Devoxx

On wednesday, I went to Devoxx (formerly JavaPolis).

First, breakfast as usual; then the keynotes session about JavaFX and the on-site RFID experiment.
It was the first time I heard about JavaFX. It seems to be the next Flash and it looks cool. I especially liked the fact that it runs in a JVM process separate to that of the browser so that one doesn't slow down or blocks the other. This also makes it possible to drag JFX applications out of the browser and run them standalone.
The RFID presentation was done by an ill-prepared IBM suit who, having seen the venue, seemed to have managed to remove his tie and loosen his top shirt button only barely in time. At the venue, three (sponsor) companies worked together to provide RFID-containing badges, equip all rooms with scanning portals and supply hardware and software for tracking badges and creating statistics about the attendance of various talks.
Instead of telling about anything Java-related on this Java venue, they went on about hardware, antennas, limitations of RFID, etc. Also, instead of doing one comprehensive talk, the three companies each did their own presentation and together they went 15 minutes over their alotted time.
What I missed in this keynote: the Java aspect and a real-time view of people moving about at the venue (especially those leaving the RFID talk; there were plenty).

Next, I went to the Hippo talk. Hippo is a JSR-170 compatible ECM and CMS, using Apache Jackrabbit somewhere inside. From the presentation it looked nice and user-friendly, but when I asked whether Hippo could be deployed on top of an existing Jackrabbit repository, they couldn't give me a satisfying answer. I guess I'll have to check out that for myself.

Lunch was a disaster: after queueing for ten minutes, they were out of bacon sandwiches (I don't eat cheese and I don't like fish on a sandwich), so I moved to another queue. After standing in line for another ten minutes I finally had my sandwich, but they were out of soup. And by that time they were out of soup everywere.
The organisation was very proud to announce the venue was sold out for the second time in a row: 3200 people attending. Is it that hard to multiply, say 250ml of soup by 3200 people and end up with enough for everyone?

After lunch, I went to the High Performance Java talk, which proved not to be a good start of the afternoon. The (overacting fake-jovial) presenter (Iran Hutchinson) started with a five-minute joke about his first name before going on about OSGi and how it should be used and what some of its pitfalls are (managing multiple threads in a single bundle, apparently). He also briefly mentioned Caché, some kind of high performance database that is accessed like a multi-dimensional array. This should have been the core of his talk, but I went away with the knowledge that the Knopflerfish OSGi implementation offers a GUI (something that I would have liked to have seen in the OSGi-specific talk I attended last year).

Next up, Scala. Having a functional programming and language design background, I was a bit interested in how functional programming could be implemented in Java. Simple: by breaking source compatibility: Scala is a standalone language that is compiled to Java bytecode.
They didn't go into implementation details, they just showed some basic constructs and how they are translated to Java.
Since Scala converts infix operators to method calls from left to right, operator precendence looked a bit fishy. Unfortunately, they only showed simple operators that didn't require precedence and there wasn't time for questions.

One of the few things I understood from the next talk was that Scala has a bit of a problem with mathematical expressions; well, isn't that a coincidence?
The core subject of this next talk was about cross-language development: using different languages in a single project: Java, Ruby, Groovy, Scala, ... The two guys presenting were very enthousiastic, but the whole sounded like the dialogue was provided by a Russian-to-English translator tool and I'm afraid my brain just shut down in horror at some point. All I know is that if I ever need multiple languages in a single project, I have to take a look at IntelliJ IDEA.
My brain did wake up on the intruductions of new terms such as 'camel humps names' (CamelCase identifiers) and the Elvis operator: '?:' ('when your head is turned ninety degree').

The last talk of the day was interesting again: "RESTful design - Patterns and Anti-Patterns."
REST is an architectural style (Roy Fielding's orignal definition) or "the web used correctly." "XML without SOAP" is one of the worst and most innacurate popular definitions of REST.
There are five requirements for REST:

1. Every 'thing' gets an ID (eg a URI).
2. Link together as much 'things' as possible.
3. Use standard methods (eg GET, PUT, POST, DELETE).
4. Allow for multiple representations of the same 'thing' (eg human-readable HTML, machine-readable XML, or both together in the form of XHTML). The representation could eg be chosen by an Accept header in an HTTP call.
5. Communicate statelessly

Some anti-patterns:

• Tunneling through GET by using the same base URI with different methods specified in a query part.
• Tunneling through POST ('the SOAP way') by using the same base URI with different methods specified in an XML body.
• Ignoring caching; the server should use cache control headers and ETags.
• Ignoring response codes.
• Misusing cookies: using them to identify state is wrong.
• Forgetting hypermedia by not connecting resources and representations together.
• Ignoring mime types; use the correct mime type for every resource; use the vendor namespace if necessary (application/vnd.XXXX).
• Breaking self-descriptiveness (when the manual of how to use your service becomes bigger than the service itself).

Some REST patterns:

• Use collection resources where you provide links to individual resources (eg a GET on '/products' produces '/products/apple' and '/products/pear').
• Page your collections when the list of links become too long (eg with a query in the URI).
• Don't worry about URI design or hierarchy, opaque URIs are fine; linking stuff together is more important than the way links look like.
• Create resources by POSTing to a collection.
• Polling to generate notifications for changes is not bad as long as caches are used properly.
• Externalize server cache by putting the cache operation in a proxy that handles the cache and ETag headers.

He did go a bit fast from time to time, but this presentation was a good introduction to REST and a starting point to get to know more about it.

Dinner was even more disastrous than lunch: they ran out of french fries when only about two thirds of the attendees got their tiny helping. Hearing it would take at least half an hour for a new supply to arrive, I went home hungry.

Drie maanden Diftar

Op 1 juli 2008 is in Nijlen het Diftar-systeem van start gegaan. De theorie is dat de vervuiler betaalt door voor de afhaling van restafval en GFT per kg te laten betalen. Na drie maanden kreeg elk adres een overzicht van de hoeveelheid geproduceerde afval.
Bij de start van het systeem moest iedereen een provisie betalen van 60 euro. Hiervan zou de kost van de afvalophaling afgetrokken worden. Bij een te lage provisie moet worden bijgestort.

Mijn overzicht ziet er zo uit:
Saldo op 1 juli: 0.00
Betaling van 1/8/2008: 60.00 (De laatst mogelijke betalingsdatum, uiteraard).
Vaste kost van juli tem oktober: -12.00
Saldo: 48.00

Zelfs als je geen afval produceert betaal je nog altijd 3 euro per maand aan vaste kosten! Met een provisie van 60 euro en mijn afvalproductie ziet het er naar uit dat ik ongeveer één keer per jaar een container zal moeten voorzetten en elke 1 à 1.5 jaar 60 euro zal moeten bijbetalen.

Bij het persoonlijk afvaloverzicht zat ook een brochure met veelbelovende resultaten: de gemiddelde restafvalproductie tijdens juli, augustus en september is gedaald van 20kg per inwoner in 2007 naar 12kg per inwoner in 2008.
Zou dit er iets mee te maken hebben?


Misschien moeten we eens met Scriptura langs IOK gaan, dan kan ik onrechtstreeks mijn voor niets betaalde vaste kost terugkrijgen en gaan hun afvaloverzichtjes er misschien wat beter uitzien.

Vals plafond

Vandaag een vals plafond gestoken in het kader van mijn opleiding houtbewerking (lees goedkoop werkvolk gespeeld). In dit geval ging het om het plaatsen van een houten roostering, met daartegen PVC schrootjes. En dat ging zo in zijn werk:

1. Kies een hoogte voor het plafond, tel er de dikte van het plafondmateriaal bij, en tel er de dikte van de bevestigingslatten (22mm) bij. Dat wordt de onderkant van de roostering.
2. Van de onderkant van de roostering, meet een afstand naar beneden, tot op ooghoogte (bv 160cm). Dit is het referentiepunt voor de paslijn.
3. Loop met een pasdarm de hele ruimte rond en zet in alle hoeken de referentiehoogte over.
4. Meet van elk referentiepunt 160 cm naar boven en verbind deze punten met een lijn (smetkoord gebruiken).
5. Langs de lange muren, planken tegen de muur bevestigen; de onderkant van de planken komt gelijk met de smetlijn.
6. De kortste overspanning vullen met evenwijdige planken, ongeveer 40cm uit elkaar; hiervoor worden korte plankjes van 38cm gebruikt (bij planken van 22mm). De eerste plank zit vast tegen de muur, daartegen wordt haaks een kort plankje genageld (schuin genageld). Tegen dit korte plankje komt weer een lange plank (recht genageld), enz.
7. Op het einde opnieuw een plank tegen de muur vastzetten en een plankje op maat zagen van de overschot plus ongeveer 0.5cm. Dit plankje wordt met een zware hamer tussen de laatste plank en de plank tegen de muur geslagen om het geheel op te spannen.
8. Bevestigingslatten (ongeveer 40x22 mm) in de lengterichting tegen de roostering schroeven, ongeveer 40cm uit elkaar. De uiteinden van deze latten mogen niet op een plank uitkomen, maar moeten zweven en met kort latje aaneengezet worden (anders kunnen deze uiteindes niet behoorlijk vastgezet worden op de roosteringplank).
9. PVC aflijsting (voor de schrootjes) rondom rond tegen de bevestingenslatten nagelen.
10. De PVC schrootjes in de aflijsting schuiven en vastnagelen (met roestvrije inox nagels).

In ons geval waren er nog wat moeilijkheden met elektriciteitsleidingen en aansluitpunten die wat verlegd moesten worden, de plaatsing van nieuwe verlichting, en een paar moeilijke hoeken veroozaakt door inspringende steunberen. We hebben ons ook beperkt tot slechts één pasplank tegen de lange muur omdat we de roosteringplanken in putrails konden leggen.

Phrase from nearest book meme

Apparently, some meme is doing the rounds again.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

My result:

"The general secretary smiled to show he knew the Owl was not sleeping."
- The Altman Code, Robert Ludlum

Correction 2

The second graph was, of course, also wrong, for the same reason as the first.


Now the yellow graph somewhat approaches horizontality, but only due to the fact that Maes is cheaper than Antol used to be and due to the economic crisis pushing petrol prices down.

Correction

As Nick kindly pointed out, I made an error in the inflation-adjustment in my first graph: I did my calculations in the wrong direction. Below is the corrected graph.


As a result my earlier conclusion was also wrong: current petrol prices are at their lowest value of the past 2.5 years.
This joyous situation will be short-tempered, however, as the federal government has annouced it will re-introduce the cliquet system of fuel taxation. When prices decrease, tax will only be decreased for half the amount of the price decrease. As an example: when an amount of petrol costs 100 euros today, increases with 10 euros and later decreases again with 10, the cliquet system will ensure that you're paying 105 euros instead of 100.

Financial analysis

After working for three years and one month, driving a bike for two years and six months, and living in my own house for nine months, it's time for a small analysis of my financial situation and general economic trends. I'm not an economist, so please forgive the flagrant mistakes and errors I make in my assumptions and calculations.

First of all, the government calculates and publishes a monthly consumer price index, a measure of inflation with respect to a certain reference year (the most recent one being 2004). The general index includes various products typical households consume, each with a certain weight according to their importance. Next to the general index, there is also a so-called 'health index,' which excludes items such as tobacco, alcohol and ... vehicle fuels. The reasoning behind the latter is that these are already represented in the cost of all other products in the index as they need to be transported, which consumes fuel.
Without starting an argument about any unfairness in the fact that salaries are inflation-adjusted using the health index, let's accept the facts as they are and reverse the line of thought: since all products require fuels in their harvesting, manufacturing and transport, let's take fuel cost as the base for cost of living. It's also the only product of which I have more-or-less accurate data.

In this graph, the blue line represents the absolute petrol price I have paid, starting from the day I bought my bike. The first months I usually went to Antol, as they were the cheapest petrol station in Lier at the time. Later on, Dats opened a station that was marginally cheaper, and by May 2007 I went to Maes (which had taken over Antol and dropped prices to be the cheapest in each station's region).
The period of missing data was when I crashed my bike and had to wait a few months until it was repaired. The serious dip you see is an outlier related to me siphoning petrol from my mother's car after she accidentally filled up completely some days before buying a new car.

As you can see, at my last petrol purchase I paid the third lowest price ever (in the past 2.5 years). The third lowest absolute price, that is. The magenta line depicts the inflation-adjusted petrol price, using the general consumer index (which includes petrol). You can see we're still a long way off from paying a low value for our petrol.

Speaking of petrol value, let's see what the value of my income is with which I have to pay these exorbitant petrol prices (and, by extension, everything else I have to buy to live).


Again, the blue line is my absolute gross (before taxes) monthly income. It does not take holiday money, bonuses or tax deductions into account. Taxes, even after deductions, are at about 30% on average at my current salary (but I'm in the highest tax scale, so every increase in salary is taxed at 50%).
The graph, like the previous one, starts at the day I bought my bike. At that time the salary at which I started (marked by the red line) had already been inflation-adjusted for 2005. As you can see from the magenta line (inflation adjustment based on the health index), in November 2006 the value of my salary had dropped below the value of my salary at the start of my employment. Another conclusion based on the numbers is that, over the past three years, I have received an increase in salary value of 50 euros (calculated now, in October, by December it will be less). Moreover, those 50 euros are September-2005-euros; in October-2005-euros they would value at 47.

Now, let's compare the value of my salary to the value of petrol. That's where the yellow line comes into play: it's the ratio of (general) inflation-adjusted petrol price to (health) inflation-adjusted income. In an ideal world, this would be a straight horizontal line. In a perfect world, it would be a line that goes down. In the real world, however, it's a line which general direction is slightly upwards. Luckily for me, the inclination of that ratio is slightly less than the inclination of my income.
Luckily again (in the context of petrol prices at least), the economic crisis and pending recession has caused petrol prices to drop back to their level of two years ago during the last few weeks.

The green line, in case you're wondering is what I could be earning if I had dome some jobhopping. Although I have expressly removed absolute values from the last chart, I can say that the difference between red and green is 550 euros.

My conclusions? None specifically, I just threw some facts and calculations into the world, feel free to draw your own conclusions. I'll just repeat the well-known facts that employer loyalty is never rewarded and that petrol prices are just way too high.

Facebook

A while ago, I suddenly received a friend request from Klaas on Facebook. My first reaction was something along the lines of 'WTF?' Then I clicked on and discovered my Facebook account: apparently I had created one in early August. Probably to check out what all the fuss was about.

After searching around a bit, it seems that most of the people I have connected with on LinkedIn are also present on Facebook. And more: I found a number of school friends that aren't on LinkedIn.
I guess I'll be maintaining two networks in parallel now.

Screening

I did another MAG screening again today. I'm getting better and better at it: all eights, except for one seven for driving over a plank of timber and two sevens for the break test. The two tries for slow driving were 14 and 18 seconds.

Quotation is as follows: you start out with seven; for every fault one point gets subtracted (but they don't go negative); for doing something extra you get one point extra (which can be lost in case of a fault).
Nine is for doing the exercise better than the instructor and 10 is reserved for some guy named God.
For slow driving you have to drive 10m and taking at least 12 seconds to do it, without placing a foot on the ground or driving outside a set boundary.

Some photos I took today. I miss my 10x optical zoom; 6x doesn't even come close.

I rest my case

After a few mails back and forth between me and the Canon repair centre it's all clear now.
They told me it was an "exceptional service" of them to replace my four-year-old, out-of warranty camera with a brand new one. Apparently they usually send irrepairable cameras back unrepaired without replacement.
This BS means one of two things: either they are lying to me and they always send a new camera if and older one is deemed irrepairable or would cost too much to repair, in which case they could easily have informed me about this policy before I sent them my camera in the first place. Or they damaged my camera beyond repair themselves and now silently try to make up for it.

Another hint that the latter suspicion may be true is that the official communiqué by Canon for Belgium in which they state that cameras showing the problem I had would be repaired free of charge is dated 22 July 2008. If they were still able to repaire CCDs then, it must mean that spare parts are still available and that they allocated a budget for repairs.

All of this is moot, however, as the repair people stated that my camera had already been sent to Canon for environmentally-friendly destruction and there was no possibility to get it back.


Accepting my defeat, I went to take a look at the CHDK library to check if it was available for my camera (Canon PowerShot G9 firmware version 1.00G). Unfortunately, it wasn't, but searching a bit further, it became apparent that there was some active development going on. Yesterday, I ended up installing the first nearly completely working version of CHDK on my camera (which was out since the day before).
I also installed a script for time-lapse photography, so now I have the most important functionality of my old camera back.

Furious

Yes, that's what I am!
Today I received a package from the Canon repair centre; me happy at first, until I opened it. Inside was a brand new (at least, it looks brand new) Canon PowerShot G9!
The ETB ASS assholes downgraded me without asking, or even notifying me!
- I can't reuse my AA batteries; I'm stuck with some proprietory lithium thing that costs a fortune if you want a second pack and another fortune if you want an external charger (at least it would all cost more than a set of 4 rechareable AA batteries).
- I can't reuse my CF cards; the G9 uses MMC+ crap, which not only requires me buying new memory cards, but also a new cardreader for my PC
- The LCD screen is fixed, not tiltable; so no photographing under odd angles; something I do when photographing plants or technical stuff (PC innards, bike, etc)
- Downgraded from 10x to 6x optical zoom (from 38-380mm to 35-210mm equivalent)
- The S1 supports time lapse photography, I don't know whether the G9 does
- The viewfinder on the S1 was a mini LCD panel, the G9 has an optical, parallax-prone viewfinder that probably doesn't zoom with the lens
- And last but not least, the S1 has a decent grip while the G9 is flat; of course it fits in an inside pocket, but that's not a concern of mine since I keep as little as possible in my pockets as it only causes extra rib damage in case of a fall.

They haven't seen the end of me, that's for certain!

Distorted

A while back, my digital camera (a Canon PowerShot S1 IS) started to show some quirks. From time to time, the viewfinder display showed some purplish flashes. At first I thought there was something wrong with the display, but afterwards it became clear the the recorded photos were equally affected:

Since I bought the camera second-hand a few years back, the warranty period was long over. Besides, the problem only happened occasionally, so I was just hoping it wouldn't crop up too frequently.
Until a friend (the guy in the photo, incidentally) told me it was a known problem that affected some Canon devices equipped with a certain CCD made by Sony. The adhesive used for bonding the glass cover plate on the CCD causes corrosion of some parts of the CCD internals with the result illustrated above. The whole process is accelerated in warm and/or humid environments (it was indeed a very warm day the day that photo was taken).
Apparently, Canon has stated that they would repair affected cameras free of charge (including shipping to a service center). My guess is that they in return will claim their money back from Sony.

Anyway, equipped with this information, I finally reserved a day for a telephone fight with customer services. I first called Canon's Universal International Free Number: +800 22666 767. Either the number is out of commission, or it's not available through my Telenet Mobile subscription. Then I called the number of their Belgian helpdesk: 02 6200 197. After the obligatory language chooser and waiting until the phone support guy got out of his settee, this went very quick (4 min 12 sec): they don't do repairs in Belgium. But they did give me the number for the repair center in the Netherlands (+31 165 850 500).
Then I called the repair center, a phone call that also went very quick (3 min 28 sec). They said I had to start up the repair process through their website (they spelled it, as the name is somewhat unfortunate). I would have to send or bring in the device after which they would give me a quote for the cost and ask whether I would want to have it repaired. To my reply that this was an issue where both repair and shipping was supposed to be free of charge, regardless of warranty status they immediately responded "it's about a faulty CCD then?"
Honestly, I was impressed. I had thought it would be a lot more difficult to get something done for free.

Anyway, I registered on their site, requested pickup and sat back and waited. Next day UPS hostaged me the entire morning until about 1300 (I had to stay home until they picked up the package with my camera).
According to UPS tracking, my package arrived (was signed for) the next day. According to the repair center's status tracking, they received it a week later and sent it immediately to a 'repair location' where they started the repair and ordered parts.

That's the story so far. I've spent €2.76 on phone calls and half a day waiting for UPS. Hopefully, Canon keeps their promise and I won't have any further expenses.

To be continued...

De vakantie is voorbij...

...weeral.

Op de planning voor dit jaar staan: één verplichte houtverbinding (eigenlijk drie, maar onze leerkracht dit jaar houdt niet zo van regeltjes), iets kast-achtigs (waarschijnlijk ook weer iets verplichts waar een draai aan gegeven wordt), een dag op verplaatsing werken (waarschijnlijk een roostering voor een plafond of plat dak), misschien nog een uitstapje of twee en de rest van de tijd is voor werk naar eigen keuze (eigenlijk theorielessen, maar dat is ook weer een regeltje).

Zonsondergang

Wolken in het oosten, bijna open hemel in het westen, en dat in combinatie met zonsondergang geeft enkele minuutjes lang onderstaand beeld. De kwaliteit is niet schitterend; waarschijnlijk veel te veel transformaties toegepast om alle foto's min of meer naadloos aaneen te rijgen.

Zweefvliegerij

Ik ben daarstraks eens een kijkje gaan nemen op het militair vliegveld in Brasschaat waar een collega gaat zweefvliegen. Wel knap om eens te zien, maar meegevlogen heb ik niet; enerzijds omdat in een kleine cabine kruipen nogal onhandig is met een kilo of tien aan leer en anderzijds omdat ik vergeten was mijn portefeuille uit mijn andere jas te nemen.

Zweefvliegtuigen maken toch meer lawaai dan ik had gedacht. Het opstijgen is vrij luidruchtig, vermoedelijk omdat de steile hellingshoek nogal wat turbulentie veroorzaakt. Maar ook bij het landen hoor je ze duidelijk langszoeven.
Hieronder een kort filmpje van een opstijgend vliegtuig. Ik heb het geluid weggelaten omdat de microfoon van mijn fototoestel naar achter gericht is, er was dus enkel achtergrondlawaai te horen, niet het gesuis van een opstijgend zweefvliegtuig.

First harvest

I finally tasted my strawberries. The first ones were eaten by birds, but after I placed a net to keep them away, the rest are getting a chance to ripen properly.
Today I cut the two ripest and had a taste: they were perfect. Firm flesh and slightly sweet; infinitely better than the tasteless hydroculture you get sometimes.


It also looks like I will be overwhelmed by strawberries next year, considering the production and growth rate of runners. I cut off most of them, though, to allow them to put more energy in producing fruit.
If the new plants on the existing runners are showing any inclination to bear fruit this year, I will have to get a larger net as well.

New chain

After 34000km of loyal and 3500km of erratic service, my bike's chain has finally been replaced. And not a moment too soon either. At the end, it was clearly well past it's best-before date: it was tightened at the maximum and still it rattled and even hit the center stand.

Not only was it too slack, a few thousand kilometeres ago I noticed some of the chain links were stuck at the angle they're in when running along a sprocket. This has the nasty effect of constantly tightening and slackening the chain. So my chain was effectively pulled at many times per second when driving, which of course increases the rate of wear even further.

A chain is always replaced together with both sprockets. You can see why from the picures below: the teeth on the old front sprocket are eaten away almost by half.



On the rear sprocket, the difference is less pronounced, but it's still noticeable. That's because the rear sprocket is larger and does less revolutions than the front one.



Interesting note: according to my garage, some people only get about 15000km out of their chain, which underlines the importance of a good driving style. A chain and sprocket set is quite expensive.

Jaarebees

Gisteren heb ik eindelijk nog eens in mijn tuintje gewerkt. Het was dringend nodig: met al die regen was het onkruid goed opgeschoten.
Ik heb ook de pompoen- en courgetteplantjes die ik eerder gezaaid had uitgeplant.


Pompoenen en courgettes centraal op de foto, mijn compleet gummi geworden, doorgeschoten aardappelen van deze winter staan links, met erboven mijn aarbeien.
Aardbeien die bovendien goed vertrokken zijn. De eerste is al bijna rijp:

Haspengouw

Today, I went for a bike trip in Haspengouw with some friends. Lots of small country roads and picturesque villages, most with their own mansion. Remarkably, a lot of the roads in the middle of the fields run quite straight; while others have hairpin bends, like one near Kanne.


A scenic view from some vantage point in Berg, near Tongeren:



Lying around and photographing my photographer:

Picasa

I just installed Picasa. I've only used it for one minute and already I don't like it. Why? Because the first time you start it up, it asks to scan either your entire computer or 'just' your My Documents, My Pictures and Desktop folders. No other option. And the dialog is not cancelable.
I probably have a few thousand photos on my computer, having them all scanned takes too much time; at least when the only thing you want is to quickly share one tiny little album.

So I choose the My Documents/Images/Desktop option; there shouldn't be too many photos in there I guessed. Wrong! (of course)
So then the thing starts scanning and goes on scanning and keeps scanning and here's me trying to find a way to get it to stop. Not a chance.
According to the instructions on the download page, you can choose which folders Picasa should manage from the Tools > Folder Manager menu. Well ... possibly, but certainly not while it's still busy with the initial scan.
Why the hell include an option for me to select the single folder I'm interested in (for now) to share, but first having to sit through a huge initial scan which I will have to undo entirely the first time the Folder Manager option becomes available?

Seedling growth

A while ago, I planted some pumpkin and courgette seeds. At first they didn't germinate very well, but when I put them in my workhouse (a non-insulated place that gets over 30°C when the sun is shining), they shot up like rockets.
The movie below is a time-lapse recording of the progress over a 24 hour period (2008-05-08 1700 to 1700 today). Note the explosive growth when the seedlings are in full sun (and the picture is over-illuminated).

Exhausting paintjob

Yesterday, I have occupied myself with the respraying of my exhaust manifolds with heat-resistant paint. As you can see: it was urgent.


I had already resprayed them partly last autumn, but I only had time for one coat and even then only on the parts I could reach. This time I decided to take the whole thing off, sand it down properly and give it a thick coating of paint.
Actually, taking off the pipes was surprisingly easy: I only had to loosen up the radiator (two screws), unscrew the four bolts with which the pipework is connected to the engine block, and unscrew the two support points (one at the end of the manifold, one on the silencer).


Sanding took a few hours, but the end result was gleaming steel, ready for a few coats of paint. After one 400ml can, I decided it was enough. According to the instructions, you must heat up the paint for it to be baked solid. Normally, one would do this by starting the engine and let things take care of themselves. However, my exhausts wen't connected to the engine anymore.
For that reason I had borrowed a heat gun. Unfortunately, the heat gun didn't warm things up enough, so I had to put the pipes back onto the engine and start it up. During the process, I did make some scratches; they'll have to be resprayed later.


My next bike will have stainless steel exhaust manifolds! It turns purplish blue when used, but at least it doesn't rust.

Postpakket

Ik heb net heel de namiddag gespendeerd aan de Belgische Post. Pakketjes versturen is helemaal geen probleem; verzendingen naar het buitenland ook niet; iets aangetekend versturen kan altijd; en je verzending verzekeren is altijd het veiligste, dus dat kan de de Post ook. Tot je al die dingen probeert te combineren: durf eens een aangetekend en verzekerd pakketje naar Nederland te versturen en heel het postkantoor staat in rep en roer.

Beginnen bij het begin: opzoeken hoe je het beste een pakketje verstuurt. Voor UPS moet je eerst een klantnummer aanvragen, wat wel even kan aanslepen. Dan toch maar even kijken wat de Post zoal kan aanbieden. Niets, zo blijkt; voor pakketjes wordt je doorverwezen naar Taxipost, maar zij hebben wel veel keus om een pakket van 1kg naar Nederland te sturen: Kilopost Standard (€9 + €9.40 verzekering), Kilopost International (€13 onverzekerd), Taxipost International (€33.50 onverzekerd), Euro-Sprinters (€174.59 zonder BTW).
De keuze was snel gemaakt: het is Kilopost Standard geworden. Dus ik naar het grootste postkantoor uit de streek om er toch maar zeker van te zijn dat ze mij konden verderhelpen.
Het grootste postkantoor uit de streek heeft naast heel veel loketten ook heel lange wachtrijen, maar dat nemen we er maar bij. Na een goed kwartier was het aan mij: ik neem de doos erbij en vraag om ze aangetekend en met aangegeven waarde te versturen naar Nederland.




*stilte*




"Gaat dat eigenlijk wel?"

Waarop ik antwoord dat het volgens hun eigen website toch zeker wel mogelijk is en €18.40 kost. Na een kwartiertje door heel het kantoor rondlopen komt mijn loketbediende dan toch terug met "den boek" van de aangetekende zendingen en de kantoorchef. Die kon er ook niet bij dat ik een pakket aangetekend en verzekerd wilde versturen. En dan nog naar het buitenland ook; ongehoord!
Uiteindelijk, na wat discussieren met mij en andere loketbedienden en wat getokkel op de computer, draaide hij bij en wilde hij wel eens proberen om dat pakketje te versturen.
Hallo? Proberen? Wat valt daar nu in godsnaam aan te proberen? Waar gaan we naartoe als de Post al niet meer weet of en hoe ze paketten kunnen versturen? En dat wil(de) dan bij en hoog en bij laag voorkomen dat privébedrijven op de postmarkt toegelaten worden.
Anyway, om iets verzekerd te versturen moeten alle plaatsen waar een brief of pakket geopend kan worden verzegeld worden met blauwe karteltape. Daar is uiteraard nergens sprake van op de site van de Post. Door het gebrek aan blauwe tape op mijn pakketje kan men het onmogelijk verzekerd versturen, sorry, kous af.

Maar plák die doos dan vol met tape, wat kan mij dat nu schelen. Zo gezegd, zo gedaan; gaat mijn loketbediende nog eens een kwartiertje rondlopen op zoek naar de tape. Uiteindelijk komt ze terug, overlopend van excuses: geen centimeter blauwe tape te vinden, sorry. Het grootste kantoor uit de streek nota bene.

"Zijt ge van Lier zelf?"
"Nee, ik kom van Nijlen."
"Ah, maar dan kunt ge misschien ne keer daar proberen."
"Maar zijt ge zeker dat ze daar blauwe tape hebben?"
"Da weet ik ni hoor, zoveel wordt die niet gebruikt."
"Kunt ge misschien nekeer bellen om het te vragen?"
"OK, hebt ge een minuutje?"

Ik sta daar verdomme al bijna een uur; ja een minuutje kan er ook nog wel bij.
Goed nieuws: in het postkantoor van Nijlen hebben ze blauwe tape.

Aangekomen in Nijlen blijkt dat het kantoor (uiteraard) veel kleiner is, maar wel veel gezelliger en met een aangename sfeer onder de (twee) loketbedienden. En veel minder lang aanschuiven.

"Ik kom voor jullie blauwe tape. Ze hebben er daarjuist voor gebeld vanuit Lier."
"Ingrid! Da's ene voor u; ik weet ni hoe ik da moet doen hoor; veel te ingewikkeld, geef mij uwe klant maar."

Ingrid moest ook even uitzoeken hoe het nu weer in elkaar zat, maar na wat getokkel op de computer, het bijeenzoeken van een hoop etiketten, het doorlezen van de interne documentatie, het opgraven van "den boek" met de aangetekende zendingen (al helemaal vergeeld), het wegen van de zending, en het noteren van de waarde en het adres op het ontvangstbewijs voor de verzekerde zending, ben ik na een twintigtal minuutjes toch gesteld geraakt.

Mijn belastinggeld wordt toch weeral ongeloofelijk goed besteed.

RSS

Today, I finally started using RSS feeds in Google Reader. Partly because all those blogs and other pages I frequent started to take up too many tabs in Firefox; and partly to get rid of some comments by some people.
Unfortunately, embracing a new technology is all good and well, but only if others provide the means to do so. I can only subscribe to RSS feeds if they are published somewhere. This blog, for instance, does have an RSS feed if I remember correctly, subscribing to it is somewhat more difficult (at least for an RSS noob like me). Where's Wally? or in this case, the feed link?

Pushbike

Went for an afternoon bike trip with some friends today. At least, that was the plan. So what do I do? Clean my bike, tighten and grease the chain, check tyre pressure, check oil level, fill up with petrol, etc. All prepared I joined the group.
As it turned out, this would be about the first real trip of the year for each of the three others. One was in dire need of petrol before we started off; another needed some more air in his tyres; so the first stop would be the nearest petrol station (Gulf in Zandhoven). Arrived there, it appeared they don't offer pressurised air. Off to the next station then (Total in Zandhoven), where we found air, but where one of us found out that leaving his bike unused for a few months takes its toll on the battery.
First we asked a few fellow visitors of the station whether any of them had jumper cables. Tough luck; apparently nobody carries relics like those around anymore. In the end, one of the guys called his boyfriend to come over with jumper cables. Once they arrived, we attempted a jump start. Unfortunately, the cables were too thin to let through starting current.
Finally we decided to try push-starting it. First our unfortunate friend tried it on his own, which didn't work. Then we gave him a push to get him up to speed until he could engage his transmission. This worked first time! I never imagined you could actually push start a motorcycle, because the engine usually runs at much higher rpm than car engines. But still, it worked and we could finally set off.


Today, I also learned the technique to shift gears without declutching: for an upshift, put light pressure on the gear lever, lessen the throttle a little bit, and you should shift easily into the next gear. A downshift is the same, but immediately after the gear change, you need to open up the throttle enough so as to match the speed of the engine with the speed of the wheels.
Upshifting without declutching happens a lot; apparently race drivers do it (probably to not lose speed while reclutching). Downshifting without declutching seems to be even more debatable than upshifting.
Anyway, I tried both and it works. The operation does need some practice, though. And because I have a two-cylinder bike (which reacts immediately to the slightest change in throttle), gearshifting without declutching causes a bit of a shock. I will practice further (it's good to know how to drive a bike to the garage if your clutch cable snaps) but I won't be using the technique much I think. Using the clutch is much smoother.

Beesterij in de voortuin

Er zwerven blijkbaar reeën rond in de buurt (ik dacht eerst dat er een paar honden van de buurman ontsnapt waren). Toen ik zonet thuiskwam stond er een koppel op straat vlak voor mijn huis. Ze liepen wel weg toen ik kwam aangereden, maar niet ver genoeg om te ontsnappen aan mijn fototoestel dat ik snel binnen was gaan halen.

5 minuten tijd

Het is ondertussen weeral veel te lang geleden dat ik nog eens geblogd heb, maar nu heb ik eens vijf minuten tijd (gemaakt).

De meeste mensen rond mij zullen ondertussen al wel weten dat ik op 10 februari verhuisd ben naar Nijlen. Mijn bed en eetkamer waren er al, er moesten enkel nog een paar kasten met inhoud verhuisd worden. En mijn bureau met PC natuurlijk, dewelke als eerste terug gemonteerd en aangesloten werd (je moet je prioriteiten kennen in het leven, weetjewel).




Op 8 maart ben ik eindelijk eens een WODCA-actie tegengekomen (op de rind rond Lier). De blauwe knipperlichten die op hun aanwezigheid duiden zijn ongeloofelijk slecht zichtbaar in het donker: je hebt er weinig of geen dieptezicht op. Toen ik passeerde waren alle agenten blijkbaar druk bezig want er was niemand te bespeuren.
Dan maar een rondje rond Lier gemaakt (om een uur of 2 's nachts, but who cares) en nog eens gepasseerd, in de hoop dat ze mij zouden tegenhouden. Toen ik voor de tweede keer langsreed stond er wel een agent te wachten op de volgende klant, maar ik had pech: hij wuifde me door.

Op 15 maart ben ik begonnen met een deel van mijn tuin om te spitten om een moestuintje aan te leggen. Omdat het vrij zwaar werk is, doe ik niet teveel tegelijk. Door alle weken een beetje te doen krijg je meer gedaan dan in één keer veel en daarna een maand te revalideren.

KlankKleur

Dit jaar was de twintigste editie van KlankKleur, het jaarlijks concert door de harmonie van Schelle. Voor de gelegenheid waren er heel wat solisten uitgenodigd:

Ivo Hadermann, hoorn

Nico Schoeters, vibrafoon

Gan Van Wouwe, altsax

En dan is er natuurlijk nog het orkest zelf, met daarin iemand die we ergens van kennen, goed verstopt helemaal achteraan.


Net zoals de vorige keren was het weer een goed concert. Volgend jaar meer van dat.