Archive for September, 2007

Sep 30 2007

Stuck at home

Published by Rich Pav under General

Andy has a fever so we're housebound this weekend. My kids are watching the Garfield movie on DVD and laughing their little butts off.


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Sep 29 2007

Myanmar Protests in Japan

Published by Rich Pav under News

Copied from the Facebook "Support the Monks' protest in Burma" group:

*Nagoya:*
29 September – 2 October
Kibo no Izumi east, Naka-ku, Nagoya City
Hunger strike from 12 noon 29 September – 6 am 1 October
1 October, 8 am – Buddhist monks to lead a vigil procession
830 am – arrive in front of the prefectural offices, present to the governor

2 October – demostration in front of the Chinese consulate, 9am-12noon
Contact – LDB (League for Democracy in Burma) Nagoya branch, 090-5106-6393

*Hiroshima:*
http://www.scdb.org/event.html
Solidarity Gathering and Demo for the Burmese monks and citizens
1 October 2007, 16:10−17:10
Hiroshima Betsuin 1F (1-19 Teramachi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima City,  082-231-9052)
Featuring talks by Burmese political refugees living in Japan

Demo;
1 October (Mon), 530 – 630 pm
Departing from the A-Bomb dome, through kamiyacho and hondori

*Nagoya:*
29 September – 2 October
Kibo no Izumi east, Naka-ku, Nagoya City
Hunger strike from 12 noon 29 September – 6 am 1 October
1 October, 8 am – Buddhist monks to lead a vigil procession
830 am – arrive in front of the prefectural offices, present to the governor

2 October – demostration in front of the Chinese consulate, 9am-12noon
Contact – LDB (League for Democracy in Burma) Nagoya branch, 090-5106-6393

*Tokyo:*
Sat 29 Sept, from 1 – 5pm
Demonstration In Front of the Burmese (Myanmar) Embassy

4-8-26 Kita Shinagawa, Shinagawa

Transport:
15 min walk from Konan exit of Shinagawa JR station, or 3 min walk from Kita-Shinagawa station on the Keikyu line.
Use http://www.jorudan.co.jp/english/ for train timetable.

Contact Organizers on 080-3424-2759 or 03-5296-3010

Sunday 30 September
Free Burma March from Gotanda South Park to Burmese (Myanmar) Embassy

Meeting time: from 1.30pm
Meeting place: Gotanda Minami Kouen (Gotanda South Park)
March departs: 2.30pm

March from Gotanda South Park to the Burmese Embassy will take approximately 40 minutes.

For more information, ring organizers on 03-5296-3010, 080-3424-2759

Date: 30 September 2007 (Sun)
Time: 530 – 630 pm
※Lighting candles planned from 6pm
Place:Myanmar (Burma) Embassy of Japan, 4-8-26 Kitashinagawa,
Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo. 15 minutes walk from JR Shinagawa station, 3
minutes from Keikyu Kitashinagawa Station.
Organisers:Peace for Burma! Candle vigil Gathering Organising Committee

Peoples' Forum on Burma
Human Rights Now
Peace Boat

Enquiries: Peoples' Forum on Burma (Miyazawa), 03-5312-4817

*Aoyama:*
HUNGER STRIKE
After the march on Sunday, approximately 20 members of the Burmese pro-democracy movement in Japan will start a 48 hour hunger strike infront of the United Nations University, Aoyama

*Osaka:*Demonstration

30 September (Sun), 1-3pm
In front of Osaka Station, Above and around the pedestrian bridge
Midosuji Exit
Organized by the Burma Information Network, Japan
http://www.burmainfo.org/brcj
Contact – 090-6066-9435


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Sep 28 2007

Doing something is better than doing nothing

Published by Rich Pav under News

If I can, I will join whatever protests will be going on at the Myanmar embassy in Tokyo this weekend.


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Sep 28 2007

Major geek fun: Playing with Ubuntu Gutsy Gibon, risk-free

Published by Rich Pav under Oooh, Look!, Technolust

OK, from the beginning. "Ubuntu" is a version of Linux that's very user-friendly. Why would you want to install Linux on your computer? Because real men, when we're not getting drunk, killing each other online or…well, you know what the other thing is…like to waste time f***ing around with useless stuff, that's why. Linux is an operating system, like Windows or MacOS, but everything in it is free, as in you don't have to pay for it. If you like installing new programs just for the heck of it and tempting fate by seeing just how far you can push your computer before you really screw things up, you'll like Ubuntu. On the other hand, if you're still using Internet Explorer and Outlook because you're too afraid to try anything new, you can stop reading now. (*cough* Dad *cough*)

Here are the steps to installing the brand-spankingly absolutely newest version of Ubuntu on your PC without any risk whatsoever of turning your desktop into a doorstop.

  • Download Wubi and install it. It's brain-dead simple. Really. Just follow the directions. What's great about Wubi is that it makes a big file on your hard drive that pretends to be a new hard drive, then installs everything inside there. So, if you ever decide that Ubuntu isn't your thing, all you have to do is uninstall Wubi and your PC is back to normal. The alternative to using Wubi is…well, complicated. And potentially dangerous if you screw up. This step will take a few hours because it has to download a CD-ROM's worth of data.
  • Once Wubi had downloaded the big honkin' file you need to install Ubuntu, restart your computer and you'll be given a choice to boot into either Windows or Ubuntu. Choose the latter and it'll automatically start installing your new operating system. Again, this will take a while, maybe half an hour or so. (Maybe it's just me, but I like to watch it install.)
  • When it's done installing, restart, and again choose Ubuntu.
  • Assuming that it was able to automatically configure networking, the first thing Ubuntu will do is tell you that there are some updates available. Isn't that nice? Install them and restart. Again, about half a hour right there.
  • At this point, you've got a perfectly good version of Ubuntu running on your PC. Now it's time to grow a big, hairy pair of ubergeek balls and push Ubuntu to the limit!
  • Restart your PC and boot into Windows. Backup your Wubi folder. (I'm assuming you have huge hard drive with lots of empty space left.) This will take about 15 min.
  • Reboot into Ubuntu. Open a terminal window (Applications menu –> Accessories –> Terminal). Type this: sudo -i to log in as superuser (a.k.a. "root").
  • Type this, the magic incantation: update-manager -d
  • There will be a button to click to update to version 7.10, a.k.a. Gutsy Gibon. Blindly follow the instructions. It'll download the 1,400 files to begin the upgrade process.
  • Once the files have been downloaded, Ubuntu will spend the next 2-3 hours installing them.
  • Voila!
  • If Gutsy Gibon works for you, you can delete that backup of the Wubi folder you made in Windows.

Bonus info: Ubuntu configures itself to fetch whatever files it needs from a server close to you. There are dozens of servers all over the world to choose from, some are fast and some are really, really goddamn slow. If you find that fetching the Gutsy Gibon files is taking forever, you can cancel the download process and try a different server. (System menu -> Administration -> Software Sources) Then, do the update-manager -d thing again and it'll pick up where it left off, only faster (hopefully). By switching severs, I was able to turn an estimated 5 hr. download into a 25 minute one.

I have to admit, whenever I write up a post like this one, I always wonder if anyone is going to find it useful, or most vistors just say to themselves, "Oh geez, there he goes again with his geek talk that has absolutely nothing to do with Japan."

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Sep 27 2007

Learning not to Care: Lesson 1

Published by Rich Pav under Podcast, Soliloquy

From now on in my podcasts, I'm going to ramble, stutter, sniffle, repeat myself, etc. in homage to my new hero, Maria, the world's most horrible singer.

 

icon for podpress  Learning not to Care: Lesson 1 [13:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1902)

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