Sat, 14 Apr 2012
My New Bike
Several months ago, I have written about choosing a new bicycle. Here is the outcome:
Introducing my new AZUB Apus. I have rented and extensively tested several recumbents from AZUB (20" Eco with above-seat steering, 24" Max with under-seat steering, and 26/20" Apus with above-seat steering), and I have decided to go for Apus with under-seat steering.
The next thing to decide was gearing. After testing 24" Max with 48-38-26 chainrings and 11-34 sprocket (about 570% ratio) I've got the feeling that I could occasionally use even slower gear (and with 26" rear wheel of Apus the 26/34 gear would be a bit faster than on a 24" wheel), and I can definitely use more faster gears. Recumbents are fast, especially going downhill, because of lower aerodynamic drag. So I wanted gearing with ratio larger than 570% and with the slowest gear slower than 26/34. This is hard to achieve with current components, so I went for triple gearing: I have got SRAM DualDrive in-hub planetary gearbox (three speed gearbox and 8-speed derailleur), combined with tree chainrings, giving me 3x3x8=72 gear combinations and over 920% ratio. One of the biggest advantages is that the gearbox gears can be changed even without pedaling, for example after having to stop unexpectedly.
After five months with Apus, I am still excited with it. I really enjoy being faster on flat surface and on downhills, being able to pedal even while turning, having excellent view with zero neck, wrists and backbone pain, being able to brake without the danger of falling ahead, sitting lower in case of fall, and so on.
The drawbacks are worse view when entering street crossings, being slower uphill, and not being able to jump over obstacles higher than about 10 cm). And the front suspension of the SASO carbon fork is not as good as I expected. I plan to try softer coil spring.
If I had to choose again, I would buy the same bike, possibly with not-so-steep sprocket (11-28 instead of 11-32). Also, having used really narrow tyres on my previous (road) bike, I did not pay much attention to the brakes - I have got V-brakes on my Apus, and I am not able to make the front wheel slip even when braking really hard (on asphalt roads). So probably next time I would get disc brakes instead (at least on the front wheel). Anyway, watch this guy's commute riding Apus on forest paths:
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Mon, 18 Jul 2011
Which Bike?
The 30 years old frame of my bike broke several weeks ago, so I will need a new bike. We have already decided to buy a new bike for my wife, so I have took the frame of her present bike, and remounted some components of my former bike to it. So I don't need a new bike right now, and I have more time to decide what I want.
My previous bicycle was road bike with drop handlebars. I ride on paved roads mostly (altough many roads in Brno resemble off-road riding :-), and we occasionally do touring as well. I am considering the following options:
- Using the frame of my wife's bike until it breaks :-)
- Buying a cyclo-cross bicycle, which is essentially a road bicycle with hardened frame and different tires.
- Buying a touring bicycle, something like Author Avion, which even has a carbon frame.
- Something really different. Last week I rented a recumbent bicycle, AZUB ECO. It was really interesting, very comfortable, yet a bit difficult to drive. I would like to try a bigger one with under-seat steering, like AZUB 5 as well. The only problem with recumbents is that it is not possible to use them with trail gator tow bar.
So, my dear lazyweb, do you have anything to recommend?
7 replies for this story:
Vašek Stodůlka wrote:
I have a scooter (koloběžka in Czech :-) model "Street" from Kostka, it is extremely handy in manipulation, it fits into sedan car boot without any diassembly. It is fun to drive with kids, when they have their own bycicles / trikes, it is possible to use it when others are roller-skating - you have similar speed about 16km/h. It is difficult to use it for longer trips and maintaining higher speeds, because it does not have any transmission. It is not a substitute for traditional bike, but it is very entertaining. A friend of mine has recumbent trike - azub also make theese. For me it looks like more fun, than bike, but on the other hand it is also less useful offroad. And when it comes to traditional bikes, anoher friend of mine (Aleš Habáň) has a shop in Brno - http://www.habbybikes.cz/. I think he is very experienced and can give you advices and if you tell my name, he may give you some discount. ;-)
Honza Obdržálek wrote:
Thinking about a CX bike, you may know that the differences include a slightly different frame geometry and brakes, which are weaker than the standard road bike brakes (if you do not go for the recently allowed disc brakes). The wheels are basically the same as for road bike, the only difference being the tyres. For the uses you specify (city + some touring) I do not see a point of buying a bike with drop handlebars. The "touring bike" you link is not really a touring bike (i.e. trekking bike) but a cross bike (the difference being the former usually comes with mudguards, pannier rack etc.) Cross bike can actually even lack attachment points for a pannier rack and mudguards. Note that in this price category you do not get much extra by having a carbon frame. For the uses you specify I would, however, buy a bike with a rigid fork (you save lots of weight, cheap suspension forks are useless, and you do not really need the suspension). Here I would recommend a carbon fork. As for recumbents, I'm having my reservations for use in traffic - you are too low to have a good situation awareness.
Yenya wrote: Re; Honza Obdržálek
Thanks, Honza (and sorry for my incorrect terminology). As for situation awareness with recumbent, after having ridden a recumbent for four days, I think it is actually better than on a regular bike, with one exception, and this exception has nothing to do with sitting too low, but with sitting "in the back" - when I enter the intersection, on a regular bike I am head-first, and I can see much better than on a recumbent, where I have to move much farther to the crossroads before I can see the situation.
Yenya wrote: Re: Vašek Stodůlka
The Kostka Street looks definitely interesting, but I am afraid it is not suitable for me - one of the purposes of my bike is commuting to work, which is about 8 kilometers with relatively steep hills (from Hády to the level of Svitava river, then uphill to the level of Mendel university, and back to the level of Ponávka). I don't think I would be able to enjoy it on Kostka.
Tom wrote:
I've recently bought Mongoose Croix Elite and I'm quite happy with it. (It was 2009 model which I ordered, but 2010 model actually arrived. Well, there's probably not much of a difference except for the price :) Anyway, what I intended to get was something close to a road bike which I wouldn't be afraid to use in light terrain. And after I switched to slick tires (35 mm wide, 6.5 bar max pressure) it pretty much fulfills my expectations, though I don't have that "light" feeling of a road bike completely, which I guess can't be achieved without those thin, heavily pressurized tires. There are V-breaks which I do not find to be insufficiently effective -- it's not a problem to block the wheels, and I personally prefer drop handlebars which you can hold in many ways. I also use the bike for commuting (Lesná Gorkého) and it's alway a pleasurable part of a working day :). So I would probably go for a CX bike rather than some normal cross bike.
J.C. wrote: Option 1
I suggest option 1, the easiest one ;-). You will have enough time to consider the other possibilities.
job wrote:
i use to room in my bicycle but i brought my first motorcycle. my bike is sleeping for years :(
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Fri, 03 Jun 2011
Citroën Xsara
It has been seven years since I have bought my Citroën Xsara. At that time, I have considered several models, looking for an estate car for my family. Having used several Škoda Felicia cars in my previous job, I have definitely wanted a car from some other manufacturer. My opinion was "the car can have its problems, but at least let it be different problems than Škoda have".
That said, I have never considered Citroën, and in fact I did not know much about Citroëns. When I have been offered a 4.5 years old imported Xsara, however, I have found it "good enough" for me to buy.
Subsequently, I have been pleased to find out how comfortable my Xsara was, and how well equipped compared to the cars of similar age and class it was. It provides enough leg room in back seats (especially when compared to Octavia), and the 82 kW engine provided enough power for most of my needs. During almost 100,000 km in seven years I had only few malfuncions, the most serious one was a broken exhaust pipe because of corrosion.
Even though I did not originally considered buying Citroën at all, the next car which I have bought and which I use these days is also Citroën. So, my dear lazyweb, is anybody in your social network interested in buying a cheap, well-equipped, used car? If so, look here.
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Mon, 31 Jan 2011
Is My Teaching Getting Bad?
The results of the final exam of the UNIX - Programming and System Administration I course make me wonder whether I am getting gradually dumb or bad at teaching.
I used to think that as I teach, I am getting to know more and more about the subject, as well as have less errors and more clean formulations in my presentations. My lectures are now available from the video archive, so the students can rewatch me presenting the topics they have not understood the first time again, if they wish. I have switched the presentation format from old and boring black-and-white DVI slides to new, colored, shiny and graphically rich LaTeX-beamer format (thanks to Jiří Boček from servistech). Also the exam format and even some of the questions are still the same as they have been since eight years ago.
So what am I doing wrong?
18 replies for this story:
Martiner wrote:
As a former (successful) attendee of this course I believe that you have to find better students :) You are talking about ratio, but the base is growing, isnt it? If the count of successful students is the same (or is decreasing slowly), I believe there is nothing wrong with you.
Yenya wrote: Re: Martiner
Well, quite the opposite is true - the total number of students attending the course is slowly decreasing.
Kurochenko Andriy wrote:
As for me, I liked your presentation and I appreciate lectures in the video archive. The new slides are colorful and contain more information, but are inappropriate for printing in contrast with the old ones (I also like them more because they look like man pages :-) ). As for decreasing percentage of successful students. Maybe C and kernel functionality are less popular among the students every year. Who knows?
sev wrote:
Please don't start Y-axis at 45% - this is confusing visualization. Ad topic: Do you feel like the requirements to successfully pass the course are higher?
Peter Kruty wrote: Some thougths
I find this really interesting. Maybe we are loosing the real geeks used to terminals and man pages and new generation is growing, which still is interested in Unix, but also are used to Web 2.0 simplification, to the point information and easy to find core information (a la wikipedia)? I have not seen new slides, but I guess that overall approach of the seminar is still same and I remember it as comprehensive, detailed and precise. Maybe new student have issues with digesting it? I'm wondering how they score in other courses in general? How are the scored of students changing in general. Interesting, I will definitely like to talk that through :).
Petr Bartel wrote:
As a former student, I used to be fully satisfied with a form of lectures, with your presentation skills and materials were great too. Perhaps for someone who didn't pass some C/C++ introduction it could be somewhat tough. I was very surprised with your being able to know all these structures, pointers and so on by heart. Maybe it could be great to get hands on. There is some new subject PB173 where it is possible. Or maybe insist on doing supplementary tasks in slides for some points.
Milan Zamazal wrote:
Interesting. Perhaps the course is basically the same while world changes. People work with computers in very different ways than they used to 8 years ago. There are several aspects of it: a. When we started to learn Unix we read the single "wise" book several times and tried to understand everything. Some years later there still used to be extensive HOWTOs available. Today? Most often googling for answers to questions in newsgroups, i.e. quick retrieval of isolated information without deeper understanding. b. We all started with C. How many programers use C regularly today? c. It was easy to get exposed to powerful things when the choice was limited. There are so many choices today, that it's difficult to discover and start using the right tools. d. The same applies to system administration. Things used to be done using simple, basic, powerful and well documented tools. Today many things are hidden behind undocumented interfaces without understanding what really happens (I'd often like to know, but it's difficult to find out). e. You couldn't use a Unix computer without some essential knowledge of the operating system some years ago. This is no longer true (I've got several GNU/Linux users who don't know what a file is). So simply: Your course probably becomes a specialist topic; while students answered questions related to their everyday use of computers years ago (easy), they have to handle abstract subjects separated from their computer experience today (difficult).
avakar wrote:
I think the decrease in the quality of students is not limited to your lectures. The number of accepted first year students is increasing every year (it's about three times as high as it was when I got enrolled), but of course the number of talented students stays the same. Also, ever since IB000 was taken over by doctor Hlineny, the lecture no longer serves to separate chaff from the wheat, allowing some of the talent-impaired student to get to as far as the second year. So while I can't comment on the quality of lectures, as I never bothered to attend them, I don't believe that your lectures are becoming less comprehensible, rather the students are becoming more soft-brained. For the record, I attended PV090 and I loved it (most of the people from our group dropped out, so there were only two of us, yay!). P.S. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe good students stopped attending your classes when they found out what your stance on The One True Programming Language (C++) is ;)
avakar wrote:
By the way, how do I structure comments into paragraphs here?
gRis>> wrote:
I believe there is some negative correlation with programming language popularity - everyone does Java these days, C is too old and lacks the high level comfort and C++ is a pile of incoherent mess. Also, actually using Unix on day-to-day basis now neither requires nor develops substantial terminal skills.
Vlastik Krejčíř wrote:
Well, I think (and hope :-)) you teach as good as I remember. However, I can agree with Milan Zamazal's post - the world has changed. How many students started with 8-bit computers 20 years ago? The level of abstraction has increased. My experience is they aren't sure what is the difference between GET and POST...
Joey wrote:
I am interested in UNIX, I wanted to learn new things and I declare myself as geek. So I didn't hesitate to waste 3rd attempt to pass colloquium. Luckily I did, even though I hadn't study anything since 2nd attempt (and I've made +7 points progress). I accept your test as challenge, but I think it can't give you good reference about students knowledge. There are a lot of questions which are rather difficult with quite confusing answers, and with many of them I had the feeling, that I am on the right way, but I'd like to talk about it, since there were many aspects I had to keep in mind. But the test evaluation is from this point of view quite strict (+2/-1 means 3 points difference). I can realize myself, making another silly mistake in last test, resulting in not passing the course, but I think there won't be any relation with my real knowledge, skills, etc.
Me ... once again wrote: statistics
Is the stats about 47% success rate correct? Because when I look into 'Given Credists Stats' it says that 60% of people failed?
Yenya wrote: Re: 47 %
My graph does not include the "-" grade (i.e. people who did not try to pass the exam), while the credits statistics in IS MU counts them as failed.
Vasek Stodulka wrote:
It is simple - in 2002 a) everyone was installing some Linux distro and b) everyone, who was installing linux in 2002 had to know man pages, text configurations, basic commands and more then half students was downloading and compiling kernels and other stuff - so much tools was in form of source only those days. When something did not work, we simply repaired it in kernel (or i. e. mplayer) source, recompile that and had fun - I remember patching kernel for my TV card and remote controller, patching mplayer not to change resolution when switching fullscreen in SDL and making some crazy SiS chipset to work. Nowadays nobody does this stuff I think, because software is much more complicated, everything is available as binary packages and last but not least Windows is much more usable then in old times, so a lot of present students (as I heared) do not use Linux at all. And one more thing - back around 2002 there was Us doing the exam. :-)
Pavel S. wrote:
Hello, I have read such an interesting article today [in czech] http://zdrojak.root.cz/clanky/konec-starych-programatorskych-casu/ and I guess the author is right. The world has changed a lot and it's still changing. I attended your first UNIX course last year (succesfully passed) and I guess it was one of the most interesting and best-taught courses I have seen at FI. On the other hand, as several people remarked, sometimes I have found the topics a bit theoretical and not really usable for maintaining my own Linux computer. However, during next year that information saved me a lot of time several times. To sum it up, your teaching is OK (still the same?) but both the students and practical usability of the course topics are different.
Petr Šigut wrote:
Já myslím že mám daleko jednodušší odpověď:) Dříve jste recykloval nějaké otázky z předchozích let, takže se někde na FIMUNY ty otázky pomalu skladovaly a studenti ty opakující se uměli. Jak jsem dělal zkoušku já tak jste přišel s tím že jste udělal úplně novou sadu a zvládli to snad jen 3 studenti... Jinak mi se přednášky líbily a byly zábavné, ta jednička mi nešla protože C moc neumím a nechtělo se mi učit co dělá která funkce...
Yenya wrote: Possible answer: Population
Yesterday's presentation of Radek Pelanek had an interesting fact: in 1996, the population of 18 years old Czechs has been about 200,000, and about 50-100 students enrolled to the first semester. Nowadays it is 120,000 possible candidates, and 400-500 students entering the first semester. And the situation will get even worse (to about 80,000 possible candidates).
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Tue, 04 Jan 2011
Outgoing Mail
I archive every e-mail message I have sent since April 1999. Today during making backups of this data I have decided to count how many messages I have sent each year:
| Year | Messages | Bytes | Bytes/message |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 2110 | 5082832 | 2408 |
| 2000 | 3211 | 9393052 | 2925 |
| 2001 | 4693 | 30317777 | 6460 |
| 2002 | 7122 | 22466804 | 3154 |
| 2003 | 7669 | 25649473 | 3344 |
| 2004 | 5664 | 19496614 | 3442 |
| 2005 | 5311 | 22807724 | 4294 |
| 2006 | 5375 | 22106651 | 4112 |
| 2007 | 4828 | 33458711 | 6930 |
| 2008 | 4575 | 28287830 | 6183 |
| 2009 | 4715 | 27140012 | 5756 |
| 2010 | 4727 | 35894517 | 7593 |
The variance is relatively high, but apparently e-mail messages are getting bigger with time (no surprise here), and I have sent less messages than I used to send five to eight years ago.
4 replies for this story:
Karel Zak wrote:
You're a bot :-) I sent 7314 e-mails in last 12 years.
Yenya wrote: Re: Karel Zak
No, I am not :-). It is just some people are used to communicating over e.g. IRC (such as in RHAT, as I have been told), and some use e-mail as a primary means of communication. I, for example, barely use Jabber, and do not use other messaging tools at all (ICQ, Facebook, IRC, etc.).
Bobby wrote:
Hi Yenya, do you count your private communication and the work one together? I am not able to sum up all my e-mails as I use many different addresses for different purposes -- I am rather curious about statistic of my communication. However (and without any data), I am pretty sure that the proportion of my personal e-mails is diminishing almost to zero in a couple of last years...
Yenya wrote: Re: Bobby
Both private and work (I use a single system for both types).
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Mon, 03 Jan 2011
PF 2011
I wish happy year 2011 to everyone who reads this blog.
The image is from Pink Granite Coast in Brittany, France. I plan to post a follow-up series about the places I have visited last year, including this one.
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Fri, 17 Dec 2010
Electricians
I have discovered the following gem behind the wardrobe (note the colors of the wires).
And this is no self-made crap, but a work of a proffessional electrican.
I have been wondering why connecting my laptop to the TV-set caused those
huge sparks and a blackout. So I went to verify the wiring and found that
because of the above, some of my power outlets were wired with the current
phase live wire on the peg :-(
On the positive side, nobody has noticed for two years, which means almost nobody these days really uses three-wired power with chassis ground connected to the peg of the wall outlet. Well, nobody except my laptop, apparently.
3 replies for this story:
avakar wrote:
This sounds intriguing, but I don't get it, could you please elaborate a little? Where does the front cable lead to? By the way, the wires are called live (black), neutral (blue) and ground (or earth; green/yellow) in English. If I understand correctly, you had the live wire connected to the ground terminal in some of your outlets? I'm surprised you're still alive---I think ATX power supplies cases are grounded. I don't understand why connecting a laptop and a TV set would cause a short, though.
Yenya wrote: Re: avakar
The white cable goes to the power outlet mounted on the side of the wardrobe. No problem with that. The laptop connected to the incorrectly wired outlet had live 220V on the outside of the VGA connector, and the TV-set which uses two-wire europlug only had a problem with this. Anyway, thanks for the clarification wrt. the Englis terms.
Vašek Stodůlka wrote:
I'm really happy, that we made a reconstruction and we have a current protector now. I had to put in trash some devices, which were not correctly shielded, but the result is, that I'm now sure, that every device is connected exactly to live and neutral wires.
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Thu, 21 Jan 2010
Thesis Proposal
OK, I have managed to defend my Ph.D. thesis proposal and to pass the doctoral exam. Now I "only" have to write the Ph.D. thesis itself as outlined in the proposal.
5 replies for this story:
Spes wrote:
Omedeto gozaimasu!
Milan Zamazal wrote:
Great! Congratulations and enjoy writing your thesis. :-)
Peter Kruty wrote:
Gratulujem! :)
Yenya wrote:
Okagesamade!
Bulik wrote:
Congratulations! But be careful not being too fast - surprisingly there is an attitude against fast doctors now and you could easily manage to be a first-page star ;)
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Tue, 19 Jan 2010
Digital Slot Cars
We have got a new slot cars set for Christmas.
I had one when I was a child, and I quite liked to play with it,
build and tune my own cars, etc.
Several years later, we had an 8-track
slot cars simulator
in our SGI computer lab. Well, today's state-of-the-art slot cars systems
are completely different beasts to what I used to know.
The system we have is SCX Digital 1:32. I have bought an F-1 set with one additional car (guess which one :-) and some track parts. The features and my experience so far include:
- The speed of the car is communicated in a digital way rather that by changing the voltage in the rails, so it is possible to have several cars in a single lane without interfering with each other, to overtake, etc.
- The car can change lanes using a separate button on a controller.
- It is possible to race with refuelling in a pit box, and the players can choose their own refuelling strategy: a near-empty car is a bit faster, the car uses less fuel when not driven at full throttle, etc.
- The cars are fast: the system has so called "junior mode" with a limited top speed, and a full speed mode, which is very hard to use without derailing frequently. Even in junior mode, I use the full throttle only in a finish line.
- The cars have adjustable magnets under their rear axles, so they withstand much higher speeds in curves than what I had been used to from my childhood.
- There is also a lap counter, but it counts the laps for the leading car only, so after derailing several times nobody knows whether he is two meters or two laps behind the leader. The full timer and lap counter can be bought separately, though.
- The cars have adjustable electronic brakes. I usually set it to 0% in junior mode, and to 50% in full speed mode.
There are only two drawbacks: firstly, it is probably the most expensive slot cars system available, and then the F-1 cars are very brittle. Especially the mirrors of Ferrari are prone to snapping off.
4 replies for this story:
thingie wrote:
And what was the exact price? Single H0 scale model railway engine with a digital control, lights and sound can easily cost more than 500 euro… (Well, H0 is 1:87 scale, this thing is insanely large, 1:32 is suitable for a garden railway, not an indoor model.)
Yenya wrote: Re: thingie
The price was slightly more than 500 euro. As for the model railway, the advantage of slot cars track is that it can be easily dismantled, so even though the circuit can be about 4 to 2-3 meters, it does not occupy the floor space permanently. That said, model railway is a different kind of hobby (I used to have a TT-scale set; the only drawback was that all engines were modelled after German railway ones, not ČSD ones I have been used to see in real life).
Honza Holcapek wrote: International competition of self-driving slot cars
Just in case you don't already know of this event: http://brnonow.com/2010/04/competition-of-self-driving-slot-cars/
Yenya wrote: Re: International competition of self-driving slot cars
I did not know about it, thanks for the info. However, I do not posess enough hw-fu to build such a car, and I generally prefer to control the car myself :-). It would nevertheless be interesting to have such cars with accelerometers and some kind of CPU + devel environment pre-built, and compete in writing firmware for these cars. Or maybe equip the cars with some kind of telemetry and control them using laptops.
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Tue, 17 Nov 2009
Footwear Waterproofing
This year's Tmou with its almost start-to-finish rain has made me to think again about my approach to waterproofing my boots. I have about eight years old Hanwag Alaska Nubuk leather boots with Gore-Tex membrane (which is definitely not functional anymore after these years). So the leather is now the only barrier between the outer wet conditions and the inside of the boot.
In the last few years, I have used wax-based water proofing (e.g. Granger's G-WAX). It worked, and the boots remained water resistant for several times of usage. However, I often had my feet wet from the inside, as I tend to sweat a lot.
Recently I have bought Granger's G-MAX Leather conditioner, which is not as "thick" as a wax, but apparently the boot is still water-resistant. I have however had no chance to test it in rainy weather until this year's Tmou. Expecting heavy rain during the competition, I have applied several layers of the leather conditioner on my Alaskas.
I was rather surprised that this time not only the boots remained water resistant, but I also had not my feet wet from the inside. Probably the wax, unlike the leather conditioner, keeps the boot air-tight, causing the feet getting wet because of sweating. So far so good, but there was another rather unpleasant surprise after Tmou: when my boots dried, the most exposed parts of the leather (namely foreparts) were completely dry as if it were just to crack.
Is it expected? Do I need to waterproof my boots again only after a day in a rainy weather? How do you waterproof your outdoor boots, my dear lazyweb?
1 replies for this story:
Milan Zamazal wrote:
I've never managed to get water-resistant shoes, but I've never tried hard. One possible way to prevent falling into a costly, time consuming and distressing obsession about this is to accept the simple principle "if it becomes wet, it will also dry sometimes". This may not be that easy in winter (but winter shoes are usually acceptably resistant) or on longer trips (what? can a family man even dream about that?), but otherwise it's a solution of excellent simplicity that can help to balance the caveman in you against your overused high-tech thinking. :-)
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Mon, 14 Sep 2009
Svíčky 2009
As in previous years, also this year I took part in an outdoor puzzle solving competition - Svíčky. This year the weather was better than the last year.
You can read the description of problems, their solutions, and other detailed data at the competition pages, and you can read the report from our team in Honza's blog.
At last, we have won the game, even with a time-machine-like step caused by a misplacement of the papers with the last problem. It is nice to be a winner after so many years :-)
1 replies for this story:
Bulik wrote: Congratulations
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Tue, 21 Apr 2009
Pragocentrism
I live in a country with population of about 10 milion, with the capital Prague with about 1 milion inhabitants. Today's rant will be about narrow-minded journalists living and working in Prague.
I frequently ran into a blatant cases of pragocentrism. For example in almost every traffic news in a country-wide and state-funded radio station Radiožurnál they use formulations like this: "there is an accident in the Brno motorway in a direction to Brno". WTF? Which of the three motorways heading to Brno do they mean? The D1 from Ostrava? The D2 from Bratislava? No, of course they report from the perspective of people living in Prague, so naturally with "the Brno motorway" they mean "the motorway from Prague to Brno".
Another one was a few days ago, also on Radiožurnál. They were doing an interview with a candidate for the minister of the interior (who currently works as the head of the anti-monopoly office, the institution located in a barren countryside far away from Prague, namely in Brno :-). The first question was "Have you already get used to living in Brno instead of Prague?". Mr. Pecina replied something like: "I don't understand the question - I am from Frýdek-Místek, I have been living there for almost all of my life, except only one short stay in Prague.". The journalist had naturally expected that every important person must have been from Prague. That said, the journalist was really stupid anyway and she manifested it several other times during that interview.
Another case of Pragocentrism is more general. In the main news of the Czech TV (also state-funded), they often report about Prague-local things (such as some affairs of mayor of some part of Prague or even of a mayor of Prague, building some tunnel or some stadium in Prague) during the main part of the news, even though they have a separate part "news from the regions". Also when doing a coverage of a country-wide event such as elections, they report about the situation in Prague, and then they say something like "and now we will look into the regions". WTF? Prague is not a region? Why should the Prague-local news be forced to us by state-funded media as something important?
I know I probably sound like some women-rights or some minority-rights activist with a well-developed inferiority complex, but hey, about 90 % of citizens of this country do not live in Prague! Journalists, keep that in mind, please. My dear lazyweb, is a ${your capital}-centrism also present in your country? Is there even a Brnocentrism from people living in Brno towards people living near Brno?
10 replies for this story:
wrote:
Don't worry, it doesn't sound like "some women-rights or some minority-rights activist". Women and minority rights are important (as well as the activitsts even nowadays), your story is stupid. Sorry for such strong word, it's not about you, it's about your perception, it is stupid. I'm living in same country in Brno (anyway I'm not natural born Brno guy), I know very well such opinions, people publishing such opinions are the only people, who are creating Pragocentrism. ;) Prague is capital city and most important region in republic (anybody can say, it isn't, nevertheless, nobody will change it), D1 is most important highway in republic. News (in prime time, on premium pages) are always reporting absolutely 'useless' messages without any relation to me. I see 'useless' information about mayors and other council members of some small unimportant cities, I see information about police car hunt in centre of Brno, I see information about public traffic of several small villages hundreds km away from my place (I will never visit that region, why should I read about their current problems?) ;) however I never called my country Horni-Dolni centric. :) Nevertheless there's also something, what makes me sad, but Brno citizens, actually their accent. It's unbelievable for me, people of Moravian city have such terrible czech accent, even some Prague guys aren't not able of such sort of 'singing'. Don't you ming this? Doesn't it prove of silent dark expansion of Prague? ;-)
Yenya wrote: Dear anonymous,
you should probably reread my blog post. I am not complaining that D1 Prague-Brno motorway is more or less important than some other highway or that it is being reported in the news too often. I am complaining about calling it "the Brno highway", when for about half of the Czech republic citizens it is "the Prague highway". I know there are people with different accents speaking Czech, and while I of course find some of them being quite funny, I fully accept that my own speech can also sound funny to a person from the different part of the Czech republic. I would never rant about it in my blog. What I am complaining about is that many journalists silently expect that the listener is from Prague and report about things from the Prague perspective, even though people living in Prague are in clear minority here and even though there is a perfectly neutral way of reporting things (using the term "Prague-Brno motorway", including the Prague-local events under the "reports from regions" section instead of main news unless they are _really_ important, not expecting that any random polititian is from Prague by default, etc.). I hope I have clarified this a bit.
Hynek (Pichi) Vychodil wrote:
I fully understand you. I often hear or read in country-wide radio or news paper about some cultural event with address info containing only street but without city info included. It is Prague of course. How stupid. There are many streets with same name in tens of different cities around the country.
wrote:
Your post is absolutely understandable, no other explanation is required. Ithought my reply is understandtable as well, now I see it isn't. :( Just wantedto say people are not machines, everybody here (in country) understands the highway, Brno highway, Prague highway, Brno-Prague highway, D1 is still the same road between Brno and Prague (any other case must be explicitly stated and it correctly happens). You also claimed example of stupid guy employed by radio, it proves nothing but the stupidity of that guy. The last part (objectivity/neutrality/balance of news) I opposed by example of local related information I see in news. it is not from Prague, not from Brno, not from my native city, but it is published as well as Prague related information. That's my message, it's not about the form of publishing news, it's about your (my) perception. Please be perceiving, accept my opinion and try to think about it. ;) P.S. Neither me complain any accent some particular man. However I will always complain accent of Brno citizen. They are not using moravian accent (which is logical for moravian city), theyusing _czech_ accent, very sad for me... :(
Yenya wrote: Re: anonymous
I don't agree that the term "Brno highway" is understandable. It quite frequently makes me WTF? when I hear this. And a sole "D1" means anything between Prague and Vyškov and those new parts between Studénka and Polish borders as well. I of course do not try to say that _all_ journalists are pragocentrists. But some definitely are, and this is what the blog post is about. BTW, what is "moravian" accent? In Moravia, there are several quite different-sounding dialects: the one from around Uherské Hradiště (which BTW has been taken as a basis of the literary Czech language), the one from Haná (which is probably the closest one to the Brno dialect, altough the later has been influenced with some other dialects and languages such as German), the one from Valašsko, or even the dialect from Ostrava (remember, Ostrava is also partly in Moravia)?
avakar wrote: Re: accents
The tendency to use a lot of intonation is actually not a curiosity limited to people from Prague, but is in fact shared by a lot of popular foreign languages as well. This includes English, French, and I bet even Japanese. These languages can influence us today more than ever before. It is therefore more than understandable that one's accent does not reflect one's place of birth. So please, anonymous, don't be mad at people for the way they speak. Use your energy for something constructive, like shooting people who leave garbage on the ground.
Milan Zamazal wrote:
On a more positive note, I started to like pragocentrism last years. It's main advantage is that many idiots get exported to Prague. The fraction of people who resist values represented by pragocentrism is thus significantly higher outside Prague. And that makes life outside Prague a bit more interesting and better.
thingie wrote:
It makes a lot of sense to call D1 "Brno highway" as the whole highway system is completely pragocentric. In fact it is maybe even better than simply "D1", because it makes a distinction between the part from Praha to Brno and the second part from Brno to... um, wilderness, which are quite different, in many senses. And it doesn't really matter anyway. Why are you so upset over some silly traffic news? Their thinking and diction has to be affected by what they are doing, and in this case, it is about the highways, which simply are pragocentric. But it seems that you no longer care about that, because you assume that cars and road traffic is so important for everyone, that traffic news represents thinking of the whole nation. And while I don't see much badness caused by pragocentrism (just move there or something, blah, who cares), carcentrism is evil.
andrej wrote: same as in your east neighbour country
${your capital}-centrism is everywhere. I live in Bratislava and there is also strong Bratislavacentrism too. And not only in TV but in contrywide radio stations too.
Jan wrote:
It's a custom to call the highway after the major town on it. I never heard something like "the Prague highway", but usual terms are "brněnská", "plzeňská", "mladoboleslavská" or "královéhradecká" and everyone knows which one it is.
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Fri, 27 Mar 2009
Status Update
I am still alive, but busy doing a real-life work rather than writing about it :-) In the meantime, I have received my results from the JLPT 3 exam: I have passed, but with lower points than I had from JLPT 4 last year. So the next step would be JLPT 2, requiring about 1000 more words and 600 more Kanji, definitely not a task for the next year only.
2 replies for this story:
Peter Kruty wrote: JLPT 3
Congratulations! :)
Spes wrote:
> but busy doing a real-life work rather than writing about it Try microblogging (Twitter, Identi.ca etc.), good for short status updates, comments, feelings... Or 'omedeto gozaimas' as well :)
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Tue, 09 Dec 2008
JLPT 3
After a year, I went again to Budapest, to undertake a next level of Japanese language exam. A month ago I tried to do a pre-exam test, from which I had 57 % (the limit for the exam itself is 60 %). So I hoped I would manage to gain those remaining 3 % in the last month by studying hard.
In the end, I am not sure. The real exam was definitely harder than a pre exam, and I have a worse feeling from it. However, I have managed to learn almost all the required vocabulary and Kanji, so in this part of the exam I have definitely improved. The listening sucked as always, though. Fortunately, listening is only a small part of the exam. And as for grammar, there was less questions where I was totally sure about the answer, so I only have to hope my partial guesses have been correct.
If I fail, nothing happens. After all, the expected study time for JLPT 3 is 300 hours (of which 150 are supposedly required for JLPT 4). So far I have studied the JLPT 3 textbook for maybe three months only, one hour a week, so I am not exactly expected to pass the exam with this amount of work (altought I spent a good amount of time studying vocabulary and kanji myself besides regular Japanese lessons).
The results are due in March, so we will see.
2 replies for this story:
Peter Kruty wrote: JLPT 3
Good luck Yenyo! For some reason I'm happy you are still enjoying it so much and working on it. If you have time would be nice to publish some interesting observations about the language.
neotronic wrote: good luck
I wish you good luck in the exam. Looking forward to hear about the results. I'd appriciate if you wrote some posts about the language.
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Sun, 02 Nov 2008
Stepping Madness
People around me became addicted to dancing computer games (like Dance Dance Revolution, Stepmania, or In The Groove). I have to admit I tried it, and became addicted too. We have even bought our own dance pads and we dance^Wstep at night.
I think it is an excellent way of exercising in the late Autumn, when it
is not possible to ride a bicycle because of instable weather.
Even people with different level of skill can play together. Also there are
many stepcharts, so one can even listen to the music he likes, instead of
default songs. (image taken from the DDR Wikipedia page)
Stepmania has a Linux version (I had problem with it on my laptop with Intel chipset). I have also tried to compile it from the source, but failed because of incompatibilities between my newer C++ compiler and older Stepmania source code. I wonder why people these days still use C++ when it cannot sustain two or three years of the difference between the source code and the compiler. The CVS version compiled correctly, but needed a different format of the config files, which I did not have time to dig into further. In The Groove works flawlessly under Wine, though. It is pretty amazing to see how advanced Wine has became - it can even handle a 3D-accelerated game with synchronized sound (however, some people complained of worse sound sync than when running natively), USB joystick devices, etc.
Give it a try, it is really good!
4 replies for this story:
avakar wrote:
I'm curious what compatibility problems you've encountered with the newer C++ compiler. Usually the compiler needs upgrading and not the other way around.
Yenya wrote: Re: avakar
IIRC one compatibility problem was that earlier versions of C++ allowed the method to be defined as "classname::method()" even inside the class definition itself (i.e. inside the "class classname { }" statement). I had to remove the "classname::" prefix manually. However, there were more problems.
mirka wrote: YouTube ilustrations
Let's pimp your story up by some videos. Unfortunately i have none displaying our friends, but: the guys almost as good as Andrea S.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci5JzndlMa0 ddr can handle 5-year old http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JzcqALklRs
mirka wrote:
concerning the addiction: the faster 'speed modifier' the quicker and stronger addiction. I have switched to 1.5x or 2x and our ddr-guru commented: 'Beware, girl, you switching from the weed to the crack now!" check this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvYycTag3ik
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