Archive: 2003-10
«Leader»
I usually pick up a free paper called the Metro on my way in to work (they have stacks at the station where I change from the first to the second of the three trams that constitute my daily commute). It parallels the free paper of the same name that is available in London, Birmingham, and possibly other cities too. Being Brussels, it’s always in two piles, one in French and the other in Dutch. Also being Brussels, the French edition disappears much more quickly. When I can pick it up, it makes good French reading practice for me.
Panther
I upgraded my iBook to the latest version of Mac OS X, 10.3 or ‘Panther.’ It went almost without incident, although I did regret not having deselected the more obscure language options as I watched it installing support to run the interface in Norwegian, Traditional Chinese, and a list of other languages that I can’t read. It was a waste of disk space and, more importantly, time.
Counting Kanji
I have spent the last couple of weekends working on a small project: counting kanji (the Japanese version of Chinese characters). I’ve managed to learn quite a large number of kanji, but there are still some big gaps in my knowledge. I wanted to know which kanji I ought to know but don’t, and thus those that I should learn first.
More Fun With Product Names
Turning Japanese
I’m turning Japanese, in a small way.
That Doesn’t Translate
My favourite Belgian company names to date:
