iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 13/09/2026

Berlin #FediDay post-closing early dinner with @sabrinkmann @lavaeolus @Profpatsch @rasos 🙂 Making some more new friends at the end

Restaurant table with drinks, soups and cutlery

001

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 12/08/2026

@silverpill That's fair. I keep my GitHub account around because I have two repos whose URLs appear in published research papers, but there is a reason my GitHub profile bio is what it is. I'm vaguely aware of your stance on the W3C. I think the FEP process […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

000

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 23/07/2026

Sharing this new academic conference from the EUSSET mailing list because I think it sounds really cool: International Conference on Innovation in Rural Regions (ICIRR), 13-15 September 2026 in Siegen, Germany – icirr.wineme.wiwi.uni-siegen.de Could […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

Topics of Interest for ICIRR 2026

Rural computing and place-based design
Local infrastructures, maintenance and repair, Circular Economy
Innovation beyond entrepreneurship and startup logics
Agricultural, forestal and environmental innovation systems
Community-led, indigenous or feminist approaches to innovation
Health ecologies in rural contexts
Cultural opening, tradition and the rural public sphere
(Digital) Education in rural settings
Diversity, equity, and inclusion in rural areas
Policies and governance models that enable or constrain rural innovation
Methodologies for studying and designing in rural settings

001

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 10/06/2026

Re-sharing a small open source project I just finished polishing: PoseViz, my browser-based pose recording data visualizer/player. fietkau.software/poseviz When I left my previous employer, we discussed what would remain there and what I would take […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

A stick figure in a simple 3D environment, with a stylized camera shown in the background of the scene. There is a video player interface at the bottom with a play button, a progress bar, and playback time information.

030

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 08/02/2026

FEP drafting: Am I using “side effects” here the same way as other ActivityPub developers? I've seen the term used a bunch in casual conversation, but my personal understanding of it is kinda fuzzy. #ActivityPub #FediDev #FEP

The "side effects" of an activity are everything caused by the activity other than it being visible in its actor's outbox and getting posted to its audience's inboxes. For example, a like or reply being represented in the affected object's `likes` or `replies` collection is a side effect, as is likes or replies being shown on a web page corresponding to the object.

101

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 20/12/2025

[Drawn blood and gore] I forgot to post about it, but last month I got the #ArtBook for “Slay the Princess” by @blacktabbygames, a 2023 game which btw is on sale right now: store.steampowered.com/app/1989270/… The […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

Cover of the Slay the Princess art book. A large, wide format book with white lettering on a textured black background. The title is The Art of Slay the Princess, with credit to Abby Howard and Tony Howard-Arias. The cover artwork depicts the princess, contrasting in bright white against the backdrop, while a tall dark figure with gleaming eyes ominously appears in the background and seems to wrap the princess in large black wings. The art style is stylized, graphic-novel-like with anime leanings, slightly sepia-tinted black and white with sketchy lines and detailed shadows.

Page 13 showing half a dozen character artworks, one with three variants, of the princess in a POV combat scene, kicking and throwing punches. She is fierce and menacing here. There are blood splatters, cuts on her body, and in some of the variants one of her hands is cut off. In the final image, she has a dagger sticking in her chest. The page contains dialogue quotes and narration from the game as well as artist commentary. A text box shows the choice-based structure of the book, directing the reader to page 34 from this one.

Page 225, showing a different combat scene where the princess is still chained by her wrist, but turns the table on the main character, who is depicted in defense and overwhelmed. The princess cuts herself out of the chain (by cutting off her hand) and stabs the main character. The art and printed quotes frame her as heroic. There are several additional text boxes showcasing the multiple internal voices mechanic from the game, in this case including short quotes from the Voice of the Cold and the Voice of the Opportunist.

Page 178, showing a wide illustration of a stone hallway staircase from the bottom. At the top of the staircase, the princess stands, gaunt, ghostly and distorted, holding an oil torch. In the printed dialogue, she muses about the building being their cause of strife before throwing the torch at the main character and lighting the room on fire.

000

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 30/11/2025

I recently gave a makeover to the project page for the first video game I ever made: fietkau.media/revelation_mentis The game itself is a small adventure/exploration game for DOS. It's not much to look at. But I touched up the game itself and the […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

A screenshot of a green top-down game landscape, showing bushes and dark pits in ASCII graphics. There is a smiley face as the protagonist and a red symbol as the goal. It's very simple DOS text mode visuals, but rendered through a CRT filter showing screen curvature and scanlines.

020

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 20/10/2025

Okay, so either Deno's OpenTelemetry metric “http.server.active_requests” (docs.deno.com/runtime/fundamentals/…) is actually cumulative over the lifetime of the process, or I have found the explanation for why […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

Line graph showing "http_server_active_requests" over a 9 hour duration. It starts at 0, climbs to 5000 almost in a slow straight line over 3 hours, then drops back down to 0, makes a tiny, quick bump up to 100 and back down to 0, only to start climbing again, slightly slower, to 3000 over the course of about 3.5 hours

110

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 31/08/2025

Chemnitz leaving a very nice first impression on my walk to the #MuC2025 venue. 🌞 Workshop day, let's go! #Chemnitz #academicChatter @stadt_chemnitz @tuchemnitz @chemnitz

A paved footpath cuts through a grassy park flanked by a riverbank, with some multi-story buildings further away. The sky is light blue and the shadows long in the sunrise.

A closer view of the river, calm and mirror-like, with green bushes on each side.

011

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 10/07/2025

I'm back from #ECSCW 2025! 🙂 Well, I have been for a few days, but I've also remained super busy in the aftermath. The poster presentation for fietkau.science/orcid_fediverse_pub… went well, I had some nice discussions and introductions […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

Two adults, both smiling at the camera, standing next to an academic poster. They are wearing name tags. The location is a foyer of a university building.

000

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 25/06/2025

Took me a while to take a nice photo, but two weeks ago I got my stuff from @MoonloreDraws's last Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/moonlo… When it came to picking my supporter rewards I kinda just did “one of […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

A collection of printed fantasy art arranged on a small table: 6 books, 4 additional coloring books, six art prints, one original painting, and >100 stickers. Everything is themed around fantasy creatures and cute animals.

010

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 18/06/2025

I have written down my privacy-first design process for @encyclia and how it relates to Fediverse standards and social norms, and turned the result into a poster presentation for the upcoming ECSCW 2025 conference. 🙂 […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

000

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 29/05/2025

I've started publishing my “Introduction to human-computer interaction” slides as CC-licensed reusable teaching material. (My #OER debut!) fietkau.science/teaching/intro_hci I've been wanting to share these for more than a year. Doing that all at […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

Title slide for Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction, section 1, Introduction and Overview

Slide: What is part of HCI? a big tree illustration in the background, various scientific fields including psychology and computer science arranged around the roots, rigorous methods and creativity on the trunk, HCI keywords such as usability, social software, interaction design, user experience etc. in the tree branches

A course content overview listing nature of HCI, use and context of computers, human characteristics, computer system and interface architecture, and development process

Course section overview listing the entire contents sequentially:
Part 1: Fundamentals
1 Introduction and Overview
2 Basics of Cognition
3 Perception and Communication
4 Guidelines for Interaction Design
Part 2: Methods
5 The Usability Engineering Process
6 Context Analysis
7 Design and Prototyping
8 Evaluation
Part 3: Expertise
9 Interaction Paradigms
10 Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
11 Accessibility
12 Information Architecture and Data Visualization
13 Visual Design
Part 4: Reflection
14 HCI over Time
15 Professional Values and Ethics

012

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 24/01/2025

I made a small change to my list of academic profile links at fietkau.science/publications earlier this month. Kicked out some Elsevier stuff in favor of OpenAlex. Their profile of me was already pretty good, all I had to do was let them know that […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

ORCID, OpenAlex, dblp, ACM, ResearchGate

200

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 05/01/2025

The last "big" code thing I need to get done before the alpha test of my current @fedify project is the task queue - make sure routine data updates happen, consider individual importance and urgency, respect external API rate limits, etc. But that's super […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

Photo of a monitor showing some CSS code. The code hints at a website where images are animated and zoomed.

003

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 10/11/2024

Excerpt from an email I got this weekend. On the one hand I like that people are looking out for pitfalls, but it's also a shame that such a simple technology as QR codes is so rife with scams and exploitative products that caution is necessary.

I don't understand how the QRSVG system works. But I am just wondering whether you plan to remove the system in the next year or so (i.e. If I make cards with the QR on will it work for the next year or so?)

100

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 29/10/2024

I do all official correspondence via email when possible, but I live in a country that relies a lot on paper. Luckily I'm also passionate about physical filing systems and very good at bureaucracy. 😄 Here's part of my physical folders. LTR: Job, finances, medical, clubs, insurance, apartment.

Six green filing folders with custom-designed and printed labels on a wooden shelf. Each label has a title and a fitting clip art illustration (also green).

000

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 25/09/2024

With #FediJam nearing its deadline, I've been working on customization and accessibility options for my game. 🙂 Yes, it's a game jam, and this is one area of many where jam games typically cut quality corners to save dev time. But accessibility has kinda […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

Options, General

Controls
Mouse movement (selected)
Virtual touchpad
Virtual thumbstick
Keyboard
Gamepad
The game is controlled by moving the mouse cursor around inside the play area.

Graphics
Quality: Full (selected), Reduced, Minimal

Audio
Music: volume slider, test button
Sound effects: volume slider, test button

Feather Customization
You can change the feather’s visual appearance. This is an aesthetic choice with no impact on the game mechanics.
(feathers censored in screenshot, labeled WIP)

Options, Accessibility

Visuals
High contrast mode (checkbox)
Render collectibles as bright green dots, replace clouds with dark background.

Font
Standard (selected), Atkinson Hyperlegible, OpenDyslexic

Difficulty
Collecting radius: Standard
This setting adjusts how close you need to get to a collectible in order to pick it up.

Gameplay speed: 100%
This setting adjusts the speed of the gameplay clock, slowing down all in-game movement and giving you more time to react.

Keyboard Settings
These settings only have an effect if keyboard controls are enabled.
Up: Up or W
Right: Right or D
Down: Down or S
Left: Left or A
Reset to default

Tap mode
With this setting enabled, movement gets triggered by tapping the keys instead of holding them. Tap a direction multiple times to accelerate, tap the opposite direction to stop.

012

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 15/09/2024

Unveiling the core gameplay loop of my #FediJam entry. 😀 Think you can do better than me? You're probably right! Prove it next month! Note: still placeholder graphics, have not even started on presentation except basic animation. I wanted to get the […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

000

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 14/09/2024

Finally starting on my #FediJam project today. 😀 Because is it a real deadline if you don't start on the thing halfway through? 😇 This is after an hour or two of getting warmed up again in #threejs. Hand-fudged physics, no graphics yet, but you can guess […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

002

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 04/09/2024

Alright! With that journey wrapped up, maybe now I'll manage to make time for some open source / fedi software work over the next few weeks before courses start? I dunno, but I'm motivated. 😎

Excerpt from an English translation of Goethe's Faust: Mephisto. [Aside] Enough of all this academic chatter, Back again to devilry!

000

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 02/09/2024

Good morning! 🌞 After a negative COVID test and a nice breakfast, I'm off to the #MuC2024 opening keynote. Letting myself be surprised there, didn't research who's presenting. I can't help but feel I lucked out with the hotel that the travel department […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

A green meadow surrounded by trees, photographed soon after sunrise

000

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 01/09/2024

Settled into my Hotel in Karlsruhe for #MuC2024 and finished last preparations for tomorrow's presentation about a human-centered perspective on #HCI studies involving body tracking sensors (Kinect etc). This is in the context of a research methods workshop […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

Diagram summarizing a body detection process by example in three steps. 1, a waving person shown as a dark-to-light depth buffer. 2, the same pose with individual body areas painted in different colors with diffuse boundaries. 3, the same pose with fixed key body points.

100

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 31/08/2024

I finished another #webdev side project and built the QR code generator of my dreams: :fietkau_software: fietkau.software/qr * It's instant, purely client-side, and has no ads or upsells. * It has a variety of color, shape, and logo embedding options […] [Original post on fietkau.social]

A QR code with the asterism fediverse symbol on a purple gradient circle in the middle. The data blocks are colored in a purple-yellow radial gradient, looking warm and vaguely sunset-like. The data blocks consist of individual mosaic-like tiles instead of contiguous shapes.

51234

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 12/07/2024

[food, candy] Had an opportunity to pick this up from an import store, so today I get to Taste The Meme™.

A small bag of Sakeru Gummy, as known from the "Long, Long Man" Japanese TV commercial series

000

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 13/06/2024

Spending part of this week #writing about failure! Going ahead and assuming it's been long enough that no one will get mad at me for this. 👀 #AcademicWriting #ProjectManagement #accountability

With a few years of distance and the benefit of hindsight, we use this venue to provide an overview of the project's approach, with a particular focus on areas where it stumbled or failed. While these problems themselves are not individually novel or even necessarily surprising, we believe that our experiences in aggregate may be helpful for future projects working on smart cities or other urban technology, particularly with accessibility and inclusivity in mind.

020

Julian Fietkau @fietkau.me · 06/06/2024

Hah, no way, my dinky little Bluesky bridge project fietkau.software/pinhole got linked in a @TechCrunch article: techcrunch.com/2024/06/05/bluesky-a… I'm glad it's been surpassed in usefulness. 😄 Cheers @Sarahp and @snar…

Excerpt from the TechCrunch article:

"Bridgy Fed itself soft-launched in mid-April and transitioned to a full launch over the past month. It’s now one of many different efforts to bridge networks in the fediverse, in addition to Sasquatch, pinhole, RSS Parrot, mostr.pub and SkyBridge, though many are not as fully bidirectional as Bridgy is."

Each of the bridge project names is a link. "Pinhole" is circled in red with an arrow pointing at it and a large shocked emoji underneath.

000