Untimely meditations

One man's thoughts, observations and rants

Untimely meditations

One man's thoughts, observations and rants

Welcome to the personal blog of Joop Beris. I blog about a wide variety of topics, ranging from atheism to information security and lots in between. I welcome feedback on my articles but there are some guidelines. Feel free to share articles you like by using the sharing buttons but please give me credit if you want to share something. Also, check out my privacy policy and other legalese.

Please note that the things I write here do not represent the views of anyone else but me. I do not represent an organization or a business and I have nothing to sell. My views do not necessarily coincide with or represent those of my employer. Just throwing that in there for legal reasons.

Below you’ll find the most recent things I’ve written. Feel free to check them out, leave a comment and share them with others who might be interested.

Latest posts

  • Paying for quackery

    Paying for quackery

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in

    A couple of weeks ago I was reading through my health insurance policy, as one does. I am not ashamed to say that I have a fairly broad policy that covers a lot of treatments. One thing struck me, however. This broad policy covers, among lots of other things, a vast category of so called…

  • Book review: Revolusi

    Book review: Revolusi

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in ,

    Someone recently recommended I read Revolusi, a book written by Belgian historian and writer David van Reybrouck. The title Revolusi is Indonesian for “revolution” which shouldn’t come as a surprise. In this book, van Reybrouck tells the story of how Indonesia gained independence from The Netherlands. There’s more literature on this topic but Revolusi differs…

  • What I learned about racism…?

    What I learned about racism…?

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in

    This article is a response to an article by Rob Wijnberg published on The Correspondent, an independent news site which is shut down since January 1, 2021. Ever since a friend sent me the link to “What I learned about racism by listening to people who experience it“, the essay has irritated me on some…

  • Sitting with autism

    Sitting with autism

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in

    I’ve been practicing meditation for at least 20 years now. And when I say “practicing”, I mean that quite literally. Sitting down to meditate may sound easy enough, it’s just sitting and breathing after all. As with many things in life though, appearances can be deceiving. Most of us do those activities very regularly (especially…

  • What “The Witcher” can teach us about information security

    What “The Witcher” can teach us about information security

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in

    “The Witcher 3 – Wild Hunt” is a massive open world role playing game (RPG) by Polish game studio CD Projekt Red. Based on the books by Polish fantasy author Andrzej Sapkowski, the games center around the character of Geralt of Rivia, a famous monster slayer. The games series and books are so popular that…

  • The skeptic in the room

    The skeptic in the room

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    by

    Joop Beris
    in

    I was browsing YouTube as many do during this pandemic. While there is a lot of stuff on YouTube that’s not worth the time it takes to click on the link, sometimes you find a real gem. By accident, I stumbled on a video by Eddie Scott, entitled “The skeptic in the room”.

Recent comments

  2. Hi Jeffrey, What you wrote is “dead” on accurate. The frightening thing to me is that the believers never take…

  3. All men no matter from where need something bigger than themselves to look up to. A place to take their…

“What can be asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence.”

Christopher Hitchens

Author and journalist