Standard Japanese Police Car
This evening while driving in Kyoto, I looked in my rear-view mirror and noticed a police car coming up behind me with its lights a'flashing. It pulled up right behind me.
I then did something that would probably freak out most Americans: I ignored it.
I didn't pull over to let it get around (or to stop and talk to me). I didn't speed up, but I didn't stop, either. I just ignored it.
When traffic caused me to stop at an intersection, he just stopped behind me. I listened to music on my iPod (I think it was Céline Dion's “O Holy Night,” which must be the best rendition of any Christmas song, ever.) When the light turned green, I went ahead and the police car (with lights flashing) turned to a side street.
It still takes some getting used to, but police in Japan often leave their flashing lights on while doing their normal patrols — it's only the siren that means “pull over” or “get out of the way.”
In America, the flashing red lights of an emergency vehicle (e.g. fire truck, ambulance, police car) or the flashing blue lights of a law-enforcement vehicle are piercing sights that immediately grab the attention (especially if first seen in the rear-view mirror!). Lights have no such special meaning here. Heck, you can mount a red flashing light on your car or motorcycle if you want. I've seen plenty of motorcycles that at first glance seem indistinguishable from a police motorcycle... I have to really look at the rider (e.g. for gun-shaped holster) to know whether it's a police officer (so I know whether to slow down 🙂 )
Also freaky, at least for an American, is that garbage trucks here tend to have blue flashing lights, exactly the same color as an American police car's. I've not yet been pulled over by a garbage truck, though.
The new Dell computer I ordered a while ago actually arrived ahead of schedule, two weeks ago, but I came down with a cold the evening it arrived, and am only just feeling good enough to write about it.
In short: it rocks.
Its processor actually has a slower GHz rating than my old computer, but it's a Core 2 Duo, and each of its dual processors is much faster than a similarly-rated Pentium. It's fast. My old computer's name was “WINFOO”. This one is “ZIPPY”.
It showed up one Wednesday at about noon. I pulled it out of the box, and while wondering what a little slidy thing on the top did, I was surprised to find out that it released the side of the computer, so I could see inside.
Inside guts of my new Dell
Cool. I remember when you had to remove five screws, then slide the wrap-around cover off of the guts of the computer, just to see inside. Maintenance was a nightmare; this is much nicer.
After hooking it up, I booted it, and over the next week or two, roughly in order:
Removed a bunch of crap I don't want (anything related to MSN, Windows Messenger, or Outlook).
Did a Windows Update. Not much was updated, so I guess Dell ships with the latest patches installed.
Tidied up the Start > Programs menu (why can't items be kept alphabetized automatically?)
Launched Internet Explorer to fetch something, and ran into my first unexplained program crash.
Tried again, successfully, and was able to install Windows Defender.
Downloaded and installed Firefox and configured it:
- brought over my bookmarks and saved passwords
- Installed extensions:
- Hand tweaked some things one the about:config page:
- network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server: 6
- network.http.pipelining: true
- network.http.pipelining.maxrequests: 30
- network.http.redirection-limit: 10
- network.prefetch-next: false
- layout.spellcheckDefault: 2
- keyword.URL: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=
- nglayout.initialpint.delay: 0
- content.notify.ontimer: false
Downloaded and installed English-language drivers for my Canon Pixma MP810 printer/scanner.
Mapped old computer's drives to virtual drives on the new computer. (Why can't I map a whole drive? I had to do them in parts.....)
Installed this photo as my desktop background image.
Downloaded and installed Yahoo! Messenger and spent time configuring it to remove a bunch of crap.
Installed Adobe Photoshop CS2 and copied over the scripts I'd written for it (such as the Calendar-Template building script I wrote about earlier). And wouldn't ya know it, just my luck — I activated a new copy of CS2 a week before CS3 is announced!
Downloaded and installed Adobe Lightroom and was pleased with its speed on the new hardware.
Downloaded and installed Cygwin and brought over my home directory from the old computer.
Remapped the keyboard so that the caps-lock key functions as a control key, as God intended, by creating and using the CapsLockIsCtrl.reg file as described here.
Cleaned a bunch of random stuff from C:\Program Files\, but found that I can't remove the “MSN Gaming Zone” and “xerox” directories. Why on earth can't I remove these directories?
Downloaded and Installed IrfanView.
Downloaded and installed Adobe Reader.
Downloaded and installed MySQL.
Downloaded and installed Fidelity Investments' Active Trader Pro.
Downloaded and installed Apple iTunes.
Spent ages moving files over from the old computer. I'm still not done.
A bazillion other things I can't remember....
I ran into a few odd things during this process:
After three or four days, suddenly, Windows Updated installed dozens of items. I guess Dell really doesn't ship with the latest patches installed, which I can understand, but why did Windows Update wait so long?
A fantastic feature of Firefox is that you can type words or phrases in its address bar and have that turn into a web search (via Google or Yahoo!, for example). This no longer works for me. Even if I reset keyword.URL to its default, and ensured that keyword.enabled is true, it still doesn't work. This is very frustrating for me because I'm so used to using that feature. If someone has an idea on how to get it to work, I'd love to hear it.
My old machine, which needed to be reboot every hour or two whether being used or not, did not require a reboot from 18 hours before the new computer arrived, to almost a week after. Very strange.
The new machine has four disk drives in it, but it's eerily silent. Very weird, but I appreciate it. My old one sounded like a jet engine at arm's length.
The most wonderfully odd feeling I have with this computer is that it hasn't crashed yet. Not even once. When you're used to crashing every hour or two, it's a weird but happy feeling to have it not crash.
My Christmas present this year seems to be my health. Finally, yesterday (Christmas Eve), the cold I've had for the last two weeks or so started to abate. Perhaps it was the drugs that the doc gave me, or maybe it was just time, but I finally felt good enough to at least do some shopping.
Our Christmas Eve began, just like last year and the year before, with the mini free concert at the Kyoto Hotel Okura. This time it was a Mr. Wakata playing Christmas favorites on the pan flute.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/40 sec, f/3.2, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Anthony had been hoping for horns like last year, so at times was a bit restless, but he showed genuine excitement on his face when he recognized the start of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.”
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/10 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Three generations watching the Christmas concert
When it was over, Fumie went to pick up our pre-ordered take-home Christmas meal, and Anthony stood in front of the hotel's huge Christmas tree making silly faces.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 38mm — 1/45 sec, f/3.5, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
I had come separately, by bicycle, to get seats, so I left for home while Fumie's mom waited with Anthony for Fumie. Before taking off on my bike, I thought to take some pictures of the well-decorated little plaza outside the hotel, and to my surprised found that Fumie's mom and Anthony had strolled out there as well.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 38mm — 1/15 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
I'm pretty proud of this next shot because it's an almost a two-second exposure hand held and it doesn't look too bad. The smudge/blur to the right of the tree's base, between it and the bench, is Anthony running laps. Fumie's mom is less of a blur, on the far left, with her head just below the green bundle of lights.
The Hotel Okura makes really good food for takeout, and this year Fumie ordered roast beef. The slow-cooked hunk of meat we got was the largest I've seen since a barbecue hosted by my brother many years ago. It's extremely expensive, but makes for a relaxing five-star meal at home.
After eating, Fumie's mom brought small gifts for Anthony. Here, he's being excited with a toy car from Fumie's dad (who is still in Malaysia for work).
Then it was time for desert, a Christmas Cake from the hotel.
For whatever reason, the cake came with candles, so we decided to put them in and sing “Happy Birthday” to baby Jesus. This shot is all fuzzy, but shows Anthony's enjoyment better than any of the other shots I got.
That shot above is fuzzy because I didn't hold the camera still during the tenth-of-a-second exposure. The lens, Nikon's pro-level f/2.8 17-55 zoom, despite being pro is still only f/2.8, which is two stops (four times) slower than the lens I had for Anthony's birthday.
Compare the shot above with the one at right, taken with an f/1.4 Sigma 30mm during Anthony's birthday party.
Anyway, after Anthony went to bed, Daddy changed into Santa and wrapped a bunch of presents. (I wrapped perhaps six presents, and found that there are at least 12 different ways to fold down the end of the package.) I then combined them with gifts received earlier from others, and spread them out on the couch.
I also placed one present in front of the others, unwrapped. I told Anthony that if Santa comes and leaves presents, he shouldn't touch them when he finds them, but if a present is unwrapped, he can have it right away. So, I left one that he could play with right away.
Without a tree for the presents to be under, it all looks fairly lame to my American eyes. We'll have to remedy that next year.
I've had this cold for a week that's just left me feeling totally blah, with a mild headache and without an ounce of energy. Luckily, it doesn't take much energy or brain to sit in front of a computer, and so I thought I'd try to mix in some other colors with the blue this cold has left me feeling.
Here are some colorful shots from one outing a month ago.
The contrast and shadows in the last one grow on me as time goes.
The second-to-last, looking up at a tall tree, is interesting in that you can see the same tree from the exact opposite direction by clicking on its full exif & map link and looking at the embedded satellite image. You can see the specific tree if you zoom in enough. Unfortunately, my lens was not strong enough that I could zoom in enough to see the satellite. (Note to reader: Christmas is coming up, if you want to remedy my lack of powerful lenses 🙂 )
A cute thing going around the Internet these days is Elf Yourself, a site where you can upload a picture of your face and then see yourself doing a silly dance dressed as an elf. It's fun and silly.
When you go to the site and click the “Start the Elfamorphosis” button and choose to upload your own photo, you're first presented with this page:
Blah blah blah, yeah, whatever, click ACCEPT and move along.
If you actually glanced at the text shown before clicking ACCEPT, you'd see that you can't post porn and you have to have the right to use the picture. Sure, fine,... click and move along.
However, notice the thing that looks like an elf baton on the right side? That's actually a slider (on the real site, not in this crop from a screen capture). If you slide it, it reveals a dozen more pages of contract that you're agreeing to. Very clever how they hid so well that there's more.
Here's the first page of the dozen or so that follow, the start of the “GRANT OF RIGHTS”:
The full text of the GRANT OF RIGHTS section is only two sentences, but wow, you give them everything but your left kidney (and a skilled lawyer could probably extract that as well). The following is the full text of this section, with my having visually separated the two sentences to make it a bit more readable. I also placed a few key passages in bold.
|
GRANT OF RIGHTS. By submitting a photograph or any other material (including, without limitation, vocal messages, text messages, or text) (each a “Submission”), I hereby grant to OMX, Inc., its subsidiaries and affiliated companies and each of their respective licensees, successors and assigns (collectively, “OfficeMax”), the unlimited right and permission to use the Submission or any part thereof (including, without limitation, my name, screen name, instant message name, or email address) throughout the universe, in perpetuity, in any manner or venue and for any purpose whatsoever, including, without limitation, for purposes of advertising, promotion or trade in promoting and publicizing Office Max and its products and services, by means of any and all media and devices whether now known or hereafter devised, which includes, without limitation, the unlimited right and permission to post the Submission on the [reindeer.com, elf.com, pole.com, etc.] websites (collectively, the “Websites”). OfficeMax shall have the right, in its sole discretion, to edit, composite, morph, scan, duplicate, or alter the Submission in any manner for any purpose which OfficeMax deems necessary or desirable, and I irrevocably wave any and all so-called moral rights I may have in the Submission and I agree that I shall have no right of approval, no claim to compensation, and no claim (including, without limitation, claims based upon invasion of privacy, defamation, or right of publicity) arising our of any use, blurring, alteration, editing, morphing, distortion, illusionary effect, faulty reproduction, fictionalization, or use in any composite form of my name, picture, likeness, voice, and biographical information. |
The “Default Elf” |
Besides the incredibly sweeping rights they claim, a few things struck me odd about this. The punctuation near the websites seems odd, and none of the websites listed (reindeer.com, elf.com, and pole.com) seem to have anything to do with OfficeMax or its parent company, affiliates, licencees, etc. I bet that the person in the legal department writing this put those in as placeholders, thinking that the engineers creating the site would replace them with the holiday-related websites that OfficMax actually sponsors (such as elfinterviews.com). So, what they have is almost certainly a mistake.... that's funny.
Note to corporate legal departments: engineers (like everyone else) hate you, but fear you, so would never so much as even think of displacing a comma on verbiage handed down from above, much less change words. (But John Place, you were a cool lawyer.... at least so long as your towel was left alone! 🙂 )
Another odd thing is that they mention things like “screen name” and “instant message name,” which so far as I can tell they never collect. It's as if they cut-n-pasted this text from a different promotion. I dunno.
The contract goes on for a lot longer, but I didn't read the rest. I still have a cold. Why on earth am I even taking the energy to write this?