WinX

Finally tested Windows 8.1 Pro with my super-old key, and immediately upgraded to Windows 10. The upgrade was rather nice except for the creepy black screens and the slowly fading text messages. The big "but" came after having installed a few things and accidentally going into sleep mode while installing Visual Studio Community 2015; I got the chance to experience the dreaded automatic repair loop of infinity. No advanced options or online advice worked. Now, Microsoft has been learning, so I could simply pop in a Windows 10 USB and install it with my Windows 8.1 Pro key, lovely. Installed one thing, rebooted, installed the next thing, rebooted, and so on. Now it's running. Rather well in fact. Quite happy. At last they have flat, solid backgrounds with simple text and borders, and it looks almost as good as hwm, my own X11/XCB window manager...

Another finally: I'm beyond etüde 30 in Wohlfahrt! The 30th is quite weird, the 31th is a bunch of scales in the 3rd position which is a lot more fun. Strange how for two days last week, I couldn't play at all. Then I took two days off, and since then I've been playing like a god (humbly speaking). It's a good feeling to know that years of practice actually works... Vibrato is still a pain in the whatnot, as is Bach.

As a young programmer, I never understood the point with UML. To be honest, I still don't really, but what I do like these days is making little Graphviz dot files, and splitting up projects that way. Even starting out becomes much easier once you have the dependencies of various parts of a project straightened out. And testing surfaces are a lot more obvious this way too. Still wondering why my texture synthesizing project got off track, I'd love to get that going properly...

Bourne again and cartoons

I'm surprised they haven't gone for that title yet. Just another big budget ridiculous trashing fest disguised as a modern action movie. The first one will forever be the magical one. They tried to play the theme a few times, but that just doesn't work if nothing else feels like the first movie.

I saw a "40 90s cartoon intros in Swedish" plus "another 30" in the recommended sidebar on youtube, and some of my most peculiar childhood memories popped up. Here's a list of things I recall the most vividly, generally with a mix of fascination, mystery, and fear:

• Windwagon Smith by Disney. Hauntingly beautiful.
• What's opera, Doc? aka Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit! The second half simply scared the crap out of me.
• Asterix vs Caesar, when Asterix almost drowns in the basement.
• Superman, the Mummy Strikes! Brilliant mummy scare.
• Dunderklumpen. I never understood any of it, but I loved the word "dunderklumpen". I think I have it mixed up with a clip from something similar where they did some magic with perforated cylinders and scarfs.
• Skrotnisse. Freaky Swedish series with dolls, I still don't know how it ends. "Ture Björkman blir apa." The Dark Eye is nothing compared to this.
• The Trap Door. Never understood any of it, didn't scare me, but I always wanted more of that skull. Just watched some of it, I remember it a bit differently.

I shall update this list as I recall others. Thinking about these things, one starts to understand how little one has noticed of how much has changed... Life's not forever. "Never grow up, never surrender!" was my motto, I must embrace it again!

EDIT 2016-08-20: Added The Trap Door. And no more Banshee... At least we got one decent fight at the end.

Godzilla

... from 2014 is crap. I'll try Toho's recently released version at some point.

It seems like I have started a tradition of folding something every time I'm at home, so photos:

That one book by Tomoko Fuse that my parents bought decades ago is amazing.

I also saw a complete double rainbow the other day, didn't go out and take photos of it though. Must be a good summer. And tomorrow is the last day of my vacation, at least I'll have my new violin again.

Btw, the Yamaha THR10X is an amazing amp.

A lot less programming jargon these days, huh?

EDIT 2016-08-08: Shin Gojira looks amazing, that guy is already on my desktop. If I would be there now, I would watch it, in full IMAX glory. But I'll have to wait.

Swedish summer

A "cool" Swedish summer, when I'm the most efficient and useful. The occasional hot day with lots of sun and with nothing to do is also nice, but I always preferred "doing" stuff. Heat doesn't help then.

My next important step in getting better at the violin is playing every combination of double stops in the first position in various scales, while still calibrating against open strings. Just under 30 in Wohlfahrt, it took a little while getting used to my old family student violin, and besides, the beam time kept me away. But I finally see the big difference between the two violins. The old student violin is sturdier, has steel strings, and keeps the intonation for years. My new one is more airy and has synthetic strings, but the intonation goes off 100% every day. Some pros are better than some cons though, my new violin is a lot nicer to play with.

It's funny how carbohydrates get a bad name when it comes to food, but the super old generation on Okinawa eats a lot of carbohydrates, plus a lot of vegetables and a little fish. I never really understood the concept of modern "fitness", but isn't a long life a better indication of fitness than how much your veins pop out of your skin? Personally, I try to listen to my belly whether what I'm eating is good for me or not. Too often though, I think "bah, quiet you" :p Time to change that.

I've picked up some Japanese studies again as well. It seems like when I try something for a short while, let it grow somewhere in the back of my head, and then come back to it, I progress a lot easier and faster. That's why you read (good) books twice, once fast, once slow. Change the verb and noun accordingly, and apply to most everything in life.

I'll also try to run a little more regularly, and perhaps not 13 km every time. Pumping blood is one of the best ways of keeping one's brain in shape, so why not? I like running, I think there's an old post of me mentioning the wonderful feeling of looking to the side, seeing fields and houses bouncing away with every step.

Some not so great news too, but there are people in this world devoted to making it a better place. I'd like to as well, only my way will not be quite as direct and obvious. It's about time to

When I get back, I'll start planning my huge origami project. My apartment will look weird for some time, folding 2x 2x1 m^2 pieces of paper on the floor will required some modifications.

And boy is getting to Russia a big ordeal, the only reason I go there is for work to be honest. I've added a few days for sight-seeing with some young co-workers, as I probably won't go back for some time.

Because of no photos for some time, here are some shots from Bergtempelstigen up to Taberg, I forced my older brother to join me:

Time for violin practice in the living room!