2025-12-23 17:34:00
Here's the list of questions in different languages.
==1. What did you do this year that you’d never done before?==
Got married, stayed in hotels with friends, visited France, had a butterfly on my hand, finished up 45 ECTS in education, started volunteering for noyb, visited a conference in my desired field :)
==2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions?==
I think I had no strict resolutions, just wishes? I did invest more time into creative and fitness pursuits and passed my cert so I think yes :)
==3. Did anyone close to you give birth?==
No!
==4. Did anyone close to you die?==
Also no.
==5. What cities/states/countries did you visit?==
Aside from Alsace in France: Munich, Fürth, Nuremberg, Erlangen, Tübingen, Gießen, Offenbach, Zirndorf, Koblenz and Oberhausen.
==6. What would you like to have next year that you lacked this year?==
A little bit more rest. I pushed myself a lot this year, and moving forward, I want to respect my limits and come to terms with them. I don't want to burn out or permanently damage myself. Sometimes it feels like getting worse below a certain known point is a slow burn unlocking incrementally over months or years, but after recovering from it for a while, it doesn't take nearly as long to end up back at that point than when you originally progressed to it. I want to keep that in mind.
==7. What date(s) from this year will remain etched upon your memory, and why?==
02.05.2025 - the wedding date.
==8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?==
Becoming a certified data protection consultant next to full-time work and part-time studies.
==9. What was your biggest failure?==
I don't know if I had any significant failures that stuck with me or were my fault. I unfortunately failed another medication for my illnesses, but that's hardly something I can control.
==10. What other hardships did you face?==
- There's been a lot of change at work, with people getting fired, leaving, or being moved to different departments. Had to deal with difficult coworkers.
- Was denied an internal transfer to a department that wanted me. Leadership isn't interested in creating more data protection roles.
- Rejected from a job posting that asked for ridiculously much in paper qualifications for a job I can do with the ones I already have. Even others agreed it was over the top. They haven't found anyone for the job since.
- Had a coworker lie about how much she contributed to a project and omitted how much I helped by giving her a copy of our database backend. Boss knows this, acknowledges it in private, yet continues to publicly peddle the story of how that coworker did it all on her own.
- Feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of leaving the place I worked for since 2018, and wanting to move far away, having to coordinate both job search and apartment search.
- And the fact that no one wants to employ my wonderful wife for a year now.
==11. Did you suffer illness or injury?==
Yes. Unfortunately not just my chronic illnesses, but also I was sick with a cold in a hotel room in Tübingen and had to miss out on the birthday party we originally traveled there for.
==12. What was the best thing you bought?==
I barely have any overview of what I bought, since I usually buy so little that isn't just groceries and stuff like that. The stickers I bought at conventions bring me a lot of joy, as do my Sanrio vinyl plushies, and Careless People was the best book purchase I made this year, I think.
==13. Whose behavior merited celebration?==
My wife! She is amazing in what she does, and she is so supportive of my goals, dreams, and my limits. She's so resilient, calm, and understanding. Simply a cool and interesting person, too.
==14. Whose behavior made you appalled?==
People I know who have a talent of making themselves the victim in every situation, picking fights, never taking responsibility and almost never admitting mistakes, while being very patronizing whenever they have to explain anything. There have been a couple moments this year when I had to bite my tongue or else it would have completely escalated, I think. There are some people I only tolerate because it would otherwise cause issues in the group (work or otherwise).
==15. Where did most of your money go?==
My education/career. I paid almost 3k for the cert, about 340 Euro in semester fees, and 534 Euro for a conference of that field. Even the wedding was cheaper than my ambitions. Unfortunately, the upcoming certs I still wanna do are equally expensive. I don't know why other people ask for Birkin bags and cars from their sugar daddies and paypigs, why not ask for education costs to be covered? lol
==16. What did you get really, really, really excited about?==
The conference :)
==17. What song will always remind you of this year?==
Difficult to say yet... maybe Ripping Rubber by Haircuts for Men?
==18. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder? Richer or poorer? Healthier or unhealthier?==
It's such a mixed time right now, I can't yet say. I am almost at the same point I was last year. Maybe a little worse; I think last year, the meds were already working well at this point and I was very hopeful. I am just starting a new one and coming out of a crisis. I guess we're poorer because of all the extra expenses this year and the unemployment benefits my wife gets are less than the work she used to do.
==19. What do you wish you’d done more of?==
I don't think there is something like 'enough' for me in many aspects. I feel like I could have always done more, even if it wouldn't be physically possible, or if I already pushed my limits to make it happen. I'd probably always say more time studying and volunteering, more time exercising, drawing, and reading, even though I already did what I could. I should actually do more intentional, dedicated resting.
==20. What do you wish you’d done less of?==
I think it was fine the way it was.
==21. How are you spending the holidays?==
This year is a bit... cold and sterile. I don't particularly care for Christmas decoration and think it's gaudy, but I can't deny it adds something. Without a tree, decorations or snow, it seems a bit weird, as if it is any other time of the year, but in gray. We had lots of question marks around when and where we would celebrate the holidays because some people just couldn't decide on anything until closely prior, when we finally made the choice to stay home due to my current health and not wanting to hassle family with a stay on short notice, plus not wanting to get dragged around to tons of activities or have to explain myself. You know, despite everyone knowing I am chronically ill and what it entails, I sometimes still face judgment about not wanting to attend huge gatherings or see lots of people during waves of respiratory infections, or for sleeping longer, or just needing to lie down for a little while. You can explain that to people over and over, it doesn't matter. The same person who pities you for your pain can't understand why you want to hang out in bed doing nothing at 4pm. I am currently very much still taking it day by day and can be incredibly depressed the next day, and I don't really need judgment about saying no to visiting a my wife's grandmother right now. But we'll spend NYE with friends :)
==22. Did you fall in love this year?==
I fall in love with my wife a little more each day. Other than her, no.
==23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?==
Yes. Maybe hate is a strong word. Disliking, though.
==24. What was your favorite show?==
Severance!
==25. What was the best book you read?==
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. I am also not sure when I finished Flowers for Algernon, that would be a close second if it was this year.
==26. What was your greatest musical discovery of the year?==
==27. What was your favorite film?==
I barely watched any! Maybe Nosferatu.
==28. What was your favorite meal?==
Tteokbokki.
==29. What did you want and get?==
My certificate!
==30. What did you want and not get?==
A job in data protection (to be fair, I only applied to one internal listing so far!). And my workplace giving me a reason to stay!
==31. What did you do on your birthday?==
My wife organized a birthday party for me :) I didn't have one since I was 9 years old. My parents only had that one for me and then either forbid it or made it very hard, or I didn't have any friends during some times as a teen. At some point I had just kinda given up, especially after having none at other milestone birthdays. It was so nice to be surrounded by people that love and play some fun games and have cake together.
==32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?==
If my medication could have just continued working for me.
==33. How would you describe your personal fashion this year?==
Experimental, more colorful, whimsical. I still want to expand on that.
==34. What kept you sane?==
My wife, looking at Sanrio characters, doodling, venting to coworkers about work issues.
==35. Which celebrity/public figure did you admire the most?==
Molly White!
==36. What political issue stirred you the most?==
There are so many! To choose two in different spheres of severity: The genocide on Palestinians by Israel, and the Digital Omnibus of the EU.
==37. Who did you miss?==
I dearly miss my dead dog, Filou, who died over 2 years ago.
==38. Who was the best new person you met?==
Difficult to choose... I guess it would be Cris!
==39. What valuable life lesson did you learn this year?==
It's usually better to slow down a bit and continue things in a manageable pace, than do a lot and then become so stressed or sick that you can't do anything at all. So, I guess the old adage about how slow and steady wins the race.
==40. What is a quote that sums up your year?==
I don't know if I can think of a quote, per se, but a piece of art.
There's this art piece by Anna Haifisch that I have always related to very deeply:
But nowadays, with a wife, and friends, and my wife's family, I can finally relate to the addition by another artist (molabuddy):
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2025-12-23 15:23:00
I wanted to add nice admonition boxes to my Bear Blog, but pasting HTML div structures felt clunky. Even worse, I couldn't use Markdown to add formatting or links to these boxes without resorting to raw HTML, which even more felt like having tag-soup.
While adding buttons to my Markdown toolbar helped automate the process, it still didn't feel like a clean solution. Then I discovered how GitHub handles Admonitions using simple Markdown. Since that unfortunately doesn't work in Bear Blog, I hacked together a way to get that same Markdown-first experience.
I decided to repurpose the lower-level headings inside a blockquote. This keeps the content in pure Markdown while giving the browser enough "hooks" to style them as Info, Warning, or Caution boxes.
To use this, just add the H4, H5, or H6 headline inside your blockquote, and you are done. Below you can see, what you need to type and how it is rendered, based on the CSS you find below.
> #### Did you know?
> You can find more tips like this in my [archives](/blog/) or by following me on [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@fischr).
Did you know?
You can find more tips like this in my archives or by following me on Mastodon.
> ##### Spoilers ahead!
> The following section discusses the ending of the book in great detail. Read at your own risk.
Spoilers ahead!
The following section discusses the ending of the book in great detail. Read at your own risk.
> ###### Wait, before you copy-paste...
> Always make sure to backup your current CSS theme before applying new styles, just in case!
Wait, before you copy-paste...
Always make sure to backup your current CSS theme before applying new styles, just in case!
Add the following CSS to your Bear Blog theme to transform those headings into beautiful, GitHub-style boxes.
/* ==========================================================================
GitHub Style Admonitions (Info, Warning and Caution Boxes)
========================================================================== */
blockquote:has(h4), blockquote:has(h5), blockquote:has(h6) {
border: none !important;
border-left: 3px solid !important;
padding: 0 0 0 12px !important;
margin: 3rem 0 !important;
background-color: transparent !important;
border-radius: 0 !important;
text-align: left !important;
font-family: var(--font-face) !important;
font-size: 0.9em !important;
line-height: 1.5 !important;
max-width: var(--width);
}
blockquote:has(h4, h5, h6) p {
margin: 0 !important;
padding: 0 !important;
}
blockquote h4, blockquote h5, blockquote h6 {
margin: 0 0 4px 0 !important;
font-size: 1rem !important;
font-family: var(--font-face) !important;
text-transform: none !important;
font-weight: 700 !important;
display: flex;
align-items: center;
}
blockquote h4::before, blockquote h5::before, blockquote h6::before {
display: inline-block;
width: 20px;
height: 20px;
margin-right: 8px;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-size: contain;
}
/* Info (H4) */
blockquote:has(h4) { border-color: #0969da !important; }
blockquote h4 { color: #0969da !important; }
blockquote h4::before {
content: url("data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 16 16' fill='%230969da'%3E%3Cpath d='M0 8a8 8 0 1 1 16 0A8 8 0 0 1 0 8Zm8-6.5a6.5 6.5 0 1 0 0 13 6.5 6.5 0 0 0 0-13ZM6.5 7.75A.75.75 0 0 1 7.25 7h1a.75.75 0 0 1 .75.75v2.75h.25a.75.75 0 0 1 0 1.5h-2a.75.75 0 0 1 0-1.5h.25v-2h-.25a.75.75 0 0 1-.75-.75ZM8 6a1 1 0 1 1 0-2 1 1 0 0 1 0 2Z'%3E%3C/path%3E%3C/svg%3E") / "Info: ";
}
/* Warning (H5) */
blockquote:has(h5) { border-color: #9a6700 !important; }
blockquote h5 { color: #9a6700 !important; }
blockquote h5::before {
content: url("data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 16 16' fill='%239a6700'%3E%3Cpath d='M6.457 1.047c.659-1.234 2.427-1.234 3.086 0l6.082 11.378A1.75 1.75 0 0 1 14.082 15H1.918a1.75 1.75 0 0 1-1.543-2.575Zm1.763.707a.25.25 0 0 0-.44 0L1.698 13.132a.25.25 0 0 0 .22.368h12.164a.25.25 0 0 0 .22-.368Zm.53 3.996v2.5a.75.75 0 0 1-1.5 0v-2.5a.75.75 0 0 1 1.5 0ZM9 11a1 1 0 1 1-2 0 1 1 0 0 1 2 0Z'%3E%3C/path%3E%3C/svg%3E") / "Warning: ";
}
/* Caution (H6) */
blockquote:has(h6) { border-color: #cf222e !important; }
blockquote h6 { color: #cf222e !important; }
blockquote h6::before {
content: url("data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 16 16' fill='%23cf222e'%3E%3Cpath d='M4.47.22A.749.749 0 0 1 5 0h6c.199 0 .389.079.53.22l4.25 4.25c.141.14.22.331.22.53v6a.749.749 0 0 1-.22.53l-4.25 4.25A.749.749 0 0 1 11 16H5a.749.749 0 0 1-.53-.22L.22 11.53A.749.749 0 0 1 0 11V5c0-.199.079-.389.22-.53Zm.84 1.28L1.5 5.31v5.38l3.81 3.81h5.38l3.81-3.81V5.31L10.69 1.5ZM8 4a.75.75 0 0 1 .75.75v3.5a.75.75 0 0 1-1.5 0v-3.5A.75.75 0 0 1 8 4Zm0 8a1 1 0 1 1 0-2 1 1 0 0 1 0 2Z'%3E%3C/path%3E%3C/svg%3E") / "Caution: ";
}
Yeap, I'm aware that headings have semantic meaning. However, there are several reasons why this is actually a superior solution for a blog:
By using H4-H6, you stay entirely within the Markdown syntax. This allows you to use links, bold text, or even lists inside your boxes, without having to add messy HTML and ending up in even more complex tag-soup.
This solution keeps your Markdown source code clean and readable. You don't have to worry about broken HTML tags or complex snippets in your editor. Following the Bear Blog principle, this helps keeping the writing process as simple and clean as possible.
This approach is a win for both accessibility and portability. Screen readers and RSS readers often ignore custom CSS and rely purely on HTML structure. By using headings, your admonitions become meaningful "landmarks". A user can jump directly to a warning in their screen reader, and an RSS subscriber will see a bold, clear headline instead of a flat block of text that lost its styling.
2025-12-23 04:48:00
A while ago, my brother-in-law asked around friends and family if anyone wanted to join the (private) cloud/file service he spun up.
Practical, right? Many outside the corporate web believe in smaller services within friend groups, families, and local organizations as the way forward. Instead of trusting big companies who could (or rather, will) enshittify and become too big and bloated (Google, Meta, Microsoft...), we should trust smaller maintainers within our circles.
The offer made me ponder what I would upload to the file service, and how much I would trust my brother-in-law with the files. Not just the integrity, but the uptime, the availability when issues arise, how swiftly severe bugs or security issues would be patched, and the uncomfortable question about confidentiality: Should I only upload files I don't mind him to see, or should I trust him that he wouldn't look at them?1
That made me think: How much do we trust alternatives to big tech?
When we host our various things like emails, image backups, blogs, social media accounts etc. with these big companies, a certain professionalism is expected. You're dealing with a corporate entity, so you probably have the following expectations:
All of these (whether they are actually realistic and enforceable or not) can give us a sense of security. A cold, sterile business relationship, like the one to our water provider.
If we want to switch away from these data-harvesting giants to smaller solutions, we are confronted with the fact that usually, it's a small group of people, or even just one person. Some try to build up a smaller service professionally, but many just do it on the side, as a hobby. A Mastodon or PixelFed instance, another social media alternative, or media sharing.
That poses some challenges and questions for the average user:
These concerns make smaller services feel less reliable and trustworthy.
A big corporation can (and will) obviously mess up as well and the data breaches and downtimes are a lot more impactful, but: The roles are clear, legal identities are divulged publicly if needed (like their data protection officer!), and someone is responsible for an issue. With a small group of strangers or even just one person online that you don't know, this is more opaque and there are not necessarily any consequences, quality control, workflows or customer service. There is often not even a real name offered that you can use for any sort of complaint or legal action.
I think I might have talked about this in another blog post or alluded to it, but there is a creator of a variety of indie web services that just refuses to delete my accounts since at least 2023. It started with just one I wanted gone, but nowadays I want all of them gone. After multiple fruitless attempts at asking for deletion via email and having no full account deletion in the settings page, I filed an official complaint at the Data Protection Authority responsible for my area.
Unfortunately, they were almost entirely useless, because as long as I do not have the full legal name of the person behind all those services, they say they cannot do anything. These fossils do not want to send out an email reprimanding them for being non-compliant despite processing the EU citizen's data and even taking money for it, they insist on sending an actual letter to the person's residence and don't want to put effort into getting that address from the hoster. Their feedback ended with the great advice that next time, I shouldn't sign up to websites that don't have a privacy policy, proper account deletion process, or a responsible person named. Well, geez, wish I could time travel and tell 2021 me that, who had rose-tinted glasses about indie web alternatives.
Nowadays, I indeed don't sign up, and I make sure to remind every project I see that necessitates user accounts to please fulfill at least the PP and the deletion process. I know I cannot make any of them share their full name if they don't want to.
Being better than the big players doesn't just involve not doing the excessive data harvesting they do, but also handling the little bit of data you get with care, and having processes in place that make dealing with user data easier and gives a lot of control to the user, and ideally, let them know who they're dealing with.
And that's where it really differs from case to case, because at Bearblog, I am really happy with how things are and have turned out so far, despite it only being one person. It is professional, I get amazing customer support, I know the legal identity, and I can find out exactly how data is collected and processed. Plus: There is an account deletion I can initiate on my own without having to message someone and hope for the best.
For comparison, it took Cohost (that was ran by a small group of people) about 4 months or so to delete my account that I had to request via email, and it took someone I know over a year. That means constantly checking back in whether the deletion has gone through and the profile is still up, and that is not only annoying, but it can also threaten the safety of people who get found by stalkers, family members and others. Some of these things are time-sensitive, and it's irresponsible and non-compliant to not have a better system in place.
Strangers are simply a hit or miss. Could be a creep that reads all your DMs to other people on the instance, or not. What about a friend? If your friendship breaks apart, do you lose the service and the data accumulated on there? If it's a family member and something really bad happens with your data and account, do you want to risk the family peace by holding them accountable? Honestly, no one wants to set up a formal contract for something like this as it feels silly, and many won't. So what basis do you have?
If you are lucky, the indie project you want to use has open‑source code, transparent incident logs, and community reviews and PRs that serve as proxies for professionalism and quality control, but in my view, that is rather uncommon.
I don't want to badmouth smaller alternatives, as I am still a big fan of them and rely on them. I just want to discuss these fears and risks, and some of my good and bad experiences. I want them to thrive and do better in these topics. Trust sadly isn't purely rational, and familiarity, perceived competence, contracts, incentives, and consequences play important roles.
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For the record, I trust him not to look at them, but it's still a thought I had, since I never had to decide that before.↩
2025-12-23 03:49:00
This might rustle some jimmies, but I don't really care. I'm tired of seeing these hacker news posts getting blasted onto trending, half the time they far surpass anything anyone posts purely on this platform.
I'm not mad at the people who post something tech-related and it happened to get cross posted as was the case with Ava some time back. I'm talking about the posts that are primarily optimized for the hacker news platform. It never fails too, it's always glazing AI/LLMs.
I don't mind tech posts, I like seeing the odd tech stuff that people post, helpful code snippets, etc. I'm just tired of seeing AI circle jerking on this platform.
I'm not calling for Herman to suppress these posts, that would be silly of me and kinda cringe. I'm just screaming at a cloud with the displeasure I and some of my friends on this platform have aired.
The fun thing about this platform is just seeing the mundane thoughts of regular people. Not shilling some buzzword for clicks.
I swear to god if I hear "paradigm shift" with AI one more time I'm gonna fucking lose it...
If you're amongst those people who writes this sort of AI glazing shit and would like to email me your strongly worded email at your displeasure of my post. Don't bother. I won't read it. It will go right into the trash. I didn't value your opinion before, and I certainly won't value it now.
Pirate is wearing grey oversized Goofy tee and green plaid PJ bottoms.
Pirate is feeling tired
Pirate is listening to his 2000s alternative music playlist on iPod.
Pirate is playing Bioshock on the XBOX 360
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2025-12-22 07:32:00
These aren’t genuine proposals to fix social media sites, but thought experiments that I wonder about in terms of how it would affect online discussion culture. Wouldn’t mind seeing it on alternative platforms that want to try out something new or weird, though.
Social media site where you can’t leave a comment on a link submission until 12h have passed.
Social media site where you only ever see one comment underneath a post that you can engage with, not all of them.
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2025-12-22 02:29:55
I always had a fascination for the nights, I feel like they can be traced back to a decade ago, when I was part of a Scouts group.
It was one of my first times going for camping, I was a kid and very scared of going there by myself at the time, but I went with my group plus a few others. and when it started getting dark, with the shadows of the trees covering the place, I needed to deliver something to someone over there, can't recall what it is, but when I went on my way, I saw the sky. It was absolutely beautiful.
I never saw the night being so blue, full of stars and even making out constellations while illuminating the floor so brightly that I never thought possible in my years living in the city, but it was an incredible sight. I only saw it for 30 seconds or so, but it stuck with me ever since.
Another good memory I have while being a Scout was when we reunited with all the scouts of the area near us, and we did a massive circle where we talked, ate food and played hide and seek in the darkness. It was massively fun, and I mean it, even if i was awfully tired from the long trail we needed to go to get there at first.
Ever since I quit being a Scout, I've been trying to chase that high from the nights, but because I live in the city, there's massive pollution from the lights, which makes most stars not be visible, and the sky pitch black.
Sometimes I would like to go walk in the night at least, and see how it all looks from there, but the city I live in is dangerous, so that's automatically discarded, even if I wish it wasn't so.
Life may try to get in the way of my memories, making it seem like all I'm doing is for naught, that it's just not worth it anymore, but then I remember that night, those moments, and it fills me with wonder that I thought I lost long ago.
Even if I may never see night like that again, even if all the stars die eventually, even if I die, I'll take that night view and those memories deep to my heart, because there is beauty in our world, natural beauty that's awaiting to be discovered, and it'll always be there waiting for us.
Even if sometimes it feels the opposite way, the world we live in is beautiful and it makes me glad to be alive, although all that beauty is often hidden.