tagged!

…so I was tagged by Irene, who has resumed her blogging career once again, and confronted me with the question “what’s on your desk?”.

While her ideas are born in her fav corner – her desk – my thinktank is the shower. Not those cold ones I had in Embu, though, but that’s another story… ^^

My desk…well…me I don’t have a desk. I consider myself a technomade to some extent, so of course I’ve given up on having my own cosy cube but instead make extensive use of working whereever there’s enough space. Also, the desk I used to have wasn’t as crowdy as Al Gore‘s, but then – I try to stick to the following philosophy which I’ve bought as a sticker and put on my old desktop computer:

SANY0573

I consider this the perfect excuse to spend as kidogo time as possiboool in front of this machine that steals my precious time…

In case you’re still reading, consider yourself tagged. ;-)

nationalism & the 21st century in Germany

What’s this?

SANY0494

A print ad on polo shirts which are decorated with flags (I’ve just added the white arrows).

Interesting to note, though: you would probably never come across such a shirt with a German flag on it, unless it is a soccer shirt. That is, I also can’t imagine anyone wearing such a polo shirt.

There’s something wrong with this country since 1945 1919, I think.

ucheshi wa mtoto ni anga la nyumba

In a world where bad news are good news, it’s about time for some really good news that show us something else instead.

My sweet and beloved niece is celebrating her 2nd birthday today, and while she was busy unpacking all her many presents, I couldn’t help but thinking of those many kids that have to share their toys with others. As soon as my niece grows up, I will teach her the joy of sharing.

One of those places dominated by kids and lots of love is The Nest Home in Limuru, Kenya. The Nest Home is “a Project for the Rescue, Rehabilitation and Integration of Children in Conflict with the Law & Children of Imprisoned Mothers” and was founded some years ago with the help of many different people who all contributed to this worthy cause.
The children’s orphanage is located about 20 km outside of Nairobi and provides a loving home for those less fortunate, who’s parents are either in prison or dead.

Nest
screenshot of The Nest Home’s website

The fact that their website currently runs on my webspace actually prevented me from blogging on them for a long time, as I didn’t want to be biased on this. There are in fact many wonderful experiences I could put here, lots of joy I encountered while visiting the Nest last year. This is such a wonderful place!

As MB, who diligently maintains the website, already mentions on one of the pages: there are many ways YOU can actually help these kids!

On a very personal note, and why I decided to blog about this anyways:

  • fellow blogger AfroM recently informed me that she, Hash, Mental and others are having plans to visit The Nest soon – great! :-)
  • we’ve built this website (running on WP) not only to inform others on the project, but also to show the transparency of the project and that the persons in charge don’t “benefit” in any (financial) way as some sceptical pundits might assume for whatever reason or so…
  • i really appreciate the “ownership” from the Kenyan side, and how locals in Limuru have started to acknowledge the home being inside their community.
  • i recently read this note on the Cutting Edge @ the DN on fathers who want to do some DNA / paternity test to see who’s the real father of their children. now that’s so stupid! that’s exactly why some of these children have never seen their fathers. Being a father, I believe, isn’t about having a coherent DNA with your kid, but about giving it the love it needs. I actually changed my mind on adoption after visiting The Nest Home.
  • maintaining a website in at least two different languages isn’t easy, as some contributions come from countries like Germany where not everyone (especially the older generation) speaks English. The challenge is to include all audiences and showing them how their contributions are being used for the benefit of the children.
    I know many critics will mix up Charitable Trusts with overfunded NGOs, but I can assure you that The Nest Home has a remarkably low expenditure on overhead costs.

ditigal ist besser

The irony about browser compatibility issues, I think, isn’t about adjusting a template or css to fit each and every browser, but being forced to create rubbish code to please those freaks who coded the browsers in the first place.

I updated another blog based on wp late last night and encountered nothing else but trouble with the installed template and a very much annoyed content publisher. And this although I had diligently planed this update for 3 weeks and tested it on my own blog.

But what do you do when the majority of the site’s visitors still use MSIE 6.0 – which is known for various bugs? Tell them to switch browsers? Of course not.

In this case it’s also due to a rather old template which is still based on WP 1.5. However, most modern templates we’ve tested so far don’t provide the same simple layout characteristics we’ve appreciated about the old one.

In the end this whole internet thing is just a beautiful waste of time… :-)

Have a nice day, eh?

Wir sind hier nicht in Seattle, Dirk…

Manchmal frage ich mich, wieso Sven Regener von Element of Crime damals – wie so viele andere auch – nach Berlin zog.

Wenn es allein um die Unfreundlichkeit der Menschen in Norddeutschland ginge, müsste man schon viel weiter südwärts ziehen.
Alleine die Aussicht auf die nächsten Monate in Frankfurt/M ab Juni stimmen mich fröhlich und optimistisch, und der Ausländeranteil in der Stadt von ca. 28% (Quelle…äh?) und gefühlten 70% lässt auf mehr Freundlichkeit im täglichen Miteinander hoffen.

Unfreundlichkeit jedoch, so scheint es, ist gerade eine dieser Eigenarten der Norddeutschen, die primär auffällt und sich oft durch eine auf das Nötigste beschränkte Kommunikation verdeutlicht. Manchmal habe ich hier das Gefühl, den Leuten die Antworten aus der Nase ziehen zu müssen, obwohl diese aufgrund des Wetters wohl genauso verschlossen scheint wie der Mund.

Beispiele aus dem täglichen Leben gibt es einige, aber statt sie hier im Detail aufzuzählen, verweise ich lieber auf das geschätzte statement des Dudes: “These aggressions will not stand, maaaan…”.

Vor allem ist es mir immer wieder derbe peinlich*, wenn ich auf unfreundliche Verkäuferinnen treffe. Hierzulande wird man mit Sicherheit keinen “Dear Customer, we are here because of you”-Aufkleber finden, und irgendwie scheint scheint sich diese – durchaus antrainierbare – Freundlichkeit nur auf die WM letztes Jahr bezogen zu haben.

Es würde meiner Meinung nach so vieles ändern, wenn sich die Menschen einfach mal mit einem Lächeln im Alltag begegnen, auf der Straße auch Unbekannte grüßen (so wie mir Deine Mum das von Florida erzählt hat, Mathias!), Herzlichkeit zeigen und Verständnis füreinander aufbringen.

Die Schwierigkeit besteht dann darin, sich von dieser Unart nicht unterkriegen zu lassen.

(* Wenn man jahrelang im außereuropäischen Ausland für Deutschland als Kulturvermittler tätig ist und mit dem Land in Verbindung gebracht wird, dann schämt man sich ob dieser Haltung im Inland oft.)

mircoSonicPower

There this particular friend of mine who just loves brushing her teeth. It’s an irony that she only recently received an electronic toothbrush from me when I left my battery powered Braun Oral-B Advance Power 400 with her.

The battery powered solution of course isn’t that environmentally friendly, but it is very convenient when you don’t want to carry the charger with you & with decent batteries and exchangeable brushheads, it does make sense to buy one of these.

And then I came across this battery powered one-way solution today…

tootbrush

..the “Colgate 360° microSonic POWER” one way toothbrush, which comes with an AAA battery and tongue-cleaner on the backside for “just” EUR 5,99.

Ok ok, I *had* to buy it because of reverse engineering reasons (i love this excuse :-), but one-way solutions like this one just make me feel sick. I bet there are quite a few users who would just even dispose this toothbrush after use with the battery included.

Batteries ARE a hazardous substance and must never be part of the domestic waste!