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Alper Cugun

@alper.nl
714 followers 1.5K following 2.8K posts

Doing Platform Engineering in Berlin Now: gym, studying Japanese, Critical Role, Cuppin.gs, Rust

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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 23h
You’re saying this can be done without police brutality and kickbacks to friends’ non-profits like Berlin’s CDU led government has been doing up until now? Our incoming new mayor at least has a good example to follow.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 28/09/2026
The loose knit group of cycling clubs in a specific park in London have a web presence that's tidier than that of many company or institution in Berlin. Why is this? www.regentsparkcyclists.com
regentsparkcyclists.com
Regent's Park Cyclists
To recognise the privilege of having a beautiful park to ride our bikes in
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 26/09/2026
The left can't be trusted either because they're oftentimes financially illiterate and almost entirely beholden to Russia.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 26/09/2026
Looking to get digital copies of the books my kids use in school (for reference) and I'm guessing the German publishers won't be too forthcoming with them? The shadow library also does not carry most of them. Is there a repository somewhere? Do teachers get PDFs?
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 26/09/2026
Judging by the attacks the Linke is seeing at the moment I feel like expropriation of real estate may actually be a real solution. Nothing else explains this level of insanity.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 26/09/2026
You can't do politics in a country if there's an active gas leak. First you have to stop the gas leak.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 26/09/2026
@linkexhain.bsky.social Wann kommen die Radwege?
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 26/09/2026
@baxhain.bsky.social @linkexhain.bsky.social Hallo, wir haben hier in der Lindenstraße eine Baustelle für diesen Spekulations-Bau Viktoriahöfe obwohl hier schon seit mehr als ein Jahr nicht mehr gebaut wird. Wann wird diese Baustelle entfernt?
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 26/09/2026
If you must share LLM generated output without editing it, have the decency to block quote it.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 25/09/2026
Facebook is a massive scam farm these days and why should that be allowed? thenextweb.com/news/meta-sc...
thenextweb.com
German court rules Meta liable for scam ads on Facebook and Instagram
A Frankfurt court ruled Meta liable for scam ads on Facebook and Instagram, saying its algorithms rule out the EU’s hosting defence.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 25/09/2026
Got a: “computer says no” today from a German civil servant. If people here had realized how great an excuse computers are so as not to be responsible for things, they would’ve digitized Germany decades ago.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 25/09/2026
A strong argument written in German against the privatization of social media as a problem inflicted on us by unaccountable profit seeking corporations. I'm not sure whether this will do anything to course correct the idiocy that our politicians seem hell bent on pushing on us.
blaetter.de
Die TikTok-Demokratie
Smartphonenutzung wird in der politischen und öffentlichen Debatte überwiegend als Privatproblem verhandelt und die Verantwortung dafür vor allem den Jugendlichen und ihren Eltern zugeschrieben. So…
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 25/09/2026
The German car industry has remained immensely profitable all the while driving itself off a cliff (!). The crisis is entirely self-inflicted and lots of people have taken the money and ran. There need to be political and criminal consequences for this before the country can move on.
somo.nl
https://www.somo.nl/manufactured-crisis/
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 24/09/2026
You may have seen that deleting lots of small files on your laptop can be a very intense and slow process. Deleting lots of things in a database can require so much extra work and bookkeeping that it can be detrimental to the health of the system. planetscale.com/blog/the-onl...
planetscale.com
The only scalable delete in Postgres is DROP TABLE — PlanetScale
Large DELETEs add work instead of reclaiming it. Structure your database so deletion becomes DROP TABLE or TRUNCATE.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 24/09/2026
I don't think Omarchy is going to make Linux better so much as that they identified that Linux on the desktop has reached a tipping point and now is the time to capitalize on it. That's the DHH playbook and why would it be any different this time?
tante.cc
Power grab
Omarchy should not matter. But sadly it does. As a power grab. If you don’t know what Omarchy is here’s the short summary. David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of RubyOnRails, owner of a software…
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 24/09/2026
I was forced to create a passkey recently and I wanted to store that key in 1Password where I store all my other credentials. How to do that properly was pretty non-obvious and a bad enough experience that it seems that it wasn't tested or a priority for anybody implementing these systems.
hawksley.dev
I don't like passkeys | Ethan Hawksley
Why passkeys are a step back for personal security: examining account lockout risks, platform lock-in, hardware key limits, and fragile recovery flows.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 22/09/2026
I had to explain today that Banh Mi is made on baguettes because the area used to be called FRENCH Indochina and the bread is a colonial leftover. Imagine what great food we could have had here in the west if we'd been colonised by countries with actual cuisines?
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 22/09/2026
Calling the Linke in Berlin and their Mamdani candidate. This is your job and all of your job for the next five years.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 21/09/2026
Take five minutes over on Twitter after yesterday's Berlin election results, and it should become immediately obvious how that space is extremely compromised and slanted.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 21/09/2026
I remember being worried that the CDU would form a government with the AFD. The better question to ask now is why should a CDU exist at all if people have an option that does the same things but harder and better. Great replacement but for political parties.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 20/09/2026
The Linke has no history of achievement or governance in Berlin and plenty of obstacles in learning to do so. I would be very happy to be proven wrong here. Lederer was very content and achieved nothing but thankfully he’s gone.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 20/09/2026
Nobody has raised the theory that Merz is an AfD psyop? I mean… it explains more than most other takes.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 20/09/2026
Shitfuck is happening here on a goddamn election night.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 20/09/2026
If Berlin elects the Linke today, that’s effectively a second referendum in favour of expropriation because that promise has been one of the party’s main campaign topics. At that point nobody can argue that it’s not democratically legitimate.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 20/09/2026
It’s possible to vote for the new euro banknotes though it’s not much of a choice if most of the proposals are equally atrocious. Was it part of the design brief to include random modernist buildings on one side? Because a lot of them do. surveys.ecb.europa.eu/lng/en/pageT...
surveys.ecb.europa.eu
surveys.ecb.europa.eu
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 19/09/2026
Trying to find a reasonable route to cycle home through Kreuzberg with a kid after dark and not being very successful. Because… this part of town is optimized for a different sort of traffic.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 19/09/2026
My kids have picked up French on Duolingo with vague appeals to German/French friendship among other reasons that remain unknown to me. (Apparently there is not such a thing as German/Polish or German/Czech friendship.)
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 19/09/2026
Remembering the last Berlin elections: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahl_zu... * The Berlin marathon was on the same day which shows that Berlin can't do multiple city wide events at the same time. * A crank (former FDP) politician objected to the result.
de.wikipedia.org
Wahl zum Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin 2021 – Wikipedia
Die im Nachhinein für ungültig erklärte Wahl zum 19. Abgeordnetenhaus von Berlin (häufig kurz Berlin-Wahl 2021) für eine Legislaturperiode von fünf Jahren fand am 26. September 2021 statt.[2]
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 18/09/2026
Just seeing the politician of the AfD suggest to connect Spandau to Berlin with a boat. These elections are just too dumb, there are no solutions and both the candidates and the electorate don’t have any brain cells between them. www.instagram.com/reel/Ddb2dIj...
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 17/09/2026
This episode from the lovely city podcast by Inge Wannet is a perfect account of what it feels like to cycle through Amsterdam rush hour. For added effect, listen to it at 1.4x. www.ingewannet.nl/destad/episo...
ingewannet.nl
De Stad | Inge Wannet
contact: studio [apenstaartje] ingewannet.nl
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 17/09/2026
Tooze makes a coherent argument in this episode of Surplus why expropriation of the large landlords in Berlin makes economic sense. Morally it's of course a no-brainer. Very much worth listening to if you still have to make up your mind for the Berlin election.
surplusmagazin.de
Deshalb macht Vergesellschaftung ökonomisch Sinn (Video)
Adam Tooze spricht im Podcast über Vergesellschaftung in Deutschland und erklärt, warum Eigentum im Kapitalismus nie heilig war.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 17/09/2026
More and more people are finding that you can't really let LLMs loose on any significant amount of code. It's fine for simple things, but when things get complicated (or even just non-obvious) it'll grind and grind and continue trying stuff and producing code that's entirely wrong
lucumr.pocoo.org
Astra for Coding: Why Are We Doing This Again?
Some thoughts on Astra and newfangled long-horizon models.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 16/09/2026
Maybe to emphasize how marginal the BVV election in Berlin is, I can't find example ballots for my borough (or any other) online.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 13/09/2026
„Er kann es nicht, und er wird es wohl auch nicht mehr lernen“ Even the most feedback resistant group of people, white German men of above middle age, have wisened up to their mistake.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 12/09/2026
It seems game over for the SPD after this. Even the Forsa polls are bad. The legal proceedings aside; drop shipping a random guy in from Hannover as your candidate because apparently you have no talent in the ranks, turns out to be a very fragile strategy. www.rbb24.de/politik/beit...
rbb24.de
Staatsanwaltschaft Hannover ermittelt gegen Steffen Krach
Gegen den Berliner SPD-Spitzenkandidaten Steffen Krach ermittelt die Staatsanwaltschaft Hannover. Im Detail geht es offenbar um eine Spende parallel zu einem Vergabeverfahren. Dem rbb liegen Belege…
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 12/09/2026
Bought revamped Nokia phones for my kids which are nostalgic and cheap. Chibo promises that they come with 10 EUR of prepaid credit but you have to call service before it gets loaded on there. Honest mistake, or dark pattern? These days you can never tell. www.tchibo.de/products/237...
tchibo.de
Nokia 105 4G 2nd Edition charcoal bei Tchibo kaufen | 213944
Nokia 105 4G 2nd Edition charcoal online kaufen ✚ Kostenloser Versand ✓ Retoure ✚ 10% Newsletter Rabatt | 213944
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 10/09/2026
A rundown of the differences between Rust and Zig. I can't say I'm very convinced. besok.github.io/posts/what-z...
besok.github.io
What Zig felt like, coming from Rust
What Zig felt like, coming from Rust Intro I’ve spent the last 7 years as a Rust developer, working mostly on open source projects, and I’d like to think I’ve built a solid feel for the language and…
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 10/09/2026
A very good explanation of what the real difference is between ‘simple’ and ‘complex’ in software engineering and what the consequences of this tradeoff are. jyn.dev/simple-is-no...
jyn.dev
simple is not small
small programs hide coupling
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 10/09/2026
I think this may be a good resolution to the Typescript Result pattern issue. Who would have thought that `anyhow` would come in handy after all. (Also I now understand what anyhow is supposed to be doing.) daviddalbusco.com/blog/tiny-ut...
daviddalbusco.com
Two Tiny Utils for the Result Pattern
A bit of Rust, a bit of TypeScript, and two small helpers to turn exceptions into results.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 09/09/2026
After the way OpenAI behaved here with this math proof, I don't see how anybody would trust them with secret information. It feels like we haven't seen the last of this issue yet. cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/st...
cims.nyu.edu
https://cims.nyu.edu/~tristanb/statement.pdf
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 09/09/2026
Seeing Merz de-throned would be beautiful. To have the job he was after for most of his life turn to ashes in his mouth after the finally got it, is something almost Shakespearean.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 08/09/2026
LLMs could solve all of math and drop it as exabytes of obtuse Lean code and what good would it do?
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 07/09/2026
With newspapers like the Tagesspiegel out there, you don’t really need a nazi publication anymore. Utterly compromised (not to mention unreadable).
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 06/09/2026
Where does anybody find good English language (or German for that matter) coverage of things happening in Germany?
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 06/09/2026
I had deleted my Duolingo account but now that my kids are into it, I made a new one and I put in my daily lessons. And it’s fun to mogg the other parents who are also on the app now with my topped out scores.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 05/09/2026
Die Linke has mind bogglingly simplistic politics. Their idea is to put a brake on every kind of cost, like here with the *Nebenkostenbremse*. pca.st/episode/42bf...
pca.st
#41: Hackers again, Döner, Die Linke campaign SNAFU
This week we talk about how hackers want a handful of bitcoin but Berlin isn’t paying and the dumb decision to allow a racist rapper at a Die Linke campaign event. Plus the Bear’s Knees! Get full…
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 05/09/2026
I cycled past the GeoGuessr championships here in Berlin this week and the people who go to an event like that are exactly the kind of people you would expect would go to something like that. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wba...
youtube.com
The BEST GeoGuessr Game Of All Time - Grand Finals 25
We literally watched this over 10 times now! It has to be one of the most intense, epic, and best GeoGuessr games that ever took place!? ► Subscribe for more GeoGuessr content -…
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 27/08/2026
Sitting outside a genuinely pleasant sports facility here in Berlin. Lots of sporty people coming and going, a terrace, perfect weather. The only thing that could be better would be to not have this also be the smoking area and subject everybody to that bad habit.
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 27/08/2026
For some reason, the link is not clickable. Here is the stream for the panel on housing with the leading candidates of the parties: www.youtube.com/live/BiDg4cG... #wahl #berlin
youtube.com
WIE LÖST BERLIN DIE MIETENKRISE?
YouTube video by Berliner Mieterverein
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Alper Cugun @alper.nl · 27/08/2026
Similar to how dogs are used to occupy public space, I could walk around with a swarm of robots soon and claim they’re my pets?
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