I'm have had Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows stuck in my head for days. Guess it is the weather, as spring is finally arriving in Toronto this year.
Music of April 2016
I have been planning one of these posts for a while now! Finally getting around to it!
I found Uproot Andy via his Worldwide Ting Vol. 1 Mixtape (free download) almost certainly via Giles Peterson. 👍🏼
Kaitlin Aurelia Smith's album EARS has been playing quite a bit for me lately. Fantastic organic synth filled jazz. I can't find a video of the track which haunts me most, "When I Try, I'm Full", but the linked to above "Rare Things Grow" is in my mind a companion piece.
I continue to be mildly obsessed with Nao. For some reason, everything she does is attuned directly to the pop-sensitive part of my brain, and I love her for it.
I dipped back into the Transistor soundtrack recently. Great for working to, but there are also some very strong songs that can stand on their own, like the above, "We All Become", featuring Ashley Barrett.
If you listen to the Gilles Peterson Worldwide show on BBC 6 Music, I am certain most of the music in this post is not new to you, as I steal shameless from him. However, if you're not (you should!), you may have missed The Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band, and you shouldn't miss them.
I suspect there will be a lot more starRo in future posts, as I've just discovered his Soundcloud page. Up until writing this post, I knew very little about starRo... I don't even remember how I found him.... I think possibly via a remix (This Little Dragon mix is pretty good!)
The first track off an excellent compilation album, Detroit Jazz City, which that link tells me is actually a benefit album.
I think that's enough for today. Who knows, maybe I'll be back with more. Here's a link to an Apple Music Playlist, if that works for you!
Freezing Rain
A sputtering return to winter these last couple of days.
Japan: Part 3: Random
I'm super bad at blogging apparently; Lemme just dump some random photos.
God I loved Japan.
IBM's JIT Talk, RubyKaigi 2015
After I gave my talk at RubyKaigi, people told me that it went well. While I believed them, I really wanted to see how it went for myself. Fortunately, the talks were recorded, and have since been posted to Youtube. I'm reasonably happy with my performance!
My talk's video has actually been available on YouTube for a little while now, but I held off posting it until our Technology Preview was back in action, which happened last week.
The slides are re-embedded below:
Favourite Things of 2015
Given that the beginning of a New Year is supposed to be about reflection... and the Playstation Network is down... I'll share some of my favourite things this year.
- Twitter has been excellent to me this year. Lots of entertainment and information. Here's some accounts that have been my favourites for 2015.
- @FioraAeterna - "assembly dork, GPU compiler dev, JRPG fangirl, and terrible punster"
- Jordan Rose a.k.a. @UINT_MIN, works on Swift at Apple.
- John Regehr, @johnregehr. Professor at the University of Utah, also runs the fantastic blog Embedded in Academia
- @spun_off - "I am “C lawyer #1” in Dan Bernstein's favorite anecdote. Ask me for my version, it is much funnier."
- The always magical @baconmeteor and @pinboard, who I have lauded before.
- Music:
- Probably my favourite song of 2015: Nao's Zillionaire
Makaya McCraven's In the Moment was my most listened to Jazz record of the year.
JME's Integrity was big for me this year, especially Work
Books
I really enjoyed working through Charles Stross's Laundry Files. Highly recommended.
I took a bit of a plunge into comics this year, getting a Marvel Unlimited subscription in the last four months of the year. I've really enjoyed a good chunk of what I read... and gave up on pretty much anything I didn't like.
Ms. Marvel (2014): Kamala Khan is great. I wish she had a huge back catalogue I could mainline... but alas, introduced in 2014, I'm up to date, insofar as Marvel Unlimited is concerned.
The reasonably self-contained story of Captain Marvel that ran from 2012-2013 was really well done.
I freaking adore The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
Movies:
Jupiter Ascending. No. Seriously. Incredibly fun. Just fun. Purely about fun.
That movie about the Force and stuff.
Other:
Sea-doo. Turns out... lots and lots of fun.
Tokyo Tower
Japan: Part 2: The Day Tour
After RubyKaigi comes tourism, of course.
We were incredibly fortunate that Craig's wife, Rebecca, planned a full day tour for the first day. This was a fantastic way to get introduced to a broader Tokyo.
Our tour guide, Yosuke Yokokura from Discover Japan Tours, was an excellent guide, and we really enjoyed having him. Our itinerary covered a broad swathe of Tokyo, while being interesting and engaging.
The day started with a visit to the Sensō-ji temple, a Buddhist temple in Asakusa.
Driving across the city, through a number of districts we would revisit later, like Akihabara, Nihonbashi, and Ginza, we then arrived at Shibuya, where we drove through the famous Shibuya Crossing before parking, and heading to lunch. Lunch happened at the fascinating Uobei Sushi, a fascinating sushi place where your dishes are ordered on touch screen and delivered to your table via high-speed 'train'.
Unfortunately I have no photos of the interior, but I'd recommend the link above, which has some videos of the place.
I think for many of us, the stand-out portion of the tour (and for me, perhaps the whole trip!) was our visit to the Meiji Shrine.
We followed up our walk through the Meiji shine area with a stroll through the very interesting neighbourhood of Harajuku.
We then proceeded to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building to take advantage of its observation decks.
It was a fantastic end to our tour, seeing an overview of the city that we would spend the next could of days exploring.