after seeing this bike at the velo züri last weekend, i just cannot seem to get the idea to buy a bike like this out of my head.

after some googling i found this shop from the netherlands which carries those bikes (funny URL by the way…) and some really cool other ones.
now i know that kona produces that extremely cool looking bike.

so the question is, should i get one? or should i see if i can get an ever more radical looking chopper from NWCB?

oh, if you’re into these things, you should give bikehotrod.uk a visit! and if you don’t mind to see a chicks bare butt, you should absolutely check out this page here, what an amazing bikeframe!

today we had kind of a family reunion. it was my cousins birthday and she invited all of us for a brunch at her and her boyfriends house. not only was the weather most beautiful, but the whole was also quite funny and nice.
instead of mailing around all the pics i made today i put them online in the pictures section. –> clicketyhere!

this survey by the auntie’s science department is really interesting.
take it to the end and see how you score with your disgust threshold against other people or the prediction of the science-team. the whole survey took me less than 4 minutes to fill out and in the end the results and descriptions of ’em are really interesting. well worth those minutes!

[via boingboing]

tired of having a dimpled and bruised banana?
then you need this piece of fine craftsmanship, the bananaguard!
i have to say that the bananaguard order page reminds me of other things, but that’s a) another story and b) up to your imagination…

[via gizmodo]

reading one of the latest editions of the weltwoche i stumbled over that funny little story.
gorge dubya bush was holding a 45 min speech in orlando, florida. tyler crotty, some teenager, stood behind the big silly man and had to listen to him for the whole time. he couldn’t help yawning, looking at his watch and twisting his head a bit to relieve the absolute boredom he encountered.
you have to watch the video to see how funny that is.
here’s the link to a video of the best moments as a real-player file. if you don’t have installed the real-player, then you can still check out the story on local6-news or take a look at a slideshow of the best moments.
hilarious!

while having a look at my referrers something struck me.
besides all the ubiquitous pr0n-links i get a big bunch of hits from google and a massive hit from other blogrolls (many users of bloglines and postami and alike). hey, even the fscklog links to me in his/her blogroll (as seen on the left).
the thing that struck me is – as arni described it in one of his last posts – that, because i share a big piece of my life on the net with a growing bunch of people i do not know and i’ve never met, all the people who google me find out pretty much anything about me (at least the things i share) it’s like one big massive cv that builds up. arni described that perfectly. sometimes in the future there’s no need to include references in your cv, because the person offering you a job will google your name and find out everything he or she needs to know.
example? search for “cost + HO:YAG laser” and google.nl presents you my thesis, e.g. i did something with lasers in my past
search for “joya rennt trailer“, here i am again, e.g. i am somehow connected to that tv-series.
i could go on and list all the referrers from google, but the point i wanted to make (to those who don’t read arnis blog) is, that pretty much everything i (or any other person) posts/comments or leaves ont the net is gonna be history from the point on it’s there. and most probably, it’s gonna stay, too. this means: do what you want on the net, but do it responsibly, because it’s there and it will be there. treat other people like you want to be treated, and stay true to yourself, because you wouldn’t want your future boss or future business-partner or whatever find out that you acted like a complete asshole years ago. because he will be able to find out if he wants to.
time to go and cook (so my future boss, i like to cook :-).
nightynight!

i just nearly broke my neck.
when i sat on my panton chair (a verner panton original from 1972) it cracked half through and now looks like this:

the saddest part is, that the chair was a birthday present from my parents and is the most expensive piece of furniture i own (besides my selfmade sideboard/shelf which you can see in the background of the pictures).
now i have to decide if i want to shell out big cash to get a new old panton chair from el trapero or a new new cheaper chair from vitra. if you’ve been at the expo in neuchatel you know them, a horrible tupperware-like polypropylene, not the heavy haptically interesting polyurethane.
guess who is soon paying an unreasonable high amount of cash for a simple chair :-)

team laser explosions newest adventure is online. they saved the world. sad, but true, there was no pie in weebl and bob’s newest adventure, but the laser pelvis attack is nearly as good. :-)

[via weebls newsletter]

instead of reading way too much rss-feeds and stuff on tha intaweb i instead watched the fly (the 1986 version, not the original or the upcoming remake).
not that it was a really good movie, but as an example of eighties trick-technique and scientific imagination and computer-trickery it was really enjoyable.
in the end it means that i now only have about 47 unwatched dvds in my treasure chest in the living room.
and to finish a busy day i’ll now make an onion-packing to relieve my aching neck. i woke up with a really stiff neck last monday morning and it still doesn’t feel better so nina suggested this remedy… (she’s studying pharmaceutics, so actually onion-packings are not her thing, she’s a bit more on the chemical side :-)

i’ve always wanted to get a bluetooth headset for my mobile (not that i needed it, but as a tech-addict you can’t argue with that :-) but thought that they’re far too clumsy to actually use them.
but today i saw the nextlink bluespoon 5g headset which is far from clumsy. it looks like you have to pay attention not to loose it in your pockets. you should especially check out this picture from the gallery to see how tiny it is.
sadly it’s only a prototype for now, nextlinks page does not advertise is anywhere…

[via mobile.burn]

too bad i cannot add this to my amazon wishlist!
as an avid swimmer i’d love to have an endless pool in my basement or so. at least they send out a free video, so i can dream on a bit :)

oh, and by the way, i wish you all a happy easter, i’ll be away skiing until monday or tuesday.
i’m visiting a friend (scroll down to see mara bucko) of mine in austria.
i hope to rent one or two good skis, and maybe return with a new snow-weapon.

yesterday evening i went to see tim burtons latest movie: big fish. if you haven’t seen it, go and see it instantly, it’s such a heartwarming and poetic movie. i hardly couldn’t help crying out loud in the cinema, because the end is so sad and so happy in the same time.

one of the best movies i’ve seen in a long time!

those of you of which english is not your maternal language have probably used a bunch of translation services on the net or use a dictionary from time to time to look up unknown words.

my preferred way of looking up a translation of an english word was to use the excellent dict.leo.org. ages ago i fired up my browser, typed the address in, waited, put the word to be translated in the box, clicked enter and then got the translation. soon i made myself a little bookmarklet in safari (adapted from a hint on osxhints.com) and didn’t need to put in the address myself:

javascript:x=escape(getSelection());if(!x)%7Bvoid(x=prompt(‘Word?’,”))%7D;window.location=’http://dict.leo.org/?search=’+x

but since i’ve read that post on fscklog i don’t even need to switch my browser, i just hit command+shift+F in any application, then dilo fires up and looks up the word, be it either english or german. wonderful!
and the best thing is, that the software is a mere 156kb big. i thought i’d never seen anything like that off my trusty palm.

the second software i installed in the last few days is quicksilver (the new gunslinger, i just love that quote!).
i’ve never got the hang of launchbar et.al. although a lot of people praise that kind of software to high heavens. but some days ago i stumbled over this post on mactechnews.de praising quicksilver as the ultimate power-tool for os x. and i have to say, since i installed it i hardly can work at any mac without it, it’s so amazingly cool.
let’s say i want to email a file to someone i know: up to now i switched to my finder, navigated about three hundred folders down into my hierarchy, then grabbed that file, dragged it to the mail icon in the dock, inserted the name of the recipient and then was able to write my text. time: 25 seconds (or so..).
now i just press command+space, type the name of the file, press tab, write email, press tab, and write the name of the recipient. mail fires up with the desired file in a new email to the desired person. voilà. time: 3 seconds.
but that’s not all. need to fire up that certain application buried deep inside your structure? (like seti@home on my ibook, it’s buried inside /applications/netz/distributed/seti@home). just press command+space, type stihme (which stands for setiathome: quicksilver works with any consecutive letter in the filename) and press enter. voila.

or, do you want to look up that phone-number of someone? again, command+space, type in the name of that person, press left, select the desired number and press enter. and the number is there, in shiny big letters on top of my windows (with the number at work done on the left, not that i’d forget that one, but i thought none of my friends would be happy if i post their phone-number on the web :-). hundred times faster than starting the address book, scrolling to the k or typing in “kurier” in the search boy and then squinting at the tiny phone-number.
doesn’t seem like a big deal, but once you get the hang of it, you will miss it on any mac without it.
and you just need to love a piece of software that has the option to turn of superfluous effects in its preferences, aight?

my recommendation, go grab quicksilver now, install it, give the excellent manual a read (worth because of the myriads of feature of quicksilver), read that handy tutorial and be amazed what quicksilver can do for you.

oh, and did i mention that both softwares are free?

as diggory says, the photo diary of a motorcycle tour is one of the most frightening and depressing things i’ve seen in a long while!

[via monkeyfood]

update: boingboing notes that this story probably is some kind of hoax. nonetheless the whole story behind the story is unbelievably sad and should never ever happen again. nowhere!

did you ever play too much video games, so that you had nightmares?
i remember once trying to finish tetris on the hardest possible setting on the gameboy and managing to finish it (so that the space-shuttle bonus screen came up) and having the most terrible night-mares afterwards. i had to dodge out those falling blocks in my dreams, and every-time i couldn’t manage it getting squished to death…

i bet KeiicHi must have had nightmares, too (3.7 mb .wmv movie).
he manages to play the soundtrack of super mario land on his guitar, complete with the power-up and coin-grab sound effects! marvelous!

[via boingboing]

nick lüthi (one of the bloggers over at the berner gazette) wrote a nice article about weblogs in (one of) the local newspapers.
he nicely explains terms like blogosphere and points out some hints on how to start your own weblog.
give it a read!

ps: if you don’t have a hard-copy of todays bund, go and read the article now, i don’t know how long it will be freely available in the eBund, i suspect that in a week you’ve got to pay for the access. oh, and by the way, the article is in german.

thanks to the fabulous button maker my blog now features two new buttons in the lower sidebar. (besides the other ones, which were also made with the button maker, ages ago).
once a button which links to my amazon wishlist, just in case you want to send me a gift and the other is a button which links to my orkut-profile (which is something like FOAF for dummies :-). you’re free to join there and help build my network of friends.