• 🔗 Treat yourself to the 90s club aesthetics of the Wipeout games

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    Virtual clubbing, you say? It’s tough to top Psygnosis’ Wipeout series and its legacy, starting with composer Tim Wright aka CoLD SToRAGE. So let’s queue up a mix.
    Great mix.
    1. Tagged with
    2. video
    3. nostalgia
    4. music

  • The Week #58

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    • Delta continues its rise in Japan. I don't have much to add beyond "wow, politicians are daft". Ignoring citizens when they overwhelmingly didn't support the Olympics continuing, holding the Olympics, then telling citizens to just forget about traveling home for the holidays...I understand the request (and agree with it), but people aren't going to listen. It's like throwing a giant house party, then the next day, hungover, telling the rest of the neighborhood they can't throw parties – you've lost moral authority to make such requests.
    • It's been raining non-stop for what feels like a week. Areas in Kyushu have gotten a meter of rain in a couple of days. The constant rain has saturated the ground and there's mudslide warnings in much in the mountains. How saturated you ask? Water is coming up from the ground where it shouldn't.  While the 19 - 22 degree days have been a break from the usual 33 degree summer days, I think I'm ready for some blue skies.
    • Last week was Leo's "summer vacation" from school. We didn't go much of anywhere, but Leo got to play with his cousins almost everyday as they were at the grandparent's house nearby. I know he's growing up because he declared that he's not going to school and his still on vacation. 🤣
    • I started working on Tanzawa again for the first time in what feels like ages. Which is funny as just a couple of weeks ago I said I wasn't going to work on it for a month. Tanzawa Trips is one of the "tent pole" features I had in my mind when I first decided to build a blogging system and I'm happy to finally be starting it.

  • 🔗 koaning.io: My New Home Setup

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    Better Patterns for Development Work.
    Despite my undying love for my mid-2014, I've been itching for a new computer for the better part of a year. I really like this idea that Vincent has setup working: a beefy Intel NUC PC running Linux to handle Docker etc.. and uses VSCode to develop on it from his Mac.

    I've heard of people doing this before, but they're usually using a terminal for all of their development on a server in the cloud.

    While I'm reluctant to use VSCode (because I'm still not sure I trust Microsoft yet), it appears a similar can also be done with PyCharm. Maybe this is the solution to my building a PC/getting a PC itch.
    1. Tagged with
    2. computing
  • by
    Finally started working on Tanzawa trips. The idea is to let you link your status, photos, blogs, and checkins from a trip together in a nice package so  you can share your journey.
    Tanzawa Trips

  • Checkin to IKEA Restaurant & Cafe (IKEAレストラン&カフェ)

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    in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
    Plant balls
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    I feel like I’ve been spending too much time on Twitter lately.  A year ago I set limits on my phone with screen time, but I’ve gotten into the habit of just extending it for the day. 

    I wonder if I muster the discipline to only post on my blog / syndicate for a day? A week?

  • 🔗 How the Pandemic Now Ends

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    Cases of COVID-19 are rising fast. Vaccine uptake has plateaued. The pandemic will be over one day—but the way there is different now.
    Most people will meet the virus eventually; we want to ensure that as many people as possible do so with two doses of vaccine in them, and that everyone else does so over as much time as possible.

    That's what I've been thinking with the latest surge in Japan. I’ll probably get it, but at least I got my shots so my immune system isn’t completely  naive. 
    1. Tagged with
    2. pandemic

  • The Week #57

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    • Both Yumi and I got our second dose of Pfizer in Shin-Yokohama. Talk about a huge weight being lifted off your shoulders. Now everyone we meet with semi-regularly (Yumi's parents) are vaccinated, I can relax a bit more. My day-after effects included general lethargy and a 38.9 degree temperature. I wonder when kids will be eligible to get the vaccine...
    • I put in my notice at my current job at BeProud, my employer of over 4 years. In October I'll be joining the Kraken team at Octopus Energy as they expand to Japan. It was a difficult decision, but I'm really looking forward to my new role. I'll went into more info in my Why I'm Joining Octopus Energy post.
    • The IPCC report came out and it's a doozy. Things will get worse for the next 30 years. We've got a lot of work to do.
    • The Olympics ended – and (apparently, I wasn't watching) they cut coverage right when the head of the IOC started talking because a typhoon made landfall in Fukuoka. Classic snub, even if it wasn't meant to be.
    • I'll have about 3 weeks of vacation between jobs, so I'm starting to think about what I'll do. Since we're fully vaccinated, I'd like to make a small trip to another prefecture. Maybe a trip to Izu? Karuizawa?
    • I know I'll spend some time on Tanzawa, getting it documented and easier to deploy. Ideally I want a button where you can click and spin up a server on DigitalOcean (via Docker?) and some method for allowing you to update your Docker container for new releases.

  • Why I'm Joining Octopus Energy 🐙

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    A bit over 4 years ago I moved back to Japan, without a stable job. I had been contracting for 3 or 4 years in the US, but a difference in time zones (GMT+9 vs GMT - 4) made that difficult to maintain. I had heard about a Python shop called BeProud and they were remote friendly.

    There weren't many remote friendly companies at the time in Japan, let alone companies that specialized in Python consulting. Being full-remote friendly signaled to me that they'd have a progressive company culture where I'd fit.

    It was a fun just over 4 years, my longest tenure to date. My co-workers were great, bosses nice, and the projects (mostly) fun. Work-life balance is taken seriously (I took 6-weeks of (paid) parental leave after my son was born without any issues – something that's still rare in Japan).

    If you can speak Japanese and sling Python, they're a great company filled with great people.

    So why leave?

    Climate change. Like many, for years I've worried about climate change. But I didn't know where to begin, beyond voting for people that take it seriously and reduce flights/driving where possible. But the challenge is bigger than any individual.

    The most important change society is going to need to make is is getting our emissions to net zero. As fast as we can. And the biggest leaver is changing how we power (⚡️) our society. Japan currently gets 69% of its electricity from fossil fuels. Any way I can help lower this number, beyond just changing my personal electricity, is something worth spending my time and effort doing.

    Per capita electricity from fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewables, 2020


    Like many, while I am worried about climate change and want to help, each time I looked for how I could get involved in non-superficial ways it either required engineering or chemistry expertise that I don't have or in the wrong location or some other  factor that didn't line up. Until now.

    Octopus Energy, one of Europe's largest investors in renewable energy, is a working to make a "green dent in the universe".  They do this in a number of ways:

    1. As an electricity provider, they offer dynamic tariffs that move with the wholesale price of electricity. Using data science and machine learning, they then help their customers take advantage of renewables by increasing electricity usage when there's an abundance of energy on the grid (which is usually when there's a lot of renewables producing  electricity) and reduce usage when there's less abundance (and usually dirtier, fossil fuels).
    2. They're generating their own green electricity that they put on the grid.
    3. They sell and service electric vehicles
    4. They're making green-Hydrogen as a service.

    The system that powers all of this is called Kraken and they're bringing it to the US, Australia, and Japan (in partnership with Tokyo Gas), allowing customers to take advantage of cheap green energy and reduce demand when it's mostly fossil fuels. 

    Starting in October, I'll  be working on the integrations that allow  Kraken to be used in Japan and helping de-carbonize Japan's electricity supply. Hopefully over the coming years this 69% will decrease.With any luck, my work will directly contribute to driving that number to 0% as quick as possible.

    While I'm sad to leave BeProud and co-workers I enjoyed working for and with, the opportunity to use my skills to fight climate change in a meaningful way is not one that I could pass up. To my new co-workers, I look forward to working together to make our green dent.
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    Abbey Road done with Mario Paint. Amazing.
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