In lack of nearby prepared tracks for cross-country skiing, one can always build a small sledge with the right underside profile, put enough weights in it to match the snow, and drag it behind you.

A parcel with early presents for ourselves arrived yesterday, extending our small collection of board games with Takenoko and Codenames. I was happy to note that they come in Swedish versions, which in the case of Takenoko only matters for the manual, while Codenames is much more language-specific.

Both games are already well-known and luckily I still know a few game-enthusiasts back in Germany with whom I had the chance to test-play earlier this year. Codenames got the prestigeous award "Spiel des Jahres" in the meantime, guaranteeing even greater success.

I've been avidly listening to podcasts for many years. Nowadays they provide me with food for thought and entertainment mostly during my half-hour commutes in the mornings and afternoons; sometimes also for longer-than-usual exercise sessions.

My go-to podcasts include parts of the German podcast empire around Tim Pritlove, Swedish public broadcast shows like Sommar or Spanarna and some from the "two dudes talking" genre, like Hello Internet or The West Wing Weekly.

The most noteworthy recent discovery for me is Waking Up With Sam Harris. I've never gotten around to reading his books, and always assumed I would need no convincing anyway when it comes to his view on religion. But after so far only listening to the episodes on Israel and the introductory chapter of his recent book on spirituality, I am impressed by how sharp and precise he is in formulating his thoughts, with minimal babble and repetition; meaning it's an excellent use of my time and I am looking forward to listening through the fifty episodes that are out already.

By the way, Sam Harris has a good way of explaining the problem with AI as well.

In the eternal struggle for the optimal desk, I built a screen shelf over the week-end. It's made of material from the 1890s, left over after recent reconstruction of our small house. I treated it with some linseed oil which has a more noticable smell than I expected, but not in a bad way.

Last night I bottled our second homebrew batch, an Irish red ale. The nice 0.75l bottles with latches come from an excellent French beer, Brasserie Du Mont Blanc.

In case you don't already know these, here are a few of the Youtube channels that I can wholeheartedly recommend, not just for their recent videos but also they backlog. List in no particular order.

Two Minute Papers, enthusiastic computer science paper summaries.

Kurzgesagt, fantastically animated science topics.

Stuckman's film reviews.

Welch's Intro to Machine Learning covers both the math and the hands on implementation.

Nerdwriter, more about film.

CGP Grey, fast-paced knowledge about things you never thought you wanted to know.

I added my twitter timeline to /twitter.

This obviously violates my principle to not embed external content, for speed and privacy reasons. But it only affects that one page and I don't want to code a more sophisticated integration right now.