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As time remains constant and information becomes abundant and ubiquitous, the question of how to read things that lead to meaningful knowledge becomes ever more relevant. Some people are worried about how Facebook or Twitter maybe “manipulating” their timelines by deciding which news or tweets they see and which don’t. I don’t think that’s a problem per se. Newspapers, for example, provide us with a series of news curated by an editorial staff, which certainly has its own view about what’s happening in the world. Read more...

As Facebook continues to raise scandals about the way they record, store and sell their user’s data (and not only their user’s data), you may wonder why people continue to use Facebook at all. I found one answer while reading Kill Process, a science-fiction novel by William Hertling. In the novel, most people in the world are connected by Tomo, the world’s larges social network company. Even if the book is fictional, the similarities between Tomo and Facebook are too many not to think ‘Facebook’ every time you read ‘Tomo’. Read more...

For several years, as part of my end-of-year review, I take a look at my reading1 and make plans for the year to come. I’ve written down some ideas from my process that you may find useful. Of course, most of the advice is not originally mine: I learned about these ideas by reading about how some giants –call them virtual mentors if you like– do their learning. 1. Have a list of the books you want to read this year Compiling a list of the books you want to read during the year has several benefits. Read more...

I recently finished reading It doesn’t have to be crazy at work, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson1. Jason and David are the co-founders of Basecamp, a project manager/real-time collaboration tool. I liked the book very much. The argument is what the title says: it doesn’t have to be crazy at work for a company to be profitable and successful. It doesn’t have to be crazy for you if you are the founder/owner, and if doesn’t have to be crazy for you if you are an employee. Read more...

I do most of my reading either on my Kindle device or on the Kindle app on my laptop. Highlighting and adding notes is an essential part of my reading process. It somehow replaces the marking of paragraphs and jotting down of annotations some people do when reading a physical book. The Kindle app for MacOs has always been consistently bad. Particularly annoying was the fact that in order to download your highlights and notes, you had to rely on applications like clippings. Read more...