Month: June 2007

random thoughts on a furahiday evening

It’s furahiday evening, I’ve just returned home and found some nice items in my snail mail. Things that brought a smile on my face.

pons

A dictionary on words as used by the German youth. With some equivalent translations for French, English and Spanish on each entry.

Ok ok ok, the other day I already asked for comments on some of these colloquial words as used in today’s German, but this booklet actually is a bit strange. Nevertheless, if you ever wondered about the real meaning of Gazellenfraktion, Bitchburner, Hülsenfrucht or Wurstmensch – this booklet might help.
Thx, Annette! :-)

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SANY0640

“Ukweli – the truth” by Anna Mwalagho

Irene forwarded this CD to me and I still need to listen into it (I’ve just unpacked it – is this some sort of poetry made for the US market? lemme check..).
THANK YOU, Irene! :-)

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Speaking of music, I currently enjoy listening to the audio stream of Radio Okapi. Soukous, baby!

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Attended another blogger meeting late last night right here in Frankfurt. After enjoying a few beers with my jamaas in the Kenyan blogosphere some time ago, I thought about trying to explore the scene over here in Frankfurt, and it turned out to be really nice!
Fellow blogger Silke organized the event, and next to my new colleague Christian, I also had some nice conversations with Robert, Henning and Arno. There’s a webmonday coming up this next monday, and I am already considering going there. The beauty of such events is that you are actually talking to folks who read the same blogs (at least those from within the German blogosphere which is btw still very limited) and who are showing some interest in the international scene. The German section of GlobalVoices, for instance, is still very deserted, but as much as I like bridge-blogging, I currently don’t have the energy to cover the German blogosphere. Also, blog posts such as this one here clearly show that I am more interested in contributing my own content instead of just reposting another youtube video that seems to be cool or writing a summary/round-up on the important stuff that has been going on (another point is that I do not consider my English good enough for GV, but that’s another story..).

8 years ago, my bro KPT, Tammo and I went to a big VC guy right here in Frankfurt where we presented our (still cool) idea for an online application which was based on the wireless application protocol. This VC guy carefully listened to our idea and then ripped us apart, but also gave us some valuable feedback on how to improve that idea.
Later on, as everyone else had different careers going on, the project stalled, but this experience is still very vivid in our memory, and last evening, while talking to Burkhard who also works as a VC, I was reminded of this event. This particular VC guy from 1999 actually quit his job soon after the dot-com bubble bursted and is reported to be working as a salesman for prefabricated houses nowadays. LOL!

Vielen Dank für den sehr netten und interessanten Abend, liebe Rhein-Main pl0gger :-)

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SANY0644

To Braun, or to Philips: that is the question…every serious man will ask himself one time in his life. I know my bro-in-law actually only uses a wet shaving technique, but I prefer an errectricooor shavaaa.
So I am in the lucky state of owning both systems, and while I’ve been a die-hard user of the typical Braun shaver system (as pictured on the left) with this very Shave 1.0 blade in the past, I am currently trying to see if I shouldn’t use the Philips three-bladed approach instead.

So, dear comrades, what kind of shaving system are you using? And beware, I already tried the alternative one day, which left some little spots on my face the above mentioned dictionary would describe as “ant titts”. There you go…

visual tagging

I recently uploaded this pic on my flickr account:?

streetart ffm

Streetart, a normal graffiti in a metro station in downtown Frankfurt. Nothing special.

Upon seeing this same figure somewhere else in Frankfurt, I realized once again that this graffiti also perfectly illustrates what maybe someone like David Weinberger tried to explain in his recent book “Everything is Miscellaneous” (see TBG Ethan’s post on this):

Suppose I would like to know more, find out the name of the artist who made this graffiti, know more about the origin of this figure, get some insight into the not-so-obvious context it comes with. Maybe this graffiti is part of some streetart project, something similar to Banksy‘s famous projects? Well, is it?

Unless of course I blog on it or upload it to a photo community like Flickr, adding tags and give it some reference/context, this pic and the information given on it is just a bunch of binary data. But how do you tag this pic if you don’t know anything about it?

What about an image search? Something like Google’s image search doesn’t work this way. You will always need to type in words that describe this picture. Keywords, further information, something that makes this identifiable among the huge repository of other pictures.

Next thing I’ll have to add to this blog is the tagging of my articles? (yeah, I know…), even tried doing so some time ago but then forgot about it as other things came up that seemed to be more important. However, tagging makes sense. Most of the targeted informations I am obtaining through the internet these days are found by using tags. Social bookmarking websites are the best thing introduced on the net since the introduction of instant messenger services during the late 1990s.

Coming back to the tagging of visual informations: given the fact that most of my friends have an eye memory where they remember things visually, I am wondering if there are any services / algorithms so far that help to make use of this visual approach instead of using words/tags only (?).

datasheets 2.0?

Is there any software solution available that generates datasheets (e.g. in PDF format) out of a database content within a given style template?

Or should this be realized by web technologies such as a CMS + database + CSS templates with the already given “save this page as PDF”-button?

I am asking because currently, ppl here? are compiling? technical datasheets in a three column MS Word document (with some sample pictures), exporting it into PDF with a proprietary PDF tool by Adobe (which of course isnt installed on all computers but instead only on one machine? due to licence costs…) and then have to beg the corporate webmaster to include the file into the weekly uploading batch.

Any hints are much appreciated. Thx!

anglo- & francosphere?

We’ve been talking about this some time ago over at Hash’ website: the unknown? potential that gets lost while ppl are busy developing (double) content for something I would like to describe as the anglosphere and the francosphere.? Two worlds that co-exist and? ? generate their own dynamics.

Is it so?

And if so, will there be any attempts within the blogosphere (at least) to unite these two worlds separated by language barriers?

I don’t know how they solve it in West Africa (comments plz), but when I look at Europe alone at this given moment – Germany, France, England – although neighbouring countries and empires for ages, the language barrier still exists. Especially when it comes to the folks on the ground – bloggers, for instance. How many bloggers in Germany or the UK actually read french blogs? Yes?

And given my assumptions are true, what do you – dear readers – think? Should there be any umoja-styled website for “all Africans”? Not because of any false & ancient? “Africa is a nice country”-perspective, but because of the missing potential that gets lost whenever smart brains contribute similar content in their own languages.

professionaaaal titooools

So I caught myself updating my profiles on xing.com and linkedin.com (isn’t that enough already? facebook, twitter & co for private stuff, xing & linkedin for the pro section?) and realized that I actually can’t think of any professional title, something like an instant keyword that describes my job.

Well, which job? My rummaging here, here, here, here and here?

And what do I put there?

a) what I learned? (~industrial manager, oil business)

b) what I studied? (~ environmental & civil engineering, with an emphasis on sustainable waste (water) management & eco-efficient product design)

c) what I’ve been employed for in the past? (~ list too long)

d) what I actually did ? (~ office “best boy”)

e) what I consider myself? (~ imagineering dude)

f) my current job description? (~ intern)

g) what I am currently doing? (~ editing technical datasheets & setting up a CMS)

h) ……?

As for those social network platforms online, I’ve started? mentioning my own (imaginary) company called Kikuyumoja Inc.. Job description: “optimizing idle time”. The dude abides…

AOB: thx GoogleAdSense for adsensing my blog with “composting toilets” and “biological dry toilets”!