w00kie's ramblings

my head

Hi 👋, I’m François

I’m a French engineer who moved to Japan after my studies and will soon hit half of my life spent in Tokyo.

  • Train accident on my way to work

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    w00kie
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    This morning, on my way to work, my train stopped one express station after mine. Some accident had happened on the line and the traffic was stopped for 2-3 hours. No way I could get to work, and once the train would start running again there’d be no bus left to bring me from the…

  • U.S. Elections impact on Japan

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    w00kie
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    I don’t know if we will see any real difference here with Democrats instead of Republicans at the helm over there. All I know is this made me laugh right after lunch. A friend of mine who works in a cargo ship brokering firm forwarded me a market report written by another broker: Following the…

  • 3-day weekend in Karuizawa

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    w00kie
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    I spent last weekend, which was a 3-day holiday with 文化の日 on monday, in 軽井沢, which could be compared to the Gstaad or Courchevel of Japan. Of course, it’s a pretty far-fetched comparison: the ski-station could barely be called a hill, but anyways that’s where all the rich CEO’s buy fabulous chalets and come chill…

  • Bought a new camera

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    w00kie
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    I bought a Nikon D60 this weekend for ¥37,000 with a cashback I’ve got to fill out that’ll get me a further ¥5,000 off. As you can see I’m having a lot of fun with the DSLR, shooting RAW and messing around with Aperture. I’m hoping I’ll have tons of cool photos coming to my…

  • Lonely Shoe

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    w00kie
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    Coming back from work I found a lonely shoe left in the middle of the sidewalk in front of a pachinko outside my train station. Girls walking by would shout out 「ええっ！気持ち悪い！」

  • United States of France

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    w00kie
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    Speaking of politics, this article from TIME Magazine is pretty funny, if not pathetic: You just know the Frogs have only increased their disdain for us, if that is indeed possible. And why shouldn’t they? The average American is working two and a half jobs, gets two weeks off and has all the employment security…

  • Prime Ministers of Japan

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    w00kie
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    Junichiro Koizumi – 小泉 純一郎 – 2001 to 2006 – grandfather was Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Shinzo Abe – 安倍 晋三 – 2006 to 2007 – grandfather was Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda – 福田 康夫 ,– 2007 to 2008 – father was Prime Minister Taro Aso – 麻生 太郎 – soon to be sworn…

  • On the road to Hokkaido

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    w00kie
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    My good friend Jon, who is clearly superhuman, was until 3 weeks ago working at Valeo on the desk in front of me. He is now between jobs taking a sabbatical and, since he can’t stay idle too long, has started a great journey from Saitama to Hokkaido… on a bicycle. He will be twittering…

  • Half-assed features on Softbank iPhone

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    w00kie
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    I’m getting reports from my friends with iPhones here in Japan, since I still haven’t gone crazy and taken one as a second phone. Some features have been completely borked by Softbank: There’s no + for international calls. Apparently, Softbank’s network does not support the + (country code) (your number) that is industry standard on…

  • Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible: don’t miss it

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    w00kie
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    Joss Whedon’s pet project, in answer to the writer’s guild nonsense, came out yesterday: Dr. Horrible’s sing-along blog. A mini-series exclusively for internet and for free, done on the cheap with his friends. It’s a mix between Pinky and the Brain, Mistery Men and a video blog, executed musical-style. It’s brilliant, especially since I was…

  • Special rules for Gaijin buying an iPhone

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    w00kie
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    If you’re planning on buying an iPhone (it’s a little too late now since they’re already out of stock everywhere in Kanto) and you’re a foreigner, there’s a couple of things you need to be aware of before you head out to the Softbank shop: Bring your Gaikokujin Torokusho (Alien Card) + Passport. It seems…

  • iPhone in Japan: it’s the new Wii

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    w00kie
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    So people have been lined up in front of the flagship Softbank shop in Omotesando since Monday, all reservations that were taken in the first days after announcement have been canceled and now my friend Jon tells me that he called the main Softbank shop in Kumagaya, Saitama-ken and they are having a raffle for…

  • iPhone pricing details announced officially

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    w00kie
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    A press release just appeared on Softbank’s website and suddenly Twitter went ablaze: the official pricing details for the iPhone have been published. Here’s the lowdown: 7,280円 per month for basic white plan and unlimited data 960円 per month for the 8GB version, 1,440円 per month for the 16GB version (for 24 months) specific email…

  • Custom Django filters in Google App Engine

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    w00kie
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    You want to create your own custom Django filters in App Engine without running a whole Django stack? Here’s how in a few lines of code. First create a specific python file to hold your custom filters at the root of your application. In my case I use customfilters.py like this: import re from google.appengine.ext…

  • Crossdomain proxy on Google App Engine

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    Here’s a crossdomain proxy to pipe Javascript Ajax calls from you Google App Engine application to the Flickr API, since most browser will not let you call another domain directly. import cgi import urllib from google.appengine.ext import webapp from google.appengine.api import urlfetch class FlickrController(webapp.RequestHandler): “””Proxy for Ajax calls to flickr””” def get(self): flickrapiendpoint = ‘http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/’…