The Economics of Writing a Technical Book

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be a published author. Writing a book is a time consuming. Is it worth it? In this post, Justin Garrison covers in a lot of detail the economics of writing a book for O’Reilly Media. I found it very valuable, as discussions about how much money some makes are hard to come by. The bottom line: After a few months of the book being on sale, he has made ~$23/hour invested. The number would probably go up, since the number of hours it took is not going to change, but the number of sales keeps increasing. My understanding is that that flatten out rapidly after release, though. Food for thought!

GDPR Hysteria

hysteria | həˈstirēə, həˈsterēə | noun exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially among a group of people

Last year, while working for my previous employer, I spent about half my time working on GDPR compliance. The work involved adding features for data export, data deletion for former customers, notifications around both, etc. The General Data Protection Regulation is a big deal for any company doing business in Europe, even if not located or incorporated there. As Jacques Mattheij points out – in a lot of detail – in the tech blogosphere there is a lot of hysteria around what it means. The post does a good job of explaining what it means and how it’s often misunderstood. Don’t miss the follow-up, with actionable advise on GDPR.

What is a Blockchain

I am not bullish on crypto-currencies. Actually, if I trusted that there was a reliable way to bet against them, I would. But what is a blockchain anyway? David Bryant Copeland starts from the ledger and builds his way up to explaining how it all ties together and what problem it solves. The article’s subtitle says it all: A novel solution to a problem no one has.