Chiperoni ku Basel

Year: 2011

  • There are always two sides

    Just started a Twitter storm with the extraordinary mllea following my tweet yesterday evening to investigate all PhDs with the same scrutiny and dedication that Mr. zu Guttenberg has been subjected to:

    Fullscreen capture 322011 92304 PM.bmp

    I don’t support zu Guttenberg and I think what he did is simply wrong. But there is another aspect in this story that is being wholly ignored: the role of the German uni system and the blatant incompetence of many, many professors and researchers to communicate “wissenschaftliches Arbeiten”.

    My MBA law professor said:
    “A pancake can never be so thin, that it doesn´t have 2 sides to it”

    So before you condemn, please consider the other side. An underfunded, outdated university setup with many faculty members that have little to no didactic training/skills and low motivation.

    Coming from Malawi where education and the teaching profession is highly regarded, I was shocked.

    And compared to my recent MBA experience at a US state university, there is a world of difference.

    Coincidently another friend commented on my tweet saying: if you check them, the Bundestag will be empty.

    In the end I managed to get thru my German university because there are dedicated, thoughtful professors that care. And I would always hire somebody with a Magister in Humanities from a German university because I know they are self-starters with excellent research skills that don’t give up easily. It is a good learning experience.

  • Bicycle parking gadget

    If the bicycle parking area is too large, people will forget where they left their bike.

    veloparking basel

    Like at the Velo Parking at Basel SBB.

    This evening a young woman was looking for her bicycle. A couple of days ago a young man was wandering up and down the aisles in search of his bike.

    And the same has happened to me as well. I was extremely tired and couldn’t remember in which aisle I had left my bike.

    In almost all cases, people grab their cell phone and call someone.

    Wouldn’t it be cool if you could call your bike and it would identify itself by ringing out loud or flashing a light?

    Which reminds me of another cool presentation I saw at Lift 11:

    The web of things

  • Revolutionary times

    Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Iran…

    I read a quote to the effect that the technology invented 10 years ago, will change society profoundly in the next 10 years.

    I wonder about the progress that could be achieved if a developing country would provide free and open access to the Internet and computers for its entire population over a long period of time.

    Meanwhile Germany is discussing the PhD thesis paper of the Minister of Defence and the missing references. In my humble opinion, the university professors are to blame as well. Why accept a thesis paper or dissertation if it doesn’t cite sources correctly? I am missing this aspect in all of the discussions. If this is your area of research, you’ll be familiar with the various sources and recognize copycats. Right?

    And I stumbled across this article on information overload.

  • Rain

    It rained today. The first time in weeks. I can’t remember if it rained in January.
    The air was so fresh and clean this evening. Beautiful.

    Alles wird gut.

  • I was here

    I went photowalking yesterday afternoon

    wir waren hier

  • Lapsus

    I went to see Lapsus at the Tabourettli in Basel last night.

    Very funny.

  • Lift11 in Geneva

    I am back from Lift11. This time I took part as a volunteer. I was a runner, helping out with errands, bringing things from A to B, and general troubleshooting.

    I like the idea of giving back.

    Again the mix of topics and people at Lift was inspiring.

    All of the videos are online:
    http://www.livestream.com/liftconference/folder

    Some highlights:

    Social Capital – Brian Solis suggested scenarios where we are/will be assessed according to our online reputation or digital credit rating. Scary.

    Tiffany St. James provided a practical guide to online communities.

    Hasan Elahi explained how he used his calendar, photos and full transparency to escape from the US suspected terrorist list. He has turned his digital tracks for the FBI into an awesome “Document your life” art project.

    I really liked Etienne Mineur’s presentation about a book that wanted to be a video game.

    Downtime at Lift11:
    The wifi went down on Thursday as Lifters connected to the Internet all at the same time, with numerous devices. 2 to 3 IP addresses per person. I left the charger for my cell phone at home. My Blackberry to keep in touch with my work emails would not recharge despite having the correct charger with me. And I managed to forget my PIN number for my data sim card. And I forgot to take my digi cam.

    Things I had forgotten about Geneva:
    Shops close early – only open on Thursdays until 8pm.

    Customer service is (still) an unknown concept in some places. At the counter of a cafe, the sales person insisted on selling the coffee pour emporter cos the coffee place was closing soon. It was 20:10 and the place was closing at 21:00.

  • Google on content scraping

    Good news for bloggers! That is – for bloggers that write their own posts rather than copying blog posts and entire blogs.

    Matt Cutts writes about upcoming changes that will benefit original content:
    http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/algorithm-change-launched/

    Via a retweet by Handmade2.0

  • How to pronounce “zwäg” in Swiss German?

    I found this site on pronounciation.

    zwäg

    The Internet is amazing…

  • Global haircuts

    I pay 45 CHF (approx 45 US$) for a haircut in Basel, Switzerland. Nothing special. Just washing and a haircut.

    I paid 1650 Malawi Kwacha (approx 10 US$) for a haircut in Blantyre, Malawi.

    I paid the equivalent of 4 US$ for a haircut in Shanghai, PRC.

    Just saying.

  • Chip… chip… chiperoni

    Another way to read Chiperoni.ch:
    Google Reader Play

  • Lift 2011 discount

    As a Lift 2011 volunteer, I have a promo code for a 25 % discount to give away.

    Please leave a comment below if you are interested 🙂

  • Back from Blantyre

    I am back from BT. I spent two and a half weeks in Malawi’s biggest city.

    I started off in snowy Zurich with some delay. There was a long and slow queue of aircrafts waiting for de-icing. The transparent and open explanations by the Lufthansa captain, at the beginning and throughout the delay, were great – a lesson in communications. In Munich the entire airport was in quiet mode due to Christmas Eve celebrations. After another de-icing session, the plane took off for Joburg. I sat next to a young South African student who is studying medicine in Warsaw. Made for an interesting conversation. After a smooth flight, I learned that my flight to Blantyre was already boarding. No time to stock up on books and magazines at my favourite airport book store. I was the second last person to board the plane. And the first to go through customs at Chileka airport, cos my bag was the first on the conveyor belt.

    Driving towards Blantyre on Chileka Road, my eyes rested on the familiar mountain outlines of Ndirande and Michiru. It has been raining regularly and everything is green.

    In the afternoon on Christmas Day, I took part in a Christmas carol service at Chombo Children’s Home in Chirimba. Afterwards my mom presented gifts to the 47 children that live at Chombo. This year all children received a school bag filled with books and sweets.

    BTW, I have become the unofficial official photographer of Chombo. Snapshots from my previous visits are available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/chombo-mission/sets/.
    I spent the next couple of weeks shopping for Chombo, driving sick children to hospital, helping out with simple admin tasks.

    I persuaded my mom to try a TNM USB mobile internet modem, since her current email via telephone dial-up is unreliable and slow. Downloading 451 kB takes over 8 minutes:

    28,8 kBits/s

    schnell-download
    waiting for 451 KB to download…

    And many of her European and American and South African contacts don’t reduce the size of their attachments, sending their photos in original size. Because we have fast flat rates. Internet is ubiquitous.

    Please consider my previous blog post on re-sizing images. Many people in Malawi pay lots of US$ for every kilobyte and megabyte they receive. Many connect to the Internet via their smartphone.

    Or don’t have any connection for days.

    By chance I read Vincent Kumwenda’s “Letter to the Editor” in The Nation:

    @kristungati on Airtel's network failure in Muloza

    I wonder how much the re-branding from Celtel to Zain to Airtel has cost / will cost.

    airtel

    I managed to read three novels. And I enjoyed listening to BBC radio. One particular interview with the actor Michael Caine impressed me. Caine described how many fellow actors tried to discourage him, how he was physically sick before going out on stage, and how he met his wife. He referred to a Winston Churchhill quote:

    If you are going through hell, keep going.

    I need to add BBC to my podcast lists.

    My dad has two young mischief puppy dogs that love to play and chew and jump.

    the puppies

    The flight back was uneventful. I sat next to a lady from Oslo that had visited Plan projects in Zimbabwe. She was quite impressed and thinks Zimbabwe will mend fast.

    My contributions to the Chichewa group on Flickr.

    My contributions to the Malawi group on Flickr.