kiko.io Posts

SVWW vs. MSV Duisburg @ 2026-09-20

2026-09-23T11:12:51.000Z

1:4

It’s like a curse… on the first matchday after the coach was fired, the guys (finally) scored 2 goals and beat Fortuna Köln at home to nil, only then to concede 3 goals at home against Duisburg within 15 minutes of the first half just 4 days later. OK, MSV is currently at the top of the standings and on a hot streak, but the ease with which they outplayed our defense was shocking. Like a hot knife through butter.

Although the 1-3 goal just before halftime and the team’s determination early in the second half were bright spots, but when our new forward Marcus Müller shoots straight at the goalkeeper when he’s all alone in front of the goal and the others aren’t exactly impressing with their accuracy either, you can’t complain about losing to an efficient Duisburg team.

For me, the most memorable scene of the game was the 1-4 goal in the 54th minute. Not only did the Duisburg player tunnel our aforementioned Müller, who, frustrated, just stopped moving, then skillfully dribbled past another player, and had his shot from a tight angle blocked only by a defender’s falling body, but the ball rolled right back to him, and he scored from an even tighter angle. Slapstick.

You could see just how frustrated our players were (with themselves) five minutes later. A Duisburg player made a very hard tackle to win the ball and took off sprinting. Max Brandt had no choice but to tackle him just as aggressively, using his whole body. Tarik Gözüsirin, our captain, who had run up with him, smashed the ball into the opponent, who was now lying on the ground. A clear red card and a three-game suspension. Thanks a lot.

Today, they’re announcing who the new coach will be. The poor guy has quite a bit of work ahead of him…

Update: It is … Jochen Seitz, the former coach of Lok Leipzig, who tragically failed twice in a row to achieve promotion to the third division. Well then, welcome to the 3. Bundesliga … and please make sure it stays that way, at least.

⇾ Match report on kicker.de

SVWW vs. Waldhof Mannheim @ 2026-09-13

2026-09-15T17:02:22.000Z

0:1

I’m a little ticked off. We had a terrible start to the new season over the first four matchdays; we’re in last place with only two points, and on Sunday we had the chance not only to play a good game at home against Mannheim but also to win, since Waldhof was only in 15th place with just 4 points at that time.

The coach showed courage in his lineup, starting 4 of the 5 new players (Massimo, Brandt, Müller and Paula) and the guys pretty much had the game under control from the start. The effort and the will to win were definitely there. Fabian Greilinger made a lasting impression on me with his sprints up and down the field during the entire game, until he was substituted. I think he must have gained some oxygen on the bench.

Then, in the 20th minute, the opposing team produced a little piece of art: After a corner kick, a Mannheim player attempted a bicycle kick but didn’t hit the ball cleanly; another player tried to pick up the rebound in the exact same way and scored a spectacular goal to make it 0:1.

Yo, stuff happens, especially as it was a beautifully scored goal. But what can’t happen is that the team continues to dominate the game, yet either fumbles the ball in the penalty area or simply fails to find the goal, which is over 7 meters wide. The constant ‘Uuuu‘ and ‘Oooo‘ every time another shot went wide was testing our nerves.

After 85 minutes, my wife and I left, partly because we had other plans, and partly because it was clear to us that the guys definitely wouldn’t manage to score today.

The weekend resulted in yet another loss, and a day later, the coach Daniel Scherning was fired. Maybe the team really does need a shot of fresh energy, because things couldn’t stay that way. However, I also see cause in the management, as integrating five new players effectively into the team just before or even after the start of the season is difficult, if not impossible. My wife thinks the decision is crap, though… we’ll see.

⇾ Match report on kicker.de

Money for something worthwhile

2026-09-12T10:25:13.000Z

If you really think about it, we spend loads of money on all sorts of crap that doesn’t really enrich our lives.

Every morning, I’m out and about somewhere in the Fediverse on my smartphone whilst sipping my first/second/third coffee. At the moment, I’m mainly into photos. At 8.00 am, the bot behind @FotoVorschlag posts the topic of the day and I scroll through my photos to find something suitable. I’ve already posted many of the potential pictures on my favourite platform, Vernissage, so I end up getting lost there for a short while too, liking the latest shots from the other crazy photography enthusiasts. What does it cost me? Basically nothing… and that’s the (solvable) problem…

From the very beginning, I’ve been drawn to the work of Marcin, the creator of Vernissage. It is far more user-friendly than Pixelfed, the Fediverse front-runner in this segment, and is also continuously maintained and actively improved behind the scenes, whereas others merely make announcements. As of today, I have published 428 photos on Vernissage.

Every month, Marcin publishes a Financial Report and his out-of-pocket costs for the project ALWAYS exceed his personal financial contribution. Now, one might object, ‘Well, that’s just how it usually goes with passion projects‘, but it’s simply unfair. I get my little dopamine kicks in the morning when 20 people have liked one of my photos, and Marcin pays for that. On the other hand, I have expensive TV streaming subscriptions from multinational corporations that I use two or three times a month. The balance just doesn’t feel right to me anymore…

Decision: the subscriptions are being cancelled and I am now (probably the first) PRINCIPAL SPONSOR of Vernissage on Patreon …

I’d appreciate it if just a few people would join me there, so that Marcin at least doesn’t end up losing out. Regardless of that, I’d be happy if the project were supported by the European initiative NLNet … Marcin: Apply for a grant, Next deadline: 3 November

It’s so important that niche projects like this have a future, even though I know everything comes to an end and Marcin will eventually pack up because he realises he has a life outside this. By supporting him, I just want to push that moment back a little … for my own pleasure. From one human being to another.

Early September

2026-09-07T15:45:06.000Z

Late summer in Germany is back to normal, following the sweltering heat of the last three months. A pleasant 26 degrees Celsius and already cool nights of around 14 degrees. We’re prepared for anything, though, and I will shed a tear or two in memory of the heat. I’m a sun-lover through and through.

Thomas really did himself a favour last year with his new drip irrigation system. His plants are looking absolutely splendid and are competing to see which can bloom the most. There’s a constant buzzing and humming all round, and I have to be careful not to disturb all the insects whilst taking photos. I will defininetly coming back later this month …

Potsdam

2026-09-05T16:00:48.000Z

My wife and I spent our summer vacation this year on the Polish Baltic coast. It was a welcome relief from the unbearable heat in Central Europe. As the 8-hour drive seemed a bit too long for us, we stopped off for two days on the way up in Potsdam, the former royal residence of the Prussian kings, foremost among them Frederick the Great, who shaped the country like no other.

The city is right on the doorstep of the mega-city of Berlin, but has largely retained its old charm, which is no doubt due to the fact that it was part of the former GDR until 1989 and it was only after the fall of the Berlin Wall that the city’s tourist potential could be fully exploited.

The absolutely dominant attraction is undoubtedly the palace complex of Sanssouci, which was built from 1745 onwards by none other than Frederick himself and which, 281 years later, still impresses us too. A nice detail is Frederick’s tomb, which has (finally) been located at Sanssouci since 1991, because the Germans still place potatoes on it to this day in honour of their ‘Old Fritz’, as it was he who popularised the most German food in the country.

Link Journal 26-08

2026-09-03T11:02:12.000Z

Over the past month of August, I’ve collected 13 links for my link journal.

2026-08-01

Cheatsheets for flex, grid, anchor positioning and invoker commands

polypane.app

CSS

For CSS Day this year we created a set of cheatsheets explaining Flexbox, Grid, Anchor positioning and Invoker commands. They came out beautifully and a lot of…

2026-08-02

An Introduction To CSS Scroll-Driven Animations - Scroll And View Progress Timelines

www.smashingmagazine.com

CSS

10 years after scroll-driven animations were first proposed, they’re finally here — no JavaScript, no dependencies, no libraries, just pure CSS.

2026-08-02

The CSS lh unit

ishadeed.com

CSS

A look at the CSS line height unit and how it works.

2026-08-04

Gap Decorations Are Now Available, Here’s What’s New

css-tricks.com

css

Today, with CSS gap decorations fully supported in Chrome and Edge, starting with version 149, you can now very easily style gaps, and with a lot of control.

2026-08-04

Writemark - Dependency-free live inline Markdown editor web component

github.com

WebComponents Markdown

Contribute to Brostoffed/writemark development by creating an account on GitHub.

2026-08-06

The Quest for the Perfect Dark Mode Toggle, using Vanilla JavaScript

www.bram.us

CSS JavaScript

In The Quest for the Perfect Dark Mode, Joshua W Comeau extensively explains how he has implemented the Dark Mode Toggle on his Gatsby-powered website. It follows the system’s light/dark mode preference, but also allows for an override which he persists in localStorage. The flow to decide if Dark Mode should be used or not … Continue reading "The Quest for the Perfect Dark Mode Toggle, using Vanilla JavaScript"

2026-08-07

Using geohashes to share your location on social media

robida.net

Map Tool

A lot of personal sites like posting small tidbits of information that capture the moment a post was written: the current weather (☀️ +75°F), what song is now playing, or the author's mood. A few yea…

Encode coordinate to Geohash

Convert a coordinate to its geohash representation

www.geohash.es

Decode a Geohash - Statue of Liberty

Convert a geohash into a coordinate, a GeoJSON polygon, a BBox and many more formats

www.geohash.es

2026-08-07

Working with highlight() using progressive enhancement

piccalil.li

CSS JavaScript

Using a baseline of <mark> elements, Sunkanmi Fafowora helps you to understand how the new highlight API works with some progressive enhancement for good measure.

2026-08-10

Using animation-composition in CSS to Avoid Redeclaring Other Values

master.dev

CSS

Here's an example. You can list multiple comma-separated box-shadows, but if you apply a *new* box-shadow, it overrides anything set before. Not true here.

2026-08-19

Re: The Loss of Links Continues

michaelharley.net

JavaScript Blogging

Just adding my two cents to this discussion about link rot and what we can do about it.

2026-08-22

feedecho - Self-hosted RSS feed cross-poster

github.com

Feeds Syndication

Self-hosted RSS feed cross-poster. Route items from RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds to Mastodon, Bluesky, and email using configurable templates. Built as a replacement for Echofeed, which shut down in August 2026.

2026-08-22

I shipped my comment plugin to a service that could never accept it

rmendes.net

IndieWeb Authentication

I shipped my comment plugin to a service that could never accept it 21 August 2026 indieweb IndieAuth indiekit ai Claude comments A migration to IndieLogin.com that could never have worked, why the fa...

2026-08-26

Your Modules Are Lying to You

blog.gaborkoos.com

JavaScript

ESM and CommonJS expose values through different contracts. Learn how bindings, object references, evaluation order, caching, cycles, and interop shape module behavior in Node.js.

SVWW vs. Rot-Weiss Essen @ 2026-08-29

2026-08-30T10:44:25.000Z

0:0

Before yesterday’s home match, I was already a bit worried, as Essen had knocked out second-division team St. Pauli in the DFB-Pokal at the weekend, whereas we, as everyone knows, lost 0:4 to Leverkusen. Either a win like that gives a team a boost, or they’ll be too tired for their next league match.

The last one seemed to be the case, and you could tell our boys were really wanting to win today. That was also down to Marcus Müller, our new signing this week, whom the manager, together with Flotho, fielded straight away as a striking duo from the start. A 4-4-2 … that’s rare for us too. And how that guy was running! He was clearly intent on making a good impression on the fans straight away, and he accomplished that. I almost felt sorry for one or two of the Essen players when he burst past them.

The rest of the team certainly tried just as hard, but there were simply too many mistakes to benefit from their undoubted determination. Essen were clearly the better team, but still rarely got near goal, and when they did, their shots were harmless. They were tired.

But it wasn’t just us who made mistakes, the referee did too, mostly against us, and in such a way that shouts of “cheater” echoed from the stands. The man was either biased or simply not good enough for the 3rd Division.

My personal highlight was the introduction of our second new signing this week in the 58th minute, Roberto Massimo, who, less than 30 seconds after stepping onto the pitch, sprinted down the right flank and curled the ball beautifully into the far corner. Unfortunately, the Essen goalkeeper was there to tip the ball over the bar.

Although the final 15 minutes belonged entirely to us, we failed to capitalise on it, which was only partly down to the opponent’s good goalkeeper. Yes, there were no goals in this match and we’ve now got our first point, but it’s not exactly satisfying. Things can and must get better, because I certainly won’t be buying a season ticket for the Regionalliga.

⇾ Match report on kicker.de

Arid Rhine

2026-08-28T17:44:40.000Z

People who live by a river are used to seeing more or less water flowing past them at different times. We live in a city by the Rhine, but not right next to the water, so at the weekend we popped over to the nearby Rheingau to take a closer look at the current drama of the lowest water levels in decades, although the situation has already eased somewhat over the last two weeks thanks to a bit of rain.

It was still quite shocking. Sandbanks have emerged away from the shipping channel that I’ve never seen before, and you could reach the Bingen Mouse Tower very easily and without getting your feet wet from the other side of the Rhine, even though it’s usually on an island in the middle of the river. Certainly a lovely walk for tourists, but a dramatic situation for those who live in the river, the local residents and inland shipping. This year, a new low-water record of 32 centimetres (!) was recorded at the Bingen river gauge. A few weeks ago, the level was even 0 upstream near Cologne.

Try telling me again that we don’t have a problem with the climate. I’ll take a few photos of the high water this winter…

AuguStory - The story of my blog

2026-08-26T16:05:43.000Z

When Robert Birming, following Junited and JulyReply, called for contributions to AuguStory under the heading ‘The Story of your Blog‘, I thought to myself: If there’s one thing I can do, it’s write about my blog … but I found it much harder than I’d expected, simply because I’ve written about it so many times before.

When I made a fresh start with blogging on kiko.io in September 2019 – initially just to publicly document technical matters for my own benefit – my very second post was about the creation of the blog itself. This turned into a whole series of posts called A New Blog, under which I have published 37 posts to date. Whenever I learnt something new about my current static site generator of choice, Hexo, adapted it to my needs or implemented something entirely new, I wrote a post about it. In addition, last year I began compiling the history, methodology and technology behind this blog in a Colophon. It currently consists of the sections Impetus & Technology, Hosting & Deployment, Writing and Special Pages. There are three more I’d want to write: Imaging, Styling and Integrations & Privacy.

For me, the focus of my blog has shifted somewhat in the meantime. Whereas the claim/slogan at the start was ‘Memorable Tech Stuff’, the ‘Tech’ has been in brackets for some time now, as there isn’t much left from my actual job as a software developer that I could write about, because I’ve moved completely into management and only code for my own enjoyment these days… as I’m doing for this website, for example. Without code, it simply doesn’t work – even though I’m giving more and more space to my second great passion: photography. In my spare time, I’ll soon be spending more time in Lightroom than in Visual Studio Code, or out and about with my camera to get more material. You can see this reflected in my posts too; the article series Thomas Garden and New Photos now contain 46 posts, and I’m currently working on more photos and, in turn, more posts.

As a big fan of the IndieWeb, means not relying on large, commercial providers to publish own thoughts, but rather building own things like a skilled craftsman, the aspect of syndicating my own content according to the POSSE principle is something I’m particularly dedicated to. Every article, every note and every photo has its own page on kiko.io, which includes a list of syndications on other platforms, primarily in the Fediverse. All interactions with these syndications, together with the webmentions posted by other blogs, are displayed on the respective page via the JavaScript solution Mentions United. Actually I post new syndications several times a week. At the moment, for example, I post one daily on Mastodon, where I’m contributing my photos to the hashtag campaign #Fotovorschlag (PhotoSuggestion).

Right now, I’m finding it a bit difficult to write posts, because to produce a good text, you need not only time for basic research, but also a reasonably clear head. When I sit down to write a new piece, for almost a year now, I’ve been writing it in my mother tongue German first, then running it through the DeepL translator and adapting the result to my sense of the English language, as I’ve noticed that posts I write directly in English tend to come across as rather stilted. I certainly don’t ditch the original German text afterwards, but attach it to the article as the German version. It’s a win-win situation for readers.

Closing Thoughts

It’s great fun to have a little corner of the internet of your own where you can do whatever you like. It doesn’t really matter whether or who reads it, even though I’m happy about every LIKE and every REPOST or even a REPLY, because when you do something, whatever it is, positive feedback is a welcome form of acknowledgement. However, the line between LIKE-hunting is seductively thin, and you have to be careful that the dopamine rushes don’t make you dizzy. But nobody can tell me they run a blog just to keep it from being seen. It’s a conscious engagement with the public and helps to build networks that go far beyond what was possible in the past. I think a relaxed attitude towards this is essential. However, I’m technically capable of implementing my ideas and visions almost exactly as I envision them, and I understand those who prefer to rely on a ready-made platform so as not to get frustrated with the code right from the start. From this perspective, I don’t think AI-based approaches are entirely unreasonable, even though I tend to belong to the sceptical faction.

Happy Blogging :)

IndieWeb Is Punk - Sticker

2026-08-24T17:54:00.000Z

I really like the IndieWeb Is Punk initiative by Jim Mitchell, because the eight points in his manifesto express exactly what I think about the IndieWeb too. “Own your domain. Own your data. Own your identity.“ … “Have fun, or what’s the point?“ … “We don’t need major platforms.“

Along with the website indiewebispunk.net, Jim has also released a punk-style logo that seemed predestined to be turned into stickers. As his sticker shop unfortunately only delivers to the US, he provided me with the logo as a hi-res PNG file over Mastodon and I placed an order to my trusted European sticker supplier (PrettyGoodStickers by Ride All Day AB, Gothenburg, Sweden).

I’d like to share the link here so that you can reorder them if you’re from Europe and would like to have some … https://www.prettygoodstickers.com/sticker?id=e80f227a-6e71-479d-8d9d-a691404d1c89

INDIEWEB IS PUNK. OI !

IndieWeb is Punk — Jim Mitchell

We don't need major platforms. We have the Web, keyboards, tools, and community. IndieWeb is Punk! Is it time to bring the Mohawks back? - @jthingelstad

jimmitchell.org

DFB Cup: SVWW vs. Bayer 04 Leverkusen @ 2026-08-22

2026-08-22T17:33:05.000Z

0:4

It’s been a while since I wrote my last post about a match involving my favourite club, SV Wehen Wiesbaden. I’m not quite sure why, but I promise to do better, as I still have a season ticket and try to watch every home match. I’ve even convinced my wife. She has one now too ;)

The start in the new 3. Bundesliga season wasn’t exactly thrilling. We lost our first home match against Preußen Münster 1–3 right off the bat. I was looking forward to the match because my favourite player from last season, Ryan Johanson, had transferred to Münster and immediately had to return to Wiesbaden for the very first match.
The second match, away against Würzburg, was unfortunately also a disaster. The final score was even 4–0.

Today, however, there was a break in league play, and the first round of the DFB Cup was played. In the pairing draw, we immediately drew a tough opponent: the 2023 German football champions, Bayer 04 Leverkusen! Since the Cup is known to have its own rules, and we put up a really good and “close” Cup match against Bayern Munich last year, some of us were feeling a little hopeful.

In the first half, it certainly looked as though we could give Bayer a hard time. The boys ran and fought just as all the fans would actually like to see them do in the league, and managed to get into the opposition’s penalty area on a few times, but the Leverkusen defence was always on hand and the two or three standards we won were wasted. We weren’t playing great, but we were in good heart until the 43rd minute, when Leverkusen scored 0:1 through Patrik Schick.

Probably boosted by the goal just before half-time and the manager’s occasional reminders to his players, the second half started as the first had ended… 0:2. Leverkusen hit their operating temperature and the difference in class was now clearly evident. We kept up with them, but lacked precision in our passing, pace and finesse. After the 0:3 and the 0:4, it was clear to everyone that, unfortunately, there would be no surprise today.

I’m curious to see how the team reacts to these three clear defeats. Next week we’re at home in the league against Rot-Weiß Essen, and a bit of fire in the belly would be just the thing.

Dry August

2026-08-16T15:23:44.000Z

The heatwave in Germany is continuing and everyone is suffering. We’re simply not (yet!) prepared for so many days with temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius. Thomas’s plants are also suffering from heat stress, even though he’s been watering them as best he can via a drip irrigation system since last year. Anyone who’s seen recent pictures of the River Rhine (current water level at Düsseldorf: 0 cm) will understand that even this has its limits. Every drop of water is precious right now.

I’d like to use these 21 photos to show just how well the Thomas flowers are holding up … and quickly heading back inside to cool off.

Geohash Support in Vernissage

2026-08-12T16:55:00.000Z

Three days ago, I wrote the post Geohashes for my photos about my recent use of Geohashes as a short alternative to long GPS coordinates and expressed my hope that my favorite platform, Vernissage, would support them… and I created a GitHub issue for Marcin, the developer. Three days ago…

Marcin released a new version today that now supports Geohashes! \o/

My sincere thanks and deepest respect for such a quick implemention.

#Vernissage #Geohash

Geohash Support (alongside GPS coordinates) · Issue #569 · VernissageApp/VernissageWeb

As Google/Android makes it harder to provide GPS coordinates on uploading photos to Vernissage, it could be a relief if it would support Geohash short codes that are based on math. See https://kiko...

github.com

Geohashes for my photos

2026-08-09T10:23:22.000Z

Almost all my photos contain the coordinates of where the shot was taken in the EXIF metadata of the respective file. For this purpose, my Android smartphone has a built-in GPS receiver, and I equipped my Nikon D500 with a Dawntech di-GPS Eco ProFessional 2 a couple of years ago, although I sometimes forget to switch the thing on and then have to add the location later manually in Lightroom.

Whenever I publish a photo, I always do it first on this website and deliberately include the coordinates (latitude, longitude) of the shot, which are even displayed on a world map on the dedicated photo page:

Sharing photos – which I usually do from my smartphone – has recently become more difficult for me thanks to Google, because not only is the photo picker introduced into Android a few months ago absolute rubbish, but Android also actively removes the GPS coordinates when a photo is uploaded, ‘for privacy reasons’! I can understand that, as there are plenty of morons who thoughtlessly reveal their location, but the fact that there are no settings whatsoever to deliberately switch this back on or to choose whether to do so on a per-upload basis is an arrogant way of patronising customers.

I became aware of this issue when, on my favourite photography site Vernissage, the coordinates were suddenly no longer pre-filled after uploading from existing EXIF data, as they had been before. At first I thought it was a bug, but after a bit of back and forth with Marcin (the developer of the platform) I realized that he couldn’t help me and that from now on I have to enter the coordinates manually. It’s doable, but manually copying 37.07362333333333 / -8.762103333333334 into two seperate fields is nevertheless a tedious task.

Geohashes

Last week, pinned by Beto’s post, I read an article by Frank Edomaruse about so-called Geohashes, which might help ease my ‘problem’ somewhat.

Geohashing for Developers: Efficiently Encoding and Querying Locations

Okay, so here's the thing — when you have a location, you usually think of it in terms of latitude and longitude. You know, those two long…

medium.com

Some time ago, I did play around a bit with Google’s quirky Plus Codes, which also summarise coordinates in a short code, but I hadn’t yet heard of Gustavo Niemeyer’s solution, which he already published back in 2008.

His solution is actually quite simple: the Earth is mathematically transformed into a flat rectangle and divided into squares, each of which is assigned a number or a letter. This process is repeated over and over again in each square, up to the highest level, 9. Frank explains the maths behind it very well in his article.

The coordinates 37.07362333333333 / -8.762103333333334 are mathematically transformed into the code ey9fbt59s.

The original website ‘geohashes.org‘ is no longer available, but there’s geohash.es by Alberto Rico, where you can play around with coordinates and Geohashes.

node-geohash

Of course, there are libraries available that convert GPS coordinates to geohashes. It’s just maths, after all. As my website is based on Hexo and therefore Node.JS, I’ve extended my photo generator – which reads the EXIF data from new photos while importing and saves it to JSON files – using Ning Sun‘s script node-geohash:

const geohash = require('ngeohash');

...

if (meta.latitude && meta.longitude) {
  meta.custom.geohash = geohash.encode(meta.latitude, meta.longitude);
}

That’s all … and I now display this custom metadata on all photo pages with a link to Alberto’s geohash.es.

Photo Blue Pathway Sign - kiko.io

Photo Blue Pathway Sign by Kristof Zerbe

kiko.io

The only thing left to do now is to convince Marcin to introduce Geohash support to Vernissage ;)

Updated:

2026-08-01T15:33:25.000Z

We were recently in Puck, a small town on the Bay of Gdańsk (Poland), to take a closer look at the town and the harbor. It was a lovely walk, and of course, as always, I was magically drawn to the water. I can’t really imagine a vacation without the sea.

At the pier, a few water sports enthusiasts were getting their surfboards ready, and a couple were already out on the water. The wind in this area is apparently always quite brisk, and I found it absolutely fascinating to see how fast one of them was plowing through the water. He turned just before reaching the pier and, a minute later, seemed to be 5 kilometers away. What an amazing feeling that must be. I stood on a board once 45 years ago, but I didn’t make it out of the water. Photography is obviously more my thing.

The young fellow noticed I was taking pictures of him, waved, and approached the pier again to ask me something in Polish. We switched to English, and I called out to him, “VISIT kiko.io THE NEXT WEEKS TO SEE THE PHOTOS” and the board rushed off again.

Here, my friend, are the photos. It would be great to hear from you. I have a few more and would be happy to send them to you in full resolution as well.

Keep Surfin’

Update

In the meantime, Tymek, the surfer, got in touch with me and I’ve sent him the original photos in full resolution, along with some other unpublished ones. If you’re on Instagram, check it out…

Tymek Reising (@tymekreising)

www.instagram.com

Link Journal 26-07

2026-08-01T13:58:59.000Z

Over the past month of July, I’ve collected 10 links for my link journal.

2026-07-06

Time-based background colour transitions with Temporal and CSS color-mix

localghost.dev

CSS

A visual refresh with a background that changes colour according to the time of day, using the new Temporal API along with CSS custom properties that blend into each other.

2026-07-07

Publishing My Eleventy Blog to the ATmosphere with Standard

brennan.day

Publishing

A walkthrough of how I wired up Standard.site AT Protocol lexicons into this 11ty blog: from writing a custom publish script to migrating to Sequoia, with code for the link tags, and handle verification.

2026-07-12

color-bits, The fastest JS color library

romgrk.com

JavaScript

romgrk's personal blog

High-Performance Color Manipulation in JavaScript - Color-bits | CSS Script

A lightweight, high-performance JavaScript library for parsing and manipulating colors.

www.cssscript.com

2026-07-14

Dark mode with web standards

olliewilliams.xyz

CSS

Implementing dark mode with minimal JavaScript and standard CSS

2026-07-14

Deutsches Konsortium veröffentlicht offenes KI-Modell Soofi S für Deutsch und Englisch

the-decoder.de

Ein deutsches Forschungskonsortium hat mit Soofi S 30B-A3B ein offenes Sprachmodell veröffentlicht, das komplett auf der Telekom-Cloud in München trainiert wurde und einen bewussten Fokus auf deutsche Sprachdaten legt. Dank einer sparsamen Hybridarchitektur aktiviert das Modell pro Token nur einen Bruchteil seiner Parameter und hält seinen Durchsatz auch bei sehr langen Kontexten stabil. Laut Benchmarks übertrifft es alle vollständig offenen Konkurrenten in Deutsch und Englisch. Nun sucht das Konsortium Industriepartner für den Praxiseinsatz.

2026-07-17

Under my radar - the highlight API, text-indent and font-family math

utilitybend.com

CSS

Discover three baseline web features that went under the radar: the CSS Custom Highlight API, advanced text-indent keywords, and mathematical typesetting.

2026-07-24

Die Architektur von Passkeys

www.heise.de

Security

So funktionieren Passkeys: Der erste Teil der Praxis-Serie für Entwickler zeigt im Detail die Architektur, die auf FIDO2 und WebAuthn aufbaut.

2026-07-25

Becoming Skilled at Making Documents

www.anildash.com

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

2026-07-27

Fully Local Code Embeds

www.aleksandrhovhannisyan.com

HTML JavaScript WebComponents

A simple web component for rendering isolated code embeds using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

2026-07-31

Progressive Web Components

arielsalminen.com

WebComponents

Introducing Elena, a simple, tiny library for building Progressive Web Components.

New European Banknotes

2026-07-27T16:12:51.000Z

In 2025, the number of people in Germany paying by credit or debit card overtook the number of cash payers for the first time. At first glance, it seems that cash (coins and banknotes) will eventually become completely obsolete here too. I’ve personally noticed this: I pretty much pay for everything via my smartphone now and hardly ever carry any cash with me. It’s so convenient, and when abroad, you don’t even have to go through the hassle of exchanging money.

Many other European countries are already much further along in this process. Sweden, for example, moved almost entirely away from cash nearly 10 years ago … BUT … they are now realising the downsides of a purely digital payment system, such as a lack of financial inclusion, cyberattacks and fading trust in international financial partners … and are turning back the clock! Back to Cash!

It is therefore only logical that, while investing in its own digital euro solutions, the EU is simultaneously addressing the replacement of the ageing euro banknotes. These efforts, which have been underway since 2023 in the form of a design contest, have culminated this year in a shortlist of 10 new designs for the future banknotes, which are to be assessed by the end of the year before a winner is chosen.

Future banknotes

The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central bank of the European Union countries which have adopted the euro. Our main task is to maintain price stability in the euro area and so preserve the purchasing power of the single currency.

www.ecb.europa.eu

In the run-up to the competition, the ECB defined two different groups of motifs. The first is European Culture, represented on the front by various portraits of well-known Europeans such as Maria Callas, Ludwig van Beethoven and Leonardo da Vinci, and on the back by groups of people. The second is the Rivers and Birds group, featuring on the front and European buildings on the back. Five designs have been shortlisted for each motif group. Here are the designs, using the 10-euro note as an example:

European Culture

Rivers and Birds

All European citizens will now be involved in the evaluation of the shortlist via a survey on the shortlisted designs; however, a great many other people are also likely to take part, as there are, quite rightly, no restrictions on access.

Survey Campaign - Future banknotes, Ten possible designs

Our euro banknotes are getting a makeover - and you can be a part of it!

www.ecb.europa.eu

Personally, I don’t really understand the motif groups, nor do I get some of the designs, but it’s worth noting that some of them only work when held upright - which I’d see as a real improvement, because after all, we do hold these notes upright in our hands when counting them out. The landscape format may be traditional, but it’s impractical. I’m also not keen on having people on the notes and hope the EU doesn’t introduce this now, having relied on architectural landmarks for decades. I don’t need the Callas in my wallet, nor do I need Bertha von Suttner - even though I might recognise their life’s work if I’d actually engaged with it. At least it’s not politicians or other statesmen or stateswomen. Dear US friends: When are you going to swap George Washington’s portrait for The Donald’s again?

My personal favourite is definitely Design J, closely followed by Design I and D. Something with birds …

More Information

Cashless payments are trending - Payment behaviour in Germany in 2025

In 2025, for the first time, people in Germany used cashless means of payment to pay for their day-to-day purchases more frequently than cash. According to the Bundesbank's latest study on payment behaviour, 55 % of all recorded purchases were settled without cash in 2025. The trend towards cashless payments is continuing, explained Executive Board member Burkhard Balz at the presentation of the results.

www.bundesbank.de

Cash-free Sweden backpedals on banknotes | Euractiv

The government submitted a bill to parliament that would require grocery stores and pharmacies to accept cash on Wednesday

www.euractiv.com

Digital euro

www.ecb.europa.eu

Sicily Stills

2026-07-18T10:00:00.000Z

I’ve already posted most of the following photos in my first post about Sicily, but here they are all again, along with the ones I’m not using as header images. Colours and shapes… you know what I mean ;)

Sicily Scenes

2026-07-16T16:22:00.000Z

There are insights, vistas, glimpses and perspectives that don’t fit into any particular pattern or category. I like to call them scenes, and as photographs they always have their own charm. Here are a few of them from our trip to the wonderful island of Sicily, as the fifth part of my photo series.

Sicily People

2026-07-15T05:45:00.000Z

For many years, what interested me most about photography were shapes and colours. People didn’t play a major role, because they didn’t fit the pattern. That has changed in recent years, and I very often press the shutter button when I spot an interesting scene. Not like a street photographer who actively approaches people to get a good shot, but more as a spectator and observer. By-catch. I don’t really know why those photos work always better when I edit them into black-and-white images afterwards. Can anyone explain this to me?

Of course, I came across a few such scenes again on our trip to Sicily, because although we were there quite early in the year for tourists, there’s hardly a corner of the island where you don’t come across people.