https://fritzvd.com/blog/ Recent content on fritzvd Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2026/04/08/Mediocre-is-better-in-pseudo-individuality./ Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2026/04/08/Mediocre-is-better-in-pseudo-individuality./ in the individual’s apparent freedom he was the product of society’s economic and social apparatus. (Horkheimer, Adorno, and Noeri 2002, 125) In our aspirations to build a better and life and that of progress, we have understood one thing as a human species of the WEIRD countries (Western Educated Industrialised Rich Developed) We need to be able to do everything poorly in our private sphere, which also exists in a public sphere professionally. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2020/03/10/Wild-Ride/ Tue, 10 Mar 2020 06:49:23 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2020/03/10/Wild-Ride/ Myrtl and Hog jumped down the chute, with Myrtl crying out in sheer revelry: “Whoo-hoo”. They had been going about this for months on end now and the thrill had not diminished as of yet. The hustle and bustle of the city combined with the rush of being chased, it was just too good to be true. After the garbage chute there would be one more challenge before losing in on their home: the bus station. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2019/08/11/Jakobs-ice-cream/ Sun, 11 Aug 2019 21:12:49 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2019/08/11/Jakobs-ice-cream/ “I’ll stab you square between your eyes, vile scorpion blooded motherfucker”, Jakob shouted at the olid man standing right in front of him. His undersized yellow stained tank top wasn’t very becoming, neither was the sweat that was dripping down his armpit hair. The stench was atrocious and hardly bearable. Of course Jakob was a coward and never really shouted. He just stood there thinking all these wonderful thoughts. The day had started so great in te suburban cement ridden shithole that was his hometown. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2018/02/14/The-Chopping-Board/ Wed, 14 Feb 2018 11:49:15 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2018/02/14/The-Chopping-Board/ It was a strange and extremely warm summer afternoon. The kind of warmth that strangles you like a psychopath but also makes you feel a one-ness with the world. One of those evenings where it is hard to know where the body stops and the atmosphere begins. Where sweat drops don’t chill the body, and where everything blurs. One man who was not entirely enjoying this was standing outside, bent over to grab his lighter. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2018/02/09/The-mountain/ Fri, 09 Feb 2018 14:05:41 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2018/02/09/The-mountain/ The mountain was on fire. The clouds above it, light, cumulous clouds drawn up by the daily winds, drawn from the montane forests covered in fog, drawn out of the green fields beneath the mountain, were bathed in a golden, red light from the setting sun. The sea in front of the mountain scintillated and shimmered, drew out the static sunset and cast it in a thousand gems on the surface of the water. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2018/01/31/The-Second-Violin/ Wed, 31 Jan 2018 12:41:53 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2018/01/31/The-Second-Violin/ It was a long drive home, it always was. It’s always a longer drive than anyone ever hoped. No drive is really is short enough after 2 o’clock in the morning. Last time she drove this way home it was with Craig right beside her. He’d been playing third that evening. Suzie had played second violin. As she had done for a few years now. Back then, she was new to the gig and Craig always liked driving together. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2018/01/08/Night-of-Grafting-Part-2/ Mon, 08 Jan 2018 14:10:12 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2018/01/08/Night-of-Grafting-Part-2/ That first night, now felt like it must have been years ago, Shan thought to himself, even if it was only 2 weeks. Besides the fatigue of climbing that first day it was not a very taxing day. Not like the others. It was the other nights that kept him brooding. The other nights where they had to go without food. Where they felt haunted by restless dreams. Where he could not be sure that what he saw was actually there. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2017/12/22/Night-of-Grafting-Part-1/ Fri, 22 Dec 2017 19:20:49 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2017/12/22/Night-of-Grafting-Part-1/ It was dark and cold, and the morning never seemed to come, to Shan. He was never one for being impatient, but tonight was different. Sleep did usually come quickly for Shan of Bomul. But tonight was different. Not only was he unable to catch sleep because he kept brooding; tonight also marked his last in many ways. Since Shan, Inzil of Limir and Mago of Fer, left home a fortnight ago they had no idea what kind of time this would be. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/10/13/writing-tests-for-nativescript-apps/ Tue, 13 Oct 2015 06:49:23 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/10/13/writing-tests-for-nativescript-apps/ This has been bugging me for a while. While working on my business logic and REST API connection in my NativeScript project, I couldn’t write tests because requiring the tns-core-modules broke the test. NativeScript is a library with tooling to create iOS and Android apps in JavaScript. And it works smoothly. However at the moment the docs aren’t always complete. Anyways, building and deploying an app on a mobile device (or emulator) takes somewhere in the range of a minute or so on a fast machine. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/08/03/nodeconf-adventure/ Mon, 03 Aug 2015 07:05:28 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/08/03/nodeconf-adventure/ After looking at the program of Nodeconf 2014, I took the liberty to convince my boss that I should go there. Because of the structure and quality of the workshops. Little did I know that the conf part was going to be canceled, and the adventure had no prior scheduling. Except for what people handed in beforehand as topics they would want to speak about, or hear about. The conference “started” with the OaklandJS meetup. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/07/01/writing-documentation-nodeconf-2015/ Wed, 01 Jul 2015 08:19:19 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/07/01/writing-documentation-nodeconf-2015/ This topic of course ties in with the Building Communities session. Because building community happens with code that is being used. And if you want people to be able to join easily, one of their first entry points will probably be the README, which has for some projects become the only or the main documentation. At the moment the documentation of some projects is exemplary (think: anything @substack makes). Whereas the documentation of node itself is kind of a mess. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/07/01/building-communities-nodeconf-2015/ Wed, 01 Jul 2015 07:45:51 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/07/01/building-communities-nodeconf-2015/ A lot of the talks were not just about code or “hardcore” technical stuff, but also about social things like: building community, writing documentation, creating a safe environment. Which in the software meetups and talks scene has been growing as a topic. To dismay of some, and celebration of others. This session started out as a discussion about the node project, “the Fork”: io.js and what it says about the community and the culture of node. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/07/01/es6-es7-ecmascript-2015-harmony-what-nodeconf-2015/ Wed, 01 Jul 2015 07:35:35 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/07/01/es6-es7-ecmascript-2015-harmony-what-nodeconf-2015/ JavaScript gets a new version, what now Languages are never done. They evolve over time and are supplemented with new words every month, new phrases every year and acquires (minor) grammar changes every decade. This true for speaking languages as well as for programming languages. The past year there has been a lot of talk about EcmaScript 6 (a.k.a. ES Harmony, or lately ES2015, which is the silliest name of all). https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/06/23/containers-docker-lxc-nodeconf-2015/ Tue, 23 Jun 2015 18:45:44 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/06/23/containers-docker-lxc-nodeconf-2015/ Containers, like the ones you put sundries in? Linux Containers (LXC) have been a hot new topic over the last 2 years. The easiest way to understand a container is to compare it with a Virtual Machine (VM). You can run a VM on your machine and it will pretend to be a computer inside a computer. It will emulate hardware so it can run an Operating System (OS) within your computer. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/06/22/isomorphic-javascript-and-modular-ui-nodeconf-2015/ Mon, 22 Jun 2015 14:20:37 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/06/22/isomorphic-javascript-and-modular-ui-nodeconf-2015/ N.B. This one of the first sessions held at nodeconf, everybody was still somewhat rusty. Isomorphic JavaScript is the practice of using the same JavaScript code on the server and in the browser. In the session we talked about how to best implement this, and what to avoid. The naming is ridiculous, so let’s just use Universal JavaScript. One of the first recommendations were to do static analysis. This goes through your code and finds dead dependencies or function that are never called. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/05/19/fbx-and-3d-models-in-monogame-on-linux/ Tue, 19 May 2015 15:35:39 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2015/05/19/fbx-and-3d-models-in-monogame-on-linux/ TL;DR the monogame community is pretty great Lately my manic ambitious mode has turned on again for me. So I have about 100s of ideas again, which sadly of course will all come to nothing. But while I’m at it, I thought I’d make the best of it to do some tutorials here and there and learn some stuff I know nothing about. Starting with Monogame on Linux is kind of a hassle to start with, but if you push through it works. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/09/15/mad-science-act-part-1-nodeconf-eu/ Mon, 15 Sep 2014 11:53:39 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/09/15/mad-science-act-part-1-nodeconf-eu/ The Mad Science Act, was something completely different. It featured many topics and some of the most creative and prolific npmjs.org authors. It was a bit mad, so I’ll try to make it as coherent as I understood it. I have split up the post in 2 parts. It would be too much put into one. Professor Substack – Mad Science intro. When you start out creating (npm) modules you realize there is a great shortage of modules. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/09/15/open-open-source/ Mon, 15 Sep 2014 11:37:34 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/09/15/open-open-source/ What? Individuals making significant and valuable contributions are given commit-access to the project to contribute as they see fit. This project is more like an open wiki than a standard guarded open source project. Rules There are a few basic ground-rules for contributors: No –force pushes or modifying the Git history in any way. Non-master branches ought to be used for ongoing work. External API changes and significant modifications ought to be subject to an internal pull-request to solicit feedback from other contributors. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/09/15/hardware-track-nodeconf-eu/ Mon, 15 Sep 2014 09:14:33 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/09/15/hardware-track-nodeconf-eu/ The hardware track featured talks on hardware that were not just about hardware, but also served as a metaphor. The most poignant of these was Colin Vernon’s on the cloudbit. Colin Vernon – Cloudbit As an engineer we really like building stuff and figuring out difficult problems. And for us working with the tools we make is easy. But we should see our tools as a material. A material with which we can build stuff, which we can use like lego-blocks. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/09/13/front-end-track-at-nodeconf-eu/ Sat, 13 Sep 2014 11:11:52 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/09/13/front-end-track-at-nodeconf-eu/ The frontend track featured some very different talks , ranging from performance to a/b testing. In that sense it was a bit different from the microservices track, because it was less of a ‘one story’ thing. Scaling A/B testing at Netflix – Alex Liu Netflix takes a/b testing to the next level, where they break up the UI in little pieces and run a/b tests on all of them at once. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/09/12/microservices-track-summary-nodeconfeu/ Fri, 12 Sep 2014 11:17:59 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/09/12/microservices-track-summary-nodeconfeu/ The microservices track came down to most speakers saying things more or less in similar vain, each talk having its own emphasis. Richard Rodger opened up and basically laid the groundwork for the microservices bit together with the Fred George talk. After hearing the talks I’d define microservices as small blocks that can run independently and do one thing, along the Unix philosophy. Making building blocks in stead of one big application that does everything. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/03/08/procedural-death-jam-7-day-rogue-like-cyberpunk-game-jamathon/ Sat, 08 Mar 2014 15:09:25 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/03/08/procedural-death-jam-7-day-rogue-like-cyberpunk-game-jamathon/ Ok. It’s official as of 16.04 (CET) I have entered in all of the above mentioned GameJams. This is where I will track my development. The project can be found at: https://github.com/fritzvd/abime It. Is. On! Update: Note to self: Neko target in Haxe does not handle placement of BitmapData well. Been spending an hour to get it to work. Other target was instant. <strong Update 2: This was a very bad week to be working on something like this. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/03/04/particle-emitter-in-haxepunk/ Tue, 04 Mar 2014 14:34:54 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/03/04/particle-emitter-in-haxepunk/ For some this will be a trivial example. For me this took a bit longer than I suspected. This small example will produce this: If you’re planning on making an awesome game you probably want a particle emitter. because.. well look at it. What I did is I started a haxepunk project: `For some this will be a trivial example. For me this took a bit longer than I suspected. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/03/02/nyko-playpad-pro-as-xbox-360-controller/ Sun, 02 Mar 2014 19:15:06 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/03/02/nyko-playpad-pro-as-xbox-360-controller/ This is basically a fancy note to self. Last year in my pre vacation spending spree, I boughy myself (and my brother) a NYKO Playpad Pro. A pretty cool gamepad for Android. I had lots of fun playing GTA Vice CIty on my trip to Italy. Playing SNES games etc. However I tried to hook it up to my Linux pc and thought I would be able to use it with my new go to MetroidVania platformer: Guacamelee. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/02/03/communities-and-licenses-permissive-licenses-vs-copyleft-bsdmitapache-2-0-vs-gpl/ Mon, 03 Feb 2014 13:07:51 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/02/03/communities-and-licenses-permissive-licenses-vs-copyleft-bsdmitapache-2-0-vs-gpl/ Over the weekend I was at FOSDEM, an open source developer conference in Brussels. We had a blast. I sat in on a talk at the Legal & Policy Issues room about community building by Eileen Evans. The talk was the one she gave at OSCON 2013 (attached below). The short version of the talk was that the license an open source project uses plays a role in the community it will create, perhaps such a strong role as governance or the technology itself, but a role nonetheless. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/01/06/starting-game-development-with-haxepunk-instead-of-monogamexna/ Mon, 06 Jan 2014 20:25:23 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/01/06/starting-game-development-with-haxepunk-instead-of-monogamexna/ So I started venturing off in a direction in which I have no experience what so ever. Only on the consumer-side of things ;-). Game development. Of course I had no idea what I was doing. Still don’t. To start with I had no idea where to start. Lately I have been looking into Unity 3D and Unreal engine, but then I realized I suck at drawing and have no idea how to start with 3d. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/01/05/good-golly-i-almost-bricked-my-phone/ Sun, 05 Jan 2014 20:37:13 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2014/01/05/good-golly-i-almost-bricked-my-phone/ So just before new year’s eve started, I started a (cyanogenmod) update for my phone (lg optimus 2x). Wiped data/cache/dalvik and did not get to flashing the new zip. But then the guests started to arrive and I left it, without having it hooked up to a power supply. Big mistake. There are a number of recovery images out there, (amongst the most well-known: Clockwork Mod and TeamWin Recovery Project). I was on TWRP but it just hung and could not get out of recovery mode. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2013/11/18/uiux-course-highlights-storytelling/ Mon, 18 Nov 2013 09:25:30 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2013/11/18/uiux-course-highlights-storytelling/ Nelen & Schuurmans, the company where I work, offered the Software Developers a User Interface Design course by Namahn. It was a great reminder of the seemingly obvious processes one can incorporate in a software project, but sadly also a warning for blatant ignorance we sometimes portray as Developers (of course not just at N&S). The workflow Namahn uses is similar to what other design oriented companies would use. Which can be described in three phases: Understand, Explore and Define. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2013/06/18/angular-js-favorites-directives-jquery-ui-slider/ Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:48:43 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2013/06/18/angular-js-favorites-directives-jquery-ui-slider/ Last time I wrote something about something very simple, but something I really enjoy. Conditional classes and inline event handlers. It’s not a very difficult or complex feature. But I did not find a lot of writing about it. And also it saved me loads of jQuery statements that you don’t want in a controller, but in the UI. Next up: Directives. Directives are pret-ty awesomevilles. For the “stop/play video player like”-thing we are building, we would like to have a timeline or time slider, to go back to a previous images. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2013/06/17/starting-angular-js-favourite-features-or-favorites-if-your-from-the-u-s/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:22:19 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2013/06/17/starting-angular-js-favourite-features-or-favorites-if-your-from-the-u-s/ Last few weeks at work I have been trying out Angular JS. First of all, because it is fun and useful to try out new stuff. Secondly because after working with Backbone/Marionette for a few months some things felt that they could’ve been done better. So whilst working on a big Backbone/Marionette project I started looking at Angular a bit. I’ll just show you some of my favourite features. We are building an app that needs to play, stop, pause etc much like a video player. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2013/02/04/vagrant/ Mon, 04 Feb 2013 13:08:01 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2013/02/04/vagrant/ Vagrant is a great tool if you like to develop and test on the same server. Or at least emulate that you have the same server and at the same time keep your own system fairly clean. I’ve been using it for quite a while. After reinstalling my ubuntu machine to get rid of 12.10 and start 12.04 LTS a fresh I had to fix something in my install of vagrant. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2012/11/28/making-sure-gdal-works-with-ecw-libecw-under-linux/ Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:34:30 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2012/11/28/making-sure-gdal-works-with-ecw-libecw-under-linux/ This took me a while to unravel, so before I forget or before other people run into the same issues, let’s make a note of this. Assuming you are using a debian-like linux distribution (ubuntu, debian, linux mint, etc. anything using: apt-get to install packages) there are a few things to note. First of all make sure you have the latest packages for: mapserver, gdal, etc. (ubuntu-gis repository has newer versions than the standard repositories). https://fritzvd.com/blog/2012/11/26/kriging-in-r-in-python/ Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:48:56 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2012/11/26/kriging-in-r-in-python/ This might be a repost of some sort. However I found that it was kind of hard to find anything about this specific topic. So here it goes. Kriging is a geostatistical method to be able translate point data to a grid, to find out where you can predict stuff really well and where the variance is really high. As always GIGO (garbage in garbage out). But it is at least a large improvement from interpolation techniques such as Inversed Distance Weighting (IDW) which is often implemented in GIS software. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2012/02/04/snow/ Sat, 04 Feb 2012 10:19:36 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2012/02/04/snow/ https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/10/14/coloring-mapserver-floating-tiffs-with-colorscales/ Fri, 14 Oct 2011 07:25:27 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/10/14/coloring-mapserver-floating-tiffs-with-colorscales/ This has been a little mystery for me waiting to be uncovered. However I solved it. Depending if you are using a SLD (styled layer descriptor) or the embedded Style commands this is what your Mapfile could look like: MAP NAME "Some Map" DEBUG ON FONTSET "/home/fritz/maps/fonts.txt" WEB IMAGEPATH "/tmp/" IMAGEURL "/tmp/" METADATA "wms_title" "WMS Demo Server" ##required "wms_onlineresource" "http://localhost/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=map.map" ##required "wms_srs" "EPSG:42304 EPSG:42101 EPSG:4269 EPSG:4326 EPSG:7030 EPSG:32736" ##recommended END END PROJECTION " https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/02/28/connecting-the-dots/ Mon, 28 Feb 2011 08:30:48 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/02/28/connecting-the-dots/ Those who think they “know” everything from the beginning will never, in fact, come to know anything – Thomas Merton Over the last few weeks (months) I haven’t been posting too much. Sorry about that. For all the people who are interested in what I am doing a little update. At the moment I am trying to write up the document to present the thesis to my supervisors. The research part is almost brought to an end with this step. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/17/stille-combatant/ Mon, 17 Jan 2011 11:30:26 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/17/stille-combatant/ Excuses Had het druk Met dingen Vuilmaken aan bezigheden Hier en daar Zaakjes lopen Radiostilte uit kamer 2 Bezigheden houden hem druk Hooi op zijn vork Een vol bord, een lege maag Nee, niet nu Morgen Nee, ja, druk Met dingen https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/11/creating-a-little-clipbox-for-your-projects-in-python/ Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:48:32 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/11/creating-a-little-clipbox-for-your-projects-in-python/ When working on a GIS project, this always bums me out. You need to have a certain area in which you want to cut all your source data. But in ArcGIS I never figure out how to do it properly, except for using Python scripts and arcgisscripting/arcpy. But I figured, this should also be do-able from the terminal, and take less time and energy from your little workbox. But here’s a Python script that uses open-source libraries and writes https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/10/from-2-5d-to-3d/ Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:21:54 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/10/from-2-5d-to-3d/ My last few posts have focused on somewhat other things than my thesis. This does not mean that no progress has been made or that I’ve done nothing. On the contrary; I’ve done quite a bit. But it is rather less exciting. I’ve been busy with data conversion and trying to get a working 3D representation that is meaningful. Which is hard and not so spectacular. Seriously. First of all getting to grips with the fact that the reason why ESRI is marketleader may be because they deliver a complete and good package. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/04/skywalker/ Tue, 04 Jan 2011 09:24:34 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/04/skywalker/ Lichtjes, zachtjes, soepel Snel ik aan een man voorbij In een land te gast In een auto niet van mij Meneer Laserpistool Doortast mijn ijdele haast Wenkt mij tot stoppen Kort een woord en wissel Boete doen, zak en as Het glinsterend eksteroog Aast naar mijn buidel Gouden handdruk Ik ga mijns weegs kijk ook op: http://www.ipaidabribe.com/ https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/03/de-meerval/ Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:49:22 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/03/de-meerval/ Het pad glinsterend met bevroren genot, Bekijkt de banden, Waarmee ik vederlicht haar rug betreed Werpt mij van mijn rijdend ijzer Laat mij voelen hoe de koude stenen Mijn arm losjes het uiterst van de kom laat zien Hoop op morgen, dat ik niet Meerval. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/01/my-2010/ Sat, 01 Jan 2011 14:45:41 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2011/01/01/my-2010/ All in all not a bad year, I would say. Just a quick overview of some highlights and the soundtrack of the last year. The Good Engaged to Nelleke Bachelor of Science Started a business Royal Haskoning Rock Climbing! / Spain Trip the Harry Potter Septology Spotify! Water Insight Android Vienna Pablo Picasso’s violin Mac Mini Beatles Discography Reading, reading reading. Met awesome people. Etc. The Soundtrack Jakob Dylan – Women + Country Everything Everything – Man Alive Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More Vampire Weekend – Contra Cyndi Lauper – Memphis Blues MGMT – Congratulations Ray LaMontagne And The Pariah Dogs – God Willin’ & The Creek Don’t Rise The Black Keys – Brothers Kings of Leon – Come Around Sundown Brown Feather Sparrow – How to Throw a Christmas Party https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/12/24/in-search-of-god/ Fri, 24 Dec 2010 14:08:37 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/12/24/in-search-of-god/ Tuning into a TV program sporting The Face – Kings of Leon last week got me thinking. The program is called In Search of God and features 3 Dutch Celeb’s which are facilitated with a number of conversations and travels that should help them find God. Or at least give a nudge in that general direction or other. I found the program to be most intriguing and turns out to probably be my favorite show of the year (next to the Big C, which is also deserves a great mention here). https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/12/17/interaction-interfacing-iteration/ Fri, 17 Dec 2010 15:31:37 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/12/17/interaction-interfacing-iteration/ In my little project I would like to add some _I_nteraction. A possibility to zoom in and out and rotate the 3D model without moving the marker but by using some form of hand gestures. This should be possible. Though, the road towards it still seems a bit unclear. For now I have investigated the possibility of loading the 3D model as a static object until other markers arrive on the scene and are able to manipulate position, rotation and zooming. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/12/17/popular-demand/ Fri, 17 Dec 2010 10:19:12 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/12/17/popular-demand/ You can witness the magic happen on your very own desk, if you’d like. Print out the marker and allow Flash to access your webcam. Click here to watch the magic happen. If you do not know how to allow Flash to access your webcam Follow the instructions below Right click in the black window that opens and select “Settings” Click on “allow” like displayed in the little image below Let the awesomeness overwhelm you like the wondrous fragrance of Lavender on a spring day P. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/12/08/222/ Wed, 08 Dec 2010 18:11:44 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/12/08/222/ Today I fooled around a bit with the FLARManager (tutorials graciously provided by transmote). I tried to get some Papervision 3D objects going using all these different tutorials I have been following over the last few weeks (e.g. papervision2.com and rawkes.com). But it has not been as easy as I had expected. But then again, things never are. The difficulty is not so much in displaying 3D objects, because pv3d and flarmanager do all the thinking for you. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/12/02/thoughts-on-lidar/ Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:02:26 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/12/02/thoughts-on-lidar/ Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be able to visit the European LiDAR Mapping Forum (ELMF) in The Hague. For those who do not know what LiDAR is, it is a sensor that acquires high-quality (very dense) 3D data. If you would like to check out some of the data, what it looks like and play around with it a bit, here is a “get-started”. It is further explained on Wikipedia, to which you should give some money for using it on a daily basis, if you haven’t done so already. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/11/30/rendered-useless/ Tue, 30 Nov 2010 17:40:15 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/11/30/rendered-useless/ A little update on what I am doing. Today is a pictureless day, too bad. Moving away from Mayavi2 I have been moving towards ActionScript and Flash. Why this switch? Well Mayavi2 is a real cool scientific visualization tool, but most of the focus is on on-the-fly visualization of data that is dense, but also a computer that is powerful. This does not really serve useful for the purposes I would want to move towards. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/11/22/processing-images-with-gdal-and-mayavi2/ Mon, 22 Nov 2010 12:51:17 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/11/22/processing-images-with-gdal-and-mayavi2/ Ok, this took a while but the results are not bad. So I guess it’s worth it. First of all, a big thank you at [Ok, this took a while but the results are not bad. So I guess it’s worth it. First of all, a big thank you at](http://www.gis.usu.edu/~chrisg/) who is very possibly unaware of the fact that I have been using his classes on Python and Open Source GIS. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/11/18/developments-so-far/ Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:53:56 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/11/18/developments-so-far/ Ok. 3 weeks down the road of my minor thesis and what do I have to show for? Well, a lot of paradigms and concepts for starters. Furthermore I have never been able to finish a document like research proposal so quickly and of such quality. But enough of that. I have more or less abandoned the idea of a mobile application for now. Because having a mobile application like Junaio scores high on the cool list, it doesn’t really in the sphere of performance and handling large data sets. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/10/02/different-directions/ Sat, 02 Oct 2010 17:24:42 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/10/02/different-directions/ It seems that my minor thesis will focus more on the user experience of augmented reality. The EIA’s have raster outputs that can be converted to 3D spaces. These spaces can then be given Locations. The Raster is already georeferenced which would make this easier (I think). The best method of viewing these things would seem Augmented Reality browsers such as Layar or Junaio. So I would have to brush up a bit on what is possible in which browser. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/09/30/augmented-reality/ Thu, 30 Sep 2010 10:48:50 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/09/30/augmented-reality/ Another consideration is if using Augmented Reality (AR) how to implement it and what method of going about it. ARToolkit has different spin-offs that look quite interesting. One of my favourites are FLARToolkit and possibly SLARToolkit. The flash toolkit. But then I am not very proficient in Flash and ActionScript. Also I tend to avoid Flash as much as possible as well as writing stuff in C#. But the office I work in makes it easier to use C# then any other binding. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/09/29/considerations-on-which-gaming-engine-to-use/ Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:46:53 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/09/29/considerations-on-which-gaming-engine-to-use/ A quick update on my project of using a Gaming Engine to process GIS data. After some googling and reading other peoples blogs and workspaces it seems that some engines are more fit than others. Tim Germanchis et al. (2005) has done a brief overview of different game engines for this particular usage. Amongst which are the Quake III, Unreal Runtime 2, CryEngine and others. The CryEngine apparently suited the writer the most. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/09/29/considerations-on-3d-visualization-for-gis/ Wed, 29 Sep 2010 14:54:21 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/09/29/considerations-on-3d-visualization-for-gis/ For my minor thesis I am thinking of a project for processing Environmental Impact Assessment in a way that is more easily comprehensible. For this project I intend to use Augmented Reality. Hopefully some form of 3d visualization. And I am looking at the possibilities of using gaming engines. First and foremost, this is a preliminary research. I am not in any way an expert. And only just learning about the amazing possibilities. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/09/10/why-i-still-refuse-to-cook-electric-and-why-we-should-finish-natural-resources/ Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:14:43 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/09/10/why-i-still-refuse-to-cook-electric-and-why-we-should-finish-natural-resources/ Today I had quite an epiphany while I was working the oven (a gas oven that is). I love gas. It is by far the best way to cook. Electric cooking has always seemed a bit gay to me. And I know usually gays are quite advanced and up to speed with fads and ins and outs. But I thoroughly believe that they are wrong on this account. Electric cooking always requires you to think ahead whilst you are cooking. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/02/23/death-or-freedom-of-its-sting/ Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:04:36 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2010/02/23/death-or-freedom-of-its-sting/ Today, after a long time of keyboard-silence, I return with a cheerful blog post on death. Why? Well, yesterday my grandfather passed away, which reminds us of our last foe. He was a (war)hero, at least to me he was. Strangely enough I stumbled upon Johnny Cash album: VI – Ain’t No Grave only an hour after hearing the sad news. This is a beautiful recording of someone who wasn’t afraid of death. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/12/24/overcoming-the-incomprehensible/ Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:03:18 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/12/24/overcoming-the-incomprehensible/ Some things lie outside our command, some things outside our understanding. Or better yet, only some things lie in our command and understanding. Our eyes are limited, and our mind even more so. We see things that are not there, do not see things that might be there, speculate about how events take place in the (Super)Natural world. And all the while we think a real big deal of ourselves, whilst forgetting that we are very tiny. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/10/21/general-frustrations-on-nobel-prize-winning-presidents/ Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:14:14 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/10/21/general-frustrations-on-nobel-prize-winning-presidents/ There is something which has been lingering in my mind for a while now. It has been brooding one US president ago, and has been set to full throttle frustration when a nobel prize was awarded a week-and-some ago. US presidents have always, in the good-spirited leadership they posses, urged other ‘fragile states’ that nuclear power is something that comes with great responsibility, just like spidey-senses. And of course fragile states cannot handle that kind of responsibility. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/10/08/google-4th-to-appear-on-google/ Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:05:13 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/10/08/google-4th-to-appear-on-google/ When writing a thesis, it is imperative that you lose focus every now and then. So after reading some blogs, during the lunch-break, I decided to extend my lunch break. Little did I know I was destined to find out something extraordinary. When you try to find a search engine in Google, Google is the 5th result, (4th webpage) you’ll find. This of course is groundbreaking research in the field of Desertification and Development Sociology. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/09/30/unity-in-diversity/ Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:34:50 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/09/30/unity-in-diversity/ Tonight I will be leaving South Africa to fly to the Netherlands. It has been good, but it is also time to go back. But before I go and before I close this blog down (or start posting non-interesting thoughts on how to design your own vegetable garden), I want to leave you with an impression of the country of my forefathers. The beautiful, complex and diverse South Africa whom I have grown to love. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/09/12/cape-town-flu-and-other-frailties/ Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:46:36 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/09/12/cape-town-flu-and-other-frailties/ Cape Town is freaking awesome. I realize this every time I wake up again. Last time I was here was in 2006 during DTS in Muizenberg. To be back here is nice. To hang out with Simon, Marieke and Noah is lovely. Over the last few days I have (with the help of anti-biotics) conquered flu, challenged Poseidon and battled the fierceness of the wrath of Simon and his axe. I have survived all, and still remain strong. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/09/02/jumping-borders/ Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:41:56 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/09/02/jumping-borders/ Yesterday I arrived safely at Cape Town Int. Airport. Simon, Marieke and Noah came to pick me up. A bit surreal to see them, but very good nonetheless. Surreal because I have seen so many places in quite a short amount of time over the last few days. Last time I posted something on my blog, I did so from the town of Victoria Falls in the North-West of Zimbabwe. After posting we went to see the world famous Falls. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/08/27/vic-falls/ Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:46:54 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/08/27/vic-falls/ Right now I am testing the limits of the slowest connection in the world, as I speedtype this blogpost in existence. I am writing from Vic Falls in Zimbabwe. A very touristy but nice place. The last few days I have been staying with the aunt and uncle of Washington. Very nice christian people, who took us in the house and helped us on our way. Yesterday we have arrived safely in Vic Falls. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/08/21/go-siame/ Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:48:07 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/08/21/go-siame/ After enjoying a lovely Windhoek Special (a nice beer), I felt like updating my blog. First of all, because I haven’t done so for a while. Secondly, because my time in Botswana draws to a close. The last few days have been busy. Writing, looking at data, finishing a philosophy paper which had a deadline which was a bit more urgent than my thesis. Today I decided that I could have a bit more of a chill-out-day. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/08/12/times-of-refreshing/ Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:41:27 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/08/12/times-of-refreshing/ You know how sometimes, life just feels too good to be true? Well, the last few days have been like that. Being finished with my field work made me happy. This meant that I would be in an urban area again. Don’t get me wrong, I love nature. Just being in an urban area means you can have proper coffee again. So the last few days, I have feasted on vegetables, fruits and other fresh produce withheld from me in Mopipi. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/07/29/ga-gona-metsi/ Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:24:02 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/07/29/ga-gona-metsi/ On a slightly more positive note than the last post, I am doing fine. Really. I actually forgot to write about one of the most significant events of last week. There was no water (Ga gona metsi). Seriously. This was big mathata (problems). We had to fetch water in barrels, drums, and empty trash bins. Luckily some of my friends here helped me with their skoro-koro (a car that is close to it’s end). https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/07/27/almost-done/ Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:56:29 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/07/27/almost-done/ So this is a bit of an overdue post. But a post nonetheless. I am busy with the final stages of my field work here. And not very mournful about it. My time here has been good, but I’m also up for something different and some people I know and relate with more easily. Last week I went around to measure the daily use of firewood in this place with a friend of mine. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/07/15/okavango-le-dikwena-dithlare-and-more/ Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:38:05 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/07/15/okavango-le-dikwena-dithlare-and-more/ Ok quick recap. I haven’t blogged for about a week and a bit, and a lot more has happened than all my weeks here I think. So here we go. I’ll try to compress it in small bits. Last week we had the profs and staff of the Desire project with us to help us, (or rather the other way around). All of us went and picked up cow dung to measure the weight, to get a ‘feel’ of how much an average kraal would produce. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/07/04/mopipi/ Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:12:22 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/07/04/mopipi/ This is now the second week already that I have spent in this place. It is quite an interesting place as you can see from the pictures I’ve uploaded. Very salty, dry, windy, at times cold and desolate. People are friendly most of the time and I’ve made some friends. Next week I will be doing something else than household surveys, which is a relief. It is quite boring to go to 140 households and ask the same questions over and over again. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/06/26/lekgoa-lekgoa/ Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:32:20 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/06/26/lekgoa-lekgoa/ Last Monday I arrived in Mopipi after a 7 hour journey. This is the village I am doing my research in. The house I am staying in is really nice. Mercy, my assistant is renting a room there. The in situ room left a little corner for me. There is a bathroom with running (drinking) water. Even hot water! Mercy has a tv and a fridge (yes, there is electricity). So we have a bit more luxury to retreat to after doing the household surveys. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/06/13/botlhale/ Sat, 13 Jun 2009 10:56:14 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/06/13/botlhale/ After being here 3 weeks (today is the start of my fourth week in the South), I thought it’d be good to give another update. This week marks the start of my real ‘field’ research. The previous two weeks of staying in Gaborone were weeks of article reading and enhancing (read: writing anew) my proposal. Actually I was planning to leave for Mopipi on Monday. However, there are always unexpected changes in this world. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/06/03/ga-pula/ Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:27:03 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/06/03/ga-pula/ Thursday last I arrived in Gaborone, Botswana after a 7 hour busride through an extraordinary landscape, with shrubs, small trees and yellowish grass as far as the eye can see. A bouquet of dryland vegetation and rock formations passed us by. Beauty is something that is embedded into our wonderful planet earth. Gaborone or Gabz is quite a new city. Don’t expect old architecture like you see in Windhoek or Cape Town. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/05/27/motoro/ Wed, 27 May 2009 19:22:51 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/05/27/motoro/ Last Saturday I arrived in South Africa. The first thing I did after going through customs is renting a car. As lekker as it is to have my own mode of transportation, I struggled a bit with driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. The first few drives were a bit shaky. After a while I got the hang of it. The first day I went to Kempton Park to visit a friend of mine. https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/05/07/domela/ Thu, 07 May 2009 22:00:15 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/05/07/domela/ In the preparations for my trip, I find that slowly but gradually the stress, of the things needed to be done, starts to pile upon me. As for now I am trying to give my self a crash course in Setswana, the official language of the Batswana. But as with all things in life this is way harder than anticipated. Way harder. If I would like to say cup of coffee, it is not that difficult: kopi kofi (sounds a lot like the dutch). https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/04/19/going/ Sun, 19 Apr 2009 23:33:03 +0000 https://fritzvd.com/blog/2009/04/19/going/ I am actually going. And not long from now. This blog will keep you updated on my happy adventures in Southern Africa over the coming months.