This video interview between the Editor in Chief of the New York Times and JayZ was incredible. Really respect the humility and empathy coming from him.
This video interview between the Editor in Chief of the @NYTimes and @_s_c was incredible. Really respect the humility and empathy coming from Jay Z: www.nytimes.com/video/t-m…
"The Creator of Bitcoin Comes Clean, Only to Disappear Again"
I really loved this article from Longreads over the weekend. A thrilling piece of non-fiction writing about the rise of bitcoin and an ongoing investigation about the maybe-but-probably-not creator of Bitcoin.
On December 9, 2015, Craig Wright woke up to the news that two articles had come out overnight fingering him as the person behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Reading the articles on his laptop, Wright knew his old life was over.
PS: In case you've not heard of it before, Longreads is an online publication that non only pulls interesting long-form articles from the internet, but they also work on their own articles. You should check them out and consider supporting them to help them fight the good fight.
About the #MeToo Movement
The goal of #MeToo, as Milano’s friend told her, was simply to give people a sense of “the magnitude of the problem.”
Over the last day, I’ve seen the MeToo status pop up, without an explanation. But after seeing it multiple times from some of my female friends, I understood quickly what this was about. In the last 24h, the status has been tweeted 500 thousand times already. Think of the gravity of the situation.
Final Fantasy IX, War, and WMDs
Cameron Kunzelman for Polygon has a great opinion piece this week about one of my favorite video games: Final Fantasy IX.
Final Fantasy 9 shows us the closest thing to a fantasy weapon of mass destruction that exists in video games.
I really appreciate the thoughts that went into this piece, especially given the current news and the constant will-they-won’t-they regarding our nuclear overlords.
If you’ve not had the chance to play through this wonderful Shakespearian experience, it’s available on PS4, iOS, and on Steam — which means you really have no excuse!
[≠] Final Fantasy 9 teaches us about war and how times have changed
They're not evil. They just don't care
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Hipstamatic is still alive!
It's hard to believe it's been nearly a decade since New York Times photographer Damon Winter used Hipstamatic to create an award-winning photo for a cover story about the war in Afghanistan. It's even harder to believe that the app is still downloadable in close to its original form. It still takes three seconds to "print" your photo to a Polaroid-esque frame that loads in the bottom corner.
As someone who’s been using Hipstamatic on and off over the past few years, I’m yet to find a camera app with the same unpredictable feel!
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Brandwatch takes a look at eSports, the most underrated internet phenomenon of the past decade
Goldman Sachs valued eSports at $500 million in 2016 and expects the market will grow at 22% annually.
via eSports Data: The Huge Industry That’s Constantly Misunderstood | Brandwatch
[LINK]Things More Heavily Regulated Than Buying a Gun in the United States
This gem, from McSweeney’s.
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Security News This Week: The Deloitte Breach Was Worse Than We Thought | WIRED
“I am horrified but absolutely not surprised by this amount of data.”
via Security News This Week: The Deloitte Breach Was Worse Than We Thought | WIRED
Attempting to disconnect from Social Media Feeds as a source of endless mindless news, and use these instead!
Attempting to disconnect from Social Media Feeds as a source of endless mindless news, and use these instead!
Nice view in Kuala Lumpur!
iOS 11 is nice and smooth! Really liking it, especially with force touch on control center and other interactions :)
Nice view in Kuala Lumpur!
iOS 11 is nice and smooth! Really liking it, especially with force touch on control center and other interactions :)
Vlog 047: A week in Singapore
After a month in Vietnam, I switched things up with a short week in Singapore. I had a blast there: discovering a story, culture, and people that are mixed, welcoming, and have a truly unique place in the world!
Pilotfish — Making Remote Work ..Work!
Over on Remotive1 this week, we were introduced to Pilotfish, and its founder Joseph. They’re a social enterprise tackling issues related to Mental Health for Remote Workers.
With the continuing rise of remote workers or location independent workers, there’s a lot of things to navigate through, especially for first timers. It’s not easy to go from a social open office environment where you get to see your coworkers in person every day of the week, to working alone at home (or even in a coworking space where you might not know people around you.)
Pilotfish has the potential to tackle this issue before mental health becomes a real widely developed problem for remote workers, in the same way that employees of big corporations can too often battle against stress and related workplace-related issues.
They’re tackling this issue before it becomes a real problem, from day one, and that’s something that we should all applaud and support.
On a more personal note, I was lucky enough, in my last full-time employee position, to be part of a team where we started testing out remote working once or twice a week.
It was a great way to “dip my toes in the water” and start learning about the discipline required, and the communication needed, to make it work. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds, and I made many mistakes along the way. But this led to me being in the position that I am today, lucky enough not only to work remotely full-time but also do it as a freelancer, while traveling around the world.
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- The community of Remote / Location-Independent workers that I’ve been a part of for the past few years. ↩
Bali: Experiences money can't buy!
For my last weekend in Bali, I wanted to explore the infamous peninsula. I met up with my driver, Ketut, the same driver that showed me around the previous Saturday.
Bali Peninsula
Nusa Dua / Water Blow
We started the day by driving down to Nusa Dua / “Water Blow”, which is a beautiful natural beach area with patches of grass around. It’s surrounded by luxury resorts, however, local Balinese and Indonesian families still go there to relax over the weekend. It’s reminiscent of some of Juan Les Pins, Cannes, and other well-off beach towns along the French Riviera, in a way.
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Pandawa
After the luxury area, we went down to Pandawa beach, a long beach nestled under beautiful cliffs, which gives it kind of a hidden feel.
We didn’t stay long, but the drive and the scenery were worth it. Seeing this makes me understand why people say that Bali is an ideal surfing spot —and I don’t even surf!
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Kopi Luwak
We stopped along the way to get a coffee (kopi), which gave me an opportunity to have my second ever cup of kopi luwak: the infamous Balinese coffee ranked as the best in the world.
It’s a truly unique process: the Lusaka is this little animal, a cross between a ferret and a little fox. It picks and eats the best coffee cherries, generally arabica. Later on, it poops it out, and the villagers collect the beans, remove the envelope, clean them in boiling water, roast the beans, and ground them — it sounds kind of weird, but the nutrients that envelop the beans give them a special flavor that adds to the quality of the coffee as a whole.
By the time they serve the coffee, it is a delicate, strong, and pure aroma!
In addition to this delicious cup, the workers at the roasters also get you to taste different varieties of local teas and coffees, including —but not limited to— coconut coffee, ginseng coffee, white and red ginger tea, lemon tea, lemongrass tea, mangosteen tea (my favorite), and a bunch of others!
Uluwatu
After the coffee stop, we headed down to the Temple of Uluwatu — infamous for being a beautiful and large temple on top of a cliff, overlooking the Indian Ocean. This was absolutely breathtaking, and I couldn’t quite help myself but shout wow! at each different side and areas of the temple!
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A family encounter
After the temple, we switched it up for a bit: my driver, Ketut, offered to go to his brother’s, have lunch there, and spend the afternoon, before going to see a local football game with his family. I jumped on the occasion.
We drove about an hour north/east, to the small town of Sanur, and I got to meet his dad (65 years old), his brother (45 yo), his brother’s wife, and a few of their friends, kids, nephews…
They offered the local Nasi Goreng —fried rice with egg, chicken, and spices— a few cups of coffee, and we even got to play with one of the local Balinese kites —flying at 50 meters above in the sky—, play some guitar, and grab some home-made snacks.
All in all, it was very kind of them to welcome me in their home and allow me to join them, experiencing a side of local Balinese life that no tour guide could have booked on my behalf.
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Bali United FC
Finally, the day ended at the football game. For the price of 35,000 Indonesian Rupiahs, or about 1.7€, we got through the main supporter entrance and saw Bali United FC, the best team in Indonesia, play and win 5-1 over the team of Lampongan (a city based on the main island of Indonesia).
Coming from Europe, the level feels like a National second or third division down from the main professional team back home, and it certainly was frustrating to see players hesitate to shoot towards the goal, on a 1-on-1 against the keeper. But it was very good fun, and I loved the feeling of respect and unity that I experienced.
Another thing to note was that prior to the start of the game, it started raining pretty hard, so we got drenched almost instantly as soon as we got to our stands in the stadium. That being said, with a nice 20+ degree weather, we were nowhere close to catching a cold and, if anything, this allowed us to cool down a bit.
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About Stephen King's 2017 "IT" adaptation
Managed to convince the girlfriend to see it at the theater next week (on bean bags) and I couldn’t be more excited!
It joins The Shining and Carrie as the best of the Stephen King horror adaptations — films that understand that King’s novels are never about surface-level scares, but about the countless ways in which individual small-time acts of evil coalesce into terrifying systems of violence
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