I upgraded my Acer laptop from kubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 some weeks ago, and since them I was having lot of problems, some minor ones, but other actually serious: random hangs, devices that dissapear (specially sound ones but also wifi), and returns again after next reboot, keyboard that does not work anymore, etc.
This morning my patiente runs out after about half of an hour trying to boot the system with everything working without success, so I decide to do a fresh install of 9.10, as sometimes in the past I’ve had problems also with direct upgrades.
Everything was working fine until I installed nvidia drivers, then everything started to fail again.
I’ve no more time to spent with that and actually I do not need to have 9.10 if I can have a 9.04 working as I did. So I simply reinstall 9.04 from its CD.
Now I’ve a strong and stable system AGAIN.
The lesson it’s a classic: if it works, dont fix it. But we forget it from time to time…
I’ve started today with Tekki Shodan kata. It seems not difficult, as there’s just a movement a bit complicated. The kata seems to be quite short, and the second part is the first one “mirrored”.
I’ve found next execution more original than those more classic from sensei kanazawa, that I used to publish here, so I published this instead.
Yesterday I passed my examination for orange belt easily at my karate dojo. My Sensei told me that “If you continue training so hard, you’ll soon remove me from my post.” He also said that I did it with real kime, that’s really good. So I’m very happy with the results.
My exam consisted in some theory questions, some basical movements: displacements, kicks, punches and defenses, and Heian Sandan kata. I correctly answered nine of the ten theory questions, and I did fail just on the name of Funakoshi’s son: Yoshitaka. On the kata my kokutsu dachi is still far to be perfect. So I’ll work on it next training days.
It was a little embarassing because the other guy that did the exam with me, for blue belt in his case, was very criticized by Sensei because he didn’t a good exam. Despite this, he give him the blue belt anyway, but as a Senpai told me in our way to home, he’ll have serious problems to get the black belt in the future if he wants. Anyway I think he do not mind a bit about that…
My wife has had a bad sickness and was on the hospital for a month. Now she’s at home after a complex surgery and he’s recovering fine, although may be she must medicate herself for life.
I’ve also started to prepare myself to study Political Sciences at UNED. First, I must pass one course of access to demonstrate that I can succesfully tackle the university course itself. I’m having minor problems with maths since I’ve worked during years as computer engineer, and not too much with “Introduction to Political Sciencies” since I found it really interesting, but I’m having problems with other subjects like “Spanish Language”, even when I’ve studied practically all subject’s units in primary and secondary school, because I didn’t practice none on that so they looks as very new -and booooring- for me. So I’m dedicating most of my study time to “Spanish Language”.
I’ve also “Sociology”, but I didn’t actually started with it: I did just read first 50 pages of ~500, and I found it at same time interesting and complicated, although I’ve not enough data yet to say something categorical.
I’ve also an “English” subject, that I think I’ll be able to pass without problems, even when my english is not very good for writting and talking, it’s good enough for understanding a text, that’s basically which they demand on the exam.
Other subject is “Textual Analysis”. It’s just what it looks like: they’ll give you a text and you should make an analysis of its main and secondary ideas, a good abstract and write your opinion about it. I’ve done that lot of times through Internet pages, so I think it’ll be not a problem neither.
BTW, I’ll promote to karate’s orange belt next 29th. The “problem” with my dojo it’s that they do just two exam dates, one on January and another on July, so I couldn’t reach orange belt before. I hope they let me get those belts that need more than six months of preparation in just six months, at least blue and brown.
Last friday I started to train Heian Godan, this is the last Heian kata. Afther this, we’ll pass to Tekki Shodan. But now, it’s still time to learn Heian Godan with sensei Kanazawa:
A very important piece on modern automobiles is the differential, that’s needed to keep wheels running at different speeds when turning around the corner. But most people does not know how it works. I’ve seen lots of explanations, but nothing as simple and as good as this one, older than 50 years but still perfect.
I’ve added it spanish subtitles before publishing on youtube, that may be useful for those spanish and latinos whose does not dominate english.
I’ve recently upgraded my kubuntu distribution from 8.10 to 9.04. I spent sometime tweaking somethings that works in a differente manner now and so. One of these things was the printer, an HP PhotoSmart 5180C connected by ethernet that stops working.
After many hours broken my head agaistn the keyboard, I’ve found that the real problem was the router D-Link DSL-G524T again, that couldn’t find better time to get broken.
In fact, the four port ethernet switch of the router was not working fine. Of course I’ve tested network connection before using ping, but just with two or three packages as I was clearly convinced that there should be a software problem as the printer was working fine on 8.10 but not on 9.04… Finally I did send a bunch of ICMP packages using ping and notice that 1/4 aprox. of them was lost.
Fortunately I’ve kept an older hub on the closet, and I notice that with this one everything works fine.
On July, 4th we found a seagull wounded in the left wing. We call local authorities through emergency number, but we wait for an hour in the place the gull was warning drivers about the presence of the animal, to avoid they run over the gull with their cars. Finally, we decide to search a box and put the seagull inside. We carry it to a local aquarium (this one) as we know they often take care of sea animals, but it seems like they just accept protected species and this is no the case.
We decide to come home with the seagull and treat it, but we realize that we cannot cure it until he could fly, so we call emergency number again and after several calls to the same number and some discussions, they finally told us that we should carry the seagull to a comissary and wait there for a person that will take charge of it, so we did it. We wait more than an hour again on commisary, but finally this person comes and tooks the seagull.
Yesterday I did get my yellow belt. I’ve obtained 9 of 10 on the exam. I did Heian Shodan, Heian Nidan, Heian Sandan and Heian Yondan. I had some minor problems with Nidan and Sandan, because I’m not used to do it in front of so many people.
Honestly, I’m a bit dissapointed. I was not sure about, but I thought that as my level is clearly superior than the one needed for a yellow, my sensei would consider to promote me to orange instead. He even told me after the exam that I have more than enough level for yellow belt, so…
Anyway, I’ll continue working. Even more, the spanish federation demands to have been federated for at least four years to gain access for the oficial exam of black belt, and if I could promote to a new obi every six months, I’ll be brown belt on two years from now, and since I’ve been federated for less than six months, I’ll need to wait many time with brown belt before promoting to black one. So, there’s no rational reason for being in a hurry with this.
