Category: lounge

Camera paranoid

I wish I could say they were just polaroids 😉 Lately, I have noted a surge in speed radars. But not just anywhere: on the highway! It’s really frightening: one day there’s nothing, next day you’re flashed before you know it! 😉 I, as a true Belgian citizen, am not used to such an agile deployment! 😉 And there isn’t even a warning. Yes, you can try the official channel, but it lags behind and is not complete as municipalities can install radars on their own initiative. Yes, you can try the community, but it seems down due to technical problems.. This one seems interesting, but looks like it is more dedicated to mobile radars. So, if no one knows, go to your neighbors. That’s right, Dutch people have been exposed, hence obsessed, by speed radars much longer than Belgian people. They are so friendly to lend their infrastructure to the Belgians to help lighten the burden. 🙂
But there is still room for improvement: I for one, would like to be able to subscribe to a customized RSS feed which would alert me of new radars.

Anyway, here is a list of camera’s newly installed on the roads I travel the most. I didn’t mention the ones on the southern part of the R0 (around waterloo, the big turn) as this is clearly indicated with road signs. There is also one around Tervuren 4 armen crossroads but I don’t remember the exact location..


View Larger Map

Update: Apparently, I underestimated the media once more. 🙂 A nice summary of the upcoming speed radars, separated nicely in a highway and “rural” category can be found here. Here the google map:

Grotere kaart weergeven
As you can see, there are also a few planned around Kortrijk!

Kiki the nanobot

Kiki always reminds me of a friend I know since childhood who somehow got stuck with the nickname kiki. 🙂

Anyway, kiki the nanobot is not to be confused with my friend. It is an open source 3d puzzle game, or like the author states: “basically a mixture of the games Sokoban and Kula-World“. A colleague recommended me to try it out. I was a bit reluctant as it didn’t seem to support linux, only windows and mac were mentioned on the website. Which was quite awkward as it seemed to use python and sdl.

So today I decided to find out the truth about kiki and checked out the cvs head. 🙂 I was delighted to find a linux subdir with a readme, yes, there were even makefiles! I installed the prerequisites (dev packages for python, sdl, sdl_image, sdl_mixer) and was ready to go! I did have to adjust a makefile to point to the right python headers (why not use the general /usr/lib/python instead of /usr/lib/pythonX.X?) Then, everything built just fine. Kiki’s core is in C++, levels and configurable parts are written in Python, bridged using SWIG.

Kiki the nanobot seems like a great puzzle game although it could use some polishing here and there, but given its age (6 years!) and the timeframe in which it was developed (3 months, for a contest), I think it’s quite an achievement. 🙂 You can read a dev post-mortem here.

Kiki the nanobot

Numa is back!

That’s right our favorite e-lebrity Gary Brolsma is back! =) Not as funny as the first one, but still, you just gotta love this guy 😉 Note, that he’s not really on a come-back, just in a day dream 😉

It’s funny though how a whole merchandise has emerged around this guy, going from ringtones to t-shirts to cartoons, the whole marketing shebang. 🙂

He also did a contest with some real hard cash prizes to win and it can be entertaining to watch the results. 🙂

Valve complete pack $99

If you’ve never played halflife (2) or day of defeat or counter strike or portal or team fortress (2), then now is the time to buy! All, every single, valve games for just $100?! That’s just.. euhm.. very unhealthy for your night rest. 🙂 Oh right, their latest game Left for dead is also included 😉

The problem is, once you’ve bought another pack like the orange pack, it’s not worth buying these other packs since you already own half of the games. 😉

long lives my bike!

About half a year ago, I went to work, like every other day, with my nice old bike. However, just when I arrived at work, my outer tire exploded. Okay, maybe that’s a little exagerated, but it did tear.

Now, little did I know it would take me 6 months to get it repaired. If it were just the tire, I would have replaced it myself (although, the current one was already wrong size, so it would be a guessing game to buy the right one), but there was a lot more to it:

  • lights did’t work. also a simple thing, unless your parts are like a century old.
  • the front break handle was broken, plus also the pull string (I don’t have a regular rear break, but torpedo)

Since my employer offers a cheap bike repair service through VELO (subsidized service for students using used parts), I thought I’d give it a try and while they’re at it, why not throw in replacing my rear reflector and fix my flat tire.

However, there was one huge caveat: the bike had to be handed in before 9.30 am! which can be quite a challenge for me 😉 (and also filling in the same papers in 3-fold(?!)) The alternative is to let it stand quasi unguarded and not locked for a night.. but since getting up early isn’t so difficult, why risk 😉

Unfortunately, it took me longer than expected. After all, I do own a car, so I went to work by car. 🙂 (which is a shame if you know the distance ;))

But this week, slightly helped by a light lumbago, I managed to achieve my goal! 🙂

Everything repaired! New tire, new front light, new rear light with incorporated reflector (is that legal nowadays?) and fixed wiring, new break. 🙂 Too bad, it seems not many used parts were used, total price: 42 EUR. I could almost buy a new used bike 😉 but I wouldn’t do that since I’m too attached to my current one. 😉 Still, I think you cannot have it fixed anywhere for that price.

So this evening, I proudly biked home, in the rain 🙂 It really felt good to ride a bike again 😉