Bastian Allgeier

Designer & developer. Creator of Kirby CMS

Website: https://bastianallgeier.com
Project: https://getkirby.com
Github: https://github.com/bastianallgeier

Last Notes

2025-12-04 09:41:25 UTC

Notion is such a good example of a tool with a team that did not know when to stop and reflect, but just kept adding.
We had a brilliant drawing teacher and sculptor in university. I was very pleased with one of my drawings and kept going, adding more and more details. He suddenly stood behind me and shouted: "Stop! You are riding a dead horse here!" I had killed what was already good by not stopping. That lesson really stuck with me.

2025-10-04 09:20:04 UTC

Reading the shocked reactions that Apple and Google removed ICE warning apps from their stores, I think that more should probably read about the role of IBM during the holocaust. Can we please finally get rid of the fairytale of social corporate responsibility in big tech?

2025-05-29 10:27:52 UTC

German politician Nico Semsrott has suggested that we give billionaires one year to solve the climate crisis. If they fail to do so, we should dispossess them. I think that’s a wonderful idea! It's never going to happen, but it's nice to dream.

2024-11-27 14:31:08 UTC

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It's a bit difficult to fully recommend it, because I don't 100% agree with the book, but in many ways Nomad Century has a really interesting perspective on those points.

2024-11-20 08:09:43 UTC

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But at the same time, it also truly lowers the standards for everything else. If such AI ads are now "good enough for mainstream media" that "good enough" is now objectively a lot less good than what it has been before. I think this permeates other parts of our culuture as well. But I guess I sound like someone from the 90s who complained about the rise of CGI. On the other hand, we always optimized our tools, but there were still humans behind it. That's the main difference.

2024-11-20 08:05:26 UTC

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At that point it really arrived on the same level as a spam email. Maybe that's even a more honest form of advertisement though. Maybe the true problem has always been that pseudo-creative layer. When I studied design, we almost worshipped the creatives behind good ads for their ideas and the production. That's an advantage of AI in this case. There's no pretentiousness about it anymore. It's just noise, optimized to sell.

2024-11-20 07:29:36 UTC

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that’s a feeling that I have on repeat with AI. A real person behind a notepad, a typewriter, a camera, an instrument, a computer - actually creating something - is no longer there. I think my own fascination for creativity is 50% about the result and 50% about the process.

2024-11-20 07:25:50 UTC

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it looks wrong in multiple places. But personally I think I’m most offended by the lack of people behind it. I use to zoom out a lot when watching movies, ads or any other form of moving picture and I wonder how things are made. No matter if CGI or real stuff. It’s a bit like thinking about how a magic trick works. I’m also a huge fan of behind the scenes material. All of that is simply gone.

2024-11-19 08:36:57 UTC

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Most important: this does not invalidate the Fediverse. There’s no such thing as winning and I feel bad for my own past thoughts. The only thing that matters is that we finally get away from algo based social media that collectively fries our brains. Bluesky feels pretty healthy right now despite the questionable background. Be happy that lots of people find a healthier place in really dark times.

2024-11-19 08:29:22 UTC

Maybe I’ve turned too soft and pragmatic, but I think that millions of people finally leave Twitter and don’t end up on Threads is a good thing. I wanted the Fediverse “to win” for a long time. I think the crypto VC money behind Bluesky is a huge red flag and will very like backfire. But I also think that it’s not in my control what people prefer and there are valid reasons why they prefer Bluesky, no matter if we like it or not.

2024-10-24 14:28:49 UTC

I shared a very personal post a few month ago and then unlisted it from my site. It's a tough one and I was very worried about attracting the wrong folks with it or getting into painful discussions. But a lot of really wonderful conversations followed. Especially with people from the US.
I think it's the right time to post it once more. Maybe it can help you in some way or another: "My Grandpa was a Nazi" https://bastianallgeier.com/notes/grandpa

2024-10-19 17:05:38 UTC

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https://www.helmholtz.de/newsroom/artikel/wie-viel-co2-steckt-in-einem-liter-benzin/#

2024-10-19 16:28:58 UTC

Sometimes I need such simple visualizations to really grasp what we are doing.
A liter of gasoline produces 2,37 kg of CO2. If you fill up a VW Golf 12 times (50 liter tank), you’ve put its own weight (~1,4 t) in CO2 into the atmosphere.
I’ve put a lot of cars into the atmosphere in my life :(