Victor Kropp

Brandolini’s law

Victor Kropp — Sat, 09 May 2026 11:53:34 +0200

I’ve just experienced the power of Brandolini’s Law on myself. It is an anecdotal observation which states that the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.

What happened?

Back in 2021–2022, I was co-hosting and producing a podcast. I purchased some fitting background music before we started and have been using it in every episode.

Some distribution platforms even requested a proof of purchase when I first added the podcast there, which I, of course, provided. But not Spotify. Instead, Spotify decided to remove half of the published episodes at the beginning of this week, seemingly on a random basis. They claimed that I didn’t have permission to use the third-party music. And all that 3 years after the last published episode.

My response

In their email, they required me to answer no later than in five days. I needed to spend at least half an hour to find the proof of purchase and to write an individual response for each affected episode. And there wasn’t even an option in the form to attach the receipt.

Result

It took another 24 hours for Spotify to reinstate all episodes without asking any additional questions. Basically, they just believed my word, that I do have rights for the music. So, some of their systems just generated some bullshit allegations, and I needed to react to that in a very short timeframe to just revert everything back to how it was.

And after this, the story is over, I hope at least.

I love Spotify as an avid music listener. But as a (very) small content creator, I sometimes feel helpless, that any of the big platforms can just suspend my account for made-up reasons, and I would need to invest significant time to respond to unfunded claims just to prove that I haven’t done anything wrong.

Artemis II

Victor Kropp — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 16:23:52 +0200

Earthset captured from the Orion spacecraft

When wild and crazy things happening every day on Earth, it is even more incredible to see humans flying into space and successfully getting back. The true celebration of science and hard work. It gives me hope in humanity.

NASA shared this and other amazing photos in the gallery and I can also recommend a video with insightful comments about all these amazing photos.

CSS Naked Day

Victor Kropp — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 10:14:34 +0200

Today is the CSS Naked Day, a day dedicated to showcasing the raw, unstyled version of websites.

You can do crazy things with CSS nowadays, and it’s even more exciting to see what you can do without it.

I haven’t checked what my homepage will look like without CSS yet, so I’m as curious as you.

Update 12 Apr 2026 All in all, the site was 100% accessible, except I forgot to set width and height attributes on my photo at the top of the page. And without CSS it was unnecessary huge. I fixed this.

15 Years of kropp.name

Victor Kropp — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 18:05:27 +0200

On February 1, 2011, I acquired kropp.name. According to the whois data, it’s been registered 10 years before, but unused. Since then, it’s been my personal homepage and my Internet identity.

I don’t have any screenshots of old pages, and the Git history dates back to April 2012. So the first few years are lost to time. But thanks to the wonderful Wayback Machine I could still take a look at them.

2011

At first my homepage was just a simple HTML file with a handful of links.

At that time I was fascinated by the idea of a static site generator. And Hyde was the first one I tried. It was promoted as Jekyll’s evil twin and was written in Python, which I liked more than Ruby.

2014

So it stuck for a while, with just a minor font and photo update.

And Twitter was still good that time, so I even included a recent tweets widget right in my homepage.

2015

But I was increasingly dissatisfied with its performance and lack of features. So I decided to try something else. And I found Hugo, which I’ve been using since 2015.

2017

At first the page was trilingual, with the main content in English, occasional triathlon and run updates in Russian, and a few pages in German.

It gradually evolved over the years, while the main page stayed the same, again not counting for a photo refresh.

2022

I ditched language versions, as I didn’t have enough content and willingness to maintain them. Translating the content was never a goal for me.

The font has changed to Inter, which I’ve been using since then.

2023

The site reached the design I’m using now.

Happy Birthday, Apple!

Victor Kropp — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:37:23 +0200

I wrote my first program in Basic on a Macintosh Classic or some of its successors someday in 1998.

I almost haven’t used Apple products after that, until 2020, when they announced Apple Silicon. Since then, I’m fully converted to the ecosystem.

Yes, they have a lot of things to improve, but modern Macs are the best computers I’ve ever used, and iPhones are the best phones I’ve ever used.

50 years of Thinking Different as seen on apple.com on April 1, 2026

Happy Birthday, Apple! On to the next fifty years!

Daylight Saving Time

Victor Kropp — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 20:34:18 +0200

Today is the last Sunday of March, which means that Daylight Saving Time starts again in Europe.

Despite the fact that 84% of Europeans were ready to say goodbye to the Summertime many years ago, and that EU Council in 2019 has drafted a proposal to abolish the switch starting from 2021, it is still observed.

Once again, it shows how incapable EU State Members are, when they need to agree on something. Well, there have been factors, such as pandemic and the war in Ukraine, that diverted attention from this question. But enough excuses! It’s been at least 6 years from the preliminary decision, and nothing has changed.

I don’t care much which timezone will be chosen in the end, I just wish it happens sooner rather than later. I hate this period twice a year when my body’s time perception differs from what the clocks show.

LEGO

Victor Kropp — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 18:55:15 +0100

Easter school holidays have just begun in Bavaria and it means that Legoland starts in the new season. Our annual passes are still valid, because the previous Easter was pretty late, and we just could not let them expire without taking the last opportunity to have some fun.

One of the attractions we visit every time is the LEGO Factory. You get a collectible brick at the entrance, watch a short video about the production process, and then go through a small factory floor, where those collectibles bricks are being produced right in front of the visitors.

A well-known fact mentioned in the video, is that the very first LEGO bricks from 1958 are compatible with those produced nowadays. The tolerance required to achieve this is 0.002mm. But their actual mold precision is 10 microns! Each model consists of hundreds or even thousands of various bricks, and all those tolerances add up. The quality is remarkable and it is in LEGO’s DNA.

There are many other manufacturers of “compatible” bricks, they often sell their products at half the price or even lower. But none of them was able to achieve similar quality and that satisfying click when one brick attaches to another.

Homelab 2nd Edition

Victor Kropp — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:51:52 +0100

Shortly after I published my previous post about my homelab, it suddenly died.

I performed various diagnostics, and it appeared that the problem was caused by a faulty power supply. (It was sold as a bundle, so don’t blame me.) The voltage was noisy and damaged the board capacitors. The board was booting, but as soon as it started any serious workload, it would crash. And by serious workload, I mean booting the OS.

FriendlyElec support wasn’t responsive and claimed that the warranty was expired. And I’m not alone, there have been reports of similar issues.

Well, that’s it, I decided. It was a nice experiment, but I’d like to go more mainstream.

After a long conversation with the AI and searching for various options, I ended up purchasing a Xyber Hydra N150. It offers similar 4 NVME drive capabilities but runs on an Intel chip, proven by many homelabers.

I reinstalled everything and restored data from the backup. It’s running smoothly since then.

Project Hail Mary

Victor Kropp — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 21:24:11 +0100

I watched the movie yesterday in the theater, and it was a blast. So wanted to share some thoughts about it, but first, we need to talk about Andy Weir’s first book.

The Martian

I swallowed the book in just a few evenings. It was a thrilling read that kept me engaged from start to finish. It is a must-read for anyone who loves science fiction.

Fun fact: that was the first book I bought on my Kindle straight after finishing the sample. I was so excited to read it that I tapped the “Buy” button at the end of the first chapter without hesitation.

Andy Weir has created a captivating story that mixes science fiction with drama, adventure, and humor.

The movie starring Matt Damon mostly captured the essence of the book. However, they couldn’t resist adding a happy ending. It disappointed me a bit, but anyway, it was a decent adaptation.

Project Hail Mary

So when I saw a thumbnail for the Project Hail Mary’s first trailer on YouTube, I was immediately hooked. I knew I must first read the book before even watching the trailer.

I’m so glad I did! Unfortunately, trailers spoil so much of the story. I urge you to either read the book or watch the movie instead. I second all the praise and great reviews it got.

Of course, they needed to adjust the story for the big screen. All the “science” parts were cut out, but it didn’t make the movie any worse. And unlike The Martian, I can wholeheartedly recommend this movie.

And the book too. It was the same great experience as with The Martian ten years ago, as I couldn’t stop reading it. And plot twists genuinely surprised me. The movie adapts the book perfectly but also adds some human touch to one of the main characters as she needed it.

And now, I’m up to read Artemis, another book by Andy Weir.

PS. By the way, I can’t agree with

So glad I got a copy of Project Hail Mary before the cover gets replaced with Ryan Gosling’s face

Even though I’m not a big fan of changing book covers with movie posters, Ryan Gosling portrayed the main character, Dr. Ryland Grace, perfectly.

Casio S100X

Victor Kropp — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:39:23 +0100

At the age of AI, when everyone is building extremely smart software, which solves complex problems in a blink of an eye, there is a company that announces a new luxury calculator. Of course, they are Japanese.

Casio S100X. Image: Casio

Please welcome 350$ premium calculator from Casio. It’s more than half of the price of a new MacBook Neo.

I got strong nineties vibes watching their advertisement.

I’m so happy that there are still people who completely ignore the hype. It’s a very warm, re-assuring feeling.