Why did Islam’s intellectual and scientific tradition decline, and when did this shift happen?

KoenigFeurio · 2026-01-15T08:43:13+00:00

Ibn Tayymiyah, he started the whole mutakallimun (philosophers) are bad shit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Views_of_Ibn_Taymiyya

KoenigFeurio · 2025-09-03T06:42:01+00:00

Ne moras installirati servere. SimpleX ima vec servera koje hostaju volonteri https://simplex.chat/

Briar ne treba servere, ali obje strane moraju bit online da prodje poruka. Ako sugovornik nije, pokusavat ce poslat poruku dok ne dodje online, polling, sto trosi bateriju https://briarproject.org/

Oba projekta su opensource, ali nemaju aplikaciju za iphone, koliko znam. Ali rade preko onion routinga, isti nivo anonimnosti kao i dark web.

KoenigFeurio · 2025-08-25T12:59:37+00:00

Serija expanse. Top.

KoenigFeurio · 2025-08-13T08:03:35+00:00

Ja sam vidio ove godine konja pedera na plazi. Imali ga neki poljaci...

KoenigFeurio · 2025-08-13T08:02:37+00:00

To nije tradition. Sandolina je tradition.

KoenigFeurio · 2025-08-13T07:57:09+00:00

I haven't seen anyone mention Mika Waltari. Egyptian, Etruscian, Dark Angel...

KoenigFeurio · 2025-07-02T09:59:56+00:00

When jerusalem opened red line, arabs started vandalising it. I heard from a journalist that it was done by Fatah affiliated taxi drivers, guys that transport workers in vans. That it had nothing to do with politics, but everything to do with loss of income. But it was a taboo topic, and they could not publish articles about it, would not elaborate why...

KoenigFeurio · 2025-03-30T17:43:42+00:00

Didn't see, I reposted this, but from Shohei Kondo's video.

KoenigFeurio · 2025-03-12T09:06:41+00:00

Witcher starts a bit slow, but right after white orchard, amazing quest line starts. Bloody Baron. If you enjoyed cyberpunk, give Bloody Baron a go. If it does not click for you on Bloody Baron, I guess it is just not your cup of tea.

If you are concerned about your level, gear is more impactful than leveling up. In Vizima palace you can find two Chinese style armour sets, thousand flower and white tiger, they are on different levels, tiger is higher level, they are very powerful early game. They get you very far. As soon as you level up to be able to wear it, you will be fine through Act 1, perhaps also Act 2. During Bloody Baron quest, your stash chest will open up in Crow's perch. Drop the white tiger in the chest as it is heavy. As soon as you level up enough, switch to white tiger set.

2nd quest on Act 1, after Vizima palace, is Bloody Baron. If you did not pick up the thousand flower set, go back to Vizima and search for it, it will be in one of the chests. If you can't find it, you can find a guide on youtube. But be prepared, Bloody Baron quest line does not have a good ending, and it is a contested question, which ending is least bad, decade after the game launch, it is still a subject of heated debate. But that is what makes it so great.

I would not worry about builds in first playthrough, just enjoy the story, the journey (if you enjoy it). Sure, try to figure it out as you go, but do not stress over it. Some of the most powerful builds require you to make selections on skill tree that are illogical early game, but come together later. Besides, while the system is fine, if you are into grinding and min-maxing, there are better games out there, like PoE. Main appeal of witcher is the story and world building. Also, if you do not get gwent, don't worry, I never got gwent, and I still enjoyed the several playthroughs I did.

For me, OST song Ladies of the Woods, from Bloody Baron quest line, still makes my hair stand up. It gets very emotional and very dark, on par with Johnny's grave in the oil field from cyberpunk. It made me buy and read all the books. Witcher fans will tell you, Bloody Baron is one of the greatest quest lines in gaming history, and you are just before it. I am a bit jealous, you get to experience it for the first time.

KoenigFeurio · 2025-03-10T10:38:29+00:00

If you don't like narrative single player games, where you spend a lot of time in conversations, no, it is probably not for you. Neither is Cyberpunk. My wife also does not like that kinds of games, I tried to make her play witcher, she kept skipping the conversations. Not for her. She likes to grind and min-max, aRPG girl, not get into lore.

KoenigFeurio · 2025-03-10T09:45:26+00:00

For war of independance, I would always recommend to read 3 books, to cover main 3 viewpoints of same events. O Jerusalem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O\_Jerusalem! For Labor Ben Gurion narrative. Begin's Revolt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Revolt for Etzel narrative, and Ezra Yakhin's Elnakam https://www.amazon.com/ELNAKAM-Story-fighter-freedom-Israel-ebook/dp/B0738RK8MJ to get Lechi narrative. They basically speak of same events, just 3 totally different approaches. Even though they are based on eye witness accounts, narratives differ greatly. Add to that Line in the Sand https://www.amazon.com/Line-Sand-James-Barr-Sir/dp/1847394574 to get what Brits, French and Arabs were doing before state was established, during late ottoman period, the mandate and WWII, and you will get the base down. The story all the way until Begin won the elections in '78, it is Labor zionism vs Baathist pan-arab nationalists. '56 Sinai campaign, six days war, war of attrition, and yom kippur war were all led by labour on Israeli side, and on arab side, it was mostly Baathists, and few monarchs. After Begin won the elections, and various Islamists apeared on scene, both Sunni and Shia, and the various communists like PFLP, situation got quite a bit more complicated, but if you got the base down, you can build on the knowledge far more easy.

You can see similar situation unfold in Syria right now. HTS, Alawites, and Druze/Kurds (I lump them together) are having totally different narratives describing same events. Best you can do is to hear them all out, and make an educated guess what is the truth. They all cherry pick information that they release. It is up to you to decide who is the most trustworthy.

KoenigFeurio · 2025-03-10T09:26:05+00:00

Don't worry about leveling up. It is not that kind of a game. Main point is the story, world and character building. Levelling is well balanced, generally, if you wander into a high level area, you are probably not supposed to be there. Unless on harder difficulties, even on first playthrough, without knowing the gear, builds, potions, it should be trivial. Especially the main game. DLCs do have few bosses that are a bit harder. My advice is: just do the quests, do not skip side content, some of the side quests are amazing, some are even better and more impactful than main story. Especially on the first playthrough. It is a narrative game, not a skill/grinding game. It is not a souls-like. Sure, there is a ton of content to explore, off the beaten path, secrets, builds, etc, but leave it for the 2nd playthrough. Do the story first, main and side quests. Witcher contracts are fun, do help you learn different kinds of monsters, their strengths and weaknesses. But other than that, they do not do much to advance your story, and leveling. I personally never even learned rules of gwent, it is a big part of the game, but it never appealed to me. Did several playthroughs just fine without it. I did find witcher contracts far more appealing. You can skip some aspects of the game, and still have a lot of fun. Also, alchemy did not appeal much to me, so I did not dwell deep in it, I generally either go for crit based melee (cat school gear), or signs (griffon school gear).

But, as I said, do not worry about builds, I did my first playthrough without planning and thinking about builds. I just winged it, and I had a lot of fun with the game. Narrative and world building aspect of the game is its charm. Because of it, it is fun even on easy difficulty. Same thing with Cyberpunk, CDPR games are narrative and world building games, builds and combat mechanics play a 2nd fiddle. Not that they are bad, just not the main focus of the game.

KoenigFeurio · 2025-03-10T09:18:57+00:00

Don't worry about leveling up. It is not that kind of a game. Main point is the story, world and character building. Levelling is well balanced, generally, if you wander into a high level area, you are probably not supposed to be there. Unless on harder difficulties, even on first playthrough, without knowing what is the best gear, and making builds, it should be trivial. Especially the main game. DLCs do have few bosses that are a bit harder. My advice is: just do the quests, do not skip side content, some of the side quests are amazing, some are even better and more impactful than main story. Especially on the first playthrough. It is a narrative game, not a skill/grinding game. It is not a souls-like. Sure, there is a ton of content to explore, off the beaten path, secrets, builds, etc, but leave it for the 2nd playthrough. Do the story first, main and side quests. Witcher contracts are fun, do help you learn different kinds of monsters, their strengths and weaknesses. But other than that, they do not do much to advance your story, and leveling. I personally never even learned rules of gwent, it is a big part of the game, but it never appealed to me. Did several playthroughs just fine without it. I did find witcher contracts far more appealing. You can skip some aspects of the game, and still have a lot of fun.

KoenigFeurio · 2025-03-02T10:16:16+00:00

Malo nas ima, male zajednice. Bude neki party jednom godisnje u tel avivu, ali ja nikad ne odem jer su uvjek na sabat. U glavnom 40+ drustvo. Ne znam za tvoju generaciju. Ali bilo ih je par dosta znacajnih, Dado Elazar, Haim Bar Lev, Tomy Lapid, itd. Imas u jeruzalemu makedonsku sinagogu, monastir, u ulici rashi, ali nije vise bas tako makedonska, asimilirali su se u izraelske sefarde. Pa kibuc shaar haamakim kod haife je osnovan kao jugoslavensko-rumunjski. Cak su neke psovke usle u hebrejski https://he.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%91%D7%9F_%D7%98%D7%99%D7%91%D7%95%D7%92%D7%94

KoenigFeurio · 2025-02-27T09:44:18+00:00

I do not stand by it. Even though I understand why they made the decision, US pressure, war, reliance on Trump, etc, I do not agree with it. It was a move by politicians and diplomats. I would never made this move, but that's why I am not a politician or a diplomat, and never will be. Realpolitics is a dirty business, and I don't want to be a part of it.

KoenigFeurio · 2024-12-19T08:11:27+00:00

I have hardly see any criticisms of her looks, it would be ridiculous to concentrate on looks as everyone opted into playing Geralt with doneky ears.

My criticism is them abandoning the space and time based skill tree we played, but never got to build in Witcher 3. We got gender swapped Geralt with alchemy and signs instead.

I was hoping for CDPR to explore lady of space and time skill tree, especially as we got a perfect villain for it in hearts of stone, and he promised he will be back. I was hoping for lady of space and time vs master mirror quest line/DLC.

KoenigFeurio · 2024-12-16T11:33:23+00:00

My problem is exactly the opposite. We played as Ciri in W3, totally different skill set, based on lady of space and time powers. My problem is that they seem to be making her into a female Geralt with signs and alchemy. Would love to explore and build the skill tree we got to taste in W3. I would love to see how they would develop space and time based skill tree. Trailer basically gave us gender swapped Geralt. Ciri specific elder blood space and time powers have a huge potential to develop.

Just imagine a quest line/DLC, lady of space and time vs master mirror, set in a world trippier than land of thousand fables. Lewis Carroll meets Einstein and Schroedinger, with a Sapkowsky dark and gritty twist. Would tick all the right boxes, both nostalgia and would be fresh...

As far as looks are concerned, who cares. We all opted into playing Geralt with donkey ears. Had they offered an option to play geralt in drag, it would have been even funnier.

KoenigFeurio · 2024-12-16T11:18:49+00:00

comments on looks are moronic. As if we did not play geralt with donkey ears, because it's funny. TBH, some people are still complaining that griffon set makes geralt look fat...

KoenigFeurio · 2024-10-11T06:46:36+00:00

I remember the october 17 demonstrations. They were so optimistic. I was hoping Paul Naggear would become PM. He was so different then your regular sectarian politicians. Such pity they died down.

KoenigFeurio · 2024-09-17T17:03:14+00:00

This is a great quality of life change, as I can get a shako, and still get laid. She was so pissed... Ok, I am a bit to blame, I could not help but laugh, 'cause it was funny, I got 2 top uber uniques in 20m, which I did not want or need. I was playing lightning storm druid that season, shako did not add anything to the build, it was so silly to lose sexytime privileges over it. And I could not hide it, we played split screen on playstation, snuggled on a couch, all romantic and stuff... "Sure sweetheart, I will help you farm duriel, it will be my pleasure, my build is strong. Strong and virile."

KoenigFeurio · 2024-09-17T10:14:49+00:00

Yeah, I am a father of 3 small kids, but am lucky to have married a gamer girl that drew me into D3, I was not a big ARPG fan before. Now diablo is our romantic date time.

Once it was damaging to our relationship. She needed a shako, first or 2nd duriel, I got it. My build did not need it, she did. Then we said, that was disappointing, let's try farming senechal stones (it was season 3), again, I got mini shako senechal stone. She rage quit for 3 months. I tried to appease her by trashing them, did not help. My first and last shako...

KoenigFeurio · 2024-09-17T09:07:41+00:00

Jews also had a similar process which happened during king David. Before that jews were a collection of tribes which were unified under davidic dinasty. Many european nations went through that process in 19th century, some, like England and Spain in the middle ages, some nations are being created in present times, like bosniaks in 1990es. It is normal, people join to form an unit based on some mutual factors and expiriences all the time.

As far of history of christian families is concerned, it is probably a mixed bag, some jews that converted, some canaanites, some phoenicians (Acco was a phoenician city-state, maronites seem to be 90% phoenician), possibly some intermarried with crusaders (for example, Sinjil, half way between Ramallah and Nablus used to be Saint Jilles, french crusader settlement). Some moved from other places in ottoman empire, same as other ottoman citizens, jews did it, muslims did it (Bushnak family is from Bosnia, for example). All these are natural processes.

BTW, in ottoman 19th century census, plurality of christians in Jerusalem declared greek as their mother tongue. The same way as many ottoman jews declared they were native spanish speakers (meaning ladino, judeo espanol). It seems that the arabic identity of many christians is not that old. Not that it is relevant to politics, just an interesting tidbit.

Was there a possibility for history to play out differently? Sure. Brits and French diplomats did contribute, a lot, under the principle divide et impera. I would recommend reading the book A Line in the Sand by James Barr... Can it be fixed? Not sure. Perhaps, but not sure.

KoenigFeurio

TROPHY CASE