Blog, but filtered for Notes

Welcome to my writing place. You will find articles, notes and annotated links here and can subscribe to their feed once or individually.

  1. as note

    Went Sketching

    Today I remembered what I wanted to do since a couple of weeks: Spend some time on drawing and sketching. Here are the results:
  2. as note

    First Crops

    Today after the heavy rain stopped, I went into the Garden and had my first crop of the year: Young spinach leafs and fresh radish, part of my dinner today—it’s delicious. And there’s way more to come now. I’m very grateful of being able to grow my own food.
  3. as note

    Productivity and Promises

    How do Productivity and Promises correlate? In times of constant demands, too much work to do, blurry information about priorities and different senses of urgency you can hardly blame people for breaking with their promises anymore. They want us to reply to their email within their desired timeframe. Or they want us to be available on Slack when they need us. Or whatever.— Shawn Blanc If we’re …
  4. as note

    Good things have an end

    I read that the Reasons.to conference will come to an end. I’ve only been there once but it was the best event I attended so far in my career, mainly due to its diversity in topics, subjects, speakers, talks, and the people I met there. It’s a shock, but I’ll remember the event forever.
  5. as note

    Handover the best possible

    The ongoing Fridays For Future movement initiated by young climate activist Greta Thunberg shall serve as a wake-up call for all of us to collectively do our best to hand over our planet to the next generation in the best condition possible. — EWG LUT 100RE All Sectors Global Report 2019 That’s a quote I like and I can work with. What does it help to debate whether kids are right to not go to …
  6. as note

    Calm and Reasonable

    On Thursday last week I realised that I’ve already worked about 40 hours this week and ahead of me a day with two very important meetings and a lot of things to do. I had a request to go on a backcountry ski tour on Friday with a friend which I thought I couldn’t do due to more work for this week. On the same day I talked about this situation with a good friend and he guided me to a solution I …
  7. as note

    Do something different, <a href=" https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/events/map#&quot;&gt;join this Friday for Future</a>

    Climate change is real, there’s no doubt. We might have flimsy excuses to keep our lives convenient and don’t need to change anything, but the environment is changing, and it’s due to us humans. Fridays for Future is a global movement, initiated and organised by young people out of school who are the ones who need to live in the world that is the result of the next ten years. And yet, most of …
  8. as note

    The Dependency on Tech Giants is Giant

    In 2017 I noted down a few thoughts on “ Which Tech Giants Would You Drop?” The answers are still pretty much the same as today. Anyways, today I read a story by Kashmir Hill in which she thried to eliminate Amazon from her life. She concludes that this was seen as the hardest choice to eliminate from the list and it’s impossible to achieve. Most of the Internet nowadays somehow depends on …
  9. as note

    Evolvement through Meditation

    As a freelancer I find it incredibly hard to stay free of financial anxiety, not feeling stressed out, managing all the tasks around my own business while working for multiple clients and many projects in parallel. Lately, I’ve been reminded about the powerful concept of meditation. I did it in the past already but very irregularly and forget quickly again. Since eleven days I’m now meditating at …
  10. as note

    Personal Happiness At Work

    Working on Colloq is big part of finding happiness at work for me. It’s interesting how much of a difference it makes when I take time to work a full day on the project. Yesterday was such a day and despite finding new issues, doing software and server updates, infrastructure bugfixing it felt great.
  11. as note

    “Our lives are overfull.”

    Do you know the feeling of being overwhelmed by all the work and tasks you have to do today? There are times where I manage all this very good and then there are times where I struggle a lot with “getting everything done”. But when I really think about what is important, what needs to be finished today it’s usually very little. If I need to choose two things to finish on a day, it’s doable. The …
  12. as note

    Morning in the Forest

    Today I got up early and instead of cooking a coffee and then sit in front of my screen to read emails I went out to the forest. There’s nothing more relaxing than the early hours in a forest, especially in autumn when fog is around and there’s only nature and you.
  13. as note

    Apple’s Environment Report

    Today I read Apple’s Environment Responsibility Report 2018 1. I’m amazed how detailed it is, how readable, understandable and exemplary it is. It’s not just a official report that is necessary. Instead, they chose to make it great for everyone and use it as marketing instrument. Instead, they chose to make it great for everyone and use it as marketing instrument. And I like that because it makes …
  14. as note

    My <s>new</s> iPhone 7

    When Apple presented the iPhone Xr this year I was tempted to buy it as soon as possible. This was in total contrast to what I wanted to do before the announcement—not buying a new phone this year. Every two years my contract with Vodafone renews and gives me the chance to get a new smartphone. And every time Apple holds a keynote they achieve to convince people that their new product is more …
  15. as note

    15 Minutes On The Bus

    On Wednesday I was asking a colleague what his plans for today are and he replied that he’s on his way to go surfing but would have about 15 minutes to talk about our project now if I like. I thought that’s way enough time to talk about task management etc and called him while he was on the bus to the beach. But I was wrong; he didn’t wanted to talk about tasks but about our problem of the last …
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    “Uber CEO: Amazon of transportation”

    The Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says in this Recode Code 2018 Video that he wants Uber to be the Amazon of transportation. It baffles me that a billion dollar company cannot come up with a better vision than to compare itself and copy a concept from Amazon. Shira Ovide from Bloomberg tends to agree but Uber still is valued billions of Dollars and while not profitable at all, still gets a lot of …
  17. as note

    🤔 Ask Product Hunt: “<a href=" https://www.producthunt.com/ask/8776-what-are-the-most-inspiring-sustainable-ethical-companies&quot;&gt;What are the most inspiring sustainable, ethical companies?</a>”

    I’m collecting a list of companies or products that are not only over-financed hipster brands but instead have a real purpose as a company to succeed and be sustainable from the start. Ideally, the companies or products should also care about ethics and mostly about the human side of their clients. As an example, the outdoor company Patagonia would be an example of a sustainable company which …
  18. as note

    New look for this site

    As you can already see this site has gotten a new look yesterday. But not only a new look but a new technical basis and a new content strategy. In the past I had a website showing what I do as developer. But I am much more than a developer and people want to know about it as well. In times where you know a lot of people virtually from Twitter or other social media networks, it’s even more …
  19. as note

    Don’t ruin your calming practice right afterwards

    Today I read an interview which I really enjoyed. It contained some great inspiration tipps but one thing is still stuck in my head: “I … start my day by meditating. … I then rush to get to work by 9am” — Interview Maria Gonzalez from Slack at InterfaceLovers Please don’t ruin your meditation practice immediately afterwards. Try to establish a day led by your meditation practice—calm, focused, …
  20. as note

    <s>KISS</s> or <s>YAGNI</s>: Avoid acronyms and abbreviations if you want to be liked.

    Here’s a bold statement: Using acronyms is hurting people. Elon Musk already declared a company rule effective for all employees in 2010, effectively ending the use of acronyms and appreviations for the entire company: “Individually, a few acronyms here and there may not seem so bad, but if a thousand people are making these up, over time the result will be a huge glossary that we have to issue …