Tag Archives: Music

#weeklyreview 02/2025

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First full work week of the new year. Of course I started with proper gym sessions. The gym but had some surprises in store. The hot water wasn’t going on Monday so I could combine gym and ice bathing 😁

Had some good rowing sessions this week and also did some high-intensity interval sessions on the rowing machine.

Close-up of a Concept 2 PM5 rowing machine monitor displaying a workout duration of 30:07, a split time of 2:22 per 500 meters, total distance of 6608 meters, and a stroke rate of 24 strokes per minute.
Close-up of a Bluefin Fitness exercise machine display, showing workout metrics: exercise time of 30 minutes, distance of 12.69 km, calories burned at 632.1 kcal, average speed of 25.4 km/h, and average wattage of 102 watts.
Close-up of a Concept2 PM5 rowing machine monitor displaying workout details, including interval 11, total of 1665 meters rowed, and other metrics. Buttons for units, display, and menu are visible on the monitor's frame.

Meta -> MAGA

Zuckerberg caved in proactively and declared Meta is no longer doing content moderation for their services (Instagram, Facebook, Threads, WhatsApp etc.). So the shitshow that is their social media platforms will turn even worse. That’s surely gonna work out. It worked great for Twitter under first lady Musk turning it into a right-wing cesspool.

I saw first Mastodon instance admins already announcing that they’ve now finally blogged the threads.net domain from federation with the Fediverse. Threads was meant to properly federate with Mastodon and the likes via ActivityPub. But looks like that’s not going to expand much further with their current trajectory.

I’m not yet blocking Threads on my instance but rather leave it up to the individual users to set up a block for their own account.

Cold Brew

When it’s cold outside (It was snowing in Berlin this week) one can use the balcony to make cold brew coffee 😉

It wasn’t too cold though. No risk of the water freezing and cracking the jar.

A glass jar filled with amber liquid sits on a slatted wooden table on a balcony, with an out-of-focus cityscape and a blurred plant pot in the background.

fiddling with CSV files

I recently found a great tool for playing around with CSV files. Often I have to export some data from a tool to CSV format to process it further. Sometimes I just want to answer a relatively simple question. Like how many lines match a certain value in column C?

Probe is helping with that exact problem by providing an SQL like interface for CSV files (and even Parquet files). Simple binary that use open the CSV file with and start writing your queries.

↬mastodon.xyz/@johl/113775818903147100

Monitoring NextCloud All-In-On Containers

I’m running my NextCloud instance with the AOI Mastercontainer setup. To monitor such an instance, you can call a special monitoring URL that is displayed for the administrator under System Info.

However, you need to authenticate your request to the monitoring URL. For this you’re supposed to generate an access token. I was searching in the user interface for that option and couldn’t find it. Turns out that the access token is just a random string that you then have to configure as access token via the occ command line tool.

Now how to get to that occ tool on the AIO installation?

First you generate that random string using openssl:

openssl rand -hex 32

The result should be a 32 character string of hexadecimal numbers.

On the machine where your AIO containers run, you then call the main next cloud container like this:

docker exec --user www-data -it nextcloud-aio-nextcloud php occ config:app:set serverinfo token --value <your random hext string goes here>

That should set the Token for the server info URL and you can now call your monitoring endpoint with curl if you like to verify it:

curl -H "NC-Token: <your random hext string goes here>" https://nextcloud.example.com/ocs/v2.php/apps/serverinfo/api/v1/info

It should give you an XML document (unless configured to produce JSON output) with a whole bunch of NextCloud status information.

Winter finally

it had snowed already several times this week. But at least at the beginning of the week the snow didn’t last long as it was too warm still.

Tuesday evening on our way to the „Hacker Stammtisch“ there was proper rain/snow mix. Fortunately I got my rain coat „Friesen-Nerz“ and rain trousers and arrived dry. Moellus wasn’t dressed for the weather but still used the bike. R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

On Thursday the snow snow started to stay and it looked like Berlin was wildly unprepared. There roads were not cleared of the snow from what I could tell.

It did start to look rather nice on the weekend in the countryside. 3 weeks too late for a white Christmas though.

A snowy urban street scene at dusk with cars driving along a wet, slushy road. Buildings line the street, illuminated by streetlights. A person walks along the snow-dusted sidewalk under a dim sky.
A yellow articulated bus is driving through a snowy intersection at dusk. The street and surrounding area are covered in snow, with faint lighting from streetlights and buildings, creating a wintery urban scene.
A snowy scene featuring a red house in a rural setting, surrounded by trees. Snowfall covers the roof and ground, with a path leading to a nearby shed. The background includes a dense forest, adding to the wintery atmosphere.
Snow-covered hedges and rooftops under a pink and purple sunset sky, with a large evergreen tree in the center and a warm light from a window on the left.
A snowman with stick arms and a smiling face made of stones and a carrot stands next to a small snow sculpture resembling a bear in a snowy setting.

Herbstgold

On Saturday there was a documentary film evening organized in our village. Two films were on display. A short animation film by Adrienne Zeitler called “Die Frau und Landschaft” and a documentary by Jan Tenhaven called “Herbstgold“.

The latter was about really old people still competing in Sports. Very lovely movie with unique characters and touching stories. Really funny at times.

An elderly man is in mid-action, holding a discus in his hand. He wears a white sports t-shirt with an insignia and a race number "M100 1" attached to it. The background shows a netted sports field, suggesting a competitive event.
An athlete is lying on a yellow mat, appearing to have just completed a pole vault. The athlete is wearing a blue and white uniform and spiked running shoes. The pole is resting beside them. This scene is displayed on a screen in a dimly lit room.
An elderly person wearing a light blue shirt and a blue headband stands on a grass field with a running track and trees in the background, looking into the distance.

Studio Ghibli Mucke

and last, not least some tunes from Joe Hisaishi that K2 was practising

#weeklyreview 52/2024

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Spotify is evil

I watched most parts of the documentary “The Playlist” about Spotify on Netflix. And the founder Daniel Ek doesn’t come across as someone I’d want as a friend. Their customer support sucks and now I read this article about how they betray real artists with their own fake artists.

As a user I still like the simplicity a single app for all my listening desires brings. I also like the idea of paying per use. Means I don’t have buy an album upfront but rather pay for the times I’m listening to tracks. I don’t know the economics of this model and whether it could ever work out as artists hope it would.

But it looks like something needs to change to make this whole setup enjoyable again.

Smarter, not harder

Renewable energy sources are the future and many countries pushing to reach their goals in building out these sources. But the planning approaches are not yet adopted to actual use. A new study shows that a more fine grained planning approach can improve the actual use of the generated energy and thus avoid the need for costly storage solutions.

Christmas – too much food

Oh there was too much food involved on Christmas. We had a duck and cooked it on low temperature (80° C) for several hours. Red cabbage was prepared a day ahead. Roast potatoes as a side and fruit salad, Tiramisu and Mohnpielen as dessert. The duck came out good this year. Crispy on the outside, tender inside.

A roasted duck in a black pan is on a table with a red and white checkered tablecloth. Surrounding it are a dish of golden roasted potatoes, a bowl of red cabbage, and empty place settings with glasses and plates.
A close-up of a crystal glass with geometric patterns, containing ice cubes and amber liquid, placed on a red and white checkered tablecloth.
A plate of food featuring roast beef topped with gravy, two boiled potatoes, steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and red cabbage. There is a bottle of non-alcoholic drink in the background and a fork and spoon set on a table with a decorative napkin.
A close-up of a bottle opener with a green handle resting on top of a bottle labeled "0.0% Alkohol." The background features a table setting with a water bottle, cork coasters, and a colorful cloth.
A bottle of Botucal rum and a glass of whiskey with ice are placed on a red and white checkered tablecloth. The background features a bookshelf, framed artwork on the wall, and festive decorations, suggesting a cozy indoor setting.

Shrinking

Was binge watching “Shriking” on AppleTV+ over the holidays. Really lovely show. I like the characters and the acting. One thing that stroke me as a bit too much is, that almost all of the characters where a bit too quick-witted. I mean I love snappy comments and catchy dialogues. But I think this show has taken it a bit too far. Nobody I’ve met so far is that quick and fluent. Especially not in that density of characters. You might have one or two friends which are quick-witted. But all your friends & family? C’mon.

Still a nice show though. And the final episode… I think I’ve got something in my eye watching that. Bill Lawrence certainly is a wizard of his trade.

Bike Ride

After all that food I had to do at least some exercise. As I also got a brand new bike helmet from Santa, I took my crappy bike for spin in the countryside. 30 km in 90 min across gravel and roads. My favorite songs on the headphones. Can hardly get any better than this.

A black-and-white image showing the view from a cyclist's perspective, focusing on the handlebars and road ahead. The cyclist's hands grip the handlebars, and the blurry motion suggests movement on a smooth, empty path.
A long, wet road stretches into the distance, flanked by barren trees and grassy fields under an overcast sky.
A black and white image of a car driving on a wet, winding road flanked by leafless trees, under an overcast sky. The road's reflective surface highlights the vehicle's taillights in motion.

Open Stage

On Saturday we attended the last open stage event in the MKC Templin. As always it was good music and interesting artists. This time it ranged from solo singers from Norway, renaissance tunes, handpan + flute, Rock’n’Roll to German Rap and songwriter music. Always amazed of the bandwidth they manage to bring on stage.

This time I particularly like that there was a “FCK AFD” sticker prominently placed on the Laptop on the stage. The AFD threatened the MKC in Templin with defunding because they were not allowed to rent the venue for their party shit.

A dimly lit stage with blue curtains, equipped with musical instruments like microphones, a keyboard, drums, and guitars. The stage is framed by red curtains, and the audience is seated in the foreground. A small paper sign on the stage front notes a date: 08.02.25.
A person is playing a handpan drum mounted on a stand during a performance. Sheet music is on a stand nearby, and a toy lion is visible in the foreground. The background features a blue curtain and stage equipment.
A stage with two people during a live performance. One person is seated, playing a keyboard, while the other stands singing into a microphone. The stage is lit with purple and blue lights, and musical instruments like guitars and a drum set are visible. A large, colorful plush toy and a lantern are placed on the stage. A small audience is seated in front, and there's a sign on the stage with a date.
A laptop covered in various stickers is resting on a keyboard stand in front of red curtains. The stickers include logos, text, and graphics. Cables are visible around the keyboard.

#weeklyreview 46/2024

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it’s getting cold outside

Swimming on Sunday was again a little colder than the weekend before. The whole week had rather low temperatures even during the day. So this Sunday the lake water had around 8º C while the air was around 0º C.

Still managed to cross the lake without dying 😉

Procrastination finished

I finally finished my blog post about setting up SSH access with FIDO keys. That was in the drafts folder for a couple of months now. I’m using my two Token2 hardware tokens wherever possible now. Also for SSH connections. Tiny bit annoying to enter the PIN all the time, but better getting used to this additional layer of security.

Cleaning the cemetery in the village

On Saturday the people of the village joined forces to clean the cemetery of the fallen leaves and other stuff. We were also again cutting down some trees that have grown too much. Always a fun event working with these people. It’s a lovey mixture of old residents who spent almost their entire live in this tiny village and then “immigrants” of various age and place that either moved their or have a weekend home in the village. Everyone gets along really well and helps the community. Of course it’s celebrated with some beverages (mostly beer ) in the end.

The kids had fun jumping and diving into the large piles of leaves. The adults had fun using their machinery to cut and shred the trees :D.

A rural scene featuring a grassy yard bordered by a low chain-link fence. Piles of fallen autumn leaves are in the foreground. Several large trees, mostly bare, are scattered across the yard. In the background, there are traditional wooden buildings with tiled roofs, and a small bench is visible. The sky appears overcast, suggesting a chilly autumn day.
A large pile of fallen leaves is gathered along a dirt path, bordered by a wire fence. In the background, there is a house partially visible through bare trees and patches of green foliage.
A wheelbarrow containing a blue snow shovel and a green rake is placed on grassy ground. In the background, a wooden fox sculpture sits atop a stack of wooden stones. The setting includes a grassy area with trees and a chain-link fence.
A grassy, tree-lined area with a small wooden structure that has a slanted roof on the right. There are a few gravestones in the background, indicating a cemetery setting. The sky is overcast, and the trees have sparse foliage, suggesting late autumn or early winter.
Pile of cut branches and logs on the side of a residential street, near a white house with a red roof, surrounded by a chain-link fence and other houses in the background.
Two children are standing in the back of an open trailer attached to a parked car. They are wearing winter clothing, including hats and boots. The surroundings include a residential area with two houses and overcast skies. Leaves are scattered on the trailer floor.

In the afternoon some friends and I did an additional brief swimming session in the lake. The water hasn’t cooled much since last week. Was good enough for a short dip.

Calm lake with clear, shallow water in the foreground, surrounded by tall reeds on both sides. The distant shoreline features a forest of leafless trees under a cloudy sky.

PopChor is rocking on heavens door

Saturday evening we were attending a concert of the PopChor Templin. That was really nice. If it hadn’t started an hour later than originally scheduled, we would probably have stayed even longer for the two bands after the PopChor. Some impressions from their previous concerts this year can be found on YouTube.

#weeklyreview 45/24

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Frost

Finally Winter seems to be closing in. On Sunday the temperature fell below the freezing point (of water) and we had -4º C in the countryside. But we were rewarded with beautiful sunshine and colourful autumn foliage.

Temperature in the lake also dropped a bit over last weekend. I tried out my new digital surface thermometer. That showed 11.4º C. Another thermometer that measured at a depth of about 10cm into the water showed 9º C.

Crossed the lake nevertheless. Still now issue with that.

Back in Berlin I met with my friend Sam for beers. Hadn’t had beers for several weeks … so it was about time. Fun conversations 😉

Winter tires

This year I made the appointment to change the winter tires back in September already. Before the first snow 😀 Free choice of schedule … But they actually advised to not have the tires changed if it’s still above 7º C average. Thats why I only now got the appointment.

Driving through the city is insane. It was always crazy, but it seems in the last quarter the city has added construction sites to EVERY road. In our area one of the main 6 lanes roads is now reduced to two lanes and also all the side roads are blocked. Apparently this will take at least 2 years to finish. But of course you never see anyone actually working…

proper coffee

On Tuesday I decided to take my coffee gear to the office to enjoy a proper coffee without spending 4 EUR on it outside.

A bunch of coffee gear lined up on a wooden tabletop. Left to right: metal jug with coffee, a cup of ready cappuccino, a Subminimal milk frother, AeroPress chamber and grid lid, AeroPress piston and Coretto permanent steel filter for the AeroPress, Hario Travel Grinder and finally Hario Mill stick.

This nicely fits into an old camera bag

I might do this more often now (or eventually get a copy of the gear for the office…)

Shortly before I was supposed to get my yearly flu vaccination by the company doctor a fire alarm had us exit the building. Quite a spectacle with police, emergency cars, fire engines and even a helicopter. But fortunately it turned out to be a false alarm and we were allowed back in after about 15 min.

a helicopter, slightly blurry, in front of a blueish sky.

Hacker meeting

This time at the Prater Garten Restaurant. Decent “Wiener Schnitzel” and again an inspiring bunch of old nerds having fun.

↬wandzeitung.xyz/@moellus/113431974931326324

CryptPad Installation

I finally took the time to look into installing CryptPad. That’s a secure online editor for documents where multiple people can work on the same document, chat and comment while collaborating. Focus is on security here as all connections and storage of the documents is encrypted.

They meanwhile provide a working docker-compose.yaml and I only had to add the labels for my Traefik reverse proxy.

There some initial challenges in getting the container properly connected to Traefik. One has to get the config.js of CryptPad right.

I’ll share my docker-compose.yaml and my config.js here, so you can take these as inspiration. I basically only put in my domain names in the config.js and docker-compose.yaml. One important piece is to set the httpAddress: 'cryptpad' in the config.js because the docker-compose.yml sets this as the hostname of the container. If you leave this at localhost, Traefik will not be able to connect and you’ll just get a “Bad gateway” error when trying to connect.

Next quest is to the get OnlyOffice stuff running to support Spreadsheets and Presentation documents as well…

[Update 2024-11-11] got the OnlyOffice extension working. Had to execute the ‘install-onlyoffice.sh’ from the GitRepo inside the running application container and restart once.

Art Forest hiking

On Saturday we had organised a hike from our neighbour village through the art forest to the “Mittelpunkt der Erde” (middle of the earth) restaurant in Kurtschlag. That was a nice hike with funny and insightful information shared by one of our neighbours.

The restaurant was really lovely as you would imagine an old small village restaurant that fell out of time. There were 3 dishes on the menu and the max price was 7.95 EUR. You could have eaten all 3 and were still cheaper than a normal meal in Berlin. Amazing.

Fall of Carthage

Sascha and his band “Fall of Carthage” release their new album “Kernel Panic” a few days ago. Of course I had to listen in although I never really like their earlier albums. Not because they were not good. Quite to the contrary. But the previous albums were just not my taste at that time.

The new album however I really do like. The style is still more on the heavy metal side. But I like the arrangements on the new album.

If you like their music and want to support the band, make sure you either buy on Bandcamp or if you’re streaming, then consider donating directly to the band via PayPal. As a small band, there is virtually no revenue for the band from the commercial streaming services.

#weeklyreview 34/24

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Was working from the countryside this week. Kiddo had a friend from school over for camping on our grounds for 3 days. That was fun. The weather was good and they went swimming several times a day.

On Wednesday we attended the opening concert of the “be:fes classic music festival”

This festival takes place since more than 20 years on the grounds of the former soviet military airport in the Uckermark.

You can listen to the whole concert on the DLF Kultur Podcast

Friday we picked up the middle kid from his hiking trip to Norway in Hamburg. Took the chance to have a stroll around the Elbphilarmonie. It’s was a beautiful day with strong winds.

Finally finished the wood stacking of the last piles from this spring. That should last for some years now…

The tomatoe game is strong again this year

#weeklyreview 29/24

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est charity concert

On Sunday we attended the yearly charity concert for the est in Templin. Again the “lautten compagney” played together with the “Singakademie zu Berlin” and the Ukrainian choir “Kammerton”. This time the topic was the music collection of Sara Levy.

What I liked the most again was the narration that was given between the music to set context and provide historic information about the music, the author but also the school the concert took place in.

After the concert we attended a little guided tour across the property and learned about the progress of the renovations and the plans for the school.

last day of school

Kids got their report cards this week as it was the last day of school for the 23/24 school year. Both kids did good at their schools and we couldn’t be happier as parents given the particular circumstances. Schooling has really become challenging these days for various reasons. The decline of german school institution and system is certainly one big factor to it. We’re looking forward to when all kids are finally done with that system and can take more control themselves at their further education…

golden wedding aniversary

On Saturday we celebrated the 50th wedding aniversary of my parents. The weather was just perfect and they had booked a really nice venue at a lake in the countryside for the event. Was fun to see so many of the old relatives and friends. It was also fun to sift through old scanned films and photos to create the mandatory review slide show.

#weeklyreview 14/24

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more wood work

This week of course had more firewood working. We spent another day in the forest to cut & haul out some more firewood. Got 2 and about one third new stacks now. But still need to split the remaining logs for stacking. That will likely make another 2 stacks … that should last us a couple of years.

Easter weekend

We’ve been out for a delicious brunch on easter Sunday at the famous Hotel Döllnsee. The buffet was rich and delicious as always. They even had Eierlikör on tab!!!

a boat house in a lake, seen from the lake side. One can see that the water level must have been about 1,5m higher when the house was built.
a plate with some braised pork belly and noodles with gravy.
a large pan with sliced meat and vegetables.
interior view of a wooden boat house on a lake. One can see stairs going to to the water

On easter monday we’ve been over at my parents house for coffee. The traditional egg hunt took place in the garden. I hope we’ve found all the rather well hidden eggs.

Cooking lamb and sauce hollandaise

It’s asparagus season again. And as a good German we had to indulge ourselves with a delicious meal of cooked asparagus, lamb steak and self-made sauce hollandaise. Especially the latter is rather easy to make yourself freshly from just a handful of ingredients.

two pieces of lamb steak on a plate. Behind the steak some asparagus covered with a pale yellow sauce hollandaise can be seen.

2 days working

Originally had planned to take the whole week off work. But then decided to cancel two of the vacation days and get some work done. The “joy” of Powerpoint …

Was rather quite as many colleagues were also off for easter holidays or sick. Seems almost like the new flu or cold also spreads over online meetings. Large numbers of sick leaves across the globe with a cold…

Flyer delivery

My wife was helping to organise another “Dorfgespräch” of “DIE GRÜNEN” Uckermark. That’s a series of open topic conversations with the locals. We had attended one sessions already a few month ago and found it rather good. I like that they take the time and courage to listen to the people and take their feedback. This party faces a huge amount of hate among people in the rural areas for no good reason. They are blamed for every bad decision the previous governments made and also solely for all decisions and impact the current government makes.

Windows on the Mac

Installed a Windows 11 VM with UTM on my MacBook. Was surprised that there is an ARM64 version of Windows and that it’s really snappy. It’s still annoying Windows though…

Also tried to emulate a x86 Windows machine. That was significantly slower and not really fit for practical use I’d say. Despite my powerful M2 Max CPU with 64GB of Memory. Will give an older windows version a try next to see if those perform better. All this in support of friends who consider moving the Apple platform again, but still have some legacy Windows software without alternatives. So they need a way to run those old programs somehow.

R.I.P. Mr. Tit

K3 found a dead tit in our garden and gave it proper funeral

Motor scooter drive

Hario Mill Stick mod

Got myself a Hario mobile mill stick. Thats a battery powered motor driver for their hand coffee grinders. It also comes with adapters for some other brands of hand mills. I’ve got two HARIO hand mills. The older model HARIO MSCS-2TB (Skeleton) which is formally not compatible with this mobile mill stick and a smaller HARIOD MSS-1DTB. The latter is compatible.

The mobile mill stick looks a bit like a power tool with a bit adapter on one end. The Skerton got an M6 screw shaft which is flattened on two sides to hold the crank. To make it usable with the mobile mill stick I macgyvered it with some M6 screw extension and an M6 screw from the DIY shop. The screw extension sits on top of the Skerton rod and allows for the M6 screw to go in on the open end. Now the Skerton got a normal screw on the axel that can be driven with a normal power tool and bit of your choice. My Makita Powertools spins a bit too fast for my taste (heats up the beans during grinding too much). Thats why the HARIO mobile stick is the better choice.

For the HARIOD MSS-1DTB the mobile mill stick comes with an adapter to properly hold it in place.

AirTag battery swap

I’ve got an Apple AirTag on my keys and it eventually ran out of battery. I really thought those AirTags were single use and one has to buy a new one after about 1,5 years. Give Apples talent for reaching into your purse that did make total sense to me. But then my brother told me that you can just screw open the AirTags and swap the battery. I was slightly baffled. Fortunately I had the correct type of button cell at home at swapped the battery in a matter of seconds. That was but also some sort of Apple experience that it’s finally that easy to swap.

Open Stage Templin

On Saturday there was last session of the open stage at the Multikulturelles Centrum Templin. As always it was a fun evening with a good variety of music from folks to rock and even some poetry this time.

#weeklyreview 09/24

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3D Printer calibration

I was generally happy with my 3D printing setup of Klipper and the Creality Ender 3 V2. Especially the KAMPS plugin seems to make for a much better 1st layer.

But lately it problems with the 1st layer sticking to the bed and the bed mesh picture showed that my bed seems to be severely tilted and needs calibration.

One disadvantage of my Klipper setup is, that the printers Display doesn’t work anymore and I can’t trigger a manual bed levelling at the printer itself. But I found the slightly hidden settings in Klippers Web Interface to trigger the leveling.

It’s called “Bed Screw Adjust” and hidden behind the 3 dots menu of the toolhead widget.

After that adjustment I saw that my bed seems still below what the software considered as Z-Axes 0. So I also calibrated the Z-Probe again.

Finally that made a difference and the 1st layers are perfect again.

The next thing I was curious about was the extrusion. My prints were generally good I’d say. But I was wondering whether the extrusion factor was correct. Klipper calculates the extrusion itself using a pressure advance factor. That factor must be determined per filament type.

So I followed their calibration instructions and printed the square calibration box. This time I actually saw the difference in the changing pressure advance values of the individual layers.

You can clearly see that the corners below the red arrow bulge to the outside and the layers above shrink to the inside.

And finally we found the time to meeting @rudelbildung and @saumselig at home and also help him get his 3D-Printer set up. Turns out 3D printing is still a rather geeky sport as it has way too many things in between the model you wanna print and the actual printer. In this particular case a wrong (power only) USB cable and a changed USB device path on the RaspberryPi was a hinderance. But after fixing this, we’ve got the printer working easily.

OmniFocus 4 Update

OmniGroup released a new major version of OmniFocus this week. The upgrade was a little more involved than I originally thought. Had to write down my little sync encryption odyssey.

Open Stage

On Saturday evening there was another session of the Open stage in the MKC Templin. Artists can apply to perform and the entrance is free for spectators. This was my second visit to this event series and it was really good again. I’m still amazed to see amazing talents from the local area and also the crowd really appreciative of the event. Wouldn’t have thought this possible in my slightly dusty and provincial home town.

As often in the last years, there is always some last minute drop-outs due to sickness or other events. That is the chance for people in the audience to take the stage. To my honest surprise there were multiple people volunteering to perform and two acts were chosen by the organisers.

Jackson from Templin played guitar and performed a song about Templin that he wrote himself. It was really cool.

#weeklyreview 04/24

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Ice Skating

Last week was cold enough to get our local lake frozen. Frozen thick enough to do some ice skating. I measured the ice and got 10cm. Considered that safe enough for us to walk across the lake and the kids do some skating. Obviously no swimming/bathing this weekend then.

Lautten Compagney

Sunday afternoon we’ve been at the lovely “Gutshaus Friedenfelde” for a little concert of the Lautten Compagney. We’ve seen this ensemble before in July 2023 at the Joachimthalsche Gymnasium Templin. This time there were presenting their new program “Nunmehr soll Frieden sein” as a new year concert. The material was collected from the time of the 30 Years war and following peace negotiations of the “Westfälische Frieden“. The music was enriched by acting and recitation of texts and poems from the time but also new material to glue it all together and build a connection to our own crazy times of wars all over the world.

We liked this new program very much. They are not only good musicians but the whole program with the historic information and play provides entertainment and education at the same time. Can highly recommend.

As a bonus we met an old acquaintance who used to be a rather famous politician. We hadn’t met him in a while but always wanted to catch up. Had a good chat with him and were delighted to see that he’s doing well.

Office Move

On Monday we did an office move. But just inside the building. The new space is a little closer to the other colleagues. So will hopefully bump into colleagues more often again when I’m in the office.

Gym game still going strong. Trying to hit the gym 2-3 days a week for 30min of rowing and 30 min cycling and 20 min strength training. Really enjoying the workout.

Links:

here are the links I’ve collected over the last few weeks. Maybe there is something interesting in there for you:

#weeklyreview 33/23

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Sunday

Last day at the Baltic Sea. This time we really stayed until the last day. Sometimes we skip the last night just to drive back home during the night when the roads are empty. Occasionally I like that better than getting up earlier on the last day, pack and leave in time. That days is anyway lost as a vacation day then. Rather be home earlier and have a full day to recover from the drive.

But not this time. Weather was good and we hit the road around 09:30am back to our house in the .

#ruegenleaks

Monday

Only on Monday I realised that I actually still had vacation. Was almost prepared to start into the work week again after two weeks of vacation. But this Monday we took the chance to do a little road trip in the and meet some friends.

First stop was the “Naturseifen Manufaktur Uckermark” of Anke Thoma. The owner is a long time friend of my wife and they both were rather excited to meet again after a long time of not seeing each other. The shop but first and foremost her products are really beautiful.

After meeting another friend just around the corner from the soap shop we went on to Prenzlau for a special lunch. Special for us, as we used to go to that asian restaurant decades ago. They have an all-you-can-eat buffet for lunch and it is as dodgy as you imagine. But still we like it every once in a while. Also, because this was the first time in more than 5 years that my wife attended a restaurant visit and had a dish actually.

She even felt strong enough to give the St. Marien church in Prenzlau a visit. That church is special as it’s still being refurbished. It was almost completely demolished during the WW2 and not rebuild really during GDR time. The two massive towers are already accessible for a climb and beautiful view over Prenzlau.

Of course there was a dude atop complaining about the sight of wind turbines on the horizon.

Tuesday – new MacBook

After 6 years of using my trusty MacBook Pro I thought its about time to get a new one. The old one got slow to a point it was annoying. On Tuesday the new device could finally be picked up from local IT in the office. Took a short trip there and picked up the device. Apparently two weeks of vacation were long enough for me to forget my account password. I locked my account by repeatedly typing in the wrong password. I guess that means the vacation were effective.

The new device is a MacBook Pro 14 inch with the M2 Max CPU and 64GB RAM. I already fanboyed hard on Mastodon about this device. It’s so incredibly fast …. this must be alien technology.

I witnessed the jump in performance of adding more RAM to a machine and then the switch from HDDs to SSD. But this new CPU architecture seems to be another level. Everything is so snappy, you don’t even see the app icon jump in the Dock. The apps just open.

I immediately created two virtual machines using UTM to test performance of virtualisation. Both VMs were using the ARM CPU and got 4 CPU cores and 12GB RAM.

Each of these VMs (one macOS, one Debian Linux) were faster than my old laptop. And they bother ran in parallel while the main OS was still snappy.

And now the best part. I get over a whole work day with one battery charge. Even when running these VMs in parallel and have my 2 browser with many tabs open. This is just crazy magic.

Am I drooling again?

The keyboard got a physical ESC key eventually and feels rather solid.

Wednesday

spend the whole day playing with the new macBook. Still in total awe about the performance. Had to switch the Linux VM to an x86_64 arch though as some essential proprietary packages were not available for ARM.

Thursday

We tried to bring the sailboat of my in-laws into the water. Turns out the wooden planks have dried out too much over winter and the boat would just have sunk if we had just pushed it off the trailer. Lessons learned…

there shouldn’t be that much water leaking out of the hull

Friday

We had a nice party in the evening with some friends from around the villages. Just a small gathering this time, but all the more intense and interesting conversations.

Saturday – AnnenMayKantereit

Saturday evening our two boys and I attended the #AnnenMayKantereit concert in Berlin. It took place in the Parkbühne Wuhlheide and was just wonderful. They’re easily the best band in Germany right now. Everything was well prepared and although we had to wait for quite some time for the band to appear, there was enough catering in the Parkbühne with lots of drinks and food etc.

The concert itself of course was awesome. They just take their thing very serious and give their best and enjoy themselves and the audience. So much that even early on in the concert you could feel something like “standing ovations” to the band. I mean we were standing from the moment they entered the stage anyway because the dudes in front of us stood up… But they really engaged and amazed the crowed. Have rarely seen this with a German audience.