Category: 00 – TOASTERBOTNET BLOG

All original content created on this site

App Update

The roll out of the new ToasterApp Version is done.

Aaaaaand it sucks. I tried to activate Pinch Zoom and it doesn’t work at all how it’s supposed to. And I couldn’t test it in the emulator because, well … it’s not a touch screen. At least the top-down-pull to refresh the content works now.

small win. Doing Android Apps is not my cup of tea.
I’m not fixing this right now because I’m afraid I will smash my keyboard into my monitor if Android Studio decides to fuck with me again.

Just don’t try to zoom. I’ll get back to this sometime.

Link to App: https://toasterbotnet.pirek.de/?page_id=11236

Social Media

I’m feeling very lazy today and since ChatGPT has recently gone viral I thought I could let it write a blogpost for me. So without further ado, here’s a post about the positive sides of social media:

Social media has often been portrayed as a negative influence on society, with concerns ranging from addiction to cyberbullying to the spread of misinformation. However, it’s important to recognize that social media also has many positive aspects and has played a significant role in transforming our society for the better.

One of the most significant ways that social media has transformed society is by making it easier for people to connect with one another. In the past, it was difficult for people to stay in touch with friends and family who lived far away or to make new connections with people who shared similar interests. However, social media has made it easy for people to connect with others, no matter where they are located. This has allowed people to form friendships and communities that might not have been possible otherwise.

Another way that social media has transformed society is by giving people a platform to share their thoughts and ideas with a wider audience. In the past, it was difficult for individuals to get their ideas out into the world, as they had to rely on traditional media outlets or other gatekeepers to spread their message. However, social media has given people the ability to share their thoughts and ideas directly with others, allowing for greater democratization of information.

Social media has also played a significant role in social and political movements. In the past, it was difficult for people to organize and mobilize around a cause, but social media has made it much easier for people to connect and collaborate on issues that matter to them. This has led to the rise of numerous social and political movements, such as the Arab Spring and the Black Lives Matter movement, which have had a significant impact on society.

In addition to these more broad societal transformations, social media has also had a number of more specific positive impacts. For example, it has made it easier for people to promote their businesses and reach new customers, it has given artists and creators a platform to share their work with a wider audience, and it has even played a role in reuniting lost loved ones.

Overall, while it is important to recognize the potential negative impacts of social media, it is also crucial to acknowledge the many ways in which it has transformed society for the better. From making it easier for people to connect with one another to giving individuals a platform to share their thoughts and ideas, social media has had a significant and largely positive impact on our world.

Play Store

Releasing an App on the Google Play Store was quite the learning experience.
It took forever to go through all these questionaires and you need to pay 25 Dollar up front for a developer account. And if you went through all that and you upload your first app, you need to wait for Google to review it. For me this took a few days for the first version and 1 or 2 days for an update. So if you have a bug fix or want to release something quick this is quite annoying.
But I actually want to learn a bit more about mobile apps and Android studio.
I have a few ideas what I want to do. Let’s see. If I have time and nothing better to do I will probably go through some tutorials and courses, so my 25 Dollar payment wasn’t in vain 🙂

Arch

I just got a new Thinkpad and noticed the Arch installer is really good now. I also like the minimal approach. I will probably reinstall again in 10 years or so but I automated my complete install now. Went trough it with a checklist and automated everything from installed software and configs file up to browser bookmarks. Now I can just load the json files of the installer and run my own scripts for personalization. Neat. Long story short I like the new installer.

YaY !

Minimalism Update

I’m still on my minimalism journey
and just reached a new plateau.
This week I started to get rid of furniture like shelves
and donated most of my old books.
And I also sold a ton of stuff on ebay.
And I’ve reached a point,
where I’m happy with my appartment again.
It looks cleaner and tidier than ever.
I think this will do for a while.
It’s time to settle a bit and think about
what I want to get rid of next.
Right now I feel relieved and satisfied.
But that’s probably just temporary.
I’m sure the next big purge will come 🙂

Minimalist Datahoarder Contradiction

How Datahoarding and Minimalism go together.

For those of you that scrolled through my shitpost blog,
you might already know that I like to live a minimalist lifestyle
and I’m also a self-proclaimed datahoarder,
who collects terrabytes of stuff on a homeserver.

That does sound like a contradiction, doesn’t it?
How do those two go together?
If I want to embrace minimalism,
why am I hoarding so much stuff on hard drives?
Shouldn’t I practice digital minimalism
to free myself from the digital clutter?

Well there’s fine distinction to make here,
which explains why datahoarding and minimalism go together quite well.

Let me explain….

I like visual and mental minimalism. Visual is obvious. Cleaner surfaces, less clutter, not much to clean, open spaces, no materialism, frugal living, not buying stupid shit, and so on and so on and so on.
Data doesn’t take up physical space. So we are good with this one.
Let’s move on…
But with the mental minimalism, the one that helps to clear your mind,
there’s difference on how to approach this.

Some may say you should reduce digital clutter and data
to free up headspace, clear your mind and have less distractions.
But I beg to differ.
While digital minimalism may work for some people
and helps them to stop waisting time on instagram and
having a zero email inbox, I have a different proposal.

First of Apps, Tools, Organizers, Calendars
or better yet the internet as a whole, just is so convenient.
You can be much more productive and much more efficient if you use your smartphone and computer as a tool to organize and manage your life.
So I don’t know why some people on reddit think going back to a flip-phone is the holy grail of digital minimalism. It just makes your life unecessary complicated, hard and tedious.

But that’s another story.

I wanted to elaborate more on my datahoarding and how it is still a minimalistic lifestyle. I have a lot of data, but all my files are categorized, organized, indexed and remotely accessible. If I need to check something I can find it instantly with my phone. This goes for work contract, or my latest eletricity bill or even my 4th grade school certificate. Photos, Videos, Projects, Code I wrote 5 years ago, that random meme I photoshoped in 2013, … You name it. I have everything in my digital vault and I can find and access it instantly on my phone from everywhere in the world.
This makes life just so much more easy and conveniant.

I also live entirely paperless. Everything is digital. It’s super efficient.

And if it makes my life easier, I don’t want to declutter and go all minimalistic on my hoard. Why would I? Hard Drives are relatively cheap.

But that’s not all. Besides it beeing awesome to have instant access to all my data all the time, I also have a place to dump my notes, tasks, project plans, reminders and random files into my productivity systems and in my archive.
I can write down and archive every thought I want to remember and can tag it and archive it for later.

It frees up so much mental space and clears the mind.

In this case you can actually say … Sometimes MORE IS LESS

And this is why datahoarding and minimalism can go together 🙂

have a pleasent weekend everybody