Fahim Farook
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fahim.farook.org
Fahim Farook
@fahim.farook.org
1.2K followers 660 following 690 posts
Coder, writer, and wannabe artist. I talk about #Coding, #Movies, #TV, #Writing, #Art, #Language, and #Technology.

https://www.amazon.com/author/fahimfarook
https://books.farook.org

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fahim.farook.org
So the wife and I did our cartoons for this week based on a Facebook video ... or at least, my/our reaction to it 😛

write.farook.org/idle-thought...

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by different people about somebody exercising saying: "Here's how you can get a body like this ..." and the resulting thought about where they keep the body, or how they get the body
November 25, 2025 at 6:50 AM
fahim.farook.org
I don't think I've ever DNFed a book before. But this week I DNFed two.

So, overall progress has been three books this week but I'm not happy about it since I DNFed two and started the third yesterday.

I'll discuss why I DNFed each one (broadly - no spoilers).

1/4
#Reading #Books #Thoughts
A screenshot from a reader app showing a calendar wit the books read for the month of November 2025. There are books displayed from the 1st to the 22nd and the books are "Long Past Dues", "The Fifth Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack", "The Rivers of London", "A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking", "Just One Damned Thing After Another", and "Clean Sweep". At the bottom it says "Best reading streak 101 days"
November 23, 2025 at 1:13 AM
fahim.farook.org
Another double-cartoon from the wife and I 🙂

write.farook.org/idle-thought...

Any resemblance to real people is purely unintentional 😛

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by two different people where somebody asks a cassava chip seller about the spices they use. They say "chillie" and each cartoon is about the play upon the word to misinterpret it.
November 18, 2025 at 6:20 AM
fahim.farook.org
Recently, I've been reading different authors instead of sticking to a single author. I'm trying to find an author whose writing I really enjoy without nitpicking. So far, not a lot of success 😛

James Butcher's first book looked promising, but the second not so much...

1/7
#Reading #Books
A calendar view showing reading history for the month of November. Shows the covers for four different books from the beginning of November to the 15 - "Long Past Dues" by James J. Butcher, "The Fifth Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack", "Rivers of London" by Ben Aaronovitch, and "A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking" by T. Kingfisher
November 15, 2025 at 11:44 PM
fahim.farook.org
We (the wife and I) did two more cartoons - this time about that ever popular Sri Lankan food, hoppers!

write.farook.org/idle-thought...

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by two different people about tourists/foreigners thinking that the Sri Lankan hoppers are called opus.
November 14, 2025 at 8:31 AM
fahim.farook.org
And we managed to get another cartoon done today 🙂 I'm not sure if I can sustain this pace though. I guess we'll see?

The story behind today's cartoon is here: write.farook.org/idle-thought...

#Cartoon #Drawing #Art
Two cartoons by two different people where each cartoon shows people wondering how to pronounce the name of the Sri Lankan city of "Galle" and how hard it is...
November 13, 2025 at 9:49 AM
fahim.farook.org
The wife and I are drawing a cartoon a day (hopefully) to improve our drawing skills.

The full story is here: write.farook.org/idle-thoughts/

Here's our first day's efforts ...

#drawing #cartoons #art
Two cartoons drawn by different people where somebody at a fabric store says "It's a very nice fabric. Very breathable..." and one cartoon has the other person thinking "Why does the fabric need to breathe? Is it alive?" The other cartoon has the other person thinking "Why would I want to breathe fabric? Is this like sniffing glue?"
November 12, 2025 at 4:01 AM
fahim.farook.org
Used to read all the time.

Didn't read at all for about 10 -15 years. Would try, but generally give up after a day or two.

Back to reading now and it feels good to be able to consistently finish books 🙂

#Reading
Screenshot from an app showing a calendar with covers of books read and the text "Best reading streak 85 days so far this year"
November 7, 2025 at 5:49 AM
fahim.farook.org
Life in the coconut and concrete jungle
Image of a city skyline with a sky full of dark clouds. In the foreground, you can see coconut palms and other trees and a quiet suburban neighbourhood.
October 12, 2025 at 1:36 AM
fahim.farook.org
Ran across a new form of (at least for me) scammer on LinkedIn. Of course, I reported the account to LinkedIn.

But in case you're interested, the full details are on my LinkedIn post:
www.linkedin.com/posts/fahimf...

Image shows the profile in question.

#Scam
Screenshot of fake LinkedIn account showing how they managed to make their follower count look huge
July 11, 2025 at 2:30 AM
fahim.farook.org
This is a game that I developed and forgot all about after the problem was solved 🙂

The full story is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fahimfarook_ive-always-got-a-side-project-going-on-that-activity-7348890391158370305-pO-n?

Should I publish it? What do you think?
An image of a game screen showing various fruit and the combined numerical value for a row of fruits. You have to figure out what the value of a particular fruit is based on the provided information.
July 10, 2025 at 1:51 AM
fahim.farook.org
I'm trying to get "Raisins of Wrath" ready for publication but need to do the cover.

My wife usually does the cover but she's too ill to do anything at the moment. So I thought of giving it a shot myself. I have the rough drawing in place, but not sure how it'll turn out.

#Writing #Art #AuthorSky
A rough sketch for a book cover showing a wide-open landscape, an enormous tree in the center with a door in the trunk and three people standing before the treee.
March 11, 2025 at 11:24 AM
fahim.farook.org
Read an Ebook Week promo ends today! Find my entire collection at a promotional price at @Smashwords till end of the day. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek

If you like humorous scifi with a bit of social commentary, check out my books 🙂

#ebookweek25 #Smashwords
A promotional image for Smashwords Read an Ebook Week with the text "My Books are 25% off" and the link "smashwords.com/shelves/promos"
March 8, 2025 at 11:38 AM
fahim.farook.org
Happy Read an Ebook Week! To help you find a book to celebrate, you can find my entire collection at a promotional price at @Smashwords from March 2 - March 8. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek #ebookweek25 #Smashwords
A promotional image for Smashwords Read an Ebook Week with the text "My Books are 25% off" and the link "smashwords.com/shelves/promos"
March 3, 2025 at 11:08 AM
fahim.farook.org
Read an Ebook Week promo! To help you find a book to celebrate, you can find my entire collection at 25% off at @Smashwords from March 2 - March 8. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek

#ebookweek25 #Smashwords
A promotional image for Smashwords Read an Ebook Week with the text "My Books are 25% off" and the link "smashwords.com/shelves/promos"
February 25, 2025 at 12:28 PM
fahim.farook.org
Wrote a submission tracker yesteerday. (Well wrote two but that's a different story).

What struck me was that most submission trackers are paid services. Is anybody interested in a free one?

If you are, let me know and I'll throw this up on my server so others can use (for free).

#Writing #Apps
A screenshot of a web app which allows you to track submissions of stories to magazines and other sources. The app dashboard shows the counts for sources, works/stories, submissions, and genres. The dashboard also shows any pending submissions. It also has links to screens for sources, works, submissions and genres.
February 12, 2025 at 12:03 PM
fahim.farook.org
I have a couple of humorous science fiction novels set in the same universe.

Here's the one which came out recently about a futuristic island city ruled by a guild of thieves ...
A book cover with the title "Sir Lanka Files" showing a dark and brooding city
January 27, 2025 at 6:28 PM
fahim.farook.org
I might not be the one to say anything here since I just kind of intuitively understand app interfaces (or so it seems) but LibreOffice Writer is very much like old-school Word in terms of interface. I mean the pre-ribbon bar interface.

Of course, if you're used to the ribbon bar, bets are off 😛
The basic UI of LibreOffice Writer
January 24, 2025 at 3:42 PM
fahim.farook.org
The iOS version of my Bluesky client, BLite, was approved by Apple today and is now available on the App Store 🙂

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blite/id6740086620

#Blueskey #Coding #Apps
A screenshot of an iOS app surrrounded by text items which say: "No Subscriptions! (Pay once and all updates are free till next Major Release)", "Working Bookmarks!", "Mute reposts and replies on a per-user basis", "Custom App Colours! Select your colour scheme", "Alerts for new notifications", "Threaded posts - never run out of characters", "Light and dark themes", "Better image display with larger images", "Auto-refreshing of main timeline".
January 22, 2025 at 3:13 PM
fahim.farook.org
I seem to be out of my coding phase and into the drawing phase 🙂

While it isn't that good, this is based on a dream about a space yatch and a space yak ... but the yak is yet to be drawn 😛

But I really want to draw more and so this is good?

1/2 #Art
A drawing of a space yatch traversign the currents of space
January 8, 2025 at 2:43 PM
fahim.farook.org
When I try to think of something to draw/paint, my mind goes totally blank 😛

So decided to take inspiration from something that Ira Marcks did in one of his videos and draw something similar. This is the result.

Guess I keep drawing till the wellsprings of the imagination open up?

#Art
A drawing of a yellow/orange snake with patterns on its body.
January 7, 2025 at 5:32 PM
fahim.farook.org
The painting and the words came to me in a dream 🙂 I think this is the beginning to a novel that's been in the back of my mind.
--
It was the night they came for us.

The flame hair trees wafted gently in the non-existent breeze, perfectly framing Mount Coinjar (See ALT text for rest)

#Writing
A digital painting based on the following words: It was the night they came for us. The flame hair trees wafted gently in the non-existent breeze, perfectly framing Mount Coinjar like a criminal mastermind in peak-Machiavelli mode. I could almost feel the bramble bugs, their tiny pinprick eyes peering out of their black blob bodies, waiting, waiting, waiting for an unwary target to come by.
January 4, 2025 at 12:57 PM
fahim.farook.org
Here are all the current players in the #Instaverse ... except for the fairy/fae, Thalia, since this is a screenshot of their followers 🙂
Screenshot showing all the accounts followed by one of the new ML-generated bot Instagram accounts.
January 3, 2025 at 3:21 PM
fahim.farook.org
@narada.ca I've seen those, but that's just too messy for my taste 🙂

I want my personal bookmarks that others can't necessarily see ... So I went with my own implemenation. Like in the screenshot ...
Screenshot of a macOS Bluesky client showing the bookmarks screen
January 1, 2025 at 5:27 PM
fahim.farook.org
I don't like the grid image view that Bluesky, and others, use for images.

So been working on a gallery view which shows images in all their glory 🙂Pretty happy with how it turned out.

H/T to @ionomycin.bsky.social for the image.

#Coding #Bluesky #Images
December 28, 2024 at 8:02 PM