Chris Bracken

Ride to Okutama-ko and back

I haven’t ridden a century since I moved to Japan but with a bit of spare time on my hands before baby number two is due, I decided I was going to get back into decent enough shape that I could pull one off.  I’ve been using mornings and weekends to get back into riding longer distances, and slowly building up toward the goal of 160 km by riding further and further up the Tama river every weekend.

Five minutes looking at Google maps yesterday morning at 6 am convinced me that Lake Okutama was exactly the necessary 80 km away, so without a minute to lose I got dressed, headed out the door and rode north up the Tama river.

The ride along the river is gorgeous, one of the few places in Tokyo you can ride uninterrupted through a green belt that runs from the ocean at Haneda airport all the way into the mountains in the northwest corner of Tokyo.  The bike path ends at the south Hamura dam, but by then it’s pretty inaka, so you can continue by road from there without much worry about traffic.  At the north Hamura dam, I crossed over to the west side of the river, to pick up Route 411 through the towns of Oume, Sawai, and Mitake before leaving the city completely and starting the climb up into the mountains.
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Monkey Madness

How many police does it take to catch a monkey in one of Tokyo’s busiest train stations?  Apparently a lot more than the 40 or so that tried.  The monkey was first spotted around 9:45am on top of the Tokyu Toyoko Line schedule display, possibly one of the best choices for people-watching in Shibuya Station, strategically positions between the exit of the Tokyu department store and the entrance to one of Tokyo’s busiest train lines.

It hung around for close to two hours while commuters, shoppers, news crews and a posse of net-wielding cops showed up, before finally deciding to make a break for it.  Police never did catch the cheeky monkey, and its current whereabouts are unknown.

Apparently this is the third incident of a monkey getting into a train station in Tokyo in the last few weeks.

PR#6

According to Slashdot, this month the Apple ][ turns 30. It was in production for 18 of those 30 years, which likely makes it the longest-selling personal computer of all time. This is the computer I wrote my first program on, and spent countless hours banging in and editing code from Compute magazine — including page after page of raw hex code when a program included graphics.

In tribute, I ran a Google search on PR#6 to see what turned up. For those who don't know or don't remember, PR#6 was the command that kicked off the bootloader code for slot 6, the drive controller. The search turned up two relevant links: an Apple TechTip on a simple copy-protection scheme, and a fantastic blog entry that covers a bit about the Apple ]['s boot process, which brings back a lot of memories of old Shugart drives, including the terrifying sound of a track 0 seek – a process wherein the drive head was moved across the disk very quickly until it physically couldn't go any further, resulting in a loud alarm-like buzz from the drive when it hit the limit of its reach.

Anyway, in celebration of the Apple ]['s 30th birthday, I recommend grabbing your nearest emulator, and banging in a call -151 for old time’s sake.

Google Reader

For years, I’ve been a fan of Brent Simmons’ OS X-based feed reader, NetNewsWire. It’s a fantastic application, and I’ve definitely got my money’s worth out of it. After partnering with NewsGator, I started using their online feed-reader on and off, with mixed results. I like that it keeps my feeds in sync between my computers, and that I can browse articles at lunch, but the interface is still not on par with NetNewsWire itself.

While NewsGator’s implementation was lacking, I really did like the idea of dropping the desktop app altogether and going with a fully online solution, so I started exploring other options. The obvious free alternative is Google Reader, and I have to say, I’m impressed. While the presentation isn’t as customizable as NetNewsWire, the functionality that I use is all there, and in fact, it has some extra search features that I miss on the desktop.

It was only when I launched NetNewsWire today and saw 290 unread items, that it hit me I hadn’t used it in almost a month. So while I look forward to
NetNewsWire 3, I’m sticking to Google Reader for the time being.

I also discovered that my prime news reading hours are apparently 6:30am to 7:30am and 9pm to 11pm, with a strange local maximum straggling out around 12:30am. I’d be curious to compare this to before I had a baby that woke me up around that time.

Update (2007-06-06): NetNewsWire 3.0 is now out.

Apple Reinvents the Phone?

After watching the Steve Jobs iPhone keynote, I have to say I’m a little disappointed. While this phone has a slicker GUI than any other phone I’ve seen, it’s not so much the $499 US price-tag, but the stone-age functionality of the phone that makes my jaw drop.
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A Mystery Solved

One of my biggest complaints about Japan has always been the complete and utter lack of garbage bins in this city. There are none to be found. If you buy a (most likely seriously overpackaged) snack, you either have to carry all the wrapping and leftovers around with you until you get home, or toss it on the street. But the streets are impeccably clean here, which had led me to believe that like me, the other 12 million people out for a walk this afternoon, will be carrying their litter around in their backpacks and shopping bags.

But it turns out this is not the case: an article in Metropolis unveils the answer to The Big Tokyo Trash Mystery.

Le chandail de hockey

L’Office National du Film du Canada vient de mettre en ligne son catalogue entier, soit plus de 10 000 films de long et court métrage. Parmi les titres animés on nous propose bien sûr le film classique Le chandail de hockey en français et en anglais.

Le critique de film américain Leonard Malthin a dit que ce n’était qu’après avoir vu ce film qu’il à compris à quel point le hockey est important aux Canadiens. Pourtant, il y a ceux qui disent que cette histoire est aussi bien une allégorie des tensions linguistiques et culturelles au Québec et au Canada.

Happy 139th Birthday!

Canadians in Tokyo got a head start on the Canada Day celebrations, kicking things off at 8:30 am with a pancake breakfast at the Maple Leaf Bar & Grill, followed by a Canada Day barbeque at Yoyogi Park including hot dogs, yakitori, a massive Canadian Flag cake, and imported Canadian beer. By 6pm things, as started to wind down at the park, people started the long trek back to Shibuya and into the Maple Leaf, where it was standing room only. Some pictures of the event.

Canadian Medical Research

Don’t let anyone tell you that Canada never contributed groundbreaking research to the medical field. First, the discovery and isolation of insulin by researchers at the University of Toronto; now this paper published in the British Medical Journal, co-authored by a Grade 8 student from Hamilton, Ontario.

Bonne nouvelle année à toutes et à tous !

Il fait pas mal longtemps depuis la dernière mise-à-jour du site. Cependent, il s’est passé un tas de choses pendent les deux derniers mois : trois voyages à Kyoto, un mariage, le Noël, et le début des vacances d’oshougatsu. C’est ici qu’on aboutit à mes bonnes résolutions. Je vous fais mes éxcuses en avance pour ne pas les respecter !

Eh bien, comme résolution je me suis décidé de bloguer en français aussi bien qu’en anglais cette année. Le fréquence avec lequel j’écris en n’importe quelle langue me donne espoir d’être capable de le tenir. Et pourquoi le français? Bon, Il fait maintenant plus qu’une décénie depuis ma libération de l’école secondaire et le début de ma condamnation à sept ans d’éducation en astronomie et en ingénieurie à l’Université de Victoria. Pendent ce temps, mon français se trouve rélégué dans un coin, négligé à l’excéption de quelques cours de litérature canadienne et, de temps en temps, un roman de Jacques Poulin ou de Gabrielle Roy.

Alors là, après une panne de 12 ans je m’engage cette année à remettre en marche mon français ; attachez vos tuques !