Misc

This page contains a list of other interesting aspects that I want to share in one way or another. If you read this page and we meet, any of these topics will be a good conversation starter that could last an entire evening.

Gaming

RimWorld

Building colonies and managing small pawns that constantly want to kill themselves while trying not to commit war-crimes. At the time of writing, this is my most played game on Steam and it is a fantastic game to play while watching some YouTube videos that only require half-attention.

Rocket League

Rocket League has been my Esport of choice both for watching and playing for many years.. I started playing it basically when I arrived on Steam and have been quite decent at it as well. For a variety of reasons I stopped playing a few years ago, but it is still a great amount of fun! For people who don’t know the game, it is exactly what you imagine if you combine Football and Cars. A predecessor made by the same team probably had a more descriptive name: Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars.

Factorio

This is a real-time automation game where you have to constantly expand your factory to construct more and more elaborate production chains, all while defending everything from the ever-present bugs on the planet. It’s the perfect “Just 5 more minutes” game.

Kerbal Space Program

At the time of writing, my second most favorite game on Steam. It is basically “Orbital Mechanics, The Game” with a bit of “Babies first Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation” thrown in for good measure. As per usual Randall Munroe probably described it the best. If you ask me, going RP-0 with Real Scale Solar system is the only way to live (and get very, very frustrated). Unfortunately, the second version of the game was not great and everything around it seems to be dead now.

Productivity

Although the book as aged quite badly, I can still recommend David Allen’s Getting Things Done book for everyone. Combining the ideas of this book with a modern TODO list app (I have been using Todoist for a while now after switching away from Omnifocus) really helps reducing stress levels in addition to increasing productivity. In addition to that, throw in a bit of Pomodoro magic and keep those new tasks coming.

Cool Tools

This is a list of various tools that I use more-or-less regularly that help with organization, productivity, and other tasks. None of them will be interesting for everyone, but a few might be useful for some. - Obsidian: A (mostly) Markdown file based knowledge database and notes-taking application. While it is possible to synchronize files using their paid service, the software is agnostic to the location of the files and supports Drobox, Google Drive, etc. Basically Notion, but local. - Quarto: A publishing system that converts Markdown and Python code into documents, presentations, or websites (such as this one). - VS Code: Probably the best code editor that is currently around, following in the footsteps of Notepad++ and Sublime Tetx

  • Autohotkey: A powerful scripting language that execute complex actions through keyboard shortcuts. Almost anything that is doable in Windows can be automated through AHK.
  • ImageMagick: Image conversion tool that supports almost any image format. Also has tools to edit the images in a procedural manner and is thus very batch-friendly.
  • Microsoft PowerToys: Many features for more advanced users of Windows, such as a better clipboard handling, window management, etc. Would recommend that for anyone using Windows as a working environment.
  • Milton: An open-source vector drawing problem that is great for quick drawings when trying to explain complex concepts.
  • Pandoc: A document conversion tool that supports many file types, being able to generate Word documents from Markdown, PDFs from text files, etc etc.
  • Parsec: A fantastic remote control application with ultra-low latency and multi-monitor support. More than once I didn’t actually realize that I was watching a video on the remote computer, it’s that great.
  • RenderDoc: Anyone who does any OpenGL development needs this frame analyze that allows you to dissect any OpenGL frame and look at the rendering pipeline, textures, etc.
  • Fork: In my view the best visual interface for Git.
  • VLC: Who hasn’t heard of VLC
  • OBS: An open-source screen recording software that I have been using for more than a decade at this point.
  • SpeedCrunch: A great calculator with support for easy unit conversions, including interactively defining new units.
  • vdo.ninja: A swiss army tool of video capturing and sharing. Using WebRTC, it is possible to capture anything and then either include it in OBS as a Browser or share a link with anyone to watch.
  • yt-dlp: A great tool to download videos from many video sharing platforms.
  • winget: apt for Windows. Makes it trivially easy to update software using the commandline or setup a new computer with a single line of code to install all software that you would want.
  • Todoist: A great light-weight Todo tracking app that has great API interfaces, too.

Podcasts

Listening to podcasts has been another staple of entertainment in my life for way over a decade at this point and it was especially useful in New York to pass the time on those pesky subway rides. Some of my recommendations of podcasts are:

  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b1g3c: A BBC podcast where the title gives everything away. They cover the 50 biggest inventions that shaped the world around us into what it is today.
  • https://99percentinvisible.org: Roman Mars explaining the design aspects of things that are around us daily but to which we normally don’t pay any attention.
  • Captains Speaking: Two professional 737 pilots discuss all things aviation. A great source of insider gossip and learning things you never knew you wanted to know.
  • https://cppcast.com/: A for C++ developers. Discussion topics range from new and interesting libraries over language features all the way to C++ standard discussions.
  • https://freakonomics.com/: One of the two economics-focussed podcasts on my list. It can be quite enlightening to listen how other people reason about the world and learn interesting facts in the process.
  • https://www.nodumbquestions.fm: One more entry from the two-dudes-talking genre of podcasts. Destin Sandlin (Smarter Every Day) and Matt Whitman (10 Minute Bible Hour) discussing arbitrary topics.
  • https://www.npr.org/sections/money: Similar to Freakonomics Radio, an economics-focussed podcast about explaining everyday events and items through the looking glass of economics.
  • https://crooked.com/podcast-series/pod-save-america/: A podcast by four former aides to President Obama, Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor, that discuss the current news and provide their side of the story.
  • https://crooked.com/podcast-series/pod-save-the-world/: A spin-off podcast from Pod Save America about world politics.
  • https://www.unmade.fm/: Another two-dudes-talking podcast by Tim Hein and Brady Haran generally about podcast ideas that never see the light of day.
  • https://trumpconlaw.com: A second podcast by Roman Mars where he and Professor Elizabeth Joh discuss the current political news through the looking glass of Constitutional Law.

Previous

  • https://www.relay.fm/cortex: CGP Grey and Myke Hurley’s two-dudes-talking podcast about productivity and their careers. Very useful to listen to other people talking about their self-employment careers.
  • https://www.thejimquisition.com/podquisition: Jim Sterling’s (The Jimquisition), Laura K Dale’s, and Gavin Dunne’s (Miracle of Sound) podcast that is, mostly, about video games and to keep up to date on video game news.
  • https://www.hellointernet.fm: Brady Haran and CGP Grey’s two-dudes-talking podcast. This is also about any arbitrary topic, but since both hosts are involved in making Youtube videos, that’s one reoccuring topic.

YouTube Channels

These are some of the Youtube channels that I’m following. Judging by my growing list of “Watch later” videos, I’m clearly subscribed to more channels that I have the time to watch.

Previous

A list of previous channels that I used follow more actively, but fell off for some reason or another. This list is mostly here to remind me to check in every once in a while to see what happened

Book recommendations

  • Superintelligence: A book by Nick Bostrom about the dangers of developing artificial intelligence and how it might endanger our future. This book changed my views on AI by 180°
  • Song of Ice and Fire: It’s the original book series for Game of Thrones. After the disappointing sixth and seventh season, it’s refreshing to go back to the original
  • The Dictator’s Handbook: A great book about understanding politics and scheming in organizations. The books subtitle “Why Bad Behavior Is Almost Always Good Politics” probably says it all.
  • The Martian: A book by Andy Weir which has since been made into a successful move. Mark Watney is stranded on Mars after an accident and has to survive the harsh conditions on Mars.
  • The Expanse Series: A book series by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck about a realistic and gritty future where space travel through the solar system is possible. Made into a TV series, too.
  • Failure is Not an Option: A memoir by Gene Kratz, the flight director responsible for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo era space craft at NASA.
  • Star Wars: Darth Plagueis: A book about Darth Plagueis, the master of Darth Sidious and how he got to power.
  • Mogworld: Written by Ben, Yahzee, Crowshaw, it is a book about what would happen if an NPC in an MMORPG would become sentient.
  • Cockpit Confidential: Adopted from excepts of his blog, Patrick Smith, a pilot, explains common questions that people would have if they sat down with a pilot for a beer or two.
  • A Man on The Moon: The book about the moon shot by Andrew Chaikin in which he describes the flights of the Apollo program. He sat down with all (at the time) living astronauts to get their stories.
  • Ready Player One: A book about a dystopian future in which everyone lives in “The Oasis”, a fully immersive virtual reality environment and is looking for the ultimate golden ticket.
  • Elon Musk: A biography about Elon Musk, covering his entire life until 2016, when this book was written.
  • Steve Jobs: A biography about Steve Jobs, written by Walter Isaacson, and is probably the most complete retelling of his life.