I've done some tweaks to the layout of the site around links, code bits and other things I'm probably forgetting. The /blog page looks a bit more feed-like now as well.
Oh, yeah, and the blog has Webmentions support now! Meaning that if you mention my blog from your website or on social media (Bluesky, Mastodon), it should appear alongside comments on the blog.
Also, if you had my button on your website, and you included the direct link, please update it like so, replacing https://files.damien.zone/88x31_damien.png with https://damien.zone/public/88x31_damien.png. I have set up a redirection on my server, so existing buttons don't break, but ideally that'd be temporary 😅
Here it is, the new year! I can't say I'm especially overjoyed about it, but I'm also fine with leaving 2024 behind, so... you know.
At any rate, as you (maybe) can see, this website got a bit of an overhaul!
I spent a few days during my winter break re-implementing it using Eleventy.
Bearblog served me well for the past few months, but I knew that, at some point, I'd want to control everything... so here we are.
While the goal of this migration was to make a 1:1 copy of the way the site looked on Bear, I couldn't help myself and made a few tweaks here and there.
damien.zone January 2025 Release Notes
new favicon / avatar
Sage drew a lovely pixel-art version of my avatar! We spent a lot of time making sure it looks sharp as hell everywhere. The favicon shows up ~fine~ in RSS readers as well. I'll try to make a post documenting how all of this was done because some of the tricks I used are a little bit silly.
color palette changes
I also changed several aspects of the main design regarding contrast and colors. There are too many to list, so enjoy a comparison below:
Before, in dark modeAfter, in dark modeBefore, in light modeAfter, in light mode
Hopefully, these changes make the site a bit nicer to look at and read. I will continue iterating on it over time because these things are never finished.
layout / content changes
The layout is still very much based on the "Terminal" theme that Bearblog provides, but I tweaked the layout of a few pages:
The homepage now has a shorter description, the list of recent posts, and that's it.
I might experiment with the homepage a bit…Read more
Saw Justice two times in Paris last week, which makes it four times this year[1]. While my spot for the first Paris show was not great (literally the highest, furthest from the stage), I had a much better spot the night after.
Like in September at Portola, I managed to get a pretty good spot on the floor, which netted me some pretty good shots, despite not taking nearly as many as I did back then. I also lucked out and managed to get high-fives from both Xavier and Gaspard (I missed both last time lol) so I still feel pretty good about that lmao.
Like last time, all of these are shot on my iPhone 13 Pro using Halide in "Process Zero RAW" with only exposure and contrasts being adjusted after the fact.
The pictures below are thumbnails, but you can/should click on them to get the full-size JPEGs if you want to pixel peep and taste that sweet-sweet noise 😄
Ever since I first tried it shortly after its introduction, Dolby Atmos on Apple Music felt, to me, gimmicky at best and counterproductive at worst? It's like, either the effect is too noticeable and it's distracting or it just doesn't add anything when it just doesn't make a whole song fall flat? If that makes sense?
At any rate, I was having a normal evening and randomly decided to give it a try again, and boy do I have thoughts.
A little setup note: all my listening is being done on Apple Music on macOS 15.1.1, with AirPods Max, with the "Lossless (ALAC up to 24-bit/48kHz)" preset, "Dolby Atmos" set to "Always On" like so and "Spatial Audio" set to "Fixed" in macOS.
I also used the "Music Library Tracker" app on iOS to even find which tracks in my library were available in Spatial Audio! Truly bonkers that I need a 3rd party app to do that, but whatever.
Also, I'm putting embed codes for each track. I'm going to assume Dolby Atmos is not available when playing them from the web, but at least it'll be easy to open them in a native Apple Music app if you have that.
Anyway, here are my thoughts gathered after listening to a few Spatial Audio tracks from the ~630 available in my library. I will try to gather a relatively broad range of genres, but it's my own library, so there will be a clear bias lmao.
I could write a poem about Kraftwerk's Trans-Europa Express, it is genuinely one of my favorite electronic music albums of all time, I think. And to be clear, I do not mean Trans-Europe Express, Kraftwerk shall be listened to in German…Read more
