Category: Interesting

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Be an apprentice. Evolve as a manager.

Being a manager is not something that's in my DNA. I'm primarily an engineer, a scientist, a software developer. I find it hard to spend time on governing activities that have no direct output, and prefer doing things rather than guiding and supervising how things are done. Some people are natural organizers, others need to somehow learn and adopt that specific set of technical and social skills that help teams operate smoothly and efficiently. While I may have the technical skills of understanding how things should be done, my problems lie elsewhere.

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written 9:22 CET on chronolog
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One of the most important things ever written

Every once in a while your read something that takes you to another level. Something that can change the way you've been thinking and doing things for years already. Which means looking for ways to optimize everything, drilling yourself, studying every day of the year, gathering knowledge, battling procrastination and low energy, looking for new ways to grow. Lifehacks whenever possible, fixes and improvements that come on a daily basis. And then one day your find out that you've perhaps been doing it all wrong. Not possible? Let me tell you a story about a great idea.

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written 13:51 CET on chronolog
5710 views   •   2 likes   •   4 comments  •   Like   •   
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Is social media empowering social media?

Here's a funny thought. You've probably noticed infinite blogs that give you advice on how to blog. Yes, I'm doing it too sometimes. You've probably also heard that tweets containing the word Twitter are one of the most clicked and retweeted out there. The most successful blogs are focused on technology, social media and (mobile) gadgets, which again, enable consumption of the beautiful global network we've built. There are links about Facebook on Facebook, visualizations about the rise of Pinterest on Pinterest. The most clicked links on this blog contain the words Facebook, Twitter or Social. I think I'm not the only one who's noticed this trend, even though I probably tend to have my feeds in configured in such a direction. Is social media empowering social media?

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written 15:41 CET on chronolog
2508 views   •   1 like   •   2 comments  •   Like   •   
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Putting 'people who look at you' to your Facebook profile would be the smartest thing to do

Are you one of those people who are wondering how Facebook decides which friends they put on your profile? I admit I am, both out of programmer's curiosity and of course, there have been rumors that those individuals are the ones who look at your profile. While LinkedIn offers this "who looks at your profile" insight to its (premium) users, Facebook is still very mysterious about it, denying this is how this particular algorithm works. But there is a simple reason I don't believe them: if I would be Facebook, I would design it exactly like this.

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written 11:50 CET on chronolog
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The Silicon Valley tour, part 7: A few exciting new business models that actually work

Visiting Silicon Valley enabled me too peek into the future a bit. Finding out about new technology trends, meeting disruptive new software startups and seeing fascinating new business models that are proven to work. There are even more futuristic products / services than the ones mentioned in this post, but these are the ones that made the biggest impression on me. And they all share similar competitive advantages: using smartphones and other mobile devices, canceling middlemen and supporting cashless commerce.

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written 18:28 CET on chronolog
12731 views   •   1 like   •   2 comments  •   Like   •   
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The Silicon Valley tour, part 6: A trip to the Internet Archive

Those that have read my previous post about visiting the technology giants of Silicon Valley, might have gotten the idea that organizations around here aren't that welcoming to strangers. Well, that might not be entirely true. One of my stops in San Francisco also included a visit to the Internet Archive, a foundation that is trying to preserve all the information our civilization possesses. And they were more than welcoming. Besides giving Andraz and me a full tour of their headquarters, they've also invited us to one of their staff meetings, where the Archive's members and volunteers present their activities and results from their specific fields.

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written 19:28 CET on chronolog
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How movies and television (almost) ruined my experience of traveling to American cities

In my life, I've traveled to two American cities on different occasions: New York and San Francisco. When I got there, a funny thing happened - it was nothing like I expected. Actually, it was a total buzzkill! I was filled with great expectations, but the cities displayed themselves in the plainest way possible. I can't believe how ridiculously common everything looked! When you travel to exotic places like Asia or Africa, you're in for a bit of a culture shock, and that's already fascinating enough. But cities in the United States, well, they're not that different from European cities, we're part of the same civilization anyways. Just cities like any other.

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written 6:08 CET on chronolog
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