First look at the Star64 w/ RISC-V cpu
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.
2023-05-15    
Bike trip planning and Rice Planting
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.
2023-05-01    
AsiaBSDCon, BSD and Linux
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
2023-04-03    
How does Japanese Keyboard Input work?
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
2023-02-23    
Learnings on Tokyo and Architecture
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.
2023-01-23    
Thoughts on Gaming in the Commodore Era
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).
2022-12-29    
Reworked image book workflow
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.
2022-12-20    
State of Social Network and News Fetching as of 2022
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.
2022-11-06    
Power measurement: Laptop Battery vs. Smartplug
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
2022-11-03    
Japans flexibility around Culture, Technology and Religion
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,
2022-07-28    
Visiting a tea farm in Japan
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
2022-06-08    
A fresh look at Apple Silicon/Linux/MacOS X
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.
2022-05-15