Tech, life and everything else
As I write these lines, I listen to music on Spotify. To a playlist named “Lowkey Tech” with “chill techno and chill house” music. Recently I have been enjoying this music a lot. Electronic music, but relaxed and mostly without vocals.
Tonight I spoke with my girlfriend on the phone and we talked for two hours about all kinds of topics. One topic was that I don’t think corona tracking apps, where the data is stored centrally, are a good idea because of privacy and stuff. My girlfriend, on the other hand, said why is privacy important at all? The argument that nobody needs to know what I do with whom, when, where and for how long was not convincing to her. She said that I track my runs via GPS anyway. And she asked who would be interested in your data if you are not famous or something?
Yesterday, I asked the Hacker News community why they don’t have blogs, even though they have the necessary technical skills.
I think I have never written so many emails during my entire studies as in the last few weeks. But hey, I like to write emails and I’m really glad that my studies are continuing despite Corona (and therefore without any attendance events). Especially the flexibility that I can schedule most things freely is really good. I have not yet quite decided how I will proceed after my studies, but the idea of correspondence courses (possibly alongside work) sounds quite tempting.
Kev Quirk wrote a great article about why having “full post RSS feeds” is a good idea. It’s mainly because then people can use a feed reader, customize it to their personal preferences (font, contrast and other accessibility features) and read the content in their preferred way.
Yesterday I wrote my third monthly review and since I think it has become a habit by now, I will summarize here how and why I am doing this:
Today I watched a movie. Not a very good one, but one that entertained me. It was funny and I didn’t feel bored, as I do with some other films. And although the niveau of the film was not very high - my mother probably wouldn’t like it - I still don’t see it as a waste of time. There are good boring movies, just as there are also not so good, but entertaining movies (which kind of makes them good, doesn’t it?). What counts is not so much the niveau of the movie (or how low the jokes are), but more whether it was worth the time to watch the movie. Only when I think that I wasted my time with a bad, boring movie, then it was the wrong decision to watch it.
The last few days I use my Spotify Premium subscription much more than before (I don’t usually listen to that much music). Especially if you spend most of your time indoors and only talk in videoconferences, on the phone or with bakery staff, it’s nice to break the silence with music. Sure, it is never quiet in my apartment in an apartment building with rather thin walls. Often I hear the music that the neighbours play (it’s always the same music), I hear the neighbours talking loudly to each other and I hear them watching TV.
It’s amazing how fast time can go by when you’re in a flow state. It’s an incredible feeling. Especially at the moment, when one usually has rather too much time.
My method to get enough exercise during #StayAlone and to have a physical balance to sitting at the desk is to go out regularly by myself, ride a bike or run a little.