Nick Weisser

Blog

  • Twenty Nineteen

    Twenty Nineteen

    A couple of days ago I enabled nightly builds on this blog to be able to test out WordPress 5.0 with the new Twenty Nineteen theme prior to its official release, which is supposed to be happening sometime today. Just in time for WordCamp US which starts tomorrow. I hope the State of the Word keynote by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg will be streamed online. It will take place on Saturday, December 8 at 4:00 pm Nashville time, which should be 11:00 pm Zürich time if I’m not mistaken.

    Naishville Music City Center – Picture courtesy of Mary Clippard

    I never attended WordCamp US before and also skipped WordCamp Europe this year, but I’m already looking forward to attending WordCamp Europe 2019 which will be taking place in Berlin. I already have my ticket.

    WordCamp Europe 2019 Theme Moodboard

    Today, I updated the de_CH (Deutsch/Schweiz) translation for Twenty Nineteen from de_DE (Deutsch/Deutschland), so for the informal version, the translation is now at 100% which means that you should see all text strings on this site which are part of the theme in German. Sort of funny that I’m writing this in English, but this blog is bilingual and I mainly choose the language based on the type of content I’m writing. And also depending on the current mood.

    I already found one («Leave a comment») that is not being translated, but maybe I just have to wait a little longer for the next autoupdate to kick in and download the latest de_CH language pack for me.

    I really like the new Gutenberg-enabled Twenty Nineteen theme, especially the blog post detail page with the full page background image. The header with the social media icons is also very pretty, although I haven’t found out yet how to add the commas after each main menu item.

    How do you like Twenty Nineteen? Are you using a theme that will add Gutenberg support anytime soon?

  • Sleep Now in the Fire

    Sleep Now in the Fire

    The recording of this music video by one of my favorite bands of the 90s forced the New York Stock Exchange to close in 2000. It’s been almost 19 years since Rage Against The Machine teamed up with documentarian and political activist Michael Moore for this video.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w211KOQ5BMI

    The band – Zack de la Rocha, Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk – all climb the steps of Federal Hall National Memorial and begin to play.

    There’s a man walking around with a ‘Donald Trump For President 2000’ placard. Who, in their right mind, would elect him into office?

    Scene from the Rage Against the Machine music video

    The «funny» thing is that in 2000 also the Simpsons «predicted» Trump as president.

    The Simpsons Episode from the year 2000

    But back to Michael Moore: His latest political documentary  released in September 2018 is about the 2016 United States presidential election and the subsequent presidency of Donald Trump. The film had its world premiere at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival.

    Have you seen it? What do you think?

    (Main picture courtesy of Andreas Horstmann)

  • Building Block(chain)s for a Better Planet

    Building Block(chain)s for a Better Planet

    There has been a lot of hype about blockchain technology – in particular, its potential to transform how humans transact, which could fundamentally redefine how business, governments and society operate. Despite this hype, it is still a nascent technology with considerable challenges that need to be overcome. As the technology matures and is applied across a wider set of sectors and systems, there is both a challenge and an opportunity to realize blockchain’s potential – not just for finance or industry, but for people and the planet.

    This report outlines how blockchain could disrupt the way the world manages environmental resources and help drive sustainable growth and value creation. It identifies more than 65 use-cases where blockchain can be applied to the world’s most-pressing environmental systems challenges, along with eight ‘game changers’ where the technology could fundamentally disrupt current systems and approaches. To date, these opportunities remain largely untapped by developers, investors, and governments, yet they represent an opportunity to unlock and monetize value that is currently embedded in environmental systems.

    World Economic Forum Davos Switzerland

    The report also highlights many of the current challenges that need to be addressed, outlines a set of principles for developing blockchain applications for the environment, and identifies the need for global platforms to incubate a responsible blockchain ecosystem.

    This post was first published on weforum.org, where you can also download the 37 page report as PDF. Pictures in this post are courtesy of pexels.com and bitcoinmagazine.com.