2023-06-01 09:59:45 CET I am enjoying a nice pot of coffee, the very first morning in June.
I was cleaning up and freeing up some additional disk space on one of my Raspberry Pi's - the one that is running a surveillance camera like system. It's based on the Python solution referred as Picamera The fantastic Picamera Python solution.. Basically a picture is taken and stored every time a movement is detected. Once the predefined folder size (where the pictures are saved) reached I am triggering a process that will take all the images and compile them into a short movie. The movie is moved into a folder acting as a temporary holding location on the SD card. Now and then I have to archive these short movies to my hard drive on the PC to free up some storage. To have these recordings has proven to be very useful, now and then I have a look and detect interesting things. So, the other day I saw myself There I was, trying out the car washing accessory for the high pressure cleaner. It worked really well! how I used the high pressure cleaner with the car wash accessory.
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-06-01 09:57:59 CET Did you know that today in 1495 is the day when a monk, John Cor, records the first known batch of Scotch whisky Read more about it on Wikipedia..
2023-05-30 13:16:38 CET First workday of the week, it's always nice to shorten the workweek with a public holiday. I can focus on doing some administrative tasks and other follow-ups.
Yesterday we received the terrible news that the cutest little dog of my parents have an incurable disease. To make it worse she - yes, the dog called Emma is a she - will not have the means of continuing leading a life without discomfort and pain. We took it very hard as we can relate having received similar shocking news about our cat Mokka not too long ago. We also had no real other alternatives than to put her to sleep. Thoughts goes out to my parents, we wish you all the strength!
I was going to fly with my drone yesterday, but the remote controller didn't start up. The lights that indicates the battery charge status didn't even lit up. I thought it was simply a sign that I had to charge it. But the situation did not change after I charged the battery, all the 5 lights are indicating the charging progress while charging. But only while the charge cable is attached. It's really a mystery what happened, from working perfectly the last time then I put it away (in it's dedicated place, safe in a box) and a couple of days later, it is not even powering on when I try to turn it on. I was in contact with DJI support who went through the debugging steps (I even had to send a video clip on how it is getting charged and how I try to power it on). The person at support suggested me to send it in for inspection (it will be free if they don't rule a user error as the warranty is still active). This morning I went through all the steps of completing an online repair service form. Hopefully within 2 days I will receive a shipping tag that I can use. Interesting...
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-30 13:42:03 CET Did you know that today in 1899 is the day when Pearl Hart Read more about her on Wikipedia., a female outlaw of the Old West, robs a stage coach 30 miles southeast of Globe, Arizona.
2023-05-28 14:22:16 CET It was another fantastic summer breakfast this morning on the terrace. I got some serious summer vibes while enjoying the coffee sitting in our lush lounge.
We continue the day living with the youth (carefully balancing the contact with them but still allowing them their privacy) at home. They are both studying next to each other in their rhythm. We love having them around of course, but it's also a change that we have to adopt to. Even though a very nice change
There have been some days before last update. Time goes so fast and it seems it is only accelerating. I worked in the office in Brussels on last Friday, it's nice (except the aspect of the traffic situation of course) to meet some of the colleagues. Then in the evening we went to have dinner with friend K and his new boyfriend K. It was very nice meeting up with them and they are a very nice couple. On Saturday we were very productive, cleaned the drive way with the high-pressure cleaner. I purposely planned it so that I also could use the accessory I bough for the machine - a car cleaning nozzle. The resultThe result is good, but still room for improvement. Note the pavement that was cleaned with the high-pressure cleaner. is OK, but I still need to get used to how it works the best and also get some experience. The car is clean, but I think I need to tweak the process and adjust the nozzle pressure next time. It is definitely a time saver!
We have just enjoyed a nice lunchA very nice salad in the new sitting area in the back of the garden. in our latest garden installation - a bar inspired sitting area. The schedule for today includes dinner with the youth, driving girlfriend K to the train-station, cutting the lawn and water the garden. Not necessarily in that order though...
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-28 13:15:01 CET Did you know that today in 1907 is the day when the first Isle of Man TT Read more about it on Wikipedia. race is held.
2023-05-24 19:00:15 CET It was a cool day today, a slow yet busy workday if you know what I mean. It's been a lot to do but enough time in between to focus on them. I even had the time to do some hardcore development in Oracle creating SQL queries. Anyway, geekness...
Otherwise, there are a lot of noise everywhere and we have to filter to be able to upright a healthy work-family-social life. It is busy enough in our lives. Like today our neighbours installed solar panels and all of a sudden the trucks and equipment pulled up in our street. It's already tight as is, so we were surprised that there were no communication done about it. We started communicating a week before for the neighbours to have time to plan well in time. Anyway, it proves that people are egoistic at core, right?
I mentioned about the local Stable Diffusion AI installation earlier, right? I have tried to install it on two computers - one Windows and one Linux based. Both were unsuccessful and I am pretty sure it has to do with the hardware (all to do with the lack of decent GPU). Anyway, I have one last resort, the gaming machine of my son. I have to sneak into the gaming room and do it at some point in time. Me being Ninja thus. But just to see if it works...
The coolest things today, most inspiring what happened today though, was when J arrived home and started to talk about his lesson and the person who was invited in todays presentation. It was a day-trader that told them about what he is doing. Of course it's very impressing for a 19 year old to hear that a 20+ year old person could make 200K Euro in a day (or loosing 50K in one minute). They were so impressed it led to private talks afterwards. It is fascinating to see his reactions and his reasoning. I learn a lot!
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-24 19:00:37 CET Did you know that today in 1276 is the day when Magnus Ladulås Read more about him on Wikipedia. is crowned King of Sweden in Uppsala Cathedral.
2023-05-23 20:53:48 CET Today was was a great day, both at work and later at home. Imagine that you can look forward to water the garden (and I connected my water tank to the pump. It always gives that added satisfaction feeling. Like charging the car from solar energy...), never take the simple things in life for granted. It can all change in minutes. Also, J came home this morning and studied most of the day. He really kept to a schedule and we, like the good old days, threw some baseball in the garden. The perks of life again!
I had a presentation to do early this morning and it was a very satisfying session with a lot of constructive response and feedback coming from a very high level. It is very inspiring and I can really get energised by those moments, the preparation done last night makes it all worth it!
After all the studying J did today, he went with his (probably his very best) friend G to the basketball court to "shoot some hoops" and relax from the day.
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-22 23:04:04 CET Did you know that today in 1430 is the day when Joan of Arc is captured at the Siege of Compiègne Read more about it on Wikipedia. We have been in Rouen where she died. Very interesting, I still remember it. by troops from the Burgundian faction.
2023-05-22 20:05:31 CET It's been a Monday... well, not more than that. A very ordinary Monday and an ordinary start of the week. If anything stood out, a late conference call ended the workday.
Oh, before I forget and also before my brain goes on strike, during lunch today I watch an interesting YouTube clip about the open source graphical AI generator called Stable Diffusion Web UI (Automatic 1111 on Github). There are a lot of sample and demo sites (one I like is this oneI found this simple demo to show what can be done. Simply write the prompt and it will generate the text-to-image for you.) but to give you an idea, I generated this one This was generated simply by inputting "A spaceship is flying fast across a star lit sky in the background depth of field". That was all it needed to produce this completely unique image from scratch. Fascinating! as a test.
Now I really need to go horizontal, this took way more time than I thought...
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-22 23:04:04 CET Did you know that today in 1762 is the day when Sweden and Prussia sign the Treaty of Hamburg Read more about it on Wikipedia..
2023-05-21 10:59:06 CET Trying to think back what actually happened (not easy before the coffee) the last couple of days - the public holiday on Thursday made me completely loose count of the days. I was back working on Friday, catching up the emails, conference calls and trying to close off as many open items as possible and prepare for next week as good as possible.
Yesterday was the birthday celebration of my mother in law. Very nice evening with the family. Later in the night J asked if it was OK if his girlfriend K could pass by. Of course she could, doesn't matter if it's 03:30 in the morning...
The youth are about to leave for Antwerp and then they are going to a family thing on K's side of the family.
2023-05-21 18:03:39 CET We are approaching Sunday evening lightning fast. Where did the day go? Both of us are dragging us through the day, sleep deprivation and the heat are factors that is not making it any easier. J messaged us that they are enjoying themselves where they are. The plan is that they will spend the night there and then go to Antwerp and school on Monday. I am so glad that the guy is building his life and have met such a nice girl and friends. But it doesn't make us miss him any less though...
We are preparing the evening with all sorts of coziness. The workweek starts tomorrow again and we are not ready just yet... Sunday blues.
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-21 10:05:01 CET Did you know that today in 1927 is the day when Charles Lindbergh Read more about him on Wikipedia. touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
2023-05-18 12:08:41 CET Today we are enjoying a nice and slow coffee infused morning, today on the Ascension Day. A lot of my colleagues even made the bridge tomorrow, but I will be working.
Yesterday night I met with a very interesting and inspiring group of people, I was invited by my friend M. in a gallery. In fact, it was a surprisingly warm and open bunch of people with a feeling of an instant connection. We'll see where it leads...
2023-05-18 19:59:59 CET What a magic day it turned out to be! We could enjoy the garden today to the max, J and K could do their things (school assignments etc) and we enjoyed our things in the garden. In the evening we could enjoy the last sunbeams in our newly arranged lounge with a nice drink.
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-16 09:44:53 CET Did you know that today in 1965 is the day when the Israeli spy Eli Cohen Read more about him on Wikipedia. is hanged in Damascus, Syria.
2023-05-16 09:31:15 CET Sipping coffee and enjoying the slow start today. A typical Tuesday that is blocked for follow-up- and administrative work.
To honour the upcoming National Barbecue Day (not true, I did not know that today is the day) we did the first BBQ of the season this weekend. It's a universal rule that it take at least double the time to get the meat done. Always! Never the less, it was fantastic to have the family gathered around the table on the terrace.
Momentarily I need to attend a call, but I just wanted to start the update of todays post. I have some nice technical stuff to share - 3D printing project progress and the static site generator called Gatsbyjs that caught my eyes. But that will follow soon, now I need to dash.
2023-05-16 13:52:41 CET As a follow up on the latest 3D printing project, the second related to my drone, namely the travel-box for my drone. Overall it is a nice 3D model that fits my needs perfectly - I want to be able to bring the drone safely in a backpack etc. I downloaded it from Printables.com and it 3D printed fine, no major issues to speak of at all. However, after a short while the lock of the lid broke off. I re-printed the lid (in different orientation thinking it could be stronger) but it soon broke. I decided to redesign the STL file in Tinkercad - it's the easiest way of doing some quick modifications on already created STL files. The travel-box It's a really nice little travel box that fits my DJI Mini 2 se drone perfectly. You can see two broken lids and the new mounted lid with the new locking mechanism that I designed. came out great and I am really happy about the new locking mechanism!
OK, soon I have a dentist appointment to look forward to. At least J and I are going together. Different this time is the fact that it's the last time we will see our dentist before her retirement.
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-16 09:44:53 CET Did you know that today is the National Barbecue Day Read more about it here..
2023-05-13 11:26:15 CET Where is the time going? In general, time seems to accelerate more and more the older you get . I am still enjoying the coffee
Finally I took the time to do some 3D printing again. Felt like ages that I did it (but the number of 3D printing projects did not decrease). I started the latest project yesterday evening by printing the first of two parts - the lid with a locking hatch of what will be a travel box Let's see how this Dji drone travel box turns out. It should be done by 20 o'clock tonight. for my drone. I have just started an almost 10 hour 3D print job of the final piece, the box itself.
Other things that I spend time on, more for my future reference, were things like researching Cloudflare (moving DNS from Namecheap, creating subdomains, email forwarding and also the Tunnel function).
2023-05-13 19:34:10 CET I was just checking and, if you have been following this before, I made some adjustments the the layout of this site. Firstly, I changed from Google fonts to Bunny fonts. There are some interesting fundamental changes you can read about here Read more about it here. One big driver is the GDPR aspect of it. which were the main reason why I considered the change. At the same time I adjusted the overall font size and font weight to be more readable.
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-13 11:52:06 CET Did you know that today in 1612 is the day of the sword duel between Miyamoto Musashi Read more about him on Wikipedia. Very cool story! and Sasaki Kojiro on the shores of Ganryū Island. Kojiro dies at the end.
2023-05-09 19:28:18 CET Today was one of those Mondays again. Just tired and too much to do. Cure by coffee consumption. An interesting day for sure, but the energy wasn't there. I am ready for Friday.
Today, at any time now, I have an appointment with my dear friend M and we have some interesting topics to discuss over a glass of wine.
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-09 22:49:03 CET Did you know that today in 1950 is the day when the Robert Schuman presents the "Schuman Declaration" Read more about it on Wikipedia., considered by some to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.
2023-05-08 18:42:53 CET From a typical Sunday (in a relaxed-positive-zen kinda way) to a typical (in a heavy-stressy-too-much-and-it-never-stops kinda way) Monday workday. While everyting is happening it is certainly not easy being me, but when you find the solution and it works... It actually still gives that kick that I received decades ago, hacking away in the server room . Today was really hands-on and working creativitly with the technical teams. The best, in the end the issue was resolved.
So, it was a positive but oh so heavy. Now I am relaxing and trying to "de-code"... Unfortunately no time (and weather) to fly with the drone or start a nice 3D print.
Unfortunately, the result of J's French test today was not very good. Let's see how the motivation speach goes with him (I refuse to take the easy way out like most of the parents does)...
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-08 18:41:55 CET Did you know that today in 1912 is the day when the Paramount Pictures Read more about it on Wikipedia. is founded.
2023-05-07 13:30:16 CET Typical - well, what is typical - Sunday today with J and K at home. I was amazed that I could fall back in sleep this morning when I first woke up and could really sleep in. Fantastic! Since I was working yesterday, I am completely messed up on the days. Feels like Saturday today...
It was really a successful working day yesterday. But it took much longer than expected, I wasn't done before around 17:00. I decided to enjoy outside, I jumped on the bicycle and headed into one of the parks. I had my drone with me and found a great spot where I could fly. The weather was however really unstable, but I could fly between the rain showers. Got some nice recording from it as well!
The plan is to take the time to do some stuff at home, probably driving K to the train, maybe some writing and hopefully there will be some time for 3D printing as well. Let's see what the day brings...
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-07 13:26:24 CET Did you know that today in 1697 is the day when Stockholm's royal castle (dating back to medieval times) is destroyed by fire. It is replaced in the 18th century by the current Royal Palace Read more about it on Wikipedia..
Sat May 6 2023, 12:27:22 pm CET Today is a strange and different Saturday, it will be a different weekend in fact. It started this morning when I had to logon to work. We have to make a physical database move in the data center in Germany and some other things. That is always a scary task to do, especially when the database is 2 TB and on two servers. That was this morning, we are still busy working on it. We ran into some problems that needed fixing and it is "normal" that things take longer than expected on complex setups like these.
I am doing this update from my "Raspberry Pi desktop computer" , it is connected to the same monitor I have for the work laptop so I can easily alternate between the two machines. I am basically shielded off in in the office at home constantly wearing the headphones.
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-05 13:22:03 CET Did you know that today in 1889 is the day when the The Eiffel TowerRead more about it on Wikipedia. is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris
2023-05-05 13:17:35 CET It was difficult to wake up today, luckily the first call was not that early. I have felt reluctant to drive to the office lately due to overwhelmingly much to do and also due to the extreme traffic situation lately. The other day I was driving to the car repair shop, which normally takes about 25 minutes. It took more than 2 hours and it felt like I had to drive through half of Belgium to get there. I do not mind the driving per se, it's more to be in time for calls (not all of them can be done in the car as I need access to the computer etc) and to be home in a decent time.
J had an exam today in supply chain and I really wonder how it went! Apparently the feeling was not that good (one mistake can have a huge impact), but to be expected as the preparation was limited (to say the least). Anyway, let's hope for the best...
I checked the open source version of ChatGPT (the very popular chat and language interpretation technology using artificial intelligence and machine learning) called Open Assistant. It's completely free and I have seen a YouTube clip and read an article about it which triggered my curiosity. The initial tests I did on the website shows a promising result but I have to try it some more.
2023-05-05 23:19:46 CET Just back from Antwerp. We have just seen M - the daughter of friends M and W - perform ballet. It was the yearly dance performance that the group arranges. Before the show we had dinner together, it was nice meeting them all and to see how good she is in dancing. Of course there are some who are painfully bad, but it certainly did not take away the experience and the positive atmosphere. J and K are not home yet, we expect them home any minute now. Now off to bed.
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-05 13:22:03 CET Did you know that today is the national watch (timepiece thus) day Read more about it here. Didn't even know that there is a day dedicated to watches..
2023-05-04 22:57:18 CET No, I did not fall off the face of the earth. But so much is going on lately that it is difficult to keep track on priorities. It's all being processed as it comes... and of course not according to priorities in most cases. But that is to be expected I guess, when there are so many moving targets at the moment.
"Moving targets" is a good word, it's really been forget everything and see how it plays out. Today we can finally have our own evening. J studied the whole day (more like 2 hours) for the exam tomorrow (he studied "supply chain" a couple of hours). It is fantastic to see talk with him about it, amazing how much he picks up in such a short time. I wonder if he understand that supply chain is what I have been working with for about 25 years...
It was fantastic that I could do some drone flying today. I could explore how to take pictures This were one of the pictures that I took. Our Lilac is just about blooming and I was hovering in place to take this picture. (once I discovered that the mini SD card needed to be inserted). Well, the flight was about 25 minutes (had already used some battery while discovering how to stream video to the network).
Well anyway, feels like it is Friday already here but now it is time to go to bed. We had a lot happening the last couple of days (in a near future I might have some very special to share in silence). The day in Antwerp with family was very nice. One day I also had to go back to the garage where they fixed the car after the accident (I think I mentioned that they forgot to mount a panel under the hood). It should finally be OK now, but what about the quality control?
For now that has to be it. A lot is also going on at work, the travel to Dubai is one example that is still lingering on but should probably be fine. It is to be expected in such a huge project. Anyways, now it is time to go to bed for sure...
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-04 19:53:14 CET Did you know that today in 1959 is the day when the the 1st Annual Grammy Awards Read more about it on Wikipedia. are held.
2023-05-01 11:29:34 CET It is a new month and a public holiday in most of the European countries today. The international workers' day. Yesterday it was the Walpurgis Night which is an important celebration in Sweden.
It's been some time - three days - that I posted something here. It seems that something always comes in between. Anyway, today we are off to Antwerp with the family to do some sight-seeing/city exploration all of us. It's something the city is arranging; a tour around the high-lights of the city with questions about what you see. If you complete the questioner form you have the chance of winning a price. Not sure what it is though, but that is not why we participate. At least not most of us...
Just as a little side-note, I am exploring and comparing some new and existing CMS systems and what would be the best workflow/solution when developing and maintaining content of websites. An overall efficient workflow I value the highest. It's a very interesting topic and something that is constantly changing with the rapid development in that area. Especially now also with the ever so popular AI and ML technology popping up like mushrooms. Hugo, Grav, Netlify CMS are some of the products that I wanted to mention for now. I updated my Bookmark page with some interesting resources.
Today in ... is the day... Randomly picked historical events that occurred on this day. 2023-05-01 11:34:14 CET Did you know that today in 1807 is the day when the Slave Trade Act 1807Read more about it on Wikipedia. takes effect, abolishing the slave trade within the British Empire.