Thu, 02 Sep 2010
Frans Pop
I'm shocked to learn that Frans has died.
Even more shocked to learn that, due to me sitting with my head in the sand, I almost missed it.
You'll be missed, Frans. I didn't always agree with you or your methods, but I deeply respected you for who you were, what you did, and what you were willing to do.
May you rest in peace.
Sat, 31 Jul 2010
Wouter Verhelst, Tourist
So for one day a few days ago, I wasn't Wouter Verhelst, Debian Developer, but rather the above. I'm not usually very much interested in doing touristy things, but then on the other hand I'm of the opinion that you can't really claim to have been somewhere if all you've seen is the inside of a certain specific university campus.
So, well, touristy things. I took the subway to about 10 blocks away from the very south of Manhattan, and then walked. I passed by city hall and what used to be the world trade center, but there wasn't much to see there—construction sites are the same everywhere in the world. I moved on to "the battery", the south tip of Manhattan, and had an... interesting look at the Statue of Liberty in the distance. I thought about going there, but the tickets were sold out, so scratch that.
Instead, I walked on to the Brooklyn Bridge (passing by Wall Street on the way), spent some time looking for the pedestrian's entrance to that bridge (which was slightly harder than would've thought it to be), and walked partway up the bridge. I wasn't interested in crossing over to Brooklyn, but it's an interesting bridge to walk on, and I had an interesting time.
When I left the bridge again, it started raining. I don't mind a few drips on a warm day like that day, but this was more than that, and it started to bother me. So, rather than walking to the Empire State building, as I'd been planning, I decided to take the subway there. This did mean I missed out on the SOHO area, which I would've liked to see, but well, you can't have it all.
The Empire State building is something you grow up hearing about, and I'd seen pictures of it. It has a somewhat distinctive silhouette, shown on several comparative graphics of high-profile skyscrapers. But none of that is even close to the real thing. Not that it's higher than I expected; on the contrary. But it does look different; its color is much lighter than I thought, and the distinctive silhouette isn't as distinctive once you're standing right next to the building.
But, well, going up the building clearly shows that it is the tallest building of New York. There are other skyscrapers, but most of those seem to be little dwarves in comparison. The view is nice, up there, and I took some interesting pictures. The tickets aren't very cheap ($20), but not insanely expensive either. I don't regret doing this.
(in case you were wondering: yes, the above picture is in the point of view of the one above that, and vice versa)
By that time it was around 4 pm already, and I thought about going back to the Columbia campus. As I checked out my map for the most efficient route, I found that it probably would've been easier to walk to Times Square and take the number 1 train there which stops right in front of Columbia (but below the surface, obviously). So since I was going to have to go there, I figured I could just visit Times Square while I was at it.
I must say I'm not very impressed by it. For starters, Times Square isn't actually a square, at least not as I'm used to that word. Broadway and 7th avenue happen to cross at a, for Manhattan, uncharacteristically sharp angle, which results in more space between buildings than usual. But it's still fairly small as a "square". They've fenced off a part of that space and put a bunch of chairs and tables there. This would be a cosy and inviting, "gezellig" place, if not for the very audible noise of the traffic still going on all around it, and the fact that everywhere you see, there's three layers of brustling and visually noisy adverts. It could have been a relaxing oasis in the middle of the city, but instead it's just as busy as everywhere else in Manhattan.
But then, I guess that's what New York City is all about.
At any rate, after spending about half an hour or so there, I walked over to the subway to get back to the venue—just in time for dinner. The end of a nice, touristy, day.
Sun, 25 Jul 2010
There
Yesterday, I've arrived in New York City for the annual Debconf. Well, that is, today's the first day of Debcamp, and obviously not that many people have arrived yet. Since I arrived a day early, I'd also booked a hotel room for one night. But that's okay, it allowed me to sleep off my jetlag—not that I had much of it, but anyway.
Today, then, I signed in to the dormroom. Turned out I was the first non-organizer to do so, and that there wasn't even anyone in the hacklab yet. Well, that's what you get for being so early, I guess.
Not quite sure yet what to make of the weather. When the plane touched down yesterday, the captain announced over the PA that the outside temperature was 99 degrees Fahrenheit (some 37 degrees Celcius), which is hot, especially when added to the rather high humidity. You walk outside for five minutes, and you're sweating like a pig. Today started off on the same foot, but then about an hour ago or so it started raining, and it hasn't stopped yet; and it doesn't feel like what I would call a regular summer thunderstorm, either. Bit weird.
But then, who cares about rain at a computer conference, right? Right.
Thu, 22 Jul 2010
New toy
Just bought me an external flashlight; a Nikon Speedlight SB-900, which is Nikon's top model. It wasn't as expensive as that sounds, though, since this was their demo model that they got me a good discount on, on top of the already rather low prices that this shop offers; this made it cheaper than the list price of the SB-600, Nikon's second-best model.
I'm afraid it will take a while before I'll be able to fully understand its features, though. I did get a course at photography when I was about 13 years old, which did help me in picking up again how to work with an SLR camera when I bought it. But that course never included anything about using flashlights; and while I do understand how bouncing light off of walls and other things may sometimes help in getting the picture just right, I haven't actually ever done that. So I guess I'll be practicing a bit, now...
Thu, 06 May 2010
0x20
Birthday.
Old.
Presents:
Maybe more, haven't seen any yet.
Meanwhile, at $WORK I'm fighting with a mandelbug (first definition). Sucks.
Tue, 04 May 2010
On clue and opinions
How does one define one's "national identity"?
One way is to look at where a person is born. By that definion, I could be called Flemish, Belgian, or European, whatever you think about it.
Another way to look at it is how one feels about one's own identity. This, of course, is a much more accurate way to describe a person; and by that definition, I am either Belgian or European. I do not feel any affinity with much of the so-called "flemish" identity, nor do I wish to be associated with it any more than is strictly necessary. Obviously, some people feel different about that for themselves.
This I can understand.
In fact, the statement to feel more Belgian than Flemish is probably not one that is very common in this general area. I am not stupid; I know that Belgium is not a Nation (it is a state, but that is a different matter). I just do not feel a lot of warm fuzzy feelings about Flanders. Naturally, other people have other feelings about that.
This, too, I can understand.
The logical result of the above is that my personal opinions about the somewhat convoluted politics in this country are not shared by many; that when I state my opinion, I may expect opposition, or at the very least someone stating why they disagree with me.
This, of course, I can also understand.
But what I cannot understand is that every time I state my opinion, someone must come out and insult my intelligence by telling me I "do not have a clue". Please do not mistake my disagreement for misunderstanding.
Martijn asks me to "check the facts". Let's do that, shall we?
- There's been a judgement by the constitutional court that the current situation regarding which party may run for election in the BHV region is unconstitutional.
- One group of politicians wishes to resolve this issue by splitting the BHV region in two. That would certainly solve the issue.
- Another group of politicians dislikes this solution. They may be willing to go along, but they want other concessions before they will do so. This is what I referred to when I said that there were "a huge heap of all kinds of side issues" in my previous post.
- The first group does not wish to make such concessions. Some of their numbers have even stated in the press that there is no need to make them, because, given the first point, there's only one solution and that is to split.
That last point is, of course, complete and utter bullshit. It would hold merit if there was only one way to solve a constitutional crisis; but by definition, there are always at least two ways: one is to change the law to comply with the constitution, the other is to change the constitution to make the law no longer be unconstitutional. So a group that feels strongly about one of these two possible solutions should be prepared to negotiate with the other group so as to hammer out an agreement that benefits both parties. In some cases, this will mean doing things that they do not completely like; but if they're not willing to do that, at all, they have no business being politicians. For the longest time during the early negotiations, however, both parties have stubbornly refused to even acknowledge the other position, let alone talk about it.
Now, for clarity, I'm not advocating that the latter of the two options in that previous paragraph is what should happen. Frankly, I don't even care what happens, so long as they manage to resolve the issue at hand in some way. What I do care about, however, is that this country has been in a near-constant state of stalemate over these past few years for an issue that only matters to politicians; I don't care who or what a group of people in a (to me) obscure part of the country can vote for. This country needs a stable government which can act on things that actually matter. Like, say, the international economic crisis of the past two years; I think it matters much more whether the man in the street has a job than whether John Q. Politician will past these next elections.
Mon, 03 May 2010
Yves Leterme, Belgian minister for resignation.
At least that's what it looks like right now. No less than five times did he offer his resignation as prime minister of Belgium to the king. Looks like fifth time is a charm now, too—we get to go elect a new parliament in a month or two. Sigh.
The 'fun' bit is, there's no real reason why this is necessary. The main issue that they've been talking about these past few years is the 'BHV' thing. While the issue is somewhat complex and, I'm sure, involves a huge heap of all kinds of side issues, the crux of the matter is that there's one group of politicians who wants to forbid another group of politicians from running in a region of the country around the capital.
Now I'm sure that's hugely important to politicians—after all, their career depends on it—but beyond a few fanatics in and around that very capital, I'm pretty sure nobody actually cares what the particular names are of the particular groups of people that appear on the list of people they can vote for. Because, you see, this isn't actually about politicians wanting to forbid other politicians from running; it's about politicians wanting to forbid other political parties from running. Which, of course, makes a whole world of difference. Yeah, right.
Now I wouldn't care about this much, except that it interferes with the smooth running of this country. The fact that they've come up with "problem" after "problem" related to this BHV "issue" for these past years has made it hard(er) for the government to actually to any real work. So although I hate the current situation, I'm actually quite relieved that an election is coming up. Perhaps this time we can get the fanaticals out and have a real government.
(no comments allowed on this item; please use your own blog)
Wed, 28 Apr 2010
It was a dark and stormy night.
The moon shone through the clouds. The sun didn't. The lightning did. Or, well, didn't.
The beer flew wildly, and changed the food into something of the past. Discussions arose about lasers, ceramic knifes, and stormy nights. Promises were made that were only kept by some, including me, but not including him.
Much was said that mattered little. Little was said that should've been forgotten. Yet much was.
He would've been proud.
Mon, 26 Apr 2010
Yanina Wickmayer, heroine of the Belgian fed cup team
Last weekend, I went to the Grenslandhallen in Hasselt, to see Belgium compete against Estonia in a Fed Cup tie of the World Group playoffs. The winner of this tie would gain a seat in the top-tier World Group next year, which opens the possibility of winning this competition.
The Belgian team was the strongest possible one, with all four best Belgian female tennis players—Yanina Wickmayer, Kim Clijsters, Justine Henin, and Kirsten Flipkens. On paper, the team should not have had any problems beating the Estonian team.
Unfortunately, Justine fractured her pinky finger during practice on wednesday; and while it did not make it impossible for her to play, it did reduce her fitness somewhat, which meant that on Saturday, Kim and Yanina had to defend the Belgian colors. They did and won, but then Kim injured some muscle in her foot, which made it hard for her to walk on Sunday, let alone play.
With only Justine, Yanina, and Kirsten available, coach Appelmans chose to put Justine on the field. Though she made a valiant effort, she unfortunately did not manage to beat an unleashed Kaia Kanepi, who—it must be said—played a terrific match. As such, it fell on Yanina to bring home the tie in the fourth singles rubber against Maret Ani. Being a bit nervous in the start of the first set, she made some unnecessary errors; but after a few games, she came through and started to play much better. Unfortunately, by that time the score was already at 5-1. Yanina won her first service game of the match to bring it to 5-2, but it wasn't enough, and Ani won the first set somewhat easily.
She couldn't put anything on the table against a storming Wickmayer, however, and after two more sets, the outcome of the match—and, by extension, the tie—was clear: a win for Belgium.
I can't help but note that Wickmayer has been a great player for the Belgian fed cup team these past few years, however. Since her first Fed Cup participation in 2007, she holds what is, given her ranking at the time, a rather impressive 9-4 win-loss record in Fed Cup. If it wasn't for Wickmayer, the Belgian team would not be where it is now. It was Wickmayer who won her three matches against Canada, one as part of a doubles team, to prevent demotion from world group II to the Europe/Africa zone back in 2009, with a 3-2 score. It was Wickmayer who won the crucial third rubber against higher-ranked Radwanska in February to beat Poland, with the latter even holding the home field advantage. And it's now been Wickmayer who won two of the three rubbers against Estonia that were needed to win the tie.
So Congrats, Yanina!
Fri, 16 Apr 2010
DPL vote
The DPL vote is over. I did not win, apparently. Let me start off by thanking the other candidates for running, and congratulating Stefano for winning.
My own results aren't too bad; I beat 'none of the above' by a comfortable margin of almost 10 to 1, and ended up defeating Charles Plessy by a slightly smaller margin. My margin to NOTA was far better than during the previous DPL election that I participated in, though I did end up defeating more than half of the other candidates back then, which I didn't this time around. All in all, not enough to win, but enough to conclude that I might have a chance some other time. Margarita and Stefano were just better candidates this time around.
My own vote was:
[ 2 ] Stefano Zacchiroli [ 1 ] Wouter Verhelst [ 4 ] Charles Plessy [ 2 ] Margarita Manterola [ 3 ] NOTA
If you run, you have to be serious about running, and support yourself. So I did. After that, I wasn't sure that Stefano would do a better job than Margarita (or vice versa), so I put them at the same spot. Finally, I became convinced during campaigning that Charles has a lot to learn still about what lives in the Debian community, and I am of the opinion that feeling the community is a vital requirement for a DPL; so that ruled him out.
So why did I not win? Obviously because there were better candidates in the election, but the real question is: why is that the case? What did I do, or what did other candidates do, that meant they fared better than I? One possibility was given on IRC:
< svuorela> ol: and "I'm running because no other runs" is also not a good way to get votes ...
Which is fair enough; but I did run with the intention of winning, and I did try to make that clear. I'm hoping that worked out okay, which would imply that there could be other reasons. I'd like to know about those. So if you voted, and did not place me on the top spot, I'd very much appreciate learning about your motivations for doing so—especially so if you were one of the 39 people who would rather have redone the vote than see me win. Comments on this blog post are welcome, or by private e-mail if you'd rather not see them made public.
Wed, 14 Apr 2010
Eek.
I like watching movies. So much so, that I have way too many DVDs. Not as much as some other people out there, but still enough.
I used to buy my DVDs mostly at the local Extra Zone shop, but as that company has gone bankrupt, I now need to walk about twice as far, which doesn't happen as often. I guess it's a good thing for my budget, but anyway. I liked the shop, I liked the people, and I hate having to go elsewhere now.
As the Extra Zone shop was located on the Bruul, the major shopping street in Mechelen, the location where they were was obviously rented out to some other parlor very soon. Now, as a result, every time I pass there I cringe. Not because I think back of the old shop—businesses go bankrupt every day, there's nothing special in itself about that—but because of the ads for the new shop.
Spelling is hard, apparently.
Mon, 12 Apr 2010
LOAD is over...
...and I think it went well. As someone who does some sysadmin-for-hire work, it does fit me quite well. I did my "Debian Secrets" talk again, which had moderate success: some people had already seen it at FOSDEM--which is normal, considering how the room was crowded back then--so they missed it this time around. Those who had seen it seemed to be fairly interested in what I had to say, so that's good.
Of course, while there, it made sense to pick up a few other talks, which I did; and I learned some interesting things in the process. I mostly liked the GOsa² one, but there were some other interesting ones, too.
Had I not been in Deurne for the concert of the choir on Saturday evening, I would even have won a book. But apparently the rules said that you couldn't win books if you weren't there...
All in all, I think it was a rather successful event; and if there's a repeat next year, I'll certainly attend again.
Thu, 01 Apr 2010
LOAD
No, I'm not reverting to the commodore 64. LOAD stands for 'Linux Open Administration Days' and is a community event targetted at sysadmins.
This being quite obvious, as I have a talk on the schedule. It'll be a repeat of my 'Debian Secrets' talk that I've also done at FOSDEM, in Essen, and in Buenos Aires. Except it will be better than it was at FOSDEM.
I'll be there the whole of saturday. Not sure yet about Sunday.
Sat, 27 Mar 2010
Annoyed by Marc Wickmayer
In just under a month, Belgium will face Estonia in a Fed Cup World Group Playoff tie. The winning team will participate in the world group next year, which, in theory, opens the possibility of winning. So this is an important encounter. When team captain Sabine Appelmans announced the Belgian selection, it was described by the Belgian press as the 'dream team'—Clijsters, Henin, Wickmayer and Flipkens, aka the four best Belgian female Tennis professionals. That, combined with the possibility of a World Group promotion, seems to excite much of the country, to the extent that 10000 tickets have been sold in no time. Yes, I'll be there too.
But one man seems unhappy. Marc Wickmayer, father of Yanina, will say to everyone who wants to hear it, that 'Appelmans needs to choose'; that he's 'tired of the hypocrisy', and so on. His arguments: Clijsters and Henin have not been part of the Fed Cup selection in two years, and his daughter should not be the fourth wheel on the wagon after having been much of the reason why Belgium is playing these playoffs.
Sigh.
Let's check some facts, shall we?
- There are four singles rubbers. There are four players. Appelmans does not have to let any player play more than one singles rubber.
- Wickmayer is currently still the highest-ranked Belgian tennis pro, at number 14. Clijsters (17) and Henin (33) may have been ranked 1st before their respective comebacks, they are not now; and both still seem to be not entirely in their rhythm yet—especially so Henin. Appelmans would be stupid to bet the entire encounter on them.
- Last but not least, let's not forget that the opposition may not be easy. Kaia Kanepi, Estonia's top player, may be ranked 100 now; less than a year ago, however, she was at her career-high of 18. Due to several injuries, a viral ilness, and some bad luck, she has not won much anymore since last may, but she may be a tough nut to crack.
Curiously, Yanina herself does not share her father's opinion. She's been quoted several times as being excited to have Clijstes and Henin on the team, since 'the team is much better with them'. Indeed. Her relationship with her father, is often described as being 'very close'; apparently that doesn't mean they are of the same opinion on everything. Maybe it is time for the two of them to have a little chat on the whole Fed Cup thing, before this gets out of hand. I'd hate for Appelmans to have to make the wrong choices to appease people...
Wed, 17 Mar 2010
Baobab
So, we recorded the performance. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, the sound for sunday was not recorded properly, so while the image looks far better, having a video with no sound is hardly interesting.
But as a 'sneak preview' for the people involved, I uploaded one fragment of the Saturday recording to youtube:
There's a lot of grain in this image, courtesy of the fact that two of our three cameras just weren't very good. But beyond that, it looks quite good, I'd say...
Tue, 16 Mar 2010
Stuff
I'm running again.
No, not running in a bubulle style; I'm running for DPL. It started as a fairly last-minute decision because I would hate to see an election with only one candidate, but then two other people submitted their candidacy right after me.
As I stated in my candidacy email, I had "a concert" this weekend. Actually, there were three two-hour performances; two on saturday, one on sunday. Early on, I also suggested videotaping the performance (using the excellent dvswitch, for which I added a patch to support crossfading transitions) to the organising group within the choir, and they liked that. Apart from dvswitch, we used the theatre's own audio mixing setup (so I wouldn't have to worry about that too much) and the theatre's intercom system. I'd made some tally lights, but in the end we were not entirely able to use them, because there were some issues to be dealt with that meant I couldn't quite get them working properly.
So on saturday, I was in the theatre pretty early to get everything set up, did some explanations to the volunteers who would do the actual recording, drove my dad (who'd done the direction for the video parts) home, went home, and found my bed at around midnight.
On sunday, I got up fairly early, booted my laptop to update the live images with some fixes for some issues we'd encountered on saturday, left for the theatre fairly early again, set up the extra camera position, found out that one of the laptops was actually running at 100Mbit rather than a gigabit and that therefore the extra camera wasn't going to work, learned that one of the volunteers for sunday had done some other camera work for another performance right before that, for which he'd rented some high-end DV-capable cameras. So we broke down the two low-end set-ups, set up the high-end cameras, connected them to the laptops, recalibrated the whitebalance and the diaphragm setting, and restarted the streams. Then one laptop started failing. Since we had had to remove one camera anyway, I just replaced it. By that time, I had about 15 minutes left before sunday's performance would start, so I went to prepare for that.
After the performance had finished, I found out that something had gone wrong with the sound of sunday's performance; rather than music, we only heard crackling all the time. Luckily, the sound had also been separately recorded to a different medium, and that recording is fine, so we only need to resync the audio to the video, which should not be a problem.
All in all, I had an extremely busy weekend. The alert reader will note that I didn't mention 'food' anywhere in the above paragraphs, mostly because I hardly ever found the time to eat. But it was also extremely satisfying. We still have some postprocessing to do, but I expect I'll put some videos online once we've done that. They're truly stunning, at times.
And then yesterday I still had to spend some time writing my DPL platform, and doing some campaigning work. All in all, I didn't find my bed until approximately 4 AM... oh well.
I look forward to the election time, and hope that I will do well. I don't need to win, but I'd hope my result will be at least as good as the last time...
Update: we used the theatre's audio setup, not video setup -- oops :-)
Wed, 17 Feb 2010
Booked flights
Whee.
As usual, I'll be there the whole time, both for debcamp and debconf. In addition, since I'll be halfway there anyway, I'll be paying my niece a visit after the conference; she lives in Portland, OR.
Should make for a good holiday, I would say.
Fri, 12 Feb 2010
FOSDEM 2010...
... is over (for almost a week now), and it was a blast again.
If you went to one of the distro devrooms, I would appreciate it if you were to reply to this mail. We need feedback to improve stuff for next year.
Thanks.
In related news, I've uploaded the slides of my (unexpectedly horrendously successful) talk here
Sat, 30 Jan 2010
On MySQL and Oracle
I think Monty has well and truly lost it.
The European Commision, after careful consideration, has cleared Oracle's purchase of Sun:
The Commission's investigation showed that another open source database, PostgreSQL, is considered by many database users to be a credible alternative to MySQL and could be expected to replace to some extent the competitive force currently exerted by MySQL on the database market.
I'd go one step further, and would say that MySQL is not a credible alternative to PostgreSQL. But whatever. Hopefully, if MySQL fails, then PostgreSQL will (finally) get the attention that it deserves. I'll have a real database every time over this piece of... anyway.[1]
This is a fair argument, and to be sure it is certainly not a problem for anyone to migrate from MySQL to a MySQL fork, or (with some work) from MySQL to PostgreSQL. But Monty seems to disagree, and now tries to get Russia and China to block the merger.
What's next, Andorra?
[1] comments on this blog item in defense of MySQL will be vigorously moderated away. MySQL is a POS that falls over if data is corrupt, that corrupts its own data (most distributions call 'mysql_recover' in their initscript for a reason), and whose C API does not properly support cursors unless you want to block concurrent access until the cursor is closed (paragraph 3). Every time a customer asks me about MySQL, I vigorously recommend against it, because it's a bad idea.
Tue, 26 Jan 2010
Going, obviously
If you thought otherwise, you're crazy, but just for reference:
This year I volunteered to organize the "distributions" devroom/track, because it seemed to be going nowhere, and the people who where supposed to do so were too busy with other stuff. I'm still not very fond of the idea of mixing all distributions in one room, but at least we managed to avoid complete and utter disaster wherein nearly no talks would have been submitted.
Let's see how it goes, now.
Fri, 22 Jan 2010
Clijsters out?
Whoa.
Kim Clijsters, Belgium's number 1 female tennis player of the moment, just got booted out of the Australian Open by Nadia Petrova. Not what I'd expected—especially not with this kind of score; 6-0 6-1. To call this "unexpected" would be a severe understatement.
Seriously.
That leaves Belgium's hope with Justine Henin or Yanina Wickmayer. I say "or", because they'll next meet eachother in Melbourne. Sounds like an interesting match, indeed.
Wed, 30 Dec 2009
On cultural differences.
Christian writes about differences on the international level; how even something as simple as people's names isn't always easy, and that one has to be quite careful to avoid calling people 'Dear Verhelst', or some such, because you assumed that their first name was indeed their given name, while in their culture the last name is the given name.
Funnily, Christian advocates using capital letters to clarify which part of one's name should be considered the family name.
Sorry to disappoint you, Christian. Writing one's last name with all capitals is a French typographical convention. While it is understood in other places, it is not often used outside of France (except in organisations with a strong link to France, obviously); and it is, in fact, shouting.
It is also not actually helping any. I should, in fact, somewhere in my mailbox archive have an email reply from a South Korean guy that starts off like so:
Dear TIA,
to which I then had to explain that no, TIA is not my first name, it is an abbreviation for "Thanks In Advance".
Note the use of capitals.
Wed, 18 Nov 2009
Debian @ FOSDEM '10
As I do every year, this year too I asked for a devroom and a booth at the yearly FOSDEM meeting in Brussels, Belgium.
We've been granted a booth. We've not been granted a devroom.
This is not because the organizers hate Debian, but because the organizers wish to organize things slightly differently this year. As a matter of fact, they've not granted a devroom to any distribution project.
Does that mean we can't hold talks at FOSDEM? Certainly not.
Instead of a bunch of distribution devrooms, there will be a 'distribution miniconf' that the Debian distribution has been invited in. What wasn't clear from the initial mail (at least not to me), however, was that talk proposals can already be sent in.
If you want to hold a talk about a Debian-specific subject, you should subscribe to the relevant FOSDEM mailinglist, and send your proposal there. However, do note that since it will not be a Debian-specific event anymore, that while the talk may be about something related to Debian, it should target people who may be involved with other distributions. The goal is to learn from eachother.
With that out of the way, I guess the booth will gain on importance this year, since there will not be any other Debian-specific bits anymore. As such, if people would like to come up with suggestions on what to do with it, that would be greatly appreciated. These should probably go to debian-events-eu@lists.d.o.
See you at FOSDEM,
Mon, 07 Sep 2009
Tennis: Back Again!
It wasn't too long that Kim Clijsters retired from Tennis, with Justine Henin following her not too long after that. At that point, with the next best player, Kirsten Flipkens, being ranked a hundred-something, I thought it'd be a long time before we'd see Belgian women's tennis reappear. Certainly I didn't think we'd be hopeful this year already.
As such, I'm delighted to be able to say that not only is Kim Clijsters making a smashing come-back—already beating Venus Williams, ranked 3rd on the WTA lists, at the US open, and only a few months after her returning to tennis at that—but Yanina Wickmayer, ranked 50-something on the WTA lists by now, has managed to reach the last 16 players. With Kirsten besting her career record by reaching the 3rd round of the US Open (before being ousted by Kim, no less), I feel the future of Belgian Women's tennis is looking very bright indeed.
Perhaps I should think about getting that cable subscription, so I can actually watch the matches.
Tue, 25 Aug 2009
Shirts
I so want the t-shirt...
Mon, 17 Aug 2009
New toy: Nikon NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4D prime
Ever since I first borrowed such a lens from Tiago, I loved it. People have often told me that the pictures I took at Debconf8 were great; well, they only were because I borrowed that lens for half a day. I did the same thing at Debconf9, and again came up with wonderful pictures. It's not just the lens, of course, but it helps. I've been wanting to buy this thing ever since.
I can't really afford it yet, but I just didn't care anymore. So today, I went to the shop and bought the thing.
In short: I'm not regretting it.
More on my Flickr photo stream.
Thu, 06 Aug 2009
'night
Didn't feel like cooking today, so I went out to have a steak in a nearby tavern. As I had finished my meal and walked home, I saw the moon peep through the clouds, right around the corner of where the apartment is. I just had to take a picture, so I went home, grabbed my camera, put on the 18-70mm lens, and went out again.
Taking a picture with 4 seconds of exposure isn't easy, especially so if you don't have a tripod. But after six tries, I managed to come up with the above. It was a matter of sitting down, leaning one arm against the wall to the left, and not breathing. Oh, and cropping some wall away afterwards. But hey.
I'm not 100% happy with the result (the top edge of the frame should've been a little higher), but it's close.
note: this was written last night, but the commit failed because I misconfigured my server. Whatever.
Thu, 30 Jul 2009
The lying will stop
A few hours from now, this site will stop lying in its section of past events of the same type.
One might think I'd be happy about the end of lies; but given what it implies, not quite so.
I guess I can't wait until some other future site starts lying about past events.
We'll see.
Fri, 17 Jul 2009
Long Live Mass Travel (not)
I blogged a few days ago that I'd be leaving on the 14th to Cáceres, for a slated arrival on the 15th. However, as it turned out, I misread my tickets, and apparently they were valid for leaving on the 15th, arrival on the 16th.
So, my trip to DebConf was supposed to be:
- 2009-07-15 15:00 Mechelen - Brussels ~15:30
- 2009-07-15 16:13 Brussels - Paris Nord 17:36
- 2009-07-15 19:45 Paris Austerlitz - Madrid Chamartin 2009-07-16 09:10
- 2009-07-15 some time Madrid - Cáceres
Unfortunately, though, something in the neighbourhood of the Paris Nord trainstation caught fire, and the fire department required that, for safety reasons, the electricity be shut down in the Paris Nord trainstation (which is understandable). As such, my train was delayed for approximately two hours, and I missed my connecting train to Madrid. So they offered me another ticket to Irún, where I was to take the 8:25 (or some such) train to Madrid:
- 2009-07-15 15:00 Mechelen - Brussels ~15:30
- 2009-07-15 16:13 Brussels - Paris Nord 19:30
- 2009-07-15 19:50ish Paris Nord (subway) - Paris Austerlitz 20:05
- 2009-07-15 23:10 Paris Austerlitz - Irún 2009-07-16 07:32
- 2009-07-16 8:25 Irún - Madrid Chamartin
But then in Paris Austerlitz, the 23:10 train to Irún was delayed too, by about an hour. This meant that I just missed the train to Madrid as well. Additionally, I was smart enough to actually forget my Paris-Madrid ticket on the train at Irún station, so I had to go back to Habaye right across the French/Spanish border (a four minute tram ride) to fetch it. When I got back to Irún, I had 15 minutes left before the train to Pamplona:
- 2009-07-15 15:00 Mechelen - Brussels ~15:30
- 2009-07-15 16:13 Brussels - Paris Nord 19:30
- 2009-07-15 19:50ish Paris Nord - Paris Austerlitz 20:05
- 2009-07-16 00:10 Paris Austerlitz - Irún 08:30something
- 2009-07-16 09:17 Irún Colón - Hadaye 09:23
- 2009-07-16 10:03 Hadaye - Irún Colón 10:07
- 2009-07-16 10:30 Irún - Pamplona 13:...
- 2009-07-16 14:35 Pamplona - Madrid Puerta de Atocha 17:38
Originally, my arrival was to be 09:10 in Madrid Chamartin. With the train Madrid-Cáceres leaving at 16:something, I had not bothered to buy a ticket yet, instead planning to see whether a bus was leaving sooner than that (and if not, I was going to be buying a ticket in Madrid, rather than at home). But now, with all these delays, I couldn't even take that 16:something train. Goody.
Anyway, turned out that there was still a train from Puerta de Atocha at 19:09, which got me in Cáceres at 23:00. Plenty late, but at least I got here now.
Whee!
Mon, 13 Jul 2009
Debconf9
I'm a bit late in announcing this, I guess, but...
I'm leaving tomorrow evening, in fact. Still shitloads to do, but I'm sure I'll get there.
See you all there!
Wed, 10 Jun 2009
Elections: followup
My somewhat emotional message from earlier this week got some response from Dag, who, let's say, does not seem to share my ideas about flemish separatism.
First, Dag, yes, I agree that the flemish Greens could do much better. The fact that the walloon greens are, in fact, doing so much better than the flemish ones is part of why I believe I live in the wrong part of Belgium; it's not just these elections. I'm not saying I don't understand why they happened, but that doesn't make me feel better about it.
I'm also not saying that there are no issues in Belgium, nor that more autonomy for Flanders can't possibly be the solution for at least some of them. There are cases where doing something at the regional level will make more sense than doing it at the federal level.
What bothers me, however, is the fact that parties such as the N-VA seem to think that everything can be solved by more authonomy, and that an ultimate goal of chopping up this already too small country into a yet even smaller one is desirable. To me, it is not, and that's what my post tried to express.
To give just a bit of background: My mother grew up in Kuringen, a small town near Hasselt, while my father grew up in Ekeren. After they married, they went to live in the province of Antwerp (in Ekeren eventually, after a short stint in Mortsel). My father's twin brother moved to Wijgmaal near Leuven after his marriage, while my mother's oldest sister married a guy from West-Vlaanderen and moved there. As a result, I have aunts and uncles in all flemish provinces (apart from East-Flanders), which gives me a somewhat unique perspective on the differences that exist within Flanders.
People sometimes say that there are monetary flows between Flanders and Wallonia, and that therefore we should split up, since that would allow a higher budget for Flanders. I say that there are such differences between Flemish provinces, too; should we therefore boot out some of those provinces as well?
People sometimes say that there are cultural differences between Flanders and Wallonia, and that therefore there is no link between the two. I say that there are cultural differences between Flemish provinces too; should we therefore boot out some of those provinces? As a very stupid example of this one: in Limburg, it is traditional for guests to give a standing ovation to the bride and groom when they first enter the location where the dinner is going to be held. No such tradition exists anywhere else in Flanders. There are more such differences, however.
People sometimes say that Flanders and Wallonia do not speak the same language. Arguably the best argument in favor of separatism, I would still challenge you to put a person from Limburg in front of someone from West-Flanders, and have them talk to eachother. It's going to be similarly hard for them to understand eachother as it is for them to understand someone from Wallonia.
Anyway, I'll not further bore my readers with Belgian politics. But I'm still unhappy about the election's results.
Mon, 08 Jun 2009
I live in the wrong part of Belgium.
Compare this against this: the flemish greens (Groen!) are losing even more of their base (6.77%, from 7.6%), while the walloon ones (ecolo) more than double their support, to come in at an impressive third place. In Flanders, the left side of the political spectrum (Groen! and SP.A) has mainly lost voters, while in Wallonia, they are stronger than ever.
Some people (Dutch only) seem to think that being a separatist is going to solve everything, to the point of even campaigning with things like 'more autonomy in flanders will allow us to solve the current economic crisis'. Utterly delusional, of course; Flanders, more than ever, is part of a European economy. To get that economy running again, what we need to do is to coordinate with neighbouring regions. More autonomy for Flanders will not bring that, on the contrary.
Yes my fellow Dutch-languaged Belgians seem to disagree.
I live in the wrong part of Belgium.
(No, I'm not going to be moving south any time soon. But yes, I'm angry)
Note: the above is my opinion, and I'm not planning on changing my blog into a political forum. Therefore, any comments on this blog item will be moderated away into oblivion.
Wed, 06 May 2009
Star Trek
So, as a birthday present to me, I just returned from watching the new movie. Since the official release date is only in two days (but movies are traditionally released on wednesdays in Belgium, so they moved it ahead over here), and since this was in fact the first time it was shown, I guess there's not that many people who've seen it yet. So I won't disclose too many details.
I can say that it's an interesting movie. Funny, exciting, and with an unexpected ending.
Hrm. Well, no, that's not exactly true; the buildup to the ending starts pretty much halfway in the movie. However, you wouldn't expect it before seeing it, that's for sure.
Best joke in the whole movie, in my opinion: Pavel Andrejevitch "wictor, wictor" Checkov trying to authenticate to the computer.
"Access code unknown".
grin.
0x1f
Yes, exactly a year from now, I'l again be able to say I'm 20 years old. 0x20, that is.
Mon, 13 Apr 2009
Not voted
So apparently Steve got re-elected this year. Congrats, also to Luk; and to Zack, who didn't do too bad.
Careful readers may notice that, for the first time since early 2001 when I achieved Debian Developer status, I did not exercise my right to vote. This was not because I didn't care about the vote, but because if I were to vote honestly, I would've done something like '11-', which has mostly the same effect as not voting. The candidates this year were both equal in my opinion, so I just didn't bother.
1 billion seconds
... turns out to be slightly over 31 and a half years.
According to the text of my birth certificate, I was born at 13:20. So, with that, we can make the following calculation:
wouter@celtic:~$ date -d '1978-05-06 + 13 hours + 20 minutes + 1000000000 seconds' Tue Jan 12 15:06:40 CET 2010
Since I missed my 10000 days, and I was sortof unhappy about that, I guess this one is a good substitute.
Unfortunately the 12th of January is a tuesday, but I guess I can throw a party during the weekend...
Tue, 31 Mar 2009
Debconf9 by train
This friday, I had to go to a customer whose office is close to the Brussels South station. As I went back, I missed the train to Mechelen by a few minutes, and had to wait about 20 minutes (IIRC) for the next one.
So rather than sitting there, doing nothing and twiddling my thumbs, I thought I'd go to the ticketing office and ask about prices.
Since trains can only be booked about three months in advance to the actual trip, now is still too early to get a definite price. However, I asked for an estimate, and they were kind enough to get me one.
Looks like a one-way ticket from Belgium to Madrid is going to be €150ish. Of course that doesn't get me to Caceres yet, but since I'll need to get from Madrid to Caceres whether I go there by train or not, that isn't going to make a real difference.
I'm sure it's going to be cheaper if I book a flight with the likes of Ryanair or some such, of course, but €300 isn't too much of an inconvenience; and taking a train rather than a flight is much more appealing to me. So that's what I'll do.
Wed, 25 Mar 2009
93
films=# SELECT COUNT(*) FROM films;
count
-------
93
(1 row)
There were several additions, including one which I actually had when I wrote the previous entry but forgot to add to the database.
One of the more recent additions is Memoirs of a Geisha, an intriguing and compelling piece about some of the more mysterious parts of Japanese culture, and how World War II affected this—wrapped in a love story.
It's unfortunate that the movie depicts Geisha as prostitutes (which they are not), but other than that, it's a pretty solid movie.
Another movie which I recently acquired is Requiem for a Dream, a somewhat harsh movie (definitely no happy ending here) about addiction in all its forms. I think this movie is a must-see for everyone, really; not only because of its message (and boy, does it have one), but also because of the way the movie is filmed; split screen, snorricam, and other inventive camera and montage techniques all add to the movie's excellence. And then there's the soundtrack. Oh boy, that sountrack.
There were more, but those were not as interesting.
Wed, 11 Mar 2009
Debconf9 by train
With Debconf9 being on the european mainland this year, a plane flight isn't necessary. Since flying in cattle class isn't my idea of 'fun', I had been planning to take the train to Caceres this year.
So, with the public announcement of debconf registration being open, I thought I'd look at train options. Short version: I think I'll be going to the train station and ask them there, rather than looking something up on the NMBS website.
Long version:
| Trajectory | Date | Departure | Arrival | Train |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mechelen -> Brussels North | 2009-07-13 | 07:02 | 07:18 | IR 3128 |
| Brussels North ->Köln Hbf | 2009-07-13 | 07:27 | 09:15 | ICE 11 |
| Köln Hbf ->Mannheim Hbf | 2009-07-13 | 09:54 | 11:24 | ICE 515 |
| Mannheim Hbf ->Basel SBB | 2009-07-13 | 11:36 | 13:47 | ICE 375 |
| Basel SBB ->Arth-Goldau | 2009-07-13 | 14:03 | 15:45 | IR 2177 |
| Arth-Goldau -> Milano Centrale | 2009-07-13 | 15:50 | 18:50 | CIS 21 |
| Milano Centrale ->Barcelone Estacion de Franca | 2009-07-13/14 | 19:40 | 09:43 | EN 11274 |
| Barcelona Estacion de Franca -> Barcelona Sants | 2009-07-14 | 09:43 | 10:28 | Transfer |
| Barcelona Sants -> Madrid-Puerta de Atocha | 2009-07-14 | 12:00 | 15:23 | AVE 3122 |
| Madrid-Puerta de Atocha | 2009-07-14 | 16:40 | 20:02 | TLG 194 |
And that's after asking to arrive 'around' noon on the 15th. Although I'd love to combine ICE ('Intercity Express', German high-speed trains), CIS ('Cisalpino', Italian high-speed trains), EN ('EuroNight', pretty much what the name says), and AVE ('Alta Velocidad España', Spanish high-speed trains) in a single trip, I think I'll pass for this particular suggestion. And that's ignoring the fact that 5 minutes for a transfer in Arth-Goldau (a place I've never heard of before, let alone been in that train station) is rather tight, and that I don't know whether I'll be able to make it in 45 minutes from one train station to another in Barcelona without actually knowing the city.
More soon.
Mon, 09 Mar 2009
Uitmuntend
Yesterday, the choir of which I've been a member for these past few years went to the provincial tournament—for the first time in its existence. For those of you unaware with what this is: the "provincial tournament" isn't a tournament in the traditional sense (which would have a winner etc); instead, you get to sing in front of an expert jury which will classify you in one of six categories; the category you're in then determines government subsidy your group gets. This is done for all nonprofessional music groups, and makes for a pretty fair way of deciding who gets what, IMO. Apart from that, it's of course also fun.
Anyway, as said this was the first time our choir went to such a "tournament", but of course we weren't alone; apart from us, there were six other choirs, two of which were also part of the Ekerse C-koren: Cantando (the semi-professional choir of our group) and Cantilene (for those between the ages of 18 and 25 (or 16 and 25 for boys).
And we did well. Cantilene (who did very well in the most recent edition of the 'Koor van het Jaar' contest) was categorized in the 'superieure afdeling' ('superior category'), with 75% in that category. Cantando did even better than that; they achieved a score of 93%, also in the superieure afdeling. This is the highest category in the whole system, so it deserves some special praise.
Caljenté, our choir, didn't quite reach that level yet; considering the fact that we've only existed about three years, however, that isn't very surprising. Yet, we did quite well; we were categorized in the 'Uitmuntendheid' category, with a score of 75% in that category. Uitmuntendheid (which would translate to something like 'greatness') is the third possible category, which puts us in the top half of the choirs of the province of Antwerp.
Quite an achievement for what is, after all, a fairly new choir. Of course we're all very happy with that—especially so our conductor, who was rather surprised when she heard the outcome...
For those interested, one of the choir members had a camera with him, and he put the four pieces we sang up on youtube: Credo, Dostoyno Yest, Wals van kwart voor middernacht, and Hodie Christus Natus Est. There're also films of the other choirse, but you'll have to look for those yourself ;-P
