RedGreenBlue Announcement

Diversifying the offerings portfolio of the PJS Internet presence, the author is proud to announce the launch of a new blog, with content exclusively concerned with energy and environment issues (E2I), and targeting an audience of thought leaders who demand prime information on new emerging trends in the E2I sector.

RedGreenBlue will offer a supreme selection - only marginally culled from the original free flow of ideas - of environmentally relevant visions, paradigms, and information specifically tailored for the real-time needs of the efficient trend-setting jet-set defining what is today's elite, tomorrow's leaders.

Starting with an attentively selected crop of authors (PJS), the mind-changing views of RedGreenBlue will shape the way tomorrow might look when it comes to energy, environment, and information about both.

Any ideas, comments, and rants about the future of RedGreenBlue and our own planet are highly welcome. You're encouraged to join into the frenzy of changing the E2I world by becoming a reader of RedGreenBlue!

TED: Ideas worth spreading

Surfing my usual websites, I stumbled upon a link to TED.

Named "Technology, Entertainment, Design", it's a conference held annually in Monterey, CA, hosting talks for around 50 speakers over four days. They are encouraged to give "the talk of their lives" in 18 minutes each - and they do. Ranging from science to arts and music, they are fantastically breathtaking. There is no single talk to be recommended, instead, get yourself some twenty minutes and choose one of your liking.

You're going to be spellbound.

Long Break No Read

Hello everybody (not everybody, but this blog's readers, and not even all of these, just the ones who still stick with this place here after this long break)...

... after I (the blog owner, for those who forgot) heard from several sides this blog is starving/drying up/gone orphaned/otherwise abandoned, probably the time has come to expand the notes I kept making in a small text file on the desktop into a full-blown bells-and-whistles spankin'-sparklin' new blog entry! Hold ya seats!

There were several reasons that made me stop... or interrupt... the common flow of posts here. I can only try to point out a few ones, without any guarantee for completeness, truthfulness, or anything.
One was my last trip to Italy, which took a whole lot of time to organize, and which was so chock-full of impressions there was not only no time to blog it, but hardly any time to sort those impressions. Then I got myself a new notebook (whose nameplate is still kind of up for grabs, several names vying for acceptance), and which made me learn a whole new user interface language and programming environment and ways of hooking up accessories and stuff, so this had a huge impact on free time as well. Third, I delved a bit deeper into my ever-growing stack of Chinese textbooks, mags, and learning tools, got a new teacher/learning partner, and since ole PJS is the original one-trick pony, this took its toll on free attention mass as well. Smoerebroed had its maladies, too. Happy, unhappy, know, no-know... everything happens in time.

But one by one.

Confession of an Illiterate Mind

I have a confession to make.
As a blogger - not of the first minute of the blogosphere, but still a weathered one - I have to admit I have no idea what this website is: Technorati (テクノラティ). It's complete mumble-jumble to me.
Now, everybody will either snicker ("what a dumb bloke") or sneer ("how comes he tries to be such a smartass, nobody understands this chicken droppings scribbling"), but... but! I don't understand this either: Technorati. Is it just me struck blind, or is this site so much Web 2.0 it doesn't even attempt to explain its existence? What is this Technorati stuff? Am I my own grandparents for being so behind?

(...)

What else?

Die Blogosphäre wurde selbstreferentiell. Ja gut, das ist sie meistens, immerhin hat Bloggen noch immer etwas onanistischen Charakter.

Das ist ein Zitat aus dem BatzLog - BatzCAST, einer Empfehlung von Deutschland Radio Kultur.

Talkline's "August Invoice" Stunt

As we speak, events pertaining to the contractual relationship between Mr PJS and the Talkline company unfurl.

Talkline's newest stunt can be described as follows. The August invoice was NOT ONLY too high - because of data transfer charges billed explicitly, but in complete neglect or ignorance of the fact that PJS has a long-standing contractual guarantee that they fall under the terms of a 500MB flatrate, and as such are not to be billed - BUT was debited from PJS's bank account TWICE.

Swift action on the side of PJS was taken yesterday, resulting in a long talk with Talkline's telephone hotline (charged at 0,12 EUR/min), ending with a personal guarantee of hotline employee Mr (...) to the effect that Mr PJS shall cancel one of the two debits and will not be billed for revocation charges.

Today's events can be summarized such that Mr PJS's bank account shows one (1) PJS-originated "Transfer Cancellation" with the invoice amount added to his account, and one (1) Talkline-originated cancellation with the invoice amount added to his account.
Thus, currently nothing has been paid effectively for the August invoice, while it can be strongly suspected that the September invoice will carry a 12 EUR fee for revocation charges.

...

I strongly suspect Talkline is a bunch of half-brained morons monkeying around with their computers, pressing some buttons at random, and sometimes creating some random action.

Betreff: AW: Talkline Info Service

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

leider ist die mir von Ihnen zugesandte Tarifinformation vollkommen nutzlos.

In meinem Telefonat mit der 01805-3838-Hotline (14.09.2006, Hr. [...]) habe ich ausdrücklich um die Zusendung von Tarifinformationen zum Thema "Datenübertragung/Internet" zum Tarif "O2 Genion" gebeten. Ich habe ausdrücklich NICHT um die Zusendung derartiger Tarifinformationen zu den Tarifen von T-Mobile, E-Plus und Vodafone gebeten. Dennoch wurde mir diese bereits zum wiederholten Male - jeweils nach Telefonaten mit der Hotline - zugesandt.

Ich bitte hiermit nochmals und wiederum AUSDRÜCKLICH um die Zusendung von Tarifinformationen wie o.a., zu dem von mir gebuchten Tarif. Bitte senden Sie mir NICHT nochmals die Broschüre "talkline_services_und_preise_pk.pdf", und senden Sie mir NICHT nochmals das Faltblatt "Festnetzgünstig telefonieren".

Ich bin enttäuscht von der bisherigen Kommunikation, aber inzwischen in keinster Weise mehr überrascht. Meine Vermutung geht dahin, dass diese Informationen zum neu eingeführten Tarif "O2 Genion" im Unternehmen Talkline noch gar nicht vorliegen, und meine monatlichen Rechnungen eher zufällig erstellt werden, da keine Informationen zu den Einzelverbindungen "HZ Internet PC" und "internet mm" verfügbar sind.

Vielen Dank.
Philipp Stolka



>Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,
>mit dieser E-Mail erhalten Sie von uns die angeforderten Informationen.
>Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
>Ihr Customer Service Team
>
>PS:
>Zu Hause festnetzgünstig mit dem Handy telefonieren?
>Mit den neuen Talkline Mobil&Zuhause-Optionen ab gerade einmal 4,95 € mtl.
>telefonieren Sie für nur 4 Ct/Min.
>ins dt. Festnetz - sogar bis zu 2 km* um ihre angegebene Anschrift.
>Überzeugen Sie sich selbst: www.talkline.de/mytalkline

Nokia E61 Phone Gets PJS Approval

Breaking News... "Nokia E61 Phone Gets FCC Approval" (breaking news from March 2nd 2006).

In any case, behold my new phone.
Frankly, it is less a phone than everything else. Actually, it is even somewhat difficult to place a call with that. But it seems to work, and the 1-EUR bid on Ebay was not a scam.



However, as yet it has not proven the be-all-and-end-all of my communication woes. Instead of providing me with a turn-key solution, rendering all other means of communication unnecessary, the UMTS/3G feature is still missing. Not from the phone, but from the provider. Or the network itself. Or something.
But I am still positive it may become available.
However, this leaves me with two devices (this new toy, and my Clie TH55 to which I have a subtly erotic affection) competing for pocket space, and so far I was pretty comfortable with the Clie's Graffiti text input, its Bluetooth, IrDA, and WLAN capabilities. So this new gadgets just sports the UMTS option, which, I have to admit, would be a definite knock-out argument - in case it should finally work.

(Um. I forgot the main reason for writing this post... the new phone numbers! It's +49-176-45045638 (mobile) and +49-921-1676644 (fixnet). Seems somebody - not me - screwed up the phone number porting.)

Praktikant bei Vodafone

Welcher enddämliche Praktikant bei Vodafone kann so etwas verbrechen? Einen so wirrbabylonischen Erguß von Sprachen, Groß-, Klein- und CamelCase-Schreibung und Leerzeichen oder keinen muss man sogar im weltweiten Rechnerverbund, dem sogenannten Internetz lange suchen:

KombiTarife
MinutenPakete
WochenendPakete
Vodafone Zuhause
ZuhauseOption & ZuhauseFlatrate
ZuhauseAnschluss
Zuhause Web

Zuhause Talk&Web
Fragen & Antworten
Happy-Optionen
SMS-Pakete
ZweitKarte
Simply
Weitere Tarife
Datentarifoptionen
Preise für Dienste
Kunde werden

Ist es nicht auffällig, daß ausgerechnet die seriösen preisrelevanten Einträge als Einzige richtig geschrieben sind?

Quality of Research

Today, suddenly, my robot started suffering from massive network packet losses. Since this very same issue happened a year ago and was solved by a better-shielded cable, we immediately homed in on the explanation "broken shielding" (in whatever way this might come about).
Now marvel at this hand-made solution from aluminium foil and scotch tape: