Taking a break from the chaos in search of some ice that is clean
If you know me in real life, you know I am not a sports fan.
I don’t even follow college football – which, to many Americans, means I should have my passport revoked.
But I have always loved watching the Olympics – world-class athletes from all over the world coming together to compete against each other, but also somehow celebrate their shared humanity, at the same time.
I remember as a child watching with awe when gymnast Nadia Comăneci won gold and scored a perfect 10 in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. I was watching in 1988 as American Debi Thomas and East Germany’s Katarina Witt competed in their ‘Battle of the Carmens.’
Over the many decades since, I’ve seen so many other amazing athletes gain superstardom, then go one to mentor younger athletes in their turn.
With everything bad that is going on in the world right now, I’m looking forward to taking a small break to focus on the goodness of humanity and human potential. It seems one of the last areas of endeavour not tainted with the spectre of AI.
No Agentic agent will land a triple salchow; no one’s LLM will drive the bobsled faster, or lead a hockey team to victory. It’s all people.
In Germany, we are lucky to watch the action live (or replayed later) for free on the public broadcast station, ZDF.
ZDF: Olympia Highlights, Schedules, Livestreams.
If you are in the United States or elsewhere, here are some tips on tuning in.
PC Mag: How to Watch the 2026 Winter Olympics Without Cable and Even for Free.
TechRadar: Simple Way to Watch the Winter Olympics 2026 for Free
Writing
Here are some other things I’ve been working on.
- Last month was the coldest January Berlin has seen in 16 years, and while the city leaders struggled to cope – Berliners largely made the best of it.
- My articles about Substack continue to be among my most-read articles on Medium. In this one, I talk about some of the hidden pitfalls with turning on paid subscriptions on that platform.
Reading
I continue to be absolutely blown away and inspired by the quality of writing I find in small corners of the internet. Here are some of my best reads this week:
After almost 30 years as an globe-trotting journalist, Steve Scherer finds himself back in the States, driving for Uber and Navigating the Drift.
“I see my own fragility reflected in the people climbing into my back seat before dawn: widows, migrants, parents, workers stitching together lives on the margins. We are all improvising, all one broken transmission or missed paycheck away from something worse. For the first time in my life, I am no longer observing this precarious world from the outside, notebook in hand. I am inside it, dependent on an algorithm, measuring my worth in five-dollar increments.”
John Paul Brammer, formerly the advice giver behind Adios, Papi, now writes online about many things – recently, on separating the beauty of art from the failings of the artist.
“But talent is stubborn. It has needs of its own, and those needs don’t always, or even usually, align with our petty desires. The tragedy of Nicki Minaj lives in this interplay between a superior alien and its ordinary vessel, between the thing that makes her great, and the dull chore she wants it to perform.
It’s the common mistake of talented people to believe it’s they who possess the talent and not the other way around. Talent is a tenant that collects rent.”
What have you read that’s inspired you, lately? Sign in below, and let me know in the comments.