Archive: 2002-12
A Useful Tool
After a long day spent wrestling with Perl modules and Apache RewriteRules, I have got my HTML stripping utility online. It’s a brutal but effective CGI that gets rid of images, scripts, colour, most text formatting, and leaves just the text content. The possible advantages:
Compiler Privileges
Woo! I just got an email reply from my web hosting company. I asked for, and now have user permissions for gcc. That means that I can install new Perl modules for my user account, and add some useful features to my website.
A Brief Update
So what have I been doing and thinking about the last week or so?
Pepys’ Diary
A fellow by the name of Phil Gyford is blogging Samuel Pepys’ diary starting from January 1st 2003 (I guess he’s put the first page up little early...). It’s a nice idea, anyway, although unfortunately the Project Gutenberg version he’s using is based on a bowdlerized 1893 edition.
Merry Christmas!
It’s just gone midnight here, so it’s Christmas in the eastern hemisphere. Merry Christmas!
Foreign Experiences Of Japan
I was just reading an interesting discussion on MetaFilter. A lot of people (mostly American) who live/have lived in Japan put down their opinions and experiences. Some of it resonated with me, especially about attitudes to the place. You can have a lot of tolerance for the bad points of your own country, but the failings of another country become very, painfully obvious. Some days are good, when you notice the things that make it better here. Some days, everything is unbearably frustrating. For me, the good days are in a happy majority.
Holiday
First of all, I made a mistake when I was typing in yesterday’s entry: I transposed the Japanese translations for elementary and high school. Thanks to Chikako Gotō for noticing it! It’s fixed now.
The End
Today was my last day at my current assignment. I was only there for 10 weeks, but I was really settled in and comfortable. The regular teachers were great, and the students delightful. I’m going to miss it.
If You Can’t Hear Me, Please Raise Your Hand
That’s not a joke, by the way: I heard it this morning, intended seriously. I was sitting the Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken, or Japanese Language Proficiency Test, and they said exactly that as they were testing the public address system. Quite what we were supposed to do if we couldn’t hear it, I’m not sure!