Kikuyumoja's realm

• liveblogging from AfrikaCamp in Vienna, Austria

  Posted: January 31, 2009, 1:59 pm by jke

  Fellow blogger Mzeecedric and I are today attending AfrikaCamp which just started a few minutes ago.
  Please stay tuned for more as I will try to update this post throughout the day (see updates below). Oh and btw, there’s no ustream from the event (no videos). Sorry!

  First of all: Africa = continent = many different countries, cultures, etc. (just to be clear on that).

  AfrikaCamp is some sort of follow-up to the BarCampAfrica , which recently took place @ Mountain View/Google HQ in the US.

  It’s my first ever vísit to Vienna btw and I am already quite surprised how great this city is!

  10:00 am:
  We arrived at W@lz, the location for the AfrikaCamp.

  
  The whole of Austria is covered in snow.

  11:00 am:
  Sessions planning started, Cedric and I will be talking about AfriGadget.com and some blogs we’ve created for dev aid sector / German NGOs.

  
  There’s free WiFi. Yaay!

  
  Free chocolate provided by FairTrade. Nice!

  
  Christoph Chorherr giving an introduction to the different session to some of the ~ 40-50 attendants.

  
  BarCamp-styled sessions.

  11:30 am:
  Attending the first session by Helge Fahrnberger of helge.at about laafi.at and OpenStreetMap project they are doing on Ouaggadougou.
  Helge is one of the organisers of the AfrikaCamp.

  
  Helge Fahrnberger talking about laafi.at and OpenSourceMap.

  12:00 am
  Christoph Chorherr talking about two schooling projects in SouthAfrica: “social sustainable architecture” and “Ithuba Skills College“. Interesting quote from a school headmaster in SA: “We provide schooling but no education”.

  [pic to follow asap]

  They are also using dry toilets as the sanitation system. GREAT!

  12:47 am
  Yours truly presenting Erik’s slides on Afriagadget
  Mwalimu JKE :-)

  Had to recharge my netbook after 6hrs in use. Lovely little live-blogging device (despite of its tiny keyboard).

  01:20 pm
  Having lunch with a guy called Kavindra who works in Vienna as a consultant at a Indo-European Developemnt Agency. Nice vegetarian stew followed by free drinks - thanks to the organisers of this fine event!

  02:00 pm
  Attending a session on ICT4D.at by Martin Konzett, Karola Riegler, Florian Sturm and Anders Bolin

  
  Audience clearly dominated by MacBooks. Hmm… ;-)

  Martin and Anders showing a preview of their upcoming documentary on mobile phone uses in East Africa. Martin says there’s a 90% penetration of Nokia phones in Africa. Very promising documentary btw which will be released soon. Martin and Florian shot it with a Nikon D90 with different lenses

  
  Says this guy is a famous athlete who’s constantly on the phone.

  
  A pouch / CD sleeve made of a Kanga as alternative cover for the upcoming DVD.

  Martin also talks about empowerement and mobile financing. Someone from Togo in the audience mentions that we need to have a better infrastructure in many African countries. Debatte started about technology and how it is used in many places.

  03:00 pm
  Attending a session by Andrea Zefferer & Andrea Ben Lassoued who are presenting their projects @ [www.clean-it.at] and [www.kinderpate.at]

  Clean-IT is a project that focusses on an improvement of working conditions among IT-manufacturers (in China) by setting some social standards on the demand side…

  Kinderpate.at focusses on finding sponsors who are willing to support disabled kids.

  03:30 pm
  coffee break

  04:00 pm
  Giving a short video interview to Martin Konzett and Anders Bolin, both of ICT4D. Talked about AfriGadget and that we’re are currently looking for a French speaking editor who could cover parts of the francophone Africa on AG. I hate being in front of a camera, my first ever interview/pitch. Camera goes on (fisheye lens) and you’ll have to talk about your agenda for 4 minutes.

  But I wasn’t the only one - seen here: Florian Sturm, Anders Bolin and Martin Konzett playing the same game with Andrea Zefferer.

  04:30 pm
  AfrikaCamp continues, two or three more sessions - but without us. We had to leave a bit earlier for downtown Vienna. Met an old friend of mine with whom I’d been schooling back in the days in Nbo and whom I hadn’t seen in ages.

  Soo….AfrikaCamp imho was a great success, met many interesting people who are doing interesting projects, having the right visions on what works in the African context and what doesnt (NGOs tend to be more realistic then the bigger donor orgs). ICT4D.at guys are quite ambitioned, doing a good job on a tight budget. Make sure to check out their awesome documentary once it’s released on DVD (see comment below)

  Else: Vienna is a GREAT city, will def. be back for more. Even my new netbook proved to be portable enough and was a great live-blogging device.

  Kudos to Helge, Christoph and Karola who organised this BarCamp + Africa event!

  Cheers from Vienna :-)

  [UPDATE]
  Florian of ICT4D also compiled a very interesting summary of the sessions I couldn’t attend. It’s a pitty that you can’t follow all sessions at once as everyone has interesting ideas to present.

  A list of all sessions + list of ICT4D.at interviews are also available.

• mobile comfort

  Posted: January 28, 2009, 10:36 am by jke

  Another sweet reason that justifies the recent purchase of a 2nd hand eee Asus 901 is the compact size and weight of the power supply.

  An 8,9″ display at 1024×600px resolution combined with a rather tiny keyboard for sure isn’t as perfect as the ideal combination of these two worlds - which would probably be an advanced 11,1″ notebook @ 1280×800px and full CoreDuo CPU - but any kg I do not have to carry around is very much appreciated.

  Netbooks are cool and if Apple and AMD do not agree on this, then it’s just because they haven’t come up with suitable alternatives. With the worldwide increase in netbook sales, it becomes obvious that many consumers actually like these low-cost computers.

  My eeePC has a 6-cell battery that lasts for at least 6hrs (tested!) - which provides real mobile comfort so I could even leave this power supply at home.

  I think that netbooks - which ideally also come with an internal 3G modem and a basic Linux OS - are the perfect computer for most average households, whether in Europe, the US or Africa.

• Sarugakucho 11-19

  Posted: January 27, 2009, 12:16 am by jke

  I’d spent the first eight years of my life growing up in Tokyo, Japan, and since we’ve never been back to Japan since then, I was very pleased today to discover that the house we’d lived in still exists:

  
  enlarge map

  I may not be such a great fan of Google services (even though I have their ads on my blog), but this Google Street view feature just rocks big time. It’s also interesting to see how the city has changed over the last 30 years - at least by judging from what’s visible through Goolge Maps.

  From a professional point of view, of course, I am nowadays wondering about the sewage system in use in Tokyo, and how they manage to provide all this high-tech infrastructure in such a densely populated area.

• Avigo10

  Posted: January 27, 2009, 8:08 am by jke

  IF you knew what most digital cameras back in 1999 looked like - and how much they would cost back then - you’ll quickly understand that it’s rather astonishing to have these digital images from my beloved TexasInstruments AVIGO10 PDA I’ve just unearthed from a sub-sub-sub-directory on my harddisk.

  It’s a rather childish mod/hack that I had done on this outdated PDA way back in 1999 and of which I was reminded just a few minutes ago while googling for a link to this weekend’s AfrikaCamp in Vienna.

  Mzeecedric of m.zung.us and I will attend this event and I’ll also try to cover it on my blog if everything works out as planned. I am not expecting too much though, just an open meeting and exchange with interested and active folks in Europe (or let’s say Austria and Germany) who also have some sort of Mal d’Afrique on their agenda or anything else related to this matter.

  Coming back to the mod: while googling for the link, I stumbled upon Robert Lender’s website - a fellow blogger who had contacted me way back in 1999 on this hack and had integrated it on his page dedicated to this PDA. I guess I may even have his e-mail somewhere. Ok, now that’s 10 years ago, and if you ask yourself what you did in 1999, you’ll probably say that you’d been online via CompuServe or AOL and probably also hosted your site on Ethan Zuckerman’s Tripod site. Yup. 1999. Long time ago.

  This post is dedicated to Robert and it will be especially interesting to see a face behind this contact whose name has been around for such a long time.

  The original page on [kikuyumoja.de] has been offline for quite some time now, but I just copied everything into a PDF.

  I btw still have this PDA at home. Compared to my friends who owned stupid Palm PDAs, the Avigo10 was a bit cheaper and not as popular as a Palm Pilot PDA, hence less software being available for this product. It also lacked the marketing backup from TI who quickly dropped this product from their product line for unknown reasons. Kinda sad, especially since this PDA came with a serial connector and could be hooked up to a modem which turned it into a great telnet device among other cool hacks.

  Actually, it’s kinda worrying to see that even now in 2009, most mobile devices still lack such basic services (telnet, ssh, etc.) and charge you extra for a comfort we already had in 1999. As for the issue of power consumption, I think that we’ll also need to have a revolution on the energy side: something where we will not only see more efficient and energy-saving devices with smaller CPUs, but instead also devices that generate the energy the moment you need it and thus reduce our needs for stronger batteries.

  @T.H.User: FFM, 1999, Nordi, MediaMarkt! Erinnerst Du Dich noch? Das Gerät hatten wir damals zusammen gekauft! :-)

• eeelicious Gadgetimoja

  Posted: January 21, 2009, 10:29 pm by jke

  I usually disassemble all of my new toys once they arrive on my table.

  I obviously had to do the same with this lovely little netbook - an Asus eeePC 901 - which I had managed to secure (2nd hand) for a relatively low price via eBay (!) last week and which arrived today.

  It comes with WinXP Home edition, Intel Atom 1,6Ghz CPU, 1GB RAM, 12GB SSD HDD (4 GB + 8 GB), an SD card reader (= even more flexiboool memory), Bluetooth (!!!), WiFi b/g/n (!), an 8,9″ matt display, an 1,3mpx webcam and lots of room for future case mods. Oh, and it has a 6cell battery which equals to 5-7h battery runtime. Ain’t that cool?

  So….yes, I eventually did it and decided to go for such a tiny 8,9″ netbook. The initial idea was to have a (smaller) 12,1″ notebook for everyday use which would substitute my 15,4″ notebook in the long run. There are in fact quite a few older HP business laptops @ 12,1″ on sale - albeit with a 1024×768 resolution, and if you want to go for a wide-screen 12,1″ @ 1280×800 notebook instead, you’ll really have to cough up more than I am currently able to spend on a new computer + it would be too much “competition” to my existing 15,4″ machine. The other idea was to go for a 10,2″ Samsung NC10 netbook that comes with a much better keyboard than most eeePCs.

  Also, since I am still to find THE most perfect syncing solution which keeps all my files on all computers in sync, I realized that all I need for “on the road” is a small, light-weight machine that does basic stuff and actually doesn’t allow me to store too much data on it (as to avoid double files - I like to maintain some discipline on my data).

  I disassembled it in order to clean it - the previous owner apparently has a cat - and to fix a few small issues like a faulty key on the keyboard (which is why it was a bit cheaper :-).

  Next thing I’ll do is print out my Gadgetimoja logo or even one of those new AfriGadget stickers and “pimp” the cover accordingly. And I’ll also look for an upgrade to the RAM module - 2GB should be much better - and install another OS…

  @Ministry-of-Finance: That’s 2kg less to carry! Besides, a man has his needs… :-)

  [UPDATE:]

  Had to decide between these two versions, so I twitpiced it and came to the conclusion to use the “Kompyuta imara kama tembo” version.

  Grafix designers pls beware that my DTP tool here is rather old fashioned, hence it’s not 100% in line. But than - pretty much Kenyan, if I may say so.

  Which resulted in the following netbook vanity:

  And yes, I know that this is just a beautiful waste of time when you’re actually busy and supposed to do other (more important) work. Sigh.

• l’Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste

  Posted: January 20, 2009, 5:47 am by jke

  (Le compositeur DIANGIENDA WABASOLELE Armand) “DWA, en autodidacte, étudie le solfège jusqu’à maîtriser la composition en musique classique. Il a hissé l’Orchestre au niveau d’une grande formation dont la renommée dépasse largement les frontières d’Afrique. De plus en plus il établit les ponts entre son orchestre et d’autres orchestres du genre à l’étranger.” (source)

  Pretty amazing!

  Or as one member of the orchestra says in this short clip: “When I am sick and I listen to the music, it gives me strength.”

  [via]

• 25cm of…

  Posted: January 14, 2009, 12:26 am by jke

  ..of WTF?

  This beautiful watch was included in an auction for a used (aka remanufactured) Panansonic Lumix DMC-TZ4 camera by a popular seller from Malaysia on eBay.

  The camera itself is a bit scratched and looks like a typical RMA-candidate to me, but hey - I’ll stick to it for the moment (= custom taxes, return shipping fee, time >> willing & able to invest at the moment). I guess they include these extra “FREE GIFTS!!!!” to a) cover up faulty cameras, b) get rid of it and c) make the package look like a gift (customs related issues).

  The watch, however, is just a beauty. Maybe I should wrap this up and send it to someone special. Hehe… .-)

  (wait….is that a lizard on the dial? omg! omg!)

• the LED phone hack

  Posted: January 14, 2009, 4:21 am by jke

  The following post is dedicated to Samuel & Juliana - both connoisseurs of mobile phones that come with an integrated flashlight (such as the Nokia 1208).

  An integrated LED flashlight? What’s the big deal?

  Well, if you happen to live in a country with frequent power failures and favour all-in-one devices, an integrated flashlight comes in handy for those moments when it’s too windy or otherwise inappropriate to use a lighter as a source of light. Dedicated LED-based flashlights are nice and proven - I have mine on the keychain - got it free from Globetrotter.de some years ago.

  Sure, you could even use the brigtly illuminated screen on your phone to satisfy any quick needs for a source of light, but it just isn’t the same comfort and also isn’t right on one single spot. There btw is a fancy app for the iPhone which provides a blank white screen to substitute a flash (says @mzeecedric). Quite a ROFL-factor but more like a gimmick. Other recent Nokias with S60 and LED-flash for photography can be modified on the hardware side, e.g. cutting a wire on the printed circuit flex cable. Those “flash lights” weren’t made for constant illumination needs, hence it’s highly recommended not to do that.

  I’d been thinking about a DIY alternative for a phone that could be realized by any average phone fundi out there and consequently didn’t want to come up with any SMD-type solution that would probably do a much better job, but instead come up with a simple hack that - most importantly - may be reversed to preserve any warranty on the phone.

  The actual need for this project arose late last night after Samuel’s tweet on how he misses the flashlight. Besides, I had urgent work to finish so I needed an external incentive to push me through the evening until I could eventually put my hands on this “hack”.

  The players:

  an older Nokia 6230 I rescued from eBay some time ago (my 6230i walked away in a Were-sense…). Here you can already see the thin back cover which can be replaced anytime and is thus perfectly made for hacks.

  an old LED with batteries from a dead lighter

  So let’s start with….
  

  1. the cheap solution :-)

  A quick ‘n’ dirty solution that will just do the job.

  Not very sustainable though. Which gets us to…

  2. the slightly better option

  Many Nokia phones come with an exchangable cover, so it’s obvious to make use of the plastic cover which can be exchanged any time. And since there isn’t much space for a bigger battery, we’ll also use the phone’s own battery. After all, it’s based on LithiumIon technology which means relatively high energy density.

  The LED is in blue colour, but basically any stronger LED will do the job. Your fundi may be able to resuce one from the usual e-waste found in popular places. I am also not using any resistor or any other passive & active parts to keep it really simple. All we need to do is to sacrifice the back cover for this hack (coz the LED has to go somewhere) and get a direct connection to the battery.

  So I’d asked myself:

  1. Where do I put the LED?
  2. Will I need a switch to activate it?
  3. How will I manage to connect it to the battery, given the narrow space in between the cover and the battery?

  To worsen the situation even more, I currently do not have access to my usual tools, but then again, that’s the challenge after all - trying to find a decent solution under limited conditions. All I currently have are scissors, my Leatherman Wave, a (really!) cheap voltmeter and a monsterous 30W soldering iron. My Gadgetimoja-toolbox is somewhere else on this planet…

  Trying to find a short piece of relatively thin wire turned out to be the hardest part - I have lots of that stuff at home - but where is it when you need it??

  So I did what everyone does in such situations: improvise - and take it from somewhere else. In other words: look for another electronical device and see if you can “borrow” some 10cm of wire from that.

  Pole sana, dear electrical thermometer. It’s friggin cold outside anyways so at least I’ve provided you with a few indoor minutes. And thx for the cable!

  Improvising also means that you do things by trial & error and try to avoid any hardware modifications by simulating the scenario in your head. Will this work? Where will I put the LED? Can it still fit? And what about that damn switch??

  It works!

  I’d made good experience with “drilling” decent holes into plastic (mis)using a cheap soldering iron in the past, so I just continued “drilling” a hole (don’t try this at home, kids) using this method. Just make sure you actually clean the iron afterwards and while it’s still hot.

  As you can see from the pictures above, the cables are just loosely joined with the wonderful battery dock on the phone so that you can remove them any time. The LED is rather big but “somehow” fits onto the edge of the back cover. Also, the cable is still too thick and the back cover will not close the way it is supposed to (also because my phone….ahem…let’s say: had already survived a few other “operations” in the past + remember I’d previously aquired it in an awful condition from eBay).

  A “switch” is also missing but this was just version 0.1 to show it’s doable to pimp an ordinary phone into a flashlight phone. It’s a jua kali hack for prototyping, I’d say.

  Do you have any ideas for a switch? How would you design it? Maybe integrate it on the side? And is it locally available (= keep it cheap and simple)?

  The activated LED with the back cover just put on top.

  I will try to organise two more back covers so that I can play around and see what else is possible. Ideally, I’d like to see someone else from Nairobi pick this up (if not already done - sijui if this already exists in Nbo these days?) and modify it into a commercial add-on for wanainchii. After all, phones with flashlights just rock and should imho be on any phone out there. This solution here won’t jeopardize the gadget itself - and such a plastic back cover is cheap, especially this one (with a Vodafone branding, yuck!).

• MobilePress

  Posted: January 12, 2009, 7:14 am by jke

  Following my other mobile blogging related posts, both my colleagues @AfriGadget - Frerieke & Erik - adviced me to take a closer look at a wonderful (new) WordPress plugin called MobilePress.

  “MobilePress is a WordPress plugin that will render your WordPress blog on mobile handsets, with the ability to use customized themes.” - We’ve seen this feature with others before, but - as the author correctly points out: “Plugins exist, but, at best, contain sneaky ads and backlinks and are not all together well written.” I do share those feelings regarding the WordPress Mobile Plugin as mentioned earlier.

  Despite of MobilePress being just the right choice for the mobile accessibility of your WordPress-based blog, I am still using the out-dated WPhone Admin Plugin because MobilePress (currently) lacks one important part: it automatically chooses the right rendering option based on the browser.

  Now - I would like to choose that myself! WPhone does that by providing a “use mobile admin interface” checkbox on the WP login screen.

  Mzeecedric and I recently had to look for a solution to a low-bandwidth blog-access issue and ended up using WPhone. I would, however, prefer to use MobilePress (also because it’s from SA, yay! :-) once such a “use mobile admin interface” functionality is integrated so that blog editors can actively choose a low-bandwidth login to the WP backend while using a normal browser.

  (It’s btw interesting to see how a plugin is used for another purpose - something else than what it had been designed for. See M-Pesa in Kenya and how it is used these days.)

• the diet

  Posted: January 8, 2009, 11:40 pm by jke

  New year’s resolutions are supposed to be made - and then quickly forgotten.

  I can’t even remember if it was a new year’s resolution, but it’s January 2009 now and the wife (”she”) said we’d have to go on a diet. South-Beach Diet.

  If you’re married or at least engaged, you’ll know that wise men never oppose a female decision (but instead wait for them to remorse on their own). This especially applies to those poor fellows who are married to Thatcheresque characters.

  The painful truth is that she’s right. We both urgently need to lose weight - not because we’d been surviving on junk food only (she’s vegetarian anyways), but because food in Germany is just more than nutritious. Whenever I am in Kenya, I lose weight. But here in Germany, it’s just massive. And then all these sweets!

  Sweets, dear readers, are one of the two fine reasons why I like German food (the other is Bavarian Leberkäse). And not only packaged Haribo winegums and liquorice, but also fresh cakes from a bakery:

  
  Choice 2.0

  Now compare that with the usual “variety” of marble cakes as found in the average Kenyan supermarket. What a difference and sweet temptation!

  
  Choice 1.0

  Ati? Do I hear you longing for the typical BlueBand (instead of butter) “butter” cream cake?

  
  The strange Barbie cake found in Nbo the other day

  See? That’s the dilemma now. Living in a country where the sweets section alone can fill up a whole supermarket and even provides a bigger variety than the usual and rather boring marble & butter cream cakes as found in ex British colonies (sorry, but I blame this heritage purely on the British inability & disinterest in cooking & baking), you’ll quickly end up eating too many sweets. Just because they are readymade food and can be eaten quickly. And of course because I love sweets.

  Other members of the extended family already tested this diet - or let’s say: change of diet, and it worked quite well for them. You’re basically not allowed to eat any bad carbohydrates during the first two weeks, which obviously also includes sugar, bread, potatoes and so on. The list of the NO-GOs is actually quite long - the one of those things you’re allowed to eat rather short.

  As you may know or not know: Germans love to have a sweet breakfast (e.g. bread with jam), so this diet requires her to switch to scrambled eggs and bacon instead (ok, this is what I like about UK kitchen at least).

  As for lunch and dinner, we’ve so far prepared vegetable dishes based on chickpeas, eggplant, garlic and sometimes even meat (for me, not for her). The meat part actually is quite nice because I didn’t have a proper steak until Xmas and until my good old ex-vegetarian sister Zora recently informed me she’d switched to being a carnivore. @Zora - in case you’re reading this: see how your actions influence my life! :-)

  A snapshot I’d already twitpic’d: looks like Githeri to me, bila potatoes and beans. That’s dal fry, actually. Lentils + onions + tomatoes + some chick peas + curry. Delicious!

  Eggplant/Aubergine with Turkish cheese and garlic + sesame. Grilled in the oven. This really is a perfect dish anyone can prepare within a few minutes.

  Some kind of steak I’d cut into pieces because I wasn’t sure about its age (@intelligensia see “Rost and mboilo”, p.46 , “How to be a Kenyan”). Next time I will just choma this kabisa in the grill. Love the fresh broccoli though, very al dente (mushy food is a no-go except for Irio). I shall have even more meat during the coming weeks. Yay!

  —–

  Other, food related matters that are worth mentioning and actually require their own post is Vegefarm - a vegan/vegetarian restaurant opened by very good friends of mine in Bremen - a city in Northern Germany.

  What they do is serving special dishes that almost taste like real meat or fish, but are purely based on gluten, tofu and shitake mushrooms and probably also other vegan ingredients. Quite SE Asian - they used to have a Chinese restaurant (already serving vegan dishes back then) but have since switched to this cuisine only. And best of all is that you can order these fake meat and fish balls based on Tofu & Co. online. I’d seen them importing these directly from Taiwan some years ago, so it’s extremely nice to see them coming up with a full restaurant these days that only serves such dishes.

  Those dark green “leaves” on the image above are algae from the sea - and since I grew up on Japanese food, I really, really love the taste of this green seaweed.

  —–

  Yes - that’s about it so far. From seaweed to ugali na sukuma to sweets. And there you go wondering why I’d gained weight.

  Interestingly though, and the intial reason for blogging all of this: it seems that if you want to survive on staple food only (starch), you’ll pay much less. Try to find decent (!) vegetable during winter season in Europe and you’ll quickly realize that the only place where vegetaboools taste like having grown under the sun (and not in some artificial greenhouse in Spain) is among Turkish supermarkets, next to those Afroshops downtown.

  Of course, once I’m done and have lost my targeted 10kgs (hey..easy!), I will have to start my Leberkaese business idea in Kenya :-) Serving tasty meat snacks to commuters - how’s that for a change?

  p.s.: I consider this post part of my lifelong Bantu-food-bashing-meme which aims at spreading Swahili food culture from the Kenyan coast to all parts of Central Kenya. Eh!

• Asiyefunzwa na mamaye, hufunzwa na ulimwengu.

  Posted: January 7, 2009, 11:20 pm by jke

  As twittered earlier, these books shall enhance my chances for a seat at the Kenyan parliament (no work, taxfree income, free car) - or at least raise my mzungu status within the Kenyan blogosphere.

  Now, would you please excuse me, I’ve got to teach some Kiuk to other Exilkenianer who were forced to leave home in 1982….

  (I am really excited that I eventually managed to bring some of my books to Frankfurt - all in all 4 huge bags full of books, language material and other goodies I can’t enjoy online or via my computer. nice!).

• wising up

  Posted: January 5, 2009, 5:09 pm by jke

  Standards vs. ergonomy

  The main entrance door to the Deutsche Post branch office at Frankfurt railway station.

  There’s a fire safety regulation in German law which says that such doors have to open to the outside so that in case of emergency, the panic crowd may escape without any obstacles.

  Despite of this regulation and although most doors in shops and offices are designed to this standard, many customers stil PUSH the door to the inside until they realize it opens by pulling the handle. There even is a sticker that says ZIEHEN (= pull).

  Always reminds me of Gary Larson’s “School for the Gifted“.

  Our future is in Africa

  An election poster for the upcoming elections in the Federal State of Hessen. Instead of the usual mugshots of fugly politicians, these guys came up with the image of a tractor, OPEL logo, the Transrapid, a nuclear power plant and some messages that are supposed to attract floating voters.

  While I think that Europe and Africa should team up and support each other, the “Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität” (BüSo) is in fact a very small right wing party with quite extreme ideologies. Germany, Europe, the world may indeed need to rethink what really matters - but voters should also inform themselves about the political parties and understand the real message behind such propaganda + how they are being lured into the world of extremists.

  Their candidate talks about the “Africanisation” of Germany - e.g. how living standards have deteriorated over the years, similar to many African states (sic!) - and how the German economy nowadays relies on products from the outside.

  While most parties actually suck and have similar concepts, it’s still much better to have a working democracy instead of fashists from the US who try to undermine Europe. Somehow similar to what Declan Ganley does in Ireland, but on another level.

  paper world

  Paris Hilton on the cover of “intelligent life“, a lifestyle magazin by The Economist.

  Are you bored enough to read or at least page through any lifestyle magazine these days IF instead there’s something else called internet?

  And two more questions on the traditional media (e.g. print):

  a) How often do you, as a reader of this blog, read printed lifestyle magazines? And where? Do you buy them?

  b) From my perspective as an internet geek (or “internetty”, as a colleague called it one day): where do you read, hear, see the general news? Do you read a (daily) newspaper on a regular basis and supplement this with some extra magazines? Or have you completely moved your news-addiction to the onlinesphere?

  Am asking because I think that it’s especially the older generation that still prefers print editions + have been wondering on how this impacts on society in general.

• rich for a day

  Posted: January 5, 2009, 5:15 am by jke

  A Happy New Year to all of you out there and a short pictorial from how I’ve spent the weekend:

  Moving my stuff from place A to place B.

  Turns out these 0,99 € bags are the best investment to carry my belongings because they are small and light enough to be stuffed into the trunk of a horribly over-priced and thirsty ML 320CDI 4MATIC for guys like me who like to enjoy 510 Nm at least once a year.

  We don’t have a car and normally don’t need any, so we were forced to rent a vehicle for the trip down to FFM. One generous soul from the extended family was kind enough to cough up some mbeca for this speciality though, which is why I got to enjoy this special pleasure for at least a day.

  It’s while driving such cars that you get to understand HipHop styles, with the gear shift right behind the steering wheel, leaving enough space for the over-sized cup holders. Next thing you realize is that this line is actually built in Tuscaloosa/USA - hence the cupholder and other extras most customers in Europe would find a bit irritating. But maybe that’s the norm these days and I am just too much into more conservative HZJ7x LandCruisers and other serious 4WDs that were built for real life and not smooth tarmac roads.

  The ML320CDI is a nice & powerful car, but I would never want to own it - also because I could instead buy three of these:

  …and would still pay less than what I had to cough up for a tank load full of Diesel.

  (Cars are like digital cameras these days - you’ll seldom find good technology for the right price & size. Why??)

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes