Ava perfectly captured how I feel about saving the planet:

I can only speak for myself, but adjusting my consumer behavior to my values as much as is possible for me in my position isn’t misdirecting me, it’s keeping me focused, actually. It’s making me aware again and again of what world I want, what I stand for, what I personally fund and my impact. I hold governments and industries accountable as much as is possible for me through recycling, veganism, not having a car, not flying, etc. and demand systemic change to the options given to me (voting and money, which are not enough, but hey). That doesn’t mean I am never frustrated or feeling hopeless or like it’s all for nothing, of course.

Her words highlight a crucial point: we need both systemic change and personal action. More regulation is necessary to force corporations to protect the planet, but where possible, individual choices matter too.

Just because we are free to do almost anything doesn’t mean we should. I have the freedom to eat meat every day, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right choice. The government won’t ban me from overconsuming it, but if I do, I’m not just harming my health – I’m also contributing, in my own small way, to environmental destruction.

It’s surprising how much I can reduce the amount of spam that Rspamd needs to filter – whether it ends up in my junk folder or even my inbox – just by blocking certain recipient addresses. Using unique email addresses for each service, like “deezer @ example.com” for Deezer, was one of the best decisions I made, especially combined with a catch-all address.

For example, Deezer had a data leak a few years ago, which led to a flood of spam targeting the email I used for their service. Fortunately, with Postfix, I can simply reject emails sent to that specific address, keeping my inbox much cleaner and reducing the workload for Rspamd.

My blog still has a long way to go when it comes to accessibility, but I’m excited about two new plugins I’ve just added to make things better.

The first plugin uses AI to generate image descriptions for me – far better than I could write myself. It even works in multiple languages, adapting to the blog’s language settings. The second plugin improves how these descriptions can be accessed on mobile devices. Now, you can simply tap on an image to read its description (on desktop, the descriptions are still available as tooltips when you hover over the image).

Since image descriptions aren’t created automatically for older posts and I haven’t manually updated all of them yet, you can check out this post as an example of how it works.

Sometimes things happen that you did not expect: You hear a song, you really like it, you research who made it, and you find out that person lives in the same town as you: AK – Discovery.

I hope to ignore US politics as much as I can in the next few years – it can really bring you down. Let’s also hope Trump and his oligarch friends don’t cause too much harm until then.

To continue my recovery today, I didn’t do much other than lie in bed and watch Netflix (I’ve been binge-watching a lot since we subscribed to Netflix a few weeks ago): I watched the miniseries The Playlist.

The Playlist tells the story of the founding of Spotify. In each episode, the story is told from a different perspective. What’s exciting is that the artists’ point of view is not left out.

I was using my 5G router setup with Vanilla OpenWRT and QMI Cellular as a protocol for quite some time, but there were irregular disconnections etc. Updating the firmware of the modem didn’t help. Some days ago, I noticed that it’s also possible to configure with Modem Manager (which provides connection information directly in LuCI) and put the Quectel modem into MBIM mode. It’s running without hiccups now! Also updated to OpenWRT 24.10.

Social media is in a worrying state. TikTok in the hands of autocratic China, X (formerly Twitter) in the hands of Elon Musk, who gets crazier every day and hangs out too much with Donald Trump (and recommends a fascist party in Germany), and now Mark Zuckerberg with Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) is also joining the group of friends around Trump and removing fact checks in the name of “free speech”. What could possibly go wrong?

It was probably my most productive first week of January so far. Big progress in the apartment: lots of furniture (and a large wall unit) dismantled, two rooms painted and much more. Tomorrow maybe a bit more relaxed program, so that I don’t need a vacation from vacation straight away. 😅