Thoughts. Music. Photography. Oh, and of course cats…
I just took Bella’s picture using my Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mk2 and the 17mm/1.8 lens at f/2:
Oh, and I should probably also mention that I like to read “The Online Photographer” a lot. Michael is about my age, and beside his converted-to-black-and-white Sigma camera, he’s now also using the “grandchild” of my camera, the Mk4 version of my little Olympus. Plus his iPhone as he writes. Recommended site for photographers, really.
And as always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.
A neighbour and friend just passed away in the last days of June, during the last heatwave we’ve had. Hagen was a bit younger than me, and just retired at the beginning of this year. Read a better and more thorough obituary on the pages of the local left party DIE LINKE in case you understand German.
RIP my friend.
Rosael Torres-Davis published an article over at Cycling Weekly with the title “‘It’s the same tech for half the price’: how Chinese manufacturers are breaking the mould on value and performance“, telling the story of new and big Chinese bicycle brands like X-Lab (by XDS) and the likes.
Reminds me of dusruptive innovators like Switzerland’s Ulf Behringer who did the same with synthesizers, mixers, audio interfaces, and so on – he just undercut the market prices by half after he started producing big style in Shenzen. Or it reminds me of the new electric Renault Twingo, whose engine is Chinese as well – they developed that car in cooperation with China in less than 2 years. And it runs on a LFP battery from CATL (biggest Chinese battery maker IIRC).
Yes – Simon (our daughter’s b/f) owns a Giant TCR bicycle with a (still mechanical) Shimano Ultegra group, and Giant is maybe the biggest bicycle manufacturer in the world, followed by Merida(, and now maybe XDS?). And “German” brands like Canyon, “French” ones like Decathlon/Van Rysel, and others (“American” ones like Trek, Specialized, Cannondale, or Cervélo) also source their carbon frames right there, either in Taiwan, or in mainland China. Or the “Spanish” Orbea, although they still produce their aluminium frames inhouse, and that’s one nice (but not really cheap) cooperative anyway. And cheaper ones like our “German maker” Cube even have their frames built in Cambodia, which is what even Chinese brands like XDS do with their not-so-expensive products. So why not buying Chinese right from the start, without the middle-men and their skyrocketing price/margin increases? By now I think that when buying a Giant (or their female Liv brand) bicycle, you at least know where it all comes from…
We own steel bikes from “German manufacturer” VSF Fahrradmanufaktur. And while “manufactory” sounds nice, I have no idea where they get their steel frames from; they’re definitely not welded here… boutique shop bicycles cost a lot more than ours did.
Like I said in my headline, this is an interesting read – no matter if you’re really interested in bicycles or not.
What a nice surprise this morning. Even before opening the shutters, I heard rain. And after our recent heat wave with record temperatures of up to 41.7 degrees here in Germany (and 29.0°C in our flat), we currently have 22 degrees. Had the door and windows open for more than 3 hours now, and the cat was out all of that time as well – except for once, when Iggy, a black male neighbours’ cat walked her home. What a gentleman 😉
I’m also back to a target of over 10,000 steps as of today, and while even last week with a target of 9k I was reaching these already, it was more or less accidential until now. Like when going shopping or so. But now, that 10k line should be crossed each day again, and the month should become more or less a straight line then, as it has been before… for now, it looks like this:
As always, thanks for reading.
Our cat Bella enjoys the current weather, which is some 30°C outside (at 10am) vs 24°C inside. So after being out for some 2 hours 20 minutes or so, she briefly came home for a short snack, and now she’s gone again…
I’ve put that photo up on my mastodon account, so you can also see it there in case you want to see it bigger. And as always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.
Mitchie got Android 17 yesterday, and now I’m reading that mine is ready as well, although I’m using the stable version of GrapheneOS, so it could still last a few days until it’ll be rolled out to my phone. I’m okay with that, reminds me of how the Debian devs do it. So I’m looking forward to receiving another A16 update first.
Let’s see; I bet that GrapheneOS still beats Samsung – I have their OneUI 8.5 (based upon Android 16) on my tablet.
Anyway; thanks to all open source devs! And like always, thanks for reading.
Update from Friday, 26th of June 2026: got it this morning at sunrise or so – now I have Android 17 on GrapheneOS. I knew they would be faster than Samsung or others…
My old friend and former lead singer of my our first “proper” band just sent me his latest album:
In case you understand German lyrics and like Hard Rock, you can listen to it and order it at his Bandcamp page.
Thanks Thomas, really appreciated. Love it!
I’m now starting the second week after I got rid of my orthosis, and before that happened, I did a few steps without that “shoe” already, So I’ve set myself a goal of hitting 3,000 steps per day in the first week, then 4,500 in the second, and 6,000 steps a day right now. Next week I’ll try to get 7,500, then 9,000, you get it. Looks like this on Gadgetbridge, with data coming from my fitness tracker:
Okay, I had a few steps more, like when going shopping together with Mitchie, but you get the idea… and until now, my plan seems to work.
As always, thanks for reading.
Before an upgrade of our webhosting company took down our blogs a week ago, I was trying a new darktable image converting algorithm (or tone mapper) called “AgX” – see and read more about it here, here, or here.
Technically, it’s probably the most advanced one I’ve seen so far. From a user’s standpoint, you’ll really have to learn the thing – without changing any settings, a picture I took with my Olympus camera and Mitchie’s Panasonic lens looks like this:
A wide tonal range for sure, with no blown-out highlights, and it’s as neutral as I could think of – but is it pretty? Here’s the out-of-cam jpg pic for comparison:
Nicer greens and greys, a lot more contrast, and more life-like also if I remember that correctly – although some of Bella’s white fur is about to “clip” (be overexposed). It would take some work to make the AgX conversion look like Olympus’ special sauce in their in-camera “developer”, in case you’d want that.
But interesting it is without any question, so let me read about the thing a bit more, and also experiment with it – I think it has deserved that. Thanks to all developers of free and open source stuff like this, it’s really appreciated!
To you, like always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.
Ryan McNeal over at Android Authority reports about some clever users who put their old analog watches onto the band of a Google Fitbit Air (which has no screen like most other fitness trackers). That’s a nice idea, and although I would love to try this with my Tissot, and give Fitbit a try, I’d only do this in case Google would open their protocols to third party app designers like the nice guys at Gadgetbridge and/or others. I will definitely *not* allow Google to collect my data in their clouds, thank you very much. So no open source, no buy; sorry Google… most Chinese brands, even Huawei, are much better at this – for supported devices see this list. Maybe this trick would also work with an Amazfit Helio Strap, who knows… I like that headline about it over at Tom’s hardware, which reads: “No subscription, no screen, no problem” – just the way I would like it… maybe I should investigate that further?
As always, thanks for reading.