/reader

I don't know if this is just a brief slump or if it's a sign of a larger shift. I hope it's the former. I'd hate to lose interest in the one thing that still holds my interest.

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Why did you start blogging in the first place?

I am not completely sure anymore, but I think what pushed me to start blogging was my discovery of the platform Medium. Some of the first posts were from an Interrail train trip across Europe with a friend in 2015 (almost ten years ago!). But on Medium I also started a so-called publication with articles and news about Android and app development, where many people contributed through the years. Later, I also started an “open-source magazine” about Android and Android apps. In my last school year (2016/2017) I also started blogging about personal topics as it was a tough time back then.

What platform are you using to manage your blog, and why did you choose it?

Since 2020 I have been using my own blogging software, GoBlog. After jumping between Medium, WordPress, Medium and Hugo with additional software pieces to provide custom functionality, I decided to just write my tool that does everything I need from a blogging platform. And when I fancy new features, I just add them.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

I think, I just answered that. I was using Medium for a long time, but after realizing that I wanted more control over my blog, I decided to move it back to my server and used Hugo for quite some time. But just now, I realize, I am probably using GoBlog for the longest time of my blogging journey so far.

How do you write your posts?

Some posts I write directly in the GoBlog editor, but longer posts I often write in LanguageTool and just copy them to publish. When I’m feeling lazy or don’t find the right words, I sometimes also write posts in German first and let DeepL translate them to English. At least when they are meant for my English and not my German blog. Posts I publish in both languages (like my monthly reviews), I usually write in German first and then publish a translated version in English as well.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

Sometimes I discover something interesting I want to share, sometimes I read something thought-provoking, and sometimes I am just feeling a need to tell something. Then I just write…

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

…and publish almost immediately.

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

I have no idea what’s my favorite posts of all the hundreds of posts, but I like the posts about the three-day bike tour I did last summer or my review of 2024.

Any future plans for your blog?

In the past, I blogged a lot, maybe also too much with too less substance, but I want to get back into the blogging habit, as my blogging statistics also show that I’m blogging less. Sharing interesting things with the world and inspiring people feels great, my blog is my place where I can geek out. Let’s see if 2025 becomes a year of blogging again.

Who’s next?

Every blogging person. I want to read more of your blogging workflows and why you started blogging in the first place. Feel free to message me a link to your post and I will read it.

Interactions & Comments

Waarom?

Taken zijn namelijk discrete, duidelijk omlijnde acties die je doet om verder te komen in een project. Een puzzelstukje in de productiviteitspuzzel. “Haal de bestelling op”, “Bel je moeder”, “Brainstorm over de zomervakantie”. Waarom zou een generative AI model dit willen integreren in hun systeem?

Het kan zijn omdat ze willen uitbreiden in het dagelijks gebruik van de app. Zodat mensen er meer gebruik van maken en dus minder van de competitie. Dat maakt OpenAI als bedrijf weer interessanter voor aandeelhouders.

Het kan zijn dat het een beta is om te leren van ons gedrag en zo op een later moment de taken te integreren in de API. Zodat taakmanagers als Things of Todoist er gebruik van kunnen maken in hun eigen app.

Het kan zijn om te leren van ons dagelijks, repeterende gedrag. Welke taken doen we en masse en zijn dus interessant om te gebruiken voor meer omzet. Zodat “Brainstorm over vakantie” als taak, in ChatGPT direct een canvas wordt met vakantie-ideeën, gesponsord door TUI of Sunweb.

Ik gebruik dagelijks Claude en ChatGPT. Maar voor mijn todo-lijst blijf ik vooralsnog trouw aan een aparte app.

I decided I needed to devise a way to keep track of everything and instead of doing so offline, I'm going to do it right here on the blog in the form of the occasional post.

In today's post, I'm going to take a quick look at each of the stories from The Coming of Conan The Cimmerian, the first volume in the Del Rey series of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories. These micro-summaries are spoiler free and are there to help me remember which story is which.

The Phoenix on the Sword (1932) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - This story began as an unpublished Kull story that was re-written for Robert E. Howard's new character, Conan. Conan stories were not written/published in chronological order and the chronology is really complicated (lucky, one fan has been going through all the Conan stories and trying to make sense of it). In this story, we meet Conan when he is a tired king. A group of rebels decides that Conan should no longer be king, and they plot an assassination.

The Frost-Giant's Daughter (1976) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - One of the more controversial Conan stories, this story is quite basic but an enjoyable tale. Following an epic battle, a young woman taunts the sole survivor Conan, who decides he must punish the woman for her mockery.

The God in the Bowl (1952) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - This whodunit finds Conan trapped in a building with a corpse and the local authorities are trying to prove that he killed him.

The Tower of the Elephant (1933) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Usually consider the best Conan story, at least the most accessible for new fans, this is the first story I read prior to purchasing the Conan books. It's an interesting tale of a young Conan, scaling a massive building in search of a grand and considered unobtainable treasure.

The Scarlet Citadel (1933) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Following an epic battle, Conan finds himself imprisoned. Upon his escape, he encounters all sorts of mysterious creatures.

Queen of the Black Coast (1934) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - This story features Belit, an incredible female character in the Conan universe. Belit is a pirate captain, who comes across Conan and whisks him away on an adventure amongst ancient ruins.

Black Colossus (1933) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Following the awakening of an ancient sorcerer, the sister of the king and ruler of Khoraja seeks refuge by contacting the god of her ancestors, Mitra. Mitra advises the young leader to goto the streets and offer her army to the first person she meets, which just so happens to be Conan.

Iron Shadows in the Moon (1934) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - In this story, Conan stumbles upon a young woman (Olivia) who has escaped captivity from the very people hunting Conan. Conan is on the brink of insanity, having spent a long time hiding out in a marsh with very little food. Upon rescuing our damsel, Conan and Olivia head for some ruins, where something just doesn't seem right.

Xuthal of the Dusk (1933) ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Conan and his companion, Natala the Brythunian, are the two remaining survivors of an attack. Out of food and water and lost in the desert, Conan is about to mercy kill Natala when they come across a city called Xuthal. Upon entering the city, it appears abandoned and all sorts of Lovecraftian horror awaits.

The Pool of the Black One (1933) ⭐️⭐️ - This story starts off strong, but then goes a bit off the rails. Conan finds himself rescued on a rival pirate ship, which sails to an uncharted island. On this island, the crew falls asleep and the locals being to perform ceremonies.

Rogues in the House (1934) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - After being hired to kill a corrupt priest, Conan finds himself imprisoned and awaiting death, when he offered a pardon to kill Nabonidus, a corrupt secretary. Chaos ensues once they find themselves within Nabonidus's home, and he is not where he should be, and his house is not quite normal.

The Vale of Lost Women (1967) ⭐️ - This is not a great story. It's told from a captive, Livia's point of a view and in a sort of dreamlike trance. She makes a deal with Conan to rescue her, but then decides to renege on the deal. This was the first Conan story I was disappointed in and felt like a waste.

The Devil in Iron (1934) ⭐️⭐️ - I need to re-read this story, but Conan is pursuing a girl onto an abandoned island, when an ancient fortress reappears owned by an ancient demon.

The first book of stories started off strong, but ended a little weak, but this was a great introduction to the character of Conan the Barbarian.

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In the future I will be able to type a post into my blog and people who are following me will see it in their timeline. #

Peeve: TV shows or movies that show text messages that are impossible to read even if you stop the video and zoom in.#

An internet of ideas#

• I used to use Twitter for middle of the night ideas. These days I use one of Twitter's successors. #
• Here's one. "We should be able to tweet from within any application that has the ability to create and edit text, and not just in tiny little text boxes." And another. "The limits imposed by twitter initially in 2006 resulted in there being room for only very simple ideas. #
• Self-contained isolated silos make progress impossible. We need an internet of ideas. Why should we depend on one small vulnerable company to handle all our internet publishing? It’s an old outdated idea. Look where our investment in Twitter left us, nomads searching for a new home, and what did we do, we went for basically the same deal as before. Oy. #
• Re silos, are you watching the Apple TV+ series Silo? I don't want to spoil it, but their idea of a silo is more less exactly what we're talking about with the silos or semi-silos of the twitter-like era. They know being a silo is not popular so they do little things to give you reason to believe they might not be a silo. But being a partial silo is like being partially pregnant. No such thing. If you're federated that means you peer with your competitors. Facebook, or whatever you call Mark Xuckerberg's company these days, just cut off an Instagram competitor and completely gave away that federation is a very conditional thing for them, even if a user of Instagram might also want to hook into flow from Pixelfed. I never believed in their support of the fediverse. Now let's get some reality into these discussions. #
• On Unix. "Learning Unix was when I learned that computer networks could be simple yet infinitely powerful. Before that for me it was just an inkling, a hunch. Reading the source code I wanted to make software that works like that. I hope I have, to some extent."#
• On Matt Mullenweg, who surprisingly has become a polarizing figure in the tech world. Who could've seen that coming? Not me. "Radical idea. Matt Mullenweg doesn’t like how things are going. He has every right to try to change it, to make it right. As do you, and I." I don't like that people have called him things like the Mad King. People used to say stuff like that about me. It's a substitute for trying to understand where someone is coming from. One of the things I learned about creating open technology is you attract people who don't contribute anything but expect you to work for them, for you to take orders from them. That is really what it comes down to, and it's crazy. If you feel strongly about something, either learn how to program, or make your freaking case with some humility, or offer a bounty, or just trust the universe. But giving people orders, there's no place for that. Matt could be right or wrong, or he could be right for himself. But he has the right to control his own destiny, as you and I do, to the extent that we can. #
• I have my own vision for WordPress, as I've started to talk about here and Murphy-willing you should see more of that in the coming weeks. If you want a clue, listen to my podcast from January 8, and then if you have questions, ask them here. I think it's a better bet that WordPress will be the backbone of the social web than any of the other candidates. I wouldn't mind being wrong, as long as we can peer with the eventual winner. I can't endorse a silo, even on the hope that it will be de-silo'd. I also don't believe in the Tooth Fairy and Glinda the good witch of the south. #
• One more thing. In the middle of the night the Department of Justice released half of the report on their case against president-elect Trump, a much anticipated bit of news. I didn't know it had been released, but when I woke up, and made the usual rounds, I checked in on Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, Facebook and then finally Twitter, in that order. Guess where I discovered this news. Twitter. So when you think people move when they don't like what Musk does, or they find that Twitter is as polluted as some of the celebs do, understand this -- most people aren't affected by the noise. I don't see it unless I go look for it. Perhaps this is because I've been very liberal with blocking abusers, or more likely I don't have enough followers to be an attractive target for the abusers, who behave like spammers. They post where the flow is, and my account isn't as attractive as (for example) Paul Krugman, Mark Cuban or Jay Rosen. It takes a lot to get people to move, and I suspect most people never will. If you operate a gasoline powered car, I bet you buy a lot of Exxon gas, even if you don't see their logo when you fill up. It's very hard to get away from companies who hurt our species, by design, unfortunately. #

What if we…

Buy a bunch of land in one of those big empty states with a lot of land, and we all build a tiny home or any kind of home and live there and we can build a giant barn where we can hang out together when we want. But there’s no pressure to hang out. When you want to be in your own space, be in your own space. What if we also had a big commercial kitchen in the giant barn so we can cook pizzas and make pickles and have feasts? Are you in? Let’s do it. 

What if we…

Collectively quit all social media owned by any single person or corporation and dedicated ourselves fully to engaging with each other in ways that are not dependent on the whims of shallow, petty, power-hungry people? What if we took all our attention and clicks away from the purveyors of oligarchical bullshittery and turned it instead to find our own way toward connection and meaning? What do you think? Could we do it? 

What if we…

Broke every small dumb rule that strengthens the hold of bureaucracy. Refused to assent to the slow terrible coalescing of humanity into corporate caricatures. Called out the absurdity whenever we saw it. Asked questions over and over and over and over and over and over and over because they deserve to be answered, because they shouldn’t have to be asked. What if we didn’t stay too tired to care? What if we found small ways to try, even as we struggle with our own burdens? What if we got smarter and worked together and understood that every effort made toward a better future does matter even if the effort is tiny? What if we did not devalue ourselves? What about that? 

What if we… 

Made so much art. Flooded the world with art. What if we wrote and sang and danced and played and directed and coded and designed and researched and sculpted and knitted and crocheted and thrifted and painted and recorded and did all the art in all the ways we can possibly imagine, and then imagined some more and made some more? What if we flooded the world with so much handmade, homespun, messy, real, rough-edged, gloriously human art that the stock photography sites shut down and the spammy content farms went under and the robot derivatives were fucking laughed right off the internet? What about it? What do you think? Can we do it? Are you in?