Writing
2026-04-19
ADGM Rental Advertising: How MADHMOUN Works in Practice
Abu Dhabi and ADGM now require a government permit before any rental listing can go live. What MADHMOUN is, how the AccessRP approval works, the three-agent cap, and what it costs (AED 52.5, paid by the agent).
2026-03-30
ADGM Tech Startup License: Self-Filed UAE Entity, $1,000, No Agent
I set up an ADGM Tech Startup License in 2022 without a CSP — no agent, no intermediary. What the process actually looked like, where I got stuck on office space, and what has changed since.
2026-03-29
Offline Claude Code on Mac mini M4: Local LLM, OS Sandbox, No API Calls
How I run Claude Code completely offline on a Mac mini M4 — local Qwen3 via llamafile, Safehouse OS sandbox, and --dangerously-skip-permissions made safe. Cost: $0/month in API fees.
2026-03-29
Telegram Bridges for Gemini CLI and Codex After Hitting Claude Code Limits
After hitting Claude Code limits, I built small Telegram bridges for Gemini CLI and Codex to get the async mobile workflow back without giving up local-first control.
2026-03-28
UAE Property Investment: Cost Structure, Rental Yield, and Market Signals
A real-unit breakdown from Al Reem Island (Sky Tower, 1,437 sqft): service charges, district cooling, net vs gross yield, and what happens to returns when the unit sits vacant.
2026-03-26
Abu Dhabi, UAE: Early Lease Termination at Al Reem Island During the Iran Conflict
What actually happened when my tenant asked to leave early: ADGM's new jurisdiction over Al Reem, AccessRP, a 2-month penalty clause, a cheque that failed, and a market that went quiet overnight.
2026-03-25
Notes on JB: The Data Center Boom Next to Singapore
Singapore ran out of space in 2019. JB absorbed the overflow — $41 billion committed, 3.4GW pipeline, US-China GPU squeeze, and why the spillover question for Malaysia remains unanswered.
2026-03-25
Desert and Rainforest — Why Abu Dhabi and Johor Bahru Became AI Hubs at the Same Time
Abu Dhabi chose the US side and is betting on sovereign AI production. JB is functioning as Singapore's cheaper backend. Why the same infrastructure boom produced completely different design logic, geopolitical risk profiles, and long-term futures.
2026-03-25
What I Found Underground in Abu Dhabi While Reading About Iran's Attacks on Gulf Desalination Plants
What's actually underground in Abu Dhabi — a 105-meter gravity sewer tunnel, 90-day emergency water reserve in the Liwa desert, and why district cooling continuity is the UAE's real infrastructure vulnerability.
2026-03-25
UAE Solar Is Cheaper Than Qatar's Gas. Notes on Gulf AI Infrastructure Power.
UAE solar auction prices beat Qatar's subsidized gas rate years before Iran's strikes. Notes on the GCC AI power stack — Masdar 5.2GW RTC, Barakah nuclear, and what Ras Laffan's disruption changes for infrastructure capital.
2026-03-25
Naive RAG Is Dead. Production RAG Is Not.
The critics are right about naive RAG. Production RAG is not dead. Numbers from running GCC LexAI: 400× cost difference between full-context and RAG at 1K queries/day, 300ms vs 15s latency.
2026-03-23
Building a Website from My Phone with Claude Code + Telegram
Claude Code running as a local agent, accessible over Telegram via MCP. How to wire it up, what the workflow looks like for editing code and deploying from a phone, and why this is reactive rather than proactive.
2026-03-20
Building RAG on Cloudflare Workers + Vectorize
Notes from building GCC LexAI on Cloudflare Workers + Vectorize + D1. What's surprisingly good (one Worker, three bindings, wrangler deploy) and what catches you (eventual consistency, immutable vector dimensions, no local Vectorize testing).
2026-03-17
Crawling GCC Government Documents: What Blocked Me
Saudi .gov.sa blocks all non-Saudi IPs with connection timeouts, not 403s. sca.gov.ae returns HTML at PDF URLs with 200 status. Workarounds: CDN subdomains, secondary hosts, magic byte verification.