Harry Keller

Heya, I’m Harry, a software developer in Berlin/Germany—he/him, *351ppm, feminist, cooperativist, dogfather. I recently co-founded the somewhat utopian design+tech cooperative Village One and also diesdas.digital before that. You can learn more about me on harryfk.com and we can connect on Mastodon, Twitter, BeReal, PixelfedInstagram. Or you can simply read my newsletter below! 💁
October 22, 2023

↬ September 2023 (and most of October)

Heya, it’s been a while! The last newsletter was sent on *checks archive* Sept 6—that makes it more than six weeks since the last mailing! Four of those weeks were spent in the UK countryside (again) and work at Village One has been hectic, so I was ping-ponging between relaxation and agitation. In this issue: Personal and professional...
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September 6, 2023

↬ August 2023 (and a few days of September)

Heya, and welcome back! This time we’re just doing a quick check-in before I’ll be on holidays from tomorrow! Let’s start with … Work stuff • We’re settling into a good rhythm with Village One and I’m really enjoying our current team size with six people. It’s not chaotic, but enough is happening to keep every day interesting and surpr...
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August 7, 2023

↬ July 2023 (and a bit of August)

Welcome back y’all, it’s the monthly update and I’m glad you’re here, along with a bunch of other people. I don’t know how many of you actually open these emails – I have zero analytics, which is exactly how it should be. So I’m just typing this into the void and sometimes, weeks later, when I meet one of you for coffee, you’ll randoml...
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July 2, 2023

↬ Half of May, all of June 2023

Heya, I’m back in your inbox, after taking a bit of a break from writing this newsletter. Let’s see what happened, shall we? Life/work update is long this time, feel free to skip down to the links, no judgement. So at the start of June we returned from the UK and (again) we had an absolutely incredible time there. Great weather, specta...
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May 16, 2023

↬ Half of April, half of May 2023

Hello there, after last month’s issue was already late, this one comes even later! I originally planned to be on time this month, but truth be told, I didn’t feel I had much to say at the end of April and also those days were frantically busy: Earlier this year we had decided to spend all of May in the Peak District in the UK (like we ...
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April 10, 2023

↬ March 2023 (and a bit of April)

Hello y’all, uh oh, every month I’m later with this newsletter and admittedly it feels quite odd to write a March recap when a third of April has already passed. Sadly I really had no headspace for personal newsletter writing up until now: The reason was an all-consuming project I’ve been working on at Village One since October – the r...
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March 5, 2023

↬ February 2023

Hey y’all, I haven’t had much headspace to think about this newsletter beforehand, so I’ll keep it brief. For me writing usually starts with mental preparation, mulling over what I want to say, distilling it, editing my thoughts, often days or even weeks before getting anything down on the page; but not this time, because unfortunately...
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February 5, 2023

↬ January 2023

Hello everyone, welcome back, happy new year, this is another monthly recap, a few days late, as per usual! I was hoping to have my website rebuilt and the newsletter integrated already, but actual work happened and I couldn’t be bothered to do more coding over the weekends. I did already cancel my HEY subscription though, so I have un...
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January 2, 2023

↬ December 2022: Covid, photography on a GameBoy, books, movies, new year

Hey y’all, I hope you had a good NYE and made it into 2023 safe and sound! This is my December recap, so I’ll resist the urge to summarize the whole year: let’s just see what happened during that last month of 2022! 🚨 What’s new In my last newsletter I said I was coming down with a cold, but a few days later it turned out to be covid. ...
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December 4, 2022

↬ November 2022: Octavia, Ursula and Marlen, plus the fediverse and a Christmas musical I actually liked

Hey y’all, welcome back, another month has passed and I’m not gonna lie, the last two weeks have been rough: Our dog Freddy has been sick and we haven’t slept properly in 1.5 weeks, plus I’m coming down with a cold. Not the best overall conditions to write a newsletter, maybe I should just ask ChatGPT to step in? Anyhow, I’ll try, the ...
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November 5, 2022

↬ October 2022: Yup, that’s it, that’s the headline. Just October 2022.

Hey y’all, last month I wrote about our long vacation + workation in England, this time we’re back to the regular programming of random stuff that caught my attention! Work has been intense over the last weeks (in a good way), so this newsletter is unfortunately a few days late. I’ll keep the points shorter this time (just kidding, of ...
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October 13, 2022

Screw Zuckerberg, but maybe don’t write VR off just yet

Over the last couple of days, in the wake of Meta’s VR keynote, there’s been a lot of snark about virtual reality on social media. And look, I get it … the metaverse is a bullshit dystopia, the hardware is isolating and these days we need more attention than ever on the real world. I’m with you on that. I also don’t believe VR will eve...
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October 3, 2022

↬ September 2022: hiding in the English countryside

Hey y’all, my plan was to write my usual September recap, with a brief personal intro and then some updates and then some links and then some photos. In fact, I had already written it: It contained thoughts on how Figma sold to Adobe, how Pitch fired a third of their employees, it talked about ergonomic computer gear and that I’m not q...
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September 3, 2022

↬ August 2022: wrist pain, holidays, some Village One news

Hey y’all, I’m a few days late with the August recap, because the last days have been hectic: We’re going on holidays tomorrow, leaving Berlin for a bit, and there was a lot to wrap up work-wise and also I still haven’t packed. Weee! Living on the edge! Also: All of August I’ve had varying degrees of wrist pain, presumably from typing ...
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July 31, 2022

↬ July 2022: cooperatives everywhere, growing chilis and upcoming holidays

Hey y’all, another month has passed, welcome back! This is now essentially a newsletter about cooperatives, I hope you don’t mind! Let’s go! 🚨 What’s new In the last recap I already shared that Doro, Christoph and I founded a somewhat utopian design + tech cooperative called Village One. We’re also writing a company newsletter and sent...
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July 2, 2022

↬ June 2022: the climate crisis, capitalism and a new cooperative

Heya and welcome to the sixth issue of this monthly newsletter – we’ve reached the halfway point of 2022! I’m a few days late with my June recap, but there’s a reason: Today is the UN’s International Day of Cooperatives and fittingly I co-founded a cooperative yesterday! Wait, what? Let’s quickly zoom out for some context! 🚨 Lots of he...
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May 31, 2022

↬ May 2022: what I’m doing next, hybrid work, tech lay-offs, plus some links and recommendations

Heya, it’s the end of the month again/already which means recap time! Thank you for being here and a quick reminder: you can simply reply to this mail in case you want to say hello! 📠 🚨 What’s new I hosted an in-person workshop a few weeks ago for the first time “after” the pandemic and found myself quite puzzled during preparation: Wi...
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April 30, 2022

↬ April 2022: maintenance work, cooperatives, good decisions, moby dick

Hey there, time for the April recap – I’m late and this week was hectic, so here we go without much of an introduction. Thank you for being here! 💛 🚨 What’s new Looks like we collectively decided the pandemic to be over now. Odd. How soon until I’m the strange one wearing a mask in a supermarket? Elon Musk buys Twitter. Sigh. All the t...
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March 31, 2022

↬ March 2022: holidays, digital tooling, growing chilis (or not)

Hey there, welcome to my third monthly recap this year – I’m writing this one pretty last minute, because I’ve been happily ignoring my todo list for all of March. My daily work at diesdas.digital came to a close in February and I had given myself a month to unwind and regain some creative energy. That has meant fewer obligations, fewe...
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February 27, 2022

↬ February 2022: last days at diesdas, mathing together, dark times

Hey there, I hope this message finds you well, but oh boy, it’s being sent out under different circumstances than I expected … admittedly it feels petty and irrelevant to write a personal newsletter right now, while the sickening invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia is underway. I’ve donated $1000 to the Ukraine Crisis Fund – I hope i...
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January 30, 2022

↬ January 2022: diesdas exit, chili jam, winter vibes and sand worms

Hey y’all, Harry here, with a January recap and a few photo impressions at the end. Time continues to be weird and it’s hard to believe we’re already a full month into 2022, so the plan is to write monthly recaps across the year, to be more aware and to keep track of what’s happening. This post is a bit longer because it’s the first on...
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January 1, 2022

Write here, write now

Hello readers, first things first, that’s a terrible headline, I know. Apologies! 😅 Anyhow, welcome, glad you’re here at the very start of 2022! I’m usually not a person who sets new year’s resolutions or even goals, because instead of giving me focus I find them limiting: They were conjured up in the past, might have been superseded b...
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