Holy wars, every profession has them

2008-04-30 12:46:00

Whenever two or more parties are convinced that they're on the side of absolute right holy wars pop up. I'm not just talking about the religious conflicts that we see every day, but also professional debates that are verging on religion.

Windows versus Linux versus Mac OS X. Emacs versus Vi versus Pico. Sendmail versus just about any decent email server. Japanese cars versus American cars versus European cars. Ketchup-on-your-steak versus Ketchup-lovers-should-die. Whatever, there's too much to even think of!

The field of education unfortunately is no different. Many people think that they know what's best for today's kids and thus philosophies about teaching vary greatly! For example, in December I wrote about the Het nieuwe leren versus Het oude leren crowds. The first think that the folks over at BON are decrepit relics from a time better forgotten. The latter think that the HNL crowd are nonsensical managers lusting for new and shiny toys. And neither side is willing to give in one inch, or to even concede that the other side has at least -some- merit.

Great.

One of the stories that's been recently snapped up by the BON-folks, is the story of Jan Verhoeven's family and their experiences with De Nieuwste School in Tilburg (The Newest School). While the Verhoevens are actually quite content in their role as chroniclers, the two battling sides grasp any chance to duke it out. The BON-ers ragged on the school on their fora, in their usual fashion. At the same time the DNS-folks grasp at any chance to portray themselves in an overly positive fashion, by grabbing media attention and by spawn camping the relevant Wikipedia pages. So instead of working on a real solution, both sides are just too fscking concerned with their little battles.

Very productive, que no?

Me, I'm just glad that the Verhoevens are alright and that their daughter's happy at her new school after getting out of De Nieuwste School

kilala.nl tags: school, annoying, studying,

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Stealing bandwidth makes baby kittens cry

2008-04-30 00:23:00

Gah! I'd never given this much thought, until tonight: the topic of hotlinking, ie "stealing someone's bandwidth by linking directly to their images".

My web space contains copious amounts of pictures. A lot of them are used for my blogposts, but a big bunch of bigger/heavier pictures get used in my articles. There's my Arrow Emblem gallery, for example. As I said I never gave it any thought that people might link to my images for their own benefits. That is, until I tailed my web server's access logs for a while tonight.

Good $DEITY! Images from my site get used on dozens of fora and a whole bunch of Facebook and MySpace accounts! D: Why is that so bad? Because these schmucks all use -my- bandwidth to show pretty pictures for -their- fun and/or profit! I'd be fine with them using my images, as long as they host them themselves.

So... After reading up on the subject a little bit I managed to hack together a .htaccess file that prevents the use of any of my multimedia (pics, music, movies) on another site, except the ones of my choosing. Anyone who -does- decide to steal my stuff gets the following image.



My most important source for this little nugget of information was the Smarter image hotlinking prevention article at AListApart.com.

kilala.nl tags: geeky, internet,

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More eastern European rock music! Gogol Bordello

2008-04-29 22:59:00

Last night my bestest buddy Menno came over for dinner and a few episodes of South Park. With him, he also brought a little treat for me :) I already knew that I like rock music from the old communist countries in eastern Europe. In January I posted about Iva Nova and a few months before that I loved the music of Lyapis Trubetskoy. So yesterday, Menno treated me to a big, fat dose of Gogol Bordello (Wikipedia). Apparently they're a New York based band with members from all over eastern Europe. Their music is self-described as gypsy punk, but I don't care what you call it: it rocks ^_^

Also check out this awesome set of photographs from one of their performances in the US. Looks like a great party!

kilala.nl tags: music,

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Amsterdam Central station: a madhouse

2008-04-29 21:56:00

My dear wife, the service trainee at dutch railways, just regaled me with a few stories of her evening at work. Her shift started around two and lasted till ten and apparently the station's a certifiable nuthouse tonight ^_^;

Apparently there's a waiting period of about 80 minutes for the international tickets desk, even at ten o'clock at night. Something about people going on holidays and all kinds of foreigners coming to Amsterdam for tomorrow's Queen's Day celebrations. Apparently a lot of travellers cannot grasp the notion that the NS stop handing out queue numbers around ten, when the desk closes at 2300. Which part of "an 80 minute waiting period" do they not understand?

Anywho... Marli's not looking forward to tomorrow's shift. It's Queen's Day, in Amsterdam and her shift's from 1630 till 0030. Oh dear. Her crew are going to take the brunt of all the drunks and nuts returning to home after a long day of partying and drinking. No wonder she'll be travelling undercover, with her uniform in her backpack. O_o

EDIT:
By the by... In no way do I mean to say that Marli doesn't like her job! On the contrary, she's loving every single day! And she's pretty damn good at her work too, from what I gather. It's just that this week is home to one or two shifts from Hell ^_^;

kilala.nl tags: work, ns, weird,

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It's official: I'm job hunting as a teacher

2008-04-28 18:16:00

As the title suggests: I've officially started hunting for teaching positions for next school year. So far I've found a few very interesting schools that are actually quite close to home!

Let's see how this pans out.

Any of you Snowers reading this: no need to fret yet. I'm NOT running out on you on a moment's notice ;)

kilala.nl tags: teaching, work, school,

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Networking for fun and profit

2008-04-28 13:36:00

Until recently I used to hate networking, the perceived obligation to talk business with people whom I had no interest in. Over the past year or so a realisation has been growing in me though: networking is something that happens automatically, to a certain degree. And you can make the parts that need to happen consciously as fun as they need to be.

Example 1: Like many young folks in IT I hated the idea of networking and actually tried to avoid it. I reckoned that I had no network whatsoever and didn't care about it that much either. However, after eight years of working in IT I realised that I -do- have a network and that it's rather expansive! My friend/colleague Deborah recently nudged me to get onto Linked In and I managed to map out a large part of my network with minor effort. That's 150 names right there, that I can tap into if I ever need help with my job, a technical question, or whatever. In case you're curious, here's my profile.

So yes, everyone has a network. Even you. All the people you have worked with, or for? Network! All the friends you made at that IT conference? Network! And so on...

Example 2: Sometimes you stumble upon stuff that peaks your interest. Case in point, I recently poked around in and wrote a review about Ephorus. The product is Europe's leading anti-plagiarism software and both the teacher and the sysadmin in me got curious as to its workings. I managed to get my hands on a trial account (not normally given to students) and tried it out. I liked it well enough.

Then a few days later followed an e-mail from their directory, asking if I'd like to come in for a talk. We had a great chat this morning, about Ephorus, about my work, about their work and just stuff in general. I had a great time and I even got a few -very- helpful suggestions that could help my career in the near future.

So you see? Networking consists of two things: the stuff you do every single day and just shooting the breeze with people you don't know. The third part, the obligational marketing talks to possible customers, I'll leave to the sales folks ~_^

kilala.nl tags: work, school, fun,

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Great idea for a prank

2008-04-26 07:23:00

I may (or may not) have to do this sometime.

We set 3 chickens loose in the school. The were labeled "1", "2", and "4".

Posted by Chong, over here.

kilala.nl tags: geeky, awesome,

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The cunning artisan strikes again!

2008-04-25 19:44:00

We tend to buy our meats for dinner in batches, which get chucked in the freezer for later consumption. Unfortunately, after being frozen for a few weeks, meats tend to look alike. Which is why I occasionally add memos or glyps to the freezer bags. <- I'd forgotten I'd made this one. Care to make a wager as to the contents? ^_^

kilala.nl tags: creative, geeky, cooking,

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I am naked no more!

2008-04-25 12:54:00

I've been naked for over a year now. I liked being able to see my jaw line and I've had a lot of good responses. Upkeep however was a bitch and the last few months I'd let it slip completely: only once a week would my face encounter razor blades. So I decided to go back to being a hairy mongrel ^_^ Taking a page out of Edmond's I'm scruffy and I like it book, I'm trying something new.

So far, I like the new look :) For some reason a beard looks slimming on me and it changes the shape of my face a bit. I look less young, but hey. Marli also seems to (tentatively) like it, though Kaijuuu likened me to a mobster. We'll see how this turns out.

kilala.nl tags: body,

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Sweet Jeebus, that was -too- close

2008-04-24 20:14:00

Oh man, today was a -very- close call.

Next week's Anime 2008 and I wouldn't miss it for the world! This is the first time in five years that I'll attend Anime 200x without any organisational responsibilities. I'll be just another visitor. Glee! ^_^

Of course I'd made sure to get everything sorted at $CLIENT weeks in advance. Everything, except one very, very crucial thing. You see, I'm still on the stand-by roster for my old department to help'm out. Once in a few weeks I get my shift and need to be on stand-by all night. You see where this is going? ...

Ya.

I'd taken care of everything, -except- the roster for my old team. And yes, next week I'm on call. Fux0r! *bangs head against wall*

Luckily three of my colleagues were willing to trade and switch and hussle and such, thus making sure that I wouldn't have to miss our festival. Thank $DEITY. I realize this was my own fault and I really appreciate how these guys helped me out. :)

kilala.nl tags: snafu, anime 200x,

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Costa Rica, not a holiday destination for me

2008-04-23 00:00:00

Yesterday I did something uncharacteristic of me: I took a night off :) No homework, no cooking, no cleaning.

Instead, we went out for a quick dinner at our favorite Greek restaurant in Nieuwegein, followed by a visit to our dear friends Peter and Wendy. It'd been too long since we last talked to them and they had a big book of pictures from their last holiday trip. Apparently they'd been to Costa Rica for a few weeks, without us knowing it. -That's- how long we hadn't spoken with them ;_;

Anywho... It looks like they had a great trip and they took some beautiful pictures. I saw how a pineapple grows and flowers for the first time in my life and I'm very happy for it. I learned something cool about a fruit I love :)

However, both Marli and I have to agree: Costa Rica (or middle and south America for that metter) is not a holiday destination that we'd pick.

Any country where frogs are the size of your finger nails and where bugs come as big as your fist is just a bit too fscked up for me :) Mosquitoes the size of a finger and meat eating flies that NOMNOMNOM at you -through- your jeans? No sirree! Not for me! ^_^; Besides, I loathe any abundance of creepy crawlies and Marli's just scared shitless of snakes.

We definitely enjoyed seeing all their photos and hearing their stories. But all of that did make us realize once more that we're people for the urban jungle, not the real jungle :) I usually feel at home in any city that I visit, within a few hours... That's my forte. Amsterdam, Leeds, Helsinki, Budapest, Prague, Tokyo? That's where I feel at home!

kilala.nl tags: holiday, friends, eww,

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Researching ancient mathematics

2008-04-20 14:16:00

This semester I'm taking the second year's course Geschiedenis 2 Vakgedeelte, which can be translated as History of math 2. Over the next two months we'll be taking a look at math through the ages, starting with the Egyptians and Babylonians. As part of this course, each student is expected to write a short biography on one of the Great Mathematicians (tm). I was assigned Euclid (Euclides in dutch), which seems to be a very interesting topic. So far I've done some six hours of research and I've gotten a pretty good picture so far.

During my research I've run into some very cool things! Things that may be of interest to a lot of people :)

For instance, there's Rare Book Room.org. This website has gathered thousands and thousands of photographs of antique books. They've created a huge archive, so that mere mortals such as you and I can leaf through tomes that are normally in musea.

A 1482 print of Elements, by Euclid.
A 1613 print of Istoria e Dimostrazioni Intorno Alle Macchie Solar, by Galileo Galilei.

Another neat project is Euclid's elements of geometry by Richard Fitzpatrick. Mr Fitzpatrick has taken the 1883 Heiberg translation and used it to make a completely fresh english translation of Elements (Euclid's most famous work). You can download the book for free as a .PDF at the link provided, or you can fork over $28 to buy the hardcover print from Lulu.com. I'd say the print is definitely worth it! I've just ordered my copy, to support Mr Fitzpatrick's work.

kilala.nl tags: school, studying, maths,

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There are raptors in the server room

2008-04-18 16:50:00

Dun-dun-duuuuunnn! AIEEEE!

It's a well known fact that XKCD readers (and many other geeks) have a fascination, or a certain intrinsic hatred, of velociraptors. Me, I blame Jurassic Park. Of course, it's always a great idea to plan for the event of a raptor attack. I actually plan on using this assignment in one of my math classes one day. I mean, there's no such thing as "too prepared", right? Right?!

Sometimes though, the geekery gets ingrained a bit too deep. Because every time I'm in the server room, I just can't help but glance in the reflective window of our tape library to see if there isn't a raptor sneaking up on me ^_^; Ya, geekery++ again.

kilala.nl tags: geeky, fun,

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Math geekery ++

2008-04-18 16:16:00

I just love this line, paraphrased from here. At least, somewhere over there ^_^

Complex variables and computations are fun and games, until someone loses an i.

Glee! XKCD makes my Friday afternoon a happy one again :D

kilala.nl tags: geeky, fun,

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More MST3k this weekend

2008-04-14 08:00:00

Today's the first day of class in the fourth semester. Because I'd gotten rid of all of my backlog on homework, I had loads of time free this weekend. Glee! Since Marli is still getting used to her new job, I've taken most of the household work upon myself. I know I'd been bitching about her not doing much a few years ago, but this time around it's alright since it's not permanent. We agreed that she'd get a few more weeks to acclimatise and that she'll then pick up her chores again. Besides, the past few months she'd been a great help around the house :)

Aside from cleaning, hoovering, doing the dishes, folding laundry, washing more laundry and cooking, I've also wasted a lot of hours watching more MST3k. Ever since february I've been loving this stuff! ^_^

So far I've seen awful classics like:
* The amazing transparent man
* The sword and the dragon
* "Manos", the hands of fate (purported to be the worst movie of all time)
* Teenager strangler
* The beatniks

And I'm watching 12 to the moon right now. That's where the screencap above is from as well.

You know what's funny about MST3k? It makes all those horrible movies palatable! I would have never finished even one of these movies, had it not been for the wisecracking guy and his robots. Well, none but The sword and the dragon because that was a pretty badass Russian/Finnish movie :)

But now that it's Monday, I need to get back to work again. My last semester has started and it'll be a big workload until the end of the year.

EDIT:
For those who need a short introduction to the silliness of MST3k: Ten WTF? moments of MST3k. I especially like #4 and #3. ^_^

kilala.nl tags: tv, geeky,

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The estimated bandwidth of a laden Volkswagen

2008-04-13 11:34:00

It's been said that one should never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with magtape. Next week we'll run part of the disaster recovery (DR) tests at $CLIENT, just to make sure everything is in working order. As part of the preparations I needed to send a number of backup tapes from our main production site to our new DR location in Rotterdam. You see, we'll need to be able to restore data from magtape in case shit hits the fan.

While making my preps I found out something nasty: earlier that week I'd sent the requisite tapes to our old DR site in Breda, as part of my daily routine. Back then I didn't know I needed those tapes, so it was just part of what I do every day.

Meh... So now I had to make a rather long trip through Friday afternoon traffic to right my own wrong. Well, it's the honest and fair thing to do, right? So off to home I went, to pick up my car, followed by a slow drive to Breda. Picking up the tapes went quite easily as did the drive to Rotterdam. At least, at first, because about half way I heard about a big fscking accident up ahead. Just in time I managed to get an alternate route, which saved my evening.

All in all it took me about an hour to get 3.2 TB from Breda to Rotterdam. This boils down to about 8 GB per second. I don't see fiber optics beating that bandwidth just yet. ^_^

kilala.nl tags: work, car, geeky,

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Hidden, within plain sight

2008-04-10 22:19:00

While watching Nostalgie Net (Nostalgia TV) this evening I learnt something that took me by surprise. Something that I could have easily known all these years, but which was hidden in plain sight.

The wall behind the national monument on Dam Square in Amsterdam contains eleven urns, one for each province of the Netherlands (in the 1940's) and one for Indonesia (our former colony). Each urn contains earth from execution grounds from WWII, to commemorate our losses.

A lot more details about the monument can be read over here and here.

Learn something new every day, I guess ^_^

kilala.nl tags: netherlands, plain sight,

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Aw yea! More results for school

2008-04-10 15:03:00

As I wrote in one of the comments I got a 90% for our project about students with learning and personality disorders. That was awesome. Well, today got even more awesome, because I just got my -second- 90%! /o/ Analysis 1 - Didactics (about the teaching of basic math) consisted of ten separate reports. They came back as five 90%'s, three 80%'s and two 70%'s. I'm grinning from ear to ear here :D

kilala.nl tags: school,

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Kodomo no jikan - first season

2008-04-09 23:20:00

I've been following the Kodomo no jikan (A child's time) anime and manga the past few months and I've finally finished the TV series. I'm not quite sure if I'm completely happy about how they handled it though. The manga is still going strong, with 35 chapters so far. They however managed to finish the anime in twelve episodes, meaning that they had to make significant cuts to the storyline. The story also went from ten episodes of happy-go-lucky, to two episodes of very dark storytelling.

That's not necessarily a switch that works very well... Oh well, I'm interested in how the rest of the manga proceeds :) And it's rumoured that there's a second season of the anime on the way as well.

kilala.nl tags: anime, japan, tv,

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My arrears in schoolwork: gone! /o/

2008-04-09 11:27:00

When I started the third semester two months ago I was well behind on my schoolwork. I needed to write at least fifteen reports that were due in the second semester ;_; So... I decided to only take two classes this time and to work hard and do away with all of my arrears.

Well... I've done it! /o/

Yesterday I submitted my final stack of reports, a few days in advance of the final deadline.

God, this feels good! ^_^

kilala.nl tags: school, studying, awesome,

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Oral defense of this semester's project

2008-04-09 11:05:00

Last monday my project team had its appointment for our oral defense of our essays. This was the first time we've had to do such a thing, since most docent's are happy just reading through our papers. In this case however, the teacher wanted to prod our minds a little about some additional questions.

We came well prepared, as each of us had researched the questions we'd been given. In my case, the teach wanted to know about two things:

1. How would you go about planning a big workload for a depressed child, say for example his final exams?
2. What needs to be done if a depressed child becomes the victim of harassment by his peers?

Our defense went very well, with each of us answering all the questions to the teach's satisfaction. We actually had a good time and there was no stress at all :) In the end we were told that we could count on a 90%, assuming he didn't find any flaws in our final process reports. Nice!

I have to say that the docent did come off quite wishy-washy. We'd told him that our fifth group member had quit school no less than three times and he was still surprised when there was noone to answer the questions about the guy's report in depth. Uhm yeah, we told you? He left? Which also explains why he was about to completely skip my part of the interview, since he thought I was the guy who left. Scatterbrained much? :/ Jeez!...

kilala.nl tags: school, studying,

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My new, favourite Cinderella: the glass slipper

2008-04-06 13:33:00

Up to now, Drew Barrymore was my favourite (Cinder)Ella. Ever after has plenty of funny, is well written and Drew is very cute. However, today that movie got bumped into second place by The glass slipper from 1955. And it all owes it to Leslie Caron. I was very impressed by the fact that this leading lady from the fifties did all the ballet scenes herself, and pretty well at that! But I guess that was the custom back then: you didn't get doubles to do the hard work for you.

Anywho... What's there not to like about this version of Cinderella? There's anti-social, tomboyish Ella with a rather remarkable accent. Her short, boyish hair makes her look even better to me and it's an original twist to the character of Ella. There's a batty, kleptomaniac old lady who's supposed to be the fairy god mother. There's ball gowns the size of battleships. And there's ballet: sometimes over the top in its gayness and sometimes close to classical ballet. And another twist that I rather liked: the duke's son knew from the start that Ella was a commoner and was in love with her even before the ball.

Some of the acting might be a bit off, but the scenery makes up for it in my book. It's remarkable what they could build at the time :)

Ah, what a nice start to my Sunday filled with homework.

kilala.nl tags: movies,

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Man or Astro-man? Surf-punk-rock from the nineties

2008-04-05 15:05:00

A long time ago, as sixteen years old Thomas lay ill on the couch, his mom bought him a magazine on the spur of the moment. The kid was sick and needed some diversion ^_^ The magazine was Zone 5300 (actually it was the issue pictured right here). It was filled with all kinds of weird comics and interviews with the oddest musicians and film makers. It was the magazine for the Netherlands' underground pop culture. Thanks to them I got introduced to Robert Crumb's work and many other, lesser known American artists.

One of the other things Zone 5300 introduced me to was the band Man or Astro-man?. They played this hyped-up surf-punk that I grew to love. Remeber that Black Eyed Peas song that covered that surf-punk song from Pulp Fiction? Like that, but louder ^_^

I could never get my hands on their CDs back then, since the Internet wasn't as pervasive as it is these days. Since the nineties I've thought about their CD's on and off again, always figuring I'd still need to buy one of them. And finally I have the chance! All their CD's, with the exception of the first two, recently became available on iTunes!

Now, I can't help but share this with you :) Below's the video clip that MoA-m? had on their website in the late nineties. It's the video for the song Sferic waves. Don't mind the quality too much, because it's a recode-of-a-recode-of-a-recode from the nineties ^_^;

SfericWaves.avi

EDIT:
It's a shame I tossed all those Zone 5300 magazines when I moved to Nieuwegein years ago. I would've liked to read them all again. =_=

kilala.nl tags: music,

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Family tech support: it's a trap!

2008-04-05 11:45:00

This post is password protected. Please enter your password to read.

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Cailin's midnight taxi, at your service

2008-04-04 14:29:00

In a few days, Marli will get started on her nightly shifts for the NS. This means that she'll get off work around 0100 and that she'll take the train back home by then. She'd arrive around 01:45 by our estimates. Since we don't want her riding her bike at that hour for multiple reasons and since taxis cost a bundle, it looks like I'll be playing Midnight Taxi (tm) a few days a month. I can already imagine myself driving around town in my robes! Now where did I put my Creedence tape?

kilala.nl tags: family, work, car, ns,

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Reese's peanut butter cups OWN me!

2008-04-03 10:02:00

A colleague of mine at $CLIENT just returned from the US, after visiting some relatives in Miami. He brought us all a big bunch of candy, which's gonna be the death of us ^_^

Among all of this were the Reese's peanut butter cups, which he recommended me as being "highly addictive". Well crap he wasn't lying! o_O

Peanut butter in a milk chocolate enclosure? This stuff owns me! :9

kilala.nl tags: awesome,

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The tools of the trade

2008-04-03 07:06:00

Last Monday Marli started her traineeship with the dutch railways, NS. She's been travelling to Amsterdam every day for her classes and so far she seems to really be liking it :) She's working hard and I'm really proud of her! Everything about the preparation NS is putting into the traineeship tells me that they're very serious about all of this. The selection/screening day, the course materials, the uniforms and all the other equipment: this are serious business!

In the picture are:

* The trainee's velt cap. There are several models, ranging from this one, to the classical station master's cap and a horrible baseball cap XP

* Marli's first training manual. I have no idea how many parts there are in total, but I'm guessing it's three, so that leaves two thick binders more.

* The Rail Pocket, which is a custom modded Compaq iPaq. It's been hacked with an additional battery pack and an RFID reader (for the modern OV Chipkaart). It also runs custom software, which is rather impressively user friendly.

* A Nokia cellphone, which acts as a GPRS modem for the iPaq. The Rail Pocket regularly calls home for updates on traffic jams, emergencies and e-mails.

Nice stuff!

kilala.nl tags: work, ns,

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