We try to have as much fun as possible in the department, because everyday life is hard enough. A quick-witted and funny response not only immediately lights up conversations, it also helps to create a good working atmosphere in general. Laughter is medicine for everything.

I usually can’t write about funny business anecdotes in public, because on the one hand, it often requires context that I can’t provide, and on the other hand, it’s up to each person involved to decide whether something like that should be made public.

In this screenshot of a chat following a Teams call in which I and another colleague participated, whose first name also begins with K but who, unlike me, has not configured an avatar, I am making an exception because it is too good and only affects me:

Somehow, this picture reminds me of something.
…
Ah, I know.

🤣 Bull’s-eye! Where the hell is my axe …

On my /stats page, I used the wonderful web component activity-graph to implement an Activity Graph that displays my posts over the entire lifetime of my blog.

Now, as is common in Western cultures, the graph starts on the left side and is displayed horizontally. This means that the most recent and interesting entries are on the very right, and you have to scroll to the end to see them.

The question was how to make the graph display directly scrolled to the far right at the start, and the solution is quite simple and uses the component’s various HTML levels:

<div class="activity-graph-wrapper">
  <activity-graph>
    <figure>
      <table>
       ...
      </table>
    </figure>
  </activity-graph>
</div>

Using the CSS direction property, I first rotate the graph in the reading direction to RTL (right to left) at the top level, then rotate it back again at the next lower level. This means that the browser displays the graph starting on the right, but everything below has the usual western-style reading direction.

.activity-graph-wrapper figure {
  direction: rtl;
}
.activity-graph-wrapper figure table {
  direction: ltr;
}

#CSS #TIL

Today, we had a visit from an animal that is quite rare in a city, a Gray Heron, which probably needed to inspect our neighbour’s little fish pond with the Kois. What a beauty …

I ‘ve found 2025 to be a particularly difficult and challenging year, quite apart from the political madness that is unfolding in so many parts of the world and which cannot leave a political person like me unaffected. No, even on a personal level, I will not forget this past year. Starting with my return from an absolutely amazing holiday in South Africa and two other wonderful breaks in Portugal and Sweden, the year has mainly shown me my physical limits. Yes, 57 is no longer mid-20s, and some decisions and habits in my life are now taking their toll, along with a few others that I hadn’t on the list.. and I’m struggling with that physically and mentally. Getting older is not for wimps…

My wish for 2026 is to achieve the serenity that allows me not to get upset about things I cannot change anyway, and to simply tackle those things that I can influence and shape.