This can be seen as a follow up to yesterday's post where I shared my Spotify Wrapped. As someone who is a fan of statistics, I soon missed Last.fm, which I quit some years a go, for a couple of reasons, with the most important one being they had two data breaches, which they tried to hide, and only admitted, once the passwords where available in databases on the darknet. Thanks, last.fm! Oh, and thanks again!

Someone who doesn't care the slightest bit about your data but wants to collect it all, is someone you shouldn't support. But whom am I telling this on the #fediverse?

The cool thing: Once I started missing it, a couple of year ago, I started looking for an alternative and found one in #listenbrainz - it's basically the same as last.fm, but it's community driven, open source, and your data belongs to you (you can donwload everything in JSON format, if you want to).

Plus, it is liked to #musicbrainz and uses the DB that many applications already use for tagging their music (open source and commercial alike!), and that is also community driven.

The great thing about listenbrainz, though: You can scrobbel from most open source applications you might use; so for me CDs and .opus files are automatically scrobbled. Plus, I have a clever player that also plays from a couple of online sources which also get scrobbled in turn: YouTube, BandCamp, SoundCloud. And there is support for Spotify as well. And last but not least: You can even manually scrobble, which I use for my Vinyl listens (whenever I don't forget :-) ).

As you can see the image generation is not always the best, but it's actually a website, that you can share, like this: https://listenbrainz.org/user/pygospa/year-in-music/2025/

The cool thing are the interactive parts, like the world map, where you can click the countries, etc. And if you missed my last years, just scroll back to those years.

#spotify #wrapped #2025InReview #YearInMusic #music #lastfm

I am not the biggest fan of #Spotify (never was) due to many reasons. But one thing I never can get enough of are statistics, and I really like the way they do the yearly wrap-up, which I always shared on social media, and I won't stop today, so here it is :)

Bear in mind though, that I am a collector of physical media - most of my music consumption happens on CD (which I rip to #opus [much supperior to #mp3]) on my PC, or on #Vinyl; however for spontaneous on-the-go listens, for listening to music I don't (yet) own, or to explore new music, I still don't know any better service.

I found it interesting that spotify thinks that I have listened to 238 different music genres which is why it has dificulties figuring out my taste. I know that I have a broad taste and that I am unconventional. But I could hardly list more than 20 genres, tbh.

Having #LinkinPark back in my top lists is no surprise to me - I took a brake from them after Chester died, and only returned to listenint to them with #EmilyArmstrong joining them, but both, the new-ish direction as well as the new voice are absolutely perfect and especially #GoodThingsGo is one of my absolute favorite songs that speaks to me on so many levels. I was surprised about #9pm by #ATB and #DonnieDarko from #LetsEatGrandma, though. I would have put the later on no. 4, and #LoveGoesOnAndOn on no. 2.

Albums are no surprise at all; Both, #Wardruna and #Danheim were new discoveries, and especially Danheim was harder to get on Vinyl so there were a lot of Spotify plays on those albums. And after seeing the series "Wu-Tang: An American Saga", I rediscovered my love for them. I only owned that initial album (that I really loved) on MP3 as a kid, and I still didn't get around buying it (I probably should), so that explains all the listens :)

So how about you, anyone else likes to share their statistics? Or did you already?

And btw.: #HappyNewYear #HappyNewYear2026

#spotify #wrapped #2025inReview #YearInMusic #music

Linkin Park - From Zero (Transparent Petrol Vinyl)

#nowplaying #nowspinning #nowspinningonvinyl #vinyl #coloredvinyl #vinylgram #linkinpark

#7) "Bremer Stadtmusikanten", Bremen — 13.05.2025 | 28mm • ƒ/11.0 • 1/8000s • ISO 10000

I did some classical shots of the famous statue, like everyone else (class participants as well as a lot of tourists), but again I felt like one in millions and not being confident in my techincal skills of doing the perfect shot, I decided to find a different perspective that probably none have yet taken. So I ended up taking a shot from the bottom up - from the rear side of the animals. It was quite hard to get there, and shoot, and of course being a famous tourist site didn't make it any easier, but I am quite content with this shot. This also somehow gives them more grandeur (as the statue is suprisingly small and unremarkable), while at the same time debasing them by showing their sterns, which could also function as musical instruments (sorry for the fart humour).

#2) "Shooting Roland", Bremen — 13.05.2025 | 28mm • ƒ/8.0 • 1/400s • ISO 125

After shooting the Roland as a group exercise, our instructor managed to get us into the state parliament of Bremen which is right in front of the Roland. The Idea was to ask if we could shoot from the first floor windows, however we even got a private tour and where allowed into the other rooms aswell.

While everyone else was shooting the Roland from the window of the ceremonial hall, I found it more interesting to shoot a panorama view of the giant glass facade, with focus on the bright outside view and all the class participants as black silhouettes in front of it. It took me a while to get the settings right, and unfortunately the best shot does not have every window occupied with one photographer (as it was the case in some of the pictures where the settings are unfortunately off), but I still like it :)

Hm... for some reasons, pixelfed does not show alt text on mouse over (different to #mastodon which on the other hand has a 4 picture limit... so I'll copy the alt text into the comments):

#1) "Admiring Roland", Bremen — 13.05.2025 | 65mm • ƒ/4.0 • 1/200s • ISO 100

This picture was one of the three tasks we had: Photograph the Bremer Roland (a stone statue in the former city center of Bremen, built in 1404, depicting a paladin of emperor Charlemagne who is regarded as a patron saint of the free cities), which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

As everyone was doing the classic perspective of the Roland, I tried to do something different (the class was called "cool" city photography in the end), so I made a close up of his face from right below his feet. Visible is primarily his golden shield with the two-headed imperial eagle, part of Rolands limestone face that shows above the shield, and the painted baldachin that crowns him. The background shows the blue (and cloudless) sky.

🧐 As I am still learning with both, photography and image editing, any feedback, critizism and comments are welcome, so what do you think of these photos❓

⚠️ Please also check the alt text for more info and photo metadata❗

📖 Last year I got myself a new camera to replace our old #CanonEOS600D - a #SonyA7iv together with a #Tamron28-200mm and a #Sigma14-24mm. This year I decided to challenge myself in a photography class, and visited a class on "Cool City Photography" by the #vhs in #Bremen. It was a 5 day class with 3 days of excursions, and different tasks. Each excursion day we had to pick 10-ish photos at the end that got professionally printed for the next day and then we discussed them next day. Also, each day we picked our favorites of the other participants photos and last day we narrowed that selection down to 12.

Here I'll present you my 10 picks from the first day of excursions. We went to the city center of #Bremen at a market day and where tasked to take some pictures of famous landmarks, as well as the market. We also got a spontaneous tour of the Bremer state parliament (the #BremischeBuergerschaft).

To challenge myself, I stayed away from any automatism of the camera, with the only exception of the ISO value. So on the first day everything, including the focus was done by hand. Another challenge for me was photographing other people; something I usually feel uncomfortable doing. For the class we where not able to edit the pictures in any way; for this post I converted them from RAW format to jpg (using #darktable) and added contrast using the color level and/or color curves (using #Gimp).

It was really fun, but also quite challanging, and I am not happy with all of the results; however I am really happy to have tried it out. Two of my pictures from the first day got picked as favorites by others, and one even made it to the final 12 (the one I coined "Roland Through the Looking Glass")

#CooleStadtfotos #photography #feedback #askmastodon #day1

My company sent me to the #wasmio and up to now, it was a really inspiring and interesting conference with a lot of new impulses and a diverse range of topics and people using #WebAssembly from classic browser apps to #IoT and #AI running on smart cars.

#wasmio2025 #barcelona #wasm #wasmio25

Wow,
this looks soooo awesome! Great work!

I promissed you #music and #vinyl content, and here it comes 🎵

My first order this year, containing the entire still available #discography of the #norwegian #norse #folkmusc group #Wardruna - at least according to their official online shop.

I actually knew this band and the mastermind behind them - #EinarSelvik - a while before; probably due to the #Vikings tv-series or due to the #AssassinsCreedValhalla soundtrack that he did; however I also remember looking them up and finding out that all their releases where sold out. So, even though I tried to keep track of them, I lost them out of my sight, again.

However, end of last year I stumbled upon them again (probably because we where planing a trip to #Norway and I was looking for typical norwegian music), and found out that they would be releasing a new album #Birna beginning of February this year. And I was delighted to find out that *nearly* all releases got some kind of re-release, in a form that interested me. So I got what I could:

- The Runaljod Trilogy Vinyl Deluxe Boxset; containing their initial three albums "Gap var Ginnunga" (2009), "Yggdrasil" (2013) and "Ragnarok" (2016), in beautiful new color variants fitting their cover artworks. Only downside: the original vinyl releases came in 6-panel Gatefolds with printed lyrics; however these got a new consitent sleek matte black slipcase, printed inner sleeves, and a hardcover book 😍

- The Runaljod Trilogy Book; which is basically the #CD version of it 💿

- Skald; the Vinly is not available, so I could only get the Digipak; however I found out that there was also a 2024 #RecordStoreDay variant, that is still affordable; will try to hunt that one down, next 🕵️

- Kvitravn is unfortunately still sold out, but the corresponding live album "First Flight of the White Raven" was still available in standard black 🕊

- Birna; their newest release, in an incredibly awesome looking colored vinyl version 🐻
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#buymoremusic #buymorevinyl #buymorerecords

Solche kleinen Brettspiele mag ich auch sehr gerne; neben Dro Polter und Diamant haben wir auch immer viel Spaß an NoThanks! Was auch gut in die Reihe passt. Und eine andere Neuentdeckung war Deep Sea Adventure, was ähnich zu Diamant ist, aber noch viel stärker einbezieht, was die andern am Tisch machen; ziehen alle zurück hat es einer viel einfacher in Führung zu gehen - bleiben alle drin, sterben wahrscheinlich alle. Sehr fieses Spiel.

Pixies und Krasse Kacke kenn ich noch garnicht, Istanbul hab ich schon mal gesehen, aber tatsächlich noch nie selbst gespielt. Danke für diese Spieltipps, da werd ich wenn es sich ergibt mal reinschnuppern :)

We're currently doing another #boardgame weekend; these are the games of the first day:

- #NoThanks! Is a game I already knew. Everyone starts with 11 chips, and each turn, a card gets revealed. Each cards value is negative. If you don't want to take it, you must put one of your chips on it. If you manage to get a street, only the lowest number counts. In the end, chips count as positive numbers. Fun game!

- #tranquility is a fun little cooperative puzzle game, where you can not speak, but try to build a mountain. Funnto try out, but nothing for the long run, I guess.

- #Diamant is similar to the first game and another one I already knew. Basically, you get diamonds as long as you stay in the game, but the longer you stay, the greater the chance of losing everything. But the one staying in the longest also gains the most, and going out with others at the same time is another malus.

- #Flip7 was probably my highlight: There are cards from 1-12, each as often as their number. In turns, you get a card and decide if you want to stay in to take another. Objective is to score as high as possible. Getting to 7 cards gives you a bonus, and a few interaction cards allow you to influence the others; but once you have a pair, you're out with 0 points.

- #SixSecondsDoodling was my second highlight. Everyone gets a minute to draw ten words from a card. Then, in turns, the others have to guess it, knowing only the category of the words. If the first person guesses it, you both get a point; if he couldn't guess it, the others get a chance, but then only they score.

- #MoodyBearKingdom seemed like a knockoff of Exploding Kittens and somehow broken, even though the idea was fun. But basically, the one drawing the black player shoukd win the game. No recommendation from me.

- #GangsOfKyoto was similar to Flip7: in turns, a player distributes cards that have a number and/or bells. You want to get as many bells without reaching a value of 13. My 3rd favorite of the day 🙂

Wow, that looks interesting. Added it to my TBR pile, thanks for sharing!

Some years ago my partner found a subscription model for books from a student in Germany, called "Magic Chest". It was a shoebox-sized box that we received monthly, filled with all kind of little usefull gimmicks that where ideally book-themed, and the main attraction: A surprise book, that wasn't yet released in Germany (they where English books). Now when that student graduated and afterwards had to stop that service, my girlfriend had to look for a replacement, and that's when things got a little "out of hand". We now have a couple of different subscriptions, from companies like #Illumicrate #FairyLoot #TheBrokenBinding and others. Those, now, offer special editions with different artwork, premium finish, hand signed by author, sprayed edges, and other gimmicks.

I stood out of this, until my girlfriend tempted me with a new subscription box: #Evernight which is a quarterly box, focusing on #horrorfiction. And if you know me, you know that I cannot keep away from #horror

Yesterday, this beauty was unboxed and put on the top of my #TBR pile of shame. Which isn't too bad, considering that in the two years I am now getting this subscription I've managed to only fall behind 3 books. Other titles have been: "Silver Nitrate" (which I liked), "Last to Leave the Room" (which I really loved!), "The Invocations" (which I have mixed feelings about); and next up are: "Murder Road", "The Eyes are the Best part", "An Academy for Liars"... and now "Bat Eater".

Anyone here collecting these book subscription boxes? Or even #Evernight? If so, what are your favorites? Btw. my girlfriend has a rather successful Instagram account and I am still trying to convince her to join Pixelfed. She now has an account here as well @greencouchbooks@pixelfed.social — I hope she'll fill it with content soon. You should check it out 😇
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#books #bookstagram #BookMastodon

Just finnished scrolling down your profile :D You have some really awesome pictures!

Hui, das liest sich ja spannend. Hab so garkeine Ahnung von Bouldern, und gerade eine Menge gelernt. Für mich waren das immer nur "Kletterwände" :D

Hello world!

I'm new here so here's another introduction: I'm a computer scientist and software developer for fun and profit, with more hobbies and interests than time permits. I'm not new to the fediverse (tried out Diaspora, Friendica and Mastodon in the early 2010s), but I did not use these services for long, due to the lack of users. I'm hoping that this time, with the momentum of current events, these services will gain some larger popularity :)

I'm also active on mastodon with @pygospa@social.linux.pizza - but there I'll be more text- and link-based (comparable to how people used Twitter), while here I'll be more picture based.

What to expect from me? You can take a peek at my (hopefully) orphaning, eponymous Instagram account; I'll usually post about books and comicbooks, food, new stuff I try out, concerts and festivals, conferences and other events, trips, travels and vacations, coffee, boardgames and especially Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons and Blood on the Clocktower, hardware tinkering, programming screenshots, vinyl record and bluray collections, landscape and nature photogrpahy..... and hopefully soon some astro and animal photography as well (got myself a new camera last year, and currently saving up for my next lense).

Sound's like fun? Then feel free to follow me :)
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#newhere #introduction #fediverse #diaspora #friendica #mastodon #books #comicbooks #food #baking #cooking #homecooking #concerts #festival #conference #events #trip #roadtrip #biketrip #coffee #coffeelover #boardgames #mtg #dnd #botc #bloodontheclocktower #hardware #linuxhardware #programming #vinyl #coloredvinyl #bluray #landscapephotpgraphy #naturephotography #astrophotography #animalphotography