💬 Micro

Some time ago I posted about my experience blocking one country and some ASNs directly via iptables from my mail server. It seems like there’s an even better source of IPs and networks to block.

The Spamhaus “Don’t Route Or Peer Lists (DROP)” lists.

Currently my mail setup is configured to block everything from these lists. After that, failed login attempts are blocked using fail2ban. And both Postscreen and Rspamd are configured with the usual DNS block lists (like Spamhaus), but also with Abusix.

So far I have received no single spam mail since moving to this new setup. Also, the number of logged spam delivery tries is greatly reduced. All the legitimate emails I wanted to receive the last days came through.

Using simplemailservice.eu also still works great as my outbound relay.

Fun fact: All the ASNs I manually blocked before are on the DROP list. I let AI write a small script that uses the bgp.tools table.txt to find the IPs for them.

Why spend 80 € on a simple cap? Because it fits my big head perfectly, is very comfortable, offers good sun protection, is high-quality, and also keeps me from being blinded by the sun. With this cap and my hat, my collection of summer headwear should now be complete.

We recently had a test photo shooting with our wedding photographer. The photos that came out of this session are beautiful. I took the chance to finally update my profile picture (the last one was from 2022) with a cropped version of one of the new photos. My appearance has actually changed quite a bit, especially over the past year. I have new glasses, a beard now, and shorter hair.

I took my bike out for a short ride again yesterday. The last days it was rainy and stormy, but yesterday, there was a bit of sun again. Also wind, but I took it relaxed. Nature also really calmed me down. I haven’t really realized sunset is so late, and I can still easily start a short ride in the evening.

Many news sites, including a few German ones, are now trying to get you to add them as a preferred source on Google. This can be annoying. Why should I do this? And why do you try to remind me on every visit? And why do you even assume I am using Google News? Are the sites so desperate because AI is reducing the number of people visiting them?

The moment when you finally deploy a change on which you worked over some days, trying to think through every possible use case and scenario, and you just hope it’s working flawlessly. 🙏

Such a moment was just now for me!

I finally and drastically improved image optimization with GoBlog. Responsive images and AVIF support. Using imgproxy.

Part two of this major refactoring will be to find a way to map every image “optimized” using the old implementation to its original image. Just by comparing all files, as there was no database for it.

But until then, enjoy this image from Scotland last year!

I planned a bikepacking trip for the coming weekend, but I am not really sure if I overestimate my power, if I will eat enough, and if I will be able to put up the tent on my own. 😅

I watched so many YouTube videos on bikepacking in the recent years that I really need to try a multi-day trip (just two days for now, lol) with a tent on my own.

Two years ago, I went from Kassel to Braunschweig (215 km) in three days but slept in cozy hotels and reached the day’s destination already by noon. This year will be harder with more than 100 km per day (224 km in total). And just in case something goes wrong, there will always be train stops nearby.

Theoretically, I could also just take the train home overnight and continue my route on the next day. But that would destroy the adventure…

If you have any tips, feel free to tell me. 😊

Now I am 26 + 1 years old. My better half made me this delicious cake and gave me these beautiful flowers and some cool presents!

Upgrading the valves on my bike to Clik valves is a real game changer. Straightforward to use and fixes a few annoying issues with the previous Presta valves (for example, accidentally unscrewing the valve while removing the pump). Another cool thing: there are conversion kits from Schwalbe available for both Presta and Dunlop valves, so I can also upgrade my other bike and my fiancé’s bike. Inflating tires is now a piece of cake!

Stalwart v0.16 was released, and with it support for automatic DNS updates for things like TLSA records (DANE). It also supports Bunny DNS, so it’s interesting for me. Will I replace my current mail server (with docker-mailserver) with Stalwart soon? 👀