Chiperoni ku Basel

Blog

  • Sunrise in November



    Same place, same time, different season.

  • Malawi bloggers on Madonna

    My Google alert for news on Malawi has never had so many US and European articles as in the past months. All because of Madonna. Topics such as the last General Elections or bad harvests – which have a much bigger impact – were only covered by the usual outlets (BBC World, CNN). I remember searching Malawi forums for news on the election results.

    A friend asked how Malawians see Madonna’s recent adoption of a Malawian baby boy. I haven’t heard much. Cos I’m here in Basel. But here’s a summary of Malawi bloggers that referred to the celebrity news:

    • Mike of Hacktivate built the Kumbali Lodge website, where Madonna stayed 😉
    • Alex of Lix.cc posted this excellent caricature of NGOs and their reaction (rough translation: the child needs to return, is that understood?). He helped to keep us informed during the last General Elections by setting up a web server at the Polytechnic and posting news and comments at frequent intervals.
    • and Soyapi uses the Madonna news item to point to Malawian software that you can also “adopt”.

    I guess, there’s more out there. And more to come when Madonna goes back. I hope, she’s not in it for the PR only. In my humble opinion being adopted by a rich celebrity doesn’t really mean you’ll have a better life.

    But even for Malawi, you can say that blogging technology has made it simpler to read personal thoughts and reports on news items.

    Feel free to leave a comment.

    BTW, this blog post was again inspired by fresh air.

  • today’s WikiHow

    Google’s WikiHow suggestions continue to be a great source of entertainment. Today’s link gives advice:
    How to Be Thankful

  • constraint-driven creativity

    inspiring:
    Kathy on not waiting for the muse

  • MT vs WordPress

    text snippet:
    WordPress has done a far better job of growing their community

    I agree

  • The Weekend Post

    Do you write imaginary blog posts while doing other things? I do. For example, I’m always writing blog posts while I’m jogging. Pumping fresh air around my system inspires the blogger within. BTW, I’m also writing virtual novels and software reference guides 😉

    I just went for a short, slow jog around the block and wrote a virtual post on the movie I saw yesterday.

    Un Franco 14 Pesetas

    The film is about the film director’s parents that moved to Switzerland for work reasons in the 1960s. They enjoy living and working in Switzerland and actually find returning to Spain a lot more difficult than they imagined.

    I felt the topic was really interesting, but the screenplay was weak and lacked depth. At times the film was too slow. And there are no surprises.

    I’m afraid, the virtual blog post was better…

    Next film to watch is Il Caimano or maybe Das Fräulein.

  • more wall tiles



  • OpenBC IPO

    just stumbled across this news item at GigaOM:
    First Web 2.0 IPO, Xing?

    Does anyone have more details?

  • TL;DR

    I can confirm this. If you want to hide something, hide it in a long text.

  • Event Calendar Plugin

    WordPress plugin du jour – for future reference:

    Event Calendar Version 3.1.0

    P.S. Has anyone tried it out yet? Is it better than integrating Google Calendar?

  • Jeff Wall interpretation (kind of)



    This Lisbon street scene reminded me of the Jeff Wall show I saw at the Schaulager some time ago…
    http://www.schaulager.org/de/popup.php?pfad=archiv/jeff_wall/intro

    Only that in my case it’s a snapshot…. instead of a careful composition.

  • How to start a presentation, book, or article

    for future reference:

    Creating Passionate Users: Better Beginnings: how to start a presentation, book, article…

  • Wall tiles in Lisbon



  • Ekiden Marathon in Basel

    Tomorrow in Riehen/Basel:

    Ekiden-Marathon

    I’m a substitute for one of the Lauftreff teams. For the 4.9 km distance. My very first race.

    See also this Wikipedia article on Ekiden races

  • Mau tempo

    Just got back from a beautiful, long weekend in Lisbon. It was great. Fairly warm. Although everybody was talking about “mau tempo”. It rained a lot on Sunday, but no problem for this northern light: I had all of my rain gear with me. Plus this kind of weather was great for a city trip. I spent a lot of time walking around with my gadget arm in click-ready mode. I’ll post one or two pics in the next couple of days.

  • tired

    i am tired… too tired to write an entry.

  • get moving

    I agree with this gapingvoid post:

    “So forget about blogs and bloggers and blogging and focus on this — the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower. And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast.”

    Publishing has just gotten faster, delete all the buzz words, and ignore the same old blogging discussions, and get moving…

  • GooTube

    Om Malik was wrong and the rumors were right:
    Google purchases Youtube for 1.65 bn $.

    Somehow I felt Google wouldn’t be put off by the copyright nightmare.

    What’s next?

    P.S. GooTube is already taken.

  • Pixels to Print

    useful:
    Megapixels Chart – although sizes in cm and DIN would be more helpful for Europe.

  • in between



    The weather turned out much better than forecast. I took this snapshot while sitting in the sun at Barfüsserplatz.

  • pêle-mêle

    It’s been a while since I’ve written anything personal in my blog. Mostly because this isn’t a confessional blog. A couple of weeks ago I read thu all entries here at chiperoni.ch. And I like the nice side-effect that I can hold onto a fleeting moment by documenting it in words (even if it’s just a link to the plug-in du jour). Time is flying so fast. And we need to spend our time savouring the moment.

    Usually I just skim thru the weekly Duden email newsletter. Not today. Here’s a quote from today’s newsletter regarding the spelling of foreign (usually English) loan words in German:

    Neue Rechtschreibung 2006 – Zusammengesetzte Fremdwörter

    Zusammengesetzte Fremdwörter werden zusammengeschrieben. Besteht die Zusammensetzung aus Substantiven, kann zur besseren Lesbarkeit ein Bindestrich gesetzt werden:
    – Desktoppublishing (auch: Desktop-Publishing)
    – Airconditioning (auch: Air-Conditioning)
    – Sciencefiction (auch: Science Fiction)
    – Midlifecrisis (auch: Midlife-Crisis)

    Ist der erste Bestandteil ein Adjektiv, kann zusammengeschrieben werden, wenn die gemeinsame Hauptbetonung auf dem ersten Bestandteil liegt. Andernfalls gilt nur Getrenntschreibung:
    – Longdrink oder Long Drink
    – Hotspot oder Hot Spot
    – Aber nur: High Fidelity, Electronic Commerce, Top Ten

    Bei Substantivierungen aus dem Englischen, die auf eine Verbindung aus Verb und Partikel (Adverb) zurückgehen, setzt man gewöhnlich einen Bindestrich; daneben ist auch Zusammenschreibung möglich:
    – Black-out (auch: Blackout)
    – Count-down (auch: Countdown)
    – Kick-off (auch: Kickoff)

    Weird. Anyway, who cares about spelling on a Friday evening…

    A couple of links that crossed my paths this week:

    Buon weekend.

  • meteo update

    it’s official: September 2006 was (a lot) warmer than August 2006.
    For the full comparison see:
    SF METEO

  • morning sky



    taken yesterday morning on my way to work.

  • Weekend break

    I’m going to Lisbon for a long weekend. Can anyone recommend a hotel, or bed and breakfast, or “clean and tidy” youth hostel somewhere in the downtown area? Things to do?

    Wikitravel on Lisbon

  • How to Make SIM Card Earrings – WikiHow

    My personalized Google start page includes random links from wikiHOW. Some are hilarious and make me lol.

    Today’s suggestion:
    How to Make SIM Card Earrings