automatic bicycle pump

Parasiticpumpover at the makezine phil torrone links to a “device” which solves the hassle of pumping up a flat tire through a parasitic device.

would be perfect for work, but i guess you’d have even more angry car-drivers around, since it uses “conveniently available pressurized air stored in automobiles.”

[via makezine]

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picture of the week 12 (with competition) [update]

we’ve been skiing this weekend. in the morning, just before we hit the slopes i shot this panorama.

normally i tell a bit about the backstory of my potw’s, but this time i thought i’d make a little competition:

i have two questions concerning the image below. the first person to answers either one of those can choose between a game for the PSP (i’ve got several to chose from), a carte blanche for one post here in this blog or two drinks of his/her choice at the next blogger-meeting. the second and third person who answers correctly has to take what’s left :-)

so, without further ado:

A) where in switzerland did i shoot the image below? [1]

update: might have been too hard, it was approximately here.

B) is there a free software (for OS X) to automatically normalize the brightness of several images, so that the seams in a blended panorama are less visible? [2]

[1]: you’re not allowed to answer this question, if you’re a messenger from bern, my flatmate or i told you personally where we went.

[2]: i know it would be easier to lock the exposure and aperture, but that’s not possible with my camera…

Potw Competition

und nun noch auf deutsch:

dieses wochenende waren wir schilen.

gestern morgen hab ich von unserem haus aus obiges panorama fotografiert. normalerweise gibts ja zu meinen bildern der woche immer ein kleines gschichtli dazu, diesmal gibts einen kleinen wettbewerb: wer als erstes eine der folgenden fragen beantwortet, gewinnt wahlweise ein game für die PSP (ich hab verschiedene zur auswahl), zwei drinks an einem der nächsten blogger-treffen oder eine carte blanche für ein post in diesem blog. die zweite und die dritte antwort kann nur noch auswählen :-)

also, dann hier die fragen:

A) wo in der schweiz habei ich das bild aufgenommen? [1]

update: war wohl zu schwierig: ungefähr hier wars.

B) gibt es für OS X eine gratis-software, mit welcher die helligkeit von verschiedenen bilder automatisch ausgeglichen werden kann, so dass in meinen panoramen die bildübergänge weniger sichtbar sind. [2]

[1]: vom wettbewerb ausgenommen sind kuriere von bern, meine mitbewohner oder alle, denen ichs erzählt habe.

[2]: ich weiss, dass ich die belichtungszeit und blende fixieren könnte, aber das ist nun mal mit meiner kamera nicht möglich…

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4er stöckchen

pia hat mir den stock zugeworfen, heute abend komm ich auch noch dazu, mir was dazu zu überlegen:

4 Jobs in meinem Leben:

  • IT-Supporter bei der Swisscom

  • Regalauffüller beim Coop

  • Physiklehrer

  • Bademeister

4 6 Filme die ich immer wieder sehen kann:

4 Orte an denen ich gelebt habe:

  • Mailand

  • Münsingen

  • Bern

  • Glasgow

4 TV Serien die ich gerne sehe (aber mir ausser für lost nie zeit dafür nehme…):

4 Orte an denen ich Urlaub gemacht habe:

4 meiner Lieblingsgerichte:

  • Risotti

  • Curries

  • Hörnli mit Brösmeli von Gosi

  • alles ohne Blumenkohl und Fenchel von Regine

139 Webseiten die ich täglich besuche:

4 Plätze, wo ich gerne im Augenblick sein möchte

4 Blogger die das mitmachen sollen / dürfen:

  • Sigi, damit er endlich sein blog richtig eröffnet

  • Jan, damit ich endlich weiss, was er mal alles gearbeitet hat

  • Matthias, damit er mal wieder was sinnfreies rauslassen darf, ohne dass 74 kommentare auf ihn einprasseln (stand 13.3.06, 23:41) (und nicht, dass das sinnfrei was, was er da gesagt hat, nur damit mann mich richtig versteht! ;-)

  • This, damit ich weiss, was er gerne kocht.

picture of the week 10

yesterday we’ve been to the zoo in zürich, mostly to see the masaola-hall (which was really impressive).

during our stroll through the zoo we passed at the enclosure of the otters where i snapped an image of this little fellow passing out in his bed (which is what i’m gonna do now).

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oh, and i just sent the image over to the guys and gals of the cute overload…

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creative commons in full effect

through my ego-surfing-feed [1] i found this story in the austinist, a website from austin (i presume :-).

to illustrate the breaking news of a downtown fire, the used a picture of the fire at wolfs birthday party. my pictures at flickr are released under an attribution license, so anybody is free to use them as you please, as long as there is proper attribution added.

not too bad, maybe i should consider starting a career as photographer :-)

[1] might not work for you, since it’s a newsgator online edition feed, technically it’s a keyword search after “habi”.

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fasnachtsvorbereitungen

fasnachtsvorbereitungen

im moment mach ich einen zivildienst.
so siehts aus, wenn man material für die kinderfasnacht morgen vorbereitet.
eine aufnahme mit der panoramafunktion meines handys (mit notizen, die auf flickr erscheinen)

the most important 6 seconds in music history

Amen Breaksince i seem to be in a musical mood, here’s another post for sound lovers: if you’ve listened to any song that uses samples, be it hip hop, drum n bass, dub or a lot of other flavors, you’ve heard the “amen break”. it’s a sample from the b-side of a single of the winstons from 1969, that only lasts 6 seconds.

it’s absolutely amazing how far those snare beats came, it became the base of nearly every drum n bass and jungle song.

nate harrison made an eerie fascinating installation/art project where he narrrates the story of this ubiquitous peace of musical history.

i’ve been hooked to the 20min-movie after the first time he plays the original sample. nate manages to run down the complete story of that key aural ingredient in contemporary cultural expression during the progress of the movie. he shows a lot of examples, compares them to the original recording and even covers the implications of sampling material on copyright law.

you can only listen to the movie, nothing really happens, except some cuts between a turntable and speakers, but i found it worth watching the progress of the needle on the wax, giving a meditative touch to the story.

you can watch the movie here or download a copy on the archive.org.

if you only have a slight interest in musical history you must watch it! [via boingboing] technorati tags: , , , ,

the sound of traffic [update]

Soundoftrafficit’s been quite a long time since i’ve posted something about new software additions to my mac. this app here is actually completely useless, but nonetheless it’s been running since half an hour.

sound of traffic is a tiny java application (112 kb) that converts your network traffic into midi notes. my traffic sounds like a laid back chill-out track (i’m downloading/seeding the latest episode of the it crowd over bittorrent and updating some feeds from time to time). the app needs your admin password to access some devices and only works on OS X and Unix [1].

ändu, couldn’t you use this for your next song?

a funny little time-waster!

[via osxhints]

[1] leo ported it to windows, so nobody has to stay out…

update: jan used sound of traffic in one of his cool pieceocasts

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the it crowd

Entertainment Tv Microsites I Itcrowd Images Gallery1while on the way to oberwald i finally found some time to watch the it crowd (on my psp). since cory doctorow posted about that new show on boingboing, i’ve been downloading all the episodes of the ultimate geek comedy.

the show is about a sysadmin duo. the two ubergeeks moss and roy [1] get a new boss who has far better knowledge of shoes than of computers. each of the first three episodes i’ve watched up to now is hilarious, the people that rode on the train with me must have thought i’m utterly insane, because i couldn’t help to chuckle and laugh out loud. it’s not the plot that is so funny, but the fact that each episode progressively gets weirder and belly rupturing funny.

i can’t wait ’till the next episodes are aired, i’m in geeky television heaven.

since users outside of the uk cannot directly stream the videos from the channel4 website, you have to fire up your preferred bittorrent-client and download away!

oh, and piece did use some samples of the show in one of his latest pieceocasts.

[via boingboing]

[1] moss writes an email to the fire brigade because he cannot remember the phone-number of the emergency services (the changed the number from 919 (or so) to something different – which is another hilarious joke by itself).

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picture of the week 07

yesterday i spent a wonderful day in oberwald. ninas mother spends at least a week per year there, mostly with some friends. she invited nina and me for the weekend, to do some cross-country skiing.

it always amazes me how much snow you can find in oberwald. it makes the ugly slush you find here in bern feel even nastier.

Dsc03153

oh, the cross-county skiing was great, thanks for asking. this time we tried with rented equipment, so we could skate, which is even better than doing it the classic way.

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picture of the week 06

the past saturday i’ve spent a day in plan-les-ouates, near geneva at the first masters meeting of the swim team of plan-les-ouates. martin and me were the ones starting for bern, kurt and pesche started for basel.

the image below shows pesche going for 1:15.39 in 100m butterfly.

Dsc03135

if you’d like to see the rest of the images, the you should proceed to this flickr-set of mine. and if you want to see what i did the weekend before, take a look at this set.

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this blog is now cocomment enabled!

after reading a lot of buzz about cocomment (explained a wee bit here :-) i thought it’s about time to jump the bandwagon.

and now, after adding a little bit of code to the individual entry archive this blog is now officially pimped -ehrm- cocomment enabled.

have no idea what i’m talking about? i only start to get the implication of cocomment, but let me explain it here, as far as i get it: up to now, whenever i commented on a blog/site somewhere, i had to remember to visit the site later on or add the comment feed to my feedreader to not loose that particular conversation string. cocomment should be able to overcome that, because it enables a lot of sites (even flickr!) to “send” the comments back to one central location. i’m now able to track those comments in a central location and follow conversations more, thus participating more (talk about positive feedback loop).

so, if you want to see in which conversations i take part or want to stalk me you should look here or add this feed to your preferred feed-reader.

but now it’s officially too late, so i wish you all a good night!

[via the blogoshpere, steph and matthias]

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multi-finger GUI

Multitouchit is rumored that the next iteration of the ipod will feature a nice screen with a 3.5″-touchscreen and a digital scrollwheel.

however cool that may be, i was really impressed by that tech-demo from the new york university here: bi-manual, multi-point, and multi-user input on a graphical interaction surface. it shows how one would be able to interact with an OS/GUI with multiple fingers and two hands. wicked!

you can directly grab the demo reel as a 17 mb .mpg-file or 12mb .mp4-file (both linked in the coral-cache-version to save some bandwidth).

[via fscklog and fscklog]

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