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WordPress 1.5.1 is now officially released. If you are a WordPress user, you really ought to upgrade. This version fixes many of the bugs and shortcomings that were introduced with the botched release of WP 1.5. It takes seconds to upgrade from 1.5 (just overwrite everything in your blog directory except the wp-content directory). Shout out to all WordPress developers and contributors… Great job guys…

With this, I am glad to announce the official release of Spam Karma 2‘s first public beta.

In fact, it is pretty much final-grade quality and could probably do without the “beta” label… I’m just a big fan of the greek alphabet.

Many of the lingering issues with the last alpha have been fixed, a few missing features have been added (it now supports curl for those whose host doesn’t allow url_fopen). Check out the dedicated page for details.

Now go and spread the word! there are still far too many clunky SK1.x in the wild out there…

Also, feel free to contribute to the newly-opened official Wiki page for SK2: your help is much appreciated!

Update: Ahem, it would appear I spoke a bit fast. There is a rather nasty bug in this update that can bork your RSS feed. I do recommend updating nonetheless (and follow instructions in the link above to fix the bug).

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Tokyo Tower: Perhaps the most prominent example of modern “Japanese Touch”… that incredible instinct to improve on old concepts and go just one step too far…

E.g.: take the Eiffel Tower, a concept with a somewhat proven viability… add 13 meters and drop it in the middle of Tokyo, so far so good… Then paint it a pattern of red and white stripes… You got the Japanese Touch…

I mean, I can so totally picture the Japanese construction engineer uncovering, at the time, the plan for the new and improved Eiffel Tokyo Tower: “And now, you see, ladies and gentleman, we have increased its visibility by 3200%… by turning it into a giant lollipop!”

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Last week-end was the start of a string of holidays known as Golden Week in Japan. All the happy wage-slave masses left Tokyo for a week-long exodus to some exotic location. And because I was stupid enough not to pick Medieval German Poetry, Sociology or some equally bulshittable major, back in the days, I was stuck meditating and doing equations in my garden, fighting with the cats over the few sunbeams that could make it through Tokyo’s many layers of pollution…

Seeing no reason I’d be the only one having an awful time, I figured I would use some time on the side to bring you my thoughts on the heaviest and most uninviting topic possible: Sino-Japanese Relations Through the Twentieth Century to our Days.

Sounds fun, innit?

Actually, this is kind of a trendy topic these days.

To be fair, the “trendy” part is rather limited, and even more so, depending on which side of the Japanese Sea you live on. But around here, this was most definitely the talk of the month, in Japanese news and all over the English-speaking nipponoblogosphere… Hell, even this guy stopped staring at his dick long enough to write a reasonably thoughtful entry on the topic.
Another very interesting read is Michael Panda’s transcription of the incriminated textbooks (you need to scroll way down to the end).

I figured I would just add my own two yens, and if possible extend it past the perspective of personal-level anecdotes: not that they do not have their place in the debate, but there should be a little more to it than the usual “oh yea, here is what the few Japanese I know say about it”…

If you are looking for a fun and entertaining read to kill the next 20 minutes, this most definitely is not it…

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I posted a pic of this sign, a while back…

Trying hard not to laugh at the evocation of how this inscrutable piece of wisdom may have descended upon the guys who first wrote the sign (picturing the scene where a dirty gaijin tells the cashier he’ll be right back and gets the hell out).

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After yet another sand bath the campers are homeward bound on a jetfoil. Good timing as the rain has set in.

Back to reality well rested and eager to return to this quiet oasis.
〓Tracey〓

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  1. “Wow, cool! the dumb guy, whose herb garden I keep trying to destroy, has put some leftover barbecued spicy chicken in a plate on the ground… Better snatch it now, just in case he wants to eat it later…”
  2. “Man, that dragging stuff on the ground sure is tedious. Dunno how I’m gonna go over the fence like that… I sure miss that opposable thumb.”
  3. “Wait… you mean I can actually put it in my mouth!?! Wow, that’s a nifty trick! Look at me! I’m such a pimp! I can haul food in my mouth…”

How this cat manages to survive in the wild is beyond me.

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The definition of cruel is when your friends, over at your house for some lo-key, yet highly inebriated, bbq dinner, drunkenly (and unwittingly) opened that one very special bottle of Piper Heidsieck Special Millesime.

No. Hold on. Cruel is when it turns out they drank but a glass and left a full uncorked bottle sitting there for you to mourn in the morning.

Inhumanly cruel, is when all this takes place in the middle of your shot at reaching ascetic enlightenment, and subsequent self-imposed ban on all forms of alcohol consumption.

If I end up not drinking off that bottle today, I will personally write in a demand for a medal from the British National Temperance League.