Ticketmaster has been on the news lately for the worst reasons and both artists and audience aren't happy with the ticket monopoly they have. Now scalpers are the worst kind, I must say. Really hate when you get to buy a ticket and it's sold out, just to find out that you can buy them on the side market for way more. But, on the other hand, it's interesting to see that no matter how we come up with security measures to protect a thing, there's always people willing to go the extra mile to defeat it - specially if there's money involved. I think this clearly highlights the technological exploitation of broader economic and cultural challenges, such as the difficulty of controlling ticket supply and the potential need for new approaches to selling and indeed reselling.

I was a big fan and consumer of Intel CPUs, since the 386 without the mathematical co-processor, to the 486DX, DX2, Pentium and the late iX, but changed to the ARM architecture fully when Apple released their M1 - and have been a happy user since. But that doesn't mean Intel isn't innovative, it was, it is, but it's not enough to compete with others (ARM) at the moment. The standard-cell design was very good back then, to optimize space and functionality - that's what Apple has done with the M architecture. The article explains everything you need to know about the Pentium - that ruled the world back then.

I'm no philosopher :) But my online archives (blog now, blog before as newsletter) have been for me a source of ideas, nostalgia and remembering stuff that I forgot. Of course that archives play a crucial role in shaping a philosopher’s reputation, as seen with Edmund Husserl and Friedrich Nietzsche, ensuring scholarly access and continued study. But we've seen recently how archives can be manipulated towards false information and spreading lies, in particular tied with Nazi ideology. This highlights the immense power archives hold in historical narratives, influenced by the inclusion or exclusion of specific documents. That's why we need to keep Archive.org at all cost.

It's a first here on he #RBM newsletter, recommending a video, but this is a good one and I've always fascinated by design and art - my background is civil engineering and art. Now the pixel art is making it's 2nd or 3rd comeback. We've seen it incorporated in multiple products, from cars, to tech and I'm guessing we'll see it even more in the near future. He's right when he says that this limitation of pixels actually fosters creativity - it reminds me back in the days when I had my own startup and we draw everyone as a pixel character.

I'm on vacation, so I'm reading a lot - a lot! But it's interesting to see on how early modern books marketed funny songs and stories as remedies for melancholy, so "pills to purge melancholy" was widely used to describe these collections. We also know that music and laughter were considered effective therapies for mental disorders, but I'm seeing that most of books nowadays need to be both entertainment and profit-driven, reflecting a commoditisation of literature. I hope that when you're reading this you can see my own way of incorporating humor, engaging anecdotes, and light-hearted commentary to make technical content more enjoyable and accessible :)