Summer in the city, medical news, Fuji-san and the Lens Dilemma

1. The rainy season has given way to summer in Japan, and while the humidity has lessened somewhat, the heat is, as the song goes, on. Last Thursday saw temperatures hit the mid 30s, and this week the daytime temperature has not been less than 32C, which makes for a hot and sweaty time in a shirt and tie.

2. The hot weather has been causing some health problems for a few people as well: heat exhaustion, sleeping problems and loss of appetite were a common theme. I’ve been suffering from sleeping problems and general fatigue this last week, though I certainly have not lost my appetite. That should come as no surprise to those who know me.

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“I think it’s fair to say we were not dealing with a great criminal mind here”

1. Wow.

Donald Ray Bilby, 30, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Trenton to one count of false information and hoaxes after he sent five letters demanding authorities deposit $20,000 in his county jail inmate account because he needed money for bail, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Citizen Journalism, CNN video feeds online, and I’m up too late again

1. I’m currently watching CNN Pipeline (which totally kicks arse, and it’s a bargain at $2.95 per month), with Tony Snow (Secret Service codename: Snowjob) spinning something about why the US isn’t doing more to stop the fighting in Lebanon. He’s full of shit, but he seems an improvement on the last guy.

2. Before this though, CNN was covering the movements of Ashley Marinaccio, an American university student that was stuck in Lebanon up until a day ago. She has been evacuated now, and no doubt attracted the attention of CNN through a comment she posted on a CNN blog. Pretty crazy stuff. I haven’t found a link to her blog yet. Here’s the link to her blog.

Peter Debnam: Stupid Name, Bad Politician

1. Peter Debnam, you are no John Howard. Seriously, leave social engineering for those in your party that are actually good at it. From the Herald:

Mr Debnam said in yesterday’s Herald that there were “200 Middle Eastern thugs” in Sydney connected with revenge attacks on beachside suburbs after the Cronulla riots in December.

If elected next year, “at dawn … on the 25th of March, my instruction to the police commissioner will be to take as many police as you need and charge them with anything to get them off the streets”, he said.

2. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt, and interpret this as a clumsy way to manipulate the stupid and the ignorant. I sincerely hope that the leader of a major State political party was not idiotic enough to seriously consider ordering police to arrest people based on racial profiles. Really, doesn’t he have a PR guy?

3. Even better though, here’s the Police response:

But Assistant Commissioner Graeme Morgan said that could not happen. “Fortunately we live in a society that is guided by the rule of law,” Mr Morgan told 2UE.

4. Touche.

WriteRoom / Dark Room

1. I never realised how much visual clutter there was on my desktop, and how much it affected my writing, until now: thanks to a great bit of software called WriteRoom (OS X only, Windows users can try Dark Room, which does pretty much the same thing. I use it on my VAIO.) Such a simple idea — remove everything that could cause distraction, leave only the most important things behind. In this case, it’s just you and the words. Nothing else. It’s brilliant! It basically turns your computer into a typewriter, albeit one which lets you edit as well as type. You have a blank background with nothing but type. You choose the colour, the font, the size of the font and the length of a line. That’s it. The rest is up to you.

2. What’s even better is that WriteRoom also lets you install scripts and plugins that extend it’s features. I have scripts that, with the appropriate keyboard command (which you can choose), will do a word count, or send it to my email client. The company keeps a section of the forum for users to submit their own scripts, so other users can use and abuse as they see fit. And, best of all, the program is freeware.

3. This is what I love most about using a Mac. It’s not just the shiny hardware and pretty software from Apple, but the great user and developer community. I’m sure there are great programs for Windows as well, but they’re really hard to find. Most programs I find useful on Windows has a user interface that doesn’t just look like an afterthought, but rather a no-thought. But Mac developers seem to care about what their software looks like as well as how it functions. I like that. Aesthetics matter an awful lot in UI design — people work better in nice looking places.

4. Anyway, rant over, have a look for yourself — I’ll bet you’ll dig it as much as I do.

Wacky Japan, 18th July ‘06

1. Welcome to the first of hopefully many irregularly updated editions of Wacky Japan, where I bring you images of things that should probably stay away from the Internet. So first off:

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Intel on a different kind of front line

1. An unintended consequence of building a design centre in an area of the world for which stability is a very fluid concept, Intel now has more than just AMD gunning after them. Intel’s Haifa design centre is within range of Hezbollah strikes, the most recent of which led to 8 Israeli deaths and 17 wounded at the local train depot. From the MacWorld article:

Responding to the Home Front Command’s orders, essential employees are working inside protected areas at Intel’s development center while others work from bomb shelters near their home. “The protective shelters in Haifa are equipped with wireless connections and all Intel employees have laptops, so that hasn’t affected work,� Bahar said.

2. How crazy would it be if you were the person responsible for planning and running a campus in a part of the world that carries such high risks? What would that meeting have been like? This might sound a little off-topic, but while many people complain about the high salaries senior business executives are paid (and they’re probably right about a lot of them), I’d want to get paid an awful lot to shoulder that sort of responsibility.

3. I wonder what working from a bomb shelter would be like?

Humidity, Plague, TV and The Elusive Otherworld of Thought

1. Mushi Atsui! That’s what the Japanese call humid. And boy, it’s humid right now. Going outside is much like going to a sauna, and to do even the slightest bit of excercise (say, like walking to the shops) means you’re taking a shower — fully clothed and in your own sweat. I feel like a boiled sweet, only salty. Mmmm. Boiled salts.

2. I was going away for the weekend this weekend, but unfortunatly the girlfriend contracted some virulent strain of the flu which has left her bedridden with 40 degree fevers. Her temperature is bouncing around like a yo-yo, from 40 to normal to 39 back to normal; needless to say she’s staying at home, in bed, and mostly sleeping.

3. There seems to be an awful lot of people I know that is sick with something over the last week. One of my co-workers has had a cold for a while, another teacher suffered heatstroke, a few of my students have had bouts of something which hopefully I haven’t caught, and I’ve had trouble with hayfever and asthma. Even my ezcema has gone a bit nuts lately, which is stranger because it’s usually dry weather that causes it, not super humidity. Then again, I’ve never lived for so long in super humidity, so maybe I just discovered yet another facinating side to my allergies. Oh, to be boring and allergy-less.

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170,000 Reasons

1. I guess Japan was always gonna be trouble for me, with my weakness for gadgets and the superlative-inducingly high density of gadget-per-square-metre that is contemporary Japan, one should not be so shocked to hear that I dropped a fat stack of the Yens on a new gadget.

2. This time, it the new Sony VAIO UX50, a proper full function PC that just so happens to be the size of an old cassette Walkman and weighs just half a kilo. It packs a punch as well, with built in Bluetooth, 802.11a/b/g, ethernet, two cameras, fingerprint scanner, backlit keyboard (which totally blows, but it’s better than not having one at all), built in MemoryStick and CF slot, 4in widescreen touchscreen display, and docking station. It’s powered by an Intel Core solo U1300, has 512mb of RAM and 30Gb hard drive. Not that exciting, but did I mention that it weighed a shade over half a kilo?

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Nintendo gives the the gift that will (hopefully) keep America from doing more stupid things.

1. I’d be happy even if this was a hoax, but it seems Nintendo has slyly boxed up a treat for Dubya’s 60th Birthday — a nice letter, a spankin’ new DS Lite and a copy of Brain Age. From the letter:

Don’t worry, turning 60 is an exciting milestone. As you know, you’ve joined millions of other baby boomers in an invigorating new decade of your life. And, like many boomers, you may be looking for ways to keep your mind sharp. That’s where we come in.

2. Keep the mind sharp, eh? Just how did Nintendo fit a pitchfork in that DS Lite?