Stefan です

It’s 2023 - Still Alive

2023-02-02T19:14:00+01:00

I can’t believe it’s already February. Too late for a “Happy New Year” now, sorry about that. I hope you all had a good start to the year. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been active on this blog (exactly one year since the last post actually), but I’d like to get back to blogging from time to time. No promises though!

+Jekyll2024-04-03T11:43:11+02:00https://exo.pm/feed.xmlStefan ですHi there!StefanIt’s 2023 - Still Alive2023-02-02T19:14:00+01:002023-02-02T19:14:00+01:00https://exo.pm/2023/02/02/still-aliveI can’t believe it’s already February. Too late for a “Happy New Year” now, sorry about that. I hope you all had a good start to the year. It’s been quite a while since I’ve been active on this blog (exactly one year since the last post actually), but I’d like to get back to blogging from time to time. No promises though!

Let’s start with a look back on 2022.

2022

I don’t think there’s any argument against 2022 being a shitty year for the world as a whole. I really hope that 2023 will be better.

2022

I don’t think there’s any argument against 2022 being a shitty year for the world as a whole. I really hope that 2023 will be better.

But for me personally, it’s been pretty good. The year started off with a week in Denmark with my friends. In addition to Denmark in the summer, we’re now doing another trip in the winter. This was the first one though and it was a much smaller group - only eight people. It was a fantastic start to the year though.

Right after that I got sick, as I often do after these trips. Not COVID though (yet - spoiler alert). At the end of February, just before my birthday, I went to Norway again. This is becoming something of a tradition and I love it. We went snowboarding, cross-country skiing at the cabin, ass-sliding, and more. Basically the only videos of any substance I’ve made this year are about that trip: Part 1 (6:33 - just my trip there) and Part 2 (16:43 - the actual video, please watch it!).

April was a pretty quiet month, but it was also the start of something that shaped the rest of the year: I signed up for a gym membership and started going to the gym regularly. I started with two to three times a week, but as the year went on I went more and more, sometimes five times a week. I also got back into bouldering and climbing, and especially towards the end of the year I had weeks where I was either at the gym or bouldering every single day. I think I’m stronger now than I’ve ever been in my life. It’s not perfect though - I’ve been neglecting cardio, so that’s a big weakness right now. But it’s still a big accomplishment for me, especially the fact that I’ve been able to pick it up easily after every single trip. I guess I’ve been able to build up a very strong habit where it’s much harder NOT to do it. 💪

In May, I went on a solo trip to Lisbon, Portugal. The first week was great. I explored a lot of the city, went surfing for the first time in my life, met some nice people at the Airbnb, and even went to a board game night. Then I got COVID and had to spend the rest of the trip in isolation. Oops. I was sick for about two days, then mostly just bored and a little depressed and anxious.

My mood and mental state improved a lot after I got back from Portugal and jumped on a flight to Norway less than two days later. Yes, Norway is now also twice a year. We have a small group of friends (nine this time) who try to make it happen every summer. It was amazing again and we had a great time!

In July I spent a week in Vienna, Austria. I happened to choose the hottest days of the year, with temperatures up to 38ºC, so I took it a little easier there. I stayed with a friend and we had a great time together. (I was really glad about that because we didn’t know each other that well before and I asked her on a whim if I could visit her). I also met two other friends there, which was really nice. Great trip!

In August, something really big happened for me: I moved out. I had lived in that apartment for over ten years, ever since I started studying here in Göttingen. It wasn’t that I didn’t like living with my roommate and the cats (I miss them a lot), but I felt a bit stuck in my life and needed a change. Also, I was getting more and more socially active and living out of town was pretty inconvenient. I was able to find a nice apartment in the center of Göttingen. Everything went pretty fast and I officially moved in the middle of August. It took a while to get used to living alone, but I like it a lot. I’ll be making a (late) apartment tour video soon, so stay tuned for that!

Also in August, I finally went to a LAN party again! For those who don’t know, I’ve been going to these small Nintendo-focused LAN parties here in Germany every year since 2006. That’s crazy. 2020 was the first year I didn’t go (because they were all canceled), so I was glad that they made it happen again in 2022. A lot of the people I know there are people I only meet there, so I haven’t seen some of them in three years. I am really grateful that I was able to finally meet them again.

At the end of August, my friends Helmut and Johanna from Norway came to visit me in my new apartment and it was amazing! One of the great things about living in the center of Göttingen is that you have access to a ton of great ice cream places, and we certainly took advantage of that. I was only able to do that at the end of the summer, so I’m really looking forward to this summer.

This visit continued with our summer trip to Denmark with the large group in September. For the first time in many years, we chose a different vacation home than usual - one that was much more modern and also closer to Germany. As always, we had a great time. Lots of swimming in the ocean, board games, Mario Kart, sauna, and so on. I’m so grateful that we can do this every year and that I have such a great group of friends that there are usually no (serious) conflicts, even though there are sometimes up to 30 people in one house.

October had another LAN party, another visit from a friend, and some really nice surprise summer days at the end of the month.

November was a quiet month. My friend Josefine came to visit, which was really nice, but otherwise nothing much happened. I started taking yoga classes to balance out the weight training a bit, and I think I will keep doing that, at least once a week.

December was also very quiet for the most part. After Christmas, Johanna and Helmut came to visit again and stayed until the new year. We also had a pretty big New Year’s party at a friend’s place, the biggest one since COVID started. It was a really nice way to end the year 2022.

Verdict: Personally, it was a great year for me!

2023

As I mentioned before, the winter trip to Denmark is becoming a regular thing for us, so that’s how the year started. The house was meh, but the trip itself was great again. Lots of board games, daily walks, I even went into the ocean twice!

2023

Nothing else of note happened for the rest of January, so the question is: What’s next?

Very soon I’ll be back in Norway to visit Johanna and Helmut again. I’m looking forward to a fun time with lots of board games, snowboarding, a cabin trip and more. I even bought my own snowboard! It’s pretty old and far from perfect, but I think it will be fine. If we go three to four times while I’m there, I’ll have already saved money compared to renting.

My summer will be pretty busy. There’s another trip to Norway planned for June with the larger group. Some other friends have invited me on a trip that will probably be around July. August will be the big summer trip to Denmark again, as well as a LAN party. And then in September, I’m currently planning to go back to Japan for an extended vacation! Can’t wait for that. 🙂

I’m thinking of doing a separate post (or video) about yearly themes, looking back at last year’s theme and talking about this year’s theme, but I think this year will be the Year of Learning for me. To be honest, I haven’t given it much thought yet, so there’s not much to say for now.

That’s all from me. How was your 2022? What are your plans for 2023? I hope you are doing well!

Feel free to hit me up on Mastodon (and consider joining a Mastodon server if you’re not on there yet) and please subscribe to my YouTube channel! No promises yet, but I definitely want to upload more this year than last (which shouldn’t be too hard lol).

Have a great weekend and see you soon! 👋

Rest in Peace, Nodoka Meditation Timer!

2022-02-02T17:30:00+01:00

Rest in Peace, Nodoka Meditation Timer!

2022-02-02T17:30:00+01:00

As of December 2021, Nodoka Meditation Timer is not available on the App Store anymore.

In 2017, I was still a master’s student at university, but making no progress at all. I knew I would quit and get a job instead. Since I’ve also been interested in making an app for my iPhone, I decided to learn how to do it and do it right, meaning I wanted to publish the end result to the iPhone App Store. Since it’s good to start small, especially if the goal is to put it out into the world, I decided to make a meditation timer app. I already had a little bit of background knowledge, so it didn’t take long to make the first prototype. I got a few friends to help me improve it and find bugs, and after a few weeks and one rejection from Apple’s app review, I was able to release Nodoka 1.0 on 17 December 2017.

At that point, I was still motivated in terms of making apps. I released some minor updates for Nodoka, and started developing a new app that, admittedly, never got very far. I also started applying for jobs and put my experience of making the app on my CV which actually made a good impression, as far as I can tell. They were able to see that I was not just some computer science student that never really did any software development. I found a job, quit university, and started working there in May 2018.

Unfortunately, working full-time pretty much stopped me from doing any further development on either Nodoka or the other app. At the same time, you quickly forget all the things you’ve learned, especially if you’ve only used those skills for a few months. So since 2018, there haven’t been any updates to Nodoka.

The whole time, I was still thinking about making another app, or maybe updating Nodoka with more features like an Apple Watch app. But I didn’t do it. I’ve kept my Apple Developer Account, so you were still able to download the app (which was completely free), but there was zero progress on my side.

So in 2021, I finally decided to cancel my development account and save the €99 per year that it costs. If I want to really make another app, I can just sign up again. However, this meant that Nodoka had to be removed from the App Store.

I have to admit that I haven’t been using the app for a while. The main reason was that you had to keep the screen on during meditations, and I was concerned about battery degradation. I eventually switched to an app called Insight Timer which in particular has the Apple Watch app I had always imagined for Nodoka. I don’t particularly care for the phone app since it seems very bloated with stuff that I will never use, but the Apple Watch app is fantastic. Since I completely moved to this app, there was, for me personally, not much reason to keep Nodoka around.

As far as I know, there were a few people that downloaded Nodoka, but I never added analytics to it, so I didn’t have any data apart from what the App Store was showing me. I got the occasional feature request, but that was maybe once a year or so.

Long story short, Nodoka Meditation Timer is dead. Probably forever. But it was a great little project and I still remember how great it felt when I was able to finally publish it. I was super proud. And now, thinking about it, I should really make another thing and put it out into the world.

Thanks to anyone who has ever tried the app! I hope you’re not sad about this. If the app is still on your phone, you can keep using it.

Talk to you soon! (Hopefully not in 2023. I really want to update this blog more regularly…)

My Anime Note-Taking Strategy

2021-03-27T13:15:00+01:00

Last summer, I started watching an increasing amount of anime, and because I quickly forget the contents of the shows I watch, I started taking notes about each episode. For a while, I did this consistently for every single anime episode I watched, while I was watching it. However, at some point I noticed that I was less attentive due to the fact that I was thinking about what is worth writing down in the middle of the episode. A change was needed.

Talk to you soon! (Hopefully not in 2023. I really want to update this blog more regularly…)

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My Anime Note-Taking Strategy

2021-03-27T13:15:00+01:00

Currently, this is my strategy: For every anime, I have one Markdown file where I write down the notes. It has the anime’s name as a heading, then some interesting links or general notes about the anime, followed by a structured list of seasons and episodes. Among the links at the top is one that leads to Reddit’s search and shows me the episode discussion threads for a particular anime.

What has changed now is that I do not take any notes during the episode. Rather, I try to find time shortly after watching it to take notes from memory. This allows me to focus better on the episode while watching it, and also forces me to remember the content of the episode afterwards (which taking notes during the episodes does not). After writing my notes, I go to the respective episode discussion thread and read through that. This further strengthens my memory since I get other people’s perspective on that episode, including little things that I might have missed. I also copy some of the things people write there into my notes as quotes.

Let’s look at an example. Just a few days ago, my roommate and I started watching Mushoku Tensei which was highly rated in this year’s winter anime season and which my friend also recommended to me. This is how my document looks like (omitting the actual notes):

# Mushoku Tensei
+# Mushoku Tensei
 
-https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/search?q=flair%3Aepisode+mushoku+tensei&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all
+https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/search?q=flair%3Aepisode+mushoku+tensei&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all
 
-## Season 1
+## Season 1
 
-### Episode 1
-- My
-- notes
-- about
-- the
-- epsiode...
-
-> The Production values in this episodes is insane and it is not just the animation that is strong, character design, background, compositing...etc, are all great
-
-> Cult of Roxy-sensei rise up!!
+### Episode 1
+- My
+- notes
+- about
+- the
+- epsiode...
+
+> The Production values in this episodes is insane and it is not just the animation that is strong, character design, background, compositing...etc, are all great
+
+> Cult of Roxy-sensei rise up!!
 
 Good summary of episode 1 including screenshots: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/kuj1bm/mushoku_tensei_isekai_ittara_honki_dasu_episode_1/gis4z3u
 
-### Episode 2
-- [...]
-
-> That house needs urgent soundproofing.
-> Roxy disagrees.
+### Episode 2
+- [...]
+
+> That house needs urgent soundproofing.
+> Roxy disagrees.
 
 [...]
-

+

What do you think? Is this completely overkill? I personally think it allows me to get more long-term value and entertainment out of this hobby. At least that’s what I’m hoping for. I do enjoy rewatching shows that I REALLY liked, but for some shows, I would like to be able to watch season 2 without having to rewatch season 1 just because my memory is so bad. 😅

What I Learned from Failing the 100,000 Steps Challenge

2021-03-20T14:30:00+01:00

On 10 March 2021, my friend Helmut¹ and I attempted walking 100,000 steps in a day — and we failed.

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What I Learned from Failing the 100,000 Steps Challenge

2021-03-20T14:30:00+01:00

On 10 March 2021, my friend Helmut¹ and I attempted walking 100,000 steps in a day — and we failed.

We were on an island in Norway called Smøla. The route we chose was a 10 km long road along the sea connecting two towns. That was pretty much the only plan we had. We had only decided to do it a few days earlier, and apart from buying a few snacks, there was no preparation. We thought we’d be fine since we could stock up on supplies on either end of the route.

What I have learned on that day is that the two most important things for such an undertaking are:

Ensuring Hydration and Food
Mental Strength

What I have learned on that day is that the two most important things for such an undertaking are:

Ensuring Hydration and Food
Mental Strength

Hydration and Food

Apart from choosing a good route, I think it is of utmost importance to plan your hydration and food intake for the day. Not drinking enough might have been our biggest mistake that day. I’m pretty sure I drank less during our walk than what I’d usually drink working at my desk. One reason, I think, was that I was cold and the water was cold as well. I just didn’t feel like drinking because I didn’t want to get even colder. It would have been better to have some warm water or tea which wasn’t available to buy at the stores we could go to.²

Hydration and Food

We also didn’t eat enough. I’m not sure if I even got to 2000 calories worth of food despite walking for so. many. hours. But I didn’t really feel hungry either, so I’m not sure what the plan would be for the next attempt. Maybe it would be good to plan out the calories ahead of time and schedule the food so that there’s no decision-making involved.

Mental Strength

I had expected this, but I only found out what this really meant after reaching my limits. I would speculate that any reasonably fit person is physically able to walk 100,000 steps in a day. However, having the mental strength to actually push through the challenge is a different thing. I would say that the first 50,000 steps are pretty easy. After that, it gets progressively harder, although I could imagine that once you’ve reached about 90,000 steps, it might become easier to actually finish the challenge.

Mental Strength

Why I Think We Actually Failed

I believe that, under normal circumstances, we would have succeeded the challenge. However, it wasn’t a good time of the year, and it wasn’t a good day either. While it wasn’t raining that day, temperatures in Norway are still pretty low in March (I think it was between 0 °C and 5 °C). On top of that, there were strong winds for a significant part of the day which both required more energy to move and made it even colder (which, in turn, required even more energy). Combine that with the lack of hydration and calories, and you have the recipe for failure.

Why I Think We Actually Failed

Yes, my legs felt really bad after walking roughly 60 km, but if it hadn’t been as cold and windy, and if I had been properly fed and hydrated, I’m pretty sure I could have pushed through it to the end. Helmut felt similarly, but I do think that he could have made it even under these circumstances, and that my decision to quit affected his mentality.

So, How Many Steps Did You Actually Do?

We started our walk at 4:15 a.m. while it was still dark outside. We only took short breaks until around 1 p.m. where we had a slightly longer lunch break. I made my decision to quit around 5:30 p.m., but still walked back home.³ We got back around 6:45 p.m. At the end of the day (so including all steps I’ve taken after being back home, which weren’t many to be honest), I was at 86,292 steps. You would think, “wow, that’s so close to the finish line, why did you stop?”, but finishing it would have been another two hours of walking at least (our pace was super slow in the end), and I was freezing, dehydrated, dizzy, and felt a bit sick. I’m glad I tried, and I think it was the right decision to quit at that point. I don’t regret it.

So, How Many Steps Did You Actually Do?

Will You Try Again?

If you’d have asked me on the evening that day, I would have said No. But after reflecting on the experience (and after noticing that I felt pretty good the next day except for the dehydration), I think I might actually try it again. It sounds crazy, but failing once and trying it again sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

Will You Try Again?

Have you ever done anything like this? Would you try walking 100,000 steps in one day? Please let me know in the comments below!

PS: Expect more Norway videos on my YouTube channel soon!

-
also known as Andy/Andreas (go follow him on Instagram and YouTube); also tell him that “Dr. Dr. Helmut” is actually an amazing online name and that he should use it for his YouTube as well 😁 ↩
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In Japan, there would have been countless vending machines providing us with warm drinks. 😅 ↩
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The walk home was another 8000 steps, so I was pretty proud that I made it without having someone pick us up in a car. ↩
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Escaping the Pandemic

2021-02-23T19:30:00+01:00

Long time no see! Once again, I have neglected my blog a bit, but at least I haven’t been completely idle in the last few months. In fact, I actually went to Norway at the end of January! I’m staying here up north with my friends for a bit. My employer currently has special regulations regarding remote work that allow me to work from anywhere.¹

+
also known as Andy/Andreas (go follow him on Instagram and YouTube); also tell him that “Dr. Dr. Helmut” is actually an amazing online name and that he should use it for his YouTube as well 😁 ↩
+
+
In Japan, there would have been countless vending machines providing us with warm drinks. 😅 ↩
+
+
The walk home was another 8000 steps, so I was pretty proud that I made it without having someone pick us up in a car. ↩
+

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Escaping the Pandemic

2021-02-23T19:30:00+01:00

I’ve made some videos here in Norway that are up on my YouTube channel. Check out the Norway Playlist!

In one of the videos, I have listed some reasons why I made the decision to come to Norway. One thing that I haven’t specifically mentioned (and that I only realized after arriving) is that coming here, especially to the north of Norway, is a way of escaping the pandemic for a little bit. Here, the case numbers are so low that life is going on like normal. It’s not even mandatory to wear a mask (some, including us, do it though). Compared to Germany where public life has pretty much stopped, this is a completely different world.

Since life is pretty much normal here, it allowed me to keep most things COVID out of my life for the past few weeks. While I’ve been trying to stay positive and not obsess about the news, I think being in lockdown and constantly having to think about it has likely affected my mental health (despite being one of the lucky ones that don’t have to worry about losing their job). Not having this background process running at all times in the past few weeks has been so refreshing. I pretty much haven’t checked any numbers or news about COVID since arriving in Norway.

This is definitely not an option for most people (I don’t recommend traveling during times like these), but it made me realize that if even I’m feeling mentally drained by the pandemic, it must be so much worse for other people, and it makes me hope even more that things will improve soon.

How are you doing? Have you noticed the pandemic affecting your mental health? What do you think could help people to calm down a bit?

Stay well everybody, and talk to you soon!

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Without a special agreement like I had for my stay in Japan in 2019/2020. ↩
-

Digital Detox December

2020-11-30T17:15:00+01:00

A few days ago, I stumbled upon someone on Reddit (ironically) suggesting a Digital Detox December. Since I’ve been spending an increasing amount of time on social media recently, I was intrigued to try this. I also don’t think I ever tried a whole month of something like this.

+
Without a special agreement like I had for my stay in Japan in 2019/2020. ↩
+

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Digital Detox December

2020-11-30T17:15:00+01:00

Of course, such a challenge is very specific to the individual, and I’m not going 100% on all the things. In this post, I will outline the rules I’m setting for myself.

Instagram

No Instagram for the whole month.¹

Instagram

No Instagram for the whole month.¹

YouTube

No watching YouTube for the whole month, except for videos that my friends made and sent to me, or when I want to learn a specific thing and find a video for that.

YouTube

No watching YouTube for the whole month, except for videos that my friends made and sent to me, or when I want to learn a specific thing and find a video for that.

No browsing Reddit for the whole month. However, I am adding an exception for episode discussion threads of anime that I’m currently watching.²

Twitter

No Twitter, except for posting about new blog posts via the website.

Twitter

No Twitter, except for posting about new blog posts via the website.

Facebook

I’m only adding Facebook because people will think “What about Facebook?” While I still have an account³, I don’t use it at all, so no change necessary.

Facebook

I’m only adding Facebook because people will think “What about Facebook?” While I still have an account³, I don’t use it at all, so no change necessary.

Other Blogs/News (e.g. RSS)

Over the last few months, I started to slowly integrate RSS feeds into my life, especially for some technology blogs. While I will also not look at these, I’m planning to use RSS feeds in the future to get away from using some services directly so that I don’t fall into a rabbit hole (like on YouTube).

Other Blogs/News (e.g. RSS)

Podcasts

I talked about this with a friend yesterday. I have a small number of podcasts that I absolutely love, and I will continue to listen to those shows. I can literally count them on one hand: Connected, ATP, F**kface, Cortex, Hello Internet. The last two are on a very irregular schedule, so it’s three and a bit episodes per week.

Podcasts

Anime and Other Media

You may have read my post about watching too much anime. Well, I have realized that it is a little bit too much, but since we are approaching the end of the season, I will finish the anime that I’m currently watching. I will also start watching Attack on Titan since I am very excited about it (I think the first episode is coming out on Sunday). Also, I am watching some shows with my roommate which I will continue to do. Basically no change here.

Anime and Other Media

Messaging

I kept the hardest part for last. While I don’t strictly consider messaging as social media, I often catch myself obsessively opening my messaging apps when I’m on my phone. So I will implement two measures to deal with this:

Messaging

I will keep my two most used messengers, Signal and Telegram, on my phone, but I will disable all notifications and restrict usage of these to a certain time in the day. I enjoy our group chats and still want to participate in them, but I want to make sure not to check too often and to restrict the time I spend in those apps. Right now I’m thinking about 15 minutes in the late afternoon.
I will move all other messengers (I have too many) to my old phone and check it only once a week.

I will keep my two most used messengers, Signal and Telegram, on my phone, but I will disable all notifications and restrict usage of these to a certain time in the day. I enjoy our group chats and still want to participate in them, but I want to make sure not to check too often and to restrict the time I spend in those apps. Right now I’m thinking about 15 minutes in the late afternoon.
I will move all other messengers (I have too many) to my old phone and check it only once a week.

I am hoping that this will be enough to not be out of touch, but at the same time keep me more focused in the moment. It’s hard for me to estimate how much time I spend in messaging apps since I used them on three different platforms, but restricting it to one platform (my phone) and to a certain time of day will definitely reduce that amount of time.

For me, this challenge is about unintentional use of my devices. If I plan to check my messages at a certain time, that’s completely fine. But since it feels like a lot of my phone usage is unintentional, I will completely cut off certain apps and heavily restrict others.

Anyone wants to join? ;)

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Since I use Instagram as a messaging app as well, I will probably install the app “Threads” which is kind of like “Instagram Messenger.” ↩
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It is possible to create RSS feeds for search queries on Reddit, so I will set up a system so that I get to the threads directly without having to browse r/anime for them. ↩
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I was planning to delete the account in November, but I’m postponing this to early 2021 because I’ll need to go through my friend list and message a few people that I only have on Facebook. ↩
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One Month of Daily Blogging

2020-11-30T09:15:00+01:00

One month of daily blogging - what I originally called NaBloWriMo¹ - is officially over. In this post, I would like to summarize my experience and what I learned from this experiment.

+
Since I use Instagram as a messaging app as well, I will probably install the app “Threads” which is kind of like “Instagram Messenger.” ↩
+
+
It is possible to create RSS feeds for search queries on Reddit, so I will set up a system so that I get to the threads directly without having to browse r/anime for them. ↩
+
+
I was planning to delete the account in November, but I’m postponing this to early 2021 because I’ll need to go through my friend list and message a few people that I only have on Facebook. ↩
+

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One Month of Daily Blogging

2020-11-30T09:15:00+01:00

One month of daily blogging - what I originally called NaBloWriMo¹ - is officially over. In this post, I would like to summarize my experience and what I learned from this experiment.

In the beginning, I was hyped. Finding topics and writing the posts felt easy and it was a lot of fun. I even wrote some longer posts without planning it; I simply started writing and the post ended up around 1500 to 2000 words. Some of my friends became avid readers and after adding comments to the blog, we had some fun interactions there.

Learning #1: Blogging is fun for me!

However, at about the halfway point, I started struggling to find new topics every day. For the sake of the challenge, I continued to write and publish every single day, but the initial honeymoon period was over. Thinking of a new topic every day became more of a chore, and I started looking forward to the end of the month.

Learning #2: Consistently finding new topics to write about isn’t easy.

It was not like I didn’t have any more ideas what to write about. But those things I wanted to get into, at least those that were left, were all things that would take time to research and write. It wouldn’t have been able for me to write such a post in a day without sacrificing all the rest of the things I like to do (as well as work).

I believe a better strategy is to set out to write every day, but not publish every day. Then I could work on those longer posts, but take my time to make them good. Of course, that was not the goal of this challenge.

Learning #3: Writing every day is good, but having to publish every day is a lot of pressure.

The goal of this challenge was to get back into writing. And I definitely achieved that. Not only did I write a post every day, I feel like I wrote more and better outside of those posts as well (e.g. in my daily journal). I also improved a lot throughout this month.²

In the end, I’m very happy that I challenged myself to do this. I am grateful that I am flexible enough in my life to devote a chunk of each day to such a challenge, and I’m also grateful for you, the readers. Without anyone reading, I would still have done it, but it wouldn’t have been as much fun. Apart from the public comments, I also received some private feedback and thoughts about certain posts, especially about those thought-provoking ones.

Thank you for reading my blog! I really appreciate it. While I will take a break from blogging for a while³, I certainly don’t plan to abandon this blog. Since I’m planning to do more weekly or monthly challenges, expect posts about that fairly soon. I also want to get back into a bunch of other things (like app development and YouTube), so I’m going to use this blog to keep you up-to-date with what I’m doing.

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National Blog Writing Month ↩
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Although it feels like those improvements were very visible over the first two weeks, but then the struggle of posting every day also became apparent in the quality of my writing. ↩
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Spoiler: There will be another post later today. ↩
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Weekly Summary and Recommendations

2020-11-29T11:00:00+01:00

The last week of daily blogging is over. Only one post left for tomorrow which will be kind of a “what I learned from this” post. So further thoughts on daily blogging in that post. 😉

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National Blog Writing Month ↩
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Although it feels like those improvements were very visible over the first two weeks, but then the struggle of posting every day also became apparent in the quality of my writing. ↩
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Spoiler: There will be another post later today. ↩
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Weekly Summary and Recommendations

2020-11-29T11:00:00+01:00

The last week of daily blogging is over. Only one post left for tomorrow which will be kind of a “what I learned from this” post. So further thoughts on daily blogging in that post. 😉

This week, I had some trouble coming up with good topics. On Monday and Tuesday, I had long days at work, so I started the week with two short posts about cold showers and climbing. On Wednesday, I posted about some iPhone and iPad apps that I use which was way more work than I had anticipated. On Tuesday, I wrote a follow-up post for last week’s The Voice Inside Your Head, titled Who Are You? It is definitely a very deep topic. On Friday, I made a list of potential travel destinations for 2021, in case it is possible to travel again, and yesterday I finally wrote somewhat of a review of the iPhone 12 mini, including some photos I have taken with it (someone asked for cat pics in the comments before, there you go).

Here are some recommendations for this week:

On Monday, I learned that Taiwan has a Digital Minister called Audrey Tang, and they are such an interesting person. You can read up on them on Wikipedia.
A short 2:14 review of the M1 MacBook Air: Quick & Dirty Review of the MacBook Air with M1
Yes Theory published a new video where Thomas went to Afghanistan for 96 hours. Highly recommended watch: 96 Hours Inside Afghanistan in 2020
A funny and pretty interesting article about “comma ellipses”: Why Do Young People Use Commas So Weirdly?
A new Better Ideas video about gratitude: Why it’s so hard to be happy
My friend Igor posted a new video as well (as always in German): Mt. Fuji & das japanische Nachtleben
In Wednesday’s post, I mentioned that I’m interested in a new app called “Craft”. It is a native iOS and macOS application that works somewhat like Notion. Today I found that MacStories reviewed it: Craft Review: A Powerful, Native Notes and Collaboration App
Meanwhile in Finland

On Monday, I learned that Taiwan has a Digital Minister called Audrey Tang, and they are such an interesting person. You can read up on them on Wikipedia.
A short 2:14 review of the M1 MacBook Air: Quick & Dirty Review of the MacBook Air with M1
Yes Theory published a new video where Thomas went to Afghanistan for 96 hours. Highly recommended watch: 96 Hours Inside Afghanistan in 2020
A funny and pretty interesting article about “comma ellipses”: Why Do Young People Use Commas So Weirdly?
A new Better Ideas video about gratitude: Why it’s so hard to be happy
My friend Igor posted a new video as well (as always in German): Mt. Fuji & das japanische Nachtleben
In Wednesday’s post, I mentioned that I’m interested in a new app called “Craft”. It is a native iOS and macOS application that works somewhat like Notion. Today I found that MacStories reviewed it: Craft Review: A Powerful, Native Notes and Collaboration App
Meanwhile in Finland

As always, enjoy your Sunday! One last post tomorrow. Of course, I hopefully won’t stop posting completely, but I definitely need a break as the second half of this month of daily blogging has worn me out a bit. 😅

The iPhone 12 mini

2020-11-28T16:30:00+01:00

I’ve been using the new iPhone 12 mini for about two weeks now, since the day of its release. For context: I was a big fan of the original iPhone SE that came out in 2016. I had bought the 6S in 2015, but it was always slightly too big for my taste. Back then, I thought the SE was perfect: Same internals as the 6S, but with the body of the 5 line. I loved that phone and it was definitely my favorite phone at the time.

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The iPhone 12 mini

2020-11-28T16:30:00+01:00

However, both the camera and the battery life didn’t hold up as well as you would hope, and even after replacing the battery in 2018, I was especially eager to have a better camera in my phone. So I bought the XS. I didn’t love its size, but I was more than happy with the performance, battery life, and camera quality. I took so many photos and videos with that phone.

I was still hopeful for a smaller flagship iPhone though. Earlier this year, Apple released the new iPhone SE which had the 11 internals with a 6/7/8 body. I think it’s a great phone, but it only has one camera and those very large bezels around the display. Fortunately, there were rumors and leaks about a 5.4-inch iPhone 12 mini. And I was so convinced that it would be the phone for me that I already sold my XS in August in anticipation for the new phones. While I didn’t expect having to wait until November to get it, when it was finally revealed, I knew it was the phone I’ve been waiting for all along.

The iPhone 12 mini is a 5.42-inch phone with an all-screen, HDR, True Tone, P3, OLED display (1080 x 2340 pixels, 476 ppi). It has the exact same internals as its bigger sibling, the 6.1-inch iPhone 12, except for a smaller battery. It rocks Apple’s newest A14 which is crazy fast for a smartphone chip. In addition to the front camera, it has two back cameras: A 26mm-equivalent wide lens and a 13mm-equivalent ultra-wide lens. For more detailed specs, refer to this site. The iPhone 12 mini only weighs 135 grams.

Holding it in my hand, I think it is a true iPhone SE successor. Newest internals, no disadvantages compared to its bigger sibling (except for battery life), easy to hold and use with one hand, lightweight. It is truly the phone I’ve been waiting for.

Apart from the performance, the most important factor in a phone for me is camera quality. Down below, you can find a bunch of photos I’ve taken with the iPhone 12 mini over the past two weeks. All of these are straight out of the camera (which in this case means that they contain Apple’s processing, but I did not touch the photos at all). You can click on a photo to get a bigger version.¹

This one is a night mode photo with very bad indoor lighting: -

This one is a night mode photo with very bad indoor lighting: +

This last photo is taken with the ultra-wide camera: -

This last photo is taken with the ultra-wide camera: +

I am planning to make a video for YouTube that shows the mini’s video capabilities. However, there are still lots of features I have yet to take advantage of, like slow motion, Dolby Vision HDR, and night timelapse.

A few more notes about certain aspects of this phone:

Performance: As expected, it is incredibly fast. I don’t know what I could do to it to make it struggle.
Battery life: For me, it has been fine so far. It is probably the mini’s biggest disadvantage, and it might struggle to get through a full day of travel if you take a lot of photos and videos.
Screen: I’m glad that the OLED screen finally made it to the non-pro iPhones. It is beautiful and I have nothing to complain.
FaceID: Using my old SE for the months between selling the XS and getting the 12 mini, I realized how great fingerprint sensors are, especially in these times of wearing a mask. I don’t go out a lot, so I barely have to unlock my phone when wearing a mask, but I’m still a little bit sad that they couldn’t add an additional fingerprint sensor under the screen or in the side button.
Cellular: With the 12 line, Apple has added 5G capability to all their phones. One, I don’t care about 5G because I don’t want to upgrade my plan. Two, it introduced a small issue for me: So where I live, the LTE connection is not good. I only get one or two bars of LTE when I’m in the house. Since I don’t need LTE at home, I usually disabled it to force it to use 2G so that I can still receive phone calls, but have a much better connection. With these new 5G phones, I can’t disable LTE anymore. This means that inside the house I have a constant battery drain from a bad LTE connection. Unfortunate, but what can I do. 🤷
Size: I think it could be slightly smaller, maybe 5.2 inches, but I don’t want to complain and 5.4 inch is still a great size for this phone. (Also, battery life would become worse.)

Performance: As expected, it is incredibly fast. I don’t know what I could do to it to make it struggle.
Battery life: For me, it has been fine so far. It is probably the mini’s biggest disadvantage, and it might struggle to get through a full day of travel if you take a lot of photos and videos.
Screen: I’m glad that the OLED screen finally made it to the non-pro iPhones. It is beautiful and I have nothing to complain.
FaceID: Using my old SE for the months between selling the XS and getting the 12 mini, I realized how great fingerprint sensors are, especially in these times of wearing a mask. I don’t go out a lot, so I barely have to unlock my phone when wearing a mask, but I’m still a little bit sad that they couldn’t add an additional fingerprint sensor under the screen or in the side button.
Cellular: With the 12 line, Apple has added 5G capability to all their phones. One, I don’t care about 5G because I don’t want to upgrade my plan. Two, it introduced a small issue for me: So where I live, the LTE connection is not good. I only get one or two bars of LTE when I’m in the house. Since I don’t need LTE at home, I usually disabled it to force it to use 2G so that I can still receive phone calls, but have a much better connection. With these new 5G phones, I can’t disable LTE anymore. This means that inside the house I have a constant battery drain from a bad LTE connection. Unfortunate, but what can I do. 🤷
Size: I think it could be slightly smaller, maybe 5.2 inches, but I don’t want to complain and 5.4 inch is still a great size for this phone. (Also, battery life would become worse.)

All in all, I am incredibly happy with this phone. It would be great if the battery life could be a bit better, but it’s totally fine. Also, I wouldn’t complain about a telephoto lens on the back since without one, it’s hard to take photos of objects further away. I’m not very optimistic about that though. I do hope, however, that Apple is committed to continue to make phones of this size. The original SE was a one-off phone and people who loved it for its size were left waiting for a long time. It would be nice if this didn’t happen with the 12 mini.

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Note that the bigger version is still not the original file (converted to JPEG with slight compression). I only want to give an impression of what this phone can do. ↩
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2021 Travel Destinations

2020-11-27T14:15:00+01:00

I had big plans for traveling in 2020, but you can imagine how that turned out. Apart from being in Japan the first few months of 2020¹ and some light travel inside of Germany, I didn’t travel at all. While it’s still unclear whether we will be able to properly travel again in 2021, here are some destination that I would like to go.

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Note that the bigger version is still not the original file (converted to JPEG with slight compression). I only want to give an impression of what this phone can do. ↩
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2021 Travel Destinations

2020-11-27T14:15:00+01:00

Norway

I’ve been to Norway once with my friends last year. It was one of the best trips ever. We stayed in a small hut with seven people, no electricity, no running water, nothing. For some, this might sound horrible, but we enjoyed it so much that we were hyped to repeat it the next year. Of course it didn’t happen in 2020, but I’m optimistic that a trip like this will be possible in 2021.

Norway

I’m also planning, separately from the above, to go to Norway and stay with my friends who live there, for a month or two. My work currently allows us to work from anywhere, so this would be the perfect opportunity to do this without convincing my employer to allow it.²

Denmark

Every year since 2010, my group of friends has organized a trip to a large vacation home in Denmark. In the beginning, we were around 15 people, but throughout the years this grew to as much as 32 people! Of course, this trip also had to be canceled³, but I’m hoping that we can do it next year. The dates are already fixed because we could only move our reservation, not get a refund.

Denmark

Japan

When I booked my return flight in March 2020, I noticed that it was cheaper to book a two-way flight than to book a one-way flight. So what I did was that I booked a flight from Tokyo to Frankfurt for March 2020, together with a “return” flight from Frankfurt to Tokyo for January 2021. While I’m 99% sure that Japan won’t allow tourists to come in January (at least not without quarantine), I’m hoping that I can move the flight to later in the year and still take advantage of the fact that I already have a flight. Needless to say, I won’t get out of this cycle until I book a single return flight or skip a flight someday. 😅

Japan

Greece

A while ago, I randomly got into a conversation with someone on Reddit who’s from Greece. What I didn’t expect was that we would become friends over time, and we’re still in somewhat regular contact now. If it’s possible and if she’s even in Greece at that time, I’d like to go visit her there for a week or so. (Hi if you’re reading! 🥰) Also, one of my good friends here in Germany has family in Greece and we’ve been thinking of going on a trip together, so maybe I can combine those two things!

Greece

Estonia

I don’t know why, but for a while now I’ve had this urge to visit Estonia someday. I basically know nothing about the country (except roughly where it is and that the capital city is Tallinn⁴), but somehow I still want to go there. This is definitely a lower priority, but someday I would like to go.

Estonia

France

Believe it or not, I have never been to France before! It’s a neighboring country and I know a few people who live there, but I never ended up going. So maybe in 2021 or 2022, I can finally fill this gap as a European and go to France. I also promised some Mexican friends I met in Japan last year that I’m going to join them for their Paris trip, so maybe that’s going to happen at some point.

France

Portugal

Another country where I haven’t been to. I’ve heard that it’s very beautiful there. I recently watched one of Nathanial Drew’s videos where they were in Portugal and it looked amazing.

Portugal

Another country where I haven’t been to. I’ve heard that it’s very beautiful there. I recently watched one of Nathanial Drew’s videos where they were in Portugal and it looked amazing.

Germany

Last but not least, I want to mention that I definitely want to go to different places inside of Germany. I’m not particularly interested in the cities, but I do want to visit friends and they live all over the country. Even if international travel is not possible yet in 2021, I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to travel a little bit inside of Germany, at least.⁵

Germany

As you can see, except for Japan all of these destinations are in Europe. I am aware that traveling by airplane is bad for the environment, so I’d like to travel to more places that are close to me. And the flights I do take, I always offset the carbon emissions (yes, it’s always better to not fly at all…).

I also don’t think that I’ll be able to go to all these places even if travel is possible again in 2021. At the very least, I’ll run out of money since I’m only working part-time. But it would be nice to go on at least a few trips.

Are you excited to travel again? What are your next destinations?

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…which I am very grateful for! ↩
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If possible, I’m going to try to make this happen early, maybe already in February or March! Also, if I like it as much as I think, I could imagine moving there for a longer period of time. It’s still my plan to someday move to a different country, and currently I think I’d prefer to stay inside of Europe so that I can still see my friends once in a while. ↩
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It would have been possible to go, but at the time when we had to make the decision, the situation was still unclear, so the majority of the group decided to move the reservation to next year. ↩
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Admittedly, I had to look up the spelling. ↩
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Also, I got a so called “BahnCard 50” in September, being optimistic about traveling inside of Germany, but I’ve only ended up using it in September and once for visiting my parents in October. 😅 ↩
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Who Are You?

2020-11-26T14:25:00+01:00

Have you ever deeply thought about this question? Many people probably haven’t, and they would simply answer with facts about what they consider their Self. However, there are many other perspectives on this, like Buddhism’s non-dualistic view that there simply is no separate Self. One perspective that resonated with me is Michael A. Singer’s viewpoint that he describes in chapter 3 of “The Untethered Soul.”

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…which I am very grateful for! ↩
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If possible, I’m going to try to make this happen early, maybe already in February or March! Also, if I like it as much as I think, I could imagine moving there for a longer period of time. It’s still my plan to someday move to a different country, and currently I think I’d prefer to stay inside of Europe so that I can still see my friends once in a while. ↩
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It would have been possible to go, but at the time when we had to make the decision, the situation was still unclear, so the majority of the group decided to move the reservation to next year. ↩
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Admittedly, I had to look up the spelling. ↩
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Also, I got a so called “BahnCard 50” in September, being optimistic about traveling inside of Germany, but I’ve only ended up using it in September and once for visiting my parents in October. 😅 ↩
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Who Are You?

2020-11-26T14:25:00+01:00

So if I ask you “Who Are You?”, how would you answer? Most people would simply say, “I’m Stefan.” But are those letters, S-t-e-f-a-n, who you are? No, that’s merely a label. People actually change their names, but that doesn’t change who they are. So you could answer, “I go by the label Stefan, I’m 29 years old, I live in Germany. My parents are X and Y. I am a software developer and apparently a blogger now.” But is that really who you are? I didn’t ask about your age, your parents, where you live, or what you’re doing. Those things change over time, but you are still you. Well, you could go on and reply, “Okay fine, I am this body that you are seeing in front of you, and who is talking with you right now.” But your body changes all the time as well. Even as an adult, our cells constantly die and are born. In a few years, not a single cell of your current body will remain. But you’re still you, right? Eventually, you’ll probably give up an say, “I’m me! Me, that’s who I am! I’m in here experiencing the world!”

Now we’re getting closer. A very important thing for this is the subject-object relationship. If you are the subject, the one who is feeling, thinking, experiencing, you can’t be the object. You can’t be your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings; those are only things you are experiencing. But at the same time, you still have an intuitive sense of existence that you can’t attribute to any of the objects you are perceiving. That intuitive sense of existence is your consciousness.

Even if you take away all your objects of consciousness, you can still be aware of experiencing nothing. From page 28 of “The Untethered Soul”:

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It doesn’t matter how many things are in front of you; if you turn off the consciousness, there is nothing. If you are conscious, however, there can be nothing in front of you but you are fully aware that there is nothing.
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It doesn’t matter how many things are in front of you; if you turn off the consciousness, there is nothing. If you are conscious, however, there can be nothing in front of you but you are fully aware that there is nothing.
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Throughout the book, the author also takes apart what we usually consider our Self. It is simply a construct of our mind, a castle built over many years, with our past experiences and memories as the foundation. Even if we were not consciously doing it, it is something we have built ourselves. The things we like or don’t like, our values, our opinions, our fears, those are just parts of the castle we consider to be the Self. But it is not who we are. Even if you consider yourself someone who doesn’t do a certain thing, in the heat of the moment, you could still ignore that and do it anyway. It doesn’t change who you are.

I’m not saying that it’s bad to have likes or dislikes, or to have values you live by. But you can have those things and still realize that they are not you.

To be honest, writing about this specific part of the book makes me realize that, by itself, this viewpoint might not have much of a benefit, at least it might be hard to recognize. But personally, I found it very helpful in the context of the whole book. And to be clear, while I am writing about these things, it doesn’t mean that I have fully internalized them. But I still feel that they help me deal with certain situations in daily life better than I did before. I am slowly able to disconnect from the things that happen to me and recognize that they do not have to affect me. And this not only includes external things, but also internal things like thoughts and emotions. I am merely the one who experiences these thoughts and emotions, but it is still my choice how to react to them.¹

What do you think? Did this make the last post, The Voice Inside Your Head, a bit clearer?

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Yes, I am aware that there are also theories that everything is deterministic, that we don’t actually have free will. That could be a whole different topic to get into. ↩
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State of the Apps (Nov 2020)

2020-11-25T18:50:00+01:00

This post is inspired by the yearly State of the Apps episode on the Cortex Podcast.

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Yes, I am aware that there are also theories that everything is deterministic, that we don’t actually have free will. That could be a whole different topic to get into. ↩
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State of the Apps (Nov 2020)

2020-11-25T18:50:00+01:00

This post is inspired by the yearly State of the Apps episode on the Cortex Podcast.

In this post, I want to list some of the apps that I’m using on my devices (in this case iPhone and iPad). There will be four parts: 1. iPhone 2. iPad 3. iPhone + iPad 4. Looking Into. If an app is in the “iPhone” or “iPad” section, it does not mean that I’m using it exclusively on that device, but that I use it mostly on that device.

Note: I didn’t include the prices because they differ depending on the region and which plan you are using. However, I added whether it is free (which usually include a paid premium option or subscription), paid (= one-time payment), or subscription (= monthly/yearly payment).

iPhone

Overcast (iOS, free with premium option)

Overcast has been my favorite podcast player for a long time now. But to be honest, I haven’t really tried any other player because switching podcast players seems like a PITA.

Overcast (iOS, free with premium option)

Overcast has been my favorite podcast player for a long time now. But to be honest, I haven’t really tried any other player because switching podcast players seems like a PITA.

LookUp (iOS, paid)

LookUp is an excellent English dictionary for iOS. Every time there’s an English word I don’t know or don’t fully understand, I look up its definitions in LookUp.

LookUp (iOS, paid)

LookUp is an excellent English dictionary for iOS. Every time there’s an English word I don’t know or don’t fully understand, I look up its definitions in LookUp.

Pushover (iOS, Android, Website, paid)

Pushover is a push notification service. I use it to send myself notifications via scripting, for example on my server or from Shortcuts. If you don’t know why you would need this, you don’t need this. ;)

Pushover (iOS, Android, Website, paid)

FiLMiC Pro (iOS, paid)

The default camera in iOS lacks a lot of features, especially when it comes to control. FiLMiC Pro is not perfect, but it offers some more controls when taking videos on the iPhone. The feature I use the most is manual focus and then going very close to a subject (like flowers or animals).

FiLMiC Pro (iOS, paid)

Halide (iOS, subscription)

Halide is an advanced camera app for taking photos. The reasoning is pretty much the same as for FiLMiC Pro. Unfortunately, they recently switched to a subscription model. Because I purchased the app before that, I can use it without the subscription, but if you want to try it now, you need the subscription.

Halide (iOS, subscription)

iPad

iA Writer (iOS, macOS, Android, Website, paid/subscription)

A few months ago, I switched to iA Writer for all my note taking and writing. It is a Markdown-based editor that fully operates on the file system, so in the end you just have a folder structure of plain text files. That’s the main reason I’m using this. However, it is not optimal for note taking and I might try something else for that.

iA Writer (iOS, macOS, Android, Website, paid/subscription)

Working Copy (iOS, paid)

Working Copy is an excellent Git client for iOS. Currently I use it mostly for committing and pushing my blog posts from my iPad. The pricing model of the app is interesting in that you pay for all the features the app has at the moment of payment, and you’ll keep those features forever. You’ll also get every new feature for 12 months. After that, you’ll still get bug fixes and some new features, but you’ll need to pay again for all new features. I think it is probably the best compromise payment model out there.

Working Copy (iOS, paid)

Scriptable (iOS, free with premium option)

Scriptable is a tool in which you can use JavaScript to interact with the system. It has lots of hooks into system features and it is great for automating workflows. I use it supplemental to Shortcuts.

Scriptable (iOS, free with premium option)

Data Jar (iOS, free with premium option)

Data Jar is basically a iCloud-based key-value store accessible via Shortcuts. If you don’t understand this, you don’t need it. ;)

Data Jar (iOS, free with premium option)

Data Jar is basically a iCloud-based key-value store accessible via Shortcuts. If you don’t understand this, you don’t need it. ;)

iPhone + iPad

Things (iOS, iPad, macOS, Website, paid)

I’ve been using Things as my task and project management app for a while now. I like that it’s native and has a great interface. However, it does lack some advanced features, the iPad app is a separate purchase, and the Mac app is really expensive.

Things (iOS, iPad, macOS, Website, paid)

News Explorer (iOS, macOS, Website, paid)

News Explorer is a great RSS client that I started using a few months ago. I will probably write a separate post about RSS and how I use it sometime in the future.

News Explorer (iOS, macOS, Website, paid)

News Explorer is a great RSS client that I started using a few months ago. I will probably write a separate post about RSS and how I use it sometime in the future.

Anki (iOS, Android, Website, paid on iOS, free on other platforms)

Anki is the flashcard app of my choice for studying Japanese.

Anki (iOS, Android, Website, paid on iOS, free on other platforms)

Anki is the flashcard app of my choice for studying Japanese.

Shirabe Jisho (iOS, free)

A great and simple Japanese dictionary.

Shirabe Jisho (iOS, free)

A great and simple Japanese dictionary.

Apollo (iOS, free with premium option)

The best Reddit client for iOS.

Apollo (iOS, free with premium option)

The best Reddit client for iOS.

YNAB (iOS, Android, Website, subscription)

YNAB stands for “You Need A Budget”. It is the budgeting app that I’ve been using for the past few years and every cent I earn and spend goes through it. It is fairly expensive, but definitely worth it in my opinion. (Possibly a separate post on budgeting in the future!)

YNAB (iOS, Android, Website, subscription)

AdGuard Pro (Website, free with premium option)

The content blocker of my choice. I don’t love it, but it does its job well.

AdGuard Pro (Website, free with premium option)

The content blocker of my choice. I don’t love it, but it does its job well.

1Password (iOS, Android, Website, subscription)

The password manager of my choice. I’m still looking into switching to Bitwarden, but as with so many things, it takes so much work switching password managers, so right now I’m staying with them.

1Password (iOS, Android, Website, subscription)

Looking Into

Craft (iOS, macOS, free with premium subscription)

Craft is a native iOS and macOS Notion alternative. Not sure whether it started as that, but that’s how I discovered it. I have only just begun looking into it, but it looks pretty good!

Craft (iOS, macOS, free with premium subscription)

Craft is a native iOS and macOS Notion alternative. Not sure whether it started as that, but that’s how I discovered it. I have only just begun looking into it, but it looks pretty good!

Nobody asked for this, but I thought it might be interesting to some people. What are your favorite apps? Let me know in the comments below!

Climbing - My Favorite Sport

2020-11-24T13:20:00+01:00

Today, I want to write a short post about my favorite sport: Climbing!

Nobody asked for this, but I thought it might be interesting to some people. What are your favorite apps? Let me know in the comments below!

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Climbing - My Favorite Sport

2020-11-24T13:20:00+01:00

Today, I want to write a short post about my favorite sport: Climbing!

I discovered climbing as an adult. It started with bouldering (climbing fairly low walls without a rope), then transitioned to sport climbing in the gym. In Göttingen, the university sports center has a climbing gym where, as a student, you can get a membership for very cheap. In early 2016, after a friend and I completed the lead climbing course, we went to the climbing gym three to four times a week, sometimes more. We were obsessed about climbing and we quickly progressed. We weren’t able to climb the super hard routes, but we were pretty good.

However, in fall 2016, I went to Japan for a student exchange. I was so hyped about climbing that I actually took my gear (shoes, belt, belaying device, chalk) with me to Japan. Unfortunately, I was so occupied with life there that I only went bouldering a few times.

After I got back, I started climbing again, but not as obsessedly as before. In 2018, we really got into rock climbing (rock as in actual rocks in nature). We are lucky that the city we live in is surrounded by woods with several climbing spots that are even accessible by bicycle. For a while, we went almost every week, sometimes even on weekdays after work.

For some reason, this hype also subsided and in 2019, we only went for a few times. I haven’t really been at the climbing gym much since then, either.

This year, I only went twice in total, I think. Of course it is more difficult now during the pandemic. But I’m hoping that I will not stop completely. I might never get back to climbing multiple times a week, but it is still my favorite sport, and I would like to keep doing it.

How about you? What is your favorite sport or type of exercise? Do you have any experience with climbing?

PS: I’m hoping to write longer posts again starting tomorrow or the day after since I’ll have a bit more time.

Cold Showers

2020-11-23T14:00:00+01:00

Have you ever taken a cold shower by choice? Cold showers are supposed to have several benefits, like improving your immune system and energizing you. They are also an easy and safe way to go outside your comfort zone. Cold showers are one of the things that I know are probably good for me that I want to integrate into my life again.

PS: I’m hoping to write longer posts again starting tomorrow or the day after since I’ll have a bit more time.

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Cold Showers

2020-11-23T14:00:00+01:00

Taking cold showers is a habit like any other. It’s hard to get started, easy once you get used to it, and often hard to pick up again after you’ve failed. I once took only cold showers for about four months, I think. It was great! I started in the summer when it was super warm, so the start wasn’t a big deal, and I always felt great after taking a nice cold shower. However, at some point I got sick and thought that cold showers probably aren’t beneficial for recovering from sickness, so I stopped.¹ At that point, it was already late fall, and with the colder temperatures outside, I wasn’t able to pick it back up.

Unfortunately, I didn’t start this habit again this summer. Now it’s cold again and I’m thinking of conquering this habit, even though I know it’s going to be so much harder. One way to make it slightly easier is to start the shower hot, but turn it all the way down to end your shower. I’ve been doing that a lot recently, but haven’t attempted the “full” cold shower yet.

So to get this going, I’m going to start right now. After I publish this article, I will take a cold shower immediately. I’m sure it’ll feel great, and I’m going to try to remember that feeling the next time I struggle with it (which is probably tomorrow 😂).

How about you? Are you interested in cold showers or do you think it’s stupid?

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I haven’t done the research whether this is actually the case, so if you have any insights, please let me know! ↩
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Weekly Summary and Recommendations

2020-11-22T11:45:00+01:00

The third week of daily blogging is over! To be honest, I’m feeling the pressure of coming up with a new post every day, and I think you are feeling it as well, at least judging from the number of comments on my posts. 😅

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I haven’t done the research whether this is actually the case, so if you have any insights, please let me know! ↩
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Weekly Summary and Recommendations

2020-11-22T11:45:00+01:00

I started the week with a post about my Japanese studies. I’m sure there will be updates about this in the future. On Tuesday, I went back to the past and wrote about my abandoned YouTube channel that I started in 2006. On Wednesday, I talked about my plans for my meditation time app Nodoka. On Thursday, I dove back into the hot topic in the Apple world right now, M1 Macs. I promise there won’t be another post about it this month. 🙈 On Friday, I talked about having too much input and being overwhelmed, and yesterday I wrote about the voice inside your head. I hoped that this last post would stir up some discussions, but maybe y’all are to busy right now. 😅

If you have any ideas for topics I can write about that don’t require a ton of time (remember, I’m writing one of these a day), please let me know! Of course I have more things that I’d like to talk about, but all of those are longer posts that I won’t be able to write during these daily blogs.

Not too many recommendations for this week:

Related to my Too Much Input post, Nathanial Drew posted a video about quitting social media for 30 days.
For those who watched Tenet, you should watch this Tenet inspired video.
I randomly stumbled upon this fascinating FPV drone video of the Matternhorn.
Dumbledore asked calmly
Peter McKinnon made a really cool video.

Not too many recommendations for this week:

Related to my Too Much Input post, Nathanial Drew posted a video about quitting social media for 30 days.
For those who watched Tenet, you should watch this Tenet inspired video.
I randomly stumbled upon this fascinating FPV drone video of the Matternhorn.
Dumbledore asked calmly
Peter McKinnon made a really cool video.

Have a nice Sunday, everyone!

The Voice Inside Your Head

2020-11-21T15:00:00+01:00

Have you ever noticed? There’s a voice inside your head. It is talking constantly and won’t ever shut up. In fact, the more you tell it to shut up, the more it’ll talk. This voice is narrating your experience. Even though the experience itself would be enough, you always get the narration on top of it. And it’ll pick out specific things to comment on. Those things are usually based on your personal preferences or your past experiences. If you see someone doing something you don’t like, you can be sure that the voice will comment on it. It might still talk about it hours or days later.

Have a nice Sunday, everyone!

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The Voice Inside Your Head

2020-11-21T15:00:00+01:00

But that voice is not you. Many people believe it is themselves talking inside their head, but if it was, couldn’t you just turn it off? If you ever tried to turn it off, you will know that it’s almost impossible. The voice is like another person who is always with you. Imagine having someone follow you around wherever you go, talking to you. Even if you put on headphones, the person will still be able to talk to you. But it is separate from you. Realizing that the voice inside your head is not you is an important step in spiritual growth.

The best we can do is to not engage with it. Let it talk as much as it wants, but you’re not forced to listen. If you perform an action as a result of the voice talking, you’re letting the voice win. Make sure that the things you do are actually things you want to do, not things your voice told you to do. If you continue to let go of it and do your own thing, the voice might even get quieter. At times, it might actually stop talking for a while. But remember that the goal is not the end result, but rather the path, the practice. The goal is learning to let go.

This post was heavily inspired by the first chapter of The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer.¹ There are many more things inside of that book that I would like to digest in form of blog posts. For example, you might have asked yourself: “If I’m not the voice inside my head, who am I?” These are the things discussed in that book. Note that I’m only at the beginning of my path. I’m writing this as I learn, not necessarily having fully implemented them in my life. But writing about these things helps me clarify them and understand them more deeply. Also, I’m very interested in what you think about it. Do you think I’m crazy, or does it make sense to you? Let us discuss in the comments below!

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The last time I read the chapter was, I would guess, about a month ago. So this is not a summary of that chapter, but rather what I took from it, the things that managed to stick. ↩
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Too Much Input

2020-11-20T18:30:00+01:00

You probably know this feeling. In our modern technological world, it’s easy to consume more and more. And I don’t mean only purchases, but in this particular case: Information. There is always more articles to read. Always more videos to watch. New movies, TV shows, books, anime. Too many notifications. Too many posts on social media. It’s just too much.

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The last time I read the chapter was, I would guess, about a month ago. So this is not a summary of that chapter, but rather what I took from it, the things that managed to stick. ↩
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Too Much Input

2020-11-20T18:30:00+01:00

I don’t think our brains are made for this amount of input. I feel like I’m already kind of protecting myself from information overload, but it still feels like too much.

Recently, I’m finding myself spending more and more time on Reddit, in particular. I think Reddit is a great platform, I really do. But it’s also kind of like the internet itself: There are good and bad parts, and there is way more information than a person could ever take in. It’s also addicting, especially if you find your niche where your interests are. My problem are not the funny cat videos or the memes, but rather things that I’m really into and that I want to know more about.

Right now, it’s mostly Apple stuff, as you might have guessed. These new M1 Macs are very exciting, and since they just got released, there is more information about them by the minute (well, it calmed down a little bit). But do I really need to see it all? Isn’t it enough that I have my few podcasts which I listen to anyway, and who will do a great job summarizing the main points? I think one part of it is that I kind of want to get into the space myself. That’s why I spent some effort last week writing about Apple Silicon and the event. And the result is definitely that I do know a ton about these things, probably more than anyone should ever know if it isn’t your job to know. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad, but I’m just not clear if it is what I want.

What I’ve been thinking about is to try an information detox. Maybe one week with as little input as possible. Since I’m barely leaving my house anyway, it should be doable. The end goal, however, should be to find a good balance. Find sources that I enjoy and that don’t overwhelm me, and try to keep everything else out.

I also tend to be a digital hoarder. Found something interesting? Immediately save it somewhere to read later. I have lists and lists of things I want to look into. But I never do. Instead of spending my free moments either enjoying the moment itself, or at least dealing with this older stuff that has been waiting for me, I consume more. It’s never going to have an end.

I still had some vacation days left for this year, so today I decided to take off three days next week. This means that I’ll have five days in a row to tackle some bigger thing. I recently started decluttering some possessions, and I think I should spend at least one of those days with that. But I’m also thinking about going through everything that I hoarded digitally and force myself to make a decision: Is this something that is worth keeping, that I’m going to look at? What’s my strategy so that I actually do it?

What do you think? Do you have this problem? I know this is something that I’m doing to myself. I could just as well let everything go because it doesn’t really matter anyway. But there’s always this fear of missing out. There was a reason I saved this link once. Anyway, you know what I mean.

M1 Macs Review Roundup

2020-11-19T16:45:00+01:00

Last week, I wrote about Apple Silicon and what I think it means for Macs and computing in general, and about the M1 Macs that were announced at the Apple Event. These Macs have been out since Tuesday now and I’ve been closely following the reviews and impressions that people have.

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M1 Macs Review Roundup

2020-11-19T16:45:00+01:00

From what it sounds like, these devices are absolute beasts. They have proven themselves in both benchmark numbers as well as performing real-world tasks. In short: With the new M1 system on a chip, we are getting vastly improved performance as well as improved battery life, and all of that in the lowest end Macs on the market. This is unheard of. Apple is basically saying: These low end devices embarrass all of our other computers. But don’t worry, we’re going to update those as well and they are going to be even faster.

The only concern about these new devices is compatibility. It’s pretty much a non-issue for most normal applications because the M1 chip still outperforms every other Mac (not only laptops, also all desktops) in single core performance even under Rosetta 2.¹ From what I have gathered, most applications that have not been updated yet still work very well on these devices. However, some applications don’t work at all, or perform poorly. So if you depend on a certain application, you should look up whether it has been updated for Apple Silicon, and if not, wait for a few months or so before upgrading to one of these new Macs. Also, it is currently not possible to run Windows on these devices. In the future, it might be possible to run Windows for ARM in bootcamp, but currently it isn’t. There are other ways to run Windows applications on a Mac², but right now, if you need Windows on your Mac, don’t buy these devices.

Two further negative points that came up in a lot of these reviews (but which aren’t related to the M1 chip):

While the M1 can enhance the image quality of the MacBook’s webcam, it is still the same crappy 720p webcam as before, and it is long overdue that they put a better camera in there.
Maybe you heard that you can now run iPhone and iPad apps natively on these new Macs. However, since those applications are designed for touch interfaces, using them on a Mac without a touch screen is supposedly weird and doesn’t work too well, depending on the app.

Two further negative points that came up in a lot of these reviews (but which aren’t related to the M1 chip):

While the M1 can enhance the image quality of the MacBook’s webcam, it is still the same crappy 720p webcam as before, and it is long overdue that they put a better camera in there.
Maybe you heard that you can now run iPhone and iPad apps natively on these new Macs. However, since those applications are designed for touch interfaces, using them on a Mac without a touch screen is supposedly weird and doesn’t work too well, depending on the app.

Here are some reviews that I can recommend looking into, if you are interested:

John Gruber’s review on Daring Fireball - Not short, but I like that instead of focusing on the numbers, he talks about the non measurable aspects of the products. It is also fairly in-depth at certain points.
MKBHD’s video review - Mostly tailored for normal consumers, not tech nerds
Dave2D’s video review - This guy always manages to get straight to the point, so it’s pretty short.
The Verge’s video review
MacWorld’s MacBook Air M1 review: An absolutely stunning debut for Apple silicon in a Mac
Matthew Panzarino’s review on TechCrunch - I hate their consent/tracking stuff with all that page redirection, but it seems to be a good review.
AnandTech putting the Mac mini to the test
ATP Episode 405: The Benevolence of the Powerful - I think they describe very well how powerful these Macs are (there’s a chapter marker for when they talk about the M1 Macs).

Here are some reviews that I can recommend looking into, if you are interested:

John Gruber’s review on Daring Fireball - Not short, but I like that instead of focusing on the numbers, he talks about the non measurable aspects of the products. It is also fairly in-depth at certain points.
MKBHD’s video review - Mostly tailored for normal consumers, not tech nerds
Dave2D’s video review - This guy always manages to get straight to the point, so it’s pretty short.
The Verge’s video review
MacWorld’s MacBook Air M1 review: An absolutely stunning debut for Apple silicon in a Mac
Matthew Panzarino’s review on TechCrunch - I hate their consent/tracking stuff with all that page redirection, but it seems to be a good review.
AnandTech putting the Mac mini to the test
ATP Episode 405: The Benevolence of the Powerful - I think they describe very well how powerful these Macs are (there’s a chapter marker for when they talk about the M1 Macs).

I will probably be able to try out the M1 MacBook Air myself next week, but I don’t think it warrants a separate post.³

I’m certainly very exited about these new devices and about the future of Macs in general. This is just the very beginning of Apple’s transition to Apple Silicon, and they seem to be going from least powerful to most powerful, so it’ll be exciting to see what they have to show us.

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As a reminder, Rosetta 2 is the translation layer that allows older x86 applications to run on newer Apple Silicon Macs. It’s kind of like emulation, but it’s doing some of the work upfront to mitigate performance losses. ↩
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e.g. https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/jwhite/2020/11/10/its-great-to-live-in-interesting-times ↩
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I might still do one because I’m having trouble coming up with topic ideas. ↩
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Ideas for a Nodoka Update

2020-11-18T16:30:00+01:00

If you didn’t know, I have an app on the iOS App Store called “Nodoka Meditation Timer” (App Store, more info). I made it at the end of 2017 because I wanted to learn how to make iPhone apps. However, as you might see in the update log, I haven’t updated the app in a long time. With the start of my job, making apps fell completely under the rug and I haven’t really touched it since.

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But I’m not going to give up! I still use my own app, and I have some ideas on how to make it better. Mostly, these are just ideas that I want to have in the app myself. Since I haven’t touched the app in over two years, and there is a new technology called SwiftUI for making user interfaces with Swift, I’m planning on rebuilding my app using SwiftUI.

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The first part will be to recreate my existing app mostly like it is now, but with SwiftUI and a cleaner code structure. The next step would be to start implementing new features. Here are some ideas I have had that I would like to have in Nodoka:

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iCloud sync of the history
Statistics and charts
Longer meditation times (the max is current 45 minutes)
Random interval sound¹
Custom sounds for start, end, and interval sound
Adding audio files for custom guided meditations²
Meditation in the background (currently, the app has to be in the foreground and running for it to work)
Better integration with iOS features (Shortcuts support, Siri support, Widgets, etc.)
Apple Watch app
Mac app³
Reminder notifications
App icon selection

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That is A LOT. I think that having all of this in the app, it could be the best meditation timer on the App Store. I also want to implement these features without cluttering the user interface. I haven’t really thought about how to implement some of the more complex features when it comes to the UI, but it should be possible that the main interface (basically the start screen where you start your meditation) stays as simple as it is now.

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What do you think? If you have an iPhone, feel free to try out the app and let me know what you would improve!

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The idea is that sometimes you just get lost in thoughts for very long periods of time, and having a subtle sound at random intervals could help remind you that you are currently meditating. ↩
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I could imagine getting some guided meditations from YouTube and loading them into the app. Of course, I wouldn’t build a YouTube downloader into the app, but getting an audio file from a YouTube video is easy. ↩
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Not sure if a Mac app makes sense, but it should be fairly trivial if the app is made with SwiftUI. ↩
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My Abandoned YouTube Channel

2020-11-17T15:50:00+01:00

I started my first YouTube channel in 2006 when I was 15 years old. This short post will be about that channel.

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Back in 2005, I started a “career” in Mario Kart for Nintendo DS (short: MKDS). It was one of the first Nintendo games you could play in online multiplayer. In the beginning, I just played for myself with no real intention, but then I discovered that there were online “clans” and people from different clans would fight “clan wars” against each other. I discovered this in a German Nintendo magazine where one of those clans was introduced. I joined them and they told me that I wasn’t bad and they could help me improve. Long story short: I got really into MKDS and eventually became one of the top German players, started going to in-person tournaments (some of which I have won), and the whole thing became a big part of my life.¹

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What I actually wanted to say is that for all of that, I needed an online nickname. What I chose was “exoskelett” (from a Magic the Gathering card called “Exoskelett-Rüstung”/”Exoskeletal Armor”), later shorted to “Exo”. That was the name of my first YouTube channel, and it’s still the name I use in the gaming community.²

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My first video was called “exos first mkds movie” (apparently, 15-year-old me didn’t know about apostrophes and capital letters) which was a very bad recording of one of my time trial runs. Over the years, I uploaded many, many Mario Kart videos (only MKDS in the beginning, later also Mario Kart Wii), some other gaming videos, and some real-life videos (either with friends from school or with people from the LAN events I went to). All of that is still online, a whopping 163 videos in total.

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Some of the videos have very large view counts, 174K views being the highest one, totaling 621,280 views combined for all videos. However, that channel never really went anywhere. It has 177 subscribers, most of which were probably people from the MKDS scene. I also freely used copyrighted music in my videos, so even if I wanted, I could never have monetized that channel. You have to consider that it was 1) early in YouTube history, and 2) I was between 15 and 17 years old when I uploaded videos to that channel. I don’t think I even thought about ever making money off those videos.

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Still, I am kind of proud of having that channel. While you could say that playing Mario Kart all day every day is a big waste of time, it is still something that made me who I am today. I also met some of my closest friends only because I became part of the Nintendo gaming scene. I was also, as far as I can tell, the first person on YouTube that started to use a complicated setup to record higher quality video recordings of MKDS time trial runs (like this one).³ Not sure if anyone ever realized or cared though.

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Do you have any interesting stories about your past or 15 year old content somewhere on the internet? I guess nowadays it’s a bit different, especially with video, because everyone has a smartphone and uploads everything to some social media platform. Back then, it wasn’t nearly as accessible, and just not a thing people normally did.

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At the time of writing, I am still on rank 57 on the Mario Kart DS leaderboards for NonPRB records. (Don’t ask about PRB vs. NonPRB, that can be a whole separate post.) ↩
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To this day, I go to the in-person LAN events even though I don’t really play games anymore. Unfortunately (but obviously), this year they all got canceled and next year is still unclear. ↩
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I used a real DS for playing, then transferred the save game to my computer, where I put the save game into an emulator, added a certain cheat code that added first-person replays of time trial records, then used a screen recording software to record the top and bottom screen of the DS emulator. In the video, I put those screens next to each other instead of on top of each other to make it more suitable to watching on a wide computer screen. ↩
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Ideas for a Nodoka Update

2020-11-18T16:30:00+01:00

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iCloud sync of the history
Statistics and charts
Longer meditation times (the max is current 45 minutes)
Random interval sound¹
Custom sounds for start, end, and interval sound
Adding audio files for custom guided meditations²
Meditation in the background (currently, the app has to be in the foreground and running for it to work)
Better integration with iOS features (Shortcuts support, Siri support, Widgets, etc.)
Apple Watch app
Mac app³
Reminder notifications
App icon selection

+ +

What do you think? If you have an iPhone, feel free to try out the app and let me know what you would improve!

+ +

+
The idea is that sometimes you just get lost in thoughts for very long periods of time, and having a subtle sound at random intervals could help remind you that you are currently meditating. ↩
+
+
I could imagine getting some guided meditations from YouTube and loading them into the app. Of course, I wouldn’t build a YouTube downloader into the app, but getting an audio file from a YouTube video is easy. ↩
+
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Not sure if a Mac app makes sense, but it should be fairly trivial if the app is made with SwiftUI. ↩
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My Abandoned YouTube Channel

2020-11-17T15:50:00+01:00

I started my first YouTube channel in 2006 when I was 15 years old. This short post will be about that channel.

+ +

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At the time of writing, I am still on rank 57 on the Mario Kart DS leaderboards for NonPRB records. (Don’t ask about PRB vs. NonPRB, that can be a whole separate post.) ↩
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To this day, I go to the in-person LAN events even though I don’t really play games anymore. Unfortunately (but obviously), this year they all got canceled and next year is still unclear. ↩
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I used a real DS for playing, then transferred the save game to my computer, where I put the save game into an emulator, added a certain cheat code that added first-person replays of time trial records, then used a screen recording software to record the top and bottom screen of the DS emulator. In the video, I put those screens next to each other instead of on top of each other to make it more suitable to watching on a wide computer screen. ↩
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