Off to California!

Back to that steam-cooker they call Kyoto in 2 weeks…

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Going west by way of east

Off to California!

Back to that steam-cooker they call Kyoto in 2 weeks…

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Going west by way of east

For my birthday last week, I decided to give my late 20′s the proper send off they deserved, and went for a nice intimate dinner with I. at a somewhat fancy French restaurant overlooking the kamogawa near sanjo.

In addition to the impeccable, yet friendly service, the food was some of the best I had in a very long time. I still can’t get over how delicious the homemade foie gras with figs was…

Definitely recommended if you are ever looking for good French cuisine in Kyoto (while they are probably some less expensive options in town, they really aren’t even in the same range of quality)…

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La Table de Thierry

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Beach Weekend

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Kyoto Mid-Summer Pics

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Refreshments?

On the other hand, this lack in the whole irony concept, puts some of the clothing commonly spotted through the streets of Japan in a radically new, slightly scary, perspective…

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Lost in Irony

After updating his iPhone to iOS 4 and upon coming back from a trip abroad, my friend found his device unable to connect to any website or mail server. Calls and SMS worked, but not data, except when connected to a wifi network. Stranger still: putting the SIM card in another phone, made it all work again (indicating that the SIM and all subscription services were fine). No need to mention: Softbank support was thoroughly useless in helping with that, merely suggesting it was a hardware problem and the phone had to be changed.

It wasn’t, of course.

Apple’s iOS 4 update shipped with a “bug” of sorts (possibly intentional) that, under certain conditions, will remove your current, valid, “APN settings profile“. Without this profile, your phone has no way to access the data plan provided by your operator. You need to restore valid Softbank APN settings.

There are many ways to fix that on the iPhone, one is to use the brand new iPhone Configuration Utility, an even faster one if you have access to a Wifi network, is to connect to the following address from your iPhone (using Wifi, since 3G doesn’t work): http://www.unlockit.co.nz/

Click on Continue > Custom APN.

Then, depending on the actual colour of the SIM card Softbank put into you phone (silver, for older phones, black for recent ones), fill up the form using these info:

For black SIMs:
APN: smile.world
Username: dna1trop
Password: so2t3k3m2a

For silver SIMs:
APN: open.softbank.ne.jp
Username: opensoftbank
Password: ebMNuX1FIHg9d3DA (unconfirmed)

Then click on Create Profile, click Install on the screen that comes up. You should be done!

Happy browsing.

PS: the reason the iphone OS update screws up this setting in the first place seems linked to past attempts at jailbreaking your phone… Apparently, even if you subsequently had your phone properly reset to non-jailbroken factory settings, the mere fact that you once had it jailbroken is enough to trigger that bug during the update. The old adage about malice vs. stupidity applies here, but it is hard not to think that this could be somehow deliberate on Apple’s part.

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Softbank iPhone connection issue with iOS 4

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Gion Matsuri etc.

Summer is officially here.

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Startup Sound

A couple more weeks and I’ll have fresh cilantro for my Thai curries!

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Gardening

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Self-Defeating Purpose

Ninety minutes of the funniest, wittiest and most insightful rant you will ever hear on Parrots the Universe and Everything:

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Douglas Adams’ Talk at UCSB

Dear local Kyoto-fu LDP candidate for the upcoming upper-house election:

True: I cannot cast a vote in this election and sway your chances either direction.

But let me assure you that, if you keep insisting on circling my block multiple times, every morning between 8 and 8:30, inane election slogans blaring from your van’s speakers at top volume, I will be more than happy to contribute to your historical legacy by setting post at the closest grassy knoll with whatever long-range weapon I can get my hands on.

Thanks.

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Election Fatigue…

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Kyoto Weekend: Rain or Shine

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Back from Hawaii

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Cultural Sensitivity Quarter

Among other observations, in no particular order:

• WOOOOOOOOOT. This was absolutely awesome. Perhaps not to the point of instant addiction, like I have seen a few friends get into, but definitely to the point of doing it again next time I get a chance.
• As a cousin of Natalie pointed out: if you are gonna pop your skydiving cherry somewhere, Hawaii is definitely one of the best place to do so; in addition to the great (and warm) weather, the view going down only adds to the awesomeness of the free fall… Cloudy mountains on one side, ocean on the other.
• There were 4 of us jumping. I went third and, having seen Anne’s departure, assumed ours would be similar: a nice jump off the ledge, followed immediately by the regular downward-facing, arched-back position… My (otherwise rather laconic) instructor must have mistaken my lack of comments during preparation for jadedness, because he decided to go a little more special, with no notice or forewarning: if jumping off a plane is bad enough as it is, doing so with a backflip, followed by half a dozen flips and summersaults in every possible orientation of space, is enough to test the most hardened digestive system (mine definitely wasn’t at its best, but luckily held on long enough).
• The whole time waiting at the skydiving place for our plane ride, the music playing was, I kid you not, a compilation of James Bond theme songs. I badly wanted to ask if a Union Jack parachute, with landing on skis and AK-47, was an option.
• Did I mention: WOOOOT…?

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Reaching for the ground at 200 km/h

Back on Tuesday. Enjoy tsuyu, suckers!

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Off to Hawaii

These “volunteers” will teach you English (and the Word of Jesus Christ Savior) for free, at three convenient locations around Kyoto.

Obviously, Japan is not doing enough to discourage missionaries these days…

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Learn English and Save Your Soul

Yep, that’s my daily commute.

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Rice Paddies

Of course, for all the wishful thinking out there: Gaza is not some sort of plucky little nation bravely resisting a cruel barbaric invader. And Israel is not acting out of pure self-preservation to preserve its legitimate borders from impending invasions by neighbouring countries.

However, Israel is not the source of all oppression and abuse in Gaza. Gaza is currently ruled by a bunch of muslim extremists who have amply demonstrated their lack of concern for basic human rights and are not above propping up kids for their war, presumably because the adults are too busy stoning gays and impure women. Incidentally, hatred of gays and women: a point on which their conservative archenemies on the Israeli side seem to be in complete agreement.

Conversely, Israel has long slipped from its legitimate goal of ensuring its survival against hostile neighbours, toward appeasing a vocal ultra-orthodox minority, whose views on Arab-Israelis and their right to exist are only a couple degrees removed from what could be heard in the streets of 1930′s Berlin. It is no surprise that Israel has started alienating even its staunchest allies over the past decade: claiming to work toward peace while rushing to approve new settlements, like some schoolboy cramming as much as he can into his test sheet before the headmaster snatches it (or, for a more appropriate analogy: like victor nations of past World Wars, rushing to grab as much land as possible before calling in an armistice). There comes a point where no amount of denying the obvious and intellectual contortions can hide the fact that your policies are the exact opposite of what you claim them to be.

From there, whether Israel’s responses to Palestinian and Islamist acts of violence are justified (possibly), commensurate (probably not) or efficient (definitely not) is a moot point: they now revolve around the implementation and preservation of segregationist policies meant to ensure the support of the small bigoted minority that has been holding some iteration of the current rightwing coalition currently in power for the best of the past decade. While no modern nation can claim an unblemished record on Human Rights issues¹, Israel not only has a few serious blotches on theirs, but a history of barely acknowledging them, when not openly embracing the people responsible.

The crux of the problem is that, while Israel has its share of misbehaviours and questionable tactics, they have always been near-perfectly matched by the pro-Palestinian side: back when Israel was showing great friendliness and offering nuclear assistance to one of the most despicable government of the 20th century, Palestinian militants were joining forces with every AK47-equipped group of para-marxist loonies and mercenaries, to blow up random innocent school kids and passerbys, the world over. Nowadays: Gaza has become the flagship of every brand of bearded nutjobs the region has to offer, while Israel casually conducts its black ops assassinations in Dubai like the Cold War never ended.

Bottom line is: both sides have by now accumulated enough blood feuds and vendettas to fuel a few lifetimes of exaction and oppression on civilian populations that have little to do with it in the first place.

Yet a large part of the problem lies nowadays outside the two populations involved, amidst the legions of well-intentioned “friends” of either side. A mix of intellectual laziness, ulterior political motives and often just plain ignorance that results in people unquestioningly throwing their support behind one camp or the other, turning a blind eye to their fringe components and purposefully reducing the issues at hand to simplistic manichean narratives (“starving innocent Gaza children being vs. inhuman Israeli army” for one side, “millennia-oppressed peace-loving Jewish people vs. islamic terrorists” for the other). It takes very few jumps to link most pro-palestinian humanitarian organisations and rallies to all sorts of unsavoury characters, which is not to say that said organisations actually support these people, just that they often lack the good sense or moral integrity to distance themselves from them.

Conversely, it would be nice if people one day realised that acknowledging Israel’s right to exist, in no way necessitates putting up with the noxious rightwingers that make up its government and tend to direct current policies. The type of rhetoric that consist for some political factions to drape themselves in their national flag and brush off any personal criticisms as attacks directed at their entire country, is nothing new: Bush Jr. somewhat successfully wielded it to justify every single of his action during his 8-year tenure. And do not get me started on the similar habit of said factions and their partisans to sling accusations of anti-semitism at anyone who would dare emit a negative opinion of their policies. Not only is it some of the most infuriating form of self-serving intellectual dishonesty out there, it has also been so effective at cheapening the accusation, that actual antisemite scums now get away with infinitely more than they should.

Refusing any compromise with the fringe might sound like the naive stand here, but it is the exact opposite: a pragmatic one. It should be blindingly obvious to anyone that there is no chance of reaching any lasting agreement, as long as both sides cater to mutually exclusive factions with strictly irreconcilable agendas.

All this takes us to the flotilla debacle of last month: a couple boats, equal shares pure-hearted humanitarianism and brilliant publicity stunt, and the last milestone on the increasingly out of control downward spiral of a country’s military command that, for being no less ruthless in the past, used to be considerably better at covering its track. As usual, one could spend hours distributing the blame around: a rather thinly disguised act of political activism, a blatant breach of international law, the stupidity of letting openly violent islamic militants board a boat in the middle of your “peace” flotilla, the no less stupid decision to board said boat and start shooting at everything that looks at you the wrong way, and, under it all: the questionable strategy of inflicting collective punishment on starving civilian populations for the sins of the terrorist organisation that took over their land… the list goes on.

The only relevant aspect of this whole mess is that Israel just endured the most resounding PR defeat in its existence so far, drawing the worst possible parallels in history, to boot.

Golda Meir used to say that “Peace will come when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate us”. Forty years later, the postulate is reversed, many Palestinians have come to hate Israel because they love their children: standing on the rubbles of your house in a country where all foreseeable means of economic future are being smothered through vindictive military action, will tend to turn even the most moderate people into angry militants. Israel’s policies of the past 15 years are the ultimate proof, if one was ever needed, that means-to-an-end just does not work in the long term: even if the blow to your ethics could somehow be worth the results, you will just never win peace against a cornered people with nothing to lose and a justified sense of injustice.

Note: do I even need to mention that any potential comment to this entry that does not adhere to the strictest rules of courtesy, common sense and civilised discourse will be removed with great justice and no remorse? I didn’t think so either…

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Neverending wars and the idiots that cheer them on…

1. Find me a single nation with no lengthy history of being oppressee and oppressor, and win a beautiful autographed edition of Hegel’s complete work!

Post-meeting dinner with visiting Todai researcher and incidentally major wine amateur: any day, really…

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Wine Seminar

P-san: Ok, now that we have set the presentation schedule for the day, we need to name the session chairs. And a time-keeper for each session.

Dave: That’s easy: there are three sessions, there’s three of us… We each chair one session.

K-san: Actually… The goal is to avoid doing it ourself. Chairing sessions is a real pain in the ass.

Dave: Good point.

K-san: There are three participating labs. For time-keepers, we’ll just pick the kōhai in each of the three labs…

P-san: nods in assentiment

Dave: Great idea. Stupid kōhais, gotta be good for something.

K-san: For session chair, we’ll just ask one senior member from each lab to volunteer.

P-san, Dave: Sounds good…

Dave: Wait a minute… There is only one research student in my lab: me!

K-san: Oh… that’s right.

Dave: …

K-san: …

Dave: Chotto FML.

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Life of a Research Student

God how I would have loved to seat the design meeting for this one:

“- For our sign, we need something refined something that spells GLAMOUR…”

“- how about the silhouette of a woman sitting on her ass, spread-eagled, showing her crotch?”

“- Brilliant! That’s exactly what I meant!”

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Glamour