Heute an der Tür…

tuer.jpg

Da wir hier immer wieder von parasitären GEZ Laufburschen heimgesucht werden, die für dieses öffentlich-rechtliche Inkassobüro Adressen eintreiben und die GEZ ihrerseits lieber jedes Jahr aufs Neue ihre Runden dreht, statt mal gewissenhaft ihre Adressdatenbank zu pflegen, habe ich vor einiger Zeit dieses wunderschöne Bild von nichtlustig.de (THX!) ausgedruckt und an die Wohnungstür gehängt (da hängt noch mehr :-).

Eben hat es wieder geklingelt und vor der Tür standen zwei schmierige Typen in Anzügen. Kaum war die Tür auf, kam schon ein dämlicher Spruch von einem der beiden von wegen "hööö…ich nehm das da" – und zeigte auf eines der Cartoons an der Tür. Ich schaute ihn daraufhin kurz an und schloss wortlos und mich fragend die Tür.
Später stellte sich dann im Gespräch mit anderen Hausbewohnern heraus, dass es sich dieses Mal nicht um die GEZ, sondern um irgendwelche Telefonfuzzis handelte, die ganz tolle Tarife aufschwatzen wollten….

Kommunikationsfähigkeit

>> Das Y-Chromosom ist ein Geschlechtschromosom, das nur bei Männern zu finden ist. Es ist deutlich kleiner als das X-Chromosom und kann lediglich auf fünf Prozent seiner Länge mit dem X-Chromosom kommunizieren. Aufgrund der mangelnden Kommunikationsfähigkeit verändert es sich über die Zeit nur gering, während X-Chromosomen eifrig genetische Informationen austauschen.<<

Was genau will mir der Spiegel hier mitteilen? Dass es einen genetischen Grund für mangelndes Verständnis zwischen Frauen (X) und Männern (Y) geben soll? ;-)

QRV de 5Z4

…CQ CQ CQ ….CBS 104.5 FM de 5Z4 is on air! CQ CQ CQ….

>>One afternoon, as he was a repairing his father’s pocket radio, he thought about setting up a small station to play music and entertain his friends. …After while, he was able to create a transmitter using capacitors, resistors, diodes and a host of wires removed from damaged electronics. He then improvised two old record player casings to come up with a mixer. He used an iron plate, a frying pan and a metal rod to make a booster, which he hang on a tree in the compound….He had achieved all this without any formal study of electronics…
CBS FM operates just like any other station with a dawn-to-midnight schedule. With the help of four other volunteers, Otieno and co-presenter Joseph Odhiambo, 21, ensure the station operates non-stop. The five include a reporter who gathers local news for broadcast.
Transmission begins at 5am with Gospel Tunes, a music programme that runs runs up to 6am. The first news bulletin at 7am mainly covers happenings in Oboch and surrounding villages….And just like other FM stations in the country, CBS FM has phone-in sessions, when listeners can phone and request for their favourite songs or contribute to debates moderated by the two.<<

Hongera! True ham spirit is still alive in EAK :-)
Now, doesn’t this initiative deserve some support from the CCK & The Amateur Radio Society of Kenya (ARSK)?

sitini na mbili thelathini

What is this?

nokiacam.jpg

It’s the built-in 640×480 (VGA) digicam of my Nokia 6230 mobile phone.
And?

Problem…. I got a short message on my mobile phone and realized that the vibrating motor inside didn’t work. Of course I checked the settings, switched it off and even removed the battery for a cold start. Still not working. Ayaaaa!
I got this phone a year ago and since then I always refrained from opening it further because, well, because it somehow (!) worked. Of course the internal firmware (v05.24) still has some bugs and I already had it flashed with a new firmware some time ago (I used to do this myself on those earlier DCT-3 models and even some earlier DCT-4 phones (Nokia 51xx, 61xx, 62xx, 71xx, 83xx) but those series-40 & series-60 phones require better hardware equipment for flashing the phone’s firmware and it just doesn’t make sense to buy such a machine if a) i am just doing this as a hobby & b) Nokia officially doesn’t like any firmware changes on the user side – not so Siemens, btw). However, this thing was LONGING for a small exploration of its circuits. It silently whispered into my ears: Kiku, tafadhali, saidia mimi…. OH my dear, help is on its way!
I pulled out my TORX6 screwdriver and removed those six screws…..Jeeeeeeeeeesssaaaaas! Nokia engineers – KUDOS to you folks over in that Sauna country – remember those early Nokia phones? YOU’VE COME A LOOOONG WAY and – apart from this firmware business and "occasional" software resets while typing an important SMS – the PCB layout is just awesome. For instance, those internal RF parts are normally sealed with a little metal cover which requires some patience to be opened. Alas, with this phone though, the cover itself is right under the keypad – which means that you don’t have to squeeze or pull anything open when you are trying to dismantle the phone – it just unfolds by itself! Perfect. What’s the biggest part in a phone? The battery..

nokiaopen.jpg

So I opened it up, cleaned the vibrating motor and corrected some elec. contacts. Curriosity of course hooked me and I consequently removed the digicam of its socket… BAD IDEA … when I tried to put it back, this thing in my head called intelligence somehow went on a little vacation (presumably because of thinking about Mbuzimoja :-) and I inserted it in the wrong way. Well, it looked as if it was okay though – but still, you can even spot the problem in the above picture – those little noses don’t correspond to the metal frame around it. Dumb. Just dumb.
Of course I only realized that once I had everything back in place, so that thing had to be reopened and blablabla…. talking ’bout Murphy’s Law, eh?

The benefits of this little exploration, though: a) a nice view on good NOKIA engineering and b) SPEED! Upon switching it on again, this thing runs much faster now. What is it? I mean, wth? is the connection between the firmware, the acceptance of buggy MMC-flash-card-controllers and a normal hardware cleanup?

Technology sometimes gives me a lot to think about.

tool time at the crack of dawn

shirt_front_kl.jpg

Is there anything on the internet that really generates traffic? Especially for weblogs? Ndiyo. Nerd-content and that msn-search-nini I talked about the other day. Huuu….embarrassing.

Whatever.

There’s this jamaaa who lives in St.Petersburg, FL, USA and who’s been schooling with me in NBO. He moved there the other day becos he got a decent job offer and apparently couldn’t stand the rainy weather over here. I think by that time no one had told him about hurricanes (hurry – cane = hakora haraka? :-) – those not-so-occasional diarrheas by the Mungus of water. Ati bwana, wot exactly are u doing there?  Ama should I come ova  and teach u some manners? Ah…ntz….tz… Kwani?

Because of this:
shirt_back_kl.JPG
(..those leafes weren’t included..)

Ati? I really really appreciate this, lieber Mathias, but honestly – would YOU wear this when your gf is around? Wot? She’s the one who picked it out? (yes, I AM AFRAID of wearing this in public :-)

…

I like that tool bag, though. Nice one! :-)

On a more serious note: calling either a fixed line or mobile number in the US from Germany costs around 0,016 EUR (1,59 cents!)/minute. Calling a german mobile number from within Germany costs at least 0,22 EUR (22 cents!). Something is SO wrong with this country (and I haven’t even mentioned the costs of sending short messages…).

blog with flock

"We love Flock as much as you do (maybe more), so we’ve decided to make free WordPress.com blogs available to Flock users…"

Hehe….inspired by Ory’s latest posts from Poptech, I just had to check out Flock (these guys even have funny pics on Flickr – well, the usual start up stuff – as featured on BoingBoing et al the other day) and it’s just NICE! Flock is a new browser, similar to Firefox. The difference is that Flock make use of Web 2.0 stuff like tags, blogs and shared favourites as seen on del.icio.us. Of course I don’t want to share ALL my favourites/bookmarks with you out there – BUT!, it’s just a neat all-in-one tool for all those Web 2.0 related goodies like Flickr & Co.

So why would you want to use it?

Simple. It’s a new browser and new stuff is always cool. LOL….that of course isn’t the only reason. I don’t know how long this hype around Flock will actually prevail, but what I do think is that it might take a full browser to help other browsers like FF, Opera or even MSIE get goin’ and eventually realize what users will need in the end. I am dreaming of a browser that works as the basis for all (a.k.a. reference for webdesigners) and still gives us the chance to make proper use of extensions as in FF & Co.

In any case – I am still thinking about this FabLab nini… (thx, Ory!)