The Klog - Krystof Litomisky's personal website and blog
A friend of mine got engaged recently, and when I visited him and his fiancee, they asked me probing questions about kids. How does it change things? Is it worth it? Do you lose all your time? I remember asking those same kinds of questions when my wife and I first started seriously contemplating having kids. In general, the answers I got were very positive - yes, it’s absolutely worth it. They…
I don’t have a lot to say here other than that Astro and I both agree that mountain biking is a great way to start the day: LADWP has been trying to close the trails at Haines Canyon due to prodding by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California State Water Resources board. Here’s hoping they all take a step back and do what Astro suggests and work with the community to find…
In elementary school, each student in my class made a bookmark under the careful direction of our teacher. Were they each a unique artistic expression of the child who made it? No. They were very simple: just two columns going down, with spaces for a date and a signature. We were to take these home every day, and our parents were to add the date and their signature when we read with them on that…
When I was growing up in Czechia, there was exactly one TV channel, unimaginatively called “Czech TV”. When there was anything even remotely interesting on it, you and all your friends watched it. Later that same public broadcaster added a second channel (“Czech TV 2”), but that was more of the same, now with more soccer games. The big shift came when we finally got the first public broadcaster,…
Twelve years after first setting foot in Japan I made it back (this time with Stephanie!), and the country and its people charmed me all over again. We spent a great two weeks in Japan We visited Tokyo, Jigokudani, Kyoto, hiked on the Kumano Kodo, finally spent a lazy few days on the Izu Peninsula. Hiking the ancient pilgrimage route on the Kumano Kodo was particularly special, so I made that a…
We hiked the Kumano Kodo! The Kumano Kodō is a series of ancient pilgrimage routes that crisscross the Kii Peninsula. These mountainous trails are used by pilgrims to the … Three Grand Shrines of Kumano: Kumano Hongū Taisha, Kumano Nachi Taisha and Kumano Hayatama Taisha… It has been visited by pilgrims seeking healing and salvation as a site of religious significance for over a thousand years.…
Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans by Michaeleen Doucleff Goodreads Many of the things we take to be the “right” way to raise kids (at least in western civilization) are in fact contrary to how humans have been raising kids through our history. Examples of this include toys, worrying about “self-esteem”, and praising…
In the summer of 2023, I was invited to give a talk to the students in SuperTech FT, the STEM education non-profit, about compute hardware for robotics and autonomous vehicles. Here’s a recording of that talk: I discussed the evolution of both software and hardware for robotics and autonomous vehicles, the different paradigms of CPU vs GPU programming, where robots have been successful and where…
Two weeks ago, the team at Ecogate unveiled the 2023 greenBOX NXT , the new state of the art for control of industrial dust, mist, and fume collection systems. Boasting powerful industrial hardware and a modern software architecture, this unit can effortlessly handle industrial ventilation systems throughout an entire factory. With improved measurements of ventilation values, pressures, air…
A cacophony of sounds. Quick images, hard to decypher. What is that? Forest. Jungle. Narrow roads. An old woman smiles. Something is wrong. I was somewhere, doing something. I was excited about it. Why can’t I put it all together? Suddenly I snap to, deep breath in. An old man squats in front of me, looking me in the eyes. He’s worried. I am sitting on the side of a narrow road, deep in a jungle…