Three Chairs and a Darkness

In 2003/04 I spent a year in the United States, working as a User Interface Designer for Siemens Medical. To document my stay I bought the smallest camera I could find. (Yes, this was before phones had cameras or were smart). I picked the Pentax Optio S4i.

The S4i was my first real camera.
It fits in the palm of my hand and I always carried it with me. It had glorious FOUR megapixels and it was shiny and perfect – but only until the S5i came out. The S5i had even FIVE megapixels and it allowed me to customize two buttons (instead of one). This was just too good. I bought the S5i and took some good pictures with her over the years.

Actually, I took my best picture with it.

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A timeless time machine

In the picture below you see my first love computer: the Schneider CPC 464. It had a built-in tape deck and was sold with either a green or a color monitor. It was never as popular as its rival, the C64, but that didn’t matter to me. I got the brownish monolith in ’85 as a Christmas present and 35 years later it still looks timeless, I think.

Sure, the screen is a bit small (size and resolution wise) for today’s standard, 64k RAM is not too great, and music tapes are not a popular storage medium anymore – but it can still play the game heroes of my childhood: Elite, Gauntlet, and Saboteur.
That’s why I decided a while ago to re-buy my first computer since I sold mine in my late teens to get money for a newer one.

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Notes to my (forgetful) future self

A few of my hobbies require quite a bit of research – hobbies like hardware tinkering, programming, installing stuff on a Raspberry Pi, building a 3d printer, coffee roasting, cooking… And since there are so many topics but only limited space in my head for quirky stuff, I started the habit of taking extensive notes. They became quite a lifesaver since I often have to put things aside for a while – for example when “regular” life happens. Strange, I know.

If you care about note-taking, take note (pun intended) and consider reading on. 

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No longer AFK

Hey, long time no hear. I hope you are still around and haven’t given up on me. The last two months were quite busy, so I didn’t find the time to write. Sorry for that.

But I have a long list of things I want to tell you. This post will be a short update on the things that have kept my attention.

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Alexa and me

About four months ago Alexa moved in with me. She’s a quiet but witty flatmate. She connected with my WiFi speaker, immediately. Yes, she is a real tech geek. Soon she took over music and radio management for my place.

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Let’s reboot

The other day I thought I should try to take another stab at blogging. My last blog post is from 2014 and was an uninspired embed of a presentation I gave. But that is easier thought than done. Especially if you want to do things “right” – whatever that means.

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