Daniel Pietzsch

Personal blog. Mostly photos.

I’m going to do my last film development in the current flat to wrap up this day. Four rolls of APX 400 @1600​ in XTOL.

There’s a bottle of Flens in the fridge and Matt Day has a new video up. That’ll keep me entertained while in the bathroom.

Dark Mode based on OS preference

This blog has had a dark mode for a while now. Toggling it on and off could be done manually, and the selected preference would be stored in your browser for the next time you return.

I’ve now extended the script that handles the switching to respect your operating system’s preference for dark mode. This uses matchMedia and MediaQueryList.addListener to do so. Take a look at the whole script, if you like.

I don’t know, if any other operating systems other than macOS Mojave have a “Dark Mode” preference. But, if you happen to run Mojave and use the Safari 12.1 Beta or Technology Preview, you can try this out yourself. But here’s a little GIF of what it looks like:

The whole usability around this feature is not ideal currently. For example, I should probably have a 3-way switch – On, Off, Auto – instead of a simple checkbox toggle. And I should make an “Auto” setting work without JavaScript. But I didn’t have the time for this tonight, and so this will be a little project for another time.

Singing

The amount of singing we do at home has increased a lot since we got Zoe. We sing along to all sorts of German and English kids-tunes. Nicole sings way more than me, but I learned to enjoy it, too. I was – and still am – not good at all, but I think I occasionally hit some notes. I certainly don’t get that cringe-y look as often any more.

Here’s Zoe’s current favourite (German) song:

A new Mac

I recently wrote about why I don’t want to upgrade my Mac right now. But last Saturday, it stopped working again due to that graphics card issue and is in for repair once more. So, I had to buy a new one, because I couldn’t afford to go without my computer for close to two weeks. And I also wanted something reliable again.

I decided on a current 13-inch MacBook Pro, with a 2.3 GHz Quad-Core i5, 16 GB of RAM, an 1 TB SSD, the Touch Bar and a keyboard with German layout.

I bought it refurbished, because that was the only option to get something fitting within two days. Plus, the price was nice. Which luckily means, concern No.2 from my previous post is lessened. But the other points are still a concern for me.

Anyhow, here are some initial observations:

On the one hand, upgrading to a model that’s more than seven years younger feels amazing. On the other hand, it’s simply another computer I can do my work with again. But no matter how I look at it, I’m very happy so far with this new machine.

Kitchen update

Today, the kitchen-building started. Bernd and I put up all the cupboards, checked the worktops and planned how we’re going to connect them. We also made a list of things to consider and buy for the final – or near-final – assembly.

I’m happy with the progress we made. We’ll continue early next week.

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You know you go out less when the 🍺 🍻 emojis are no longer in your “Frequently Used” section.

Der Sandmann hat mich heute Abend unterhaltsam in Bett gebracht.

Been always blogging in the last few minutes of the day recently. It shouldn’t be that hard to pre-write a few posts and publish one of them each day, right? But I write just in time. And then it needs to be something I can write down rather quickly, instead of picking a topic from my to-write-about list. Makes me being annoyed with myself. But I’m sure I’ll get back on track eventually. 🤞😬

Missed the Düsseldorf Photo Weekend

This year, I missed out on the Düsseldorf Photo weekend. Usually I go, but this time I simply couldn’t find the time. The good things is, though, that most of the exhibitions run for longer. So, maybe I manage to visit one or two in the next couple of weeks – especially those that are at a venue I come by more or less frequently. Here are some that interest me:

next can return a value

Iterating through an array, I found myself wanting to collect an element as-is most times, and only in certain conditions modify the original element and collect the modification instead. So, I used next with a parameter to skip an element quickly and move on to the next one. And that parameter will be returned and still be collected.

Much simplified example:

[1,2,3,4,5,6].collect do |n|
  next n if n%2 == 1
  n*n
end  
#=> [1, 4, 3, 16, 5, 36]

The whole family went to the swimming pool this morning. After being cold initially, Zoe warmed up quickly and visibly enjoyed playing in and around the pool.

In the afternoon, I went over to the new apartment and assembled most of the kitchen cupboards. I think I’m now able to assemble a METOD cupboard completely without instruction manual. Anyhow, this took me a while, and I only returned home in the evening.

Assembling a kitchen is quite the task. And the hard bits are yet to come.

March is strange. Everything is going right and wrong at the same time.

Ikea. Again!

Do I really have to write about Ikea again? Well, yes! Because this week I learned that Ikea has its own standards for things.

Their kitchen furniture for example, has a depth that is chosen so that you probably want to buy their worktops, too. Because a standard 60-centimetre top – the width you can buy in most other places – is too short. But their non-standard 63.5-cm-worktop fits just right.

Another example is their sink plumbing. When asking about plumbing/connecting possibilities, we were told that the water trap and all those other pieces only work with Ikea sinks. Both the sink and their pipes/connectors don’t work well with other standard parts you’d need for more custom plumbing.

For simpler logistics, our preferred solution was to get everything from Ikea – and we did. But it’s still interesting to learn that they do these little shenanigans. Which is not surprising, I guess.

But to end on a more positive note: the woman helping us finalising the kitchen was very friendly and her advice super helpful. She pointed out errors, made good suggestions and never tried to up-sell.

So, here’s what the final design looks like:

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The parts will be delivered tomorrow and we plan to assemble and set it up the following weekend.

Been to Ikea today and bought the kitchen. 💪😎

The 35mm focal length

Continuing on yesterday’s topic, here’s why I find a 35 mm lens so fitting for my photography.

I currently mostly shoot documentary style and street photography. And I want my photos to convey a feeling of “having been there”. That’s why my lens should approximate the field of view I have as a human being. I find anything from 30 mm to 45 mm works1. But since the most common focal length for prime lenses that fit this range is 35 mm, that’s what I use.

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  1. I find 28 mm lenses a little too wide and 50 mm too long. But I’d prefer the former, if forced to choose. ↩︎