https://khadersyed.com Thoughts and writings by Khader Syed en-us Blogatto It’s an old trick, one that’s been pulled out of the hat by the powerful throughout history: keep folks fighting among themselves, and they won't notice who's really pulling the strings. We're talking about the manipulation of everyday citizens through fear and division, a strategy that https://khadersyed.com/blog/the-inherited-art-of-division-from-imperial-rule-to-elite-control/ Sat, 26 Jul 2025 18:21:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/the-inherited-art-of-division-from-imperial-rule-to-elite-control/ It began with a conversation between old friends at dinner—all of us engineers who've been building systems and applications since the late '90s and early 2000s. One friend who has been experimenting with AI tools in his highly regulated workplace, was excitedly brainstorming ways to deploy https://khadersyed.com/blog/the-r-evolution-of-computing-from-bare-metal-to-ai/ Sun, 18 May 2025 13:58:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/the-r-evolution-of-computing-from-bare-metal-to-ai/ When The Washington Post documented the $38 billion in government support behind Musk's empire, it should have settled the debate. Yet Semafor's recent piece reads like someone analyzing a magic show while refusing to acknowledge the trapdoors.Turns out, Elon's empire runs on the kind of https://khadersyed.com/blog/elon-musk-america-s-favorite-welfare-queen/ Sun, 11 May 2025 18:12:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/elon-musk-america-s-favorite-welfare-queen/ https://khadersyed.com/blog/steve-jobs-rock-tumbler-metaphor/ Sun, 21 Apr 2024 17:50:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/steve-jobs-rock-tumbler-metaphor/ I had been feeling down and depressed the last few days. Perhaps it was the weather, or the cold and cough I still have or the unnecessary and unexpected drama at work. All part of the human condition, I’m pretty sure.And so, we did nothing yesterday and had planned to go to the museum today.So glad https://khadersyed.com/blog/art-at-the-museum/ Mon, 16 Jan 2023 23:06:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/art-at-the-museum/ When I wake up from a good night’s sleep, some of my memories from the previous day are lost, but most of the rest, my mind and body still remembers..Early this year, I came to a realization, and decided on actions I should take when presented with any choice. How should I live my life, when I make https://khadersyed.com/blog/love-is-the-way/ Mon, 24 Oct 2022 23:56:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/love-is-the-way/ Over the years, I’m lucky to have dabbled in a few hobbies and interests of mine.The story so far:Archery - one of the most satisfying hobbies. I’ve always liked bow and arrows, presumably from watching all those Hindu epics on TV growing up. I wish I could find a decent archery club somewhere https://khadersyed.com/blog/interests/ Sun, 21 Apr 2019 20:42:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/interests/ Ooof! It’s been a long time since the last update.That last one was almost 18 months ago, when things were really bad.It’s a good thing I don’t remember any of it - only have some scars from it.What a waste of time that time was. Ugh!Lots of things have changed since and many that haven’t.Since the https://khadersyed.com/blog/past-is-future/ Sat, 30 Mar 2019 00:42:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/past-is-future/ My short-terms plans on the technology front:build my own set of dockerfiles - already under waybuild my own container registry - not started yetautomate the setup of an opinionated kubernetes cluster - early daysusing containerd, cri-containerd, and prometheus etc.,contribute to the cilium project https://khadersyed.com/blog/miles-to-go/ Thu, 21 Dec 2017 11:17:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/miles-to-go/ Don’t ever get that. Get anything else. The 50mm F1.8 is a great choice. https://khadersyed.com/blog/nikon-50mm-f1-4/ Sat, 25 Nov 2017 16:39:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/nikon-50mm-f1-4/ Failure brings humility. It develops your character. It helps you laugh at your mistakes and not take things so seriously. Like a plant placed from the shade into sunlight, your growth rate will accelerate 10x. https://khadersyed.com/blog/success-failure-and-mediocrity/ Fri, 24 Nov 2017 21:19:21 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/success-failure-and-mediocrity/ I love a good knife. I love chopping with my knife, and I have no idea why.The key, I realize, is to hold the knife right. That, and a good knife.This is my current knife - a Victorinox 8 Inch Chef’s Knife and I love it. https://khadersyed.com/blog/knife-and-skills/ Fri, 17 Nov 2017 20:00:21 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/knife-and-skills/ Continuing on from Part INow that we have the acs-engine binary, we can create a template and launch the kubernetes cluster.Before we proceed, it doesn’t hurt to pull a fresh copy of acs-engine, bootstrap and build it.$ git clone https://github.com/Azure/acs-engine.git $ cd acs-engine $ sudo https://khadersyed.com/blog/kubernetes-setup-using-azure-acs-engine-part-ii/ Mon, 13 Nov 2017 22:05:30 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/kubernetes-setup-using-azure-acs-engine-part-ii/ Instead of specifying this directly in your configuration, we’ll use the concept of k8s secrets. You decouple the k8s object from the registry configuration by just referencing the secret by it’s name. But first, let’s create a new k8s secret.$ kubectl create secret docker-registry https://khadersyed.com/blog/using-azure-container-registry-with-kubernetes/ Fri, 20 Oct 2017 17:41:30 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/using-azure-container-registry-with-kubernetes/ Until recently, this site had an atom feed.Not anymore.We now have JSON feed available, i.e. if you still use a feed reader. 😏 https://khadersyed.com/blog/json-feed/ Wed, 11 Oct 2017 22:05:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/json-feed/ These days I spend nearly all of my time on Azure. Ansible support for Azure hasn’t been great until version 2.4, so I’ve even had to build custom modules to do some stuff internally for ourselves.Beyond that, there’s a lot of interesting and innovative stuff happening in Azure.In this post, I want https://khadersyed.com/blog/kubernetes-setup-using-azure-acs-engine-part-i/ Tue, 03 Oct 2017 17:30:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/kubernetes-setup-using-azure-acs-engine-part-i/ If you haven’t heard or read about 12 factor, read about it here.The twelve-factor app is a methodology for building software-as-a-service apps that:Use declarative formats for setup automation, to minimize time and cost for new developers joining the projectHave a clean contract with the underlying https://khadersyed.com/blog/i-love-12-factor/ Mon, 29 May 2017 20:05:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/i-love-12-factor/ what light could quenchthis thirst only darknesshad eaten up withlittle inkling of mercy https://khadersyed.com/blog/reboot/ Sun, 14 May 2017 22:09:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/reboot/ I was born to Muslim parents in India. Mum was and is still a staunch muslim. Dad used to be an atheist, but goes to the mosque regularly now.My brother and I read the Quran daily for 6 months or so, when I was 10 or something. I understood parts of it, as much as I could comprehend as a kid, but https://khadersyed.com/blog/what-is-god/ Mon, 13 Jun 2016 23:26:12 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/what-is-god/ Well, you gotta write something. Why not write the recipe I used to make Chana Saag or Chickpea Spinach Curry tonite.You’ll need:1/2 tsp of mustard seeds1/2 tsp of cumin seeds5-6 curry leaves1 inch cinnamon stick1 onion - thinly sliced or chopped1 tbsp ginger garlic pasteAlternately 1 inch of grated https://khadersyed.com/blog/chana-saag-chickpea-spinach-curry/ Sun, 03 Jan 2016 20:51:32 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/chana-saag-chickpea-spinach-curry/ It’s a new year and new things to come, built on old ideas and thoughts that have been lost and forgotten.This year, I intend to:be more confidentbe very specificplan vacationssave to buy a housetake time to thinkbut decide quicklybe open to possibilitiespaint morewrite moreread morebe healthyAnd https://khadersyed.com/blog/stay-hungry-stay-foolish/ Fri, 01 Jan 2016 18:08:12 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/stay-hungry-stay-foolish/ I’ve been building a docker image for Heketi and noticed that the image size was more than 3 times the size of a base Centos 7 image. Searching on google, I came across this page on optimizing docker images. Now, I understand why the Dockerfiles spread across github have multi-line RUN commands.My https://khadersyed.com/blog/reducing-the-size-of-a-docker-image/ Sun, 18 Oct 2015 22:36:23 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/reducing-the-size-of-a-docker-image/ I’ve used Vagrant previously for testing something and forgot about it. Now, I need a Fedora server to test something. So, I thought, why not use Vagrant to do what I want. And as I’m wont to do, I wanted to document it. So here goes nothing and everything.I’m using a Mac, so I’m obviously going to https://khadersyed.com/blog/vagrant-and-fedora-22/ Mon, 12 Oct 2015 22:28:39 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/vagrant-and-fedora-22/ Python has had awesome string formatters for many years but the documentation on them is far too theoretic and technical. With this site we try to show you the most common use-cases covered by the old and new style string formatting API with practical examples. https://khadersyed.com/blog/string-formatting-in-python/ Tue, 22 Sep 2015 22:19:30 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/string-formatting-in-python/ This page documents all the little changes between Python 2 and Python 3. Useful, so you can already start programming for the future and dropping the old ways of doing things.So much has changed between Python 2 and Python 3, there are vanishingly few programs that will run unmodified under both. https://khadersyed.com/blog/porting-code-from-python-2-to-python-3/ Thu, 17 Sep 2015 13:44:10 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/porting-code-from-python-2-to-python-3/ A must-watch talk by Clojure creator Rich Hickey on simplicity. https://khadersyed.com/blog/on-simplicity/ Mon, 31 Aug 2015 19:56:13 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/on-simplicity/ I first programmed on a computer, in LOGO and BASIC, almost 25 years ago. I loved it back then for the things I could do with it and the future possibilities. I love it even more now for all amazing fantastic creations you can make from it. It changed my world then and continues to change it every https://khadersyed.com/blog/computers-and-me/ Mon, 31 Aug 2015 19:02:13 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/computers-and-me/ After working on Clojure stuff and then on Java, I can understand why some would prefer Java.With Java, you have a process, an order so to speak of going about doing things. It forces you to follow a model and that helps build discipline where you have to think of the bigger picture before you can https://khadersyed.com/blog/on-java/ Tue, 18 Aug 2015 16:51:13 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/on-java/ With any new language, as you proceed to use it and learn, you figure out ways to do certain things. For e.g., often times I want to know what the type a certain result or a variable is.It’s a good thing both Clojure and Python have a REPL.In clojure, if you wanted to find the type or class of https://khadersyed.com/blog/little-nuggets-in-clojure-and-python/ Sat, 27 Jun 2015 12:43:10 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/little-nuggets-in-clojure-and-python/ About a week or two ago, I decided to focus on two things. One would be SaltStack and the other would be Clojure.Over the last week, I’ve learnt quite a bit about clojure and there’s lot more to learn. I wanted to document all the stuff I’ve found in the process of learning clojure.ClojureDocs is a https://khadersyed.com/blog/getting-it-on-with-clojure/ Thu, 28 May 2015 02:15:12 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/getting-it-on-with-clojure/ So, I resurrected my old blog from the git repository, changed the background and and got the site back online. Most everything is still the same, cause why fix something that isn’t broken?I wanted to use a different framework for my website, but nothing was easy, minimalist or up to my taste.. So, https://khadersyed.com/blog/i-m-back-with-saltstack/ Sun, 24 May 2015 01:18:43 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/i-m-back-with-saltstack/ I’m intrigued by Stripe and Stellar and the things you can do with it. I would like to know more about the regulations around currencies and trading in the US, so I can work on some ideas I have. The ideas themselves are simple, but I want to look at making things cheaper and better for everyone https://khadersyed.com/blog/things-that-interest-me-right-now/ Mon, 08 Dec 2014 00:24:12 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/things-that-interest-me-right-now/ I’m figuring out Scala and in the process learning about SBT to build my code. Leaving this useful page about build file examples here for future reference.My Scala mechanize code is going pretty well here.Next little project - write some code to get stock quotes. I should be able to use mechanize https://khadersyed.com/blog/scala-and-sbt/ Sun, 30 Nov 2014 20:59:10 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/scala-and-sbt/ I’ve created a few scripts for AWS EC2, S3 and and a playbook for creating an instance using Ansible. All the code is available here. In that same repository, there’s a script I found which helps you get all the AWS Usage reports. I might use that to figure out how my usage and billing are https://khadersyed.com/blog/scaaaalaaaa/ Sat, 29 Nov 2014 22:04:12 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/scaaaalaaaa/ Back to blogging after a while. Trying something new this time, so I thought I should document it as I go.I’m writing a program that will use all the spam mail I get as input and create art out of it. What art exactly, I’m unsure as of now. I have some ideas and want to see how they blossom.For the https://khadersyed.com/blog/repurpose-spam/ Sat, 08 Nov 2014 19:54:00 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/repurpose-spam/ Almost 2 years ago, in the summer of 2012, I was on my way to a music festival. It was perhaps the most satisfying time ever, including trying to get to the festival and back. In the process, I ended up hitchhiking with a stranger I had met just a week ago. We ended up going from Germany to Portugal https://khadersyed.com/blog/less-is-more-than-enough/ Thu, 26 Jun 2014 15:01:14 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/less-is-more-than-enough/ I’m not a Buddhist or a Muslim. Or even a Hindu. Definitely not a Christian, a Jew or an Atheist.If anything, I am a combination of all of these, a reflection of everything I’ve learnt over the years, since the time I’ve gained consciousness. Many moons ago, I came across the following story in the https://khadersyed.com/blog/you-re-still-carrying-her/ Mon, 12 May 2014 18:14:14 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/you-re-still-carrying-her/ Perhaps there are some kinds of debates where people don’t want to find the right answer so much as they want to win the argument.There seems to be a need to want to win. Or perhaps it’s a need to fight something or the other. If you login to facebook or any of the multiple social networks out https://khadersyed.com/blog/the-need-to-want-to-win-or-to-keep-fighting/ Wed, 16 Apr 2014 16:31:45 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/the-need-to-want-to-win-or-to-keep-fighting/ In the last few minutes of the movie Looper, Gordon-Levitt’s character Joe realizes that the only way to stop the kid from becoming the rainmaker is to kill himself. And so, he chooses to kill himself and stop the cycle of violence.Over the last few months, negativity and cynicism have flooded my https://khadersyed.com/blog/choice/ Mon, 07 Apr 2014 17:02:54 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/choice/ Touch was an important step, removing the stylus between the user and the interface. And touch has changed how we interact with devices and experience them, ever since the release of the first iPhone.Now, it’s the turn of voice recognition. Typing using an on-screen keyboard still feels cumbersome. https://khadersyed.com/blog/voice/ Thu, 03 Apr 2014 18:56:12 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/voice/ the ones who wanttheir privacy protectedwill be the firstto invade yoursthe ones who want choicewill be the firstto vilify yoursat war with itself,where toleranceand comity existneither on the leftnor on the rightfree denizensat the throatsof one anotherexplains whyone side wantsto keep it’s https://khadersyed.com/blog/conflicted/ Mon, 31 Mar 2014 19:42:56 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/conflicted/ Growing up, entertainment and fun for us was playing with friends or watching some TV. And TV wasn’t even cable TV, cause our parents didn’t want us to get corrupted, whatever that meant. We used to either watch soap operas or Indian music videos. Occasionally, on a Sunday we would watch a movie or https://khadersyed.com/blog/childhood/ Mon, 31 Mar 2014 16:47:22 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/childhood/ I’ve got an account both on facebook and twitter. When I first published information about my site, I posted it on facebook. A day or two later, I setup up an IFTTT recipe to post the latest post using my atom feed on to twitter. And then I collected data, like I do, for no particular reason.I have https://khadersyed.com/blog/which-is-better-facebook-or-twitter/ Tue, 18 Mar 2014 23:30:32 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/which-is-better-facebook-or-twitter/ The process of filing taxes in the US is not something I would say is easy. It is quite complicated, especially because one has to deal with federal and state taxes and there seem to be so many things that you can possibly maybe perhaps deduct. It is a fine web that only career bureaucrats could https://khadersyed.com/blog/filing-taxes-in-the-us/ Sun, 16 Mar 2014 23:51:03 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/filing-taxes-in-the-us/ Troubled by the ideas that are floating in my head. Not that the ideas themselves are troubling, but that the ideas are about things I want to do in the future, that are obstructing my path in the here and now. I have to figure out how to focus in the present and postpone what I need to do in the https://khadersyed.com/blog/choose-to-focus/ Sat, 15 Mar 2014 00:19:11 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/choose-to-focus/ Apparently you can pick color from any image using the Mac OS X color picker and then re-use those images at a later time. Cool.OS X’s Color Picker stores the images used, so you can load in lots of swatches and switch between them at any time. Ace. https://khadersyed.com/blog/use-mac-os-x-color-picker-to-pick-color-from-images/ Fri, 14 Mar 2014 22:24:10 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/use-mac-os-x-color-picker-to-pick-color-from-images/ Broadband in America sucks balls. And you don’t need a newsweek article to tell you that. In Brooklyn, New York, where I live, my only options are Time-Warner Cable and Verizon. We recently moved away from Time-Warner Cable, hoping Verizon would be better and what did we find out? this! Speeds as https://khadersyed.com/blog/broadband-in-america/ Fri, 14 Mar 2014 17:09:21 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/broadband-in-america/ So, google mail has been acting up. Looks like people aren’t receiving the email I send or is just vanishing into the ether. Google mail has been easy, but I would like to get back to my roots now. Time to pop my email and read it in mutt, like a proper geek.If someone has to write an article on how https://khadersyed.com/blog/google-mail-and-ios-shift-key/ Thu, 13 Mar 2014 18:07:31 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/google-mail-and-ios-shift-key/ So, as you can tell, I’ve added an atom feed, removed excerpts on the front page and cleaned up the internal code a little bit. I’ll add an archive link later and will need to cleanup the design a bit. So far, I am liking the color scheme - simple.It may look too “spartan” for now, but it will https://khadersyed.com/blog/excerpts-and-updates/ Wed, 12 Mar 2014 00:03:34 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/excerpts-and-updates/ Finally!!Hope this fixes all the crashing issues that i’ve been facing with iOS 7. Incremental changes are happening on the site. So far, I am liking the progress.I’ve been looking at the Google compute engine too, but there is no indication on how long it is free and really, now that I code in https://khadersyed.com/blog/ios-7-1-is-out/ Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:15:12 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/ios-7-1-is-out/ A minor update. The site now has an atom feed. w00t! https://khadersyed.com/blog/atom-feed/ Mon, 10 Mar 2014 00:19:21 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/atom-feed/ Figures my ranking with google for my site has improved since I moved away from tumblr.I always wondered why my site had a lower ranking when I was hosting on tumblr. Don’t know why that is the case, but I ain’t complaining.So, a few updates in design. She said that my site looked too spartan. I https://khadersyed.com/blog/site-ranking/ Sun, 09 Mar 2014 18:30:21 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/site-ranking/ A few things to remember, when creating an S3 bucket. Make sure there are no underscores in your bucket name. The console might allow you to create one, but you will have problems when configuring the bucket as a website.While I do this, I am going to try and figure out if hosting with Amazon AWS https://khadersyed.com/blog/site-updates/ Fri, 07 Mar 2014 22:49:21 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/site-updates/ A simple start using Jekyll to create my blog pages, running in an S3 bucket and DNS provided by Route 53.I mean, I could use an EC2 and EBS, but why not simplify, eh?Check out my Poems and Short Stories https://khadersyed.com/blog/welcome-to-sid-carter/ Fri, 07 Mar 2014 12:57:55 GMT https://khadersyed.com/blog/welcome-to-sid-carter/