After two weeks of isolation, talking to my GraphQL endpoint almost feels like talking to a human.

This year I graduated from high school and started a dual curriculum (50% practical work at a company, 50% theory at university) and after four months I can without a doubt say:

I am not enjoying it at all.

I think fixed deadlines kill quality

Build my own phone and support the Zerophone project by writing code.

Seriously what the fuck is going on with the development of major companies smartphones. Every year all there is are larger displays, better and more cameras, faster processors and some more 'AI' thrown into the mix.

What the heck am I supposed to do with a phone costing multiple hundreds of euros but locked down with an OS spying on you. The processing power available is hardly ever used because most people just use apps like Instagram, WhatsApp or other messaging services.

I get why larger screens are useful but at some point it gets ridiculous.
Better cameras are useful to some degree as well but there's a limit to it.
If you really want to get into photographing then please buy an actual camera.

Another aspect I'd of course like to talk about is privacy. It's hardly existent on IOS or Android smartphones with Google services. Of course one can install different ROMs like Lineage OS but if I already pay multiple hundreds for a device then I'd prefer it working for and not against me.

And dare you break a single part of your phone. You can't really repair it yourself anymore and one can't even change its battery. Most people either have it repaired or just buy a new one and throw it away. There is so much electronic waste, very difficult and expensive to dispose of, just buried in the ground somewhere.

Summing up: I don't really know where the development of smartphones is heading. A phone is a device you carry around with you almost everyday so I'd like it to be tailored to me and not spy on me.

I hope the Librem phone will be a success and other open source phone projects will gain more attention. I want a phone I can repair myself and tailor the software running on it to my needs. I'd like to write messages, listen to music, make calls, run a WiFi hot-spot on the phone and maybe play some tiny games on it once in a while.

Recently found an artist called "Big Data". His song titles describe what Big Data actually is really well:

Update to my last rant:

The best teammates are those who don't give a fuck about the project until one week before the deadline and then have the fucking audacity to tell you what to do.

The best teammates are those those who don't care about the project for 3 months and then one week before the deadline ask: "Is there anything left to do?"

Another great thing is pihole.

Blocking more than 2 million domains like an afternoon breeze

Godot

It's a very lightweight game engine with a lot of features, great community and active development.

(Unity is way too bloated for me since I only make small games as a hobby)

I finally managed to open a beer bottle using a sheet of paper

My finger is red as fuck but it was worth it

I just really don't like working with VHDL.

Tech company / library / programming language that you used to like but hate now

Fucking Huawei have stopped giving out codes for unlocking the bootloader of their devices. You can't even get one by messaging their support.

Now you can't even root Huawei phones anymore unless you pay for some very sketchy looking software.

Fuck this

I have been very inactive in these last couple of months but I really need to rant right now:

I am working on a project, which is also part of a contest, with a few of my friends. I asked one of them to write a bit of code and some documentation about it, here's the result:

He wrote half a page of text with plenty of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors but here comes the even worse part:
Instead of just leaving the code in its own file he copied it into the word (libre office writer) file as well. Now I have got 3 pages of non-indented code with a few comments flying around here and there, weird variable names and a lot of commented out pieces of code.

Bloody hell I feel like I am the only one in this team taking this contest serious.

One of my teachers pronounces the 'g' in 'git' like the 'j' in 'jet' and it confuses me each time he says it

Yay, I am organizing a talk about privacy at my school

Gotta make up for using windows :P

Publish at least one app to F-Droid

Have a thinkpad with libre-boot and a librem 5 phone with ONLY free software on it.

And maybe get into politics a bit.

Make a Linux handheld device using a raspberry pi zero, a display, a battery and a keyboard, so I always have a Linux terminal with me.

Especially in hard times like the one I am in at the moment :P

Ok, so until I manage to install Linux again on my notebook, I am stuck with windows.

I am a rather optimistic guy usually so I will take this as an opportunity to learn, see how far I can go with privacy on Windows and I will give rainmeter a try.

@linuxxx please don't be too mad :P

Hey guys,

At first I would like to say sorry for asking a technical question here but I am really desperate.

I have a dell xps 15 and after trying to install arch and updating grub I can't boot from any Linux USB-Stick anymore.

I tried it with Linux mint 18.2 and 18.3. (they both worked before) and when I boot from them the error 'file /boot not found' flashes up and after some time I get the following error message (image)

After a few seconds of that error message it continues booting and then crashes while booting.

I am very thankful for any help and ideas how I could fix this.

To everyone who understands German and is at least a little bit concerned about privacy: I recommend watching 'PRISM is a dancer' by Neo magazin royale and Jan Böhmermann

I got some stickers from the German party 'Die Piraten'. They support data privacy and focus on Internet related things.

The stickers are just awesome.

I was wearing my tux t-shirt today and while walking through the city I suddenly heard a boy (around 3-4 years) say to his mom: 'He had a penguin on his t-shirt!'

I smiled and this made my day. :)

Hey guys,

I have decided to stop worrying about privacy. I have nothing to hide so why should I even care.

I just created an Instagram and a Facebook account and I also installed WhatsApp again and I ordered an Amazon Alexa and a Google home device as well. These voice assistants are just so useful 😊.

I am also gonna use windows again, everything just works and it is the most used operating system so it has to be the best one! It is way securer than Linux because it is not open source and thus hackers can't find vulnerabilities because they can't see the code.

!dev

If you ever feel like having a good laugh, just watch a flat-earthers video/live-stream.

I can't understand how something like this can even happen, it's so insanely ridiculous.

HOW THE FUCK CAN A HUMAN BEING LIVING IN 2018 BELIEVE THAT THE EARTH IS A FLAT DISC WITH A GLOBE ABOVE IT.

I put away the keyboard and solder for a bit

Although I love developing I always thought that there was something missing.
I learned Java but didn't really like it. I had spent quite some time with web development and enjoyed it but I felt like developing with JavaScript was too high level and I felt the same for Python.

So I started learning the most awesome programming language: C

I just love that I have so much control over everything and that the language is so compact and gives you just the right amount of tools you need.

I also love physics and electronics a lot and it feels awesome to first build something and then program it.

I am looking forward to design a PCB (printed circuit board) and write code for an AVR microcontroller like the Atmega328 (most arduinos use this one).

Picture of the project I am working on.

As much as I hate Amazon Alexa and everything connected to it, the randomly laughing thing is a very smart PR-move.

TL;DR don't fiddle around with batteries if you aren't ABSOLUTELY sure what you are doing

For my arduino project I need to use 18650 Li-Ion batteries. They are pretty awesome but at the same time pretty dangerous if you don't use them the right way. You need protection boards etc. or they can/will go BOOM.

So I am looking around Amazon to find some good quality ones and reading some reviews made me wanna cry.

People were REMOVING protection circuits from the batteries and even removing the foil around the batteries. NEVER EVER FUCKING DO THAT!

I also found out that these are the batteries used in E-Cigarettes and now I really don't wonder anymore why they explode so often. People fuck around with the batteries just so they fit into their vapes, or reduce the resistance of the coil (the thing to heat up the liquid) to an absolute minimum so they can get more watts. A side effect of this is that a lot of current gets drawn from the batteries (>20A or something) which makes them go BOOM if no protection/fuses are used in the circuit.