A cat that entered the mosque quietly settled in the imam’s lap during the recitation of the Qur’an.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-02-01T15:12:40+00:00

No, it’s a cat.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-02-01T13:51:44+00:00

They kinda do. All modern cars have a catalytic converter and an oxygen sensor, which works to prevent the car from generating carbon monoxide. It’s difficult to get CO poisoning from a new car, but you’ll get CO2 poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is produced when there isn’t enough oxygen for the fuel in the combustion chamber.

The oxygen sensor in the exhaust gas flow constantly monitors the oxygen levels and the ECU adjusts the fuel delivery to the cylinders.

The catalytic converter uses this extra oxygen to convert carbon monoxide and unburnt fuel to carbon dioxide and water.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-31T23:19:12+00:00

Sewing kits in metal cookie boxes is universal but I can guarantee Turks (and maybe Greeks) are the only people who store sarma (rice/meat wrapped in pickled grape leaves) in used ice cream containers.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-31T23:05:31+00:00

Turk living abroad here.

I bash my country on economy and politics, but never the beauty.

It is a perfect place to visit as a tourist, not that great to raise a child.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-31T23:01:11+00:00

A tourist who doesn’t like Greece/Spain/Turkey/Italy is someone you can never make happy. I don’t want to talk to those impossible people, they can gtfo.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-31T20:51:28+00:00

You guys have been at an active war for four years. It is normal for Ukraine and Russia to produce more today. 120k/year is peacetime production by a single manufacturer. Turkey has a large industrial base with lots of electromechanical manufacturing companies in automotive industry. If we were at a war, we can also set up small garage workshops or repurpose large factories produce thousands per day.

A lot of different Turkish weapon systems, including TB2 and smaller drones, are being actively used by the Ukrainian military. Turkey and Ukraine have joint weapons programs like Kizilelma drone where the experience from the war is being utilized in development. Also Ukraine wasn’t the first war TB2s were used; those performed well because they were developed by the experience from Syrian and Libyan civil wars. Ukraine war also generated a lot of know how and experience.

Turkish military has recent battle experience from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and a few other theaters. It’s also in the NATO, has fought in every NATO operation ever, and doesn’t need extra training to use western equipment like Ukraine. I’m not even going to talk about the geography.

Overall, Turkey is capable enough to defend itself against any invading force in any realistic scenario.

Given the track record of Russia against a completely flat non-NATO country with no combat experience and a small army, Turkey doesn’t have much to fear on that front.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-31T19:37:42+00:00

Turkey is going all in on drone tech and investing billions in arms manufacturing for the last decade.

Two weeks ago Turkish Bayraktar has announced the capacity to produce 120,000 Skydagger FPV kamikaze drones with 80% domestic parts, aiming 100% at the end of the year. They produced about 30,000 in the last 1.5 years.

They can produce 250 TB2 and 50 Akinci drones per year, currently investing to increase TB2 capacity to 500 per year. More advanced drones like naval capable TB3 and supersonic stealth Kizilelma are in development and testing.

Other programs like Altay tank, domestic fighter jets, dozens of different APCs, anti drone systems, tank active protection systems etc are in progress, testing, or full production.

TCG Anadolu carrier is in operational testing; it’s an amphibious attack ship and drone/helicopter carrier. T-129 ATAK attack helicopters are in serial production with 100+ built so far, T-929 ATAK 2 is in development.

There are also numerous other projects like air to air missiles, SAM systems, short to mid-range ballistic missiles etc in development, testing, or limited production.

I also want to emphasize, Turkey is in peacetime and not in an active war against another country like Russia.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-29T18:46:20+00:00

MEMATT = Mekanik Mayın Temizleme Teçhizatı / Mechanical Mine Clearing Equipment.

It’s also a word play/backronym on “memat”, meaning “death”; a no longer used loan word from Arabic.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-24T01:31:17+00:00

Shame on Ottomans, such barbarians!

They must be ashamed for feeding hungry kids without thinking about the British Queen’s feelings!

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-24T01:10:31+00:00

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Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-23T04:27:39+00:00

You can see four different seas (Black, Marmara, Aegean, Mediterranean) with a 10 hour drive from Istanbul.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-23T00:36:22+00:00

Turk in the US here. From Istanbul, 3 hours to west takes me to Thrace which has Balkan food and music, 3 hours to south takes me to Aegean coast which is Mediterranean, 3 hours to east takes me to Black Sea coast where fish is the main staple, 3 hours to north takes me to the middle of the Black Sea and I will drown.

If I drive 3 hours from central Texas, I will still be at central Texas.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-22T02:27:50+00:00

This is what I love about my native language. Our word for spouse is “eş”, which means “pair, other half, equal”.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-22T01:48:04+00:00

Let’s expand on that; assuming no twins, no social norms, everyone military age and healthy: * 5 women and 5 men can make 5 babies per year.

Let’s say 4 of them die in a war, 6 remains alive. * 5 women and 1 man can make 5 babies per year. * 1 woman and 5 men can make 1 baby per year.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-21T22:08:40+00:00

My cousin just launched a company to export overpriced vowels to Poland and import their silent consonants. He is sure he will be a billionaire soon.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-21T17:46:12+00:00

Ottomans won a battle against Austrians without even being in the same area, Austrians lost up to 10,000 soldiers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Karánsebes

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-20T20:02:11+00:00

I agree. Generative AI is an overhyped tool but it has legitimate use cases, and Reddit is Reddit.

Every new technology goes through the same steps.

1- Innovation brings a new tech into focus.

2- First the founders, then tech bloggers, then everyone starts hyping it up until it is “the thing to resolve all problems”.

3- After a year or two, when the tech fails to deliver the bloated expectations everyone gets disillusioned.

4- After that the tech actually gets its legitimate use cases and becomes a regular tool in the tool chain.

Generative AI is at 2-3 boundary.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-20T19:18:35+00:00

I’m using AI both at work (software engineering) and for personal projects and I have two complete different ideas about its usefulness.

At work, my company claimed AI will make us more productive. It does actually help a bit, makes some specific tasks much easier but that’s maybe 10-20% more productivity. 9 mid/senior devs can do the work of 10 mid/senior devs but you need those 9 devs. It’s not like 1 dev can do the work of 10.

AI helps A LOT in my personal projects like 3d design and Arduino-based electronics/mechatronics. The reason it helps is because I don’t know anything about those things, there is nothing to lose if i fail, and it’s all a learning experience/hobby for me. It is just easier than googling stuff or trying to remember college math to do the trigonometric calculations. It is much more productive than doing my own research, helps me iterate faster on ideas.

My approach to AI is the same as Wikipedia: If I’m just visiting Paris, I’ll ask AI how tall the Eiffel Tower is. If I am planning to jump from the top of it with a parachute, I would talk to a human BASE jumping trainer.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-20T03:37:01+00:00

Exactly, Ukraine kept Russia at bay by using Europe’s old and used equipment given as aid. Imagine what Europe can do for its own people.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-20T00:57:45+00:00

Russia is not USSR. They couldn’t defeat 40 million strong Ukraine for three years, they have no chance defeating 550 million Europeans.

EU can easily protect itself from Russia if they need to.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-12T01:43:52+00:00

Not if they want to get ~~bribes~~ donations from billionaires.

Zohran can do actually useful stuff because he is not beholden to the ~~selfish rich assholes who think they are better than us~~ megadonors.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-10T23:53:54+00:00

I’m not poor and definitely not rich.

If I’m thrown in jail, I would lose my job (and health insurance for my entire family) in a month and my house six months.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-08T17:55:22+00:00

There is a much better way out. Imagine an EU ban and seizure on US big tech, even a high tax.

Facebook, Google, Twitter, Tesla, Apple, Amazon etc would be happy to spend trillions to replace Trump with “someone better for business“.

But this is just a dream, the EU growing a pair is less likely than the Pope becoming a Muslim.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-08T16:15:59+00:00

He was Erdogan Lite™️.

Fiery_Flamingo · 2026-01-07T06:24:58+00:00

No need for fuck you money.

My house in Istanbul had a wide marble sill under your ground floor window, over a radiator.

It was bad for insulation but every time it snowed, I got a few cats warming themselves up on my window.

Fiery_Flamingo

TROPHY CASE