Julian Fietkau
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fietkau.me
Julian Fietkau
@fietkau.me
25 followers 23 following 130 posts
Human-computer interaction #HCI, computer science & programming, home server & self-hosting, games and other fun stuff.

Fediverse tool builder: @encyclia, @canary […]

🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://fietkau.social/@julian, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact
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fietkau.me
Okay, so either Deno's OpenTelemetry metric “http.server.active_requests” (https://docs.deno.com/runtime/fundamentals/open_telemetry/#http.server.active_requests) is actually cumulative over the lifetime of the process, or I have found the explanation for why […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
Line graph showing "http_server_active_requests" over a 9 hour duration. It starts at 0, climbs to 5000 almost in a slow straight line over 3 hours, then drops back down to 0, makes a tiny, quick bump up to 100 and back down to 0, only to start climbing again, slightly slower, to 3000 over the course of about 3.5 hours
October 20, 2025 at 12:56 AM
fietkau.me
Chemnitz leaving a very nice first impression on my walk to the #muc2025 venue. 🌞 Workshop day, let's go!

#chemnitz #academicchatter @stadt_chemnitz @tuchemnitz @chemnitz
A paved footpath cuts through a grassy park flanked by a riverbank, with some multi-story buildings further away. The sky is light blue and the shadows long in the sunrise. A closer view of the river, calm and mirror-like, with green bushes on each side.
August 31, 2025 at 6:37 AM
fietkau.me
I'm back from #ecscw 2025! 🙂 Well, I have been for a few days, but I've also remained super busy in the aftermath.

The poster presentation for https://fietkau.science/orcid_fediverse_public_information went well, I had some nice discussions and introductions […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
Two adults, both smiling at the camera, standing next to an academic poster. They are wearing name tags. The location is a foyer of a university building.
July 10, 2025 at 3:23 PM
fietkau.me
Took me a while to take a nice photo, but two weeks ago I got my stuff from @MoonloreDraws's last Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/moonloredraws/30-little-guys-part-2

When it came to picking my supporter rewards I kinda just did “one of […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
A collection of printed fantasy art arranged on a small table: 6 books, 4 additional coloring books, six art prints, one original painting, and >100 stickers. Everything is themed around fantasy creatures and cute animals.
June 25, 2025 at 6:24 PM
fietkau.me
I have written down my privacy-first design process for @encyclia and how it relates to Fediverse standards and social norms, and turned the result into a poster presentation for the upcoming ECSCW 2025 conference. 🙂 […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
ORCID and the Fediverse: What Can We Do with Public Information? Julian Fietkau, University of the Bundeswehr Munich ORCID is an identification scheme and bibliographic database for academics that aims to make information about researchers’ works widely and easily accessible. The Fediverse is a collection of interoperable social media platforms where people can follow each other across platform boundaries to read and share text posts or other media. Motivation: Building a system to make ORCID records followable on the Fediverse and taking a closer look at expectations around the handling of public information that people submit to either platform. Observations ORCID: purpose sharing data widely and easily, scope published academic works, access web, APIs, bulk downloads, permissions copyright disclaimed and reuse without restrictions. Observations Fediverse: purpose sharing with followers and visitors, scope everyday life updates, access web, APIs, permissions reading, republishing frowned upon. Potential for conflicts when connecting these two environments. Will ORCID users prefer to have their publication data shared more widely by default (opt-out), or to not have it shown in the Fediverse without explicit permission (opt-in)? Will Fediverse users object to an opt-out ORCID integration, even if it is one-way only? Approach: Estimate potential consequences through a theoretical impact analysis. (alt text truncated for length, see poster PDF version)
June 17, 2025 at 11:29 PM
fietkau.me
I've started publishing my “Introduction to human-computer interaction” slides as CC-licensed reusable teaching material. (My #oer debut!)

https://fietkau.science/teaching/intro_hci

I've been wanting to share these for more than a year. Doing that all at […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
Title slide for Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction, section 1, Introduction and Overview Slide: What is part of HCI? a big tree illustration in the background, various scientific fields including psychology and computer science arranged around the roots, rigorous methods and creativity on the trunk, HCI keywords such as usability, social software, interaction design, user experience etc. in the tree branches A course content overview listing nature of HCI, use and context of computers, human characteristics, computer system and interface architecture, and development process Course section overview listing the entire contents sequentially: Part 1: Fundamentals 1 Introduction and Overview 2 Basics of Cognition 3 Perception and Communication 4 Guidelines for Interaction Design Part 2: Methods 5 The Usability Engineering Process 6 Context Analysis 7 Design and Prototyping 8 Evaluation Part 3: Expertise 9 Interaction Paradigms 10 Computer-Supported Cooperative Work 11 Accessibility 12 Information Architecture and Data Visualization 13 Visual Design Part 4: Reflection 14 HCI over Time 15 Professional Values and Ethics
May 29, 2025 at 4:08 PM
fietkau.me
I made a small change to my list of academic profile links at https://fietkau.science/publications earlier this month. Kicked out some Elsevier stuff in favor of OpenAlex. Their profile of me was already pretty good, all I had to do was let them know that […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
ORCID, OpenAlex, dblp, ACM, ResearchGate
January 24, 2025 at 2:35 AM
fietkau.me
The last "big" code thing I need to get done before the alpha test of my current @fedify project is the task queue - make sure routine data updates happen, consider individual importance and urgency, respect external API rate limits, etc.

But that's super […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
Photo of a monitor showing some CSS code. The code hints at a website where images are animated and zoomed.
January 5, 2025 at 3:50 PM
fietkau.me
Excerpt from an email I got this weekend.

On the one hand I like that people are looking out for pitfalls, but it's also a shame that such a simple technology as QR codes is so rife with scams and exploitative products that caution is necessary.
I don't understand how the QRSVG system works. But I am just wondering whether you plan to remove the system in the next year or so (i.e. If I make cards with the QR on will it work for the next year or so?)
November 10, 2024 at 8:23 PM
fietkau.me
I do all official correspondence via email when possible, but I live in a country that relies a lot on paper. Luckily I'm also passionate about physical filing systems and very good at bureaucracy. 😄

Here's part of my physical folders. LTR: Job, finances, medical, clubs, insurance, apartment.
Six green filing folders with custom-designed and printed labels on a wooden shelf. Each label has a title and a fitting clip art illustration (also green).
October 29, 2024 at 9:47 AM
fietkau.me
With #fedijam nearing its deadline, I've been working on customization and accessibility options for my game. 🙂

Yes, it's a game jam, and this is one area of many where jam games typically cut quality corners to save dev time. But accessibility has kinda […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
Options, General Controls Mouse movement (selected) Virtual touchpad Virtual thumbstick Keyboard Gamepad The game is controlled by moving the mouse cursor around inside the play area. Graphics Quality: Full (selected), Reduced, Minimal Audio Music: volume slider, test button Sound effects: volume slider, test button Feather Customization You can change the feather’s visual appearance. This is an aesthetic choice with no impact on the game mechanics. (feathers censored in screenshot, labeled WIP) Options, Accessibility Visuals High contrast mode (checkbox) Render collectibles as bright green dots, replace clouds with dark background. Font Standard (selected), Atkinson Hyperlegible, OpenDyslexic Difficulty Collecting radius: Standard This setting adjusts how close you need to get to a collectible in order to pick it up. Gameplay speed: 100% This setting adjusts the speed of the gameplay clock, slowing down all in-game movement and giving you more time to react. Keyboard Settings These settings only have an effect if keyboard controls are enabled. Up: Up or W Right: Right or D Down: Down or S Left: Left or A Reset to default Tap mode With this setting enabled, movement gets triggered by tapping the keys instead of holding them. Tap a direction multiple times to accelerate, tap the opposite direction to stop.
September 25, 2024 at 7:03 PM
fietkau.me
Unveiling the core gameplay loop of my #fedijam entry. 😀 Think you can do better than me? You're probably right! Prove it next month!

Note: still placeholder graphics, have not even started on presentation except basic animation. I wanted to get the […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
September 15, 2024 at 9:08 PM
fietkau.me
Finally starting on my #fedijam project today. 😀 Because is it a real deadline if you don't start on the thing halfway through? 😇

This is after an hour or two of getting warmed up again in #threejs. Hand-fudged physics, no graphics yet, but you can guess […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
September 14, 2024 at 6:07 PM
fietkau.me
Alright! With that journey wrapped up, maybe now I'll manage to make time for some open source / fedi software work over the next few weeks before courses start? I dunno, but I'm motivated. 😎
Excerpt from an English translation of Goethe's Faust: Mephisto. [Aside] Enough of all this academic chatter, Back again to devilry!
September 4, 2024 at 12:00 PM
fietkau.me
Good morning! 🌞 After a negative COVID test and a nice breakfast, I'm off to the #muc2024 opening keynote. Letting myself be surprised there, didn't research who's presenting.

I can't help but feel I lucked out with the hotel that the travel department […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
A green meadow surrounded by trees, photographed soon after sunrise
September 2, 2024 at 6:05 AM
fietkau.me
Settled into my Hotel in Karlsruhe for #muc2024 and finished last preparations for tomorrow's presentation about a human-centered perspective on #HCI studies involving body tracking sensors (Kinect etc).

This is in the context of a research methods workshop […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
Diagram summarizing a body detection process by example in three steps. 1, a waving person shown as a dark-to-light depth buffer. 2, the same pose with individual body areas painted in different colors with diffuse boundaries. 3, the same pose with fixed key body points.
September 1, 2024 at 9:21 PM
fietkau.me
I finished another #webdev side project and built the QR code generator of my dreams: :fietkau_software: https://fietkau.software/qr

* It's instant, purely client-side, and has no ads or upsells.
* It has a variety of color, shape, and logo embedding options […]

[Original post on fietkau.social]
QR code with the colorful pentagram-ish Fediverse logo in the middle. The code itself consists of green shapes and red dots, the corner elements are blue and brown. All corners are rounded. A QR code with the Mastodon logo in the middle. The QR code itself has the same blue-purple gradient as the Mastodon logo. The inner parts of the code consist of individual dots instead of contiguous shapes. A QR code with the asterism fediverse symbol on a purple gradient circle in the middle. The data blocks are colored in a purple-yellow radial gradient, looking warm and vaguely sunset-like. The data blocks consist of individual mosaic-like tiles instead of contiguous shapes.
August 31, 2024 at 8:46 AM
fietkau.me
[food, candy]

Had an opportunity to pick this up from an import store, so today I get to Taste The Meme™.
A small bag of Sakeru Gummy, as known from the "Long, Long Man" Japanese TV commercial series
July 12, 2024 at 3:15 PM
fietkau.me
Spending part of this week #writing about failure! Going ahead and assuming it's been long enough that no one will get mad at me for this. 👀

#academicwriting #projectmanagement #accountability
With a few years of distance and the benefit of hindsight, we use this venue to provide an overview of the project's approach, with a particular focus on areas where it stumbled or failed. While these problems themselves are not individually novel or even necessarily surprising, we believe that our experiences in aggregate may be helpful for future projects working on smart cities or other urban technology, particularly with accessibility and inclusivity in mind.
June 13, 2024 at 10:56 PM
fietkau.me
Hah, no way, my dinky little Bluesky bridge project https://fietkau.software/pinhole got linked in a @TechCrunch article:

https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/05/bluesky-and-mastodon-users-can-now-talk-to-each-other-with-bridgy-fed/

I'm glad it's been surpassed in usefulness. 😄 Cheers @Sarahp and @snar…
Excerpt from the TechCrunch article: "Bridgy Fed itself soft-launched in mid-April and transitioned to a full launch over the past month. It’s now one of many different efforts to bridge networks in the fediverse, in addition to Sasquatch, pinhole, RSS Parrot, mostr.pub and SkyBridge, though many are not as fully bidirectional as Bridgy is." Each of the bridge project names is a link. "Pinhole" is circled in red with an arrow pointing at it and a large shocked emoji underneath.
June 6, 2024 at 3:10 PM