Entertainment in times of Covid-19
Just wanted to throw together some things that help me and may help you enjoy the physical distancing a little more.
TV and Movies
- Apple TV+All Apple Originals
Apple TV+ offers Apple's original shows without a subscription - Stream Free Episodes of HBO Series Online
HBO has offered a bunch of free episodes and documentaries - Quibi - Quick bites
Quibi offers a 90-day free trial. (UPDATE: In October 2020, Quibi shut down.)
Scrubs
My all-time favorite show. It resonates, even more, these days.
Stream on Hulu
World War Z
A really cool movie about Codid-19 zombie outbreak.
Rent or buy anywhere
Outbreak
A little naive and fairly old movie about an outbreak of a virus in a particular city.
Stream on Netflix
Contagion
If you ever wondered if anyone ever predicted Covid-19 outbreak, wonder no more. This movie is strikingly accurate when it comes to what we are experiencing today. Pretty fascinating!
Rent anywhere
Games
If you're a gamer, definitely try Ori and the Will of the Wisps. It's a fantastic game, but I couldn't play it — it got too complex for my non-gamer taste. But you will enjoy it, I promise!
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Fantastic, dynamic, beautiful, and quick. Challenging enough to keep you entertained, but casual enough to be played, well, casually.
Podcasts and such
Going for a walk? Quick workout? Cooking something? Put on a podcast and get twice the fun!
- Fake Doctors, Real Friends with Zach and Donald
- Staying In with Emily & Kumail
- Office Ladies
- SomeGoodNews
- Darknet Diaries
Conferences & Meetups
It's interesting how conferences adapt to this new reality. And I must say, most are doing a fantastic job transitioning to 100% online. Some still charge quite a lot, some are very flexible (pay-per-track, pay for VOD, or only pay for workshops, for example), and some gone completely free. Well, my conference budget just got waaaay more flexible as well. I think, I'm going to attend them all BECAUSE I CAN 😂
- JS VidCon May 7 — $10+
- Avocado Labs Regular Meetups — Free
- Byteconf React 2020 May 1 — Free
- Jamstack Conf 2020 May 27-28 — Free
- react-europe May 12-16th — Free (?)
- JavaScript Remote Conf 2020 May 13-15 — $75
Tutorials (and other learning)
There are hundreds upon hundreds of fantastic tutorials and resources to keep you sharp and leave isolation with a bunch of new skills and projects!
- How to Create a Summer Road Trip Mapping App with Gatsby and Leaflet
- Developing a Serverless Twitter Streamer and Performing Sentiment Analysis
- JWTs 101
- A list of sample Web App Ideas
- Take your React skills to the next level by building a Todoist clone
- Learn to Code with Interactive Tutorials
- Introduction to Identity
Books
Books are awesome. Fight me! Here's a list of books I am reading, will be reading soon, or have read in the past and highly recommend.
- Permanent Record by Edward Snowden
- Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers by Andy Greenberg
- American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton
- Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried
- User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant
- Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World by Joseph Menn
- No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State by Glenn Greenwald
- It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried
Bonus: Home improvement projects
Nah, I'm not the kind of person who's into DIY. But I've got a pretty serious urge to make our back room into a proper office and lounge space.

Related Posts
This by far the worst year in generations is coming to a close. It won't be missed, yet it will remain in our memory, history books, and our shared trauma will take decades to heal. Here's to 2021, hopefully, a better year.
I understand that the Will of the Wisps is an upgrade in every sense of the word, but it's clearly geared to attract more hardcore gamers.