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.

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

  • What I learned about racism…?

    What I learned about racism…?

    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

    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

    “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

    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”.

  • Top 10 annoyances in online meetings

    Top 10 annoyances in online meetings

    It’s January 2021 and the world is still dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Far from being over, many countries have instated an additional lock-down to prevent the spread of the virus as much as possible. Life is far from normal and for many of us, this means we are still stuck working…

  • Book review: Mortality

    Book review: Mortality

    Mortality by Christopher Hitchens first appeared in 2012. It’s been sitting on one of my bookshelves for quite some time because something held me back from reading it. Hitchens wrote it when he “lived dyingly” as he put it, from esophageal cancer. That alone should be enough to tell you that it isn’t light reading,…

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“There are two different kinds of people in the world: those who want to know, and those who want to believe.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Philosopher