Category: Opinion

  • Demonetising the blog

    As I have previously alluded to, I have had ads on the blog to offset costs involved in running it. This past week, I turned them off. I have considered doing so for some time, and well, it felt like it was time to do so. There are a few reasons why I took this step, and I would like to take a moment to address some of them:

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  • The Hard Life of Privilege

    Guest posts are a rare occurrence on the blog, this being the second time it’s happened. It was written by Hjalti Nönnuson, and originally published at the Yawning Portal. It is reprinted here with his kind permission, and sums up my feelings on the matter in a way that I feel you deserve to read the original, rather than whatever bleak imitation I might have been able to come up with. Now, then: The hard life of privilege:

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  • Achieving GDPR compliance to the best of my ability

    As you may or may not be aware, GDPR (the General Data Protection Regulation) comes into effect on May 1st, 2018. From what I can tell – and the text of the regulation is fairly convoluted and hard to understand – anonymized data collection (such as IP address of visitors) needs no active consent, while non-anonymized data collection does require active consent. To this effect, I have combined and consolidated what used to be to pages – the cookie and privacy policies – into one, which you can find here.

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  • Ten years

    Completely without my noticing it, the oldest blog post on the blog had its ten year anniversary. It wasn’t until march of 2008, however, that I actually started posting blog posts with any regularity, including a post defining what I was to blog about which in hindsight feels very limited in its scope.

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  • Reviewed: Tesla Model S part 8: How Tesla deals with issues

    With nearly 30000 kilometers behind the wheel of my Model S, I have seen the good and the bad. The car behaves well in most conditions, and winter driving is absolutely no problem (as it has been since very shortly after winter came in my first season with the car. We have been all over southern Norway, from Kristiansand in the south, to Stavanger and Bergen in the west, and Trondheim in the north. The car has been – and continues to be – an absolute joy to drive. Inevitably, there have been some problems.

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  • Reviewed: Jaybird X3

    About a year ago, I was on the look for a new set of wireless in-ear headphones. They had to be bluetooth compatible, had to support both audio playback and phone calls, and they had to fit my ears. After reading a lot of reviews, I ended up with a set of Jaybird X3. Here are my notes on my experience with them: 

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  • Why I rejected an exciting job offer

    Not long before we found out that we were expecting our second child, I interviewed for a position with a well-known and prestigious international technology firm, to become one of their internal support technicians here in Norway. After a whopping four rounds of interviews, including one at the European HQ somewhere down on the European continent, I was offered the job. They offered a 10% increase in pay, and the position would see me travelling to satellite locations in the Scandinavian region two out of five days per week. It was made very clear that they would not be able to make the offer any better. I thanked them for the offer, but ultimately rejected it.

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  • Favorite things in 2017

    Like last year, I am writing a favorite things post. 2017 has been an exciting and interesting year in terms of discoveries, and I have found a number of new toys and tools that help me in my pursuits. This year they fall neatly into two categories; those related to my video and photo pursuits, and those that help me in my day to day activities.

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  • 2017 roundup

    As has become my tradition, I am rounding out the year with a retrospective article. The idea stems from many places, but in particular from Steve Jackson, of Steve Jackson Games, and his annual Report to the Stakeholders.

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  • Platform agnosticism and my preferred platform

    The debate over ones preferred platform has for a very long time felt more like a religous discussion more than anything else. Whether it’s PC vs. Mac, iOS vs. Android, or Windows vs. Linux, proponents of the various platforms tend towards an almost religious level of zeal for their preferred platform, and against the other platform.

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  • Biting the hand that feeds you

    Patreon has since reversed the decision, as reflected in the update at the bottom of this post. Back in October, I wrote about Patreon, and how I enjoy being able to support a few creators of my choosing. That may be about to change, because Patreon are making some pretty obnoxious changes to how they collect pledges. The way it used to be, was that I, as a patron, would be charged the amount of my pledge. Patreon would subtract a portion of the pledge before passing on the rest to the creator(s).

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