went for a walk and some pictures happened

October 25, 2009 by Ceolwulf.

Seriously, that’s about as simple as it was.

Click for big.   Better do that for most of these … they are tending not to work at small sizes, at all.  Maybe I’ll need a large-format printer after all.

Posted in Photos | No Comments »

miscellany again

October 18, 2009 by Ceolwulf.

Sold the truck finally.  Had to deliver it to Kenora.  Totally worth it.

Now I have to get another one It’s totally different though when you don’t have any significant money stuck into it.

Today I took some advantage of the unseasonable warmth and got a good road ride in on the GT.  The rest of the day was spent finishing Samurai Deeper Kyo …

I was hoping to have a link to post here that’s been three years in coming, but as usual I procrastinated it again.  Maybe tomorrow.

With posts like this it’s a good thing no one actually reads this blog.

Posted in C'est la vie | No Comments »

coffee claims another victim

October 11, 2009 by Ceolwulf.

Since long before I actually started riding, I’ve loved the cafe racer style.  This all began in the late 1950’s when young British riders would spend their few hard-earned quid on making their own bikes look and run more like the racers they admired.  The modern analogue would of course be the supersport bikes you can buy that, right off the showroom floor, give you the large majority of the performance and style of a World Superbike or even MotoGP racer, and all you need is a set of team decals.  But the style of the 1960’s lives on and is in fact growing considerably more popular.

So in my usual method of latching on to a trend as it reaches a critical mass of trendiness and hipsterdom, despite having been interested in the style years before it was accepted as cool by the respected authorities (did the same thing with my fixed-gear bikes), I’m just getting started now on building my own cafe racer.

I don’t even have it home yet but this is what I scored yesterday for a rather trifling sum.  Pardon the terrible cameraphone pics.  They are caused by my cameraphone being terrible.  Click to biggify.

It’s a 1980 Yamaha XS850, an 850cc air-cooled triple, originally made as a touring bike.  This is a little odd choice for a cafe bike, and you don’t see them very often.  It’s really a bit too new, it’s shaft drive, and it’s pretty big and heavy.  But the frame has the straight top that is needed for the true cafe look, and the tank fits the style very nicely.  Wire spoked wheels would probably suit the style better, but I don’t think I’ll go to that extent of modification.  Besides, I actually wanted something odd.  There’s a huge majority of Honda twins and fours in the cafe world, and whilst those are certainly the most abundant as well as nearly the most suitable blank canvas for a racer, I’ve never been one to like to do exactly as everyone else.  I prefer my sub-sub-sub-niches, thank you very much.  When I decided to set out on this project, I had in mind one of three things: either a small-displacement twin, like a Honda CB360 or a Kawasaki KZ400, but turbocharged; or a two-stroke; or one of these Yamaha triples, mainly because you can’t beat the sound of an uncorked triple (you can match it, but not beat it!).

I was inspired in large part by this:

For more examples of the cafe style, check out the member’s rides section of the website of the Ace Cafe, which is where it all started.

Posted in Power Velocipede | No Comments »

the creaking machinery

October 4, 2009 by Ceolwulf.

… has reluctantly begun to move again.  Gears mesh and groan, shafts grind and twirl, bearings screech, steam erupts from my ears - OK fine, it isn’t quite that dramatic, but the news is that I’ve seriously started Japanese study again after a too-long period of benign (?) neglect.  (Is there such a thing?)

Two factors conspired to create this happy state of affairs.  First was the fact that at the new job I have an hour lunch break and I decided that rather than spend an (additional) hour goofing off on the ‘net, I’d use the time for something useful.  I began with my main study book (Japanese For Everyone - highly recommended) but soon found that I was burning out on it yet again, perhaps because of the limited time I had during my break.  So then the second factor came into play, and that was my iPod Touch.  I would never have purchased such a thing, being way too cheap, but having had some good luck at the company Christmas do I got one for free (thanks John!).  It turns out I don’t use it for music much, but for small applications it’s a wonderful portable computer with some unique advantages - mainly, the touchscreen.  I had a look around and as it happened there has been a felicitous intersection of talent between iPhone developers and Japanese instructors.  These are the apps I mainly use.

For vocabulary I settled on Japanese Flip.  This is the app I use the most.  It’s almost addictive!  The app divides the vocabulary you will learn into five lists; untested, new, recent, old, and ancient.  As you correctly identify the meanings of the word flashcards, it moves it into an older list.  If you’ve been struggling with a word, it’ll require you to get it right more times before it moves it.  Sometimes it’ll test you from the recent list, less frequently from the old list, and once you’ve correctly answered a question from the old list it will move the word to the ancient list which you won’t see again until all the words in the set are mastered.  The lists it comes with are the standard JLPT lists, which you’d think are too big to deal with, but it simply chooses a random selection and then keeps the new list at 29 or 30 words.  The AI could use a little improvement, and of course the addition of sound files would be a massive improvement (at a massive cost of time and no doubt price of the app), but as it is it is simple and highly effective.

As a classroom replacement I have found Human Japanese to be exceptionally well done.  There are forty lessons (I think - I don’t have it in front of me) and I’m up to lesson fifteen.  So far it’s been mostly review but I expected that.  Should be getting into new material fairly soon.  It has plenty of interactivity and the text is written in such a tone that you can imagine a friendly teacher giving you a private lesson.  The cultural notes provide additional interest.

And lastly for my favourite part of this fascinating language, I really enjoy Kanji LS Touch.  I never thought I’d find a replacement for King Kanji but this is definitely it.  There are still some details to be ironed out though.  The latest update added the ability to import your own sets of kanji, which is invaluable if you are following a book as I am.  But it’s an awkward process, requiring the creation of text files that have to be in precisely the right format and encoding, and requiring access to a webspace.  Overall though, it’s a simply brilliant program.  I liked it so much that I also purchased the kana version, even though no one should need an app to learn kana.

In addition, I also installed the Kotoba dictionary program, which looks like it’s very nicely done, but to tell the truth I’ve almost not used it at all.   I used to use the Dokusha dictionary a fair bit on Palm devices, but mostly for the flashcard sets you could make and study in it, and that function is now achieved better by Japanese Flip.

The highly interactive approach to learning afforded by these different apps has, I must say, reignited my enthusiasm for Japanese study.  So much more than using my lunch break for study, often enough I find myself flipping through flashcards long after I should have been asleep at night.  Results have been steady and encouraging.  Watching anime is more enjoyable the more of it you can understand (although some fansubbers’ approach to translation results in more confusion if you understand half the dialogue than if you understood none of it!).  I’m now seriously planning to go through the JLPT tests as I near completion of the vocabulary set for the first test.

Posted in C'est la vie, Operating the Noodle | No Comments »