Thoughts. Music. Photography. Oh, and of course cats…
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.
As you can probably see, we’re back. Not yet like before our webhosting company changed their setup (and broke our sites in doing so), but we’re working on it. So rest a bit, and wait for new content and/or changes from us.
And as always, thanks for reading.
Since yesterday, I’m officially (doctor-approved) rid of my orthosis, and also off of these daily heparin injections – yay!
The doctor told me to be careful, and to still wear that orthosis in case I’ll have to walk a longer distance – and I told him that with being 69, one should have learned to be careful. Or, as someone once said: “Listen to your body when it\’s whispering – then you don\’t have to hear it scream” 😉
In fact, last week Wednesday I had tried to walk without that boot in the flat for 5 minutes – no complaints, didn’t hurt. Then on Pentecost Sunday I’ve made that 10 minutes, and on Monday 15. So when I came back from that doctor’s yesterday, I took off that boot, and walked 15 minutes again. My step counter ist registering my first steps as well, although I’m far from reaching my former daily goal of 10k steps – that will still take a while.
So I’m taking it slowly, as advised. And I’m thankful for having had good doctors who found the cause of my problems, and who helped solving it.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering about these step numbers above: my Fitness band only counts steps if it detects arm swings while walking, so if you’re extra careful, it sometimes misses lots of steps… (on Monday I walked 5 minutes more than on Sunday, but it doesn’t show)
As always, thanks for reading.
It\’s Pentecost Sunday, May 24th, and I\’m feeling a bit better since I broke my foot on Easter Sunday which was on April 5th. And as you can see in the screenshots from gadgetbridge on my phone, fed by my Xiaomi Smart Band 8, at first I just continued to walk until my diagnosis:
![\"\"](\"https://wolfgang.lonien.de/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/3screenshotsgadgetbridge-1620x1200.png\")
You see my daily steps going down quite a bit after April 5th, and after April 17th they were over – on April 21st I gave up on them, and my step counter went to about 0 steps a day. Most doctors advised to not use that foot for a few weeks, and so I did.
My fitness tracker now starts to count a few steps again, after I started walking without crutches. On last Wednesday I tried to walk for 5 minutes in the flat without my boot, on Friday and Saturday I had to go out *with* that boot, and today I walked for 10 minutes indoors without it again. So far, no complaints, no pain, but I\’m still being careful to not crack my heel again, as the doc suggested. You see my weekly steps in the right screenshot taken from my phone.
On Tuesday, I\’ll have the next appointment with the doc again, and I hope that he allows me to get out of that boot, and off of those daily heparin needles (as thrombosis prophylaxis) again – after all, I\’m also taking Aspirin 100 already for the same purpose of preventing blood clots.
So I\’m careful, I\’m letting my heel heal as suggested, and wish me luck then 🙂
And as always, thanks for reading.
Jo Bager and tante have interesting comments on the restructuring of Google Search. This is recommended reading, Jo\’s article is also available in German.
Just trying UbuntuStudio 26.04 in a virtual machine, and stumbled over this lovely singsang tune…
Wonderful, those 2 birds, ain\’t they? And I remember playing this live with Oliv in a cloister in Steinfeld, Germany, until I\’ve got his chord progression right… Thanks for listening 🙂
Taken today with my Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mk2 and with Mitchie’s Panasonic Lumix G 20mm/1.7 lens. Cropped to 3:2 format and used an Ilford HP5 film simulation in RawTherapee:
And like always, thanks for viewing.