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December 2023 in a Nutshell

dec 31, 2023 · 931 words · 5 minute read

Tusky is a quite popular Mastodon client which faced a bit of an uproar recently due to the Stepping back from the Tusky project post by Nik Clayton. I certainly will not publicly take sides here, but this entire affair is unfortunately so typical for open source projects; if it escalates then big time and it usually comes along with a huge decline in trust into the project as well as the people working on them.
While we already are at controversial moves: Simple Mobile Tools. First and foremost, you cannot thank Tibor enough for maintaining these apps for so long, although there wasn't coming around too much financially. I can totally understand that he got to a point to seriously consider selling the apps, though I can't support the choice to whom he sold. Anyway, the SMT ecosystem got immediately forked by long-term maintainer Naveen. The project is now called Fossify and in the meantime it saw the re-release of the first app under the new moniker, Fossify Gallery.
Unfortunately I did not manage to read as many books as I wished in 2023, but the last one I started this year is Ancillary Justice of the Imperial Radch triology by Ann Leckie. So far I like it, though I have a bit of struggle to get used to the German translation.

As mentioned in the last nutshell post, I'm pretty much into Indian tv/web shows these days so I picked up The Railway Men which is about the toxic gas leak that happened in Bhopal in 1984. The show consists of four episodes, is engagingly told and the cast is just awesome. Pretty good show, though the background, especially the aftermath of the incident is highly unsettling as you can read here Bhopal Briefing (unfortunately only in German)
Trial by Fire is like the aforementioned The Railway Men based on a true tragedy, in this case the devastating Uphaar fire tragedy and it depicts the difficult yet resilient journey of two parents - Neelam and Shekhar Krishnamoorthy, trying to seek justice over the last two decades.
I guess I'm pretty late to the party with this one, I just started to watch The Boys which appears to me as a comic adaption for adults - not like the comic adaptions that were mostly released for cinemas these days. Haven't progressed that far, so more on that probably in the next nutshell.
John Wick 4 was lurking on my shelf for quite a while but wasn't watched because I simply forgot about it. In a nutshell, it is more of the same. The story has been always rather on the thinner side, and character development, well that's not exactly required. The action, specifically the close quarter combats scenes are outstanding, though a bit on the repetitive side (specifically the takedowns). Nonetheless, it was a fun ride.

As usual, I'm currently stuck in the mini-game and side story hell that makes a significant part of every Yakuza game. As far as I know the actual main plot isn't too long, but boy, those side shenanigans are really time consuming.

I have to admit that I lost sight a bit of Orbit Culture after the release of Vultures of the North, but by coincidence I stumbled over them again and in that event I got myself the entire discography. There are rarely melodic death metal bands that I enjoy these days, but Orbit Culture is top notch.
Speaking of top notch, Black Crown Initiate's Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape is exactly that. There's a lot of real good progressive death metal bands out there, but I often tend to compare these to Opeth of which I am a fan since the release of Orchid. One of the very few bands that come to my mind that create a similar thrill like Opeth are Black Crown Initiate.
Year Of The Knife is probably the hottest shit in the modern hardcore scene right now; to cut it short: rightfully. Their current release No Love Lost is just hardcore as fuck.
As mentioned the last time, I'm actually not into podcasts, but Dark Matters — Secrets of the Intelligence Agencies (German) is one of the few I listen to. It's about the success, failures, scandals of Intelligence Agencies. While the first seasons solely focused on German agencies, the second seasons expands to the world with some high profile cases.

A couple of years back I got hold of a standing desk in office due to a bigger round of layoffs (in Germany you require an attestation by your doctor that it is medically advised) and I really started to like it so once I relocated to Switzerland I got myself a standing desk for the home office. This received now an update in the shape of an anti fatigue mat, to be exact the Aeris Muvmat (Disclaimer: the product link just serves the purpose of showing the mat, there is no benefits in any way attached to it) and this is probably the best thing I have invested money this year.

On a personal note, the next nutshell post will be certainly delayed as I'm going to be on a - at least - three weeks hiatus in January due to a surgical treatment in mid-January.