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philip

@heltweg.org
5.5K followers 230 following 1.3K posts

Freelance Technical Product Manager & Engineer · PhD Computer Science · Founder at isselthal | Visit heltweg.org & isselthal.com :)

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philip @heltweg.org · 01/10/2026
Still need to de-sloppify the UI, but just installed my rage-vibecoded Trello replacement on my phone 😌. Time to move some tasks over. I need some french feedback though, I love the t'inquiète pas branding as "don't worry", but I think it can also have a "it's not your business" vibe. Is that true?
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philip @heltweg.org · 28/09/2026
Finally going to complete the programmer rite-of-passage of creating my own todolist app 🧘‍♂️.
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philip @heltweg.org · 24/09/2026
Took a moment to generate a new favicon for my personal homepage. It's just my initials rendered from my custom font (my handwriting). Kind of basic, but I like it, gives it a personal touch :).
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philip @heltweg.org · 01/09/2026
The wonders of open data, for french transport data search for "French national access point to transport data" :) #opendata #dataengineering #DataBS
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philip @heltweg.org · 31/08/2026
I visited #SotM2026 in Paris over the weekend! :D It was nice to learn more about the tech behind open street map, the mapping community and how the data is used and created. Very similar vibes to the open source community at e.g. FOSDEM. Hopefully I can work more with open data in the future :).
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philip @heltweg.org · 27/08/2026
Cool fonts from the internet: DEPARTURE MONO, for some low-fi tech vibes :) #fonts #webdesign #paris
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philip @heltweg.org · 25/08/2026
I am back to publishing whimsical software development until bsky is a place I would like to spend time on. Building a delightful website to follow parisian public transport. Sounds yes? Sounds no? #paris #metro #ratp #sncf #buildinpublic #opendata
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philip @heltweg.org · 21/08/2026
Can't stop, won't stop, look at this cute station board 🚋 😅.
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philip @heltweg.org · 21/08/2026
As a fun project to end to the week, I played around with French open data for Parisian public transport, plus experimented with sound design (so you will need to enable sound!). Still quite iffy train positions sometimes, but I love how it looks 🤩 .
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philip @heltweg.org · 20/08/2026
The end is nigh.
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philip @heltweg.org · 09/08/2026
Our arrondissement has moved permanent plots for plants into the street, plus kept the wooden exterior extensions for some restaurants. It's paying off so well, look at how beautiful this is 🤩.
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philip @heltweg.org · 07/08/2026
Getting WanderStories ready for another alpha test on the weekend (with semi strangers 😱). Was fun to replace all the AI generated images with my own/public domain art, looks much nicer. Also, WanderStories is (unsurprisingly) already taken as a name, so I am taking suggestions for a new one :).
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philip @heltweg.org · 05/08/2026
This July, I attended my first ever graduation ceremony 😱. It was a lot of fun! Plus, I wrote a short post about my way to a PhD, and the struggles of being intimidated by university, coming from a "working-class family". www.heltweg.org/posts/compl...
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philip @heltweg.org · 01/08/2026
Wow, I see LinkedIn is going with the times and allows you to report AI slip now 👀.
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philip @heltweg.org · 31/07/2026
Man, I love progressive web apps. First, you have some "meh" early website prototype, but then you add all the icons, manifests and offline support and it looks/feels so sleek 🤩. (From WanderStories, the treasure hunt/exploration "app" we're building. Friday is build-a-product time 😅.)
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philip @heltweg.org · 25/07/2026
Hard at work, testing the first version of our app to explore cities while solving puzzles and treasure hunts. The startup live is challenging, but I am committed to the grind. The first puzzle for you is: Can you guess where this is?
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philip @heltweg.org · 24/07/2026
A fun post to close the week: I made it back to the Backfabrik in Berlin! I used to work here ~15 years ago (!) at StudiVZ (the German Facebook clone) as an apprentice "mathematical-technical software engineer". Good times. The building and me have survived, sadly (?) StudiVZ has not 😅.
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philip @heltweg.org · 21/07/2026
Recently, I was allowed to give a lecture on reasons adopt microservices 🙌 . Somehow I made it through most of my PhD teaching without entering a classroom (hint: it's COVID), so it was nice to be in person. P.S: The text behind me on the blackboard is HATEOAS; I had to look it up 🙈 .
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philip @heltweg.org · 13/07/2026
In my "post-pictures-of-starbucks"-era. But with that rare version of my name I had to :).
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philip @heltweg.org · 22/06/2026
I was at Vivatech in Paris last week and could capture this beautiful startup visual: A group of visitors impressed by an "autonomous" robot and the startup employee secretly controlling it ✨ .
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philip @heltweg.org · 22/06/2026
Looking forward to a beautiful evening 🥰
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philip @heltweg.org · 19/06/2026
Something tells me I might be in an AB test group for our TV app 🤔
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philip @heltweg.org · 12/06/2026
Feels great to be adding customer reviews to the website again 🥰. It's like collecting a Pokemon, I want to catch them all 😅.
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philip @heltweg.org · 12/06/2026
I love that I can have emails in my regular inbox that are both auto-labeled as spam and manually blocked. Don't let others tell you what to do Fastmail client, live your own life ✨.
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philip @heltweg.org · 04/06/2026
Adding low-pressure talking scenarios to my #french learning game and going until the free AI model goes insane. Record so far: Two responses 💪 .
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philip @heltweg.org · 30/05/2026
Being forced to agree to have your data sold to third-party companies to be spammed with ads to buy a ticket to the Esports World Cup is wild. Shame.
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philip @heltweg.org · 29/05/2026
i finally got my pebble watch and the first thing it does is be angry at me 😭 shh, no rest for the wicked my tiny friend
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philip @heltweg.org · 28/05/2026
J'ai venu ecrire "petite réussi du jour", mais Google me dit "petit succès de la journée" 😅. Bah, on essaye 😭.
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philip @heltweg.org · 25/05/2026
Numbers change, but apparently times don't. Back in my time (👴), we were discussing if the 1.5 EUR Döner in Neukölln contains rat meat or not.
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philip @heltweg.org · 22/05/2026
I know my self-promotions are dangerously sexy, but come on LinkedIn, I consented! 😭 Watch me do it again: If you want technical PM/engineering freelancing so good that LinkedIn thinks it should be banned, pull up incognito mode and visit me at: www.isselthal.industries/ 😘.
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philip @heltweg.org · 18/05/2026
Kind of random, but you have to love the Parisian Metro. The two next trains in 1/3 minutes, and that isn't an exception but normal during peak hours 😌.
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philip @heltweg.org · 30/04/2026
Ah yeah, it has much more trees in summer. You can see a similar spot with the statue and tree in the background in this photo from www.sortiraparis.com/en/what-to-d....
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philip @heltweg.org · 30/04/2026
Modern AI truly is the most serious of sciences.
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philip @heltweg.org · 29/04/2026
For some whimsy in my life, I created custom font from my handwriting to use on my personal website. So far I have just tested the free version (and horribly messed up my alignment 😬), but it looks cute and was fun 🧚.
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philip @heltweg.org · 29/04/2026
The upside of living in cool places: When your friends visit you to brainstorm about building cool products or freelancing in the future, you can also do some sightseeing :). So here is a picture from us last week, do you know where this was taken? 👀
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philip @heltweg.org · 22/04/2026
"Microservice architectures have a way of becoming ungovernable." #softwareengineering
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philip @heltweg.org · 20/04/2026
This time I managed to make the video short enough for Bsky (but in turn it seems very rushed :/). But: Presenting the output and a mini-overview of the stages to get there of Morsel, our prototype to find problems in technical documentation :). #buildinpublic #indiehacker #bootstrapping
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philip @heltweg.org · 17/04/2026
we had fun while it lasted
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philip @heltweg.org · 17/04/2026
exactly the kind of brand dna i want to have, thanks claude
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philip @heltweg.org · 09/04/2026
Added numbers to my French learning game, ready to make the same tired old joke everyone makes about the language. But, in positive and engineering notes, adding numbers was as easy to as just adding another CSV file. So, good for me 😊.
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philip @heltweg.org · 23/03/2026
Also: Added a word-learning extension to my conjugation game (and a recent error view), because I desperately need it 🤦 . But, motivated me to fail for 30 minutes this morning so I count that as a success.
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philip @heltweg.org · 13/03/2026
Added more verbs and an English only mode, this way I can use it + Infinitives only to learn the new verbs themselves 🥳. I wonder how effective this is, very easy to slip into a flow state for me that just pattern matches verbs... but on the other hand, quick pattern matching might be good?
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philip @heltweg.org · 12/03/2026
One effect of improved coding agents: Personal utility software is now way easier to create. I am trying to learn French (😬) and wanted to do conjugation exercises, but: Keyboard controlled and minimal, but if possible with some verbal feedback.
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philip @heltweg.org · 27/02/2026
From software dev, but I am confident it applies to dashboards as well:
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philip @heltweg.org · 26/02/2026
just as I remember
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philip @heltweg.org · 26/02/2026
i shall see you in a week my friends, take care 👋
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philip @heltweg.org · 20/02/2026
behold I've programmed my very own personal dread agent
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philip @heltweg.org · 19/02/2026
The RSSRanker UI is very boring. So naturally, as a middle-aged, totally not cringe dude, I raccoonified it 🦝. Now you can send a pack of trash pandas out to dig through garbage news and find some tasty treats 📰.
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philip @heltweg.org · 18/02/2026
In some very niche news, after 20 years I finally managed to get a cool looking sword in WoW. So things are looking up 😅.
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philip @heltweg.org · 13/02/2026
Visited a webinar about Destination Earth, a project by the EU to gather geodata and build digital twins to model what-if scenarios. Overall really fascinating, a complex project with real use-cases like modeling impacts of weather events on green energy production. 🔋 #databs
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