Networking is an important part at today's work world. Unfortunately I'm pretty bad at it. But the most meaningful connections are made between people you have studied or worked with. Changing jobs is one of the best ways to gain a bunch of new people to your network.

Of course I don't want to do that either. I've been at my current job for eight years now which is relatively long in this industry. But I have no intention to leave. So no new networking opportunities either.

Earl of Sandwich sounds line a person that make such epic sandwiches they have been granted nobility. But it's actually the other way around. The 4th Earl of Sandwich John Montagu is the man who came up with the idea of stuffing some meat between two slices of bread. This invention is sometimes described as Britain's biggest contribution to the gastronomy. 

Lord Sandwich was an avid gamer and was often too immersed in his card games to have time for meals. The meat filled bread solved conveniently his problems enabling him to dine at the gambling table. 

Somehow, every time I make myself a sandwich an everything bagel comes to my mind. I didn't know exactly what it was so I finally had to look it up. Contrary to the name it doesn't actually contain everything. It doesn't even refer to fillings of a bagel. Instead it's just about the toppings, mostly a certain combination of them. But usually any multi-topping bagel can be an everything bagel. So it doesn't even have everything as a topping. 

usually writing is associated with communicating with others. There is always supposed to be an audience for the text. But sometimes that audience can be just yourself.

I've already written about how writing can be a tool for thinking. Putting those thoughts into actual words can gibe them new perspective and concrete meanings. 

Writing can also be a tool for learning. Being able to write about something requires certain amount of knowledge about the subject. And it's also great way to make you remember the things better. 

No, I'm not too tired to write right now, but there has been multiple occasions when I have been so tired I didn't want to write. Last such day was two days ago after the phone hunting episode.

Brains are our most energy consuming organ. At average they can burn around 20 % of our total energy consumption. So would it be possible to get fit, or at least lose some weight by thinking harder.

Today, I ended up doing something unexpected: hunting a phone. Well, more like trying to lure it out of it's hole.

Yesterday my daughter was with her friend in the woods. While there they were hanging out on top of a pile of boulders and ended up dropping her phone down to the cavity between the rocks.

The cavities kept going deeper and deeper between the stones and there were no telling which turn the phone had taken in all those intersections. So it was pretty much a lost cause.

The Arthurian legend is probably the most retold story of all time. There might be more popular themes, but they usually tend to be more abstract where these stories usually always refers or claim to be the "true" story. Most of the stories share the same characters, places and events, but the setting can vary widely. 

What makes the arthurian legends unique is that it's not quite history, but it's not strictly folklore either. There isn't one original story upon which all the later stories would be based on.

One of the nice features of the Cowriters.app is that it shows some nice statistics on your profile. Along the obvious streak length and post count there is also the total count of words written across all those posts.

Mine shows 129137 after yesterdays post. That's a lot of words. Quick googling gives 90000 words as an average word count of a book. So that's already almost halfway to a second book.

If you believe in God or any other supernatural force they pretty much dictate our choices. "It's all part of God's plan". Those omnipotent, omniscient beings know it all and control everything.

Besides writing just for the sake of it or improving ones writing skills there are three different reasons to write: to convey knowledge, to express oneself or to think.

First two are obvious. They are meant for others to read. But the last one doesn't require an audience. Writing can be a powerful tool to help you think.

In the end all other forms of writing must start with the writing to think. To out it the other way around it is quite impossible to write without thinking. It's just a matter of expression and refinement if the end result will be of any use for others.

Sometimes something is just so funny that you laugh so hard tears come out of your eyes. But have you ever laughed of joy and cried of sorrow at the same time.

Honest government ads are satirical PSA style gags from an Australia based company the Juice Media. The videos are highly political takes on many sensitive things that need more exposure. Mostly these videos are focused on Australian politics, but there are also several videos of things around the world.

We are entering the Month August tomorrow (which here in Finland is just about an hour away). I've previously written about the history and etymology of the month. But besides those interesting tibits it  also has some curious numerical properties.

The first day of August is never the same weekday as any other month's first day, except during a leap year when it falls into same day as February.

Rarely the first few pages have made such an impression than  The first fifteen lives of Harry August by Catherine Webb (written under the pseudonym Claire North). It usually takes several chapters to get into the book but reading this book had me sold after just a few pages.

Most of the Finland, especially the IT industry is on vacation throughout the July. I instead opted to have my vacation a bit earlier and have been working most of the month already while others have been gone. Sure there are downsides like being a bit lonely and of course having some on-call duties (voluntarily, as a second tier if needed).

Today, while I was reading transcripts of some of the Trump's speeches I noticed some familiarity in them. I have been recently reading a lot of similar, seemingly coherent text which however lacks a real content: the computer generated text that the machine learning models I have been experimenting with produce.

Maybe we are already living in a world where an AI is actually in control. That starts to sound more plausible explanation every time there is something new coming out from him. And at this point that wouldn't even probably be the worse option anymore.

I like making things as effective as possible. That's pretty much what I do at work. But I also like doing it just for fun.

Sometimes it might feel a bit too tedious to see all that trouble to achieve something in a game that could have been completed with less effort. I just can't help myself. If I see a room for improvement I take it as a personal challenge.

Aldous Huxley's iconic work has gotten a new live adaptation in HBO's series bearing the same name. While the series carries the same premise and some plot elements it's not the same thing.

While the book might have been a presentation of it's time and the fears of the future back almost a hundred years ago those same threating pictures are more relevant than ever today. We are living in a world where algorithms are feeding us with the next thing to watch, overwhelming us with the pleasures of neverending stream of entertainment.

When reading, and to some extend also watching movies or series, there are sometimes inconsistencies. Something doesn't add up, or things don't quite make sense.

Sure, it can be that I have just missed something. Or even forgotten. It's hard to say without redoing revisiting the whole of the preceding story. 

It's the Ropecon weekend again. Or would be if it wasn't canceled due to Covid. Well, the physical convention was cancelled. There is the alternate remote attendance online con going on over the weekend.