2011-04-24 20:25:00
This weekend's been huge! A few weeks ago we'd planned for Easter weekend to be our big spring cleaning. Dana's grand parents were asked if a sleepover would be possible and I made sure that we had three days available for our work.
Dana's grandparents had been looking forward to the Easter weekend! They'd planned all manner of fun activities for her, like baking cookies (pictured on the right) and a nice breakfast including a chocy easter bunny (left) ^_^ Their SMS updates tell us that Dana's enjoying herself a lot and that she's completely worn out by 1900 :)
Meanwhile, back at the farm...
Last week we sorted out Marli's clothing, taking out all of the stuff she's shrunk out of now that she's losing so much weight. Aside from completely unwearable stuff we were left with three trash bags of clothing that were going to be donated to her mother and to goodwill. Then on Saturday morning Dana and I got in the car at 0700 to drive to Friesland, where she arrived right in time for her 0830 breakfast with grandma and pa. When I came back home I started on the ground floor, while Marli worked on the first floor. By the end of the day we'd cleaned two thirds of the house. Every piece of furniture had been cleared out, dusted and cleaned and all cruft had been moved to the city recycling dump. Today we tackled the attic which doubles as storage space, library and home office. Here the biggest job was getting rid of all the cruft we'd amassed. It's amazing how much stuff you can build up in two years' time.
The final score:
kilala.nl tags: family, baby, life,
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2011-04-22 17:40:00
Back in high school and college I was a bit of a Magic: the Gathering geek. I never did become very good at the game, but I did enjoy it quite a lot. I still have my suitcase of cards upstairs in the attic and I might get them out sometime again. In the mean time though, there's a great alternative. An option that will not leave me searching for rare opponents, nor will it require me to try and convince Marli to play ^_^
This week I learnt about Shadow Era, a free online CCG which can be played on many different platforms: Mac OS X, iOS (iPhone etc), Windows, Android and even browser-based (for Linux folks). Excellent! It pits you against AI as well as online opponents, so there's lots of diversity. And since it's online you'll keep on playing with the same decks and characters whichever platform you're on! Play on my iPhone on the train and then at home open up my Macbook to continue.
Did I mention that it's free? Nice!
kilala.nl tags: games, geeky, awesome,
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2011-04-21 18:22:00
What more can I say?
kilala.nl tags: geeky,
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2011-04-21 10:39:00
"Tanimachi yonchome! Tanimachi yonchome! T23 eki."
Last night, with a few simple clicks of the mouse, we spent 3000 euros on airfare and the associated insurance. It feels odd to say that, because it's such a huge amount of money. But it also feels good, because I'll get to hear the above announcements again! After my trip to Japan in 2007 I've come to associate the words "Tanimachi 4 Chome" with a feeling of coming home :)
In a few months time we will be landing at KIX airport (Kansai International), which is a 4km by 1km slab of concrete in the middle of Osaka bay ^_^
Image source: Tanimachi yonchome, my neighborhood
EDIT:
I remember that on my first trip Menno asked me about the homeless situation in Japan. I don't remember what brought us to it, but back the I did write a little about the day I got lost in Osaka and wound up in Shinsekai. Someone else wrote a great essay about his four hour walk through Osaka's poorest district. The Wikipedia page on Shinsekai also isn't a bad read.
kilala.nl tags: japan,
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2011-04-21 00:00:00
Awesome! Just before the Easter weekend a joyous email was sent around the FoxT offices: BoKS version 6.6.1 is now officially ready for release. Oh happy day!
New features in v.6.6.1 are:
Aside from new features, BoKS 6.6.1 also includes no less than 46 bug fixes and modifications which were requested by various customers. Oh happy day indeed!
kilala.nl tags: boks, sysadmin,
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2011-04-19 21:14:00
Oops! Sorry honey! I kind of... broke part of our fence. ^_^;
Tonight I was practicing men strikes. First as suburi, then using the top plank of our garden fence as a target. I'd done this before with little trouble. But I guess the men strikes were too much for the soft wood, because the plank gave way after a few hits. Oops... I'd better break out the hammer and nails tomorrow. =_=
On the upside of things: my raising motion with the shinai is definitely speeding up! And it seems I've got one half of kata #1 down :)
EDIT:
While I'm working on learning the physical movements of the kata I am also trying to come to grasp with the meaning behind it all. I mean, there's supposed to be a good reason for kendoka to have to learn all the kata, so I'd better find out what it is! On the one hand there's understanding the physical aspect of kendo, but on the other there's also the psychological and mental aspects. Researching the "riai" (theory / reason for movements) provides a whole new level of learning, for which one usually doesn't have time in the dojo.
To quote Geoff Salmon, who is paraphrasing a research paper on kendo:
"In [kata 1], both the teacher and the student attack each other from the 'overhead' posture implying a clash of justice against justice. The first kata is meant to teach that one defeats the other with the difference of relative skill cultivation that corresponds to the laws of nature”. [...] The first lesson in kendo means training for the self acquirement of the physical movement and mental attitude, as well as the cultivation for the self-manifestation of justice. In addition to the self-manifestation, the first kata teaches the importance of repentance for the killing. In real combat, the loser dies and the winner who survives must have repentance. This mental attitude in part represents the assertion of zanshin.”
The paper in question, "A breakthrough in the dilemma of war or peace – The teachings of kendo" by Kensei Hiwaki, can be found as part of this British Kendo Assoc. newsletter from 2000. It's not a very long read. Speaking of Geoff's blog, I'm digging a lot of his articles! I doubt there are many 7th dan kendoka keeping an active weblog in english. Another great read was his modernized translation of "The aim of kendo", by Matsumoto Toshio and Hanshi Kyudan.
kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,
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2011-04-16 11:49:00
We recently bought Dana a toy kitchen from the Houten Speelgoedparadijs (wooden toy paradise) shop in Almere. We don't often buy Dana new and shiny toys (at least not as often as other parents we know buy toys for their kids), so we thought it was time again. Personally I prefer wooden toys to the generic plastic stuff, probably out of the delusion that "wood is economically and ecologically better than plastic". Either way, at least her wooden kitchen looks a lot -nicer- than the standard plastic toys we see in toy stores.
We prefer shopping for toys at stores like these (another is Peter's Pakhuis in Zeist) because of their range of products. Many educational toys, lots of wood, lots of good looking miniatures of animals and so on. It also gives me a good feeling because we're "supporting the little man", instead of shopping at big chain stores.
Either way, Dana's very happy with her kitchen, serving us pancakes, chicken and fruits. Chicken? Yes, chicken! Because the store also sold a stuffed rotisserie chicken doll ^_^
kilala.nl tags: baby, childhood,
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2011-04-15 10:56:00
As the lolcats say: DO WANT!
One may remember my love for the Bakemonogatari anime. Personally I don't care much for the Hitagi Senjyogahara (her Figma isn't much special either), but Mayoi's always been my favourite character from the show. So yeah, I wouldn't mind this figure on my desk :) It's well executed, very posable and comes with a few nice extras.
Source: via Alafista.
kilala.nl tags: anime, japan, geeky,
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2011-04-15 07:24:00
Two to three times a week I'll jog from the station to our office (and back in the afternoon). It's almost exactly 1km (0.7m) along the shortest route, which usually takes me 7-8 minutes.
This morning I decided to take a little detour. I was on time anyway and usually I arrive at work ten minutes early. What's the harm, right? :) Well, I reckoned I'd take a look around the Sloterdijk communal gardens, figuring that there would be a chance to cut through and come 'round to the office again. Well, no such deal and I ran all around the gardens instead. Thus my little detour amounted to a twenty minutes, 3km (1.9m) run ^_^
I should get lost more often! And yes, I was still at my desk by 0700...
EDIT:
Some clarification. I wasn't -really- lost, I was taking a detour. It's just that the detour was taking longer than I expected. So no, I'm that big of a dimwit that I just keep on walking if I really get lost. Although, there is that one time in Osaka ^_^;
kilala.nl tags: sports, c25k, running,
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2011-04-13 22:20:00
I usually practice kendo at home once or twice a week, by myself, just stretching and doing suburi. Tonight made a nice difference with one of my sempai visiting for one-on-one training. We did suburi, went over kata #1 and the he let me practice some kihon on him wearing his bogu. Now, I need to remember the learning points we discovered today, because there were quite a few eye openers for me.
Thanks Martijn! I really appreciate your help and I enjoy our training tremendously. m(__)m
kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,
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2011-04-12 18:03:00
I know stuff like this has been done for ages, but you have to admit: the video looks awesome!
And yes, of course I'm well aware that this is something entirely different than having a full game run in stereoscopic 3D. Also, Reddit discussion! Also, something similar: HoloToy for iOS.
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2011-04-11 22:28:00
Kendo is more than just hitting people with bamboo sticks. It entails strategy, philosophy and psychology. And of course plenty of history! Today I contacted our dojo's founder to start learning about our background. Heeren-sensei quickly told me where Furuya-sensei came from, which is a good enough starting point for me to start finding out more.
In the mean time I've finally done something I'd been trying to do for a while: find out the elements that make up the name of our dojo to see how the name is composed and what it means.
On the website it says: "Reshinjuku: Training improves spirit and body". Sadly the Japanese name isn't included anywhere on the site except as a graphic at the top of the site, which makes looking up the relevant kanji quite a pain. But with half an hour of puzzling between Wikipedia, WWWJDIC and the iPhone app Kotoba! I managed to get it all together :)
So here we go!
I'd put that together as: "intensive training tempers the heart", or "school where the heart is trained". In this case "heart" is in the sense of the Japanese word 'kokoro', which describes a concept more than one single word. The "kendo" part at the end of course indicates what skills the school focuses on.
Next up? Trying to figure out the correct kanji for Furuya-sensei's name. Is it 古屋? Or is it 古谷? And which one of the nine spellings for "Isao" (his first name) is the correct one? ^_^ Once I've found that out, the real search for our school's background starts :)
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2011-04-10 09:07:00
This is odd.... Usually my hay fever kicks in late May, early June. But already my nose is itching and there's crap at the back of my throat. Weird. :/
kilala.nl tags: health,
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2011-04-09 21:46:00
Today was an odd day at our dojo in Almere, not because of the examinations, but because of the atmosphere surrounding them. Usually we have a very strict schedule and everyone's pretty serious, but not today. Before the ceremony began there was lots of talking and joking inside the dojo, which by itself is pretty rare. But after the ceremonies were completed and the trainers were deliberating there was a lot of horseplay as well. Very weird, if like me you're used to a stern ambience.
Anyway, the exam proceedings were cool! The students were lined up in groups, based on which grade they were testing for. First up were the mukyu, those without rank who were going for gokyu, which's a group of eight (myself included). We had to display men uchi, the basic strike for the head, in both the "large" and the "swift" versions. Of course we needed to show proper posture and form, as well as good kiai and fumikomi. The other groups were going for...
The groups for gokyu and yonkyu were also given a short written test, to verify our knowledge of basic kendo terminology and concepts.
In the end we were all allowed to pass our grades, to everybody's pleasure. Our most experienced student Charel also received his official ikkyu ranking, which he was tested for nationally earlier this year.
Personal feedback I received today was:
kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,
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2011-04-08 07:49:00
What do you do?! Do you spend ten minutes, quickly grabbing a new loaf at the shop? Or do you spend 1.5 hours raising dough and baking one yourself? Seeing how I was going to stay up late to work on our Anime 2011 projects I opted for the latter ^_^
It came out quite nice and the dough rose a lot better than all my previous attempts.
kilala.nl tags: cooking,
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2011-04-06 00:01:00
It is not uncommon for network environments to mix different versions of SSH software, especially when you are still transitioning towards a BoKS-ified network. In such situations you'll often run into little snags that make the seemingly trivial rather impossible. Case in point: SCP (Secure Copy).
Whereas SSH and SFTP are standardized protocols that have been properly documented, SCP isn't so lucky. Sadly there is no such thing as a standard SCP and what "SCP" is depends completely on the SSH software you're using. The Wikipedia page linked above makes a very important point: "The SCP program is a software tool implementing the SCP protocol as a service daemon or client. It is a program to perform secure copying. The SCP server program is typically the same program as the SCP client."
Meaning that if you're using F-Secure on one side, it is going to expect F-Secure on the other side. If you try and have an OpenSSH client talk SCP to an F-Secure server, then you'll undoubtedly run into errors like these: "scp: FATAL: Executing ssh1 in compatibility mode failed (Check that scp1 is in your PATH)."
What if you're migrating an F-Secure-based environment to BoKS? There are a few possible solutions:
Option #2 is a bit redundant if you're going to be installing BoKS on the hosts later on. You might as well get it over with as soon as possible, you don't have to actively use BoKS from the get-go. Option #3 is a useful enough kludge, especially if there are servers that will never switch to BoKS.
See also:
kilala.nl tags: boks, sysadmin,
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2011-04-06 00:00:00
BoKS' main log file for transactions is $BOKS_data/LOG. The way BoKS handles this file is configured using the logadm command. Specifically, this is done using two distinct variables:
For example:
$ suexec logadm -V
Log file size limit before backup: 3000 kbytes
Absolute maximum log file size: 100000 kbytes
$ suexec logadm -lv
Primary log directory: /var/opt/boksm/data
Backup log directory: /var/opt/boksm/archives
What this means is that:
First off, this means that it's not just $BOKS_data that you need to monitor for free space! $BACKUP_dir is equally important because once the -M threshold is reached BoKS will simply stop logging. But then there's something else!
Did you know that BoKS is hard coded for a maximum of 64 log rotations per day? This is because the naming scheme of the rotated logs is: L$DATE[",#,%,',+,,,-,.,:,=,@A-Z,a-z]$DATE. Once BoKS reaches L$DATEz$DATE it will keep on re-using and overwriting that file because it cannot go any further! This means that you could potentially lose a lot of transaction logging.
The current work around for this problem is to set your logadm -T value large enough to prevent BoKS from ever reaching the "z" file (the 64th in line). Of course the real fix would be to switch to a different naming scheme that is more flexible and which allows a theoretically unlimited amount of log rotations.
The real fix has been requested from FoxT and is registered as RFC 081229-160335. This fix has been confirmed as being part of BoKS v6.6.1 (per build 13 I am told).
kilala.nl tags: boks, sysadmin,
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2011-04-02 22:03:00
Well, it's been a bit quiet recently. It seems that all I write about these days is my weekly kendo ^_^;
But yeah, there really isn't much else to write about right now. Just small stuff, left and right.
These days I'm taking things easier. Most of my volunteer work has quieted down, as have my studies and my trainings. Right now I fill my evenings with yard work, relaxing and kendo practice.
kilala.nl tags: life,
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2011-04-02 21:59:00
Today was a good class. A very good class.
Let's see... What were the pointers that I need to remember? *ponders*
I'll also start bringing some sturdy bandaids to class to quickly coverup peeling blisters. This morning I got a big one in a rather annoying spot, which I allowed to distract myself too much. A speedy patchjob would've helped me mentally.
Uchikomi geiko was fun though :)
kilala.nl tags: kendo, sports,
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All content, with exception of "borrowed" blogpost images, or unless otherwise indicated, is copyright of Thomas Sluyter. The character Kilala the cat-demon is copyright of Rumiko Takahashi and used here without permission.