Post TItled: DIY symbiotic potential of home electronics.
Post Subtitled: products (and using the scanner as a camera.)

I'm not sure if I have EVER posted about a product, but this is as close as it may come.
I bought the Red Cross solar/crank-powered radio (produced by the Etón Corporation) on sale at Radio Shack for $69.99. Although in priciple it is amazing, teh reality is that it does not reliably recieve radio signals in the city, (or perhaps just Kreuzberg?) - this was a problem. Solution (which I happened upon by accident) is the Trekstor i.Beat sweez FM, a lighter-sized MP3/Radio/voice recording device which I bought at Media markt on sale for EURO 15,99. Although 1/20th the size of the Red Cross radio, the i.Beatsweez gets amazing radio reception (using the headphone cable as an antennae!)
the Red Cross radio has a USB Power OUT "Phone Charger" which I can use to power the IBeat, (which- despite its otherwise amazingness- has a fairly brief battery life in comparison to, say, an iPod Suffle) and charge the bastard via solar/crank WHILE using the AUDIO IN to utilize the Red Cross's speakers. Wild. It is a self-contained elecro-sphere. And that, dear readers, is how I have preferred to listen to NPR and the BBC in Berlin lately.

Which -of course- leads me to wonder: children have a lot of energy, why haven't we rigged playgrounds, classrooms and elementary school gymnasiums and cafeterias with energy-capture devices?

P.S. I will always love Radio Shack, here they are on a recent NPR segment: