365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge

  🌱 Today showed again that one person can spark real change: 💭 People often think a single action by one individual won’t make much of a difference. Today proved the exact opposite. 📩 A few weeks ago, a neighbor reached out about her street and the nearby park being overwhelmed by litter. Instead of accepting it as “just the way things are,” she took action. Together, we decided to organize a community litter-picking event. 🤝 Today, that idea became reality. 👥 She invited her neighbors, and I invited our litter-picking community. In the end, around 15 adults and 15 children showed up, and even more children joined in after seeing what we were doing. ✨ What started with one email turned into something much bigger: a clean park, a cleaner street, happy faces, new friendships, and a powerful learning experience for the children. We also spent the afternoon outdoors, active, and doing something meaningful together. 🏡 This is what community looks like. This is what happens...

  😲 A normal morning - until suddenly everything comes to a standstill: systems locked, data encrypted, a ransom demand for $80,000. That’s what I talked about in a recent episode of the SWR podcast. 💰 I was a guest on SWR’s “Streifenfragen” and explained why ransomware is so attractive to attackers and what really lies behind such attacks. I also addressed the crucial question: Should you pay or not? 🌍 And the investigators explained: such cases are rarely local. They are part of international networks, highly professionally organized, and often difficult to track down. ❣️ My most important takeaway: Prevention isn’t a “nice-to-have”, it is essential for survival. Backups, security strategies, and awareness determine whether a company remains operational or, in the worst-case scenario, goes bankrupt. 🎧 An exciting episode (in German) about cybercrime, cross-continental investigative work, and the reality of digital extortion. https://www.swr3.de/podcasts/cybercrime-auf-de...

  🫨 Imagine coming home and realizing someone got in. Nothing is broken, but drawers are open, rooms have been checked, and things are missing. 🏠️ I often feel like the burglar who did this when I test websites. I log in as a normal user and start looking around. With a small change, I suddenly end up in places I shouldn’t be. Other people’s accounts. Admin pages. Private data like names, email addresses, and order details. 😇 But in my case, probably no one will ever notice if I wouldn’t explain this in the report. 💡 I see this more often than you’d expect. If you run a website and have ever wondered how easy it is for someone to “walk in”, feel free to reach out.

  ♣️ ♦️ Last weekend I visited the Board Game Archive in Haar. As a board game author, it was lovely to be surrounded by so many games! And yet, I learned something I did not expect. 🎲 The archive contains over 20,000 board games, from very old to very recent, from heavily played to completely new. Some of these new games are still wrapped in the plastic foil they were shipped in. It seems harmless, but it is not. 🫁 Over time, this plastic breaks down into microplastics, tiny particles that are almost impossible to remove. They can become so small that they linger in the air, and people working in or visiting the archive may breathe them in, potentially harming their health. 🙏 I am very grateful for the fantastic tour and the important work being done there. As a small contribution, I will be donating my game "Meine Freundin Conni: Kunterbunter Knobelspaß" to the archive. 💡 And now I know: I will make sure to remove the foil beforehand. Every little bit helps!