About the author

My name is Joop Beris and this is my personal blog. Any opinions on it are my own and not those of my employer, family, friends, etc. If I had to describe myself (and I have to on an “About the author” page), I’d say something like this:

I’m an enthusiastic and opinionated technology lover, amateur contrarian and skeptic with a very broad interest. I cover any and all topics on this blog as I come across them.

I like to read and write. Been doing it since elementary school and have made considerable advances in both areas since then. Committing thoughts and ideas to a medium of any kind takes a modicum of courage, especially if you’re going to publish them for the world to see. However, there’s also the potential for great reward in the form of recognition, gratitude or an audience of any kind. Hence why I blog.

I write about Linux and the use of open source software, security in the digital era and do some rants about poor service, stupidity and the general foolishness of humanity. There are some pointers on how to protect yourself, your servers and your data in the age of today. There’s a good chance I’ll address some bigotry, nonsense and bunk as well. I’ll take facts over faith any day of the week.
I love old music and new gizmos. I hate ignorance (especially the willful kind), bigotry, corruption and self-important people. Religion is to me the ultimate form of willful ignorance.

I have a great love of science and what it teaches us about ourselves, our planet and the cosmos in general. Philosophy and epistemology are also very important to me because they are the tools that lead to understanding.

I am a free speech radical. I believe people should have a right to say anything they like. It’s a right I claim for myself. However, people should also be ready to accept the consequences of what they utter in public. If you say stupid things, prepare to be ridiculed. If you preach violence against others, prepare to be outed and possibly prosecuted. Grown-ups do not need “safe spaces” where they are sheltered from the opinions of others.

We are all human and it’s a source of great sadness to me that we continue to emphasize the areas where we are different, while we have much more in common. Differences of sex, gender, skin color, age and such are real but they shouldn’t matter. What matters is that we are humans, stuck on a tiny mote of galactic dust together and we have to learn to look past our differences.

Want to get in touch with me? You can do so by clicking here.