|
03:18 pm
[Link] |
Things that the upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10 broke
Ubuntu is now nearly on par with Debian for 'OS upgrade breaks random things':
- Wifi stopped working. Fix: uninstall network-manager and suddenly 'iwlist scan' can see my AP again (huh?)
- dual monitor setup stopped working. Fix: edit script to account for xrandr gratuitously changing the names of the screens from 'VGA' to 'VGA1' &c.
- .xsession doesn't get sourced on login any more, thereby breaking big chunks of my X setup. Fix: get rid of gdm and xfce4-session in favour of startx.
- custom keyboard layout broke. Fix: run setxkbmap in .xsession. I'm sure there's a better way, but keyboard configuration these days is a huge undocumented mess.
- Firefox flash plugin stopped working. Fix: dpkg-reconfigure flashplugin-installer and restart firefox.
- xfce panel button icon for firefox vanished. Fix: reconfigure (icon filename gratuitously changed, I think).
Disclaimer: I use xubuntu and do some non-standard things; people more in the mainstream may well see less breakage.
|
|
08:34 pm
[Link] |
random question for the masses
What's the right kind of pen for writing one's house number on the side of a wheelie bin?
|
|
10:37 pm
[Link] |
LDP 119 seats; DPJ 308
This is the first time since it was founded in 1955 that the LDP has been anything other than the largest party (and the first time other than a brief hiatus in 1993/94 they've been out of power). A DPJ victory has seemed inevitable for some time (the LDP has run through a succession of hopeless leaders in the space of a few years), but I wasn't too sure we were going to get a landslide.
The interesting question in my opinion is whether the DPJ are going to be able to follow through on their aims of yanking back power from the bureaucracy, or whether there's a transition to a phase where the majority party varies between LDP and DPJ while the bureaucrats (who are always in power) get to consolidate their position.
Still, an election victory is always a nice birthday present :-)
|
|
01:12 pm
[Link] |
UL
I went and applied for admission to the University Library today (it seemed silly not to, given that it's a legal deposit library with a decent collection of Japanese material, and Cambridge MAs get borrowing rights).
I never actually got round to going to the UL when I was an undergraduate (for maths the lecture notes and college library were sufficient, is my excuse), so it was the first time I'd been inside. It's very oddly proportioned: the front entrance is large and grand, but a lot of the stairways and rooms round the back are small, or large but low-ceilinged, or just dingy. But as I was sitting in North Wing 5, with a cool breeze blowing in through the open window and a view out over the UL rooftops to the trees beyond, I found myself thinking how pleasant it would be to spend one's days sitting here reading, researching, and occasionally just staring out the window...
|
|
08:35 pm
[Link] |
a scanner darkly
I see that manga publishers are getting sufficiently exercised about the scanlation phenomenon that there's
an article in the Yomiuri about it. (Good news for anybody involved -- suing people outside Japan is apparently "not a realistic option", so you can sleep easy :-)).
This reminded me of something Matt Thorn says in passing in one of his articles about the advent of the trade-paperback manga in the 70s:
After being serialized in such anthology magazines Shôjo Comic or Ribbon, individual manga stories were now compiled into paperback form. This new format did not simply prove popular: it became the raison d'être of manga publishing. Publishers had always earned their profit from advertising in and sales of magazines, but now they turned entirely to the paperbacks and hardcovers for their profits, and the magazines were transformed into elaborate and popular ads for those books. Literally none of the top-selling manga magazines today makes a profit, nor is any expected to.
Assuming this is true, it ought to be fairly easy for the publishers to transition from "weekly magazines that make a loss but generate paperback sales" to "websites that make a loss but ...". And indeed the tail end of the Yomiuri piece suggests moves in this direction.
(All my manga is legit, but then the Japanese originals are much cheaper than the officially translated volumes :-))
|
|
08:27 pm
[Link] |
what a palaver
I'd forgotten how much of a pain it was to replace the front inner tube on the Twenty; I'd much rather have rear punctures than front ones...
(The culprit was that classic, the wet fragment of glass.)
|
|
09:09 pm
[Link] |
cycling: northern villages
I went out on a bike ride this evening, something I haven't done for ages (apart from commuting). When I was in Reading and anime night was out in Tadley I had a weekly 12-miles-each-way ride; these days I find that without the incentive to do at least one reasonable length ride a week (regardless of weather, tiredness, mood, etc) I don't actually get round to it very often...
Anyway, tonight's ride was a circle round some of the villages north of Cambridge:
out to Fen Ditton-Waterbeach-Landbeach-Cottenham-Oakington-Girton and back in again, for just over 19 miles in total. The sun was still out but the temperature had dropped off nicely and there was a bit of a breeze; really nice cycling weather. Not too much traffic either.
|
02:20 pm
[Link] |
summer anime
So, summer season of anime's started, and hashihime has
the
usual roundup/summaries. What better way to spend the summer weekends than skulking indoors in the shade watching anime until the temperature drops back to a more habitable range?
These are the ones I thought looked interesting (ie where I've seen one episode
and liked it enough to want to watch more):
- Aoi Hana: from the director of Honey & Clover; "school-life comedy-drama", says hashihime; ep1 was more drama than comedy.
- Taishou Yakyuu Musume: 1920s Japanese schoolgirls start to play baseball.
Think Princess Nine in the Taishou era. Yeah, it's a sports anime, but on the other hand, 1920s Japan. I'm trusting the initial burst-into-song bit will not turn out to be a permanent feature...
- Spice & Wolf: hurrah, a second series of the wolf-goddess-and-mediaeval-merchant anime.
I watch it for the economics.
- Saki: OK, this one's from Spring; "yuri moe sports anime about mah jong".
I'm watching it for the fantastically cheesy CGI mah-jong game sequences, honest.
(They don't go easy on viewers who don't know the rules, incidentally.)
(Speaking of the Taishou era, I just stumbled across news of ABe's latest project Despera, which if we're lucky might turn out to be a sort of steampunk Lain.)
|
|
05:42 pm
[Link] |
Hmph
Apparently there's some new Azumanga Daioh manga out in Japan... One blogger reckoned it was sort of Azu Daioh in the style of Yotsuba; hmm. Also for some reason half the blogs I've read remark that the new stuff has punctuation characters in the dialogue text...
Annoyingly, it looks like the only way to get the new strips is to buy the whole series again in its new reissue which has all the old stuff, in some cases redrawn (rehashed? :-)). The "pay us all over again!" effect is rather like a "director's cut" DVD...
Couple of sample new strips in this blog post, which (like most of the other links) will be of most interest to the 2.5 readers who read Japanese.
update: couple of old-vs-new comparison frames here.
|
|
04:43 pm
[Link] |
anybody want some car-related stuff?
I have some bits and pieces still lurking around the house from having sold the car, which I obviously don't need any more; anybody interested in any of them?
The main thing is a battery charger (Halfords "fully automatic"). This is 38 quid new and is only six months old or so. Any offers?
I also have:
- a full or nearly-full bottle of tesco's conc. screenwash
- a half bottle of 15W40 oil
- a bit less than half a litre of antifreeze
If anybody wants these they are welcome to them as it saves me having to work out how to dispose of them properly...
|
|
11:25 pm
[Link] |
should have built up an immunity
From the Yomiuri Shimbun:
MITO--A senior police officer at Mito Police Station who fell asleep after drinking tea laced with sleeping pills, allowing a suspect to escape Friday, reportedly accepted a request from the suspect during questioning to exchange tea cups and drink at the same time, it was learned Monday.
Naoto Tsuge, 24, who had been arrested on suspicion of an attempted theft, asked the 30-year-old officer for the two of them to drink their tea in one gulp, according to sources.
Bet you thought that old switch-the-cups routine never worked!
|
|
07:11 pm
[Link] |
Cambridge -> Capel
Since it didn't look like it was going to rain, and I'd more or less shaken off the cold that's been dogging me this week, I decided to cycle to my parents for the weekend rather than taking the train as I usually do (route, except Bikely has been flaky this week and you might well get a blank page; try shift-reload).
- Distance: 53.26 miles (as the cycle computer flies)
- Time door-to-door: 6 hours
- Time spent actually moving: 4hrs30
- Average speed when moving: 11.7mph
- Hills walked up: 1 (Polstead)
- Malt loaves consumed: 1
This is one of those rare routes where the main road (the A14) curves well away from the straight line route, resulting in a route which can stick to quiet rural roads without having to take huge detours to do so. The worst bit is actually the section climbing from Fulbourn at 5 miles out to Balsham at 10 miles: once you've got up there the rest is broadly downhill. The section from Acton to Boxford was also quite tough because I was getting a bit tired and it was more into the prevailing wind.
PS: I will be taking the train back on Friday :-)
|
|
11:08 pm
[Link] |
Tesco ontology
All breakfast cereals can be divided into two categories:
- Healthy cereals
- Kids cereals
Also, muesli is not a cereal.
|
|
04:04 pm
[Link] | Today's cycle ride was a loop round some of the villages east of Cambridge; about 27 miles as the cycle computer flies. Total time door-to-door just under 2.5 hours.
The bit from Fulbourn up to Balsham is hillier than I think Cambridgeshire has any right to be :-)
|
|
04:33 pm
[Link] |
horse's head in the (flower) bed
Since it was such a nice day today I went for a cycle ride. Not a very long one (bit less than 20 miles total) but then I haven't done much cycling except the commute since Christmas, really. Out via Fulbourn, the Wilbrahams and Swaffham Bulbeck before stopping at Anglesey Abbey near Lode for a wander round the gardens (they have a reduced price entry fee for people who came by bike :-)). The gardens turned out to be rather crowded (no doubt due to the date and the fact it was a sunny spring weekend) but were pleasant nonetheless. The short leg home was rather less so because I was fighting a headwind all the way...
|
|
11:51 am
[Link] | [Guide dog owner Kimura] quoted Aso as saying he was confident about being liked by dogs. Sadly for Aso, dogs don't vote in the Japanese elections, and nobody else seems to agree with the dog...
|
|
08:44 am
[Link] |
hmm, doesn't sound like good news...
Shipments of mobile phones in Japan dropped by nearly a fifth in 2008...
|
|
08:12 am
[Link] | Just under a year ago I made a post talking about a kanji learning website called Reviewing the Kanji and said I thought I'd have a go at working through it.
I have now finished the RTK1 set of 2042 kanji. I'm quite pleased with this because it's been a fair old slog. The site tells me that in the process I've reviewed 16672 flashcards...
Caveats: this means that given one of 2042 English keywords I have a ~90% chance of being able to correctly write the associated kanji. It doesn't necessarily mean that on seeing the kanji I remember the keyword (or 'meaning', to the extent that it makes sense to talk about 'meanings of kanji'). It's more like knowing a very big alphabet than knowing any words.
|
|
07:31 pm
[Link] |
directory enquiries service recommendations?
A month or so back I had cause to use a directory-enquiries service (a rare thing, but I had my mobile and I didn't have any kind of internet access :-)). Not having prepared for this, I wound up using the service whose adverts had done the best job of sticking their number into my brain. For the future, I'd like to stick a number in my mobile selected on some more rational criteria like cost or competence. Anybody got any suggestions?
|
|
09:48 pm
[Link] |
now available in stereo
I can now hear through both ears again. This is a tremendous improvement.
|