pzumk

podiboq @ Mastodon: My Drafts action allowing you to post to status.omg.lol was updated : the action will now post the complete draft, and will not only accept one or two lines as before.

actions.getdrafts.com/a/2DT

📝 if you want to post to status.lol (and mastodon) using drafts, this is a great action to do so. just input your omg.lol username and api key the first time the action is used.

🧸 talking about pokémon, and shared interests, instead of buying the game i'm going to buy some plush toys for the baby now.

Myke Hurley @ theenthusiast.net: In thinking about and looking forward to playing Pokémon Legends Z-A, I’ve been thinking about the things Sophia [Myke's daughter] may be interested in. I have no idea where her passions will lie, but I know I’ll do all I can to be interested in and care about what she does, so we can share some things together.

But I also realised that before she’s able to make those decisions on her own, I can introduce her to some of the things I care about. Right now she’s a big fan of plush toys — and guess what the Pokémon Company makes a billion of.

I bought her three Pokémon so she could make the choice for her first starter: Pikachu, Eevee, and Bulbasaur. The first two are the franchise favourites. It’s been interesting to me as I’ve grown up to see how Eevee caught on with people to sit alongside the powerhouse of Pikachu. I had to give her the chance to choose Bulbasaur too — maybe she would also want to make sure she was well prepared.

Unsurprisingly, when presented with her three choices, she gravitated to Eevee. That pocket monster is undeniable. But while Eevee is the first choice, the other two will remain on her team.

Pokémon is a very special thing to me. It’s been a part of my life for over 25 years. I can’t even imagine how amazing it would be if I got the chance to make it a part of my daughter’s life.

i like reading about myke's life as a dad because he's a little ahead of me, becoming a parent five months earlier than us.

introducing our son to the things we care about still seems to be so far away, but at the same time, time flies.

😈 can't believe i'm actually thinking about getting the new pokémon z-a game. i'm a fan of pokémon but i'm afraid to say the last game i played of the franchise was 'crystal' in – *checks notes* – 2002(!)

inspired by david johnson's post 'what does ai make of me', i wanted to know what chatgpt writes about me. i asked it to crawl this site thoroughly – because on the first try it didn't – and to 'give me a 1000 character summary of the person that pzumk is' and this was the answer (4o) gave me:

pzumk is a mid-30s creator from Hamburg with a deep affection for minimalism, analogue aesthetics, and personal control over his digital space. His site blends photography, short reflections, and bits of tech curiosity, revealing someone who values authenticity over polish. He shoots primarily on iPhone, often in monochrome, favoring mood and texture over spectacle. He’s tech-savvy but not obsessed—interested in clean, independent tools like BearBlog or Mastodon, deliberately distant from algorithm-driven platforms. His posts balance introspection, humor, and a mild disdain for pretense; he’s blunt yet reflective, with a fondness for simplicity that extends into both language and design. You sense a perfectionist who prefers to publish slowly but intentionally, caring more about process than performance. Offline, he lives a grounded life—job outside tech, a family, newborn child—but keeps a creative pulse alive through photography and writing. His online persona feels like a quiet rebellion against noise: small, personal, honest.

my first thought was that it's pretty impressive, but i figured it's not. it's essentially just what i asked for – a (glorified) summary of what i published about me on various pages of this blog.

afterwards i (used a new (4o) chat and) asked chatgpt for a summary of the person that i am, based on what it knows about me. as expected, it knows and remembers quite a lot. i'm usually using the 'more about you'-personalisation too, a feature which i had cleared before the prompt. if i didn't, it would've just repeated what i put in there.

You are a highly reflective and organized individual with a strong sense of responsibility and family commitment. You value knowledge, curiosity, and precision, often double-checking details to ensure correctness. Professionally, you are experienced, having built a long career as a redacted and now navigating transitions thoughtfully, including planning your parental leave and new employment. Health and self-improvement are important to you, as seen in your goal to manage weight and control impulsive habits. You have a deep interest in media and culture, particularly Star Wars, following storylines closely and understanding continuity. Your personal life shows strong bonds with family and your partner, and you approach life with a structured, analytical mindset, blending practical action with careful planning, while maintaining warmth, curiosity, and a subtle sense of humor.

while it's not wrong, not everything is 100 % right. for example, i'm already on my parental leave, the planning happened 6 months ago. details chatgpt would've known if i hadn't removed it from the 'more about me' field.

🍿 after watching the star wars episodes i-ix, we're now going into the first spin-off, rogue one, continuing our watch-through to prepare for the tv shows.

👨‍💻 i didn’t know any css before customising my bearblog. most of the code was written by chatgpt, but since it made so many mistakes, i still ended up learning a lot!

🐻 well, just 8 days after this status, most post have been moved from pika to bearblog. so much for me 'not having any free time'.

🍿 Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker

Rated ★★½☆☆ on Letterboxd.

Brent Simmons @ Mastodon: “There is no CEO of RSS.”

jeremyburge @ threads: “WhatsApp usernames are on the way, but the top tier feature would be linking two different phone numbers to the same username/account. […]”

🫩 a top tier whatsapp feature would be feature-parity on all up-to-date versions of whatsapp instead of a/b(/c)-testing audio transcriptions, liquid glass and other design changes.

⛓️‍💥 today i woke up, wondering if i should switch mastodon servers and leave norden.social for social.lol, since i’m already using ice cubes’ feature to read the additional local timeline.

---

(i have no real interest in changing servers though, the thought just crossed my mind for a minute)

after publishing my /defaults page, i decided to look for a new read-later service because that’s one of the few defaults that were missing from the list – and also from my daily workflow.

i’ve since been testing safari’s reading list, quiche, matter, folio, and the og read-later app instapaper i deleted from my devices six years ago.

tiny review of matter & folio

both apps asked me on launch if i wanted to import from pocket; folio even representing itself as the ‘pocket replacement’, built by pocket’s former head of product. both apps also have a discover section which i don’t want to use. if i had to chose between matter and folio, i’d prefer matter. while, again, both apps are showing the websites with a simplified reading mode, matter looks and feels more polished, and folio weirdly removing all media. matter also has the ability to import rss feeds and forward email newsletters. the app is already a few years old while folio was launched with pocket’s shutdown.

tiny review of quiche & reading list

built by an indie dev from tokyo, ‘the marie kondo of read-it-later apps’ quiche works a little different. as the app icon predicts, it only shows a single ‘page’ (article/post) to act on. you can either read, archive, or delete it before you can proceed to the next one. nice little app but not exactly how i want to use a read-later app, as it always shows the website and not a simplified reading mode. bonus: no account required. apple’s reading list on the other hand not only doesn’t require an account, but it also doesn’t need a separate app since it’s built into safari. easy to use, but feels a little dull and doesn’t always automatically start the reading mode, showing the website instead, just like quiche does by default. i rarely even remembered that apple’s reading list existed, so i never used it.

small review of instapaper

marco – now better known for the accidental tech podcast and his podcast app overcast – sold instapaper to betaworks in 2013, a company later acquired by pinterest. when eu’s gdpr came into effect in 2018, pinterest instapaper couldn’t comply with the regulations and shut down for more than two months. i remembered that’s when i stopped using instapaper and read-later-services altogether and started piling up open tabs or messaging myself with the links rather than using a dedicated app. it worked – but it wasn’t great.

in the past, instapaper has always been one of my favourite apps because it mostly does one job: save a page (and, of course, present a list with saved pages and display the text nicely by removing everything else). the app looks a little old by today’s standards, especially on ios 26, but it still does a great job for saving and reading articles and posts with a distraction-free clean design. it offers features like page summaries, speed reading, and text-to-speech, but they’re tucked away behind a button.

after logging in using my old account, it showed me a lot of unread articles and posts from 2018. i’d declared bankruptcy on those to start fresh. i realised i was missing the ability to save websites to a proper read-later app for years, i just didn’t know.

instapaper quickly became my go-to app again.

---

here’s the mood.camera post by craney, if you’re interested. great review (much better than my read-later app review), and also a great camera app i keep forgetting to use.

🍿 Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi

Rated ★★☆☆☆ on Letterboxd.

🍿 Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith

Rated ★★★★☆ on Letterboxd.

🍿 Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens

Rated ★★★½☆ on Letterboxd.

🚬 i can’t help it, but if i see you smoking, i immediately think you’re an idiot. and it will take a while before you convince me otherwise.

🐻 after spending hours importing everything to pzumk.pika.page, i have now played around with bearblog and what can i say... i'm glad i don't have the free time to move everything again!

🍿 Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones

Rated ★★☆☆☆ on Letterboxd.

🚨 last night, warning sirens echoed across hamburg. it turned out to be a technical error but where did the police clarify it? not on any official app or website. no. on twitter. the official apps were 45-60 minutes late and everyone’s (rightfully) pissed off.

🥕 time flies when you constantly get threatened by your weather app. already 9 years with CARROT! highly recommended if you’ve never used the app before.

🍿 Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace

Rated ★★★★☆ on Letterboxd.

☔️ lots of rain today. perfect day to stay home and keep our star wars rewatch going before diving into the newer series.

🍿 Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi

Rated ★★★½☆ on Letterboxd.

while using a dark homescreen theme on my iphone for the first time, i remembered reading a headline about crooked or tilted icons in ios 26 a few weeks ago, and now i know what that was about, but it’s nowhere near as bad as described.

the new icon outline introduced in ios 26 really makes icons look crooked when using dark backgrounds. you can tilt your phone to change the effect, but most of the time it defaults to opposite app corners being highlighted (screenshot 1).

when holding the phone in a certain angle, you can see the new outline around the entire icon. while it still doesn't look perfect, it certainly looks better (screenshot 2).

also, when changing accessibility settings¹ to ‘reduce motion’, it just stops the motion of the outline, keeping it on the before mentioned corners. this is making it worse, as it stops moving at all.

1. i like ios 26 and i’m not a fan of using accessibility settings to reduce motion and transparency, or to increase contrast. it always makes ios look cheap↩

📱 iphone 16 pro max homescreen, october 2025

after trying the transparent app icons of ios 26 for only a few weeks, i’m now trying full dark icons¹ and a different layout (while still keeping the rest of the phone in light mode

1. the screenshot was taken while holding the phone in a certain angle to avoid having crooked icons↩

🍿 Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back

Rated ★★★☆☆ on Letterboxd.

🍿 Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope

Rated ★★★★☆ on Letterboxd.

🍰 as if anyone ever needed an excuse for cake, but today’s excuse is my wife’s birthday.

🍿 Thunderbolts* by Jake Schreier

Rated ★★★½☆ on Letterboxd.

Jessica Otis @ jessicaotis.com: “Every conference I go to, there will be at least one (and more often ten or twenty) presentations that use white text on a black background. These slides range from hard-to-read to outright illegible and in particularly bad set-ups are so visually painful that I have to close my eyes or turn away from the projection screen. […]

So please, everyone, strike white text with black backgrounds from your color repetoire, the same way you’ve removed color combinations that are illegible to color-blind people. It’s not a question of preferences, it’s an accessibility issue.”

astigmatism or halation effect with many lines of white text on a black background:

a few years ago i stumbled upon this nice little article explaining why the author can’t read white text on a black background.

the same is happening to me when i’m using the dark mode on a few websites¹ or apps.

most of them aren’t pure white text on pure black background anymore and in some apps both the light and dark themes are customisable, but when i use apps like chatgpt or threads, or try to follow a fast moving twitch chat, i immediately have to enable the light mode or else my eyes will hurt and i’ll suddenly get this astigmatism/halation effect on the white text as pictured above.

1. i really like louie mantia’s blog, but reading it hurts my eyes↩

😷 everyone around us is sick, friends and family. luckily it hasn’t caught us yet. i really don’t want the two month old baby to get its first flu already.

👤 i have just added another slash page to my site. it’s /pfp and includes the hall of fame of profile pictures i’ve been using since 2010(!) and i’m pretty proud i managed to find all these images.

🍿 Prey by Dan Trachtenberg

Rated ★★★☆☆ on Letterboxd.

📱 going to our apple store to check out the new iphones today. i should probably disable apple pay on my watch and phone and also leave my wallet at home.

since i’m updating the newly added /carry slash page, here’s a list of my everyday carry items of summer ‘25. 

haven’t done a proper post in a while (also no picture right now), but i had just slimmed it down for summer 2025 where i tried not to carry much, leaving my wallet and phone case at home for a lightweight carry.

• iPhone 16 Pro Max (Wiiuka Leather Case¹, Apple Magsafe Wallet)
• Apple Watch Ultra 2
• AirPods Pro 2
• Undivided Wallet² (various cards and cash)
• Oliver Peoples Sunglasses³
• Keychain (AirTag)

[image coming soon]

---

1. Wiiuka↩

2. Undivided↩

3. Oliver Peoples↩

☀️ we enjoyed the hot and sunny weekend in leipzig after essentially staying at home in hamburg with the newborn for almost 8 weeks. but holy sh∙t , leipzig has the worst possible sidewalks for pushing the baby in a stroller. we did a 16 km walk through the city on saturday and most sidewalks were really annoying. also: not enough places to sit down.

Sydney Bradley @ businessinsider.com: “Their startup, Corner, has built a social mapping app that seeks to rival restaurant review stalwarts like Yelp and Tripadvisor. Corner's map doesn't give you directions but rather offers a new way to find places like restaurants, clubs, shops, and other small businesses that other app users have vetted.

Founded in 2022, Corner's map only has places that users have added themselves. That was a core product decision that Corner CEO Wu said went against some advice the two cofounders received, like "just scrape the internet." They wanted to have the app's Gen Z users build the map from the ground up. Three years later, the map has over 275,000 unique places saved.”

i've been using corner in hamburg a few times before we’ve had the baby (and before i’ve known it was built for gen z!). great new approach to check out new places, and even though we’re the 2 of 4 semi-active users in hamburg, we did actually find a few new places!

🧳 first time traveling with the baby. so much more to pack now, so much more to think of, even if we’re just going for a few nights.

also happy we’ve picked the perfect sunny days between weeks of bad weather!

🧊 the last time i had to freeze my duolingo streak was september 25, 2024. almost made it to 365 days without freezing but totally forgot to do a lesson yesterday.

i've found this list in old backups and it goes straight into my /shoebox now, but as a bonus i'll add all the devices that were missing.

we used to share those lists on german forums dedicated to mobile phones. good old times.

updated list:

• iPhone 16 Pro Max, iOS 26 beta (Oct 2025 — today)
• Apple Watch Ultra 2, watchOS 26 beta (Oct 2024 — today)
• Apple Watch Series 8, watchOS 11 (April 2023 — Oct 2024)
• iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 18 (Dec 2022 – Oct 2024)
• AirPods Pro 2. Gen (Sept 2022 – today)
• AirTags (April 2021 – today)
• iPhone 12 Pro Max (Feb 2021 – Dec 2022)
• AirPods Pro 1. Gen (Nov 2019 – Sept 2022)
• iPhone XS (June 2019 – Feb 2021)
• Apple Watch Series 5 (Sept 2019 – April 2023)
• AirPods 1. Gen (Dec 2016 – Nov 2019)
• iPhone 7 Plus (Sept 2016 – June 2019)
• Apple Watch Series 3 (Oct 2017 – Sept 2019)
• iPhone 6s Plus (Sept 2015 – Sept 2016)
• Apple Watch Series 0 (June 2015 – Oct 2017)
• iPhone 6 Plus (Dec 2014 – Sept 2015)

old list:

• iPhone 6 (Sept 2014 – Dec 2014)
• Moto G (Sept 2014 – Jan 2015)
• Moto 360 (Nov 2014 – Jan 2015)
• Nexus 4, CyanogenMod 10 (June 2013 – July 2013)
• Fitbit One (Jan 2013 – mid 2016)
• iPhone 5, iOS 7 jailbroken (Sept 2012 – Sept 2014)
• iPhone 4S, iOS 6 jailbroken (Jan 2012 – Sept 2012)
• Nexus One, CyanogenMod 7 (Jan 2010 – Jan 2012)
• Samsung Omnia SGH-i900, Windows Mobile 6.1 (Dec 2009 – Jan 2010)
• LG KM900 Arena, modded firmware (April 2009 – Nov 2009)
• Sony Ericsson W880i, modded/patched firmware (2009)
• Sony Ericsson W810i, modded/patched firmware (Nov 2007 – April 2009)
• Siemens MC60 (2006 – Nov 2007)
• Nokia 3410 (2004 – 2006)

🍿 Chernobyl by Johan Renck

Rated ★★★★½ & ♥ on Letterboxd.

🏞️ when importing old posts to this blog, i found this stash of instagram pictures from 2013, most of them have a filter and were uploaded with #photooftheday and #vscocam. i’m not sure i’ve ever used vsco or just used their hashtag. pretty sure these were my first ever instagram posts actually tagged #photography, after only uploading images of my food before. sadly, those food pictures are long gone, i'd like to have them where i put those 2013 ig posts now: in my /shoebox.

🍿 Victoria by Sebastian Schipper

Rated ★★★★½ on Letterboxd.

i have just added a /defaults slash page to this blog. it's a list of apps i use for various tasks, based on the list from a podcast called hemispheric views, episode 097. there's a compilation of more than 450 default pages on defaults.rknight.me and an easy way to copy the list with or without emojis to make your own.

my slash page only contains the list of apps. this post also adds some explanations as to why i am using these apps or what i've been using before.

(note: /uses is similar. i might combine both one day)

📨 Mail Client: Apple/iCloud Mail

i've been through a few clients like spark, airmail, hey. but now i'm just using apple's default mail app on both iphone and mac and i'm happy with it.

📮 Mail Server: iCloud

after being on gmail, self-hosted and hey, i'm now all-in icloud. this also includes most other stuff on this list.

📝 Notes: Apple/iCloud Notes

i've been using apple notes for a really long time now. probably since the iphone 5 came out in 2012

✅ To-Do: Apple/iCloud Reminders

i really liked todoist and things, but i eventually moved to apple's reminders app because it was easier to add location based reminders.

📷 iPhone Photo Shooting: Halide, Zerocam Mono, iOS Cam

apple's default ios camera is still the fastest way to take pictures on an iphone and at the same time gives me the awesome live photos feature. i use it for casual photo taking. but for a little more thoughtful photography i use halide for #ProcessZero images and zerocam's black and white camera for #Mono.

🟦 Photo Management: Apple Photos

well "management" is a little too much. i take photos and they're just sitting in my camera roll sorted by creation date.

📆 Calendar: Apple Calendar

similar to the before mentioned reminders situation. i've been using and loving fantastical for years and years, but after checking out apple's default ios calendar app with ios 18 again, i finally made the switch when using the ios 26 beta. fantastical has also become a little too expensive for a 4,5/5 calendar when the free default app is a 4/5.

📁 Cloud File Storage: iCloud Drive

i have abandoned dropbox for icloud drive a few years ago. i don't have to share a lot of files with others and icloud is easy to access with all my apple devices.

📖 RSS: Reeder Classic

reeder has been my rss reader of choice after version 3.2 added feedly support when google killed google reader in 2013 and made me move to feedly and with feedly to reeder. nowadays i'm using icloud instead of a third party service to sync my rss feeds. also, i'm using reeder classic because i don't like the new reeder. i'm glad he's keeping the old version up.

🙍🏻‍♂️ Contacts: Apple Contacts Phone App

not much to say about this.

🌐 Browser: Firefox, Safari

i didn't want to use chrome anymore and moved to firefox on my mac. i'm using safari on ios and also looked at arc and quiche, but i always get back to safari.

💬 Chat: WhatsApp, iMessage, Discord

it's hard to go without whatsapp in germany if you want to chat with real life friends and family. i've tried for almost two years but realized it was a mistake since not everyone can or want to use imessage nor wants to install apps like signal or telegram. i still keep these installed but there's not much happening. there's more activity on discord where i chat with people from the internet.

🔖 Bookmarks: Nothing?

there are bookmarks in my browser, but i don't use any third party services like raindrop right now.

📑 Read It Later: well…

i used to be a fan of instapaper but stopped using it in 2018, when the service was down for a few months. not sure if i tried anything else in the meantime but right now everything i want to read either stays in a open tab or i use one of the chat apps to send the link to myself. (update)

📜 Word Processing: Drafts

used to be either apple notes or sometimes ia writer, but right now i'm back into drafts.

📈 Spreadsheets: Apple Numbers

🛒 Shopping Lists: Apple/iCloud Reminders

💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Apple Numbers

📰 News: Reeder Classic, Mastodon, Reuters App, Threads

i definitely need a better workflow for news. after deleting and unfollowing every news source a few years ago because it has always either been war or covid, right now i get my news from many different places. sometimes i even find out what happened through carrot weather's snarky current observation text…

🎵 Music: Apple Music

rdio was my first music streaming subscription. when it died, i moved to spotify. when spotify became shit, i moved to apple music.

🎤 Podcasts: Overcast

10 years of overcast usage, baby! i've been using this app since it launched in 2014. i've tried other podcasts app like queue, which is a really good app, but always went back to marco's overcast.

🔐 Password Management: Bitwarden, iCloud Keychain

bitwarden is my main password manager after cancelling my 1password subscription. but i also keep icloud keychain around as a handy little system-integrated tool.

📱 iphone 16 pro max homescreen, september 2025

👶🏻 how’s the baby already 6 weeks old?! they didn’t lie when they said time flies when you have kids. way faster than i expected.

☑️ an update to this post: i did it! letterboxd's support was very helpful. i'll start to import my movies from imdb to my letterboxd account.

🦁 welcome home, little boy.

🍓 we. love. strawberry. season.

🧊 apple’s beta season is pretty wild this year. most people seem to hate the new liquid glass design, but while I don’t think it’s perfect, i actually like it.

📆 9 months ago i wasn’t ready to give up fantastical, but after using it for over 10 years, i’ve now switched back to apple’s default app, which has become good enough for my needs in ios 26.

🤰 everything’s ready for the baby, and now we’re just waiting. before i start my three months of paternity leave, i’m using up my remaining vacation days after quitting my job again, for the third time in less than a year. fun times!

🍜 tried a new chinese noodle place today. it was okay.

🍿 Adolescence (TV Show)

Rated ★★★★☆

🍼 wow, i’m going to be a father this year! 2025 is going to bring some massive changes to our lives. the to do list just got longer and our nights are about to get much shorter soon, but i haven’t been this excited in years!

💍 choosing the rings we will wear for the rest of our lives.

🍽️ my legitimate google review about a bad experience during an expensive dinner in october was deleted TWICE for DeFaMaTiOn 🤪 we were already wondering about the consistently positive reviews before and during our visit…

🔑 i just remembered something totally random: 20 years ago, when i wasn’t allowed to use the family computer if my mom wasn’t home, i could tell from the sound of her keychain whether it was her or another neighbor coming home. of course, i broke the rules and used the computer while she wasn’t home!

Louie Mantia @ lmnt.me: “Japan really only has one rule:

Don’t inconvenience others.

But when you’re a foreign tourist, you’re not necessarily aware of all the ways that might be happening. By adapting to Japan—rather than expecting Japan to accommodate you—your visit will be smoother for both you and everyone else.”

great post about adapting to japan, as there are a few rules you have to go by when visiting this country. japan is different. better, imho.

⌚ new watch, who dis? finally trying the apple watch ultra (2). looking forward to a much longer battery life. What else can i expect when upgrading from a series 7?

🔋 don’t get cheap batteries for your airtags. had to get new ones for all of them because they drained within a month…

🐈 training my bluesky discovery feed algorithm to only show me pictures of cats.

📱 after this year’s apple event, i figured i'm not upgrading my iphone 14 pro for at least another year. i did some research and ordered a leather case from berlin’s wiiuka, which might be comparable to bullstrap in the us. i’ve only had this case for five days and even though i usually love going caseless, for the first time in years, i don’t want to take it off – it feels really nice.

🗓️ after they made it a little bit better with ios 18 i have tried to use apple’s calendar app again for a week or so, but i still can’t move away from fantastical.

🤖 siri uses two different (german) voices on my homepod. when i ask her for tomorrow’s weather i get her old voice, when i ask her how the weather will be in hamburg at 5 am on monday i get a newer and nicer voice.

🥶 from 30°c on sunday to 7°c this morning. i’m not ready for summer to end.

📵 the number of times i’ve accidentally hit the video call button in whatsapp is way too high and always at the most awkward moments of a conversation.

Ben Sandofsky @ lux.camera: “Process Zero is a new mode in Halide that skips over the standard iPhone image processing system. It produces photos with more detail and allows the photographer greater control over lighting and exposure. This is not a photo filter— it really develops photos at the raw, sensor-data level.”

totally missed this three week old announcement for the halide camera app until a couple of days ago. i had already been using a "zero" camera app called zerocam, and their black and white counterpart mono, but i'll totally switch halide's process zero for non-b&w photos. after taking a few photos with it, i think i like the output produced by halide more than zerocam's. i'll even give it its own tag on here: #ProcessZero.

🐻‍❄️ i have already watched it multiple times and i know most people don’t like it but holy smoke (pun intended), it’s already been TWENTY YEARS since the first episode of LOST aired?!

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 by the way, i switched to english and i'm (re)posting most toots from status.lol, a omg.lol service called "statuslog" for short status updates. i wanted to check out omg.lol and at the same time be more active on mastodon. this kinda helps so far. sometimes i just want to get some thoughts out like i did on twitter from 2009 to 2019!

🍿 “Trap” by M. Night Shyamalan is probably going to be the worst movie I’ve seen this year. Avoid it if you can.

Rated ★☆☆☆☆ on Letterboxd.

💩 why’s everyone destroying their user experience this year? never used the sonos app, but you know what’s worse than their’s and overcast’s update-fiasco… (app-ocalypse?)

the new twitch app.

🎬 i’m not a huge movie geek but i’m trying to reactivate my letterboxd account. apparently got a beta invite from their co-founder early-2013 but never used it and now i can’t get in because i don’t have access to some weird email-address i’ve used back then…

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this is the first of 12 posts picdumps of our trip to japan in april 2024

picdump 2 →

🌷 my girlfriend is on her sabattical in japan, currently in tokyo. i have navigated my way through a japanese flower shop website and ordered flowers to be delivered to her hotel room.

📱 iphone 14 pro homescreen, january 2024

📱 it’s been a while since i destroyed a phone.

✈️ leaving paris.

🇫🇷 arriving in paris, france.

📱 iphone 14 pro homescreen, may 2023

💬 after a little more than two years i’m back on whatsapp. it’s just not feasible to not use whatsapp in germany when you have a social circle that depends on the app. i don’t want to be left out anymore.

📝 i’d like to t̶w̶e̶e̶t̶ toot again like it’s 2010, but so far i’ve deleted everything instead of posting it. the reason i hesitate to hit send might be that i think nobody cares anyway. maybe a topic for my next session with the psychologist.

😷 i didn’t expect that just four days after the mask mandate ended on long-distance trains, literally no one would be wearing a mask on the train.

🐥 until recently, i would have been pretty sad if twitter suddenly disappeared. when i signed up in 2009, it quickly became my favorite social network. by now, i can hardly think of anything i care less about, since i feel very much at home on mastodon – thanks in part to ivory.

🐘 slowly unfollowing everyone on twitter who’s already active on mastodon. i’ve already replaced tweetbot on my homescreen with mastodon (currently using “ice cubes” but looking forward to tapbots’ ivory)

Sean Heber @ blog.iconfactory.com: “Twitterrific for iOS and macOS have now been removed from both App Stores.”

oh no, the iconfactory discontinued twitterrific. while i personally never used the app, i respect how they helped to shape the twitter experience since 2007.

😷 now i know why i was feeling so bad. there goes my plan for the weekend… and a 10-day quarantine starts.

🤔 i have now reactivated my instagram accounts, three years after deleting them. first of all i wanted my username back, but i also feel some kind of emptyness not knowing where to post photos after i wasn’t convinced of pixelfed.

🍿 Jurassic World Dominion

Rated ★★★☆☆ on Letterboxd.

🏙️ after breaking up with my gf last year, i’m now finally moving out, back to my home town. she’s helping me move my things which is nice.

💶 huge mural in hannover for the new money heist season

💉 just received my first covid vaccination shot.

🤔 who needs expensive airtag keychain holders when you can just drill a little hole? i don’t expect this to hold forever, though. but for now, it works.

📱 new (i)phone, new me. my first white iphone is a 12 pro max.

💬 after struggling for a year or two with the idea of deleting whatsapp, but not doing it for several reasons, i informed my contacts yesterday that starting in february i will no longer be reachable on whatsapp but instead on imessage & signal.

this is the nicest ipad i have ever used. i loved how thin it is compared to previous (non-pro) models. but since i don't use ipads enough i always end up selling them... i swear i will not buy another one in the next five years. i promise. because i. don't. need. an. ipad. i'll always end up using my iphone or macbook.

🍿 Joker by Todd Phillips

Rated ★★★★☆ on Letterboxd.

bnj @ Hacker News: "The goal is to capture information passively enough that I can add context and commentary when I want to without spending more time on it than it's worth. I have an idea that it would be helpful for me to be able to look back and get a long term sense of things that I'm doing and interested about."

i’ve been using ‘day one’ for a while. i started using it in 2012 as a simple journal but it became a essential tool in logging my life.

🤓 til: you can mute whatsapp ‘stories’ to move them behind a drop-down menu.

🎶 just cancelled my spotify subscription after trying apple music for the last 2 months. i was able to move my playlists with a third-party app called songshift.

⌚️ upgraded from apple watch s3 to s5.

🔗 i’ll share links and articles i find interesting and readworthy on my brand new telegram-channel. this will be an experiment.

🚶‍♂️ nice little walk through hannover. 30 km

📱 upgrading from an iphone 7 plus to a smaller but newer iphone xs. like always i immediately installed the beta version of the upcoming ios.

🍔 visiting my new favorite burger place in lüneburg and walking around the town.

📱 iphone 7 plus homescreen, may 2019

Matthew Panzarino @ techcrunch.com: "Obviously, it would do Apple very little good to release a charging mat that caused devices to overheat, perhaps even to the point of damage. So, it has canceled the project."

what a bummer. i was actually looking forward to that thing.

📖 “Passenger 23” by Sebastian Fitzek

Rated ★★★★☆

📖 “The Package” by Sebastian Fitzek

Rated ★★★½

👤 i’ve not been using it for years anyway, but i have now finally deleted my facebook profile. i’ll definitely not miss it.

Everyone agrees: blogs are back in style. Even though I was never really a "blogger," I always had some kind of page where I shared random stuff and opinions. Then Twitter showed up.

Twitter replaced the blog. For a while, it made me think in 140 characters. I was constantly trying to frame what I experienced IRL into a funny tweet. That ended up affecting how I read and wrote: I couldn't focus on longer texts anymore. At that time, keeping a blog wasn't even on my mind.

For the past few years I've barely been on Twitter. I rarely read the timeline, I tweet even less, and I no longer think about how to turn my experiences into posts. At some point, I started uploading iPhone photos to Instagram and following people who shared great pictures. Instagram quickly became my favorite social network – I didn't just upload photos, I also joined Instameets, met a lot of amazing people, and even hosted one myself in Lüneburg.

Even though I eventually bought the domain pzumk.blog, blogging – for me and if I'm correct for many others – was put on hold. After all, Google killed their great RSS Reader and everyone was on Twitter and/or Instagram. So why keep blogging?

Over the past few years, I've deleted more and more of my own content from the internet – mostly old, unused accounts on different sites, but also tweets, Facebook posts, and Instagram photos. In early 2018, I wiped all my tweets, posts, and a big chunk of my photos – thinking of it as a small restart. Sure, I've been tweeting a little again lately (with more than 140 characters available now), but it still doesn't feel quite right.

Long story short:

I want to start putting more stuff online again. That's why I set up a new WordPress blog and hooked it up to my domain. What exactly will happen here in the future – we'll see.

I'm looking forward to it.

(There won't be a comment section under my posts. Normally I'd point to Twitter for replies, but I've recently started using Mastodon and would be happy to meet you there. A separate post about Mastodon might follow.)

Mozilla: "Anyone who isn't an expert on the internet would be hard-pressed to explain how tracking on the internet actually works. Some of the negative effects of unchecked tracking are easy to notice, namely eerily-specific targeted advertising and a loss of performance on the web. However, many of the harms of unchecked data collection are completely opaque to users and experts alike, only to be revealed piecemeal by major data breaches. In the near future, Firefox will – by default – protect users by blocking tracking while also offering a clear set of controls to give our users more choice over what information they share with sites."

Since Chrome was introduced by Google ten years ago, I can’t recall ever using another browser for longer than about a week, and only then to test out new updates or similar.

As I’ve been paying a bit more attention to privacy and related issues over the past few months, it’s quite convenient that Mozilla is updating its Firefox browser to block various types of tracking by default. Even though I’m a big fan of different Google products, it doesn’t hurt to look beyond what I usually use. Yesterday, after many years, I once again opened Mozilla’s website and downloaded Firefox.

• Apple Watch Series 3
• iPhone 7 Plus (dbrand skin)
• AirPods
• Keychain w/ Tile & Leatherman Style PS
• Undivided Wallet

☀️ it’s frakking sunny again, isn’t it?

📖 “One Day” by David Nicholls

Rated ★★★★★

🧲 nice, this picture is now selling on magnets in hannover.

⌚️ upgrading from an apple watch series 0 to a series 3

Apple Pay, Irish Apple ID, and a virtual Mastercard from boon.

While Apple Pay is being announced and launched in more and more countries, it’s still not available here in Germany. According to rumors, Apple could activate its payment service in Germany as early as the release of iOS 11.

If you don’t want to wait that long, you can already enjoy the benefits of Apple Pay thanks to various guides, French Apple IDs, and the workaround via the app “boon.” Unfortunately, these guides never worked for me – only with the help of Dennis from the N26 community on Facebook was I finally able to set up Apple Pay. Here I’ll explain exactly what the solution was and what is needed to pay with Apple Pay in Germany using an iPhone or Apple Watch:

Apple ID

First, we need a new Apple ID.

The easiest way is actually to do this on a desktop/Mac in the iTunes app. If necessary, log out of your German Apple ID in iTunes, because in order to download the boon. app, we need to switch to the App Store of a country where boon. is available. Among others, these include France and Ireland. Most guides recommend using France at this point, but I had no success with that and either got an unexpected error in iTunes, couldn’t verify myself, or was asked to set up a payment method (Visa, Mastercard) that we don’t need. That’s why you now switch the country in iTunes to Ireland – the setting for this is in the bottom right corner of the app. Once the store has switched, search for the iPhone app boon. and click download.

A login window should now pop up, and you can create a new Apple ID there with an email address and address not yet used with Apple. Neither the email address nor the address has to be Irish or correct, but it’s recommended to at least use a real Irish address, e.g. that of a hotel. During the registration process, you’ll be asked for a payment method – select “None” here, since we only want to download one free app later on. If needed, you’ll now have to verify your email address in iTunes with a 6-digit code.

On the iPhone as well, log out of your German Apple ID in the settings under “iTunes & App Store” and then change the region in the settings under “General / Language & Region / Region” to Ireland. The iPhone will briefly show a black screen as it switches the region, then return to normal. You don’t need to change the iPhone’s language. Force-quit the App Store via the app switcher (double-press Home), then go back into iPhone settings and log in with your Irish Apple ID under “iTunes & App Store.”

boon.

Next, we need the boon. app, through which your future Apple Pay payments will run.

If you followed the last step and logged in with your Irish Apple ID in the iPhone settings, you can now open the App Store. It should be immediately clear that you’re in the Irish App Store, since at least the language has changed. You can now easily find the boon. app via search, which previously didn’t appear in the German App Store.

(Tap this link on your iPhone if needed to go directly to the App Store page. However, I recommend the manual search method.)

After downloading boon., you can register in the app with your mobile phone number and set up a virtual Mastercard. In the app, tap “Add to Apple Wallet” to do just that.

Via the + button in the home section of the app, you can add your first balance – since the boon. Mastercard is a prepaid Mastercard, it cannot be used without topping it up first.

Apple Pay

Once you’ve loaded balance, it’s immediately (*though not quite instantly, more on that below) possible to pay in stores at contactless terminals (recognizable by the wave symbol similar to the Wi-Fi symbol) with Apple Pay. To do this, double-press the Home button on the locked iPhone and hold it near the terminal/reader. To pay with Apple Watch, the card must be added in the boon. settings for the Watch. Again: first change the region in the Apple Watch app. You may also need to set up a passcode so Apple Pay can’t be misused if you lose your Apple Watch (this code is not needed for payments – only if you’ve removed the watch from your wrist). To pay with the Watch, double-press the flat button on the side and hold it near a contactless terminal.

• Since March, German users have been asked by the boon. service team to switch to a Plus account to continue using the app for payments “abroad” (from boon.’s perspective: outside of France). This is easy to do in the app – you just need to provide your address and verify your identity. This usually happens within 24 hours.

However, the documents I submitted (ID card + driver’s license) weren’t enough for boon. for verification or proof of address, so they asked via email for more information (utility bill, bank statement, credit card statement, court order, proof of government benefit, tax assessment, residence permit, or registration certificate).

Update, September 2018 → Although I was initially a big fan of mobile payment with boon., I eventually got annoyed that my bank still didn’t officially support Apple Pay and I “had to” resort to a prepaid solution. Instead of constantly topping up my boon. account, I always paid with my N26 Mastercard (contactless). But Apple has recently officially announced Apple Pay, and it will probably be launched by N26 later this year. My free year with boon. has just expired, which is why I took the opportunity to cancel my boon. account.

𐫱𐫱𐫱

(ai disclaimer for de-en posts)

i have not taken too many pictures, but me and other instagrammers had the chance to get a tour inside the new leuphana university in lüneburg, built by architect daniel libeskind.

(this is how it looks from the outside)

all photos taken with a disposable kodak camera during an instawalk in hannover, germany

Over the weekend we (pre)produced photos for the HAZ Instagram account. This photo also came about, which I accidentally took with my iPhone’s portrait mode, but I think it looks pretty cool.

photos taken during our #lostinbille instawalk hosted by welovehh in hamburg, germany.

edit: update

😈 gotta catch ‘em all

photos taken during #wwim13hannover instawalk

⌚️ r/watch doesn’t want to get their apple watch s0 wet. apple doesn’t say it’s waterproof, but you can wash it without problems.

Peter Cohen @ imore.com: “Hockenberry experimented with his Apple Watch, and learned that by moving the Digital Crown to the lower left, his natural inclination was to use his thumb to scroll, rather than twisting the Digital Crown between his thumb and index finger. What’s more, that index finger was now free, making it poised to conveniently tap and scroll on the Apple Watch display. This makes scrolling and tapping a faster experience. It makes operating Apple Watch apps faster.”

i had exactly the same experience. as a right-handed person, i wear watches on my left wrist – and even though apple presents and ships the watch with the digital crown on the right side, it feels more natural to use when it is on the left side.

fortunately, there is an option for this in the apple watch settings.

---

(ai disclaimer for de-en posts) | backup of imore.com

⌚️ looking forward to using apple’s smartwatch!

🌫️ my iphone camera does not focus anymore. every single shot is blurry.

📱 iphone 6 plus homescreen, april 2015

i’ve been on an instwalk hosted by welovehh but after i had to reset my phone, only this image survived.

• Fitbit One
• Fisher Space Pen Cap-O-Matic
• Moto E
• Moto 360
• iPhone 6
• Spyderco Tenacious
• Creative EP 630

update from the future

i had posted this one on reddit (150 upvotes, 39 comments) and everydaycarry.com (1900 views, 22 likes, 6 comments)

📖 “Will Grayson, Will Grayson” by John Green & David Levithan

Rated ★★★★☆

• Braun BN0032
• iPhone 5
• Spyderco Tenacious
• Fitbit One
• VW Carkey

ℹ️ quote from 12 years in the future:

🏞️ when importing old posts to this blog, i found this stash of instagram pictures from 2013, most of them have a filter and were uploaded with #photooftheday and #vscocam. i’m not sure i’ve ever used vsco or just used their hashtag. pretty sure these were my first ever instagram posts actually tagged #photography, after only uploading images of my food before. sadly, those food pictures are long gone. instead of splitting them into separate posts i’ll just drop all of them here in a picdump. (if i remember correctly, the makro image of the 🪰 was my most liked ig post in 2013) i'd like to have them where i put those 2013 ig posts: in my /shoebox!

🎮 i’ve been playing gta v online all morning, sold cards and finished missions, made $50k in-game. when i logged back in this evening, my character was gone and with it all the progess i’ve made earlier. this already happened last week.

ℹ️ i’m now on App.net, user number 33833. thanks for the invite, @imyke!

📱 iphone 5 homescreen, nov 2012

📱 here we go. finally upgrading from iphone 4s to iphone 5 after some struggles.

🍿 Looper by Rian Johnson

Rated ★★★★☆ on Letterboxd.

🙅‍♂️ re: the colleague who didn’t want to meet after i gave him money for the iphone 5 on launch day. i got my money back and he’s not telling the truth why he didn’t want to meet or brought me a phone. i’m not doing that again.

📱 an old colleague was standing in line for the new iphone 5 at hamburg’s apple store today, and i gave him money to buy one for me but he didn’t. he’s also not wanting to meet to give me my money back. i’m pretty sure he’s trying to scam me. stay tuned.

👽 did i really just watch the live stream of the landing of the curiosity rover on f*ing mars on my iphone in a train in germany??

🌐 in 2018 i wrote about switching from google chrome after 10 years of use back to firefox. it’s now 2021 and i’m still using firefox. haven’t looked back to chrome once.

🥾 went on a nice little (12.1 km) hike with my mom and my gf today. we had very good weather and got something to eat halfway through. took some photos with halide’s process zero feature.

📱 iphone 4s homescreen, may 2012

🆔 new name, who dis? i have finally streamlined my online-identity and changed my different usernames on all websites, forums, social media platforms to pzumk!

📱 just got my first iphone. it’s a black iphone 4s with 32gb.