Category Archives: Hobby

Airtags v2

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Airtags!After my recent technology upgrade, I started getting more and more interested in the Apple ecosystem. I looked into their Airtags, but there were rumors about a new version coming up, so I patiently waited. They are here now and I think it was a smart move to wait for the new version. Better battery, better precision, better sound to help find it. All that for the same price.

I was never really interested in getting an Airtag because I just did not see the use for them, but now that they have supposedly improved accuracy it did get my attention. I sometimes play escape-room like games with my family. Solve riddles, search for things, break locks, hidden messages, etc. Adding an airtag looks like a very fun addition.

I will give it a try, and afterwards I can always use the Airtag to track my luggage for when I travel, or maybe track my backpack, or my car. I’ll see that usage is worth it for me.

MagSafe

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I was a bit underwhelmed when I first started experimenting with my new iPhone 17. Coming from an old SE, I had expected the jump to the 17 to be a major change for the better. What I noticed instead were lots of relatively small improvements and a few big ones. Everything worked just a little bit better, a little smoother, and it made me realise my old phone wasn’t even that old. A noticeable upgrade was the larger, better screen, and the biggest change was the battery. I can now use my phone all day without worries.

There was one more big improvement that I didn’t notice at first: MagSafe. After getting a MagSafe charger for my nightstand, it didn’t take long to adjust to the new level of comfort it offered. There was a small issue with the bright LED built into the charger, but a small sticker quickly solved that. Step two was a MagSafe charger for my car, and that was all I needed to stop using cables altogether. It’s a very satisfying reality where I simply drop my phone onto the magnet or pull it off again. Sure, it might take a bit longer to charge, but since my phone is now my alarm/clock and it charges while I sleep, I don’t care.

My old phone used to turn itself off at least a couple of times a year from overheating. That’s what you get for living on a tropical island, I guess. The new phone has a cool feature to avoid overheating: a vapor chamber that should distribute heat more evenly so the phone can cool down faster. The really warm and sunny days are still a few months away, so this feature is something I’ll put to the test in the future.

For now, my conclusion is simple. My new phone wasn’t the jump into the future that I expected, but it has enough improvements to make me happy. The new magsafe (new for me, it been available for a few years already) did make me experience a jump into the future, and makes me happy.

Indie developer

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Indie developer!Ofcourse I have heard about ‘indie developers’. I like these kinds of games a lot, but suddenly I realised something…

No publisher, no external boss, no committee telling me what the game should look like. I decide the mechanics, the art style, the branding, the emotional tone and that creative autonomy is the core of being indie. My projects come from nostalgia, curiosity, and joy, not market pressure. That’s classic indie energy: making something because it matters.

Well, that also applies to mushroom mayhem… it just hit me: I am an indie game developer. Good times!

Lego botanicals

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I regularly stop by the toy store. You never know when you’ll need a little gift. A tooth might suddenly fall out of someone’s mouth, and then you have to be prepared for the tooth fairy or, here in Spain, Raton Pérez.

A while ago, I suddenly saw a nice Lego set during my walk through the store. I don’t really play with Lego anymore, but this was a set of small plants (succulents), and I liked it so much that I took it home right away. I enjoyed building it, and it turned out there were more botanical sets. First I bought the orchid, then every potted plant I came across. A fun, renewed hobby.

Updated cake recipe

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Nieuwe cake!Our original cake recipe has been improved, the cake now tastes much better and is super fluffy. The difference is small, we changed from oil to butter, and we added one egg, but the result is much fluffier.

  • One vanilla yogurt (use the plastic cup for all measurements that follow)
  • Three (yogurt)cups of self-rising flour
  • One cup of sugar
  • 200 grams of margarine (microwave for 10 seconds so it’s just melted)
  • 3 eggs

Mix everything together. If the mixture feels too thick, add a splash of milk. We also add a small drizzle of honey.

  • Grease the baking tin first, then pour in the cake mixture. Bake for 45 minutes at 170°C.

Vintage

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Vintage! Vintage, a beautiful word. For some it means old, for others valuable or beautiful. For me it means used and beloved. Usually it takes a while before an object becomes vintage, but I now have a phone case that has aged at lightning speed.

It’s a high-quality green tech woven case for my iPhone 17 Pro. Not the official version, but a pre-release sample where the sides aren’t made of plastic, but also of tech woven material. The result is a case whose color has almost completely worn off in the spots most often touched. In just two months, the case has aged so much that it looks as if I inherited it from my grandfather.

Some people might think it looks rather sad, but I’m absolutely delighted. I find it fantastic to have such an antique-looking case around my ultra-modern phone. Still, I’ll have to see if it holds up for a few more months. For now it has lost some color in certain areas, but structurally it remains a great case.

Ninja games

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Ninja!Ana had an outing with her colleagues. The plan was to do a fun activity and then go out for a bite to eat together. The activity turned out to be a ‘Ninja game‘: reacting quickly to your surroundings, jumping, and running. Not really Ana’s thing, she thought. So she brought Alex along as her modern gladiator because these kinds of challenges suit him well. Just as gladiators once fought for their audience, Alex now leapt into the arena of the game. He loved it.

DIY – Colorful Christmas candy cane

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Christmas candy cane!Alan got a school assignment, because his teacher wanted some help decorating the classroom. Each kid was asked to create a holiday candy cane, and help by the parents was allowed. After hearing about the assignment my creativity got a boost. My idea was simple but I expect it will look pretty good.

Materials

  • Wire frame: 1–2 pieces of metal wire for the cane shape
  • Filler: Aluminum foil
  • Yarn/wool: Red, white, and green
  • Tape: Masking or packing tape
  • Tools: Scissors; optional pliers for bending wire

Prep the frame (5–10 min)

  • Shape: Bend the wire into a long “J” for the candy cane.
  • Secure ends: Fold or curl the wire tips inward and tape over them. Dont leave any sharp points.
  • Test sturdiness: Gently wiggle the cane. If it flops, add a second wire along the stem.

Add volume (5–10 min)

  • Stuff: Wrap foil around the frame to make it thicker.
  • Kid job: Hold and squish the filler to shape the curve.
  • Tape wrap: Lightly tape the filler so it stays in place. Don’t over-tape; yarn will cover it.

Wrap with yarn (15–25 min)

  • Anchor start: Tie or tape the end of the red yarn at the base.
  • Spiral wrap: Wind the yarn around the cane in a spiral, keeping wraps close.
  • Stripe pattern: After a red section, switch to white, then green.
  • Cover gaps: If you see filler, add a few extra wraps over that spot.
  • Finish end: Tuck the final yarn end under a nearby wrap and add a tiny piece of tape at the back.

Pale blue dot

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It’s hard sometimes to see the bigger picture. To realize that you’re not the center of the world. Worse still, all the problems we all face are ultimately negligibly small. The Earth, a tiny speck spinning around a slightly larger glowing speck, somewhere in a corner of an unimaginably vast space.

Pale blue dot!Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar”, every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Qi2

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Step one was a new phone. I was happy with it, but something was missing. Step two was a new charger. Finally, I can forget the hassle with cables, because now I just need to click two magnets together and that’s it. My new charger is truly a dream come true. No more cables slowly breaking, no more fiddling to clean my phone’s charging port.

I now have two options:
Charging: I place the phone on the charger, and half an hour later it’s ready.
Charging and clock: I unfold the charger, stick the phone on it, and in half an hour it’s charged plus I have a subtle little clock next to my bed all evening.

My charger is a Ugreen Qi2. Nice and sturdy, and a bit heavy too, but that actually feels good when you snap the phone onto it. Folded up, it’s a small cube you can charge your phone on. You can also unfold it, and then you have two charging spots: one for your AirPods, and one for your phone, which then doubles as a clock. My phone charges enough in half an hour to easily last the whole day.

There’s only one small downside: for some reason, the charger has a bright white LED to show it’s working. It’s a tiny light, but just annoying enough and of course, you can’t turn it off, so I just stuck a little sticker over it.