Tech-inzichten door Niek de Greef. Reflecties op technologie, software development en de impact van digitale innovaties op cultuur en maatschappij.
One of the blogs I read regularly is the one by Scott Young. Scott got some fame by arranging his university degree online for a few thousand dollars. This was unheard of, especially in the US, where the costs for a college degree have gone totally out of hand.
Scott has been writing his blog for a very long time now and keeps coming up with interesting thoughts on learning and other things.
Scott also wrote the book Ultralearning about effective learning.
The past couple of years we have heard that a blog was something of 2000’s. The rise of Youtube and more recently, the popularity of podcasts, were supposedly make blogs a thing of the past.
But the debatable recommendation and influencing practices of Youtube, and other advertisement-backed social media drive people away from these platforms. At the same time there is a increasing number of people being driven away from tradiditional media, finding the “breaking news” tactics distracting and misguiding.
As a replacement for these, the blog seems on it’s way back, as is the newsletter (via email!) informing the readers of blog updates. Blogs are not found through google searches or Facebook recommendations, but through recommendations by real people. Thus providing a source of manually curated web content by like-minded people.
One of these treasures I found today is Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files blog.
https://www.theredhandfiles.com/
I love these places on the internet. In no particular order, for now.
Austin Kleon – Drawing writer with a great blog.
Brain Pickings – Maria Popova’s labour of love on books and other beautiful things.
Mr Motley – Great Dutch site about art.
Beeple-crap – Wonderful artist, became known for selling digital works as art with NFT’s. I think his daily work is immensely inspiring.
Boing Boing – Despite being somewhat North-America oriented, a beautiful site by my favorite internet person Mark Frauenfelder. (You will have to accept too many too disgusting ads, that are apparently needed to keep the site alive.)
booooooom – A beautiful art platform. Scrolling around cheers up your mind.
Swissmiss – A design blog it says, but it is much more. Run by Tina Roth Eisenberg. I would say it is her personal “thing that delight me on the web” log.
https://www.dirtyharrry.com – For a visual orgasm.
Seth Godin – Well, guess it needs no elaboration – Seth Godin’s blog. All about making a ruckus.
The Correspondent – Probably the most refreshing journalistic platform in the world, focusing on “unbreaking news”. Here the original (even better) Dutch De Correspondent.
Derek Sivers – Slow thinker comes to unique points of view. Now redirecting to https://sive.rs/. Hope he will re-start posting.
kk.org – A wealth of Kevin Kelly interesting initiatives, thoughts, articles, stuff.
elsadorfman.com – The website of Elsa Dorfman, 20×24 Polaroid portait photographer. An relatively old website I found recently after she passed away. This site keeps engaging me.
B – Blake Andrews’s long running blog. On (street) photography, and other interests from Blake.
Recomendo – another site/newsletter by Mark Frauenfelder.
Abbi Jacobson must be a tireless centipede. Amongst all the things she does, she hosted the podcast A Piece of Work, about modern art. The Moma and the podcasting company WNYC Studios produced this fantastic series.
Wikipedia (May 2020) tells us Jacobson is planning to do another series. Let it come.
Brainpickings, the beautifully intense mind sprout by Maria Popova. She write about books, philosophy, writers, thinking, tenderness, music, art, love, the beauty of life, and more I can safely say.
All these beautiful essays…
Started as a simple email list, the site has grown into a monumental achievement showcasing the richness of what the Internet can bring humanity.