.apple.com/tr/playlist/destiny-ost-collection/pl.u-76oNNrBCZWDxAe

2023-08-28 14:29:18

I’d install this to my website immediately if “never having a pop-up on my website” wasn’t one of my main rules. https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/110967392706060795

2023-08-26 13:51:14

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@npub18c7…er9d I did, especially because it gives me a lot of useful filtering and timeline management options plus all the small things they have makes using Mastodon a lot more enjoyable for me. Of course everyone has a different way of using here but Ivory fits mine the most. (Plus, as a design nerd, I love how much thought they put into design aspect as well.)

2023-08-26 06:09:44

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@npub18c7…er9d that’s why I was using Tweetbot back in the day and now using their Mastodon client @npub1rky…0xq2. It even syncs that info between my devices and also automatically removes duplicate boosts.

2023-08-22 19:35:29

It’s time to start my #PREmailsGoneWild series in here as well.
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/934/944/887/780/403/original/09d5ab425575df9d.jpeg

2023-08-10 17:13:33

#CatsOfİstanbul #CatsOfMastodon
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/110/866/439/131/457/237/original/f67a8b963e40a024.jpeg

2023-07-14 19:21:47

Well this has been one hell of a birthday in the most literal sense because the heatwave decided to peak today and tried to evaporate me.

2023-05-28 05:30:09

Once again it's #TurkeyElection day. Last two weeks was pure mess and Erdoğan did his best to further oppress and silence Kılıçdaroğlu to the point authorities banned him from sending SMS to people for legal reasons while everyone else, including me, were getting Erdoğan propaganda SMS messages from politicians we have no idea how they got our numbers.
It’s going to be an interesting day. As in the saying “may you live in interesting times”.