Congress’s IPs have now been blocked.

and this made me laugh

not cool
but at least open source is open (and you can look at the version history as well, plus the first thing you see under the main title is great)

A long night. Went to Yokohama for the Chinese New Year last night, but apparently choose the wrong time. There was a great meal, complete with dumplings, but no one was out. It was relatively quiet, so the group I was with went to a super-club in Shibuya and danced till the first train. Now I’m home and dazed. And more than disappointed that celebrations were later _today_ and not yesterday.

Today may have been my hardest day for the rest of my time in Japan. Wednesdays this academic year were my 4-lesson days. Four lessons, and the last two during the last two periods of the day, each with a different sub-group of the ship’s crew class. And, this was the last Wednesday for the thrid year students. I won’t teach the sailors anymore (at least until April, when I get a new round of them). The next academic year could see a reduction of classes from 16 to 13, maybe even 12. One thing is for sure - it won’t get any harder. nice.

/me submits to his desire to name drop

okay, so I’ve started using a new firefox extension that’s in early beta-testing (only 1000 users allowed), and while pondering my luck-by-happenstance in positioning myself on the front of Web two point oh (noes!), I decided to google for it, and I found it posted as an entry for a prominent hipster blog. That’s right, and my mailing list logs start Friday the 13th (not even 48 hours after that post). Funny thing is, I didn’t learn about chatsum from there or even the new link cock-length contest and spam fest, but the venerable diviner of servers.

Finally, I’ll amaze you with yet another blogster (item! new buzzword!) triviality. See this comic? Look at the tan t-shirt’s design, which is clearest in the last panel. It’s a direct reference to another blog’s news item. Oh the networks out there. See how much you’re missing? The world is changing before your very eyes, and new inside jokes are being made as you read this instead of some other hot unknown sector of the internet. Well, there’s opportunity cost in every choice we make. At least it’s not the end. Me? I think I’ll read a book for a bit.

A whole month after the solstice, I’m finally noticing the change in the light during the mornings. The reflected light coming thru my bathroom windows was very noticeable this morning. This natural phenomenon isn’t really a sudden thing, but the sun rise has been hidden by clouds for the last 10 days. And, as sinusoidal curves go, the change is accelerating (and will continue to do so until the equinox), so I could be right in being surprised.

Today I had a mixed reaction to keitai use in my class. We were just about to start presenting, when one girl appeared to be suffering a severe asthma attack. She was breathing irregularly and making awful noises. Her friends took her to the nurse’s room and presentations continued. After the English teacher’s meeting, I asked my teacher what happened (he was late to the meeting because he went to the nurse’s office after class). He told me that she received a text on her phone from her mother that her grandfather had died.

Now that’s some awful news to get in a text. She shouldn’t have been using her phone in class - there wouldn’t have been such a disturbance in class if she hadn’t been. However, for that kind of news, I’d like to know as soon as possible, so I sympathize with her.

Oh, an my Portable Firefox finally worked today. I was delayed yesterday because Japanese Windows OSes do not support .zip files natively. They use .lha. So I had to unzip it first on my laptop.

Even tho it was so last year, I can’t believe this is real, even acc to the aministration! Just search for ‘catapult’.

In my continuing lack of imagination, I’ll neglect writing and share links instead…. Maybe I’ll add Iceland to my list of places of future residences, with their new stance on energy. I’m sure they could use some renewable energy research folks, and people that understand control and power conversion. Plus, their scenery is supposed to be second to none (even NZ!). I wonder how well-seated penguins and swing dancing are….

And, for those of you confused by the term “Web 2.0″ — here’s a quick reference of the leading applications for you. I think it’s a clever marketing ploy to get people to think this new dotcom bubble won’t burst like Web 1.0’s did. Do you think there will be funnier Superbowl commercials this year? Tell me if there are, I won’t be watching.

Public Service Announcement:

[EDIT] It appears the high school student who ‘poasted’ the image above had to take it down from his high school’s server. dumbass

heh, round widgets and pretty GUIs only get you so much respect…