Neon Dust

I’ve purchased a Nifty MiniDrive Air a few months back,...

Sat, 04 May 2013 15:28:15 +0200

I’ve purchased a Nifty MiniDrive Air a few months back, shortly after I bought my MacBook Air. It arrived a month or three later, but that’s to be expected about products funded with Kickstarter.

I was lucky as I didn’t have to use tape to make it work - it just worked, out of the box, exactly as you’d expect it to work. Transfer speeds are great (or not so great, completely depending on your Micro SD card - don’t expect SSD performance), it sits flush, and the surface looks exactly like the MacBook’s aluminium.

After finding out that Time Machine refuses to backup SD cards for no good reason, I decided to use my Nifty MiniDrive to store movies and TV shows I’m going to watch soon - the read speed ist fast enough for anything my MacBook can decode without stuttering, there’s no point in putting large files that I almost never use on the internal SSD, and all of my movies and TV episodes are already backed up on at least two external drives.

…and while I’m at it, here’s another desk...

Wed, 01 May 2013 18:34:00 +0200

…and while I’m at it, here’s another desk photo, showing my new set of speakers, which are excellent.

Since taking that photo, I’ve replaced the light bulb with a LED bulb because I just couldn’t stand the fact that the old 40W bulb was (mostly) wasting close to four times the amount of energy that my computer uses on average. (CFLs aren’t much of an option because of reasons.)

Remember when I promised to update my photo blog more...

Wed, 01 May 2013 18:14:12 +0200

Remember when I promised to update my photo blog more regularly?

Yeah, me neither. But yesterday, after finally editing all publishable photos I took in Denmark last summer, dumping the 15 GB worth of PSDs on a few external hard drives and dealing with a broken file system, I decided to begin putting those photos on Tumblr to acquire some meaningless internet points.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I created ReAD a few weeks back. It’s quite nifty, if I may say so myself (which I may, because this is my blog).

I hear it’s hip to post one’s desk once in a...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:54:00 +0100

I hear it’s hip to post one’s desk once in a while.

I took this photo a couple of days ago, when I was (supposed to be) working on a fairly easy web development assignment for a course whose name translates to “Digital Media Design”. (It’s not math, so it’s bound to be fairly easy.)

Boothing Windows

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:06:31 +0100

Apparently, Microsoft thinks that demoing their latest products at my university will drive sales, so they have a small booth in the cafeteria this week. (Most of the students have access to a free, legal copy of the most recent Windows versions anyway, so I don’t fully understand why Microsoft thinks throwing money at stuff like that is a good idea.)

I talked to a really nice Microsoft person for about twenty minutes today, and I gotta say: Windows feels really snappy on the Surface RT. On other devices that are not optimized for the newest Windows versions, not so much, but the performance is still acceptable. Also, while using Windows 8 on a giant TV screen, I found that all the new touch gestures and hot corners and menus and stuff are interesting, to say the least - ome might even say that they’re good, but I haven’t used the OS for more than a minute at a time, so I don’t feel comfortable expressing a definite opinion.

That said, I like the simple, colorful desig more than, say, the approach Apple has been taking with iOS.

I don’t really know what to say beyond that - you can read about the new Windows’ numerous features online, and if Microsoft does a booth somewhere near you, go there and talk to a staffer, even if you hate Windows with the force of a thousand neckbeards. Microsoft products aren’t neccessarily bad, even though they don’t respect your freedom, Mr. Stallman. Also, the Microsoft employee I talked to was quite knowledgeable, though, let’s face it, he tried to sell me on Windows - which is what he gets paid for, after all.

I’ll stick to my MacBook and Android phone for now, but if someone decided to gift me a Surface RT (hint, hint), I’m sure I’d use it on a regular basis.

I’m currently reformatting most of my hard drives to exFAT...

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 00:06:11 +0100

I’m currently reformatting most of my hard drives to exFAT because Apple can’t seem to be arsed to support NTFS properly, and I can’t be arsed to trust potentially bug-ridden third-party software to not fuck up my data.

So this is new.

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 20:19:36 +0100

So this is new.

I’m currently in the process of sorting and editing the...

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 18:26:07 +0200

I’m currently in the process of sorting and editing the 4,000-odd photos I took in Denmark. This is one of the very first ones.

It takes quite a lot of time.

My brother has a new guitar. A red Gibson Les Paul. I hear...

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 23:55:00 +0200

My brother has a new guitar. A red Gibson Les Paul. I hear that’s a good one.

Also, I promise to update my photo blog more regularly, starting in a couple of weeks when I’m back from Denmark (where I’ll be on vacation, beginning this Saturday). Prepare for some clichéd beach photos and the like.

"What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on..."

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 22:18:26 +0200

“

What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time.

A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

”

- Carl Sagan, The Persistence of Memory.

When I saw this quote on The Changelog, I immediately read it in Carl Sagan’s voice. I don’t know if that’s because I’ve watched and loved Cosmos or because of his unique use of language—probably a combination of both.

It’s a shame that he died in 1996, two years after I was born.

On the day before yesterday, I went to an interview because...

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 22:03:56 +0200

On the day before yesterday, I went to an interview because I’m not the only person who wants to study computer science and media (or, as some weird German people call it, media informatics).

It was pretty cool there.

Rolling out another redesign

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 21:11:48 +0200

I don’t think pasting some code into that box in the Tumblr backend qualifies as “rolling out”, but it just sounds really awesome, doesn’t it? Anyway, this redesign takes a couple steps back to an old design of mine which, in retrospect, I liked more than the latest redesign - at least visually. The code is completely rewritten and freshly spiced with some fancy JavaScript which changes the page background to a random bright color.

Also, if you feel a sudden urge to upvote stuff right now: yours truly turned into a redditor a couple days ago.

So this is the pile of books, magazines and newspaper articles I...

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 18:12:11 +0200

So this is the pile of books, magazines and newspaper articles I want to read soon.

Something tells me I won’t get that done.

Photo

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 21:53:05 +0200

(via The Verge)

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 12:29:03 +0200

(via The Verge)

This little guy visited me the day before yesterday.

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 19:26:00 +0200

This little guy visited me the day before yesterday.

freundevonfreunden: No idea why we haven’t stumpled across Ms...

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 10:22:00 +0200

freundevonfreunden:

No idea why we haven’t stumpled across Ms Mr earlier. Their DIY videos range from typical low-fi blog imagery to film scenes from Jim Henson’s labyrinth and one of the very few infos you can find about Ms Mr is that a lot of their inspiration comes from film.

I really like this — both the music and the vintage-ish video.

(via swissmiss)

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:07:59 +0200

(via swissmiss)

"If you asked people in 1989 what they needed to make their life better, it was unlikely that they..."

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:26:00 +0200

“If you asked people in 1989 what they needed to make their life better, it was unlikely that they would have said that a decentralized network of information nodes that are linked using hypertext.”

- Sep Kamvar

parislemon: Apple certainly can’t top this. Samsung Galaxy Ace...

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:52:00 +0200

parislemon:

Apple certainly can’t top this. Samsung Galaxy Ace Hugo Boss. (Taken with Instagram)

I’ve got an Ace (luckily with the original Samsung branding) and it’s shit. The device crashes multiple times a day, the battery lasts like half a day after one year of moderate use and it’s so fucking slow. Also, the internal memory is barely large enough for the apps I really need. Games? No space.

Yeah, it’s a “luxury” phone.