Alright, yesterday I wrote about Frustration. Today, it’s about success. I did it. I went to the mechanic and they basically just confirmed what I read: After a bit of googling, I found a few suggestions on how to fix that. Put a bit of soap on the part of the tire that sits in the rim, put 1 bar on them, then walk the wheel over the floor and if none of that helps, go 1 bar over the specified maximum and wait for the tire to just “pop” on the rim....
Normally I can deal with frustation, be it in my job or in my personal life. Shit just happens and it’s mostly not a complete dealbreaker. Today however is a bit different. I purchased new tires for my Cannondale CAADX cyclocross bike because the old ones were close to retirement. They didn’t have any grip and they had a tendency to slide even when breaking mildly. After doing a bit of research, I decided to order WTB Riddler 37C....
tl;dr: If you do not need the audio channel, do not buy Type C to HDMI dongles, buy Type C to DisplayPort. I purchased a LG 27UD68 27" 4k display to work on at home. Since my Pixelbook only features 2 USB Type C ports, I was in need of a dongle to get it to extend the desktop to the display or to work in clamshell mode. I tried 2 Type C to HDMI dongles and they all had major issues....
After the unexpected surprise that was Babylon Berlin, it seems that Germany is slowly on the rise in terms of being able to produce thrilling, modern TV shows. This time it’s Bad Banks, focusing on the dubious schemings of the financial sector. Produced by ARTE and ZDF, it is now ready for streaming in the Mediathek. Of course, thanks to German Laws, it’ll be depublished within 14 days, so you better get your local copy while it’s still available....
Sweden’s most famous Black Metal trio is back with a new album. Following their rather lackluster release The Wild Hunt, which had its moments but ultimately could not completely deliver on what they seemingly tried to achieve, Trident Wolf Eclipse might just be two thirds of a turnaround for Watain. I’m not someone to expect bands to repeat themselves over and over. Hell, I prefer post-2000 Satyricon to their medieval take on early 90s Norwegian Black Metal and if Watain still sounded like they did on Casus Luciferi, I’d be bored - to death....
If you had to kill one of your loved ones or risk them all dying, what would you do? That’s the question Yorgos Lanthimos is asking in his latest creation of misery, where a doctor who failed to save a patient is trying to make up for his mistake by being kind and supportive of the surviving son. The boy at first just want to talk to him but then forces himself into the doctor’s family....
I love companies that send their employees to conferences where they actually come back smarter and better connected. InVision is such a company and they sent me and my colleagues Kai and Thomas to Austin in Texas to the KubeCon/CloudNativeCon. What can I say? It was an incredible conference. The last conference that left such an impression on me was the Velocity Conf 2015 in London. Being around some of the most skilled, kind and experienced persons in the field is quite a humbling experience....
In 2013, Google introduced the Chromebook Pixel. It was the first time I actually considered Chrome OS and I had an urge I hadn’t felt since Apple introduced the first Intel MacBook Pro: I wanted this thing. I needed to have it. But it was way out of my budget at that time and I had just gotten the first 13" Retina MacBook Pro as my work laptop, so it seemed kind of stupid to buy it....
Yesterday’s event went quite smoothly, in my opinion. Google’s message is still clear: Just doing software and hardware doesn’t cut it, in that they also want to bring AI/machine learning to the masses and fuse it with their hardware products running their software. They’ve also toned down the specs-game and instead relied on examples out of the lives of ordinary people. I think these examples are mostly clishé and listening to them repeatedly gets annoying pretty fast, but I’d be worried if Google still advertised its products solely to tech-savvy people....
Next week in Wednesday, Google will host an event where they will announce a bunch of new hardware products under the Pixel brand and of course, most of the products have already been leaked. One of these devices is supposed to be a follow-up to the Chromebook Pixel laptop-line that was first released in 2013 (with another model introduced in 2015). It is expected that Google’s new laptop will be rebranded to Pixelbook....
I enjoy going to the cinema, but if possible, I prefer to go to smaller cinemas. Every so often it even happens that I am the only one sitting in the room, being completely immersed in the movie that is projected to the wall. Small cinemas are often screening indie movies with a limited budget and movies from other countries that I’d never hear about if it wasn’t for small cinemas....
It’s election day in Germany. I’m not going to tell you to vote today, the rest of the Internet has been doing that already during the last couple of weeks. Either you voted or you didn’t. I hope you did and that you did not chose a party like the AfD. If you did, please do not speak to me.
A few weeks ago, a new project named Eddy Sharing started renting electric scooters in Düsseldorf. The project is a spin-off of Berlin startup named Emmy in collaboration with the Stadtwerke. Since they started, I’m seeing Eddy scooters everywhere in the city. The difference with regards to typical scooters is that you’re only seeing and not hearing them: They’re silent, as one would come to expect from electronic engines. That has an advantage I never noticed before: I’m often seeing Eddy riders talk to people on their bicycles while waiting at the traffic light....
These are just incredible. I’ve had my fair share of beautiful pictures that were taken with my Nexus 6P, but I never managed to produce anything that even comes close to these pictures from saltsticks that he posted on Reddit. He was also nice enough to reply to after I asked if they were taken with a stand and HDR+ and also if he edited them: No stand, just tried to move as little as possible when taking the shots....
I seem to have surprised quite a few people when I posted a picture of a packaged iPad Pro on Instagram last week, judging by the number of people who contacted me to ask why I have purchased an iPad. I’m heavily invested in the Google ecosystem, so I get why this would confuse people. The truth is, I was already close to purchasing an iPad Pro 10.5" when I watched the Apple event in June together with a few friends....