Mostly for my own reference, this is a list of less well-known places to hunt down old/rare/unusual stuff in Japan. May be updated occasionally. No idea how well these work with shopping proxies. The obvious ones: Rakuten, Amazon, Mercari, Yahoo Auctions
This is mostly to document something that was confusing me with Clojure. It feels like an inconsistency in the language but maybe it’s just me.
After changing my desktop from herbstluftwm/X11 to sway/Wayland on my Linux system, the Vivaldi file picker download broke. The dialog itself was fine but after a file was selected the dialog would close and the browser would crash with a segmentation fault. Turns out the problem was in the machinery the browser uses to talk to the windowing toolkit.
I was looking for a nicer stylus for my Boox Note 3, so went down the rabbit hole of digitizer compatibility. Boox use Wacom EMR so as of early 2023 here’s the list of EMR styluses that I’ve been able to find. In theory they’re all compatible but nothing has been tested.
Modern bikes with lightweight parts need to be torqued to spec with a torque wrench. The alternative is getting familiar with the distinctive crack of carbon fibre as it’s crushed by a clamp bolt. Questions about what torque wrench to buy regularly appear on Reddit and other forums, this is my answer.
I bought DT Swiss XR1501 Spline One wheels and wanted to convert the front to 12mm thru-axle. The official compatibility list (‘conversion’ tab) only shows QR and 15mm TA. Listed compatible adapters are HWGXXX00S6318S (QR) and HWGXXX0009102S (15mm TA). DT Swiss hubs are mostly shared between road and MTB so most combinations should exist, even if they’re hard to figure out.
At the end of June 2022 the Japan road cycling national championships should have been held, but the Womens Elite and Womens U23 categories weren’t run and no national champions were selected. I didn’t see anything about this in English so I’ve summarized it here. This is primarily a translation without commentary. I’ve skipped over various points in the documents that don’t affect the outcome.
I meant to update the R3 Pro 1.6 firmware but never got around to it and now 1.7 is out. The VOROIS issue seems to be fixed in the original version so this now only fixes the sort collation and adds a more recent adb.
After riding too far on a flat my Gravel King rear tyre stopped holding air in a tubeless setup. Revoloop tubes were cheaper and more readily available than the other TPU tubes (Tubolito, Aerothan) so I bought one to try. However, the American distributor’s FAQ states that they’re not compatible with sealant-imbued tyres because the acetone in the sealant will melt the tube.
Inspired by a couple of articles, I was curious about grabbing an older Ricoh GR Digital camera to play with - the tiny sensor ones, not the current APS-C series. I didn’t find a summary of the changes with each model, so based on my notes:
Based on The History of Electrical Engineering Newsletter, January 2011 (Japanese). Don’t take this as a completely accurate translation.
I usually snowboard with a camelbak since it’s an easy way to stay hydrated and it mostly stays out of the way. Unfortunately, when it’s particularly cold the hose can freeze. If the mouthpiece jams with ice it usually stays that way until I can get inside somewhere to let it thaw.