After a little more than a year I’ve managed to reach my second last milestone of 200 lbs. (90 kg) – 25 lbs. (10 kg) more to go until I’ll reach my 2020 goal of a “normal” BMI.
Huge shoutout to my coach, Tanja Schlagenhauf – I wouldn’t be here without her counselling and advice – thank you!
(Keto salad, Little Italy, 12/13/19)
The latest reports from climate scientists are quite devastating, we’re getting close to what they call irreversible tipping points – do we really want to risk turning our earth into an inhabitable rock?
This Friday we were 630,000 people overall in Germany, according to the Fridays, protesting together against the inaction of our governments facing the climate crisis; in Cologne, we were in total 20,000 people on the streets.
Young Sheldon joined Jane Fonda for their weekly FireDrillFriday in front of the Capitol – at 11 years of age, Iain apparently has much more courage and intelligence than many adults!
On a positive note, the ailing Social Democrats have chosen a new group of leaders, and hopefully with it a more socially and environmentally friendly direction in their politics. Time will tell, though.
(NeustartKlima, Cologne, 11/29/19)
One of my upcoming New Year’s resolutions is to run regular meetups in my home town, Cologne.
To do this, I’ve started a new meetup group on Rancher in Cologne, my most favorite open source tool for compute in Enterprise IT.
The Group is called Rancher Meetup Cologne, and I’ve scheduled our first meeting for January 14th, on all what’s new in Rancher 2.3.
Hope to see you there!
As part of a school machine learning project I stumbled upon the excellent tutorial by Elite Data Science on Scikit and wine quality.
This tutorial uses a data set on wine quality for training and testing provided by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
As we’re nearing the end of life on Python 2.x, I’ve updated the tutorial script to work with Python 3.5.3 (on Debian 9).
Great starting point to work with new data – I can highly recommend the tutorial!
If we’re serious about protecting our climate, we need to show and apply the true cost of CO2 emissions to where they occur.
One business that will for sure suffer is the airline industry, especially the low-cost carriers – that most likely will not be a business model that can be sustained much longer.
Of course I do accept the necessary change and will adapt, but that’s where it hurts me the most personally, and I quietly mourn the ability to travel the world freely; it almost feels as if my wings were clipped.
But long distance trains are an option, too – if they weren’t so expensive … I really hope we will reintroduce sleeper carriages and over night trains in Europe!
One of the key things to do when attempting to loose weight is to track what you eat.
My dietician recommended FatSecret (Android / iOS) because it tracks both calories and macro nutrients, which comes in quite handy on a LCHF-type of diet.
I’ve been using the app for almost a year and can say that I’m quite happy with it – you’ll be surprised by the insights you get, and it definitely helps a lot with sticking to the diet. I use it together with a simple fitness tracker to determine the amount of calories spent – in the end, loosing weight comes down to keeping your calorie intake below your calorie expenditure, doesn’t it?
(FatSecret weekly report)
On November 5, @dieserDad (father of @dieserOskar) will release his new book “Willkommen in Neuland” – a travel guide for YouTube, Instagram and other social media platforms.
Knowing Tobias I’m pretty sure that it will be a very good resource for all parents and other concerned grown-ups, to get behind the scenes information from social media and the life as a Creator, and a better understanding of the digital realm.
The book will be published by Kreutzfeld digital
(Cover)
Yesterday we had the first afternoon climate strike, organized by Parents 4 Future, Scientists 4 Future, Extinction Rebellion and many more, to support the Fridays and acknowledge our responsibility.
It’s the grown-ups who’ve caused the climate emergency, and it’s up to us to do our part to mitigate it – individually, of course, but also collectively as a society.
After the abysmal “Klimapaket” was presented by our government, the idea was born to add a weekly protest on Friday evening, to reach the people who are at work during the day, to increase awareness for the need for climate action, broaden support for the Fridays and compel our government to act.
Wish us luck!
(Chlodwigplatz, Cologne)
After last week’s catastrophic failure of our governing parties to address climate change, I have decided to formally switch my affiliation to the Greens.
I have kept my affiliation with the Social Democrats for quite some time now in honor of my late father, who dedicated his life to the politics of Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, but enough is enough.
Earlier this year, the Social Democrats failed to protect the digital realm and we’re still waiting for the fallout from that disaster; this Friday they abandoned our environment and our planet to support measures that will harm the climate for the benefit of our car industry.
Protecting our planet for the future of our children is the most pressing issue of our time and I want to make sure that our next government will listen to climate scientists and act accordingly!
Meanwhile I will of course continue to do my part, and change to a sustainable way of life.
(#NieMehrSPD #NieMehrCDU #NiemalsAfD)
We’re currently being massively let down by our politicians, first last Friday by our local government and on Monday by the world.
We all know that in order to protect our planet and ensure the survival of humanity, we’ll need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically and stop burning fossil fuel. The science behind that is crystal clear and non-negotiable; a system change is necessary.
So why is it that our politicians, instead of leading the change, waste our time away and endanger all of us by sticking to old habits?
There is only so much we as individuals can and definitely should do – on a personal level we can change the way we eat, travel, commute and consume – on the level of our society we need politicians. Maybe we need new ones – the next general elections are on the horizon!
(“Spanner in the works”, IAA Frankfurt)
