A blog about life, arts and culture
I played two games of chess tonight, after many months of not playing at all.
I felt quite rusty during the first game; computer won.
I was more in my element in the second game; I’d shaken off the months of inaction. Pulled the game back from the brink; I won.
Decided to call it a night at that point. But I won’t let months pass before I play the next game.
I spent today working from my new ‘office’.
I’ve signed up for a subscription that entitles me to several days a month working from my choice of beautiful office buildings in Amsterdam.
It’s a nice way to experience different work environments. This is one of the benefits of the hybrid work culture ushered in by the covid pandemic.
Some days I work from home. Other days I go to my company’s offices. And now, I have a third option – I take my pick from any number of well designed, unique, Amsterdam buildings.
Today, I worked in a building on one of Amsterdam’s most beautiful canals. I was shown to a nice, private office where I worked undisturbed for the whole day. The wifi was excellent, and so my video meetings went smoothly. There was a coffee machine close by, also stocked with decaf capsules. (A plus point in my book, as that is the only ‘coffee’ I drink.)
All told, a lovely day at work. Looking forward to many more.
Three cheers for whoever invented the software behind Notion templates, in particular the button that allows you to create your own templates.
I’m a massive fan of this feature. One way I use it is to create a weekly goals sheet, which sets out all the things I want to achieve in any particular week.
My goals sheet has different categories relating to my personal and work goals, and also shows how these tie into my quarterly goals. As this is a document I fill in every week, I have created a Notion template in the form of a questionnaire. At the start of every week, I simply click a link, and a brand new questionnaire automatically appears. I then fill this in with my goals for the week.
Without the ability to create a template, I’d have had to create this questionnaire from scratch every week. I’m glad I don’t have to do that, and can simply focus on filling in my goals for the week.
Notion is an amazingly versatile app, and the ability to create templates does wonders for creativity. Five golden stars for this incredible feature.
I’m not at all a fan of rye whiskey, but the Kyrö Wood Smoke is something different.
I like this one. The rye doesn’t hit you in quite the way it normally does. The spiciness is there, but tapers off quite gently. The whiskey is aged in ex-bourbon casks. Perhaps that has something to do with it.
Also amazing is that this whiskey comes from Finland – not one of the big names when it comes to whiskey distilleries, and so a really nice surprise.
Perhaps the Kyrö Wood Smoke will make me revisit my views on rye whiskey. Let’s see how that goes.
Well, this particular experiment lasted no more than two days.
I don’t think I can restrict myself to reading only one book at a time. I’ve given it a try, but it doesn’t work for me.
I’ve already added another book to the January list – Nicolas Cole’s The Art and Business of Online Writing. Didn’t mean to buy it, but he writes so compellingly. I read the Kindle sample, and have now decided to read the whole book.
I know I won’t be disappointed. And I’m actually happy that the experiment failed.
Beautiful as always.
(Shot on an iPhone 14 Pro Max.)
Currently watching the Bernie Madoff documentary on Netflix.
I’m on the second episode, and, so far, I like the series.
It is well made, if a bit slow in the storytelling. Great video and camera footage, does a good job in complementing the narration. They’ve also included a lot of footage of Madoff’s testimony during his deposition. Astounding stuff.
Ridiculous how easy it was for Madoff to get away for many years with such a massive Ponzi scheme.
And it appears that lessons have not yet been learnt. Recent happenings at Theranos and FTX clearly prove that point. One wonders how (over and over again) it is possible for people to commit fraud on such a large scale, and go undetected for such a long time. And we can be sure that there are more cases, yet to come to light.
So what does this say about our regulatory agencies, about the robustness of our financial systems, about our willingness to suspend disbelief when something looks too good to be true?
So much damage caused by the greed of fraudsters. Sympathies for all who have suffered from this.
I use my iPad mainly as a consumption device (i.e. for consuming content). From time to time, I might write a few emails or short articles on it, but that’s not its main function. Also, because of the weird camera placement, I never do video calls on it.
Here are the main ways I use my iPad:
In my experience, the iPad is great as a companion device, i.e. next to a laptop. I’m very much of the philosophy that an iPad should do “iPad things”, and a laptop should do “laptop things”.
Of course, if pushed, the iPad (and certainly the Pro models) could also do tasks that are best done on a laptop. However, if one had to do these laptop tasks on a regular basis, it would be more efficient to do them on a laptop. To coin a phrase, “give to the iPad the things that are the iPad’s, and, to the laptop, the things that are the laptop’s”.
I’ve recently resumed reading long-form technical articles on my iPad.
Not quite sure why I had stopped reading this way, but it’s good to be back doing that.
GoodNotes 5 is an amazing app. I simply import my long-form PDFs into the app, and read them from there. It’s great because the app has amazing markup functionality – you can highlight, take handwritten notes (with the Apple Pencil), add links, add images and other elements, convert handwritten notes into text, search handwritten notes, and a whole lot more.
I really love reading this way. Three cheers for GoodNotes 5.
I’m normally reading more than one book at a time. This is great for variety, but can lead to “mental clutter”, if such a term exists.
So, for January, I’ve decided to experiment by reading just one book at a time, and making sure I’m done with it before starting another. Coupled with breaking my social media habit, this should lead to a more focused approach for my reading.
I’m currently reading The Power Law – Venture Capital and the Art of Disruption, by Sebastian Mallaby. It appears to have been well researched, and it’s quite an easy read. The author has a smooth storytelling style, and handles the subject-matter well. I’m only a few days into it, but I like this book.