A few words on the current corona virus situation.
Feeds from people participating at the IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf, May 2025.
🔗 April 2019 – Daniel Pietzsch’s Photo Journal
The first month living in the new neighbourhood. And so this post contains shots around there, at home, and of course random shots in between, which is the result of me taking my cameras everywhere I go.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Thoughts on Writing: Diamond Polishers and Vomit Drafters
They say that writers come in two flavors: Diamond polishers and vomit drafters. Let me explain.
Have you ever been sitting at your desk, trying to write one single paragraph, but then found yourself meticulously fiddling with every single shred of a word and each and every ...
My first ever pedalboard is taking shape.
In addition to the looper, the phaser, and the Little Big Muff fuzz I mentioned before, I now also got an EHX Pitch Fork and an expression pedal.
It’s all attached to the pretty much smallest pre-build board I could find: a Fame Spaceboard 50S.
And I think I now want to buy a single dedicated power supply, which can power all those pedals. Because it’s currently a little annoying having to power the pedals all individually.
Anyhow: happy progress!
📄 Webmentions
This site can now receive Webmentions. Either directly or via Twitter (with Bridgy’s help).
🎧 Over and Over and Over – Jack White
Listening to this over and over and over again…
📄 Guitar Gear Excitement
Recently, I really got into guitar gear – especially effect pedals.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Thoughts on Writing: What They Say
You might have heard of this quote from Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap:
A brand is not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.
...
Last week I discovered Royal Blood and was blown away! Just check out this festival gig:
They’re only a duo – a drummer and a bassist (!) – but produce an impressive (and innovative) sound. Have not seen anything quite like it. It’s like The White Stripes meet Muse and it’s brilliant!
Today, the Trident Era Ends
When I was a child, I was always fascinated by stories about ancient civilizations. I devoured books about Atlantis, or the story of Heinrich Schliemann's discovery of Troy, stories about the Greek, the Romans, the Inca Empire, or Ancient Egypt. And I was always fascinated b...
I just learned about the CSS scroll-behavior property and immediately applied it to a site. Super simple JS-independent smooth scrolling. :-)
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
My RSS Feed Collection of Personal Websites
Yesterday, Chris Coyier asked a question on Twitter:
“Who’s gonna read your personal blog because it has an RSS feed? I’m gonna read your personal blog because it has an RSS feed.” Chris then attached a screen recording of him scrolling down his massive list of RSS feeds of...
📄 New camera: the Yashica FR1
Last year, I acquired a few new cameras. One of them was a Yashica FR1 (or FRI, as it’s often written as) with a selection of lenses. It was a random opportunity. And I took it. Here are some first images taken with the 24mm lens I bought with it.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
2019 Year in Review
Now that a lot of people are publishing their year in review posts, I decided to write my first one, too, this time. And if only to be able to look back later on what I did and thought about in 2019.
Writing a full “decade in review” post seemed a bit too excessive to me, th...
🔗 March 2019 – Daniel Pietzsch’s Photo Journal
March was a mixed bag. I was doing lots of trips back and forth between Ratingen and Düsseldorf, preparing the move into our new apartment. Plus, I started a new/old job again, being busy working full time again.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Thoughts on Writing: Shitty First Drafts
I don’t know about you but many people seem to think that accomplished writers are able to sit down at their desks and immediately start writing in beautiful, fully formed sentences and paragraphs. In reality, though, nothing could be farther from the truth. As Anne Lamott p...
📄 Dark mode
While this site is new and super-simple, I thought I add an automatic “dark mode” real quick.
Added syntax highlighting now, too. Since Jekyll generates the necessary markup out of the box, it was simply a matter of choosing an additional stylesheet, including it, and making a few more adjustments.
📄 Responsive images
I have now added the ability to display responsive images. And I write a little bit about how I do it using the tools I run the build this site.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Thoughts on Writing
Since I started writing on this site about three years ago, I have been thinking a lot about writing as a craft. What are the qualities of good writing? Are there any recipes or best practices to become a better writer? What are the tricks and habits of great writers? And so...