Why I think reading books matters and what I get out of it.

A typeface you can view in two ways by focusing or unfocusing your eyes. This lets you show two different messages using the same ‘space’.

A nice overview of European alternatives for online services when you want to host your own website or app. Think hosting, analytics, email services, and payment systems.

As a creative person, I think a lot about the impact of AI on my work. If it's possible to create something by giving a chatbot a text prompt, what does it even mean to be creative?

Right now, I use Shotcut to edit videos every now and then, but next time I’m going to try this online tool.

Minecraft is cool, and I used to play it a lot. However, since Microsoft acquired it, I’ve noticed that it’s become more difficult to get the game to run properly on multiple platforms. Perhaps this clone, Luanti, could offer a solution?

Big Tech companies such as Google, Apple, and Meta offer free services in order to profit from your personal data. Shareholders are more important than users. That is why I am switching to companies and services that have a different revenue model. I will explain which services I have switched to and why.

Dystopian but also funny: a developer gets into an argument with an AI agent in GitHub discussions, who then writes a blog post to discredit the developer.

Aaron Francis has a point when he writes that you have to share your work if you want more people to see it. The more people that see your work the bigger the chance someone valuable might take notice. That’s why, this year, I want to try and share more of what I’m doing on this website.

“How can we increase the odds of finding luck? By being a person who works in public. By doing work and being public about it, you build a reputation for yourself. You build a track record. You build a public body of work that speaks on your behalf better than any resume ever could.”

According to Angela Duckworth willpower doesn’t work but you can make your life easier by making smart use of physical distance. Want to read more? Put a book on your table and put your phone as far away as possible. Want to eat healthier? Fill your cabinets with healthy options and leave the junkfood in the store.

“You cannot change the conditions of modern life, but you are the sovereign ruler of what enters your personal space. Physical distance creates psychological distance: Draw close what you want more of, push away what you want less.”

And Mark Manson shares his cheat codes. I found this one particularly interesting because I’ve started doing daily Morning Pages since last year (writing three full pages):

“To observe your own thoughts and not be a fuckface, you need to get your thoughts out in front of you and pretend that they aren’t yours. Only then can you hear how utterly ridiculous they sound.
One common way to do this is to write down your thoughts regularly.
This can be a journal, a blog (how do you think all this stuff started, anyway?), or even letters/emails to friends and family.
The important part is that you are actively digging into the problems in your life and looking at your behavior from a third-person perspective.”

Just like in 2022, 2023 and 2024, here's a list of the best media I consumed this past year.

I’ve already written about why I try to avoid reading news. This project by David Guttman, which shows news but with a forty-year delay, clearly demonstrates how sensational news can be. Because although the front page from decades ago looks very important, the issues that were being played out then are no longer relevant. How does that relate to the questions that are featured on today’s front pages? Will we still be concerned about them when we’re one, two, ten, or forty years further along?

Dave Rupert shares a YouTube video where Odd Artworks shows the process of drawing, lining and colouring a Dungeon. Always fun to see how someone gets to a creative result.

Screen time for my kids remains a tricky issue for me. At first I always thought a child should grow up with as little screen time as possible. But the more I learn about it, the more I also see the positive side of certain screens. Especially gaming.

Derek Thompson argues that Social Media is hardly used for being social anymore but mostly for watching short form video’s, like television: “Social media has evolved from text to photo to video to streams of text, photo, and video, and finally, it seems to have reached a ki...

“While a book requires many, many hours of work, these hours come in rather small increments. If I get to the office at eight thirty, I could be done writing by eleven. Just a couple hours is all it takes. Just a couple crappy pages a day, as one old writing rule puts it. The discipline of writing is about showing up. No delays, no procrastination, no digital distractions. Just writing.”

In the news, you mainly read about doom scenarios regarding the climate problem. But it's not all doom and gloom. I see more and more reports with a positive perspective, and that's why I want to share them here.

A thoughtful answer of Odenkirk when he is questioned of who he is jealous of: 

“Anyone still with young kids at home growing up,” he answers. “There’s no question I knew what I was doing when I had kids growing up. I was being a dad. I mean that was my job, and I didn’t have to ask myself: what am I doing here? How can I be a part of this world? How can I be meaningful today?
“I didn’t have to ask that question, because the fucking answer is: pick up everything between here and the door, and make sure they get to school, and have a laugh with them, you know. Life was – I understood my purpose.”

Rucking is walking with a heavy backpack on. It is the perfect combination of strength training and cardio. Additionally, you can do it alone or together outdoors in nature.

Nowadays, you don't have to be bored anymore. In the queue at the checkout, you pull out your mobile to read the latest football news, and during a long, boring car ride, you listen to a podcast. That's a pity because by boring yourself to death, you come to insights and ideas that you wouldn't have otherwise.

If you want to become better at something, whether it's playing the piano, writing songs, or speaking a language, make sure you engage with it every day.

Why I find creating something important and how that feeling is confirmed by science.

The book 'The Comfort Crisis' by Michael Easter is full of advice, backed by scientific research, that make your life less comfortable in the short term but better in the long term. In this blog, I share some of these insights that I have started applying in my daily life.

When you look at others, it sometimes seems like they have everything perfectly sorted out. The reality is that everyone is just figuring things out as they go. So, don't let that hold you back; just go ahead and do your thing.

This October support for Windows 10 will end. I would like to switch to Linux but this tool Flyoobe offers an alternative where you can install Windows 11 without all the AI bloat.

Last week I read some articles about Irvine Welsh’s writing proces. Being on of my favourite authors this particular quote strung a chord with me: “You sit down there. Certainly for the first drafts, I tend to let the subconcious do the heavy lifting. Do all the work. You do...

I'm going to try writing a novel with AI. This doesn't mean I'll let AI write my novel, but that AI, in this case Claude, will become my writing partner.

It’s easy to outsource writing (and thinking) to Artificial Intelligence, but in the proces we lose something important:

“However, writing is not only about reporting results; it also provides a tool to uncover new thoughts and ideas. Writing compels us to think — not in the chaotic, non-linear way our minds typically wander, but in a structured, intentional manner. By writing it down, we can sort years of research, data and analysis into an actual story, thereby identifying our main message and the influence of our work.”

From the opinion piece “Thinking Is Becoming a Luxury Good” by Mary Harrington: 
“Long-form literacy is not innate but learned, sometimes laboriously. As Maryanne Wolf, a literacy scholar, has illustrated, acquiring and perfecting a capacity for long-form, “expert reading” is literally mind-altering. It rewires our brains, increasing vocabulary, shifting brain activity toward the analytic left hemisphere and honing our capacity for concentration, linear reasoning and deep thought. The presence of these traits at scale contributed to the emergence of free speech, modern science and liberal democracy, among other things.”