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Johan Bové

Had my first "Pick & Go" supermarket experience

2 min read

Around the corner of where I live in Düsseldorf Stadtmitte, more precisely "Am Wehrhahn" opened a hyper-modern "Pick & Go" Rewe supermarket.

This morning I went shopping there for the first time and I must admit, it worked seamlessly. Grabbed all the things I needed and placed it in my wheel-carrier, weighed the bananas and went to the self-checkout where I was greeted by a friendly hostess, and just confirmed what the system had registered in my purchase, without even having to take out everything again from the shopping trolly, confirmed the purchase, paid using NFC and walked out after scanning the code on the receipt. No app or initial registration was necessary. The system registers customers as avatars and then algorithms, (marketing term here is _AI_), deducts if you wanted to buy something or not through over 700 cameras and other sensors in the shop.

The tech is awesome. But it was for me still very nice to be greeted by a smiling human face at the end. And this is the key for me: instead of tediously scanning articles into the register, people can now help where needed and I do believe this gives them a stronger sense of work satisfaction. Don't get me wrong - there is nothing wrong with being a cashier as a job. What I experienced today was just a bit more personal, as contra-dictory this may seem.

More about the system and the tech behind it: https://mediacenter.rewe.de/pressemitteilungen/rewe-pick-and-go-kuenftig-auch-in-duesseldorf and also https://www.trigoretail.com/customer-stories/rewe/

Johan Bové

Johan Bové

My five year old loves the "Making Fun" makers show on Netflix. He calls it the "Building Buddies" and that would have been a more awesome name for the clever show.

Johan Bové

gdamdam/awesome-decentralized-web: an awesome list of decentralized services and technologies

"Earthstar - An offline-first, distributed, syncable, embedded document database for use in p2p software."

Johan Bové

Johan Bové

Bridge - Amon Tobin - YouTube

Awesome bass loop and amazing drumming! Loved this in 1998 and still loving it today.

Johan Bové

One of the reasons why I keep my IRC connection going is the amazing IRC channels. Thanks to some awesome bot programming (Loqi) you can follow up pretty neatly what is happening in a unobtrusive, ad-free manner.

Johan Bové

Tried installing Mastodon on the Yunohost server on a Raspberry Pi 3. Turns out it does not have enough RAM. Installation aborted itself, left a nice clear log message and then uninstalled everything nicely. That is what is really awesome about Yunohost.

Johan Bové

The NextCloud web interface has a neat editor for working with markdown files. And the integration with having README.md files within folders to display descriptions of those folders is awesome.

Johan Bové

Silversun Pickups - Circadian Rhythm (Last Dance) (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Awesome track by Silversun Pickups from their album "Better Nature".

Johan Bové

The Anti-iPhone - Fairphone 4 - YouTube

Awesome video by Linus Tech Tips introducing the FairPhone 4

Johan Bové

Kinda obsessed by the kick-ass song "Rats" by the Swedish metal band Ghost. The kitchy video clip is awesome too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_ijc7A5oAc

Johan Bové

If you're in town for in Düsseldorf, I can recommend a visit to the new library. It's pretty awesome.

Johan Bové

Checked into New Düsseldorfer library

If you're in town for , I can recommend a visit to the new library. It's pretty awesome.

Johan Bové

Best line in the latest Loki D+ episode "I'm burdened with glorious purpose.” - really awesome.

Johan Bové

@RickCarlino FarmBot is awesome. Wishing there was a vertical garden setup for balconies possible. Kinda want to make me wish we had an actual garden. Which is obviously hard to get by in the center of the city on the fourth floor of an apartment block.

Johan Bové

Johan Bové

I upgraded the camera hardware in my @fairphone

1 min read

Pretty proud that I was able to replace the camera modules in my 3 with the latest camera upgrades.

It is really awesome how Fairphone made a truly up-gradable phone possible and they made it really easy to take apart the phone.

The process does require steady hands and some nerve to execute. Detaching the screen from the frame was exciting. You need to get everything to "click" and not "break".

Everything came apart as planned and taking out the old modules and putting in the new was no issue. I did forget to take away one of the blueish protective covers of the front-facing camera module, after I had put the phone back together. So I had the exercise of taking apart the phone twice.

Followed the instructions from Fairphone themselves

The old modules are on their way to IFixit in Stuttgart Germany for refurbishment or recycling.

Johan Bové

Started keeping all of my thoughts and ideas in plain text files (in markdown format) and it feels liberating. Syncing everything with Syncthing, it allows me to edit the files on the go using Markor. On the desktop, I'm syncing with both my Surface as well as a Ubuntu VM and it's awesome to have it all under control.

Johan Bové

@dat_protocol Thank you for giving us the opportunity to bring together this awesome community. I enjoyed it very much and found inspiration and renewed energy to continue support Dat to help create a better future for everyone.