Hello, my name is Tim Teege
and this is my blog.

This is a tech post. I recently came across a problem with storing data I’d like to share.

As you might know, I earn money by running a web development agency. Years ago, I used to even work as a web programmer. Not so much anymore, but I still like to keep up a bit and learn about interesting things. One of those things is utf8mb4 in MySQL databases. 

A few weeks ago I was debugging a weird Emoji problem with my colleague Maxim. He is a great programmer, I used to be an average one at best. Still, it took some time for us together to find the solution to the problem. 

Why would the character ”✅” get saved into our utf8 enabled MySQL database without a problem, but “🤜🏽” would not?

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There were times when I liked to read books so much, I didn’t even want to stop while at a public swimming pool. 

Somehow, it got less and less. That might be just a simple shift in priorities, but it could also be due to the collective attention deficit disorder we as a society have cultivated with our social networks. 

Anyways, I think it’s time for me to start reading again. It just is a pleasurable experience worth anyone’s time. You’re being entertained or even captivated, you’re learning new things, you’re improving your own ability to focus. 

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I used to really love The Simpsons when I was younger.

Over the years, my affection has slightly vanished, but when the creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, started his new show Futurama, I really liked that one, too. Still do. 

After Futurama was discontinued, there hasn’t been any real news from Groening. Fair enough, he has probably earned enough and lost his motivation. 

Along comes Netflix.

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Lately I’ve been thinking about how I would like our world to change and what kind of impact I would like to have on it over the course of my life. 

Surely, a positive one. From my point of view, positive. And that’s where the problem starts.

Is what I think to be a positive impact on the world also an objectively positive thing?

The people who are a negative influence on the world, at least from my point of view, certainly don’t think their own influence to be negative. 

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A few years ago I thought it was time for me to engage with my surrounding society in a more political way. After all, individual contributions don’t matter in areas where collective action is required. And how to take collective action? By successfully influencing a politician or becoming one yourself. 

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In 2013 I used my newly earned expendable funds to fulfill a childhood dream: I bought this amazing Orange Rockerverb MKII guitar amp. 100 Watts of pure tube power. Additionally, I got the speaker box underneath it, which contains four 12 inch speakers. 

So Much Power!

I was over the moon. But now, around five years later, stupid reality hit me. How often have I really used it? Do I need the sheer volume it can provide? These things can fill entire halls with a wall of sound. I never got the chance to turn it up past around 30% – for simple fear of my own health. 

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It’s easy to measure the perceived worth of some items in your life if you take into account how much time you spend with them. That’s why I rarely hesitate to buy an expensive new phone. It’s with me all day and does a lot of work for me – it makes sense to buy a good product. 

The same goes for my main computer. As I work in web design, it’s the only tool I need to do my job. It’s allowed to be expensive because it will be worth it. 

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This post was initially published on Medium, and that was one of the reasons for creating this new blog. It feels better to now have my own content on my own servers instead of some company somewhere making a profit out of it. 

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A new blog post in a new blog! 

I think it’s time to take matters into my own hands again and move away from the big brands pushing their ad-filled, engagement- and enragement-provoking content. I myself want to listen to and read more thoughts from my real-life friends, family, and acquaintances, and less from marketing divisions of multi-million or even billion dollar corporations.

Well, except for Apple, maybe 😄. But they’re rather quiet anyways. 

So, this blog is my response. Like that saying “be the change you’d like to see in the world”, but a in a lot less dramatic and over-reacting way, hopefully. I hope that some of the people I like to listen to and get inspired by will also switch and publish their longer thoughts on personal blogs again.

Check out the advantages:

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