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Business Book Recommendations from LinkedIn Feed

I came across three business book recommendations on LinkedIn, and I have to say, they were absolutely spot on:

Extreme Ownership:
A fascinating backstory of the Iraq War, especially if you’ve ever wondered how a special operations unit (in this case, the US Navy SEALs) actually operates. The title of the book captures its core message: Extreme Ownership. Building on that, the book explains several strategies and ways of thinking used by the SEALs and applies them to business. Ownership is something you can internalize, whether you’re an employee, a team lead, or a founder.

Radical Candor:
My first management book, and I really like how self-contained it is. It’s almost like a how-to guide to management for people without much prior knowledge. The approach of “care personally+challenge directly” doesn’t seem easy to implement, but if you manage to make it work, it promises a lot.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion:
I’ve seen this one in an S+ tier reading ranking before, and it definitely lives up to the expectations. It explains some really powerful, practical principles of human psychology, using memorable metaphors and applying them well to money, business, and everyday life. Really good!

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CPRE (Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering)!

I am now a certified Requirements Engineer! ✅

CPRE (Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering) is from the International Requirements Engineering Board (IREB).

Managing the requirements of your customers is so important – whether in the corporate or startup world. It gives you a valuable toolkit for understanding the context around a system, eliciting requirements through techniques such as interviews and workshops, and managing the documented form of them – the full lifecycle.

The training and examination were completed at ETC Enterprise Training Center – highly recommended!

REALLY excited to apply my Requirements Engineering skills in future projects and collaborations 🚀

#CPRE #RequirementsEngineering #BusinessAnalysis #ContinuousLearning

CPRE

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Java Lore 2026: What happened between Java 8 and 25?

Ok, I am finally up-to-date with Java lore. It came with the simple question: Why does Oracle still distribute Java 8 at java.com per default to clients (the latest is Java 25)🤔!

TLDR: Currently recommended: Adoptium Temurin (Java 21 LTS), https://whichjdk.com/

What happened? A bit of context: Oracle changed Java licensing around 2019. Around Java 11, Oracle introduced a subscription-based licensing for many production use cases. They changed the free use again for “internal business operations”, but since then, it seems like Oracle JDK is no longer the obvious free default for many use cases.

Also, Java 8 is still the default download on java.com because it is the last version that Oracle shipped as an end-user JRE. Since Java 9, they no longer distribute the runtime separately and applications are expected to ship their own runtime with tools like jlink.

But then in 2021: The AdoptOpenJDK project moved to the Eclipse Foundation and became Eclipse Adoptium, which now distributes the Temurin OpenJDK builds. (They btw distribute separate JDK and JRE environments again: https://adoptium.net/de/news/2021/10/jlink-to-produce-own-runtime !)

In fact, a lot of alternative OpenJDK builds grew:

  • Eclipse Temurin (Adoptium)
  • Amazon Corretto
  • Azul Zulu
  • Microsoft Build of OpenJDK
  • Red Hat OpenJDK, etc.

They are all based on the same OpenJDK source code, mainly differing in build pipelines, support policies, and packaging.

So what is the current state of Java?

Current Java release cycle:

  • New Java version every 6 months
  • LTS releases roughly every 2 years

Current important versions:

  • Java 17 (LTS, widely deployed)
  • Java 21 (current LTS, recommended)
  • Java 25 (latest release)

And a lot of cool features since Java 8, like modules, var, records, switch expressions, pattern matching, and the new fancy virtual thread system (Project Loom). Concluding: Unless you have constraints, Java 21 LTS is the safe default with Adoptium. The distributions Amazon Corretto, Azul Zulu and BellSoft Liberica are also fine.

A lot has happened since Java 8, from Oracle licenses, Adoptium, the jlink tool, and more. I am thinking about writing a blog post with the best-of new features between 8 and 21/25. Would that be interesting :)? Is Java still cool in 2026?

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Unity 6.2 NGO 2.8 Control Spawn Positions

In the new Unity for GameObjects netcode, there’s no way to control the spawn position directly via the NetworkManager. The simplest way I found was to write a “SpawnManager” with a list of possible spawn positions, and it spawns the prefabs after OnClientConnected.

using UnityEngine;
using Unity.Netcode;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public class SpawnManager : MonoBehaviour
{
 public static SpawnManager Instance;
 [Header("Player Prefab")]
 [SerializeField] private NetworkObject playerPrefab;
 [Header("Spawn Points")]
 [SerializeField] private List<Transform> spawnPoints;
 private int spawnIndex;

private void Awake()
 {
 Instance = this;
 }

private void Start()
 {
 NetworkManager.Singleton.OnClientConnectedCallback += OnClientConnected;
 }

private Transform GetNextSpawnPoint()
 {
 var spawn = spawnPoints[spawnIndex];
 spawnIndex = (spawnIndex + 1) % spawnPoints.Count;
 return spawn;
 }

private void OnClientConnected(ulong clientId)
 {
 if (!NetworkManager.Singleton.IsServer)
 {
 return;
 }
 Transform spawn = GetNextSpawnPoint();
 NetworkManager.Singleton.SpawnManager.InstantiateAndSpawn(
 playerPrefab,
 clientId,
 destroyWithScene: true,
 isPlayerObject: true,
 forceOverride: false,
 position: spawn.position,
 rotation: spawn.rotation
 );
 }
}

Create a GameObject called SpawnManager, give it this script and then drag the prefab and the spawnpositions into its variables:screenshot of the SpawnManager

Make sure that in the NetworkManager, the network prefabs list is not empty. The default player prefab however is, because the SpawnManager spawns the prefabs:
prefab NetworkManager screenshot

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Halloween Special 2025

Greetings, brave admins and hackers!

we thought it is time again to remind everyone (and ourselves) about PacketAssault! Due to recent Android restrictions, unsigned APKs can no longer be installed. Therefore, we updated the 2022 PA project.

The project is still on hold and not on the Play Store, but you can try it right now!

👉 Test it here – Have fun exploring the three levels!

🎃 Happy Halloween!

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Not a Linear Year

Interestingly enough, for me, every Halloween is in some kind of way another opportunity to reflect on the status quo. To think about where I am standing, especially regarding the status of my games.

Looking back, the middle of 2024 was turbulent. I got my new job in consulting, and, because working intensively and learning new things was not enough, I also started TU Vienna’s Extended Studies on Innovation. It just felt like the right time. I do not have to mention that doing this program, in addition to my full-time consulting work, was quite challenging, and probably the reason why other progress (like fitness 😅) was suffering from October 2024 until at least July 2025.

Sadly, this also meant that the Halloween Special 2024 did not get much attention. So this year, I declare that Halloween shall not pass with empty-handed! Instead, it will bring at least one change that was already decided back in 2024: Super MX is now called MX: Episode of Darkcity.

There’s still a lot of work ahead to complete the full rebranding, but this step is really important. The original name was a wordplay targeted at the 16-bit Super Nintendo era, but nowadays, that association has faded, since too much time has passed. The new title better reflects the adventure itself, which takes place in one of Xenon’s countries, namely Darkcity.

And here I am, after a lot has happened, and more to come. I have learned so much. And I finally got adequate holidays, and with more energy, creativity, and a repaired fitness routine, I am again ready to further tackle the future!

Life is full of ups and downs. It’s not linear. Keep moving – I will too 🙂