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I won the White Camel Award at OSCON 2008

Me, Larry and the White Camel award

As reported on my Twitter and use.perl, I received the Perl White Camel Award at OSCON 2008.

The TPF guys were probably surprised that I'm here, like I myself was surprised to receive the award (I wasn't notified about that at all), because they think I actually live in Japan for organizing such a wonderful conference YAPC::Asia 2008. I didn't have a chance to speak using the microphone so instead I'm gonna blog this:

I really want to say thanks to the YAPC::Asia core organizers team, especially Takesako-san, Daiba-san, Taichi and Oyama-san as well as all the staff at volunteering team (I'm really sorry I don't have a space for all names). And also to Dan-san and Pauley's for providing their house as a guest house for the great speakers like Larry Wall, Damian Conway, Audrey Tang, Jesse Vincent, clkao, Ingy dot net, Michael Schwern, Casey West, to name a few. Huge thanks to Eric Cholet for writing a great conference software Act, and also hosting me in his nice Paris apartment for a weekend for the great productive Hackathon.

I would also like to thank Simon Wistow, Dave Cross, Leon Brocard and other early London.pm-ers for starting up London.pm, doing very interesting tech talks series and also London Perl Workshop because that, not sure if he knows or not, inspired me to start up Shibuya.pm and YAPC::Asia, ripping off a lot of practices to organize technical talks and all that. 

Finally I want to say thanks to my employer Six Apart and Six Apart KK for giving me such a wonderful work environment and the opportunity to get back to Tokyo this often so remotely organizing the conference in Tokyo from San Francisco is made actually possible. 

We (Six Apart) have a booth in the Exhibitor hall in OSCON so please come by and say hi!

P.S. Jos pointed out in the drinking tonight that the Award trophy has such a sharp edge that it could be treated as a weapon on the airplane and maybe I should check in. I might need to figure it out :)

Going to OSCON

I'm going to Portland for OSCON 2008, so do lots of engineers from Six Apart. I won't give a talk, but hat's new for us this year would be that we have a booth! Come by to talk to us and steal some stickers or t-shirts. Rumor says that we'll have a free beer drinking at our suite one of those nights. I'll keep you updated on my twitter.

Miku's Saihate, covered by kz of livetune

初音ミクがカヴァー曲を歌ってくれました「サイハテ」

I so <3 this song and the remix.

パックランドでつかまえて

パックランドでつかまえて―テレビゲームの青春物語 (ファミ通Books)

ゲーム話でもう1つ。

ポケモンの田尻智氏のエッセイ集「パックランドでつかまえて」ってのを中学か高校のときに読んでえらく感動した覚えがある。自分が若かったころ、ゲームセンターに通いつめてゲームをした話、だったとおもうんだけどなんか青春小説ぽいノリもありつつで結構好きでした。また読んでみたいけど、実家においてあったかな？

Amazon で古本が400円くらいで買えますね。おすすめです。

Happy 25th Birthday Famicom (NES)

Taichi inspired me to post this and it's actually a QoTD on Vox Japan: today is Famicom (NES) 25th birthday since it was on sale 1983/07/15 in Japan. Let's talk about the memories!

ITEM-AN-500B.jpg

I didn't have Famicom until 1986 when Twin Famicon along with the Disk System was out, which is a smart device that has both NES and the Disk System built in a single device.

At that time I didn't know the reason but now I can see that a bit clearer: our home didn't have an analog TV at that time and had a video deck and a monitor TV that doesn't have the antenna built-in. So the standard Famicom which requires the standard TV antenna input to display the game console output on channel 2 (I guess that's the origin of the anonymous bulletin board site 2ch. Is that correct?) didn't work for us. Twin Famicom has a standard video output so just connectin the Red-White-Yellow cable to the TV works. Oh yeah, the video deck was obviously SONY beta. Such a nerd is my dad :)

So I don't remember the exact date when I got the first famicom, but when I watch the video series of "Complete guide of NES games" on Nico Nico Douga, I can tell when I got the device based on the game I bought: it's early 1986, but wait, Twin Famicom was release July of 1986. Hmm, so maybe I got the console right when it was out and bought the titles backdated early 1986. Maybe.

The first game I played, I think, was Sky Destroyer. I don't know why but my Dad bought this when he purchased the Twin Famicom for me, probably that's one of the latest title at that time. But it's apparently not... Now I really doubt if Twin Famicom really is the first console for me since I remember I played lots of mid 1985 games real time, like Super Mario 1 and Gegege no Kitaro. Hmm :)

That said, I really am looking forward to the Retro Game Master (originally called Game Center CX) DVD is out in North America. I love the show.

Playing Tag with DS Pictochat

東京新聞:ＤＳ鬼ごっこで遊ぼ　無線通信で“情報戦”:社会(TOKYO Web)

https://www.tokyo-...

　東京都内の狭い遊び場で、ただ追いかけっこをするだけではつまらない−。そんな子どもたちが、任天堂の携帯ゲーム機「ニンテンドーＤＳ」を使った独自の鬼ごっこを考え出した。

What's hot among kids in Tokyo: playing tag using DS pictochat. They use the portable console to communicate who's the current tagger in the chaotic Tokyo back street or in the shopping mall.

Pictochat wireless signal is only available within 30 meters (= 100 feet) so in order to get the information from your buddies you need to get close, that makes you at the risk of being caught by the tagger. Sometimes the tagger can fake their identity on the chat network like "I saw the tagger in XXX". That's absolutely smart.

Sounds kind of like the world of Dennou Coil, doesn't it? Kids always are more creative than people who actually created the device. Genius.

QotD: It's Monday Already?

What was the best thing about your weekend?

I saw a white girl wearing kimono with gothic lolita skirt and boots, eating Japanese rice cracker and drinking Kitty-chan Calpis, at San Francisco Japantown. Probably the best thing. Sorry there's no photo because I didn't carry around my camera nor cellphone.

Chrono Trigger on Band Brothers!

Chrono Trigger on Band Brothers

So many Chrono Trigger music videos on Nico Nico Douga, but this really caught my eyes. This guy arranged the music into 8 bit (rather than 16 bit SNES) and then turned it into DS band brothers score! Amazing.

Great Discovery: Genki Rockets

"Heavenly Star" by Genki Rockets　元気ロケッツ

I've been hearing and seeing about Genki Rockets a couple of times but the name always feels like it's some girl voice pop punk band so I haven't given it a shot. 

So I was wrong. Today I saw one of my friend, who has a very similar taste to me, listen to this a lot on her last.fm page so I gave the first listen on YouTube. Now I can't stop listening to it :)

Chrono Trigger DS trailer

NDS Chrono Trigger Trailer

So this looks like a straight port. Not a remake.