O2 surf stick

Pay attention: updates at the bottom!

Even though neither he or me know how, tombert made me acquire the following:



pimbert: Can I make telephone calls with it?
O2 salesman: I can't tell you, no one ever asked
pimbert: Its number is printed on the sticker here, though.
O2 salesman: Well, you can try...

-- A MONTH PASSES --

I didn't really get to try out using the stick for making phone calls, but with some prodding of the modem via the program minicom, I managed to see an incoming call I made to the phone number belonging to the sim-card: "RING"! Hurray!

Furthermore I called the O2 service if there would be a way to see my usage, or have the help-desk look it up for me, but apparently this is only possible by locally counting it via their windows program "mobile partner" (linux alternative: sum the bytes as shown in ifconfig on ending each session via /etc/ip-down). The program "mobile partner" is a beast. It only works under windows, and if started as administrator. It is not possible to keep the connection when switching users. On my old via, the program "mobile partner" ate most of my cpu resources, just for connecting.

This makes me wonder: do they know it my usage at all? Maybe it's too complicated technically to keep track of these data, so far I have a vague confirmation of this due to the fact that I am still online, 2 weeks after my free flatrate ended and I so far didn't load money on the card. Can't complain, though :)

without further comments...

Found on the word & pictures flickr photostream (see link on the right)

Buy vi online!

I almost fell for this one! I'm such a nerd... But, really, what wouldn't i do to get some new vi goodies? In the end, something stopped me though...

Really, you have to love this brand new trend of spam to badly translate things into some language other than english (although one must say they did a pretty good job with this one, except maybe for the german "NEU" that got lost, and some oddly cut words like the puzzling "pilu" [pilou? poilu? pili-pili?]). Will that ever generate something akin to the weird fascination that vintage tv ads could have on us in the 80s?...

"Don't suffer from a problem you can overcome! Buy vi online! (and get cvs' ci as a bonus, i suppose)..."

Wechslstrom/Gleichstrom

What's Bavaria's favorite rock band? Easy (ok that's Franconia's favorite to be precise, and yet this involves one person only i must say)...

A look at Wikipedia yields this:

AC/DC (g'sprocha Äissi-Dissi) is da Nåm vo ana australisch'n Hard-Rock- und Blues-Rock- Band, de wo ende 1973 vo de schottisch'n Briada Angus Young und Malcom Young g'rindt woan is. AC/DC is oana vo di bekanntesten Vertreter aus derer Musikrichtung.

Zu die bekonntestn Liada ghern:

• Highway to Hell
• You Shook Me All Night Long
• Hells Bells
• TNT
• Back in Black

Außadem werd mit AC (alternating current) der Wechslstrom b'zeichnet, DC (vo direct current) wiedarum hoast Gleichstrom.

Dea Ausdruck "AC/DC" is in Australien aa no a Slang-B'zeichnung fia Menna, de so und so kenna, oiso sowoi mit Madln ois aa mit Buam (bisexuell). Des hat freile am Anfang vo dera Bänd zu a baar Schbekulationen üwa de Polung vo de oanzelna Musika g'füaht. A Coming-Out hat's awa ned gem.

Even scarier, if possible, is this sample of one of the band's concert in the far future, i.e. when they are really, REALLY old (like, not now, as they're still less than 60 (on average) so far)...

How to insert a stupid mp3 in there? Hum.

Computing predictions gone wrong

Forget "there is a need for about 5 computers in this world", or "640k should be enough for everyone". There's video evidence of another cool wrong quote!

Apple switches to truthful advertizing

Maybe they really do understand what kind of products they make!

Thanks to the french daily wtf (ftw).

movie: cannibal girls (1973)

Why didn't that idea catch on?

scientific career paths: cab driver

At some point, a scientist will or will not get money for pursuing his research. This may lead to either earning a nobel prize, or becoming a cab driver. To be honest, I am not completely sure who is better off here.

the job application letter

french comic style. Click for enlargement (I guess).

Samsung dvd writer for the eeet

Introducing the samsung super writemaster se-s204, costing 60 euro at mediamarkt, and about as big as heavy as the eee 701. A very dark plastic box. I actually wanted the sleek LG from a previous post, but the thing is either sold out, or twice the price of this samsung. The LG would have been fully USB-powered, which can be either practical or unusable, we will never know. The samsung at least comes with a sold power brick that raises confidence. Good point: the power brick is connected by cords to the drive and the wall outlet, so no huge thing blocking neighbouring wall outlets.



It also comes with a stand to put the thing on its side. This is for people that have the ability not to knock over stuff and have no cats.

It burns stuff with the usual tools, get cdtools from the debian repository. reminder:

http://linuxreviews.org/howtos/cdrecording/#toc10

giving the device name is not really necessary.

lightscribe works!:

get drivers from hp
http://www.lightscribe.com/downloadsection/linux/index.aspx

there is also a very dumb labeler, plus an sdk for the people that like to do things by themselves.

Instead I got the lacie program to do pictures. This requires doing the conversion of the lacie rpms to .debs. I used the --script option, you never now what it might be good for.

Burn the image using sudo 4L-gui




Now play music, as usual not with amarok because it plays with frequent hick-ups when you are also doing other stuff.

get setcd to set the speed to 1 for cds and dvds without hearing the cd spin like mad

setcd -x 1

run mplayer with cache to make it go smooth

mplayer -cache 1000 cdda:// /dev/cdroms/

don't forget to unset the cd speed later on (or just replug the cd drive?).

more cd copying tips

Müller Milch special: Chai

With the infamous Müller Milch for only 49 Cents at Rewe, I had to get one. Unfortunately, the Chocolate one was taken. Alternatives were melon-mango (!) or the ones I don't drink.




Danger! Never did this before with Müller milch: pored it into a glass to check the color. The color turned out to be a bit nondescript brownish. It could also have been the niocciola-nuss, or the pistache taste. In fact, it is probably just caramel-syrup, as the package confirms.




It smells like some of these Christmas spices, my guess is cardamom. According to the package, there is tea-extract inside, containing spices, tea, and citrus-grass. The spices I found, I will just have to take their word for the rest.

"Fazit": All in all quite drinkable if you like cardamom, good for winter, but I guess it has the potential to be boring after a while (probably that's why it's a limited edition).

localizing debian

A friend of mine had a problem with his too well localized debian, as it vomits out Dutch warning messages, which makes it impossible to understand what is going on or Google them. (even when you're Dutch)

On the Debian reference: tuning a Debian system website:

1) Run: dpkg-reconfigure locales

Add the locales of your choice, or even all locales!

2) Change your personal locale to one of the in step 1 installed locales:

For example by adding to your $HOME/.profile:

LC_MESSAGES="de_DE.UTF-8"

and/or

LC_ALL="de_DE.UTF-8"

and/or

LANG="de_DE.UTF-8"

Fiddle around with all the locale options until you found the combination that suits you.

# LC_ALL="en_GB.UTF-8" cat foo
cat: foo: No such file or directory

# LC_ALL="de_DE.UTF-8" cat foo
cat: foo: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden

# LC_ALL="sv_SE.UTF-8" cat foo
cat: foo: Filen eller katalogen finns inte

# LC_ALL="fr_FR.UTF-8" cat foo
cat: foo: Aucun fichier ou répertoire de ce type

# LC_ALL="es_ES.UTF-8" cat foo
cat: foo: No existe el fichero o el directorio

# LC_ALL="nl_NL.UTF-8" cat foo
cat: foo: Onbekend bestand of map

Preparing for a job interview: the tie

In 3 easy steps:


1) Go to Karstadt and most likely find a guy searching for a wedding costume with his mother. Wait until they get at the ties department. The guy's mother will reject several ties because they make him look like a lawyer. Select one of those ties. Check with the sales woman who will tell you that indeed this kind of tie is very fashionable for this time of the year.


2) Look up websites that explain how to tie a tie. Preferably a French one.




3) Don't forger your body language!

Unused movie scripts #534

Presenting: Michael Bay's rendition of the Dark Knight

Ninja pen

pen. camera.

french parking

scientific java applet

But what does it do?

has it?

http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/


live webcams

alternative take on the subject:

Almost Pfff...

But still quite right.
topatoCo, via Bb.

Formatting a USB disk on the eee

Having managed to get some of the 50% from the so-called "overhead" on my salary back in the form of a 8 GB USB disk, I decided to partition it into linux and windows partition.

This turned out to be a bit impractical, as you need to be root everytime you want to mount the linux partition. The eee was nice enough to manage to do the repartitioning well (thumbs down for opensuse on this part), but I forgot how I did it, so here I do it the other way around:

Step 1: plug the usb disk in.

If you have a "Kingston DataTraveler 8GB, this might end up to be more difficult than it sounds. More about that in another post.

Step 2: Check /etc/mtab
...
/dev/sdc1 /media/DataTraveler\0402.0/partition1 vfat rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,fmask=0111,dmask=0000,codepage=cp850,iocharset=utf8,shor
tname=mixed 0 0
...

Obviously, the disk is mounted at /dev/sdc. /dev/sda is the main disk, you don't want to fdisk that, /dev/sdb is a SD card in my case.
-
Step 3: make sure that you are root

I usually do "sudo su", but I guess that is cheating

Step 4: fdisk to delete partitions

fdisk /dev/sdc

it says: press "m" for help. Do that. For example p to print the partition table:

Disk /dev/sdc: 8006 MB, 8006926336 bytes
247 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1021 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15314 * 512 = 7840768 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 400 3062769 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdc2 * 401 1021 4754997 83 Linux

I want to get rid of them both, and make one W95 FAT32 (LBA) partition.
So "d 1", "d" (it sees only one partition and selects it). "w" to write, you WILL SEE warning messages :p

Step 5: fdisk to add partitions

Again:

fdisk /dev/sdc

and p. If all went well, an empty list is shown. If you press "l" you'll see that the partition we had and want again is:

c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

then: "n" for a new partition, "p" for a primary partition, "1" for partition 1, then twice "enter" for the default values. This created a linux partition the size of the disk, so use "t" to change it to disk type "c". Again, write with "w".

Step 6: unmount the disk using umount

DO NOT unmount via the USB icon on the menu bar, that will remove /dev/sdc from your system, and to edit the partitions, you will have to replug your usb disk and umount again anyway. This step could probably better be done earlier on in the process.

Step 7: Make a filesystem with mkfs.

To be able to write stuff to the partition, a filesystem should be installed on the disk. That is done with mkfs, mkfs.vfat for windows disks.

mkfs.vfat /dev/sdc1

Step 8: unmount via task bar, replug

It should mount as usual, check "/etc/mtab" again and "df -h" to see the partition size. Nice.

Burning CDs on the EEE PC with Xandros

This could have been easy! Like, not difficult, and such... However:

Step 1: couple a CD/DVD-writer that is known to work with linux.

I found one at work, about the same size of the EEE by the way, and it at least could read CDs with stuff already on it.

Step 2: Enter a blank disc...

Nothing happened!

Step 3: Desperately search at online forums.

This lead to me installing all possible gnome burners that couldn't find the disk and the unusable but sort-of-working xcdroast program, from the time that gnome and kde where not really good yet. K3b is not an option because it needs to replace some kde libraries, which will break the special EEE kde completely.


Step 4: Use the final result from the forum: opening the GUI CDRecAgent via the command line:

CDRecAgent createcd -data /media/MMC-SD/partition1/102_PANA/

Step 5: have your disk burned!

This actually went much faster than expected, and I sort of like the command line input, but really Asus, was it so much more work to add this line to a program you already had pre-installed!!!

Now I need to find out how to deinstall the gnome-shit that I don't use...

optimizing balconic grilling

29,99 euro at Toom Baumarkt:



In Germany, you write innovation with a capital I.

This amazing device can be also used as a flower pot, for those days where you are not using the grill.

NOTE for prospective buyers: please check your contract to see if and when grilling is allowed on your balcony.

The international language

Now that may explain the continuous beating up occurring all the time, everywhere:

xxxx@yyyyyy:~/mcr_md_gmx/melt_kg_142xN10082_s_rings> file mkg142N10082_s_rings_01.cpt
mkg142N10082_s_rings_01.cpt: data or International Language text

I think there was actually some "International language" in there, since...

xxxx@yyyyyy:~/mcr_md_gmx/melt_kg_142xN10082_s_rings> head !$
head mkg142N10082_s_rings_01.cpt
�).3.99_development_20080718Wed Aug 6 17:04:50 CEST 2008
xxxx@yyyyyy AIX 3 00CD35814C00/u/xxxx/gromacs/bin/mdrun_mpi▒Wed Aug 13 15:44:18 2008�\ � CCCA�AG��A���B���AF��A��)B���ACГA���B���A8�PA���B���A1fyA��cB�v�A,�4A��B�|�A#'�A�G-B���A$A��YB�'�A!�A��B�U�AP2A��HB��ZA�&A��>B�^A ��A�.B��^@���A���B�M�@�$TA���B�DB@���A���B���@�▒&A�j�B�H@���A�\�B�dt@�ylA��9B���A0�A���B�G�A��A���B�� Ar�A��JB���@��HA��fB��U@;A���B�9�@���A���B��@� A�ƜB�Sn@�f�A�C5B�|�@��EA� �B�,!@�uA�wB��@�[sA�2�B�@�ȗA��B�i@�Z▒A��XB�)@�,�A���B���@؃UA�HB�}$@�m�A��1B�Y@�F�A{�mB���@���A@ەAl�;B�U�@�f�Apo�B��eAkVAt KB�3�A�$At�7B�.�Ag~A�xB��8AIA�7B���A ��A���B��8AE]A�T?B��A�A�:B�A
@PA��`B��YA��A��IB��]@��fA�\�B�y�@��
A���B��
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k�A�.*B�QA-�A�ڰB���@��aA��B�8p@�*A���B�A�A�@A��9B�>�@���A��EB���@���A��B�JM@���A��JB���@�ÛA�݋B���@��A�▒�B�M>@ԧ�A��B�@� 1A�R�B�tc@���A�!�B���@�&�A��@B��@�%A�NB�>�@�S�A�^B���@�BMA���B���@�A�Z�B��▒@
A��tB�<�@�G�A���B�3�@�D�A�_B���@���A���B���@�A�a^B�KV@�e�A���B��k@�;�A��B���@��9A�+�B�
�@���A���B�PL@��A�71B�'�@��[A��sB��q@�*\A��5B���@�yA��WB�A�@�H�A�*LB���A+�A�!�B�`A��A�Q�B�
pAj�A�u�B�!�A▒^�A�۸B��mA&�PA���B� �A.�HA���B�9�A9�oA��B���AA�BA���B�<�AH˿A�e5B��iAT��A���B���AQ](A�B�aAS��A�xOB���AH`�A���B��eAAĢA�6�B���AC�
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Shit

I suck at puzzles.

The beauty of Google translation

Even better when it does its job right...:

Germany, land of the linux lovers, part 1

Photo found at a dailywtf forum post.

progress bar

bloody clay

More from the same artist.

bathroom.deb

sudo apt-get update cleanliness

It finally happened...

...Scientists are now being targeted just as any other stupid part of the population. With boy bands. That would tend to mean that scientists are mostly female, though. Or gay. Or just have bad taste. I don't know. I find the latest generally true, i must say.

Drugs are bad, ...mkay

This is a real animation for Sesame Street, with music specially composed by Philip Glass in 1979.



I don't know if I watched this as a kid, seeing how I ended up, I think it very likely that I have seen this.

Some kids have it all

If you own an apple, an msi wind, and an eee, what else could you ever wish for? purple make-up of course!

Also note how the kid in the background was considerable happier when his friend was using the apple, but lost his smile as soon as the msi wind was used. Maybe he couldn't read the test answers any more on the smaller screen.

Doktorvater

Google ads... always hitting the spot.

what if... you would want to sell wine to a young public

Wienux, RIP

It's rather sad, but one has to admit that it was most likely bound to happen: The effort of the city of Vienna to migrate to free software is a failure, despite the cool Wienux moniker.

Here is an interesting discussion of some of the possible reasons for this.

how interview with scientists would be

if they told the truth

post #100: PSP, GPS, and an opportunity to learn some german

Specially for tombert, but maybe a bit too late (?), Spiegel online has a short review of the GPS module for the PSP

Oh, sweet irony

The fun of Science...

Is soluble in ridiculous geekery.

It feels good, doesn't it

Sometimes, the best way to prohibit something is by encouraging it. (video found at the words an pictures, link to be found in the right column ->)

More quotes

I know a friend of Pimbert's who'll probably agree 100% with Böll's clown:

Besonders peinlich finde ich Künstlerfilme. Künstlerfilme werden wohl meistens von Leuten gemacht, die van Gogh für ein Bild nicht einmal ein ganzes, sondern nur ein halbes Paket Tabak gegeben und später das noch bereut hätten, weil ihnen klar geworden wäre, dass er es ihnen für eine Pfeife Tabak auch gegeben hätte. In Künstlerfilme wird das Leiden der Künstlerseele, die Not und das Ringen mit dem Dämon immer in die Vergangenheit verlegt. Ein lebender Künstler, der keine Zigaretten hat, keine Schuhe für seine Frau kaufen kann, ist uninteressant für die Filmleute, weil noch nicht drei Generationen von Schwätzern ihnen bestätigt haben, dass er ein Genie ist. Eine Generation von Schwätzern würde ihnen nicht ausreichen.

Heinrich Böll, Ansichten eines Clowns.

Useless Review: Mr Bean Pommes Snack

Bought in April 2008 at Real (the german wal-mart), the bag said: "Kinostart 29.3.2007", so it must have been lying around for a long time already.


On the bag there is stuff written in the same font as the mr Bean holiday movie title, there is a picture of Mr. Bean, a logo of the snack factory XOX and on the back side you see a picture of a poor chap dressed in tighs representing the rat-catcher of Hameln, apparently the same town as where the factory is located.


The snacks actually do look like the picture on the outside, and consist of extruded and then fried potato starch, in the shape of fries. The fries are hollow on the inside, so the big bag obly weighs a 100 gr.





When opening the bag a very ketchuppy smell comes out, which makes you wonder if there is just liquid ketchup inside. Luckily there isn't, and the amount of ketchup taste is just right.

If extruded food is your thing, you will have a very appealing snack. Not as good as wokkels, though, the food once described by an englishman with a bag of wokkels as "I'm eating plastic!". Here you see some wokkel-dependent dutch citizens:

No comment

I sometimes wish i had the opportunity to choose something else than stuffed animals, though.

Korea, you know you want to go there.

A real rocker never gives up

Not a success

Was it the fashion crimes? The music?



Maybe just logistics. Fact is, we will have no choice but to eat both the meat and the lettuce lukewarm now...

You can try to tell someone, something!

Make the world a better place and stop the creation of future movies you didn't really want to see anyway.

Why? because you can spend a more entertaining time reading about it.

Is someone trying to tell me something, too

vs

Yesterday: very very crappy "day after tomorrow" movie on tv. Didn't even excel in crappiness to be funny again, like "the core", though. Today however: snow!?!?!

Coincidence? I THINK NOT!

p.s. similar to the angry mobs that can apparently be mobilized after some weird dutch politician puts some youtube clips after each other with windows movie maker, I suggest we mobilize angry mobs to protest at the US embassy / your local video store, the next time any more crap like this gets to be thrown over us. Why do we put up with it, why?

Is someone trying to tell me something?

Vs.

Last Saturday i bought a copy of A Touch of Evil at a second-hand shop, only to find out that the dvd in the package had been swapped with one of La Dolce Vita. At first i was a bit disappointed (although i haven't got anything against Fellini); and then i had the unpleasant impression that there might be a message there somewhere...

Warning: dangerous website ahead!

Mothers + e-mail: Stuff you didn't want to see written down.

http://postcardsfromyomomma.com

Ads vs. reality.

Ouch!



Pictures are also available.

The EEE and my HP 5610 printer/scanner

It works! I think it took about 10 minutes, including the downloading via a slow connection. Following this advice.

After doing the apt-get remove xandros-hplip I did the apt-get install hplip (from debian etch):

Paketlisten werden gelesen... Fertig
Abhängigkeitsbaum wird aufgebaut... Fertig
Die folgenden zusätzlichen Pakete werden installiert:
hplip-data
Vorgeschlagene Pakete:
hplip-doc
Empfohlene Pakete:
hpijs hpijs-ppds linuxprinting.org-ppds python-reportlab
Die folgenden NEUEN Pakete werden installiert:
hplip hplip-data
0 aktualisiert, 2 neu installiert, 0 zu entfernen und 180 nicht aktualisiert.
Es müssen 6865kB Archive geholt werden.
Nach dem Auspacken werden 10,2MB Plattenplatz zusätzlich benutzt.
Möchten Sie fortfahren [J/n]? y
Hole:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org etch/main hplip-data 1.6.10-3etch1 [6295kB]
Hole:2 http://ftp.us.debian.org etch/main hplip 1.6.10-3etch1 [570kB]
Es wurden 6865kB in 2m35s geholt (44,0kB/s)
Wähle vormals abgewähltes Paket hplip-data.
(Lese Datenbank ... 76013 Dateien und Verzeichnisse sind derzeit installiert.)
Entpacke hplip-data (aus .../hplip-data_1.6.10-3etch1_all.deb) ...
Wähle vormals abgewähltes Paket hplip.
Entpacke hplip (aus .../hplip_1.6.10-3etch1_i386.deb) ...
Richte hplip-data ein (1.6.10-3etch1) ...
Richte hplip ein (1.6.10-3etch1) ...
Creating/updating hplip user account...
Starting HP Linux Printing and Imaging System: hpiod hpssd.

Scanning through open office is now possible!!! I should install the gimp...

Printing just works via the printer wizard.

Is linux still fun like this? ;)

Cool stuff with marbles and ninjas

This should be on TV everywhere.

household stuff

First of all, introducing the online toaster museum:



Actually I was searching for something else, though: I might need a new vacuum cleaner soon, and the coolest one I know I saw a while ago: the Rowenta Shockabsorber at a La Fayette store in France, It has amazing elastic deformation properties, as you can see in this simulation:



Clearly the optimal vacuum cleaner for a material scientist. Unfortunately not available in Germany, and also not very cheap anyway. That's the price you pay for SCIENCE!!!

Rowenta is even more edgy, since they sponsor the extreme ironing program:



Remember this for your next job interview, Tombert!!

Waffle tetris

Will life get much better than this? Thank you, geekologie....

pi car

from geekologie

French/English GNU Comic

Considering that it can not get more nerdy than this, it is actually quite funny still :)

Contradiction

Can you be an accomplished nerd, and not check your mails every two minutes so that they pile up in your Inbox? Yes! Thanks to spam, mostly.

(Don't worry Pimbert, i still check my gmail account on a regular geeky basis)

schnitzel + toaster

"schnell, lecker, und gesund" ?

Laptop screen + drill

The EEE sadist forgot something!

Eee S&M

Not for the faint of heart (nor for the stupidity-hater)... Don't watch, Pimbert, don't watch!!

Tests résistance (Chocs, chaleur, froid) de l'Asus Eee
Uploaded by ray2fr

Random things you are not likely to need

Pizza vending machine


baguette wrist pad
push-up counter

preeedecessor, the ibm z50

In a topic describing the 3 minute (!!!) boot time of the cloudbook, I ran into an old machine from IBM.
This thing can be seen as a predecessor of the eee, the ibm workpad z50. It had a battery life up to 16 hours! And the choice to run the thing on standard AA batteries!

Wash your keyboard in your dishwasher!

Or, maybe rather don't. Encouraged by some posts on the subject (i like the comment by soyMilk there, pimbert could have said something like that [Also, there is a cool attempt at "Will it melt"]), and as usual driven mostly by a huge laziness, i decided that my keyboard was dirty and tossed it the dishwasher. After some days of drying, i plugged it back in, just to realize that it had pretty much ceased to work. Then upon disassembling the thing i realized how stupid it was not to do it in the first place, since it turned out that the keys didn't fall apart as i feared they would, because they are tethered to the top plastic board. The whole thing is, thus, perfectly washable, and without the hassle of having to put the keys back into a hybrid between a dvorak and a dutch keyboard in the process.


The keyboard could eventually be fixed (some soap residues were preventing electric contacts to occur upon pressing the keys, mostly). So, my advice is: Try to unmount your keyboard first, maybe there's no need to risk the life of its inner parts in a hot bath (in fact this guy already got it).

Next time, i'll report on trying this trick with an expensive wireless apple keyboard (one probably needs something along these lines)...

Update: Nope, doesn't work. I had to take the 100 or so keys out to clean the thing, since otherwise almost as many screws would have had to be dealt with, the results remaining uncertain. I never appreciated a clean keyboard that much.

Why it can still be fun to grow older

Because you can get Lego stuff as birthday present, of course! And even sometimes train your intelligence (and/or strategy skills, possibly, i.e. when you haven't studied physics and it's hopeless anyway): Thanks to my father who always was very supportive of my creativity (which most of the time translated to improbably ugly spaceships designed for universes where fundamental interactions are slightly different), here comes the Lego chess game!

Variations on the theme:

There can be only one

Twist and chess

Chess-nuts tree

After the show

Chess and math