Week in review 2024-01-02
Bikes as a symbol of egalitarianism in Amsterdam and Bruges, plus reflections on default apps and a wish for a great 2024.
Hello, regular readers, and welcome to the new ones!
This is Luis, with the latest issue of my newsletter. I write this newsletter to share my passion for photography, cities, and technology, along with interesting links I find over the week(s). This newsletter will be (as long as possible) free, but if you like to support it feel free to become a paid subscriber (pay what you want), or buy one of my photos.
—
New year, new week in review. This will be a short one. Last week -and the week before- I was on holiday mood 🎄, I took the two weeks off from work and spent them with family in Amsterdam and Bruges. We had a great holiday!
As part of the holidays I got to start a new book about the story of bikes in Amsterdam, the book "In the city of Bikes" by Pete Jordan has nice insights of how Amsterdam came to become the leading (or one of the leading) bike city. A small quote from it got me thinking:
Yet, no matter the condition of their bikes, every cyclist appeared happy and satisfied. They moved with fluidity and sophistication. They stepped on and off their moving bikes with the gracefulness of ballerinas. At busy intersections, columns of bikers threaded past one another effortlessly.Such universal comfort and elegance on such basic, crappy bikes: it seemed the basis of an egalitarian society. Pete Jordan
Indeed, seeing people everyday in bikes, gives a sense of an egalitarian society, allowing people to move in such free way in a city just with a bike open opportunities to see everyone of us as equals.
Besides reading, cooking, and playing board games, I got some time to put together a 2023 defaults apps. An exercise to reflect on the apps and services I used/am using for the last year, if you are interested give them a look.
Anyway, these last weeks were really good. Hope everyone had a nice couple of weeks too. Happy new year, and here's hoping for a great 2024!!
Thanks for reading!
—
About this newsletter
I'm Luis Natera, a software developer, network scientist, and data/cities/tech nerd. I have an interdisciplinary trajectory (architecture -> sociocultural studies -> network science -> software development), you can read more about me and my career here.
This is a weekly newsletter about photography, cities, and software.
Looking for past issues or to subscribe? visit: buttondown.email/natera
Support the newsletter:
This newsletter is free as beer. Share it with your friends, family, colleagues without guilt!
If you want to support it, besides sharing you can:
If you like the content and want to send some love, here are some ideas:
