2007-11-30 22:21:00
My Friday night: about two hundred pages of governmental writing on education, a report due on Monday and a bottle of Baileys.
kilala.nl tags: school, studying, drinks,
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2007-11-30 07:01:00
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From hence forth, the fourth week of a semester shall be known as Emo-whiny-pussy week. In this week I shall partake in much sulking, moping and hiding away, thus ensuring that no homework gets done. And there was much rejoicing. (Yay...) |
Hooray for self reflection :)
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2007-11-29 23:14:00
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A few months ago I stumbled upon the Moo Card phenomenon. Moo in this case, is a company that lets you print a hundred individually personalized calling cards for about 15 euros. Each card can be completely unique, giving you the option to hand out all kinds of personal memories to people. |
My Moo Cards arrived a few days ago and I have to say I'm impressed: the card stock is thick and sturdy and the printing's done pretty nicely. The cards are smaller than I expected though: as long as a standard business card, but only half as high.
kilala.nl tags: geeky,
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2007-11-29 21:36:00
Aww yea! In preparation for my trip to Japan we've bought a new camera, the Lumix TZ3. I'd originally planned to buy it in Osaka at a much lower price, but I'd rather get used to the camera before I go on the trip.
So far I'm loving the camera. The uber-versatile lens is proving its worth, being good at both wide-angle shots and telezoom. It has a rather complete feature set and the menus are very easy to navigate. Honestly, even Marli figured most of it out in half an hour's time!
Speaking of Marli: being the tease that she is, she called me at the office to tell me that she'd open my parcel and play with the camera. Fully expecting me to whine that I wanted to go first, she pouted when I offered no objection :P Knowing that I'm a horrible geek, she did surprise me though: she took pictures of the unpacking, just like most of us Apple-geeks do with their new toys :)
Now, it's well known that the camera has some downsides, and the most noticeable is the noisy sensor. If you'll browse through my trial pictures, you'll notice quite a lot of noise in the darker pictures. It's a shame, but I'll take it as it comes because overall the camera's great!
Gallery with test shots. I'll add more later as they come.
kilala.nl tags: other tech,
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2007-11-28 20:50:00
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kilala.nl tags: comics, life, fun,
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2007-11-28 10:48:00
Wow, that was a fight :/
A few days ago we had a "new" TruCluster installed, running Tru64 5.1b. All of the stuff on it was plain vanilla, which meant that we were bound to run into some trouble. Case in point: the EMC/Legato Networker installation.
Upon installation setld complained as follows:
==========
Your choice:
1 LGTOCLNT999 EMC NetWorker Client
cannot be installed as required subset IOSWWEURLOC??? is not available.
==========
As the name suggests (EURLOC) the missing files involve the additional European locales that are not part of the default installation.
After fighting and searching and swearing a lot I got things sorted out as follows:
1. Get the Tru64 CD-ROM that was used for the installation. You'll need the "Associated Products 1" CD.
2. Insert the CD into your system.
3. Mount the CD: mount -r /dev/disk/cdrom1c /mnt
4. cd /mnt/Worldwide_Language_Support/kit
5. setld -l `pwd` IOSWWEURLOC540
This will install the locale I needed. Of course you are free to substitute the names of other locales as well.
EDIT:
Also, feel free to read through the proper instructions.
kilala.nl tags: unix, work, sysadmin,
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2007-11-25 22:40:00
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You know? This whole college deal, burning the midnight oil over homework, feels like hacking to me. It gives me the same feeling I had during my internships or during late-night projects at the office. A feeling that I'm completely into what I do and that I want to keep on going. |
If you're curious, the song's Funky doll from the original Bubblegum Crisis soundtrack.
It's awfully eighties, but there's something I just love about that song. Of course, I'm also glad there was no video camera there to register my gay-ass dancing at the board. There's just something weird about a geek dancing, while working ^_^;
kilala.nl tags: school, studying,
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2007-11-25 22:11:00
A few weeks ago I read about PhotoRec on the Life Hacker website (a productivity blog). PhotoRec is a handy commandline utility that will help you retrieve lost pictures (and other files) from borked memory cards.
PhotoRec will search any device you point it at for a variety of file types. Before running the search it'll ask you some in-depth questions (partition type, file system, etc) and then it'll run until it's covered all of the device.
In my case I needed to search through my Powershot's CF card, since apparently the old Canon doesn't deal well with cards that've been mounted through a normal USB reader. PhotoRec worked like magic and retrieved all of the pics still on the card. Now I can safely re-format the CF card for reuse.
I cannot recommend PhotoRec well enough. The best thing? It's both free and cross-platform! So it'll run on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and various other Unices. Awesome!
kilala.nl tags: other tech,
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2007-11-25 17:51:00
Bally-bally, oh my golly! I'm in love with a new song :)
As some of you know I love geekery when it comes to music and animation. Of course it's even better when they're combined into one! I found this video through the Wiskunde meisjes website. The song is "Mandelbrot set" by Jonathan Coulton. The video is an awesome blackboard animation done by Pisut Wisessing and a bunch of his friends.
Beauty, right here.
Visit Jonathan's website for more videos.
kilala.nl tags: geeky, music, awesome,
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2007-11-24 13:15:00
Crapcakes! =_=
I thought my weight would've gone down at least a little bit the past few weeks. I've been getting regular exercise, though it isn't a huge amount. I haven't been snacking, only taking something here and there. I've been eating normally and I've been living a stressful life.
All of that ought to be a recipe for at least -some- weight loss. But no... I'm back to where I was four to five years ago: 105 kilos. For you USAdians, that's about 210lbs. And for the UKadians, that's a bit over 16 stone. Ouch.
Well, for starters I'll start by eating a bit less. Four sandwiches a day, instead of six. Some fruit and dinner. I'll also lay off the coffee for now, since I always have cream in it.
kilala.nl tags: health, sports,
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2007-11-22 21:50:00
I'm very proud of my wiffums!
After her doctor's appointment she'd decided to start riding her bike to work. Granted, for an average person it's a modest bike ride: about fifteen to twenty minutes door-to-door. However, Marli isn't an average person, so for her it's quite a big deal!
Any exercise she can get is a very good thing and she's thinking of other ways of getting it as well. So far she's rode her bike two days in a row and she really wants to do it again tomorrow! I'm very proud! ^_^
kilala.nl tags: family, sports,
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2007-11-21 21:15:00
Damn. I hate doing this, but I'm skipping out on Analysis 1 - Maths. That's the course I wrote about earlier, with all the long calculations to prove that math works bitches.
The course is on my list of "free" courses: I already received all the ECTS beforehand, because I have already studied this stuff before. In essence this means that I didn't have to take the test to begin with. I was just taking this class to freshen up my maths.
Thing is: I wasn't just visiting lectures, I was also doing all of the homework, which eats up a tremendous amount of time. Also, making all my notes look good using LaTex takes up about an hour each week as well. I could spend all of that time on work that actually earns me more ECTS.
I'll still be visiting each lecture, because A) the subject matter is cool and challenging, and B) I enjoy spending time with my classmates. I just won't be partaking in the homework, nor in the exam.
kilala.nl tags: school, work, life,
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2007-11-19 23:29:00
Yay for more test results :)
Remember that one report that had me worried so much? Well, it came back a 70% so it wasn't all bad :)
Also, that one test I was waiting for (on General didactics) came back a whopping 80%! Awesome!
kilala.nl tags: school,
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2007-11-18 23:25:00
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Yeah, that's right: me. Me, the fifteen year old, scrawny kid with big-ass glasses and an unkempt mullet-alike. ^_^ And judging by the waterdye effect on the shirt, that's my Dr Dre, "skull with hemp" shirt ^_^; |
Luckily things are changing little by little these days.
Let me say though that I'm enjoying the crap out of the book for this course. Identiteitsontwikkeling en leerlingbegeleiding by van de Wal, de Mooij and de Wilde is the shit. Seriously. The title, which translates as Identity development and student counseling may sound dreary or even patronising, but it doesn't do the book justice.
Even for me (who's still young considering most of my classmates) this book provides great insights into what it's like to be a kid these days. You'd think I still remember, but no...
@ Menno: I'm quite sure you'll enjoy this book as well, given your broad interests in psychology and personal relationships.
kilala.nl tags: school, reading, family, writing,
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2007-11-18 22:19:00
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Yep, we had our first toilet seat fight tonight. *crosses another box on the list* Of course there were the stereotypical female-male POVs, like "The lid is -always- up!" versus "You've got hands, don't you?". Yep... Fight over meaningless discussion... Check! |
Luckily, about ten minutes into the fight we both realise that there's more going on than just the toilet seat. Marli's been under some nasty stress for the past three weeks now, in light of a worrying physical condition. Screwed up hormones + stress = not fun for her.
I don't even need LaTex to make that formula clear to anyone :)
Luckily on Tuesday she'll get to talk to the physician about the whole matter. We're both praying/hoping/wanting that there's nothing -really- wrong.
kilala.nl tags: family,
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2007-11-18 15:24:00
I've always been quite happy about most of the stuff Apple does. A lot of their solutions to problems are elegant and pretty. However, there are also some cases in which they do awful stuff under the hood. Stuff that makes me cringe in disgust.
Case in point, the new path_helper command.
I've been an avid user of LaTexIT, a LaTex helper programme, for a few months now. It's great how easy it makes the creation of mathematical equations in LaTex.
Unfortunately LaTexIT doesn't yet work flawlessly on Leopard. One of the things that goes wrong is the fact that it just won't start :D After trying to start the app a few times, I noticed a run-away process called path_helper.
I asked Pierre whether path_helper might be tied to the problems he's having, because we don't often get run-away processes. Pierre confirmed that others have hinted at path_helper as well, but that he isn't quite sure yet. Unfortunately he doesn't have a Leopard license yet, so he can't debug the problems yet (hint: make a donation if you use LaTexIt! Pierre could use a Leopard license!).
To help him out, I dug around a little bit. What follows is what I e-mailed Pierre. If you don't want to read through the whole bit, here's the summary:
Apple wants to make it easy to expand the $PATH variable for every user on the system automatically. Instead of tagging on new PATH= lines onto the end of /etc/profile, they've created the path_helper command that gets called by /etc/profile. Path_helper reads directory paths from the text files in /etc/paths.d and appends these paths to $PATH.
So because the want to make it just a -little- easier to add to $PATH, they've:
* Created a new directory structure under /etc/paths.d
* Allow new apps or environments to add text files to /etc/paths.d
* Created a new command which simply reads text files and barfs out shell commands.
* Thus broken the Unix standard way of globally setting $PATH.
Good going Apple! You bunch of schmucks!
======================================================
Hmm, this seems to be a weird little, extra tool that Apple has tagged onto the OS. I'm not sure if it's the most elegant solution to the problem. I see what they want to do though: they want to be able to easily make adjustments to the $PATH variable for all users on the system.
Personally I'd just use the global profile in /etc, but apparently Apple have chosen a roundabout way.
Each user's .profile calls that path_helper process. The only thing that path_helper does is generate the requisite sh/csh commands to adjust the $PATH variable.
From the manpage:
=====================
ath_helper(8) BSD System Manager's Manual path_helper(8)
NAME
path_helper -- helper for constructing PATH environment variable
SYNOPSIS
path_helper [-c | -s]
DESCRIPTION
The path_helper utility reads the contents of the files in the directories
/etc/paths.d and /etc/manpaths.d and appends their contents to the PATH and
MANPATH environment variables respectively.
Files in these directories should contain one path element per line.
Prior to reading these directories, default PATH and MANPATH values are
obtained from the files /etc/paths and /etc/manpaths respectively.
Options:
-c Generate C-shell commands on stdout. This is the default if SHELL
ends with "csh".
-s Generate Bourne shell commands on stdout. This is the default if
SHELL does not end with "csh".
NOTE
The path_helper utility should not be invoked directly. It is intended only
for use by the shell profile.
Mac OS X
END
=====================
So instead of putting PATH=$PATH:/usr/whatever/bin in /etc/profile, Apple have decided to make a new config file: /etc/paths.d. This config file will list all directories that need to be appended to the default $PATH.
/me looks at /etc/paths.d
Actually... It's a directory, containing text files with directory paths. For example:
=====================
Kilala:~ thomas$ cd /etc
Kilala:etc thomas$ cd paths.d
Kilala:paths.d thomas$ ls
X11
Kilala:paths.d thomas$ ls -al
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 24 sep 05:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 91 root wheel 3094 13 nov 21:11 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 13 24 sep 05:53 X11
Kilala:paths.d thomas$ file X11
X11: ASCII text
Kilala:paths.d thomas$ cat X11
/usr/X11/bin
=====================
I guess Apple's reasoning is that it's easier to add extra text files to /etc/paths.d, than it is to add a new PATH= line to /etc/profile. Personally, I think it an in-elegant (and rather wasteful) way of doing things :/
Wait, it's even worse! The path_helper gets called from /etc/profile! Ugh! :(
=====================
Kilala:~ thomas$ cd /etc
Kilala:etc thomas$ cat profile
# System-wide .profile for sh(1)
if [ -x /usr/libexec/path_helper ]; then
eval `/usr/libexec/path_helper -s`
fi
if [ "${BASH-no}" != "no" ]; then
[ -r /etc/bashrc ] && . /etc/bashrc
fi
=====================
Let's see what happens when I run the command...
=====================
Kilala:etc thomas$ /usr/libexec/path_helper -s
PATH="/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin"; export PATH
MANPATH="/usr/share/man:/usr/local/share/man:/usr/X11/man"; export MANPATH
=====================
What a totally stupid and annoying way of doing this. What's worse, I'm quite sure it also breaks the Unix-compliancy of Leopard when it comes to standards for setting $PATH.
Hmm :/
kilala.nl tags: apple, meh, sysadmin,
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2007-11-17 11:55:00
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Careful now, this may sting a little... o_O
This semester we're covering Analysis 1, which requires a wholly new way of thinking. Where Statistics 1 was pure maths and calculation, this course requires something additional: insight and a sense of logic.
The thing about this course is that it's all about proving maths. Not using maths to prove stuff, but proving the mathematic equations themselves.
Folks who aren't too hot on math may want to skip the next section :D
==========
For example, the calculation show is above belongs to the question "Prove or disprove that (k^2 -1) is divisible by eight, for all values of K that are integers and odd". "Odd" in this case is opposed to "even".
So, how do you even get started on such a question?! Well, you start filing in bits and pieces, starting out by equating k to (2n + 1). Why? Because one can make -any- odd number by taking integer n, multiplying it by 2 (thus becoming an even number) and then adding 1.
Once all of that is done we're left with 4(n^2 + n). In order for the original theory to be right, this'd mean that any value of (n^2 + n) needs to be even. And that's what I'm testing in the second and third lines: first for even numbers, then for odd numbers. And indeed, both tests come out positive: any value for n will result in an even number.
Pulling this back to the original theory means that any outcome is indeed divisible by eight, because four times any even number is always divisible by eight.
==========
Joy!... I've always sucked at being insightful, so a lot of these "tricks" don't come natural to me. Then again, I used to get good grades for math and even for stuff like this. I ought to be able to get the hang of it again.
I hope ^_^;;
kilala.nl tags: school, studying, maths,
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2007-11-17 07:41:00
I don't know why, I don't know how, but for the past two weeks Blackie's been very interested in one of the drawers of my filing cabinet. Specifically, the drawer containing my school books and papers. When it's open, she crawls into it from my desk. When it's not she'll start scratching the drawer and meowing. So it's obvious that she wants in there.
I just don't have a clue what she's doing in there! Most of the times it's a quick in-n-out, but sometimes she'll be in there scratching at things. Like she's digging. And now, as I'm typing this, she's sitting there very, comfortably waiting for me to pet her. Weird.
I've already checked the drawer for crap or puke, so she's not using it like a second bathroom or anything. I guess she just gets a little weirder every year :)
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2007-11-15 19:09:00
Darn... Fighting this little bit of trouble just cost me half an hour and a good chunk of my mood.
After installing the OS X 10.4.11 update, the MS Word 2004 FontCacheTool problems I had back in 2006 arose again. Apparently this part of MS Office regularly gets into trouble with OS X's fonts and caches *grr*
I tried to get rid of the problem in a nice way by disabling any duplicate fonts and by removing the font cache. But that didn't help me any. So instead I reckoned I'd play it dirty; I didn't have time to play with Word.
$ cd /Applications/Microsoft*/Office/Support*
$ sudo mv FontCacheTool FontCacheTool.orig
Screw that piece of kit... If it doesn't want to play nicely, it won't get to play at all. Of course, that's not the proper solution. On the upside of things, Word does boot up very quickly now! ^_^;
kilala.nl tags: apple, problem,
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2007-11-15 13:20:00
This semester, the didactics course that's part of Analysis 1 focuses on the teaching of basic maths to children. What kind of troubles do they run into? What are common mistakes they make? How does learning maths even work?!
Of course it's a bit hard for a bunch of grownups to sympathize with the issues kids run into. Adults have been calculating things in their heads for decades and everything's become an autoamtic process.
8 + 5? The answer "13" automatically pops up in my head. No need to even think about it. 2 x 20? Boom! "40".
So how do you make adults relive their days of learning basic maths?
By making them do maths in base-8, ie octal counting.
Using the classic method known as the Land of Okt (het land van Okt), aspiring teachers are introduced to the problems of learning maths. We're using a book published by APS, though there's also a book dedicated to this specific subject.
I have to say that it's an interesting and somewhat frustrating experience. It feels odd break down addition and multiplication into steps again. Ie: 3 + 9 = 3 + 5 + 4 = 14. Or: 4 x 5 = 2 x 12 = 24. Don't even get me started about fractions :D
Yeah... Good stuff! If you're curious to see some of the assignments we're doing, check the Wiki page for week 1.
kilala.nl tags: school, teaching, studying,
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2007-11-14 07:51:00
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This morning, waking up around 05:30, I found the following message on the whiteboard.
Doesn't leave much to the imagination, right? I guess we're going shopping today!
kilala.nl tags: geeky, family,
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2007-11-12 23:38:00
Hooray for more good results!
It's been confirmed that the first result that I got back (see a few days ago) was actually an 8,3! /o/ That's the equivalent of an 83%. Nice!
And the reports I'd turned in for Statistics 1 (all of which can be found over here) were also good for a G (and hence an 8, or 80%). Fsckin' A!
kilala.nl tags: school,
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2007-11-11 20:15:00
Every time that I leave the house for a few hours, I put the living room door ajar slightly. Closed enough to keep the heat in, open enough to let the cat wander around.
So why is it that, every time that I return home, the door is wide open? I reckon that she's figured out that the chill that comes in makes the heater turn on, because that's where I find her every time: on top of the heater.
/me starts to see his cat in a wholly different light
I wonder what the heck else she's plotting o_O
kilala.nl tags: cat,
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2007-11-11 10:03:00
1. I love living in Utrecht for many good reasons. One of them's the scent of coffee that permeates the morning air when I ride my bike to the train station. One of the little perks of living in the city of Douwe Egberts' breweries.
2. I love Blackie and her built-in clock. She never fails to wake me at an acceptable time, if I've overslept. Usually my alarm clock goes around six and she starts scratching the doors and meowing loudly at seven, but only if I'm not up yet. Now that's what I call a wake-up service ^_^
kilala.nl tags: coffee, life, cat,
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2007-11-11 10:00:00
I just checked Osiris (my school's online student administration site) and found my first test result.
Statistics 1 came back a G, which is equivalent to a 7, or a 7,5 if I'm not mistaken. My expectations were spot on :)
kilala.nl tags: school,
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2007-11-09 07:08:00
Exactly a month after the last time that we went, we paid another visit to the Afrika Afrika show. We really loved the show the first time and since we still owed the in-laws a trip to the theater, we went again and took them with us.
This time around, Marli had ordered tickets right in front of the stage, though a bit higher up in the stands. Last time we had ringside seats, at the back of the stage. The difference is quite astounding! At the ringside you are so immersed in the show that you nearly forget about the rest of the crowd. Up in the stands I couldn't help but notice the rest of the audience and the huge rows of empty seats. It breaks down the magic just a little bit.
The front view of the show was great though, as it provided a completely new perspective. And let me reiterate that, yes, the 80 bucks a pop for the seats are well worth it.
Apparently the in-laws loved the evening as well, with Marli's mom wondering how some of the stuff was even possible. "At times I see this stuff happen and my head just goes, this isn't possible!" ^_^
Yep... A great evening it was! :)
kilala.nl tags: art, fun, music, family,
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2007-11-08 15:52:00
A long while back I first wrote about Girl Genius. I'd immediately fallen in love with the steampunk comic (which can be read online over here).
I wanted to support Mr. Foglio's work by buying some of his work in print. That'd also give me a chance to read Girl Genius offline ^_^ Because things are a bit tight these days, I opted for the $10 omnibus edition that gathers volumes 1 through 3 in one book.
I won't go into the story deeply, simply because I've already spoken about it earlier. The series is a steampunt adventure, with loads of action, comedy and a little drama thrown in for good measure. The artistic style of Mr. Foglio will not be up everyone's alley, but I'd suggest to try and ignore that and focus on the story instead.
The book itself looks pretty good. It isn't shabby and doesn't fall into pieces like other, cheap comic books. The print quality is very crisp. The only downside is that the whole book's in black and white, with the original colour pages being printed a tad too dark.
All in all, the book's definitely worth its money!
kilala.nl tags: comics, reading,
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2007-11-08 06:06:00
Though in this case "training" is the verbification of the noun "train".
Yep... As of this week I'm doing my daily commute by train and public transport again. It's been almost three years now since I last did this, 'cause Snow always provided me with a lease car. They still do of course, but driving to The Hague every morning sucks hairy donkey balls: even at six the roads are filling up :/
Instead of spending about ninety minutes in traffic, I'm taking the PT which should have me at the The Hague office in a little over an hour. And the best thing: I get to study while on the train! This is saving me some trouble! :)
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2007-11-07 21:25:00
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For a while now I've been blissfully ignoring something wacky about myself. You see, while I may be 28, I certainly don't consciously feel like that. For some reason I usually still feel like I'm 24. And when I was 24 I still felt like I was 20. Do we see a pattern emerging here? ~_^ |
Now, I don't really care about my classmates' opinion of my hobbies. But I -am- kind of worried about how all of this is going to work out once I start teaching. I mean, when I get out of college I'll be thirty! The big 3-0!
The heck's -that- going to be like?! o_O
kilala.nl tags: geeky, school, anime,
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2007-11-07 20:52:00
Awww, our cat Blackie really takes after her master. It's so cute! I'm sitting here on the couch, studying and dicking around with my laptop. Slowly I become aware of this faint, wheezing noise coming from the beanbag a few feet away.
She's snoring <3
Speaking of, Marli recently made a recording of -my- snoring. Ho-ly-crap! o_O It's a miracle the girl even gets to sleep at night! I sound awful!
kilala.nl tags: cat,
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2007-11-05 09:57:00
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So... Exciting day! Today's the first time I'm taking exams for my new college education. Of course I've done all of this before, but that was years ago! |
kilala.nl tags: school, studying,
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2007-11-04 10:49:00
A small forum discussion at Ars Technica alerted me to one of the new features in OS X Leopard. Apple'd been working on a more lifelike voice-over, which resulted in the voice Alex. I have to say that it's pretty damn impressive, the way they make Alex sound rather lifelike.
What's even scarier is the fact that somehow Apple worked in little breathing-effects as well. There's something weird about hearing your computer draw breath before it starts to speak a sentence.
EDIT:
You can use the voice-over utilities to create audio files as well. Cheap audio-books anyone? Of course, Alex doesn't speak as vividly as any other narrator, but still.
Here's how to do it:
1. Open Terminal.app to get to the command line.
2. Type "say -f ".
3. Drag a plain text file from Finder into the Terminal window.
4. Type " -o ~/Desktop/Spoken.aiff"
5. Press enter.
The say command will read the text input file (-f flag stands for "file") and will output the audio as .AIFF file (-o stands for "output"). The resulting file will appear on your desktop. Once it's done you can convert the .AIFF file to .MP3 using Amadeus.
EDIT2:
Of course, another neat use for this command is to tell you when a huge task is done. For example, I run the "TEC-analysis.sh" script from the command line to analyse a weeks worth of Tivoli alarms. It'd be very easy to do the following:
$ ./TEC-analysis.sh; say TEC Analysis complete!
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2007-11-04 08:41:00
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Yeah, I'm fairly sure now that the whole hyperventilation deal is my subconscious' way of expressing anxiety or stress. I mean, it's a bit obvious right? One day before my first exams I get an attack. Yeah... |
kilala.nl tags: hyperventilation, health,
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2007-11-03 15:44:00
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Last night I upgraded the first of our three Macintoshes to the new Mac OS X Leopard. I'd decided to start out with the Powermac, since that one's the least crucial of our Macs. Before upgrading her iBook, Marli wants to see the new OS work on my Powermac. And of course I'm saving the all-important work-Macbook for last. |
After doing a completely fresh, reformatted, install I found another unpleasant surprise: the Migration Assistant software cannot import users whose homedirectory has been File Vaulted. Crap. This meant that I had to transfer all my files and preferences by hand.
So far I like the new OS well enough (haven't noticed much difference), though there's one thing that I already loathe: Spaces. I -love- having a virtual desktop manager built into OS X. Absolutely. I just hate two of the "features" of Spaces.
1. You cannot move windows from one desktop to another using a key combo.
2. Spaces automatically switches to the desktop containing the -main- window of the application you select.
Why is number 2 so bad? Well, let's say that I'm typing up a report on desktop 4. Now a friend pops up on MSN, through Adium. The new Adium window appears on my current desktop: 4. I switch to Adium, to type a reply, and "zing!" I'm moved to desktop 2 because that's where Adium's main window resides.
That fscking sucks!
More Leopard gripes later :)
kilala.nl tags: apple, powermac,
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2007-11-01 10:28:00
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Yesterday someone at the Mac Freak fora pointed me towards InkScape. InkScape is an open source (and free!) vector graphics tool that's a nice alternative to Illustrator. Or so I'm told. Apparently there's a whole bunch of webcomic artists who use it. |
kilala.nl tags: other tech,
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