Category: Personal

Watching The Butterfly Effect earlier tonight left me relatively unaffected, as the movie dragged in some parts, skipped a few beats in others, and otherwise had a mediocre plotline. Ashton Kutcher, despite his bets attempt, failed to convince, and the only way the movie maintained any suspense was through the use of clever cinematography.

It did produce one effect despite its otherwise mediocre movie status. It managed to temporarily puncture my sense of invulnerability that we depend upon to move through a day. Thankfully that’s all back to normal. Amazing what a view of the Aizu Wakamatsu Train Cam can do.

The Serenity Movie is only a few weeks away from opening, and the trailers look fantastic.

Bryan claims to have seen a steam engine last night on the Aizu Wakamatsu train cam. Doing a little more research, I came across an article (PDF) that provided some basic background information.

This 4-6-2 Class C57 retired in 1969 but was restored this year by JR East’s Omiya Works. It will be run on the Banetsu West Line between Niitsu and Aizu-Wakamatsu on most weekends from May to November. There will also be some runs between Koriyama on the Tohoku shinkansen and Aizu-Wakamatsu.

Update: For those interested, a tour is available from the UK.

NTT East, the site that is hosting the streaming video of Aizu Wakamatsu, has details of their Internet Service plans. Want to feel jealous? check out the 47 Mbps downstream/5 Mbps upstream DSL connection.

Makes you wonder why we can’t get our act together here and roll out true broadband.

As promised, I just added the latest enhancement to the website. Using the link to the left, called “More Photos”, you can now view online the photo album. While all the pictures have not been loaded in yet, you can view what is currently available using the link.

My name is Chris, and I have a problem. I watch a stationary streaming video of a random Japanese train station. I watch it at home. I watch it at work. I try to share my addition with others. I want to stop, but I can’t. I think about it when I’m not watching. I wonder if the trains are there, running on schedule. Or if the music played.

I may have an addition, but at least it’s more interesting than Big Brother 6.

I switched to FireFox as my primary web browser several months back, and during that time I’ve come to love some of the features, such as the Sage RSS reader plugin and tabbed browsing. But in spite of those great features, the browser itself quite literally sucks. It sucks up memory at an unbelievable rate, easily crossing the 100 – 200 mb range after several days of browsing. It sucks up CPU cycles, too, sometimes spinning endlessly between at around 50% usage for no good reason. And then it sucks when it’s time to print anything, causing the browser to hang for periods of time, when it doesn’t just outright crash the browser.

I’ve been waiting for a new version that might improve these features, but if the authors have been believing their own hype, I shouldn’t hold my breath.

I’ve left the Aizu Wakamatsu web cam online in the background for about the past half hour. While web cams have been around for years and generally quite boring, as I sit here in NJ, I’m amazed at the quality of video and sound coming to me from 7,000 miles away.

For those who are curious, Aiku Wakamatsu is on the JR Banetsu-sai Line. To get there from Tokyo, check out the Japan Railways timetable.

Courtesy of Joi Ito’s blog

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as Metroblogging Tokyo” reminded me.

In April, 2002, I made a day trip to Hiroshima while I was traveling around Japan. The experience still lingers with me.

From my entry dated April 9, 2002,

The Peace Memorial Park, if taken in the right frame of mind, is a very solemn experience. From just about every angle you can see the remains of the building above which the bomb exploded. There is a large mound there, too, where the ashes of all the cremated bodies that were cleaned up after the explosion were placed, as well as a memorial containing the lists of all those who died in the explosion.

It is interesting to note, too, that the local population use the park for recreational purpose such as bike riding, walking their pets. It was strange to see little children running around, riding bikes and having fun right next to such a serious place, but it was reassuring at the same time.

Links to the photos will be posted once the new photo album system comes online.

Some of my friends know that in my spare time, I’m active with my alumni association at Rutgers. In fact, I was just at a meeting this evening. In keeping with my previous postings on changes at Rutgers, I feel I should post a link to the report on transforming undergraduate education that was recently released to the public, to organize the undergraduate colleges in to a single entity.

For those unfamiliar with the University, the undergraduate teaching faculty, with the exception of the specialized technical schools, are all associated with the “Faculty of Arts and Sciences”. However, several individual colleges within the University set the degree requirements and actually host the students. Hence, you will affiliate with one school, with its own degree requirements, but attend classes with students from all the undergraduate schools, each with different degree requirements. Each college also offers its own academic advising and have their own residential facilities. Long story short, it causes a fair amount of confusion.

Granted, since there are multiple residential colleges within the University, each has its own alumni association marketing to Rutgers alums. Which, naturally, leads to its own mess of confusion.

One of the committees I sit on discusses the dues process (recruiting, retaining, remitting) and how to improve it. One of the elephants in the room relates to the university, and by extension, the alumni structure and how it impacts those three items. What will be interesting to watch over the next several years is how the reorganization of the undergraduate system in to a single New Brunswick undergraduate college will impact the alumni associations.