Good coffee!

Last Sunday I had a nice cup of coffee after breakfast. The message on the cup called my attention. 

I usually drink black tea at home, I like tea quite a lot, but nothing beats the smell of good coffee in the morning.

An internet internet radio

When I was younger I spent many many hours listening to the BBC World service and Absolute radio. The problem was that it was very difficult to tune in stations due to the distance. 

Now almost all the content is broadcast on the internet which makes it easier to listen to stations from all over the world. 

Using a regular receiver is becoming very impractical, so I got an internet radio that uses wifi to connect to the world. It is absolutely fantastic. My life has changed a little bit to the better.

I bought it through the internet, that is why I call it an internet internet radio. 

UPDATE (11-01-21): I still think the radio set is fantastic but every one or two weeks it fails to connect to the wifi, So I have to turn it off and on and everything works just fine again. I know that turning it off and on is a fairly poor debugging strategy but it just works. 

Dark cloud up ahead

A cloud made of super noisy birds

Screenshot of the week 14

And to think that the movie starts with Mulan chasing a hen... and ends up with the Phoenix backing her up is so super

.

 This is a screenshot of Mulan (the movie) taken with smplayer. 

Caterpillar

I had never seen a caterpillar so big in my life. It is huge. I found it on an olive tree this morning. This afternoon I checked whether it was stiil there and I found a second one. 

I cannot help wondering whether they are male and female. If it is true, I might end up having hundreds of them. I hope they don't eat tomatoes. Or they will ruin my harvest ;)

 

Screenshot of the week 13

Last night I finished watching one of the tv shows I enjoyed the most in my life. That is Terminator. The Sarah Connor Chronicles  The plot is great, the script is awesome and the actors are extraordinary.

I laughed so much with this one dialog between John and Derek (copied from wikiquote):

Derek Reese: Remind me again, why are the boys out here and the girls in there?

John Connor: Because one of the boys is still wanted for murder, and one of the girls is harder than nuclear nails...

Derek Reese: And the other one's a cyborg.

I know it was first aired a long time ago but I didn't have the chance to watch it until recently. Every afternoon I arrived home waiting to watch the next chapter.

I am a huge fan of the film franchise and I must admit that it helped me understand the events in the series much better. And guess what, the series finale is just awesome. I wasn't expecting anything like that, but it is a fantastic ending.

I took a great screenshot with smplayer (by pressing "s") of the final part of chapter 2x19 (there are 22 chapters in the second season) in which you can see the three main characters in a row. WOW what a great picture: Sarah Connor, John Connor and Cameron. I hope you like it.

And remember: "Come with me if you want to live" :)

Doggo drinking milk series

I made the doggo drinking series for a friend of mine. I've got another series named "Other dogs watching as the doggo is drinking milk"

Doggo drinking milk 1

Doggo drinking milk 2

Doggo drinking milk 3

Doggo drinking milk 4

Doggo drinking milk 5

Rita

Today I adopted a stray dog. Her name is Rita. It is a pun on "perrita" (little she dog)

Giant tomato seeds

I finally could go out to the shop and buy some giant tomato seeds. On the downside, I will have to wait until next February until I can sow them. It is too late now.  (I was unable to get them before due to lockdown.)

Mowing the lawn

Strawberries and carrots

Lovely to grow your own food. I also picked up some broad beans I forgot to picture. 

Luc 1 year

Birthday 2020 and counting...

Last night I got a lawn mower as a present given to myself. I have never had one before and I felt like having one. I must say it is fantastic and really really fast. I could only try it for half an hour or so but I am very happy.

The problem is that there is not a lot of grass since we are in the middle of the rain season (April) but the grass is starting to grow fast now.

 Anyway the results are great :)

And meanwhile... life goes on

This morning I discovered hundreds of newborn baby spiders in the garden. What a beautiful sight. No doubt life goes on.

cpulimit YAIT (Yet Another Impressive Tool)

One of the truly impressive tools I discovered this week is cpulimit. It allows you to limit how much cpu percentage a process can use. It is specially indicated when running cpu intensive applications. In my case it is 'ffmpeg'.                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                       
I use 'ffmpeg' on a daily basis to convert my .avi videos to .mp4. I often run the script at night with cron.daily but the problem arises when I need to run it during the day. Here comes cpulimit to the rescue:

 $ cpulimit -e ffmpeg -l 800 -b

Here is a quick explanation:
 -e ffmpeg (the process to limit)
 -l 800 (I have 16 cores: 800 = 50%)
 -b Run cpulimit in the background to free the terminal

Really impressive (and handy).

Lockdown

Due to the propagation of the covid-19 virus we are not allowed to leave home for a month except to go to work, which is rather ironic, sarcastic I'd even say.

I can go to work and be in touch with hundreds of people every single day of the week being exposed to contagion and however I cannot go to the kitchen garden and be there alone without any chance of getting the virus.

This is Spain man, too many senseless laws.

Nevermind, to pass the time I am doing things at home, like taking care of my tomato plants, which I will hopefully plant after Easter.

Happy lockdown

Happily growing

The tomato seeds I sowed three weeks ago are happily growing. I am really proud of myself.

Getting ready for the Springtime

January is traditionally the coldest month in the area where I live. Reaching 19 ºC is pretty unusual. Should I begin to worry?

Anyway last week I was busy planting two almond trees and sowing tomatoes. In April I will sow the lawn. I already bought the seed a couple of weeks ago.