A momentous day: good job America! (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

I woke up this morning about twenty minutes after the election results were announced; around 0520 in this case. I couldn't wait to see the results so I checked the news while brushing my teeth ^_^

Good job America! I think you made the right choice! /o/

Posted in: america , awesome , elections , obama , thank god

Holy crap, this is really something! Shazam! (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Ho-ly crap! I'd heard about this software before, but I never imagined it worked this well! Shazam is a small application that can be installed on your iPhone (or other phone) and which fills a very particular niche.

You know how you'll sometimes hear a song playing, but you just don't know what it 's called or who the artist is? It starts to itch in the back of your head and you just CAN'T let it go! That's what Shazam is for! Let the application listen to about ten seconds of the song and it'll try to recognize the song. I don't know how it works (yet), but it sure as heck does! It managed to recognize some of the more "exotic" songs I threw at it. This is definitely a keeper :)

Posted in: awesome , iphone , music , shazam

Children's books I love: Richard Scarry and Mauri Kunnas (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

When growing up as kids we had a number of books that we really, -really- loved. A number of these were finnish books by Mauri Kunnas (Wikipedia) and at least two of them were works of Richard Scarry.

Both authors created illustrated story books featuring anthropomorphic animals which are heavy on the drawings. Actually, most of each page is filled with artwork with just a bit of text. Both Scarry and Kunnas also have a knack for filling each page with small, hidden jokes. All in all, this stuff is great for kids!

Things is, I still love these books! Now I could always use Dana as an excuse to buy these books (No no, it's for my daughter! ^_^;), but why would I? So far we've gathered Kunnas' reworkings of the finnish epic Kalevala, of King Arthur's story and of Santa Claus' factories. We only recently bought a Scarry book, which is actually an omnibus of three of his books.

*glee* I just love these books!

Posted in: awesome , book , children , richard scarry

Playing with chocolat: going to hell for this (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Today we had a few hours to kill, so we decided to do something that's both fun and yummy: playing with chocolat! /o/ No, not that way! Get your mind out of the gutter! No...

We spent a bit of time "cooking", making awesome snacks. We started out with Marli's favorite festival food, chocolat covered grapes. We both love this stuff to death and always try to get some when we're at an amusement park or a fair like Munich's Christkindl market.

After that we proceeded with what is sure to guarantee me a ticket on the bus to hell: bacon chocolat! Inspired by various threads on Ars Technica (like this one) I just -had- to try this once in my life. Making it is of course friggin' easy! Just melt a few sticks of chocolat, fry and shred your bacon, mix the two together and pour into something like an ice cube tray.

I'm sorry to say that this stuff is bloody awesome. I'm doomed. ^_^;

Posted in: awesome , bacon , chocolat , going to hell for this

Goodbye Lexmark E342n! You served us well (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Tomorrow we'll be paying a short visit to the Snow offices in order to return most of the computing equipment that I bought on their bill. There's only a minimal amount of stuff that we're buying from them, like the 500gb disk holding all of our backups. Even my first Apple laptop (my modded iBook that's been with us for over three years) is going back since the price tag is just a bit too high for us.

Among the stuff that's going back is an awesome laser printer, the Lexmark E342n. We've had this printer since May of 2006 and it's served us wonderfully! We printed over 25.000 pages on this thing and it just keeps on going. The B/W text quality is great and we've never had any complaints. 25.000 pages of work, school reports and fan fiction. :)

Oh yeah, we're also returning our VW Fox but in return we've already gotten the new car from my new employer.

Posted in: awesome , electronics , equipment , lexmark e342n , printer

It's great to be home again (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Sssh! I'm quietly typing this on my iPhone, while Marli is asleep next to me :)

Yesterday Marli was dismissed from the hospital and we were allowed to go home. Of course I was the stereotypical, wishy-washy father so at first I forgot the parking slip, then I forgot my wallet and then I didn't have any cash for the hostess' bill. All in all it took an hour just to get out of there :D

Around two we were greeted by our temp homecare nurse Anouk, from Partula. Anouk got down to business right away and was a bit of a whirlwind about the house. While I was away doing some much needed shopping with my mom, Anouk helped Marli with the feeding and bathing of our daughter, meanwhile dispensing huge amounts of useful information. It was a bit too much to take in, but since Anouk's a loudish and cheery woman it was fun nonetheless. :)

Tonight went better thAn expected. Where the nights in the hospital were irregular, iratic and filled with crying, tonight had a steady rhytm to it! *glee* This rhytm feels good and allows us three hour periods pfsleep between one hour blocks of baby-maintenance. All in all I reckon I'll be able to get five to six hours of sleep on working days. I guess I'll manage that for a while.

Now... It's time for breakfast! >3

Posted in: awesome , baby , bed , home , sleep

We have the sweetest friends (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Our good friends Niels and Kaijuu are currently in Japan for one of their annual/famous trips. Hearing their stories it seems that they're having a great time over there and I'm very much looking forward to seeing their photographs.

A few months back we joked that they'd have to bring us back some baby stuff from Japan... And so they did! ^_^ Yesterday we got a package in the mail that's obviously from the land of the rising sun. Upon opening it we found a treasure trove of Totoro baby toys and clothes.

Thank you so much guys! You're the sweetest ever! <3

Posted in: awesome , baby stuff , friends , sweet , totoro

Great pictures of the LHC @ CERN (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Thanks to Dennilfloss at Ars Technica for pointing out an article at Boston.com that includes great pictures of the LHC in Switzerland.

As some of you may know, CERN is building a huge particle accelerator near the border with France. This awesome piece of machinery (with a track around 27 kilometers in lenght!) is called the Large Hadron Collider. It's kind of funny how incredibly, mindbogglingly huge a machine needs to be to make measurements at the tiniest scale of size and time. Seriously, we're talking atoms and nanoseconds here.

Check out the article for a whole bunch of stunning photographs. Also, check out LHC article at Wikipedia for details on what this thing actually is.

And should anything ever go wrong and we're all devoured by a black hole (or creatures from another dimension): at least we know that the end of the world was pretty ^_^

EDIT:
If all of that is too big to take in, here's the LHC rap >_<

Posted in: awesome , cern , large hadron collider , lhc , pictures

Went to see "The dark knight" (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

If there was any doubt in your mind: The dark knight is indeed quite awesome! SRSLY.

I wasn't too mad about Christian Bale's acting which, though adequate, was more of the same that I've seen from him so far. Ledger however shines as the Joker. I loved it, I loved it, I LOVED it. :)

Great movie! The first Batman movie that I could take completely serious! ^_^

Posted in: awesome , the dark knight

Ignite Portland 2 was one of the best nights of my life! (Tiny Screenfuls (JoshB)) by Josh Bancroft

Now that I’ve had a couple of days to recover, here’s my recap post about Ignite Portland 2. It was, in short, one of the best nights of my life. It was so amazing to see how it all came together - the volunteers, the presenters, and the crowd. The crowd! We filled up the Bagdad - they had to cut people off at about 750, and we were so sorry to have to turn away about 150 people (from what I was told). Rick Turoczy of Silicon Florist has done an incredible job of rounding up everyone’s take on the evening. Don’ t miss his roundup post.

The best moment of the night came when I was sitting in my seat, down in front, surrounded by people who had worked so hard to make this happen, and who had become good friends in the process. And we, in turn, were surrounded by all the amazing volunteers, speakers, and sponsors that made it even possible. And we were all in turn surrounded by a crowd of exited people, enjoying themselves in a very cool theater. It all just sank down on me right then, a warm, fuzzy, happy feeling. I realized that this was the coolest thing I have accomplished so far in my life.

So, here are some photos and commentary of how the evening went, from my point of view. I was the first to arrive at the Bagdad, at about 3:00 PM, to get set up. Plus, I had never been to the Bagdad, and I wanted to check the place out. It’s a beautiful building, and has a very cool “Portland’ vibe.

I was also surprised to see “Ignite Portland” up on the main marquee, since I thought we had asked them not to put it up there (we knew we didn’t need help drawing any more of a crowd!):

I went inside, and looked around before Todd, Dawn, and the others arrived. I fell in love with the Bagdad - it’s a very cool place. As you’ll soon see…

(more…)

Posted in: awesome , blog , events , ignite , igniteportland , oregon , portland

New camera: Panasonic Lumix TZ3 (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Aww yea! In preparation for my trip to Japan we've bought a new camera, the Lumix TZ3. I'd originally planned to buy it in Osaka at a much lower price, but I'd rather get used to the camera before I go on the trip.

So far I'm loving the camera. The uber-versatile lens is proving its worth, being good at both wide-angle shots and telezoom. It has a rather complete feature set and the menus are very easy to navigate. Honestly, even Marli figured most of it out in half an hour's time!

Speaking of Marli: being the tease that she is, she called me at the office to tell me that she'd open my parcel and play with the camera. Fully expecting me to whine that I wanted to go first, she pouted when I offered no objection :P Knowing that I'm a horrible geek, she did surprise me though: she took pictures of the unpacking, just like most of us Apple-geeks do with their new toys :)

Now, it's well known that the camera has some downsides, and the most noticeable is the noisy sensor. If you'll browse through my trial pictures, you'll notice quite a lot of noise in the darker pictures. It's a shame, but I'll take it as it comes because overall the camera's great!

Gallery with test shots. I'll add more later as they come.

Posted in: awesome , camera , lumix , panasonic , tz3

What a day! My first day at school (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Wow! I'm feeling exhilarated! This whole going-back-to-school thing rocks ^_^

Yesterday was my first day at Instituut Archimedes, following classes from 12:00 until 21:45. As I mentioned earlier, this semester's roster entails four classes: Statistics 1 (math and didactics), Study Guidance and Math didactics 2. I'm very lucky to have a break between 18:00 and 20:00, giving me time to get started on homework and have some dinner.

The folks at school all seem quite nice. The teachers are cool and usually in their thirties. My classmates range between 21 and 56, though there's one daunting thing about them: over 80% of them are already in education. O_O

So yea, that's a little intimidating. Being one of the few who have no teaching experience whatsoever and who don't currently hold a teaching position. That second part is really important for classes that need me to do project in a teaching environment. Where the heck am I going to find a bunch of thirteen year olds, just to try some teaching methods on them?!

Aside from the exhilaration, there's also nervousness. I'd already mentioned it before, but it's still there. The feeling that I -know- that I can fail at what I'm doing here. The feeling that I'm treading completely new ground. The feeling that I'm getting in over my head. Mind you, I'm still loving it, but that doesn't mean I don't feel the fear :)

About the workload... I was prepared for (and expected) a lot of work. However, it seems that I underestimated things a little. Aside from working 32 hours a week for Snow I will also need to spend about 40 hours per week to earn my ten credits this semester. The basic math: 1 ECT equals about 28 hours of work. Three of my courses are good for hard credits: 10 ECTS in total. So in about seven weeks I'll have to shift 280 hours of work. Ouch! Goodbye social life! :)

Ah well... First, let's see how hard things really are.

In the meantime Marli is a great value to me, giving me loadses of support! The fact that she's so proud of me and has faith in me really means a lot!

Posted in: awesome , college , first day at school , instituut archimedes

Doctor Who: still awesome (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

I was let down by the last two episodes of Doctor Who, even though they were centered around the Daleks. Something about the writing just got to me and made me dislike them a bit. Shame.

But now my faith in the series is completely back, after watching tonight's Lazarus Experiment. The baddy was rather cool looking (if a little unoriginal, where have I seen that disjointing jaw before?), the pacing was good and there actually was quite a lot of excitement! I'm a happy camper once more!

And if this week's episode wasn't enough to restore my faith, the trailer finished me off completely! The trailer is rumoured to cover the rest of this year's season (which explains why it seems to be strung together from various story lines) and it looks awesome!

The scare crow baddies are bound to scare me almost as shitless as The empty child did *shudder*. There's the mysterious Harold Saxon (who's rumoured to be one of the Docs ancient Gallifreyan rivals and there's Jack! Oh yes, the uber-cute and sexy Captain Jack Harkness makes his return! *swoon*

Now, speaking of that Harold Saxon guy... Upon hearing that name at the end of the episode I got really curious about who the guy's supposed to be. Well, the Internet seems to be rife with gossip and one of the prime suspects appears to be The Master. Unfortunately I know next to nothing of the classic series and looking for backstory on the guy has just made me more confused.

Because then I realized that it would take up any and all of my free time, just to learn all of Doctor Who's amazing backstory.

And even though I would seriously -love- to know everything there is to know about my favourite time traveller, I'm just not willing to commit that much time to just one sci-fi story. There are loads of other things that I need to pay attention to, so I'm just going to have to sit back and enjoy the ride :)

I don't mind one bit!

Posted in: awesome , backstory , doctor who , harold saxon , the master