An update on how we have been doing recently.
Feeds from people participating at the IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf, May 2025.
Now that Zoe and I got our first band photos, we should probably start an actual band, too.
Photos by Sina Frantzen.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Halftime
This is post number 50 of my 100-days-of-writing challenge. It’s halftime! Time for me to look at how this little (?!?) experiment worked out so far and what I might have learned or experienced since I started back in May.
First of all, the obvious: Writing a post every day...
🎥 3 Minutes Of Basketball
This morning, I had time to play some basketball. So I went to the court to throw a few throws (like I said I would).
I was pleased to notice that my throwing hasn’t gotten completely terrible after years of not playing. I spontaneously recorded 3 minutes of it.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Gall’s Law
In 1963, the people at NASA needed a building. And not just any building. It had to be large enough to be able to assemble the enormous space vehicles NASA designed as part of their massive effort to send astronauts to the Moon. The building that was completed in 1966 allowe...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Finite and Infinite Games
According to James P. Carse, there are at least two types of games: Finite games and infinite games. Finite games have a clear beginning and end, a distinct set of rules and boundaries, and we play them for one purpose: to win. Take any match of chess, tennis, football, or S...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Range
What is the right strategy to achieve greatness and succeed in a specific domain? If you believe the predominant narrative in many efficiency-oriented societies today, the answer is clear: Focus on one thing early in life to have a head start and invest at least the famous 1...
📄 Pedalboard update
My pedal board has a new layout.
Now that I’m running iOS 13 on my new iPhone, I’ve installed the Corona Warn App.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Lateral Thinking With Withered Technology
One evening in the late 1970s, an engineer from Kyoto was riding home on the Shinkansen, when he recognized the man sitting next to him playing around with his LCD calculator, punching buttons in boredom. The engineer, who worked at a toy and gaming company, had an idea: Wha...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
The Idea Machine
I used to dream of a magical machine. It was about as big as a microwave, all silver metal (with rivets, of course), and it had little knobs, lamps, and indicators everywhere. On the left, there were two buttons: One was green and the other one red. On the right, the machine...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Hell Yeah or No
Derek Sivers just published a new book. It is called “HELL YEAH OR NO” and you can get it on Derek’s website. Having enjoyed Derek’s blog articles and podcast a lot, buying his book, which also includes an audio version, was a no-brainer for me. Derek is a musician, producer...
📄 New Macbook Keyboard
Recently, I had my Mac’s keyboard replaced. Because, unsurprisingly, I started having regular double-types, which got increasingly annoying. Luckily, Apple acknowledges the problem and offers a free repair program.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Progressive
Ethan Marcotte wrote this on Twitter on Monday:
Nostalgia for the heyday of web design has to be balanced with the knowledge that much of what we did “in the old days” was woefully, thoroughly...
📄 Last Week's Purchases
Last week was unusually purchase-rich for me, buying three new items.
🔗 August 2019 – Daniel Pietzsch’s Photo Journal
📷 “August 2019” is now up in the Photo Journal: https://photojournal.danielpietzsch.com/2019/August. 📷
Desperately trying to catch up… ;-)
A family gathering near Brussels, commuting photos and the usual documentation.
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Their Fault
It is clearly their fault.
The clients just don’t get design.
The designers only care about how it looks.
The developers have no sense for aesthetics.
CSS is broken.
The users are just too stupid.
It is clearly their fault. Is it, though?
Whenever we struggle or ...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Always at Your Service
Jeremy Keith and the team at Clearleft have started a new podcast. In each episode, they are looking at a different theme related to design, development, and beyond. The first episode covered design systems and was already very worthwhile. But I especially enjoyed the latest...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Wicked Design
Problems come in two flavors. There are the problems we know how to solve, or at least know that there is a solution to them. Like mathematical equations, for example, or beating another chess player in five moves. For those problems, the mission is clear. And then, there ar...
Matthias Ott
• Matthias Ott
Scrolling Elements Into View
Although you should not mess with scrolling unless it is really necessary, scrolling an element into view is something that is needed from time to time. In my case, I recently wanted to scroll to the top of a table after a user clicked on the pagination underneath the table....