How do Germany and Japan think about World War 2 (WW2)? Why are some of my friends not visiting the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo? This is my attempt to sort out the information I received about the 2nd World War, and observations how people think about that time period today - in Germany and Japan. East German views on WW2 As most probably know, Germany had been separated after the

Sorting my pictures from this year, I got reminded of the various pieces of tech I got into contact with.. The tech year started with writing an article in how Kanji are input with normal keyboards. The area between Japan, Kanji and technology stays interesting for me. AsiaBSDCon In April, we had AsiaBSDcon in Tokyo. I’m much more active in the Linux world, but BSD covers other interesting areas, for example NetBSD with support for older hardware.

Background Most flat rental agreements in Tokyo are limited to 2 years, and can then be renewed. Renewal is mostly uncomplicated, the tenant just signs again a paper. There is a catch though: in most cases, an estate broker was doing the initial flat search, and at contract renewal they receive again money from the renter: a monthly rent. I was living in this flat for almost 6 years, renewal

I was born in former East Germany. At the German unification in 1990, I was 12 years old. A recent TV documentary made me rethink on my East German memory, my take aways about that time - also including how my parents and East German friends perceived that time. How influenced unification and the time after my thinking and my life? East Germany memories Just a view pieces, but they form a picture.

I have some retro hardware in Germany - in the last weeks I had access, and got to play, try out, find out what works. Capturing the summary here, so I can lookup further activities for the next time I get access, and maybe for others to share ideas for fixing and further debugging. Robotron EC1834 I was born in former East Germany, before the German reunification. Around the unification time, I got a ‘Robotron EC1834’, one of the last personal computers of East Germany, released 1986.

Transport in Tokyo I’m a German, living in Tokyo since 7 years. Cycling is one of the hobbies I took with me to Japan. How to people get around in Tokyo? By train/bus: there are many train stations, e-payment is easy, it’s cheap, on time - so this is by far the most heavily used method By car: this is much less used. To register a car, one has to

CPU and Memory The Star64 board is a bit bigger than the Raspi4, both are available with 8GB RAM. Both have 4 cores at up to 1.5Ghz, the Star64 has a RISC-V cpu, the Raspi ARM. My first goal was to look at power consumption, and cpu temperature. At 20°C environment temperature, without attached cooler, the Star64 cpu idles at 46°C. The board pulls 4W then. With a single core under full load, 6W are consumed and the temperature rises to 54°C.

The Golden Week This years Golden Week approached, a sequence of national holidays in Japan. Like the last 2 years, a friend invited me to help with planting rice. I live in Tokyo, he lives in Tochigi-ken, north west of Tokyo. In the last years, I did day trips: 2h30min by train, then my friend fetched me by car and we drove another 30min. I have a roadbike which I typically use for up to 40km day trips.

1: What’s BSD + my BSD history I mostly use Linux, but since the time of the Linux Install parties with the Thüringer Linux User Group, I’m also using BSD. I was lucky enough to meet many BSD folks when I lived in Munich. What’s BSD, after all? My summary: Unix operating systems, mostly with code bases older than Linux. The biggest

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).