👋 Welcome!
This is my personal site where I note down my thoughts. Enjoy!
EU Hosted
I've now moved the hosting of my site from GitHub Pages to statichost.eu, which means that my site is now hosted in the EU.
Setup was relatively straightforward, my main issue was getting the Docker image working, as I don't know anything about Docker. Some help from statichost set me along the right path to using the correct image.
[Edit 14/12/2024 PM] As I don't like using technology I don't understand in the slightest, I reverted to doing the site generation using GitHub Actions. I then simply pull the output onto statichost using a webhook whenever it is updated.
[Edit 15/12/2024 AM] Of course, the next morning one of the external GitHub Actions used to generate the site had a bug and failed the next morning. It was fixed quickly by the owner, but still showed the difficulty of avoiding dependencies. The same dependencies, that is, which make the site generation a lot easierf or me.
Ultra Processed People
by Chris van Tulleken
A must read for everyone really. Very accessible and straightforward. Basically we're destroying our health by eating ultra processed food and there's not much we can do about it. It's not just killing us, but the planet as well.
Time to start eating proper food, cooked at home from basic ingredients. The rest doesn't really matter: sugar, fats, carbs, protein, you name it. Sweetners are sending the wrong messages to our brains so that our bodies expect to be full of energy, but they are not, making us eat more. Additives are interferring with the functioning of our bodies at a basic level, yet science does not understand how exactly. Nevertheless, the NOVA food group sutdies show a clear link between health outcomes and UPF.
Increasing numbers of people, especially poor people, live in food swamps where the only food they can actually buy is UPF.
Yet, the problem is not the UPF companies, who are only doing their duty of maximising shareholder value. Rather it must be solved through regulation, otherwise one company changing it's methods will not help. Others will fill the gap.
15.10.2024 to 07.12.2024.
Paris
This was a quick day trip to Paris for administrative reasons. The TGV from Luxembourg gets you there in under two and a half hours.
We finished the administrative stuff a lot earlier than expected, so we had six hours to waste. After an expensive underwhelming lunch in the Cafe de l'Opera (the Google reviews are about right), we crossed the road to the Galeries Lafayette Haussmann and enjoyed the view from the rooftop as well the Christmas decorations underneath the impressive dome.
We then planned to have a look at the nearby opera house, but the hall itself could not be visited at the moment, so we skipped that and headed to the Louvre. The queues were short and we headed straight to the Mona Lisa. Here a reasonable crowd of people was taking selfies so we waited a few minutes to get to the front to view the most famous picture of them all:
Given the understandable distance you have to keep from the picture, if you really want to study it, you might be better off buying a poster in the souvenir shop 😉.
Next we viewed the "Liberty leading the people", which had been photoshopped earlier in the year. Well, the analog equivalent. They call it conservation in the art world!
Finally here's an obligatory shot of the glass pyramids around the Louvre:
After that it was time to head back to the train statio, but first a quick glimpse of the Seine.
Overall, the one impression I have from this day trip to Paris is that compared to 25 years ago it has been tidied up a lot and made far more pleasant and accessible to tourists, and hopefully locals as well. Also, there were lots cycle lanes which were being used, despite it almost being winter and about 8°C. Well done Paris!