Bamboo feed

[imomus]

Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!



I moved into my new Neukolln flat on Sunday, and was delighted (on top of all its other delights) to find a big, fat, open, free wifi signal flooding both rooms, a signal just called WLAN. Two days (and trillions of gigabytes of Japanese porn, just kidding) later, it's been passworded. So I must go back to sitting in cafes, doorways, or shady bamboo-planted courtyards (like the one you see above, a very pleasant place with an open signal) until I get my own legit signal installed. (Anybody know a good Berlin DSL bargain? Or do I have to go back to Deutsche Telekom, those vandals who'll just use my money to stick a football on top of Berlin's most beautiful building?) Now, I'm very good at "divining" for open wifi signals, I have a great instinct for the kind of places they're likely to be found. But to have one, right in my flat, and to lose it... well, for a seasoned wifi hunter that's like seeing an underground stream drying up or a juicy antelope bounding into the brush.

Anyway, blogging will be on reduced service this week as a result of this outrageous outage. If you need to think of me at all, picture me under that parasol, or, more probably, driving a van full of boxes past crowds of football fans and Turkish market traders. I'll leave you today with my latest Wired piece, which is about vaginas you can blow up, or something similar.

Art School Inflatable

"Along with the angst and proving of talent, art schools' annual year-end shows reveal unexpected treasures. Where else will you see a party dress that inflates into a rubber dinghy? Commentary by Momus. This column is available as a podcast."

The funny thing is that the podcast actually contains some weird electronic interference at the end (courtesy of my eccentric tube mic) which sounds exactly like air being squeezed out of an inflatable dinghy-vagina. Or something.

Comments

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

I wonder, is Wifi signal hunting easier with a Mac because of the airport thing that every Mac got "plugged in" from the beginning?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, no, because if you own a Mac with Airport (a wireless card) installed it still won't share your internet connection automatically. It actually takes a bit of fiddling to set it up.

The proliferation if cheap wireless routers and dsl modems is probably more the case.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Oooh, fiddling. Well, I guess there is some kind of handy manual for that.

[(Anonymous)]

Nick, should the wifi-detecting cultural muse momentarily desert one, you could, in a moment of unrestrained Ford-Prefect level geekiness, invest in one of these! :

http://tinyurl.com/zwvox

Zwoop

[freddster.livejournal.com]

that fuller beard becomes you.

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

Buckminster Fuller?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't do Wi-Fi. It reads your thoughts and projects them on a plasma screen in Fern Britton's bathroom. For your own good, of course.

[niddrie-edge.livejournal.com]

I know i am way late in the day with this..mid 90s, sheesh...but , considering your contributions to Wired magazine, I wondered whether you had commented on this little spat in the past and whether it is or was ever a relevant discussion?

http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/theory-californianideology-responses8.html

hey...

[(Anonymous)]

its very easy to decrypt wifi signals, if you want to know how, mention something..

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

oh nick i feel for you.
divining...yes, well put. i had a free corner of wifi in my apartment and lost it as well...i have paid dsl now but you know, it feels like paying for wind and water.

in other news, your podcast is making my kitten freak out in front of the speakers for some reason. i guess she's never heard a Scot before. or else she's interested in degree shows or...woah just got to the weird interference. dirty~!

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

...actually, Virgil can crack it..

[(Anonymous)]

you should write more about footbal

[hello-mike.livejournal.com]

You're certainly more relaxed in Berlin.

Think of it as an experiment, a week or so of no wifi.

[j7bnvaaaetrd.livejournal.com]

Italy beat Germany 2-0

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted. But my fellow citizens weren't. I was greeted, at 5.30 this morning, by the sight of a street in which all the bicycles had been tipped over by some peevish "stupid football nationalist". Not the cars, of course, just the bikes.

[bricology.livejournal.com]

You just might end up thinking more clearly and having a better memory *without* that WiFi coverage. There's a growing body of evidence that proximity to WiFi nodes can cause a number of subtle health effects in certain people.

Wi-Fi Planet (http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/columns/article.php/3591071)
Computing Magazine (http://www.vnunet.com/computing/news/2154970/experts-raise-health-concerns)
NowToronto Magazine (http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2006-03-09/news_story.php)
GeeksAreSexy (http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/02/health-issues-surrounding-use-of.html)

[bricology.livejournal.com]

Er...which is not to suggest that you're having any trouble with thinking or your memory; merely that those are two of the more common ailments reported by people who seem to be affected by WiFi radiation.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Perhaps if you find out who's Wifi signal that was and offer to pay part of their subscription, they'll give you the password?

Free German Courses in Berlin?

[(Anonymous)]

Nick,

You spoke of free German-language courses for foreigners a few entries back (in the feedback section). Can you elaborate? And would that be sufficient for a student visa?

I am seriously thinking of taking a year off in Berlin (been there 3 times and know how good it is over there) and learning German.

Thanks in advance.

Les
Hoboken, NJ
USA

Re: Free German Courses in Berlin?

[(Anonymous)]

You can probably take a $600 intensive course at a Goethe Institut affiliate, if it happens to offer classes... schools probably offer tons of options, too. A lot of people who need to study German for their Ph.D.s do it in Berlin, and 600 US buxx is the average I've heard.

[lyrane.livejournal.com]

As I sit here in my apartment in Portland feeling under siege, with huge rolling booms and explosions all around, with sulfur smoke clouds drifting heavy over the city, with the room lighting up with thousands of flashes blowing up simultaneously, I wonder; what does Momus think about fireworks? They're kind of interesting aesthetically, I think converting cities into very flamboyant war zones. But I also think theres a point to be made about the exercise of nationalism eclipsing nationalism itself (the recent flag-burning drama in the US is on this note too). Your thoughts?

dsl

[nina-blomquist.livejournal.com]

Alice (http://www.alice-dsl.de/index.html) is good. You get w-lan and a phone line with free calls within europe. they are not very helpful though when you have technical problems.

[(Anonymous)]

Is that football thing going to stay on the Ferneseheturm forever?

cheapest dsl in berlin

[(Anonymous)]

i donno what the cheapest is, i know that alot of the current providers ask for a 24 month contract.(blah) but i have been looking at HttP://www.q-dsl_home.de/de/?subtrader=QSC-site
they offer an almost syncronis connection that you can change once a day if so please. so either 1.5mbit down and 2.5mbit up or viceversa. I donno if i still need to get a 10euro phone line from a telecom, but i hope not.
anyways good luck finding an isp.

Dsl berlin

[(Anonymous)]

I was looking for the cheapest and discovered that they all require 12-24 month contracts.
alice has flat 50 euros/month for analog phone + dsl 16mbit down. no contract.
i thought it was the best solution.