SUVs with four wheels? Zero sport utility, questionable utility for the climate, questionable use of limited space in cities, and on top of that a danger to pedestrians. An opinion in favour of making Switzerland friendlier for the bike, your one true sport utility vehicle.

Mid 2021. Almost 1.5 years have passed since we moved to Switzerland. Connie has seized the chance to create a new venture during challenging times, turning what could turned crisis into opportunity by starting her very own cake shop. I cannot help but write a few words on that journey.

In August 2020, I started using a home-made web application to track my personal OKRs: Pursuit. Nine months later, I am still using Pursuit on a daily basis. A brief review with which I hope to inspire you to work towards your own big goals, and particularly to stay present on what matters most: the journey to get there.

Having been on a journey to increase my ability to focus for some time now, I recently read ‘The Practicing Mind’ by Thomas M. Sterner. This book emphasises process, and the importance of not getting distracted by a goal while being in the process of working towards it. Let’s review what to take out of this book.

Having been influenced by the ‘The Pragmatic Programmer’ a long time ago, I recently re-read another book from one of the authors, called ‘Pragmatic Thinking & Learning’. The book caught my interest since thinking and learning are absolutely essential in my line of work, and learning is a great enjoyment outside of work for me. Let’s review what the book is good for.

One of these rare moments: I finished a book. Called “Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence”. Reading it to the end is an accomplishment by its own, as I had started this book years ago but then put aside for a reason I can no longer remember. Although it’s clear that, back then, my focus must have moved on to something else. Reflections after finishing a book on what is an essential topic in the information age.

The year 2020 taught me again how powerful good habits are, once established. How important it is to continuously do the many small steps that are required to achieve goals, from smaller to bigger goals. I wrote an app─nicknamed “pursuit“─which helps me to formulate, commit, and measure the progress towards goals. I will share the ideas with you, may it inspire you to progress towards your goals in 2021.

Spaced repetition learning (SRL) is a technique to memorize a large amount of items, such as vocabulary when learning a foreign language. In this article, I am writing about a primary benefit that I see in SRL: under the assumption that SRL is effective, I claim that SRL is also efficient; the amount of repetitions grows sublinearly in time and new items to learn.

“Factfulness” is a fantastic book, remaining as current as it was when I purchased it. It gives us “ten reasons we’re wrong about the world and why things are better than you think”. Today, I am going to have a look at the Straight Line Instinct and the forecasted world population growth.

In this article, I am reverse-engineering the Swiss healthcare system, with the help of some maths and diagrams. In particularly, I am looking at the impact of the deductible when buying a basic insurance policy. How much difference does the choice of deductible make?

In a typical programmer’s unimaginativeness, let’s print out a localized version of the few words that everyone starts with: Hello, Switzerland. After almost six years, a step into a new country again. It is time for a thought abroad.