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 [...]

Note to myself: never change a running system!
I really have to keep on telling myself not to verschlimmbessern any approved system. Just because a modification is possible, the “hack” often isn’t better.
Case in point: When I recently *upgraded* the original silver cover on my Nokia N95-1 to a black Made-in-China cover, I also switched to [...]

My colleague #rob is in Palestine during this week and sent me this pic today.
Robert is from Berlin and used to stupid walls.

Ok, this one is for Cgzed and Mzeecedric (CG), my DSLR-affectionados:
Some years ago, I think it was in 2000, I traded in an older Nikon F2 with a 50mm lens into a Nikon F70 - both being single-lens reflex cameras. I went for the Nikon range because a) i wanted to use some older lenses [...]

(cc) by MB
What’s this?

My bro KP wrote a message from Taiwan, telling me that he recently tested the Ricoh GR Digital camera. “Even under worst light conditions, it delivers perfect pictures”, he says. “Can you see any pictures that were made with that cam?”, he goes on.
Well, of course I can. Thx to Flickr’s detailed camera search.
(~and [...]

Vol. 3 of the “Golden Afrique” series I mentioned some time ago….
(@Steve & Mshairi: yes, that’s something for our collection, right?)

An automatic, self-cleaning toilet seat. Amazing.
Just one day, Mental & yours truly will buy 1000 toilets like these and install them all over Kenya. Right?
(No no no, we will install Ecosan toilets instead and teach [...]