Hey, I’m Michel Fiege. I’m a web enthousiast, programmer, ex entrepreneur and former teacher. I like to write, sport and cycle to work....
I heard it and I knew it. It’s that sound you don’t want to hear when you’re cycling. A few seconds later I was standing next to my bike: a blowout. It was raining hard. I laid my bicycle on the ground, opened my waterproof bag, found a pump after taking out some of my clothes and gave it a shot. After a few pumps I realized this wasn’t going to work. I considered repairing it, but given the…
I heard the new Toy Story movie had a Smartphone Free Childhood vibe. That of course caught my attention. So I took my kids to the cinema on a hot summer day: popcorn, drinks, relax chairs and air conditioning. I have great childhood memories of Toy Story (1995), where Woody fights tech in the shape of a flashy new toy called Buzz Lightyear. Now, in part 5, the fight is against a tablet device…
I traced back some of my early websites. The other day I kept guessing urls on The Wayback Machine and suddenly I found one: xneothemaster on Geocities. I was quite surprised to find the website embedded a Flash file. I remember using Macromedia Flash to create Counter-Strike team tactics—where I would draw our positions on maps like de_dust and de_nuke —but I forgot that I used it for websites as…
Our side path is an obstacle course: on arrival I maneuver past garbage containers, bicycles, scooters, watering cans, balls and other abandoned toys. Once I’ve reached the gate—already halfway there—all that remains is to avoid the open doors of our little shed. When I reach the larger shed in the back of our garden I open its doors and place my bike on the left. Two more bikes go next to it. One…
An educator told me that it's not a school's responsibility to advise against smartphones. That was the opposite of what I was arguing, but I couldn’t find the right words to convince him otherwise. Last week I presented at the administrative office of the Hoeksche School for a small group of teachers and school leaders from our municipality. It was my first time talking to a group about A…
Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality. Why is it so hard to act like this, while I just know I would benefit greatly from it? Cal Newport sets out his Slow Productivity philosophy in the book of the same name. I read it a little while back and I tried to keep the three line motto on top of my mind. It resonates with me, but I often act so differently. Do fewer things. My…
I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately. First there was the discovery of my lost Elastomania levels , and recently I’ve been thinking of this ASCII-style community gaming website of the past. I couldn’t figure out the name for a while, but it’s SoGamed ! Those looks are absolutely gorgeous! As a beginning website builder back in those days, I was completely intrigued by it. Both from a front-end and…
This May I’m visiting Typhoon in AFAS Live. Last year I read Glenn’s book ‘Liefde is de baas’ (Love is the boss) and was touched by his openness, his courage in writing down his life story so far. I’m not sure if I could ever write so openly. There are many lyrics in the book and it’s nice to learn a bit of the background story around these words. What stood out to me was a text I didn’t hear…
After two years of cycling the same route several days per week, I can dream it. Last year I cycled to the office 90 times and tracked roughly 3200 kilometers on my race bike. I didn’t use my e-bike at all. Here’s what my 18 kilometers of commute look like. I start in my street and I’m met with a beautifully colored sky when I exit my neighbourhood onto the windy polder, crossing the provincial…
It’s February. I haven’t written a single line of code myself this year. Yet I’m shipping more than ever. Claude Opus 4.5 (and recently 4.6) is doing all the hard work and I’m jokingly calling it my friend now. But that’s hardly a joke. I’ve embraced the use of AI and I like it. I’m not entirely sure I still stand by my post from September 2025, where I compared “using AI in programming” to…