Forkalyst
I have a new band called "Forkalyst". And you can find out more in this post.
Articles
Longer thoughts and ramblings.Moved the photo journal to a new host
Now served from a VPS and via HTTPS
A "Now" page
This website has a new page where you can read about what's currently going on in my life.
Fall
Another accident happened: I broke my arm while hiking.
Crash
On Sunday, June 25th 2023, we were involved in a car crash on the Autobahn. While our camper is beyond repair, we were very lucky and escaped with only minor injuries.
View Transitions
Prompted by Jeremy’s post on the topic, I’ve been trying out the brand new view transitions API for multi page apps – i.e. normal websites.
Status May 2023
Since the beginning of April, I’ve been taking a break from freelancing. That means I currently don’t work for anyone else. And it’s been glorious so far! Instead of doing software development all day, I’ve really taken it easy and have done things I enjoy, wanted to do for a while, or simply had to get done – with plenty of time to do so.
No AVIF for now
After contemplating about responsive images - especially for my photo journal - I had a look at my current approach and whether it makes sense to add image variants in AVIF format to the mix. And my current answer to this is “no”.
Contemplating the usefulness of responsive images
With smartphones getting bigger and screen resolutions becoming ever more dense, is it still feasible to serve a whole bunch of different image sizes on a photo sharing web site?
All Movies Are Great
About how my "reviews" can sometimes seem unfair, when they are really not meant to be.
Getting into chess
After watching “The Queen’s Gambit”, I got interested in chess again. I played a little bit when I was a kid, but never much or in any serious fashion. And so, recently, I created an account on Lichess.org.
Recent Live Gigs
The last month has been unusually concert-heavy. I saw
The Planck keyboard has ruined me
The Planck is the only computer keyboard I use now. I do not want to – nor can I – use a standard keyboard anymore. My MacBook Pro’s keyboard that I’ve used for years? Of no use: the staggered keys, the size (way too big!), the low key travel, the non-customisability. Everything’s alien now.
Samba Pi
I recently dusted off an old Raspberry Pi and installed Samba to serve all the movies we have on two external hard drives on our local network.
The longest flat
This month – April of 2022 – I set a new record: our current flat is now the accommodation that I have been living in the longest since moving out of my parent’s house. We’ve been living here for three years now.
Status March 2022
A little update about my mood and why I haven’t posted in a while.
Make the ZSA Planck EZ Glow keyboard work with any iOS device with Lightning connector
Getting a “Accessory Unavailable: The attached accessory uses too much power.” warning? Here's the fix!
HC-110: My black and white film developer of choice
I have settled on Kodak HC-110 to be my one and only black and white film developer. Here's why.
Apple Watch
I bought an Apple Watch. And I want it to replace my iPhone.
Berlin
In September I spontaneously visited Berlin for 10 days. To see the city – which I don’t really know – and to hang out with Tim and Sophie. And I had to do a bit of remote work, too.
New Bike
I have a new bike. It’s a lightweight singlespeed roadbike.
Using Let's Encrypt SSL certificates with HostEurope Webhosting products
HostEurope currently doesn’t offer automatic usage of Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates with their Webhosting products – and probably never will. But here’s how you can make it work and navigate HostEurope’s manual and not so straight forward process.
Five new prints
Over the weekend, I made new prints in my darkroom. And in this post, I'm showing them.
Fixing video sharing
How I now host video files outside of GitLab Pages
My sporadic and minimalist darkroom
How I use our little bathroom to make gelatin silver prints.
The future of my photo journal
Right now, I’m unsure about whether I will continue my photo journal in its current form.
Corona Update
A little bit of moaning about the current situation.
The new president
Summarising my feelings about the recent US presidential election.
GitLab Pages: serving compressed resources
I have now enabled gzip compression on this website. This means all text resources are now served compressed, which results in quicker page (down)loads.
Updated pedalboard
I bought more pedals. And so I needed a bigger board, to be able to fit them all. Here’s what it looks like now:
Donations 2020
Here are the charities I donated money to at the end of this year:
August update
An update on how we have been doing recently.
Pedalboard update
My pedal board has a new layout.
New Macbook Keyboard
Recently, I had my Mac’s keyboard replaced. Because, unsurprisingly, I started having regular double-types, which got increasingly annoying. Luckily, Apple acknowledges the problem and offers a free repair program.
Last Week's Purchases
Last week was unusually purchase-rich for me, buying three new items.
On the horrifying situation in the US
The current situation in the US is absolutely insane! In a lot of cities and areas police forces are violently attacking protestors and press. And their racist, evil, idiot president only keeps adding fuel to fire, insulting protestors and anyone else not getting in line with him. His recent speech was unbelievable: disrespectful and dangerous.
Black lives fuckin' matter
How can one not sympathise with the #BlackLivesMatter movement? Generally, and especially right now. George Floyd was – unnecessarily, intentionally, almost casually – killed by a white police officer. And he was only the most recent case of many many many others in the past.
How I publish to this website using iOS
Describing my workflow of how I use GitLab, Jekyll, Working Copy and other iOS apps to publish to my static website.
First VP-6000 Darkroom Prints
I made my first set of black and white prints with my new Kaiser VP-6000 enlarger. It’s been a bit of an experimental session figuring out all the settings and my personal preferences. But so far I have been very happy with the results.
My first pedalboard
Version 1.0 of my pedalboard is done. Here it is:
Corona update 3
It’s been a while since I wrote about “the situation”. In summary: we’re mostly at home, but not really quarantining ourselves.
Düsseldorf Webcams
The city of Düsseldorf offers some surprisingly high-quality webcams. Embedded here for my own convenience, so I can watch them all at once.
My fluid website layout
I'm using a viewport-based CSS layout for this site. What this means and why I do this is all explained in this post.
Thoughts on lazy loading images
My current thoughts on this feature, its advantages and disadvantages, and why I have currently enabled this on my personal sites.
Photo Journal Design Update
In the last week, I updated my photo journal’s design. There are no more borders around the images, the photos are more aligned to a grid and have varying sizes. It’s all more well-aligned and therefor looks cleaner.
Corona update
More personal thoughts and updates on the Corona virus situation.
Corona Virus
A few words on the current corona virus situation.
Webmentions
This site can now receive Webmentions. Either directly or via Twitter (with Bridgy’s help).
Guitar Gear Excitement
Recently, I really got into guitar gear – especially effect pedals.
New camera: the Yashica FR1
Last year, I acquired a few new cameras. One of them was a Yashica FR1 (or FRI, as it’s often written as) with a selection of lenses. It was a random opportunity. And I took it. Here are some first images taken with the 24mm lens I bought with it.
Dark mode
While this site is new and super-simple, I thought I add an automatic “dark mode” real quick.
Responsive images
I have now added the ability to display responsive images. And I write a little bit about how I do it using the tools I run the build this site.
Hosting on GitLab Pages
A quick overview of how this site is hosted at the moment.
Fuck you, Instagram!
I made a little bookmarklet to disable and hide Instagram’s login prompt and re-enable scrolling, so I can keep browsing Instagram web pages when I am logged out. I call it “Fuck you, Instagram!” or “FUI” for short.
Recent film development fuckups
In the last two weeks, I had some bad film development results. This is a little article about what I think went wrong.
New website
I have a new site! It’s truly indie now. No more reliance on Tumblr. And I’m pretty happy about that! So, danielpietzsch.com is going to be my virtual home for the foreseeable future.
More posts in my previous blog. Or you can browse the photo journal.