In today’s edition of my weekly column for the German daily newspaper Ostfriesen-Zeitung, I coined what I’d like to call “Adama’s Law”:

Most problems arising from the digitalisation of society only occur due to the networking of the systems involved.

I’ve started a Substack where I’m reviewing every Star Trek episode ever released. I’ve started today with TOS season 1, episode 1: “The Man Trap”. It’s very in-depth and nerdy. Check it out and give me a subscription, if you enjoy this kind of thing.

→ Tequila Sunrise over M-113, Mission Critical Ops

I’ve read many stories today, proclaiming this date to be the one year anniversary of the war in Ukraine or of Russia’s invasion of the country. That is so obviously not true by any criteria one could possibly apply with a sane mind, that it actually quite amazed me that everyone was running with it. It also made me angry. So I had to write and talk about it, even though I’m still not completely recovered from this cold.

Here’s a newsletter issue on the topic:

→ The New Age of Militarism — As the war in Ukraine escalates, common sense withers

…and also a podcast episode:

→ The Private Citizen 145: War Never Changes

Today is not the anniversary of the war in Ukraine. That is just one of the propaganda lies by people who are afraid to stand up for peace and fight against murder and injustice.

Yesterday, Blood Bowl III was released. And since I am a bit under the weather at the moment and find it hard to concentrate on work, I’ve started a new career as my Blood Bowl coach alter ego Jurgen von Klopp, coaching the Burgdorf Barons (team motto: “Finem Mundi Nobilis”). The game is still a bit buggy at the moment, but a lot of fun, nontheless. As Blood Bowl should be. And most importantly, it’s a faithful recreation of Games Workshop’s tabletop rules, including visible dice rolls. You can even skin the dice… very cool!

At the beginning of the month, my latest podcast project, The Private Citizen, turned three years old. It’s quite amazing to me that it’s been going for this long. I am quite happy about this and I’m very happy with the show in general. Even if I’ve lately been lagging behind a bit in releasing episodes, due to reasons that are beyond my control.

Things should start to get better soon, though. I’ve got a few new episodes prepped already and I am quite hopeful that I will be able to get back to recording and releasing tomorrow. Until then, check out the show’s anniversary episode, if you haven’t done so already:

→ The Private Citizen 143: Three Year Anniversary

Today, the podcast turns three years old and I tell the story of how I became a journalist and what I learned in the process.

I’ve recently been tweeting about Jeff Gerth’s authoritative CJR article dissecting the massive journalistic mess that was the so-called Russiagate story. I was commenting on how I thought it was excellent, and long overdue, work.

As if to prove Gerth’s final conclusion that this scandal has not only badly damaged the reputation of the media, but with it also the fabric of society as a whole, by making everyone fall back to prescribed partisan positions instead of thinking about issues for themselves, this guy comes along and points to some random article on the web criticising the CJR piece. Gerth has a bad track record and is biased, he tells me. I replied that I don’t really care about what Gerth did in the past as his current work speaks well enough for itself and that I am less interested in people linking me to the opinions of others than I am in discussing their thoughts directly with them. So I invited this person to list some individual issues he has with Gerth’s article and said that I would be happy to directly engage with that.

In response, the guy blocks me. For disagreeing with him, I guess? I was very civilised in my answers, despite the fact that this pattern of random people just linking random stuff instead of actually engaging with the subject matter has been really getting on my nerves lately. This is exactly what is wrong with society these days. What was that guy trying to do? He’s certainly not convincing me of anything, acting like that. Was he just trolling? Does he delight in shitting on other people’s doorstep and doesn’t have the balls to fess up to it when he gets caught? Is his hobby just wasting everyone’s time?

And what was his name again, anyway? Ah, yes…

After several months of work, I’ve finished the portrait of my novel’s main character.

According to my Strava stats, my running distance decreased from 861 km to 783 km from last year. My active days also decreased from 86 to 71 days. In spite of these statistics, I do believe my overall fitness increased. This is because all of these runs were completed with 10 kg of weights and I’ve also completed more, varied exercises that weren’t tracked with Strava. This includes bouldering, which I’ve taken up towards the end of the year.

I did not go running quite as regularly as in 2021 – among other things because of the several holiday trips I went on last year – but I am quite happy with my progress. I’ve maintained my weight of 80 kg almost exactly on the button for the whole year and am continuing to transform fat into muscle mass at a slow, but very steady pace. Here’s to keeping it up in 2023!

“And now let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious, and great things.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke

I wish all of my readers a Happy New Year! May you have a glorious party or a relaxing evening tonight; whaterver you prefer. See you in 2023!

I guess there are as many idiots in journalism as there are in any other profession. But in a job mostly consisting of writing down your innermost thoughts on an issue for everyone to see, being an idiot is especially embarrassing. Usually, you have colleagues, including editors, to prevent you from making embarrassing mistakes, but it more and more feels like these people often aren’t much smarter than the person writing the story. Which is why we more frequently get dumb coverage like this story in The Atlantic.

→ Elon Musk’s Text Messages Explain Everything

The texts make it clear that these men are fundamentally alienated from the rest of the world by their wealth. “In one sense, the texts show that billionaires are just like us – they’re not doing advanced calculus; they’re in their DMs talking smack, making jokes, and trying desperately to get their way,” Lauren Pringle, the editor in chief of The Chancery Daily, told me recently. But she added: “These are absolutely not normal people with a normal understanding of the world.”

Who are these people writing this shit? What did they expect? Did they, until they read Elon Musk’s text messages, really believe that rich people were somehow more intelligent or better people? Why? By virtue of being rich? And is it honestly news to you that rich people don’t operate like you and me, who have to hold down a job and struggle to put food on the table every day? What exactly makes you think that someone who has more money than a human being can even properly conceptualise would have the same problems as us? Why does it surprise you that people who literally have more money than they know what to do with would treat that money callously?

Elon Musk isn’t the first billionaire. How can you claim to write books, articles and even a newsletter called Galaxy Brain with authority on topics such as technology, media and “big ideas” and not understand the most obvious facts of life on this planet? Where do they get these numbskulls? And why does nobody notice the crud these people publish?

Jonathan has been busily editing Scenic Tarkov episodes and the last few have been especially great, I feel. If you enjoy gripping shooter gameplay and interesting discussions in the lull between the action, why not check these out?

The stuff that’s being dredged up as part of The Twitter Files reporting is quite astonishing. Here’s people at Twitter debating whether to prompt people to not be afraid of a disease is medical misinformation. The people in charge at Twitter back then really do seem quite insane.

→ How Twitter Rigged the Covid Debate, David Zweig

In a surreal exchange, Jim Baker, at the time Twitter’s Deputy General Counsel, asks why telling people to not be afraid wasn’t a violation of Twitter’s Covid-19 misinformation policy. In his reply, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of Trust & Safety, had to explain that optimism wasn’t misinformation.

I’ve just release another episode of The Private Citizen to tide you over the holidays:

→ The Private Citizen 137: Tracking Elon’s Jet

Responding to listener feedback on episodes about journalism, Drachenlord, The Twitter Files, the Fediverse, free speech, artificial intelligence and beyond.