My recent post on E/N blogging led to a realization: posting on social media will be something I do for myself, instead of doing it for others. When Facebook came out when I was 16 I posted quite a lot on social media. 5 years later I found it very embarassing to read back through those posts and I deleted everything, and since then I have been been holding back on social media posting and deleting my accounts several times. ...

Read an interesting post this morning about E/N websites. Apparently a phenomenon from the early days of the web, E/N websites meant everything to the publisher, but maybe nothing to the rest of the world. The term may have been the predecessor of the term “weblog” which was shortened to blog. E/N description: The website’s author covers a myriad of topics. It’s not narrowly focused. The author writes about everything or at least everything that’s important to the author. The site might contain something useful for anyone who visits. The content means everything to the publisher, but it could mean nothing to the rest of the world. ...

I show my workflow to publish my Hugo blog from the command line using neovim and bash Links: 202305091705

If you would have told me 5 years, 3 years, 1 year, or even 3 months ago, that one day I would be 50 minutes into a run with a big beaming smile on my face, I would have never believed you, but today it happened. My base building schedule is giving me good results. I did this week’s long run this morning and it was 7 minutes longer than last week’s long run. I ran 8.5 kilometres in 67 minutes. ...

Links: 202305070805 https://youtu.be/Q8dxoqqMHAg

Diablo 2: one of those games in life I keep returning to. Started playing it when I was 12, and I know it inside out. Roughly once every 1,5 years I’ll have a phase where I want to play some. I’m in such a phase right now. I haven’t been gaming since the Victoria 3 release, and frankly, I don’t have much time to spend either. Something will be sacrificed. Currently this will be study time. I’ve been studying for several hours a day for nearly two years, but with my current increased focus on health and weight loss, I feel I need a break and allow myself some leasure. ...

Had a great time at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam yesterday. Went to see Sabaton live. This was my second time seeing them live, and it was a great show. I love Sabaton because all of their material revolves around history and warfare. They are one of my favourite bands. I was super happy they played some of my favourite songs: “Carolus Rex”, “Stormtroopers” and “To Hell And Back”. I’ve been a lover of metal music ever since childhood, but I had a break from metal music for about 5 years where I hardly listened to any music at all. But over the past 1,5 years I’ve been really enjoying metal music again. ...

Next winter I’ll be entering my third year as a DevOps Engineer. When you first break into this field there is an overwhelming amount of things to learn. Frankly, this will always be the case. But I’m reaching a point where I have gained experience with most of the main areas and tooling, and I can start seeing the relations between them and how they compare to one another. Just like any other job or activity, there are things that you like and that suit you well, and there are things that you don’t like. And now the first phases of overwhelm are confidently behind me, I’m starting to learn the things I prefer doing over others. ...

Read an interesting article this morning. Apparently the Soviet Union introduced paid time off well before other industrialized countries. Interestingly, but not unexpectedly, the state determined how and with whom you spent that vacation. As members of a collective, citizens were expected to spend their free time in a manner the government and its leading theorists considered beneficial to society as whole, regardless of an individual’s preferences. Ever since the 1930s, it had been customary for Soviet citizens to travel in groups of 25 to 40 people randomly put together by their trade unions. When adults relaxed at resorts or embarked on tours, their children were sent to summer camps managed by state-run youth groups like the Young Pioneers or the Komsomol. ...

Ah, writing. It’s one of the skills that I’ve consistently been praised for throughout my life. I’m pretty good at it, and I think that’s because I enjoy it. It led me to getting an academic degree in English Literature and Culture, simply because I was following the things I was naturally good at. However, just like any other skill, you can only become better at it through consistent practice. This morning I read a wonderful little blog post on writing regularly, and I was touched by his words: ...