{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "title": "The Blog", "description": "", "home_page_url": "https://paulkater.com/theblog", "feed_url": "https://paulkater.com/theblog/feed.json", "user_comment": "", "author": { "name": "Paul" }, "items": [ { "id": "https://paulkater.com/theblog/library-sites.html", "url": "https://paulkater.com/theblog/library-sites.html", "title": "Library sites", "summary": "We all know them. Library sites, like Goodreads, where we can keep track of what we're reading, what we've read, what we thought of the book, and stalk - I mean follow other people and what they read. Most people only know Goodreads, it seems. Did you know there is…", "content_html": "

We all know them. Library sites, like Goodreads, where we can keep track of what we're reading, what we've read, what we thought of the book, and stalk - I mean follow other people and what they read.

Most people only know Goodreads, it seems.

\n
\"\"
   
\"Library
\n

Did you know there is a Fediverse version called Bookwyrm? Bookwyrm is nice, part of a large group of systems.

\n

And have you ever heard of another, very old and independent site called LibraryThing? The logo says '20 years', but that is last year's news. It started in 2005.

\n

I don't remember exactly when I joined LibraryThing. It was way before Goodreads, that's for sure. Looking at the reviews of friends there, apparently it was 2012. If only for fun, go there and have a look. It's interface hasn't changed very much since then, and I can't help but like it. It's simple and clean. No bloat like so many places.

\n

Where Goodreads is Amazon bought and owned, Bookwyrm and LibraryThing are not related to any place that wants to sell you stuff and tries to push you into a specific store.

I'm not saying that Goodreads is bad. Not at all. The more people there, the better, because that means people are reading (or listening to audio-) books. It's horrible to read (no pun intended) about how rapidly the reading capabilities of (especially young) people are declining, not in the least because of short text messaging on smartphones, and very likely also the use of ai *) systems.

\n

There are probably many more library sites out there in the web wide world, but I know these three. They're good places to find good reviews.

\n
\n

*) No typo. I don't give ai the honour of capitals as that makes it more important than I think it is.

", "author": { "name": "Paul" }, "tags": [ "library", "book" ], "date_published": "2026-09-14T20:24:42+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-14T20:38:58+02:00" }, { "id": "https://paulkater.com/theblog/thoughts-of-a-book.html", "url": "https://paulkater.com/theblog/thoughts-of-a-book.html", "title": "Thoughts of a book", "summary": "Age. I am 66 years of age as I write this. No, not 'old'. Just 'of age'. I'll leave it to other people to be 'old' at 66. Next year I'll retire from the day job in IT. After a bit more than 8 years with Cambrian Technologies. 8 to…", "content_html": "

Age.

\n

I am 66 years of age as I write this. No, not 'old'. Just 'of age'. I'll leave it to other people to be 'old' at 66.

\n

Next year I'll retire from the day job in IT. After a bit more than 8 years with Cambrian Technologies.

\n

8 to 9 years has been my average stay at a place, which makes this kind of fitting.

\n

Thoughts of a book.

\n

During my working life (which will be 49 years when I finally retire) I've seen, heard and met a lot of weird things.

\n

Things like:

\n
\n

Customer: \"Something is broken and I need it urgently!\"
Me: unbreaks what they broke. \"Can you check if it's okay now?\"
Customer: \"I don't have time for that.\"

\n
\n

People returning a work laptop like this:

\n
\"Broken
and telling me they did nothing special with it. If this is 'nothing special', I don't want to know what happens when they actually do something special.

\n

Another nice one:

\n
\n

Customer asks about a powerpoint problem. She wants to change some images in the image library and shows that page to me.
I tell her to click \"Open Folder\". She closes the windows that has the \"Open Folder\" text and link on it, and asks where I see that.

\n
\n

Because reading is a skill. Too bad this person works in the Communications department of a company.

\n

It's things like that made a manager tell me I should collect all of them and put them in a book.

\n

I wonder if people would like such a book. I might write it, if I remember enough madness to put in there. Yes, I should have collected all of them, in hindsight this is obvious. I'd write it, only for the fun of it.

\n

We'll see how that works out in a while. There is still so much to write and do...

", "author": { "name": "Paul" }, "tags": [ "work", "book" ], "date_published": "2026-09-13T07:30:37+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-13T07:57:46+02:00" }, { "id": "https://paulkater.com/theblog/the-blog.html", "url": "https://paulkater.com/theblog/the-blog.html", "title": "The blog", "summary": "It took me a long time to decide on a spot for 'a blog'. Which probably won't see much life, but that's not the point. I tried messing with static site generators. SSGs. There is one that I actually managed to get to work (Pelican) but it doesn't really do…", "content_html": "

It took me a long time to decide on a spot for 'a blog'. Which probably won't see much life, but that's not the point.

\n

I tried messing with static site generators. SSGs. There is one that I actually managed to get to work (Pelican) but it doesn't really do it for me so I will use Publii instead. It works.

\n

Let's see where this goes.

\n

 

", "author": { "name": "Paul" }, "tags": [ ], "date_published": "2026-09-13T07:10:00+02:00", "date_modified": "2026-09-13T07:41:40+02:00" } ] }