Today, one year ago I boarded the plane to WWDC and two more weeks of visiting friends in California. I miss traveling, I miss the conference, I really miss seeing my friends again.
I really really miss traveling… a lot!
Hmm… I don’t know… but seeing videos of Police cars driving right into people, Police shooting pepper bullets on a reporter’s head without reason, reporters being arrested without reason… oh right, and black people killed by policemen regularly… No idea why people protest against police violence and peoples rights 🤔 Pictures of a deeply troubled country.
Pared with a ridiculous lack of leadership, a worldwide political desaster on all possible fronts and no chance of improvement… that‘s not a world leader of anything anymore. Make America great again failed horribly. The exact opposite is the case. The absolute worst of it shows itself right now… people are dying for no reason, power is exploited and don’t forget that Corona is still a huge problem, unlike in many other countries where we see improvements since several weeks.
By the way… considering the scale of this whole situation, the news coverage here in Germany feels extremely low compared to previous times. This is either: it’s happening all the time and not worth of huge coverage anymore, or it’s not worth more coverage because the US relevance is not what it was before. Probably a bit of both.
Of course, I have no saying in this, just a sideline opinion, which is probably false. All I see is the news. But I have friends and colleagues in the US and I feel sad for them.
Twitter Adds Labels to Trump’s Tweets for First Time
So… how long until Trump flames Twitter on Twitter now? New York Times
I could not access Instagram, following a link, because it resolves to something.something.facebook.com. Thanks, pi-hole, for making me stay consistent 👌🏻
📚Today’s recommendation: Gösta Berling by Selma Lagerlöf. Nobel prize for literature in 1909 for a really lovely book that makes you feel like being in one of the loveliest countries in the world. Some think it’s a little outdated, I think it’s diving into the past in the best possible ways.
📚 I saw Stephen King mentioned a couple times this week. Another great book I didn’t see yet is Carrie. I’m not the biggest Horror or Supernatural fan, but this is a good one 👍🏻
📚 Today’s recommendation: The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers. Crazy stories, lots of weirdness, fantasy, details, language, creatures… all in all simply hilarious and funny, back to back. Really awesome for kids of any age, especially older ones like me 😊
Winding down a day that’s hard to describe. We welcomed our second daughter today! I can’t fathom that I now have two kids! We’re lucky everyone is well and I was able/allowed to be there and „help“ (there’s literally nothing I could do besides standing there and try not to be in the way too much, of course), especially during this weird time we’re living in right now. My partner did a great job! I can’t even imagine the things she went through today (again). We’re also really fortunate she has an amazing and caring doctor.
I’m home now, hoping to show our big one (she’s the big one now! 😱) some photos of her sister tomorrow before heading back to the hospital in the morning. She’s so happy already… unfortunately she’s not allowed to visit because of Corona still, which is ridiculous but understandable. Wouldn’t it be great if a family would be allowed to be together? Weird situation.
But exciting times are ahead of us! Corona crossed a couple of our future plans already but we’ll figure something out. I’m often overwhelmed by one kid, I wonder what it will be like with two of them 😉
Or, like my colleague told me the other day:
Trust me, one kid is no kid 😉
We‘ll figure it out 🙃
📚 Today’s recommendation is maybe my all time favorite book. Some might think it’s too weird but that’s exactly it. It has everything for me: The World According to Garp by John Irving. Close second would be Hotel New Hampshire but I only recommend one per day 😉
📚 One of the books that I will never forget and always the first recommendation that comes to mind: Old Path White Clouds: Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha by Thich Nhat Hanh (Wie Siddharta zum Buddha wurde) A novel-like tale of Buddha‘s life. Near and dear to my heart.
I hope apps will move to other Gif services now that Giphy is bought by Facebook. I can’t imagine Signal using a Facebook service to search for Gifs.
After there’s been a lot of talking and writing about Pi-hole lately again, I set it up in a Docker container on my Synology today. So far it’s working great, love to explore more on this. I also didn’t see any problems with websites so far, but we will see how it will work out in the long run. At the very least it’s interesting to see what’s going on behind the scenes… It feels great to be able to simply drop any Facebook or Bild.de connections.
How awesome is this!? iA Writer now supports publishing to Micro.blog! I wouldn’t need to “draft-first” approach though. I’d love to directly publish from within the app. But this is huge 😊
Aren’t you tired of always doing the right thing?
Kidding, S1E3 💬
People don’t get better, they just get smarter. When you get smarter you don’t stop pulling the wings off flies, you just think of better reasons for doing it.
– Stephen King in Carrie 💬
The first draft of anything is shit.
– Ernest Hemingway 💬
Trying the full mindfulness cannon trying to feel better. Meditation, yoga fitness and brain.fm for deep sleep. Like throwing Spaghetti on the wall… maybe something will stick.
Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.
– Frank Herbert, Dune 💬
I hope the new SE will make App Makers realize that there are still phones around that are smaller than eleventy inches…
Stores are opening again in Germany and I see pictures of masses of people standing in line to go shopping; no distance, no precautions. These people are ridiculous. Complaining about regulations and limitations, but as soon as they’re on their own they fuck up the whole situation again. I don’t get it. Education seems to be an even bigger issue in our country than I thought. We will live like this for months and months. Get used to it. It’s not going away any faster if everyone’s basically hugging each other in front of a store for hours in line.
7 weeks at home. 7 weeks without seeing anyone besides my partner and daughter. Once a week I get out to buy groceries. We get out everyday for a walk in the forest or around the block… there are parts that don‘t bother me. There are parts that are not optimal. There are habits forming that are obviously not good for any of us, but with everything going on, are hard to avoid. Overall, the situation starts to wear on me. I’m not in a great mood since a couple of days. I feel stressed. I feel annoyed. I feel incompetent. I envy those who claim how boring this time is and how much Netflix they have to watch to kill all the time. I don’t have any time to kill. Even less than before all this. I don’t want to whine yet again, or complain. There are lots of people that are in much much worse situations. I have a great job, great family… everything else is mental. Maybe that’s the worst part here.
One week in, I still love the smaller phone. Feels so much better than my huge work phone. I miss tap to wake and the great camera, but oh well… everything else is just great. It might bring me to actually use my real camera more again.
Some more green from today’s walk.
