We have an anniversary. In the summer of 2005, the Chief Engineer and I set out to visit every Austrian village whose names started with the letter Z. It was a straight-forward idea given that we lived in a z-village. Our universe of websites contains the virtual equivalent – z-village.net, a German website chronicling the…
Tag: Decisions
Social Debt (Tech Professional’s Anecdotes)
I have enjoyed Ben Horowitz’ book The Hard Thing About Hard Things. Farnamstreet’s review is perfect so I will not attempt at writing one. I will focus on one idea I found most intriguing. I read Horowitz’ book as an account of dealing with hard decisions in general, about having to decide alone, about personal accountability,…
Anatomy of a Decision (1)
Four years ago I tried something new – I took a decision and started communicating it (some half-baked version of it) without having worked out a detailed plan. One year later I started this blog, reflecting on the journey and this decision. So I celebrate the 4 years anniversary with shameless, self-indulgent nostalgia – reblogging…
Career Advice – Borrowing Wise Words from a Sailing Hacker
On researching SSL-related hacks, I have stumbled upon the website of notable security researcher Moxie Marlinspike. Marlinspike is also a sailor and working on diverse projects, such as Audio Anarchy – a project for transcribing anarchist books into audio format. On his About page he says: I like computer security and software development, particularly in the…
More Capitalism, Less Zen. Tackling Existential Questions Once More. In Vain?
Usually you make things worse by trying to explain again what you didn’t get across the first time. I do it nonetheless. My post on Zen Capitalism might have been interpreted as advocating Follow Your Bliss and Anything Else Will Follow (Money, in particular). I cringe; this is exactly what I intended to avoid, but…
So-Called Zen Capitalism and Random Thoughts on Entrepreneurship
In this blog and in the comments’ section of other blogs I have repeatedly ridiculed: management consultants, new age-y self help literature and simple-minded soft skills trainers. Let alone all other life-forms in the lower left quadrant of the verbal skills vs. quant skills diagram. Now it is time that I give you a chance…
On Addiction: An Announcement
For the very first time I am tackling a serious issue in this blog with all due respect and solemnity. I do announce in public: “I am going to reduce my consumption in coffee.” As we have learned goals should always be defined in a SMART way I should probably add more specifics, but I…
Trading in IT Security for Heat Pumps? Seriously?
Astute analysts of science, technology and the world at large noticed that my resume reads like a character from The Big Bang Theory. After all, an important tag used with this blog is cliché, and I am dead serious about theory and practice of combining literally anything. [Edit in 2016: At the time of writing this post,…
Recommended Listening: The Unemployed Philosopher’s Podcast
In 2012 I have shared some of my memories on career-related decisions and transitions I had made. With hindsight I can say I would not change a thing – but I would have wished that resources such as Dan Mullin’s Unemployed Philosopher’s Blog or Julie Clarenbach’s site Escape the Ivory Tower would have been available back then. Comment…
Almost There: Celebrating a Special Day
No, this does neither refer to the End of the World tomorrow(*), nor to Christmas, nor to the End of the Year. (*) In 8 minutes in my time zone. Since I have alluded to a ‘leap of faith’ and ‘passing through worm holes’ here or here I owe you a sequel. In a sense it is also a prequel. I…
The Dark Side Was Strong in Me
Once in a communication skills training I learned: For each of us there is a topic / a question / a phrase that will turn us raging mad or leave us in despair, or both. The point the trainer wanted to make, of course, was to use your combatant’s topics to your advantage. There are mild variants: Topics you…
Physicist, Philosopher, and Engineer
The headline indicates that I am going to tell one of this old jokes: A physicist, a philosopher and an engineer meet … This is in fact correct, but in an extremely subtle way. As the title of this blog and the pseudo-intellectual summary in the left pane should imply I am of course considering myself…
Reconcile All This (Goals of This Blog)
I have now blogged since more than half a year and I have pseudo-blogged since about 10 years, but I have never stated any goals explicitly. Fueled by my Website Resurrection Project I will do so now, running the risk to be able to hold myself accountable for achieving these goals. Despite the title of…
A Blank Sheet of Paper
I have a bunch of websites, and I was pseudo-blogging for a while. ‘Pseudo-blogging’ refers to editing old-school static websites not based on blog software. In contrast to what usability experts might say, I feel that the user interface does not matters. There were times of intense (pseudo-)blogging: Coding and writing html tags in a…
Anatomy of a Decision (2)
Since there is a part 1, I owe you a second part. Otherwise I would have called this posting: At the other side of the worm hole. I think the following could be applied to life as such, but I am mainly referring to decisions on jobs and work. I once thought that making a…
Anatomy of a Decision (1)
About a year ago I have taken a decision, and I am now taking a leap of faith. This blog is gravitating about this decision, and I am writing now about a journey that began a while back. I am finally working on plan A again, after I had been quite successful in pursuing plan…
elkemental Force 