https://korayer.de Posts by Koray en https://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Sun, 10 May 2026 17:30:56 +0200 60 Wed, 15 Apr 2026 11:15:00 +0200 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=8mb
i liked the idea of exchanging art with a stranger but this project requires a purchase of a 40€ usb drive. the sharing happens digitally anyway so i came up with the idea for 8mb.referi.de[2]. the same concept but without the need for a physical drive.

it works on a weekly cycle:
- an upload phase, where 8mb zip files can be uploaded
- a download phase, where your zip is shared with a random person and you get a random zip back
- a reset phase over the weekend to get back to creating

i guess human review will be necessary so i try to do this between the upload and download phase. it's in open beta, i am thinking of making it invite only in the future to avoid spam. give it a try. the current upload phase ends in about 24h.

[1] https://usb.club/
[2] https://8mb.referi.de/]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=8mb Wed, 07 Jan 2026 21:45:00 +0100 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=irc
since irc is so text-only and in the spirit of web 1.0, i had to make sure to create a channel on libera.chat called #textonly (which is a channel for my textonly.website project [3]). if you already use irc you know how to get there but if you are new to it you can stop by through gamja [4] in your web browser and say hi.

i have swiftly written a few irc bots in no time, one of them takes the website submissions for textonly.website and sends them to me on irc, another one runs a local llm (gemma3:4b) on my raspberry pi which i (and you) can chat to called hoxha (also available on ##llm-bots).

[1] https://thelounge.chat/
[2] https://wiki.znc.in/ZNC
[3] https://textonly.website/
[4] https://web.libera.chat/gamja/#textonly]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=irc Thu, 28 Aug 2025 14:00:00 +0200 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=futsal-manager-game no ads, no graphics, no active internet needed.

feel free to check it out at:
https://korayer.de/fm/]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=futsal-manager-game Sun, 22 Sep 2024 01:20:00 +0200 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=ham-radio
[1] https://apps.ankiweb.net/
[2] https://meshtastic.org/]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=ham-radio Sun, 07 Apr 2024 12:40:00 +0200 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=flip-a-coin the most stressful moments of my youth were when we had a big exams in school because of all of the decisions i had to make. if you imagine the decisions a major politician or a ceo of a big company has to make, it's no wonder merkel and jobs wore practically the same outfit every day.

i might even want to say that the very big decisions in life can be made with a coin flip - but only if you are truly stuck between two options.
sometimes the result of the coin flip disappoints you; this can help break into your subconscious and filter out what you really think is best - and of course, you can still overwrite the coin flip .

i often think of a bit of aziz ansari's comedy special, where he highlights our reliance on the internet for decision-making. he describes him standing in the toothbrush aisle of a store and doing a web search for "the best toothbrush". later, he imagines walking up to someone with poor dental health and asking what led to their condition, to which the person responds, "i guess i chose the wrong toothbrush."

from a philosophical standpoint, existentialism argues that life revolves around decision-making, stressing individual freedom and responsibility. i think we cannot not make a decision; letting a coin make a decision is also an active decision.]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=flip-a-coin Tue, 25 Apr 2023 23:30:00 +0200 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=ipod-shuffle-sync
a few days ago i found this on the arch wiki:
https://github.com/nims11/IPod-Shuffle-4g

a way of syncing music onto my ipod without the need of itunes. i can simply drag & drop songs onto the ipod's drive and it creates playlist accordingly. to read back the playlist names it uses espeak. without espeak it will still read "playlist 1, playlist 2" when navigating.
after copying the files i need to run a python script which i can store on my ipod, so its accessible on any pc i use.

i wanted to share this in case there are other ipod shuffle users out there struggling with the same problem.]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=ipod-shuffle-sync Thu, 13 Apr 2023 22:55:00 +0200 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=missed-my-flight
- uk entry needs eu citizens to hold a passport
- incomplete id can clear check-in and security but not boarding
- dus terminal c police can sometimes give temporary passport
- registration office can issue a 1 year temporary passport immediately if flying in less than 5 days
- do a quick web search before traveling
- even with lots of charm you cannot convince the employees]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=missed-my-flight Tue, 28 Mar 2023 18:40:00 +0200 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=a-haiku wings flutter in vain
nature's treadmill]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=a-haiku Mon, 06 Mar 2023 21:05:00 +0100 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=my-microsd
my solution is a portable and secure operating system called tails. it uses 8gb of space and reserves the rest for "persistence"; a luks-encrypted partition to store files. i could encrypt the microsd without tails, but it's reassuring to have a clean operating system with me at all times. it also has a feature to make backups to other tails drives.

this works fine for my x220 but since my macbook, which i use for work, has no way to decrypt luks partitions i installed arch over UTM. the setup takes 5 minutes and runs very resource efficient.]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=my-microsd Fri, 24 Feb 2023 16:15:00 +0100 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=textonly-website
i personally found the archived version a few weeks ago and decided to revive it. so i bought the domain and started my own list. feel free to send me suggestions.

check it out: https://textonly.website/]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=textonly-website Tue, 21 Feb 2023 17:30:00 +0100 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=my-favourite-designers Ulmer Hocker (1954)

Adrian Frutiger
Univers (1957)

Dieter Rams
Braun RT 20 (1961)

Massimo Vignelli
New York Subway Map (1970)

Otl Aicher
Organisationskomitee fuer die Spiele der XX. Olympiade Muenchen 1972: Richtlinien und Normen fuer die visuelle Gestaltung (1972)

Paul Rand
IBM, Rebus (1981)

(in response to https://cmhb.de/my-favourite-designers)]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=my-favourite-designers Thu, 15 Dec 2022 19:40:00 +0100 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=good-design
if i need a place to sit, a street curb, or even the floor, is the most accessible. if your innovative, aesthetic, durable and environmentally friendly chair is impossible to find or too expensive, all design principles are worthless. to illustrate my point i want to talk about the monobloc [2], or as some evil tongues might call it, the ugliest chair in the world. no matter how famous or rich you might be, i'm sure everyone can recall sitting in one at some point in their life. the monobloc enabled more people than any other to sit with dignety - some even use them to make wheelchairs for people who simply can't afford "real" ones [3].

we, in our fancy herman miller chairs, have an easy time mocking the monobloc, but that misses the point. it would be nicer, of course, if everyone could sit in the same chair or live in the same apartment as i do, but just like, so called, ugly brutalist housing developments, the monobloc strives to provide everyone the most necessary dignity. in my book thats not only good design, it's morally correct design.

[1] https://www.vitsoe.com/us/about/good-design
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monobloc_(chair)
[3] https://www.freewheelchairmission.org/our-wheelchairs/

(as a side note, in my book, the monobloc meets at least seven of those principles)]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=good-design Fri, 14 Oct 2022 20:05:00 +0200 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=low-tech-and-my-old-notebook
there is also different classes of large scale technologys for example a bicycle makes you more independent than an e-scooter even though they are both high-tech. of course, everyone has to make their own choices and weigh comfort versus independence.

currently, i'm questioning some of the choices that those around me have pushed me towards - for example, i regret buying sonos speakers (which require an app to set up and a wifi connection to play) instead of regular wired speakers.

however... the real reason i'm talking about this is that i was looking for a notebook (the one you use with a pen (i know some computers also come with one, but i hope you know what i mean)). here are some criteria for a notebook:

1. it has to fit in my pocket - better yet, in a woman's pocket.
2. dotted grid - perfect for sketching and writing.
3. thickness of about four credit cards.
4. look nice - no branding and nothing bright or noticable.

there are endless notebooks out there, but i'm having a hard time finding one that meets these criteria. for the past few years, i've made them myself, but i didn't take making them seriously. it was just a bunch of dotted paper (which i also used for my heimat project), printed, cut and stapled together.

https://korayer.de/files/old-notebook.png
(my old notebook, a credit card for scale and a closeup of the dotted grid)

https://korayer.de/heimat.pdf
(heimat project)

the nice thing about the dotted paper is that the dots are spaced 5 mm apart, so that two dots are 1 cm and five are about 1 inch. i've spent the last few days refining my printing and cutting technique and designing useful information for the first and last pages, like fields to put a name, the start date, or information about din paper sizes that i can't remember and often need.

we'll see how it goes, i'll share more details in the future.]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=low-tech-and-my-old-notebook Thu, 14 Jul 2022 17:20:00 +0200 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=falling-into-rabbit-holes
this isn't about rubic's cubes, but rather about me jumping to a different hobby every two months. from buying a crt tv to improve my nes tetris score (and competing in the german nes championships), to buying a very specific lubricant to get the right sound out of my mechanical keyboard. i think i went through 10 different hobbies last year. i made a list to come up with that number, and looking at the list i can't stop, but notice very nerdy 80's vibes. i never know what hobby is next, but looking back, it makes perfect sense. i'm still waiting for the day i can put some of this knowledge into action.

by the way this is already the second hobby that uses lubricant. it is now only a matter of time before my family holds an intervention for me.]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=falling-into-rabbit-holes Fri, 27 May 2022 12:15:00 +0200 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=my-thesis-and-chess
MY BACHELOR THESIS
after 2 years of procrastination, i finally finished my bachelor thesis. i'm happy about the result, but even more happy about the fact that it's finally over. at the moment, it's only available in german. would be nice to have an english version as well, but i don't want to deal with it anymore. maybe another time.

https://referi.de

I BEAT THE CHESS WORLD CHAMPION
kind of... let me explain:

lichess.org is an (open source) website to play chess online against other people. it is very popular and the current world chess champion, magnus carlson, has played about 10.000 games there.

freopen.org is a website where you can enter your lichess.org username and it will find a path from a game you won to a game magnus carlson lost. so basically i won a match against someone named vagia, who won against andres_bianchetti, who won against milber, who won against raphael, who won against magnus carlson (drnykterstein). but "i beat the world chess champion" has a better ring to it.

https://freopen.org/@/mcfly154]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=my-thesis-and-chess Sun, 08 May 2022 00:45:00 +0200 https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=choosing-independence
SWITCHING TO RSS
when i have a choice between two options, i always try to choose the one that makes me less dependent. rss is just that. no algorithm, no censorship, no selling my data, and no unnecessary waste of resources.

the lifespan of social media has proven to be quite short, and i want these words to stay online much longer - or not. the main thing is that it's my decision.

i would like to take a moment to thank bradley taunt for his initiative "shinobi website" which is a text based rss system. it's great, it's free, it's lightweight and of course my rss feed is based on it.

https://shinobi.bt.ht/

CHOOSING OPEN SOURCE
lately i've been thinking a lot about the time i couldn't open applications on my macbook because an apple service was having problems. in other words: i couldn't open my text editor because a server was down. in what reality does my text editor care about any server?

these things make me feel like someone else has control over my hardware. i don't like that. and once again, i find myself between two options, and i don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the apple ecosystem is not what you would call the embodiment of freedom and independence.

this also applies to managing files by myself. if we debunk the term "server", it's just a marketing phrase for "someone else's computer" - which sounds much scarier. since icloud is not end-to-end encrypted, someone with the necessary permission could easily get access to all my files. i don't like that. i can't just trust apple on this one.

what i like is the idea of using open source software, because that's the only software i can trust. besides, it's usually much more efficient and therefore faster. currently, it's not possible for me as a designer to leave adobe cloud behind, but whenever i have a choice between proprietary and open source software, i choose the latter.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/12/mac-apps-not-opening/]]> Koray Er https://korayer.de/feed.xml?post=choosing-independence