Just when I thought I was safe from allied WWII bombs, it seems that my in-house supermarket has been invaded by the cast and crew of some sort of movie production.

Let me know if you can spot a German ‘celebrity’ or have some insight to share on what they are shooting. I wish you all a wonderful week-end! :)

[tags]video, film, tv, shooting, location, Edeka, Lindental, CGN, Cologne, Köln, Germany, blacktar[/tags]

Today I was inspired by a comment left by Alexander on my last post about Plone icons in Media Wiki.

I had totally forgot that also other elements of the original Plone icon set have spread like wildfire all over them there internets. For instance this ‘Print’ icon:

Chances are that you have already seen this icon somewhere on the web or in an application. I can remember even spotting it in the classic slsk (Soulseek) p2p client.

‘So, what’s the competition?’ I hear you murmur. Well, send me all your weirdest spottings of the Plone Print (printer) icon in the wild by Saturday the 22nd of March, and I’ll draw a winner that will receive an American Apparel T-shirt (in the size of their choosing) with signed version of the original Printer artwork on it.

Happy hunting!

[tags]plone, cms, icon, icons, slsk, soulseek, competition, americanapparel, t-shirt, vidarandersen, blacktar, print, printer[/tags]

If you happen to visit Wikipedia or Wikileaks from time to time, chances are you’ve seen this faceless person sitting on top of the page staring down at you:

However, chances are that you’ve probably never really asked yourself where it comes from. Then again, who in their right mind would?

Closeup:

Funny thing is icon, among others on Wikipedia, is actually from the original icon set of the Plone CMS. Media Wiki later as a true testament to the amazing work of the Plone CSS developer community, shall we say ‘borrowed’ the Plone CSS – and the icons. Then Wikipedia and Wikileaks made use of Media Wiki and the rest is – as they say – history. So now you know.

Funny thing for me is, I actually made this and the original Plone icon set. ;)

Please leave a comment if you have seen other Plone icons in the wild.

Yesterday on the 3rd of January a British bomb (Image) of the “zehn Zentner” (German) type from World War II was found near my apartment in Cologne, Germany. As they were defusing the bomb, I was evacuated from my apartment complex and had to stay away for the night.

They managed to defuse it (German) during the night so I could move back in on the 4th. Many thanks to the insanely brave people of the bomb squad!

Have a look at some images of the situation as I was evacuated.

[tags]bomb, evacuation, WWII, ww2, world war, police, bomb squad, vidar andersen, blacktar, CGN, cologne, köln, koeln[/tags]

As I was walking home last night from the BarCampCologne2 party in Lichtstrasse I got p0wned!

I was dead tired and minding my own business, but as I was passing Live Music Hall some motherfucker mentally challenged person decided to take a swing at me, flooring me with a hook to the left cheek.

I guess the guy hits like a girl – nothing broke. Retaliation was not an option as I was drunk and dead tired he had minions at his side.

I have no idea why it happened. I did however notice that my t-shirt was getting a lot of strange attention earlier in the day:

Maybe some ignorant Germans thought this had something to do with fascism or Neo-Nazism? I don’t know. And I thought Dead Kennedys were all about the polar opposite? Well, I stand per fist to the face corrected. You really showed me there. There’s nothing quite like re-education by fist!

It left me a bit shocked. Cologne is usually a peaceful city and I’m never concerned that something like this will happen. Has anything like this ever happened to you? Have you been the victim of random violence? Please share your experiences in the comments!

[tags]violence, beating, Dead Kennedys, fascism, neo-Nazism, Nazism, symbols, BarCampCologne2[/tags]

As I was reading the latest blog entry from Eric ‘Spin’ Rice this morning, it struck me that I’m wearing a matching t-shirt today. I thought I’d share so I snapped a picture with an old Ixus 430 laying around.

I’m a management ninja. What are you?

Be sure to check out the wireless access points. As I have a hangover am feeling rather unproductive this Sunday, I thought I’d just share this little gem of a hotspot I found at the Standsted Airport in the UK a couple of months ago.

Make sure you share your weird hotspot stories by leaving a comment!

[tags]weird, hotspot, wireless, wifi, stansted, uk, gay porn[/tags]

I used to believe things. Not that there was a Santa Claus able to travel faster than light, a fairy that ate teeth and shat coins or that there is a life after death (there’s a reason why it’s called DEATH, don’t you think?). No. Until a couple of years ago I believed, or more like took it for granted, that everybody sees numbers in their mind as coloured numerals. What? You don’t? Let me try to explain how this looks to me.

Every number from 0 to 9 has it’s own colour or shade of gray. I’ve illustrated roughly what they look like below:

Now as you see, it’s a bit complicated with the shades of gray. Hey! I didn’t invent this – it was just sort of always there. To make matters worse, when numbers stand together to form yet another number, as they often do – the clever bastards, the colours at the end of the number seems to outshine the others. I’ve tried to illustrate this with some of my favorite years:

I only see this in my mind when thinking about numbers, not when reading numbers, mind (no pun intended) you. I have more strange things going on in my mind, but I’ll keep that for future posts.

I’ve later learned that some incredibly intelligent and fascinating autistic people see numbers as coloured three dimentional shapes. Pretty cool! There’s some very interesting research to be done in this field.

Do you see colours? Do you have some interesting visualisations in your mind? Am I crazy? I’m looking forward to be reading your stories!

[tags]weird, mind, visualization, colours, vision, numbers, autism[/tags]