2009-09-26 19:24:00
Today was awesome! The sky was blue, the sun was bright, the fairway was green and my play is improving! ^_^
Glenn, our pro, asked us all to be prepared and warmed up before class so we could immediately proceed to the PAR3 greens. Because my driving is still pretty random I videotaped myself at the range for later reviewing. During class we played five holes after splitting the group in two. I learnt a lot from both Glenn and Onno, a rather friendly South African (I think) who tagged along for supervision.
Points for improvement: steadiness, steadiness and steadiness. I don't stay perfectly level when swinging and I tend to change my grip mid-swing. Ah, good times.
kilala.nl tags: sports,
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2009-09-26 19:20:00
Today I was informed that my finnish grandmother, known to us all as Nonna (because back then she hated to be reminded that she's "old" enough to be a grandmother), had passed away. I've expected that phone call for over three years, but it doesn't make it any fun that it's finally come. Obviously, we'll all miss Nonna.
kilala.nl tags: family,
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2009-09-25 09:37:00
The Epoch Converter website is truly a handy resource! Anything you'd ever want to do with epoch dates gathered onto one easy to read/browse page. Awesome!
It's got information for many different operating systems and programming languages so you're never lost. *bookmark*
kilala.nl tags: sysadmin, unix,
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2009-09-25 05:38:00
Nothing to see here, just keeping track of things. Had an "attack" around midnight-ish, but easily overcame it by just staying put in bed.
kilala.nl tags: hyperventilation, health,
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2009-09-25 05:35:00
Oh man, oh man! I've written about the Japanese+Russian anime First Squad before and how I'm looking forward to its WWII + zombie crusaders + Nazi cult action fest. Well, the studio's released another trailer and it seems that there's an october fifteenth release planned. I'm guessing this is still a theatrical release and not to DVD yet.
Trailer looks great though!
kilala.nl tags: movies, anime,
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2009-09-24 10:46:00
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The past few years I've had multiple attempts at using personal finance management tools like iBank and such. All of these attempts failed because it's such a bother to do manual imports of the banking data and often the categories wouldn't work either. |
They've given Tim the tagline "Het slimste huishoudboekje van Nederland", which might seem a bit over the top but I'm definitely willing to give it a shot! The best thing of course being the fact that it plugs into Mijn ING without effort and thus I can get started immediately. I'm looking forward to them releasing it as an actual product!
More information is available as PDF and a short movie (dutch).
kilala.nl tags: money, other tech,
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2009-09-24 10:17:00
This morning I discovered a bug in one of FoxT's "hotfixes" (aka patch, bugfix) for BoKS 6.0.x. Maybe the problem exists for other BoKS versions as well. The hotfix in question is TFS 061016-115513 which enables BoKS 6.0 to work with the ssh_pk_optional authentication method. Before this hotfix you were forced to use either password or SSH key authentication, but never both. With the hotfix applied you can now use SSH key authentication, but fall back to password if the keys are missing.
Anywho... I found out that on Solaris 10 the hotfix does not actually replace all necessary files if you run BoKS 6.0. Here's the list of files that get replaced:
Sol10 = boks_sshd, mess.eng
Sol8 = boks_sshd, mess.eng, boks_servc_d, method.conf, plus a few GUI forms.
After conferring with BoKS-guru Wilfrid at FoxT it seems that the patch will treat Solaris 10 as client-only systems, which sucks when you're appying it to a replica or master server. In order to fix a Sol10 replica/master you'll need to manually copy the files from the Sol8 part of the fix to their intended destinations. This should work without any problems as Sol10 is fully backwards compatible with Sol8.
kilala.nl tags: sysadmin, boks,
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2009-09-21 21:47:00
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Our weekend was dead-busy! Saturday we'd invited many of our friends and relatives over for both Dana's birthday and our house warming party. Luckily not half of them showed up because by the end of the day we were all -beat-! |
kilala.nl tags: family,
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2009-09-21 21:05:00
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Kaijuu often has -the- best timing when taking pictures of us all ^_^
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2009-09-21 21:04:00
I've been training a lot, though not as much as I might've liked to. I did manage to persuade Marli to let me rent a set of NJoy clubs which will allow me to play a little more before my first exam. I can also use'm to play with Hans, the next time he comes to babysit Dana. ^_^
The third lessen in our course focussed on the full swing (again), a little chipping and of course putting. During the fourth and fifth classes we'll leave most of that stuff to the preparations, while actually venturing out onto the PAR3 course. It's a shame that the course completely ignores pitching and sand traps :/
Anywho... I'm definitely learning, though I'm far from having acquired a steady swing. At the driving range I've learnt to recognize what and when I'm doing something wrong which is good, but I can't actually prevent it from happening yet. Compare it to my archery a few years back: in the beginning I could tell I was going to shoot wide before I let go. So, as in archery, consistency is something very hard to acquire. I'll take the pro's word for it and believe that consistency can only be acquired by frequent and repeated practice.
Today I quit from work early because I was having a rather crappy day. To clear my mind of all the crap I took an hour and a half at the driving range to shoot another 100+ balls. It's odd to see that at my current (lack of a) level most of my shots come out the same, regardless of whether I'm using an iron 7 or a hybrid 2. WEIRD!
Oh well... Practice, practice, practice :)
EDIT:
I've finally found out some more about that NJoy half set I've been playing with. Apparently the NJoy CR2 set (both half and full) is a dutch product! Made and marketed by DGG International whose other brand is Benross which is aimed a bit higher in the market. The fact that NJoy is a dutch brand explains why I had such a hard time finding any information on the web. Those guys should try and get the word out some more.
Also, some more about my learning experiences. Today at the driving range I noticed that:
* ~25% flies straight and true
* ~50% veers of to the left or right
* ~25% gets topped and bounces along the ground
One thing I've felt while swinging is that the club isn't as tight as it should be in my left hand. I think it has a bit too much play leading to wobble, which in turn might explain why so many balls veer off.
kilala.nl tags: sports,
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2009-09-17 21:32:00
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What a day! I took the day off to spend with our families, celebrating Dana's birthday. It's still hard to believe that we've had a daughter for a year now ^_^
At least she got an awesome birthday present, the price of which we'll not top for years to come :D She'll have a lovely garden to play in next summer...
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2009-09-17 21:18:00
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Our gardens are done! Both front and back have been completely redone from scratch, with the exception of tree nice (and expensive) trees. Four days over schedule and about 2000 euros over budget we are now the proud owners of a very pretty and presentable garden. In all honesty, 1500 of those euros account for the front yard which was not part of our original planning.
Props to De Groendecorateurs and Muller Garden BV for their work! The prior, led by Jeroen Binnekade provided proper project management, while the latter shone in their execution of the garden.
kilala.nl tags: house,
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2009-09-16 08:59:00
We've been pondering about a dining table to put in our living room for a while now. We don't have that much space left with all of our furniture in there, so the table needs to be small, yet roomy enough for four people to eat at. As if by magic the new Ikea catalog landed on our doorstep yesterday and Marli found the perfect table: Norden. It's compact, features two fold-away tabletops and it even has extra drawers for cutlery, table cloths and such!
At 170 euros the price's alright, but even better: Ikea had a bunch of those tables with "undesired" visual aspects (read: "the wood has knobs") that they were selling at 100 euros off! 70 dining table FTW /o/ So off we went!
Stupidly we always fall for Ikea's beguiling ways...
Aside from the dining table we also left with a fold-away bed/sofa, a play rug for Dana and some bedding. Of course we wouldn't have done any of this if we couldn't afford it, so there's no real problem... It's just that it's sometimes frustrating/weird how easy Ikea can lure you in to buy stuff :)
The same goes for Makro, the food and non-food wholesaler, which we also avoid like the plague ^_^;
kilala.nl tags: family, house,
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2009-09-14 19:35:00
For the longest of times my Nagios plugins have used a rather oldfashioned approach to configuration: everything's hardcoded into the script and you'll need to modify the script to make changes. Obviously that sucks if you want to use the script for multiple purposes. My newer scripts all use command line flags and parameters to pass variables, making them a lot more versatile. Hence I will soon be rewriting all my Nagios plugins for this particular purpose.
I will also be changing their individual pages, putting the plugin back into its own .ksh script instead of including the code into the HTML page. Whatever was I thinking when I did that?!
Finally, I will also modifying all plugins (also the new ones) to work with multiple monitoring systems. By passing a certain command line option one will be able to chose between modes for Nagios and Tivoli, with possible extensions along the way.
I've got my work cut out for me!
kilala.nl tags: sysadmin, nagios,
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2009-09-12 23:01:00
The past few months I've been working on some BoKS scripts. Let's say that my daily job's inspired me to write a number of scripts that I just -know- are going to be useful in any BoKS environment. I've got plenty ideas for both admin and monitoring scripts and finally I'm starting to see the fruits of my labour!
All of these scripts were written in my "own" time, so luckily I can do with them as I please. I've chosen to share all these scripts under the Creative Commons license which means that you can use them, change them and even re-use them as long as you attribute the original code to me. I guess it sounds a bit like the GPL.
Anywho, for now I've published three scripts, with more to come! All scripts can be found in the Sysadmin section of my site, in the menubar. So far there are:
1. boks_safe_dump, which creates database dumps for specific hosts and host groups.
2. boks_new_rootpw, which sets and verifies new passwords on root accounts.
3. check_boks_replication, a monitor script to make sure BoKS database replication works alright.
As they say in HHGTTG: Share and enjoy!
kilala.nl tags: work, sysadmin, boks,
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2009-09-09 20:56:00
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Our good friend Menno is currently on a holiday in Italy, climbing and mountaineering. Actually, I reckon he should be back next week. Anywho the picture above made me think of him and I hope he's safer than last year. Take care buddy :)
kilala.nl tags: friends,
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2009-09-06 07:57:00
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It's funny how stuff you love can suddenly pop up where you least expect it. Case in point: Danny Choo's recent article about his meeting at the Cospa company. Cospa are specialized in cosplay items and character goods and to my knowledge are a pretty big name in that field. Seeing how Danny always includes swathes of photographs in his articles I read on in anticipation. |
The MP3 above is the show's opening theme, which of course has been solidly embedded in my brain since early childhood. Courtesy of Serienoldies.de.
Putting things together I reckon that Cartoon Network in Japan have purchased a broadcasting license for Die Sendung mit der Maus and that they've actually been airing it there. Well, that's actually not too surprising since it's a show that easily adapted! The animated sections do not have ANY dialogue except for "CLACKCLACK" noises and "PHWFT PHWFT!" (for the elephant). The "how it's made" educational sections can either be dubbed or just replaced with local-made .edu sections, keeping costs down.
EDIT:
There we go! Die Maus (note the grammatical error) at Cartoon Network Japan. There's even an online shop with Die Maus character goods. :)
kilala.nl tags: japan, tv, childhood,
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2009-09-05 18:01:00
Ow, my aching muscles! ^_^
Today's golf practice was a lot harder on my body than last time. It'll probably have something to do with the fact that I've practiced for about 2.5 hours, instead of last weeks 1-1.5. Anywho, today was all about the full swing and chipping. I've learnt a few valuable things about the swing that I was doing wrong:
1. When taking the stance, after bending forward, my arms should hang straight down. I was actually aligning them with the club.
2. When making the backswing I need to cock my left wrist while at the same time making sure that I keep it straight. I was actually turning it inwards, which supposedly can lead to muscle injuries.
3. While chipping I have a tendency to move my legs (bounce upwards) or to flick my wrists (scooping the ball). Both are wrong and should be avoided like the plague :)
4. In both cases I cut my swing short. While chipping I tend to whack the ball, cutting short immediately after the hit. While swinging I tend to duck together after hitting the ball, instead of staying "tall" and finishing my swing. I think both are caused by some built-in fear of making big, strong movements (caused in turn by my inexperience).
So... Practice, practice, practice!
kilala.nl tags: sports,
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2009-09-05 10:45:00
Our friends Kaijuu, Robert and Niels attended last night's live airing of BNN's Kamikaze TV. As the show progressed I saw that, when it concerns the dutch media's portrayal of japanese pop culture, we still haven't moved out of the nineties.
On the show I saw and heard the exact same stuff I saw in 1999 and in the years since then:
1. The presenter shows "outrageous", weird or insane stuff from Japanese TV.
2. The panel reacts shocked.
3. One or two dissenting voices meekly try to explain what is actually going on.
So we obviously went through:
1. Here's some cartoons that are really hip!
2. Cartoons are for kids! I ain't watching that!
3. But anime is just like normal movies: every genre and age group is there!
Or.
1. OMG Shocking, look what they're doing to these contestants.
2. WTF, I wouldn't let someone kick me in the nads!
3. But actually they're actors, they always are.
The last fifteen minutes clinched it for me and confirmed that we haven't changed a bit. Seeing how it was past midnight they turned to "sex on TV" and showed "outrageous" stuff like a young lady getting deflowered on TV, while crying. It's funny how -nobody- pointed out that this was both A) acted mostly acted and B) for a straight-to-DVD release pay-TV satelite channel and C) the dutch reporter was probably used to lend credence to the acting (because she was looking horrified).
Also, of course the whole "We would never have this in the Netherlands!" stuff is totally wrong seeing how a certain dutch company (rhyming with "Cub Inbetween") earns its daily bread by doing the exact same thing.
Meh...
EDIT:
Edited to make some corrections. I was partially wrong about that virginity-stuff. Here's a more in-depth article (NSFW!) that explains the ParadiseTV modus operandi.
kilala.nl tags: tv, meh, japan,
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2009-09-04 13:59:00
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Good news everyone! |
The orthopedic confirmed that Dana is now allowed to amble around the house without her spreader and she'll only have to wear them in bed. Wow, it looks like things are really coming to an end :)
kilala.nl tags: baby, health, body,
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2009-09-04 13:44:00
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Coming Monday the landscapers will start work on our back yard. In order to speed up the work on the -front- garden, which I was planning to do myself, I thought I'd get rid of the rickety old deck at the frond door. Which is when I encountered new-house-WTF?! number 4 (or is it 5 by now?): it's a floating deck, with a 50cm hole under it.
In the picture you'll see a top view schematic of our front garden (house = grey, brown = deck, red = footpath). Next to that are two side view sketches: one of what I expected to find and one of what's actually there. That's right, the garden stops about a meter from our front door, using a wooden terrace to cover the huge hole.
The plus side of this is that I may build a new deck, including a trap door and a pit of spikes / scorpions / sharks for any passing salesmen. The down side of this (which is far more realistic) is that we're going to have to clear out about three cubic meters of vines and then fill up the hole with new sand.
I'm sorely tempted to throw another few hundred in the landscapers' direction, just to get this fixed in a day or two as well.
kilala.nl tags: house,
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2009-09-03 23:34:00
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You may remember a post of mine a few months ago where I expressed a keen interest in visiting a Hanshin Tigers match. Well, I'd still love to go obviously, but my good buddy Kaijuu actually -went-! On his last day in Osaka, not a week ago, he attended a jam-packed Koshien stadium where the Tigers beat the Yomiuri Giants /o/ |
Read Kaijuu's report of the day, along with his awesome pictures.
Those flags look friggin' awesome! I gotta get me one of those for the wall of my home office ^_^
kilala.nl tags: japan, friends,
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2009-09-03 23:13:00
When we started out with UPC as our new triple-play provider we were pretty happy. Their service was swift, their DTV was good and our Internet connection was hella fast. We gave them a solid 8!
In the past months we've had randomly dying Internet and phone connections and no less than two dying DTV boxen. The first one fried its PSU and the second one refused to record -anything- right off the bat. Things were gradually going downhill, with tonight as the absolute low point.
After waiting for three weeks to get our third DVR we were told that we would in fact NOT be getting a new DVR. Despite the fact that their technicians had ascertained that they had given us a defective box, they would still need to send a tech over to verify that the box was broken. Fine, that happens. However, they should've said so immediately and not after keeping us waiting for three weeks.
Tonight we were visited by UPC's mechanic (who's actually from a third party called Guidion). Completely opposite to what we were told, he immediately replaced our DVR stating that it didn't matter if it was really broken, or if we'd broken it ourselves. He even suggested that we had purposefully broken it twice more! Obviously this (combined with the case's backstory) got Marli flustered, to which he reacted that "Ma'am shouldn't get so angry and agressive. Maybe if she didn't beat the crap out of people or the DVR things would actually work."
WTF o_O
Ya... UPC, our customer satisfaction is dropping like sh*t. As soon as cable opens up in Flevoland we'll move back to Ziggo. And yes, a written complaint's headed your way.
kilala.nl tags: other tech, meh,
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2009-09-02 09:30:00
Wow... A few days after OS X Snow Leopard's release the Ars Technica review has become available. As always it's a very impressive document, this time ringing in at 23 pages. The great thing about AT's reviews of OS X is that they always go rather in-depth on the technical aspect, this time starting off on page 3 with an analysis of home file system compression (implemented through a few new hacks) is not only saving space, but is also speeding up your computer.
Good stuff! Now all I have to do is find an hour or three to read through it all :D
kilala.nl tags: apple,
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