Archive for June, 2006

Oh, Happiness

Wednesday, June 28th, 2006

A couple of weeks ago I had a fairly major crash on my mac, due (I believe) to some beta software I ran from Unsanity. A nasty involuntary hard reboot, and since then, I’ve had some strange disk problems .. inexplicable finder beachballs, for example, when listing certain folders, and an inability to trash certain files.

Disk Utility reported errors on the drive.

Well, I’d been ignoring that, not wanting to rock the boat too much. But after a particularly bad Finder delay today (about 5 minutes to list a folder), I decided to play it safe and go and repair it from the MacOSX install DVD. I had a funny feeling, though, and considered taking a backup .. but I only had 1 DVDR left, and I was hoping to use that for something else, so didn’t. Hell, if it couldn’t fix it, it would leave it alone, right?

I did, however, quickly zap a few of my working folders across to my ipod, which was plugged in at the time .. just in case. I had a nervous feeling, you see, which I was doing my best to ignore.

Anyway, I proceeded to boot off the OSX disk. All was well as I went into Disk Utility. Tried to repair the drive. It failed. Tried again. Failed. The error related to “invalid node structure”, a catalog-related problem I’ve actually seen before, so it was almost a relieve it wasn’t bad blocks or anything like that. Tried, failed, a few more times.

Anyway, decided I’d give fsck a try. That also reported errors and refused to run. Ran it a few times without improvement .. decided it was not going to work. Gave disk utility one last shot, then decided to just live with it until some proper software for intel OSX came out.

Rebooted back into OSX. Got 10 seconds into boot, and the computer shuts off. Try again. Same thing. Try again. Same thing.

Booted back of the OSX disk. Now, the HD is not mounted and refuses to mount. Disk Utility cannot fix it, with the same errors. I don’t try fsck again as I no longer trust it to not touch the disk if it’s not actually fixing anything.

Anyway, the short version is my MacOSX intel machine is no longer bootable. And worse, there is a lot of data on that HD which is basically inaccessible. I am not really concerned about its safety – I am sure DiskWarrior will be able to retrieve it, but DiskWarrior will not run on any intel Mac.

I will soon buy a new HD to resurrect the machine, which should be fairly soon. But basically, it looks like I will be waiting for an intel release of DiskWarrior before I can access anything on that HD again. Apple’s Disk Utility is basically useless, and I don’t trust any other 3rd party software. To me, this is a gaping vulnerability for any intel Mac owner, and just goes to show .. backup, backup, backup.

If I hadn’t copied that folder to my iPod, I’d be totally fucked.

Posted in technology | No Comments »

Embarassment

Wednesday, June 21st, 2006

Today I really slammed my head into the top of the doorframe while getting off the Saikyou line at Ikebukuro. I usually don’t do it, but I was being pushed from behind – I had to get out to let all the other people past, then get back on. Anyway, this distraction meant I forgot about the door and .. wham.

RIGHT in front of this big group of schoolgirls! Perfect! Well, that gave them something to titter about. 痛いよ！

Posted in japan | 6 Comments »

Depths of Hell

Wednesday, June 21st, 2006

I went running for the first time in several years tonight. I am so unfit! Time to shape up a bit.

Oh my fucking god. I am dying .. no .. I wish I was dying

Kill me .. just kill me

Posted in lifestyle | No Comments »

A difference between westerners and asians

Sunday, June 18th, 2006

One of a very long list I know, but this one is obvious. Westerners (well me, anyway) do not have a special set of clothes for indoor wear. I make no distinction between “outside clothes” and “inside clothes”. I don’t wear a tracksuit in my house, I wear exactly what I’d be wearing outside my house. And if I did wear pyjamas, which I don’t, I’d put them on immediately before going to bed, and change quickly after waking up.

Asians seems to be different, they seem to have “house clothes”. I don’t know why, really. I thought it was because they wear pyjamas to bed because it’s cold .. but it’s not cold, it’s fricking hot, and they’re still wearing pyjamas.

So there you go, a genuine cultural difference. Can’t see myself ever adopting it. It will be a cold day in hell before I ever wear a tracksuit off the atheletics field, and I don’t care if anyone is there to see or not …

Posted in japan | 7 Comments »

KURENAI – X Japan

Friday, June 16th, 2006

I couldn’t look back, you’d gone away from me
I felt my heartache, I was afraid of following you
When I had looked at the shadows on the wall,
I started running into the night to find the truth in me

嵐吹くこの街がお前を抱く
吹き抜ける風にさえ目を閉じる
お前は走り出す
何かに終れるよう
俺が見えないのか？
直ぐ側にいるのに

人並に消えて行く記憶の吐息
愛のない一人部隊もうたえ切れない
All of you in my memory is still shining in my heart
擦れ違う心は溢れる涙に濡れ

紅に素まったこの俺を
慰める奴はもういない
もう二度と届かないこの思い
閉ざされた愛に向かい叫び続ける

お前は走り出す
何かに終れるよう
俺が見えないのか？
直ぐ側にいるのに

紅に素まったこの俺を
慰める奴はもういない
もう二度と届かないこの思い
閉ざされた愛に向かい叫び続ける

紅に素まったこの俺を
慰める奴はもういない
Oh, crying in deep red

Posted in lyrics | No Comments »

Django

Monday, June 12th, 2006

Stupid name, and not finished yet. But if this python framework lives up to the promise it seems to show, it could give RoR a serious run for its money. Then again, they’re both free .. isn’t life wonderful!

Recommend (Google is a well-know python fan) for an introduction to the story behind the framework. An interesting point from that video is how both RoR and Django were born from actual programming teams trying to solve actual real-world problems – far from the ivory-tower mentality of the Java and .NET ruling class.

Posted in programming, technology | 4 Comments »

Simply Awful

Monday, June 12th, 2006

It’s not often these days you come across a gem like this webpage.

Click the “english” link for some delightful information such as:

ad space

GOOD PLACE FOR
ADVERTISEMENT
　
WOULD YOU LIKE TO
MAKE AD IN THIS SPACE?

PLEASE CONTACT US THE
PRICE OF MAKE AD.

Posted in external reference | No Comments »

Another good kanji list

Sunday, June 11th, 2006

This time by topic.

Posted in japan | No Comments »

オーストラリアナムバーワン

Sunday, June 11th, 2006

That’s what I told the girl at the supermarket tonight when she asked if I was watching the soccer (probably presuming I was some kind of soccer-mad european). I told her that Australia was playing Japan tomorrow, and “Australia Number One”!!! And then repeated it a few times, just so she understood.

Her response? “わかりました。” That’s right!

Posted in japan | 1 Comment »

Listening to “Soldier”

Sunday, June 11th, 2006

No matter how shit life seems, no matter how impoverished or miserable you are, listening to Soldier by Globe while standing out on your balcony at 3am in Tokyo watching a helicopter fly lazy circles in the drizzling clouds of the balmy night air can’t help but make everything feel right in the world.

Posted in japan, music | No Comments »

American Freedom

Sunday, June 11th, 2006

America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you’ve lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn’t belong to you.

The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don’t care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.

Like most lefty sentiment, this specimen is long on complaint and short on solutions. Doesn’t make it untrue, though. Capitalism, like democracy, is the absolute worst way to run a society – except for everything else.

Posted in politics | 4 Comments »

New word

Sunday, June 11th, 2006

It’s not often that I happen across a word that I a) had never heard of before and b) is useful and describes a concept I often refer to. But I discovered such a word today, “scotomisation”, in this article from The Register, the best IT news site on the planet.

From the article:

“Scotomisation” is the psychological tendency in people to see what they want to see and not see what they don’t want to see

A very well-know phenomenon, but I have never heard of that word before. About its origin:

The term used in behavioral science is borrowed from the science of optics and ophthalmology. “Scotoma” is from the Greek word skotos (to darken) and means a spot on the visual field in which vision is absent or deficient.

Very useful. But a search for the word in Google gets a ridiculously low 41 results. Maybe it’s not a word after all.

Tags: New English Watch
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Album of the (financial) Year

Saturday, June 10th, 2006

Sorry, Globe. My album of the so-far-financial year is the excellent, excellent debut from Japanese girl hip-hop group Faith, entitled “Letter to the Future“.

Posted in music | 2 Comments »

False Advertising

Monday, June 5th, 2006

You know those books with titles like “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to SQL” or “CSS for beginners”? It’s all lies. They’re just lulling you into a false sense of security. About 3 pages into “The Complete Fucking Moron’s Guide To Writing Your Name” you realise that this book is, in fact, directed at a niche audience of giant hyperintelligent A.I.s whose other hobbies, besides laboriously working through the challenging tome in question, include calculating the value of pi to ten trillion digits in under a millisecond while ray-tracing the whole world in real-time and also accurately simulating evolution from molecule to Manhattan at the subatomic level.

Yada, as my charming East Asian hosts would say. I’m waiting for the book entitled “How to make a great-looking CSS web page .. By Magic” or perhaps “How to write a Great Program and Make A Million Dollars Without Actually Learning To Program” or let’s just cut to the chase: “How to Get Fabulously Rich Instantly Without Doing Anything At All or Even Buying This Book”.

Posted in programming | No Comments »

Worthless human trash

Saturday, June 3rd, 2006

All I can think when I read this post on some subhuman waste of space’s blogger account, all I can think of is how much better the world would be if someone just shot him.

What pathetic lives some people lead.

Posted in lifestyle | 8 Comments »

Be an Executioner

Thursday, June 1st, 2006

Liked this great quote from the book Getting Real by 37 Signals. If you’re making your living as an entrepreneurial programmer, or want to, it’s an interesting read, despite the unforgivably stupid name of the company who authored it.

It’s so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want me to sign an nda to tell me the simplest idea.)

To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier.

Execution is worth millions.

Explanation:
Awful idea = -1
Weak idea = 1
So-so idea = 5
Good idea = 10
Great idea = 15
Brilliant idea = 20

No execution = $1
Weak execution = $1000
So-so execution = $10,000
Good execution = $100,000
Great execution = $1,000,000
Brilliant execution = $10,000,000

To make a business, you need to multiply the two.

The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20. The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.

That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas. I’m not interested until I see their execution.

-Derek Sivers, president and programmer, CD Baby and HostBaby

Couldn’t agree more. The whole point of my forcing myself to learn Rails has been so I can efficiently, and quickly, implement some of my bigger ideas. Putting aside all pride and ego, how much are those ideas otherwise worth? I think Mr. Sivers is too generous; to me, the value of an idea not followed through on is a big fat zero.

Plenty of people with ideas in this world. Plenty of people with a whole bunch of world-changing visions who never act on them. And plenty of people with no ideas who just push out lame copies of anything else that was successful.

How many people with good ideas, and the drive and ability to actually get them done? Not very fucking many. Here’s to them.

Tags: Philosophy
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »