When I started to learn Japanese, I tried to look up Japanese input - and it felt much like an in-club: not having the right search terms, not having a good understanding of the writing system either, and without someone around to ask you were lost. Let’s look into this, along with some details about the Japanese language. The Latin alphabet which is widely used has just 26 characters, so

Some weeks ago, architect Florian Busch presented in German on architecture in Tokyo. Picking up on his details, I attended an event where we visited one of the buildings he designed, and learend some things. Building in Tokyo Tokyo was built on a river delta, with this it got right from the start many rivers. Over time the rivers got removed, and constructs started to prevent floods. Still as of today, most buildings in Tokyo are located below the rivers.

I’m back in Germany for some weeks, and have revived the Commodore Amiga 500. It still works! The gaming experience is different from what we have now, and that is not about better graphics or such. Got me thinking.. why is that? The Technology of the Commodore era I’m focusing here on the 2 systems from the Commodore era: the Commodore 64 (“C64”, released 1982) and the Amiga 500 (released 1987).

My classic software selection In 2016 I moved to Japan, and started to share experiences via multiple ways, all with their own strong points. Japan life observations is a static html document, rendered by asciidoc from a file in markup format. I find this useful for text, with a few images inbetween. The pictures are backed by 2 kinds of albums: fgallery: small and lean, but an abandoned project, also not dealing nicely with bigger numbers of images, and not providing a map and other features Lychee: having all kinds of features, but also relying on many single components.

What’s this about? This is my attempt of an overview of my current social networks/news fetching setup. Ever explained a colleague or friend a technical problem, and along with giving the explanations understood the issue better, leading to a solution? Summarizing my current social network/news fetching setup forces me to rethink it, and can give ideas what to improve. Also, the increasing numbers of Mastodon users show that also many people rethink their habits and tools, so this can also provide food for thought for others.

TL’DNR Both smartplugs (reporting electrical consumption of a connected device) and the laptop battery allow consumption measurements. Results are in the same ballpark, but also differences of 20% can be seen. Smartplugs for Linux system power measurement So far, I only measured power Linux system power consumption with the help of the internal battery, details here and here. Now I got 3 smart plugs for Japanese power outlets which can

For me, Japan deals with culture, technology and religion in different ways from what I was used to. I will try to grab these specialities here. Combining Culture & Technology I started to wonder about this when I came to Matsuyama, and saw the Dogo onsen. There it was, with more than 1000 years of history one of the oldest bathes in Japan. Just in the middle of new buildings,

Off for a daytrip to the tea garden Takanashi (高梨茶園) in the Tanzawa area. After 60 min train ride from Tokyo I arrive at Hadano station, where I had been before when going to the Tou-no-dake mountains. After 15 min by bus and a walk, there is the tea garden. The trip is organized by oag, we are 23 people. 20220605 011344836 fresh tea 20220605

My past views on Apple hardware In 2007, some time after Apple had rebased MacOS on unix, I bought a Macbook and had a look. MacOS was not convenient for me, it did not even offer virtual screens at that time - I had been using these with Windowmaker on Linux since years. I tried native Linux on that Intel-CPU based hardware, it was not bad, but I preferred IBM Thinkpads for better driver availability, price and because of the red Trackpoint/nipple.

The human factor One night I woke up from shaking. It’s immediately crystal clear: an earthquake. The big question, as always: will this be the big one? How does one feel? Frightened and helpless: one can not do anything against it. It’s shaking, and you can’t do anything. How bad is that fear? I think I did not hear of this as a phobia so far, but I would not

Here I will try to sum up steps and some backgrounds about running Linux on the Playstation4. The guides I read were sparse on background details, aimed at saying ‘click here and there, and then you have a Linux’. But for debugging one needs to understand more of the background. The guides also use Windows systems for the preparations, I try to provide the details so a reader can perform the steps on all systems.

Why would one do a trip in January? Due to Corona, left over holiday was stacking up, and everything not taken by end of February would be cut off - so I had to go in the cold season. Where to go? The north of Japan is coldest and has snow by January, Okinava in the south is only reachable via plane or ship, so I aimed at Kyushu. Main