I have spent the last three days in London. To meet a few friends, but mainly to attend State of the Browser. While I have been there, I took a few photos at the event. I also had few thoughts while I was attending. Not only did I meet people I knew and was happy to see them again, I also met many new people for the first time and had lovely conversations.

To being able to do this it needs someone to invite people to an event like that and be a host. Dave Letorey and the rest of the team did a fantastic job here and they created a friendly atmosphere in which people really enjoyed themselves. I times like these, it is a gem to being able to attend events like that and in order to keep them alive, we not only need you to get tickets and attend, but also partners that sponsor those events. Only then those events, like SOTB, ffconf or the many other lovely conferences and festivals, organised by individuals or small teams, can survive.

Sadly I see at the moment that all of those events suffer from lack of sponsors. Companies focus on big events with thousands of attendees or create and run their own conferences. And often they could simply do this and support these small events, as they often are not asking for a lot of money.

In contrast to the big events, where you might be able to reach more people, those grassroots community events offer high quality conversations. Their attendees are often passionated about what they do and if they speak to someone, they really want to do so and are honestly interested and not just passing by to be stopped at your booth to maybe check your service or product. If they speak to you, the offer honest and deep feedback. They care.

Those events usually also set a high focus on diversity and inclusiveness. That means, even though you may think that instead of the option to reach 5000 people you only reach 250 or 500 people, you can be sure that those groups of people you reach at the community events are diverse groups offering a diverse feedback also.

Often sponsor packages for those events also already start at €500 – like for my beyond tellerrand events – and where this might not seem much for the company or agency sponsoring to get their name and logo listed, for such events it makes the difference.

Here are my photos of State of the Browser 2025 (#sotb2025).

Maybe I am just seeing this wrong, but I experience that a lot of people simply don’t reply to emails/messages these days any more. I get that emails can be exhausting at times, but really, I am answering any email I get. Sometimes late, but I answer.

The reason for this is that I always try to imagine myself. Not getting an answer leaves you with questions like “Did the message arrive or did it end up in spam?”, “Did I say something wrong and upset her/him?”.

And it is so easy. I can really live with a short message stating no interest or even a “Fuck off”, which is way better as it does not leave me with nothing and not knowing whether my message arrived or not.

Am I old fashioned here and it is ok to not answer? Or does this belong to how we treat each other?

The new Eventbrite logo reminds me of the Envato logo. Just flipped. Just me? 🤷‍♂️

I used the beautiful sunshine to clean all family bikes and make them fit for 2025. Cleaning, fixing things and so forth.

Also gave my Rose Sneak 2 an upgrade. About three years ago I got a Tailfin rack for my gravel bike. Yes, the Tailfin stuff isn’t cheap, but it is – in my opinion – worth every cent. Went on many backpacking tours with the rear panier bags and the rack top bag and got the carbon rack including panier mounts back in 2022. It is super light weight, but what was most important for me: it is easy to get on and off the bike within seconds.

The only thing I needed to get was another thru axle for my Sneak to replace the original with that one and ready is the Sneak for bike packing adventures as well. I now can use everything I got for the two bikes and attach the carbon rack to the bikes within seconds.

Exactly one month from now I am going to leave for State of the Browser 2025 in London. First time to attend, even though I know Dave, who’s running it, for a while

One part of those events surely is to meet people. Therefore: who is going to be there? Tickets start from £50 on – that is a no-brainer, right?

Looking forward to seeing you there!

I love the stuff from Darkglass. Not just form the sound, but also how it is built. You can feel the quality.

This is the Darkglass NSG noise gate and the Hyper Luminal compressor (limited black edition).

Can’t wait to test them live with my band on our gig in April.

Needed this. Still, and for a month now, ill. But riding is ok and especially if the sun comes out

Tracked this one on my Komoot and my Strava account

(German version of this article available here)

Just over a year ago, after more than 20 years, I decided to change my previous business bank. The reason was that the bank I was with seemed outdated and offered few good online services. Everything seemed outdated and was also quite expensive.

So I did some research and read up on several banks and N26 seemed to offer me what I wanted. Various portals gave the bank a decent and good rating. However, N26 did not come off well on review portals. I kept reading about poor to no support and “account freezes”. For this reason, I kept my old account until the end of 2024, just in case I also had a bad experience.

I wish I had listened to the bad reviews and kept my old account for longer.

How it all Started

It all started when I received a message from N26 with the following content.

To avoid restrictions, please submit the following documents by February 1, 2025 by clicking on the Reply button below. February 1, 2025 is the last possible day on which you can send us the requested documents.

Proof of address, such as: - your registration certificate or - a gas, water or electricity bill issued within the last 90 days

Proof of income, such as: - your employment contract or - pay slips or - statement of assets and income (e.g. rental income, cash gifts) etc.

Proof of your residence in Germany, such as: E.g.: - Visa documents - Proof of studies - Proof of refugee status - Proof of family reunification

Evidence of the origin of the funds, such as: - Contracts (e.g. purchase and sale agreements) - Information about the sale of assets or capital gains - Information about inheritances or other sources of income - etc.

Please also provide us with a rough estimate of your expected transaction volume per year (i.e. expected incoming and outgoing transfer amounts) for your N26 account - including the countries you expect to send these transactions to or receive them from.

We always ensure that your personal information is treated strictly confidentially and is only used for regulatory processes.

I could understand the first point and sent the current electricity bill.

The second point, not really. Employment contract? Pay slip? I have a “Business Metal” account, ”The premium business account with 0.5% cashback for the self-employed and freelancers.”. There are therefore no employment contracts. So I sent my 2022 tax assessment on this point.

By the third point I was already out. Visa documents? Proof of study? Refugee status? Family reunification? Excuse me?

And on the fourth point I didn’t really know what they wanted from me either. “Origin of funds”? I issue invoices and receive my money. A look at my account would certainly have helped. Everything was unremarkable.

No Answer and Blocked Incoming Payments

I received no answer to my questions and the sending of the above documents. Well, not directly at least. I was sent the same questions again. No answer to my questions.

Instead, six days ago (as of February 10th) my incoming payments to the account were blocked. The statement, again without answering my questions, says: “You cannot currently receive any incoming transfers, such as salary payments.”

No Contact Option Whatsoever

Although I have a “Business Metal” account where I pay for “Preferred Consent Service”, I have no way of reaching anyone who can help me.

It says...

Preferred Customer Service

If you have any questions or problems, we will be happy to help you. No matter whether you just have a quick question about your premium business account, want a function explained in more detail or urgently need technical support: Call the Metal phone number or contact us via the chat support in your N26 app - we are happy to help you.

What about “preferred customer service”. Yes, you can use the chat support. First via a bot, later via a human. But they can't help, just like the telephone support on the “Metal phone number”. Because nobody has access to anything. They can perhaps explain to you how the app works or how to find a function, etc. But they don't provide customer support there. Especially not if you have problems.

I then gave a negative review on Trustpilot, because nothing is more frustrating than not being able to reach anyone. Not privately and certainly not as a business customer who has to work with such an account every day.

They responded to the review promptly and ”[…]to write a private message on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (X)[…]” and they would be ”[…]available there at any time.” That’s true in the sense that I could write there and they responded there, similar to chat or when I called. But they couldn’t help me there either:

Please excuse our delayed response. Due to data protection guidelines, we have no access to our customers’ accounts and data via “X”

So why tell me to contact them there?

In the end, it is and remains a mystery to me how you can offer a business customer service where no one is really available who can actually help. Apart from the actual problem, which I still don’t understand, that is actually the bigger problem and also the one that is currently making me look for a new bank only after a year.

It remains to be seen when and if someone will contact me and whether I will ever find out why exactly my money has been frozen. Today is February 10, 2025 and I will report how things develop.

What is time actually? I got a little addicted recently and read a few interesting articles, watched documentaries and dug a little bit deeper into this topic. Those articles circled around questions like …

• Why do we measure time?
• Since when do we define our own time and don’t let nature define it through day and night anymore?
• How much value has time?
• Does time equal luck?

It quickly became quite interesting and complex, surely. But one thing that stuck with me is – even though it is, or might be obvious – how much value time really has.

When we are younger, we do not care much about time. We seem to have endless time and everything else seems more important, of more value, like money or traveling for example. But at some point we realise how precious time is.

Isn’t one of the best things in the world spending time with you granddad and grandmother? With your dad and your mum? You best friends during your time in school? Well, we often recognise this too late sadly. And where we might be able to earn money all our life, getting time back with people who are not here anymore is something we’ll never be able to achieve.

If you ask anyone, rich or poor, relationships – time with other – makes anyone happier than anything else. How much value time really has dawns on us sadly often only when we are old.

People of age never regret not having had more money or owned more valuable things and fancy cars. They regret not having had more time for certain things.

Time? Time is valuable.