Richi's blog

Category: Projects

  • Why I am sending back my Librem5

    After paying 0.163 BTC for a pre-order, I patiently waited two and a half years for the Librem 5 to finally arrive. Now after half a year with the phone, I finally lost patience. For some more context, please read my former blog posts The Librem 5 phone is still at an early stage and […]

  • Generating solar electricity at home

    After I switched to an electric car, I started to care much more about where the energy we consume comes from. With petrol and diesel you don’t really have that option. We are in a comfortable situation that we have some small hydro electric dams nearby. Thus all the electricity we use at home and […]

  • Spending Bitcoin while charging the car

    When I go some place new, I always check out what Bitcoin accepting venues there are. I usually try to prioritize shops that accept crypto currency. When I drive some place far away, I have to charge the car on the way. No big deal, usually I can eat, drink or go to the toilet. […]

  • The mother of all hackathons

    I just returned from #hack4climate. Even if it was just my third hackathon, I can state with certainty that this one was unlike any other. None of the 100 hackers from 33  countries experienced anything remotely comparable before. The topic of the event was to develop solutions how blockchain technology can help fighting climate change. […]

  • Hackthevalley Hackathon 2017 Baar

    Motivation After the good experience last year at the six fintech hackathon, I was trilled to go to hack the valley which is even closer geographically and whose subject is even closer to Bitcoin. My goal was to gain experience with ethereum. So far I only completed the tutorials. I found the technology very interesting, […]

  • Decentralized websites and more

    “Cool idea, but to be of any use, it would need more functionality and more content” was my impression when I first looked into zeronet. Back then static web pages were all there was, and no UI support for any managing tasks. The next time I checked, probably more than half a year later, it […]

  • Game modding with pen and paper

    I have lots of good memories from youth camps. Some involve playing Donkey Kong and Mario Brothers while sitting on trees. Another classic video game was Asteroids. When I recently read an article in a German magazine about building an Asteroids clone with an Arduino and an OLED, lots of old memories resurfaced. The source […]

  • Why I still have no new notebook

    It has been more than 14 months since my XPS 13DE notebook was stolen. Ever since, I was on the hunt for a replacement. I have just some simple requirements that seem so difficult to meet: Linux pre-installed Payment in BitCoin Swiss German Keyboard with back light Ultrabook (slim and powerful) The natural choice would […]

  • SIX fintech hackathon

    I learned of hackathons before. It sounded interesting, but either they were too far away, the topic was not interesting enough, or the date was already booked. This time was different. The topic is really what made it interesting enough. FinTech is about new technology in finance. I’m sure there was innovation in the financial […]

  • an exact clock for a vintage car

    Since I drive my vintage XJS not too often, I disconnect the battery. This is to prevent if from going flat before I want to use it the next time. Of course it would be better to install a special charger for classic cars. But there is no outlet in the underground car park. The […]