Most people will enjoy the nice weather or take a trip. I use this precious time to do some work on my projects. Sounds dull, but deep down it makes me happy.
Tag: Life
Putting up a wall
And that’s alright because that was a huge part of their empire. They swore to themselves never to let their guard down after Rome was sacked by the Gauls in its early history. Because of that, they developed a highly organised, professional war machine. They conquered whatever they set their sights on. And they remained hungry — after each conquest they already had plans for the next one. At their peak, the Romans controlled the region between the frozen Scottish highlands in the north and the sandy deserts of north Africa in the south. But then — they stopped.
My reading process
Reading Books First of all, I keep a to-read list on Goodreads.com. Whenever I encounter a book that I find interesting, I add it to this list (more than 400 items at the moment). Besides reading I also like to plan. I use Trello for all my planning. I split every year into quarters—periods of three months. Then I write down all the books that I want to read in the upcoming period and create a checklist. With a goal of 40 books per year that’s 10 books per quarter.
I quit design twice
The last thing I remember I wanted to be was a “game designer/developer”. I just got my first PC and playing video games was all I did. Then, at some point, I had stopped thinking about what I really wanted to do. I guess the “life auto–pilot” must have kicked in.
Judging books by their covers
“I don’t trust books like these”, said James. I was surprised by the blunt comment and replied with a short: “Why not?” “I don’t know… There’s something about the title that turns me off”, James replied. “Maybe it’s the cover in general…”, he tried to elaborate. “It looks cheap right?”, Sarah joined the conversation. “How can a book look cheap”, I replied in astonishment. “I don’t know… it looks… self-published?”, she tried to explain. “Self-published? But it’s a book by O’Reilly…”, I interrupted. “I know, but still…”, Sarah didn’t know what else to say. “I kinda like the cover…”, I remarked, “…it even has a big red heart on it”, I chuckled as I finished my thought, picking up the book, taking a closer look and briefly showing it to James and Sarah.
Adopting a new habit
I come from a small town where traffic jams are rare and public transport unneeded. Need to go to school? Take a short walk. Need to go to the supermarket? Take the car. Life was similar in Germany and Luxembourg. Whenever I needed to get somewhere it took me about 20 minutes. Not more.
Reading
I think it was about five books per year. It was mandatory. I would read these books in the first few years but when I think of it now, that wasn’t much of a reading. You know when you read something but your thoughts wander off and even though you read it you actually don’t? I found those books boring and by the end of the school I completely stopped reading them. Our teacher was extremely strict about it and she used to scare the shit out of me. But even that wasn’t a good enough reason to read. I remember thinking to myself: “How can people read books? I rather watch a film or play a video game. At least that’s not a complete waste of time, right?”
A tale of a colour blind designer
“I don’t see it”, I muttered in frustration. “How can you not see it? It’s right here: 12…”, my schoolmate claimed comfortably. “I don’t see a 12, I see a 17…”, I replied in a growing frustration.