The man with access to the nuclear launch codes has been deemed unfit for Twitter. And the country that doesn’t believe universal healthcare is a human right, all of a sudden believes access to Twitter should be an inalienable right. Interesting times!

This week more Americans died from Covid than on 9/11, the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war combined, and that fact isn’t even in the top 10 news stories right now.

The news is dominated by the insurrection and the presidents’ direct incitement of it. And the subsequent (social) media bans that followed. …

I recently read ‘Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About’ by Donald Knuth from 2001. Recommended reading if you like reading about how a world-renowned computer scientist wrote a book about how he wrote a book that deals with another book! Sounds recursive 😏

That last book is of course the bible and the book Knuth wrote about it is ‘3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated ‘ — published in 1991. And in 1999 Knuth gave a series of lectures at MIT ‘on the general subject of relations between faith and science’. In these lectures he explains how he went about writing…

Here are the six basic responsibilities you have as a professional in the modern workplace.

I wrote these down as a reminder to myself and to pass on to people. Because it is easy to loose sight of your basic responsibilities. I also noticed a lot of young professionals are struggling with what is asked of them. Regardless of your specific job — whether you are a manager or engineer — the following basics will always apply.

• Know thy time
• Add value
• Use your leverage
• Track your tasks
• Manage expectations
• Prepare for a different job

I distilled these from my…

I suspect Moby-Dick — the quintessential Great American Novel — has the curious accolade of being one of the most famous books ever, while also being one of the least read books. Its reputation greatly exceeds its appeal. Nonetheless, I had always wanted to read this extraordinary 170 year old book. And now that I did, I think I understand its reputation as well as I understand the incongruent appeal.

Moby-Dick stats

Moby-Dick clocks in around 650+ pages and 212,000 words. It’s not a small book but it’s also not the biggest book I ever read. …

My book tracking app alerted me that I read 52 books over the last twelve months. So, *franticly crunching numbers* yes, indeed, that averages to one book per week!

I follow a couple of blogs of people that read way more than I do. Like these guys, respectively read 116, 105 and 74 books in 2019. I don’t know how they managed to do so, but 52 is definitely a personal best for me and this blogpost is about how I did this.

When I say that I have read a book, I mean: I read it cover to cover…

I have a soft spot for Bono. The megalomaniac lead singer of probably the world’s most commercial band (“the only band with their own iPod”). The Irish humanitarian multi-millionaire. Yes, I get all the criticism. Still, few singers can belt it out like Bono can. And I will forever stand by that.

On May 10th this year, Bono turned 60. So I thought it would be a good time to (re)read his 2005 biography.

I got this book, with a bunch of others, in 2006 at an HMV in Manchester. Good times.

It sort of took me back a bit…

Jitsi offers a great user experience because it doesn’t require an account, you just go to a Chrome URL and you’re pretty much good to go. You get a full blown video chat environment: complete with gridview, screensharing and chat options. No add ons or third party installations needed. I greatly prefer this instead of Zoom, Google Hangouts or Microsoft Teams or what have you.

Jitsi is also a great piece of software to host. And installing and hosting your own video software conferencing software has never been easier.

Here are some tips to run the Jitsi stack smoothly on…

One of my favorite podcasts is “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs”. I’ve written about it before, it’s an absolutely terrific podcast.

But this post is not about the podcast but about the book!

After the first 50 episodes creator Andrew Hickey bundled the adapted episode transcripts into the first volume of a book series. And, of course, I had to get it, as an unmissable reference and to support the podcast.

Here are some thoughts on the book’s look and feel as it arrived in the mail this morning. So this is not a book review!

• I’ll…