Rhapsody in GNU

My first ever carrot cake:

Edit: Here is the carrot cake recipe (fr) I used.

I've been experimenting with a new recipe for my bentō this week: caramelised fish.

First I marinate it in a mix of shoyu, mirin, sugar and sesame seeds:

Then I cook it on a very hot pan:

Makes for a very tasty source of proteins for my lunch. The idea comes from a book I bought recently, the excellent "mes petits bento (fr)" from the talented Laure Kié.

And once the fish is done, I mix the marinade with two eggs and make a very tasty omelette, which will be my source of proteins the following day :) Simple and tasty recipes for a bentō, what more could I ask for?

I've just seen advertised a photography workshop (25 days!) in Antarctica. And almost affordable (just a little bit more expensive than the 17 days workshop in Patagonia I've enrolled for). It's gonna be real tough resisting the urge...

Those of you who know me, know I often prepare a lunchbox in a more-or-less Japanese style. Seems like you wonder what exactly I put in my bento box, so I've decided to try and document that a bit.

This first bento post will be a very simple and quickly put together one. I'll try and make better ones if there's any interest.

So, this is was tomorrow's lunch (I usually fill the box in the evening because I don't want to get up earlier to do it in the morning) looks like for me:

In the upper container is some rice with carrot leaves on the left and grated carrots and courgettes on the right. The lower container is filled with potato patties, sautée'd bell peppers, mushrooms and onions and finally a few cherry tomatoes (which should give you an idea of how big the box is, i.e. not very big).

That's it for today. Next time I'll give you a bit more info. Possibly some better pictures too.

No news lately because I've been busy with work but I've just received my new toy:

And here are my first shots with it. Nothing fancy, I just wanted to test the ergonomics. And you know what, so far I'm pleased with it.

Having been a member of the Free Software "world" for over ten years, I was very much aware of the possibility for people scattered all over the world to work together on a project. The Net being the great communication tool it is, a lot can be achieved by people who have never met in person. This works really well for software, which often doesn't require that people work together on something at the same time but it works in other fields too. I've heard of several such examples in the movie world, with amateurs making amazingly good productions, each working on a small piece of the project from the comfort of his or her own home. One could cite two shorts made using Blender, the 3d software package: Elephant's Dream and Big Buck Bunny. Or Star Wars: Revelations, a fan film whose special effects were made by artists from different countries. I had also heard of musicians working on a song, each recording his or her part separately in different locations (again, possibly even in different countries), the tracks being later mixed together to get a completed piece of music.

But this is the first time I've heard of choral music made this way. And the result ain't bad either. Sure, the Internet is not going to replace "real world" interactions and I'd much rather listen to a real choir performing live than this. But this sounds (bad pun intended) like a successful experiment to me. What do you think?

Welcome back to Japan. Today, we're gonna visit the Meiji shrine, a very large shrine in the middle of Tōkyō, dedicated to late emperor Meiji and his wife.

I've finally added a copyright notice (check out the footer), thereby making everything here available under the very liberal cc-by-sa (Attribution-Share Alike) license. It basically means you can do more or less whatever you like with the content here, as long as you mention my name (that's the "by"/"Attribution" part) and don't restrict others in their use of what you've made using my work (the "sa"/"Share Alike" part).

So, for example, you could create a composite picture using one (or several) of my photographs and a photograph of your own but if you distribute the result, it has to be under a license that will let others use it in a similar way.

Do note however that while it would be perfectly legal for you to use my photographs in a commercial work without asking for my permission first, you would probably need a signed model release to use any of my "people" shots. Do your homework before you get into trouble.

Oh and one last point: if you require higher resolution versions (and you probably do if you'd like to print them), I can provide them. But we'll have to talk about the licensing details for those.

Any question?

Edit: It goes without saying that while you're not required to inform me if you use my work, I would appreciate if you did.

I'm now trying a new photo album feature. I'm currently using it only on the latest photo post. You'll notice a new link ("see the gallery") is now displayed under the post on the main page and a few pictures from the album are visible inside the post itself. Clicking on any of those pictures will open the album and if you have not disabled javascript, you can look at them all in a slideshow-like window. I haven't activated the actual slideshow because I don't like automatic viewing, but if you'd like that, I can add it.

Anyway, please tell me how well it works for you.

Another day, another (much smaller) set of pictures from Japan. This time, it's a couple of night shots of the Yokohama International Passenger Terminal a.k.a. Ōsanbashi Pier.