Goddamn... Today, I managed to misplace the remaining ¥6000 (roughly $60) of cash I had in my pocket, probably while rushing for a train to Shibuya. This really bites, since no Japanese ATM seems to want to accept my bloody PNC card, which means I'm completely moneyless until friday's pay... This really sucks.
Update: If ever I become famous in any function, this will be one for the history books. In the meantime (or more likely in lieu of this improbable eventuality), you can simply colour me stupid. It turns out, I had simply misunderstood the instructions, was putting my card in the wrong way, and can actually take cash out of the ATM at the 7-11 just down the road.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Views from Tokyo Part II
A few more photos of my strolling around Harajuku and Shibuya, yesterday. Took a lot of video footage. I'll look into getting a website of sorts to host them, when I have time...
I wanted to start a collection of crazy signs and shop names (of which there is an endless supply in this wonderful country). I'm not sure if "Candy Stripper" is the name of the shop, the name of a brand, a genuine advertisement for a candy-clad stripper, or simply some random English. Frankly, all options are very plausible.
More shop fronts. Seriously ill... Is that word still in fashion?
Errrr... yes? That's one seriously freaky rabbit. Why there's a shrine-like construct dedicated to its glory (or whatever) in the middle of a shopping district, I don't know.
Frank from Donnie Darko, anyone?
"Tornadoes, fresh from Kansas. Trip to Oz not guaranteed (see local head shop for further assistance)."
So, are they going to release all those balloons onto traffic or something? This is one rather unattractive building... I don't know why I took a picture. Maybe the balloons...
You've got some pretty interesting characters making the rounds, in Harajuku. Seriously, apparently these girls sometimes design these whole costumes themselves. The make-up must take some time too. As you can see, this one is going for the "bicentennial witch" look, very en vogue since the spring collection hit the stores. (If you're American and perhaps don't quite get sarcasm: yes, I'm joking).
There's something very disturbing about a shop called "Nudy Boy" advertising "SALE SALE SALE SALE"... I gotta submit this to engrish.com.
I'm not quite sure if this is the place where the well-to-do-and-slightly-arrogant shop, or whether the shop name seeks to evoke the poetic imagery of colourful berries resting on a blanket of freshly fallen snow. Maybe both...
The weird architecture geek in me comes out again. This Audi building has an exceptional design, as the pictures above and below hopefully show. It sort of reminds me of glitches on 3D engines, when some vertices get messed up and the surfaces go all funky like this. Maybe the architect played a lot of Half-Life.
(See above).
"The Royal Milk"... need we say more?
Quest Hall! The shop that caters to ye olde dragon-slaying, wizard-defeating, princess-saving princely crowd.
Gödel's incompleteness theorem, as illustrated by Japanese smoking regulations. Or maybe the signs on the side define the boundaries of a meter-wide smoking area, which automagically stop the cigarette smoke from travelling further.
No comment...
I wanted to start a collection of crazy signs and shop names (of which there is an endless supply in this wonderful country). I'm not sure if "Candy Stripper" is the name of the shop, the name of a brand, a genuine advertisement for a candy-clad stripper, or simply some random English. Frankly, all options are very plausible.
More shop fronts. Seriously ill... Is that word still in fashion?
Errrr... yes? That's one seriously freaky rabbit. Why there's a shrine-like construct dedicated to its glory (or whatever) in the middle of a shopping district, I don't know.
Frank from Donnie Darko, anyone?
"Tornadoes, fresh from Kansas. Trip to Oz not guaranteed (see local head shop for further assistance)."
So, are they going to release all those balloons onto traffic or something? This is one rather unattractive building... I don't know why I took a picture. Maybe the balloons...
You've got some pretty interesting characters making the rounds, in Harajuku. Seriously, apparently these girls sometimes design these whole costumes themselves. The make-up must take some time too. As you can see, this one is going for the "bicentennial witch" look, very en vogue since the spring collection hit the stores. (If you're American and perhaps don't quite get sarcasm: yes, I'm joking).
There's something very disturbing about a shop called "Nudy Boy" advertising "SALE SALE SALE SALE"... I gotta submit this to engrish.com.
I'm not quite sure if this is the place where the well-to-do-and-slightly-arrogant shop, or whether the shop name seeks to evoke the poetic imagery of colourful berries resting on a blanket of freshly fallen snow. Maybe both...
The weird architecture geek in me comes out again. This Audi building has an exceptional design, as the pictures above and below hopefully show. It sort of reminds me of glitches on 3D engines, when some vertices get messed up and the surfaces go all funky like this. Maybe the architect played a lot of Half-Life.
(See above).
"The Royal Milk"... need we say more?
Quest Hall! The shop that caters to ye olde dragon-slaying, wizard-defeating, princess-saving princely crowd.
Gödel's incompleteness theorem, as illustrated by Japanese smoking regulations. Or maybe the signs on the side define the boundaries of a meter-wide smoking area, which automagically stop the cigarette smoke from travelling further.
No comment...On nodding
One of these little things I love about Japan is the nodding. Actually, it's more a quick and easy form of bowing for minor incidents of politeness, but its frequency of occurrence makes it worthy of mention. As you may most certainly know, the Japanese are quite big on bowing within almost any semi-formal to formal context (ie any context involving anyone over 20, anyone wanting a job, having a job, wanting to keep his/her job, etc...) as a mark of politeness and respect. However, there are many occasions where you want/need to impart a small mark of respect, but do not have time for a complete bow (or deem there is no need for one), so you give a polite nod. It happens all the time. Crossing the street and a driver stops for you? *nod* (and they tend to nod back). Make way for someone on the sidewalk? *nod* (ditto). Make room in the subway? *nod* Sit down next to someone? *nod* Interact with someone in pretty much any manner that doesn't involve physical violence (or unwarranted contact)? *nodnodnod*. I'm starting to feel like one of those little bobbing-head dolls that were all the rage a few years back (God I hope that fad has faded away into the nothingness from whence it came), but it certainly is nice to feel acknowledged... but not too acknowledged.
On scary clowns
I was walking back home from Futako-tamagawa, back towards Kaminoge – incidentally along the same path I'd walk home along when returning from teaching at St Mary's – when I had a bizarre flashback concerning a train of thought I once had while walking down this path on a rainy day, many years ago (ie. four). It was a dark and rainy day, quite sombre, and I was toddling back home under my trusty umbrella, and I remember having specifically this line of thought... there are many side roads branching off, quite a few side paths, some stairs, and hence a lot of dead angles for someone approaching them (ie about to walk past them). And somehow I got into thinking, on this rainy sombre day, that it would be quite freaky if, while walking past one of the aforementioned dead angles, there were to be some messed up psycho-clown waiting there (perhaps under and umbrella himself) for a victim.
... and I thought that a few years of logic, mathematics and physics had warped my mind, but I was evidently not too sane to begin with.
... and I thought that a few years of logic, mathematics and physics had warped my mind, but I was evidently not too sane to begin with.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Views from Tokyo Part I
A few photos I took over the past few days...
Because of earthquakes, most wiring in the Tokyo area is above ground (something fairly rare in Europe, but somewhat frequent in the US). As a result, every 20 or so meters, one encounters one of these huge transformers. They may seem fairly unesthetic, but they somehow seem to fit in with the general vibe of Tokyo (even in richer, leafier neighbourhoods like Setagaya). They also serve as a reminder of how electricity Japanese society is (as are most first world countries). I think I'll take a few more pictures of these things and build a collection.
Another one.
A street in the upper-crust neighbourhood of Seta-gaya. It must cost a small fortune to own a house here, given the collection of luxurious import cars parked in front of each one of them. A very nice place for a morning stroll, away from the hustle and bustle of the main roads.
One of the few traditional houses around St Mary's. Hard to believe this is in an urban metropolis like Tokyo, eh?
The view, from just a few steps away from the house pictured above.
I just thought this looked cool...
This sort of set of stairs is fairly common in hilly Tokyo. Going down...
... and coming back up.
Looks like a quaint little stream, eh? Good thing you can't smell a photograph...
Very totalitarian looking luxury apartments between Setagaya and Futako-Tamagawa, suitably named "Setahaus".
A small thingamabob the size of a credit-card, which you might notice on the ground near "Setahaus". Marks the beginning of Setagaya-ku (hence the arrow).
A pointless shot which turned out nicely. I was trying to see how my camera would fare at high shutter-speeds by taking a picture of a flashing light.
Some interesting architecture. Loads of weird and wonderful constructions like this, across the Big Mikan. Expect more pictures like this... may more.
I thought this lone house, isolated from other buildings by some rough (soon to be built on) ground, made for a nice photo.
A common site in high-pedestrian-traffic areas like Shibuya or Shinjuku (the latter, in this case): politicians sending representatives (or representing themselves) to canvas directly to the public. Here, some (presumably) washed-out pop-star singing some encouraging songs to support his favourite candidate. Wasn't too impressive, musically, although it was a riot picturing similar political tactics in France or the UK.
More interesting architecture. A bank of sorts, I believe.
The slogan/name "Universal Language" appealed to the philosophy of language geek inside me. I'm not a chomskian though, I swear! Once again, a cool façade which somewhat resembles the contents of a rather large library shelf.
A common view in areas like Shibuya or Shinjuku: shedloads of people walking around, people yelling to try and get you into their store, and big-ass screens and adverts everywhere.
This was taken around 3.30am (jet-lag!), while experimenting with long exposure times (15s), to take pictures in low-light conditions. The result was somewhat interesting, but not quite what I expected. I decided to keep the photo anyway...
Ditto above: early morning, experimenting with shutter-speed and ISO settings. This picture has a slightly surrealist feeling to it, hence its place in my collection. The blurring is accidental, but somehow works with the mood at the time (ie. me being half awake before 4am).
Because of earthquakes, most wiring in the Tokyo area is above ground (something fairly rare in Europe, but somewhat frequent in the US). As a result, every 20 or so meters, one encounters one of these huge transformers. They may seem fairly unesthetic, but they somehow seem to fit in with the general vibe of Tokyo (even in richer, leafier neighbourhoods like Setagaya). They also serve as a reminder of how electricity Japanese society is (as are most first world countries). I think I'll take a few more pictures of these things and build a collection.
Another one.
A street in the upper-crust neighbourhood of Seta-gaya. It must cost a small fortune to own a house here, given the collection of luxurious import cars parked in front of each one of them. A very nice place for a morning stroll, away from the hustle and bustle of the main roads.
One of the few traditional houses around St Mary's. Hard to believe this is in an urban metropolis like Tokyo, eh?
The view, from just a few steps away from the house pictured above.
I just thought this looked cool...
This sort of set of stairs is fairly common in hilly Tokyo. Going down...
... and coming back up.
Looks like a quaint little stream, eh? Good thing you can't smell a photograph...
Very totalitarian looking luxury apartments between Setagaya and Futako-Tamagawa, suitably named "Setahaus".
A small thingamabob the size of a credit-card, which you might notice on the ground near "Setahaus". Marks the beginning of Setagaya-ku (hence the arrow).
A pointless shot which turned out nicely. I was trying to see how my camera would fare at high shutter-speeds by taking a picture of a flashing light.
Some interesting architecture. Loads of weird and wonderful constructions like this, across the Big Mikan. Expect more pictures like this... may more.
I thought this lone house, isolated from other buildings by some rough (soon to be built on) ground, made for a nice photo.
A common site in high-pedestrian-traffic areas like Shibuya or Shinjuku (the latter, in this case): politicians sending representatives (or representing themselves) to canvas directly to the public. Here, some (presumably) washed-out pop-star singing some encouraging songs to support his favourite candidate. Wasn't too impressive, musically, although it was a riot picturing similar political tactics in France or the UK.
More interesting architecture. A bank of sorts, I believe.
The slogan/name "Universal Language" appealed to the philosophy of language geek inside me. I'm not a chomskian though, I swear! Once again, a cool façade which somewhat resembles the contents of a rather large library shelf.
A common view in areas like Shibuya or Shinjuku: shedloads of people walking around, people yelling to try and get you into their store, and big-ass screens and adverts everywhere.
This was taken around 3.30am (jet-lag!), while experimenting with long exposure times (15s), to take pictures in low-light conditions. The result was somewhat interesting, but not quite what I expected. I decided to keep the photo anyway...
Ditto above: early morning, experimenting with shutter-speed and ISO settings. This picture has a slightly surrealist feeling to it, hence its place in my collection. The blurring is accidental, but somehow works with the mood at the time (ie. me being half awake before 4am).On the technical front...
On the technical front, the big bummer is that the Office wifi base station, which I could previously access from my apartment across the hall, now has MAC address filtering. Of course, my first reflex was to attempt to login to the router using the default passwords (easily obtainable with a quick Google search) in order to add my laptop's airport card's MAC address to the allow list, but the technician who installed it has cleverly (and most reasonably, although right now I think he's a bastard) changed it to something different without telling the office (and unfortunately he did not make the mistake of using a dictionary word I could crack with hydra, unless of course it's a japanese dictionary word – which is a bit more likely. If anyone knows a nice UNIX CLI brute force cracker which deals with HTTP AUTH, and will compile on PPC, please get in touch). So then I thought it might be just as simple to spoof the MAC address of one of the office computers (while it's turned off), which should be easy since OS X (10.4 and above) has the required set of command line tools. However, either for legal/security reasons, or for some unknown other reason, neither ifconfig or Apple's own 'airport' system tool will change the built-in airport card's MAC address. So unless I can figure something out, I'll have to resort to a wired connection, which requires me to stay in the office while surfing (therefore severely impeding the satisfaction of my addiction to web/email/etc).
Shame, for once tools like hydra or methods like MAC spoofing could actually have been used for a legitimate (and legal) purpose...
Shame, for once tools like hydra or methods like MAC spoofing could actually have been used for a legitimate (and legal) purpose...
Early morning Setagaya
It's only been a few days since I arrived in Japan for the fourth time, but things have already fallen into a more or less familiar routine. There's the predictable 4 or 5am wake-up time, which is a perfect opportunity for a quick jog around Setagaya and down to the area surrounding Futako-Tamagawa-eki before it gets too hot (the early morning temperatures are already hotter than the mid-day heat in Sheffield or Paris was the last two weeks), the same scenery, the same hard work moving box after box from the Eiken office in Setagaya to the school while still jet-lagged (a mere 24h after disembarking), etc... On the other hand, there's a fair deal of novelty going around. Quite a few familiar faces have moved away, both amongst the assistant body and the teacher body (to which I now belong, hurrah for *much* higher pay!), Mr. Donuts in Futako-Tamagawa has either closed permanently or is temporarily closed for refurbishing of sorts, and probably most importantly, the Eiken summer programme is taking place in the International School of Sacred Heart (instead of St Mary's), all the way over in Hiroo (near Roppongi). On one hand, this means no more getting up 20 minutes before the morning meeting for me (St Mary's was a mere 4 minute walk from my apartment), but on the other, the school is at a better location for after-work drinks. The structure of the teaching has also changed, with a mere 2h15 of teaching for me per day instead of 3h (although we must be present on campus from 9am to 2.50pm, ie roughly 6h for those of you who can't be bothered to count), and only for 5 days a week instead of 6. And all that for the same pay. Score...
Friday, July 20, 2007
A quick write-up on graduation
Graduation, this past Tuesday, was an interesting experience. On one hand, the idea of having to come back to Sheffield in the middle of summer, to sit for two hours watching people go up and shake the vice-chancellor's hand, just to do it myself and be on stage for a few brief seconds, did not seem very appealing. On the other hand, the pleasure of seeing a few friends (perhaps for the last time), and of wearing a rather dashing outfit, did contribute to brightening up the day a little.
It was a rather uneventful (in a good way) day: I got up early, put on my suit, accompanied my father to a talk in Information Retrieval in the medical world, which was fairly interesting (since the publication process and information sharing infrastructure is similar in some ways to that present in philosophy, although far more formalised). After that, I went to get robed (well, essentially just get my hood and mortarboard, since I already had my gown), had a quick lunch, attended a short tea-party at the physics department (where the head of department repeated the same speech – nearly word-for-word – that he gave at the end-of-year tea party, with a bit added to congratulate the parents present for their support), and went on to the ceremony.
The graduation ceremony itself was quite agreeable. The hall was suitably air-conditioned (otherwise, it would have been simply unbearably for those of use wearing suits and gowns), and the event was very well organised and run (the marshals were especially efficient). It was amusing to see the bigwigs of the university dressed in colourful medieval wear, marching up the aisle to the tune of organ music. One by one, students were invited up to the platform, their name was read out, and they would cross shake the vice-chancellor's hand and collect their diploma/certificate. For those receiving awards and/or first-class degrees, the vice-chancellor would shake their hand a bit longer, and a few inaudible (from the audience's point of view) words would be exchanged. When my turn came, my name was called out, and I crossed the platform. The vice-chancellor shook my hand, and congratulated me for successfully achieving first-class honours on a bachelor of science in physics and philosophy, and asked me what I was going to do next. To this I replied that I was going to St Andrews to read towards a M.Litt in Philosophy, at which point he congratulated me once more, and wished me the best of luck. Following this, I collected my certificate, and enjoyed the rest of the ceremony. Horrendously exciting stuff, eh?
Anyway, it was quite the experience. The day was followed by an evening of poker, during which I managed to lose a measly five pounds. And the next day, it was off the Japan. Whew!
Below are a few photos of the day...
Here's me, looking suave in the gown (what a poser).
After being robed, outside the union.
Talking to Sarah and Will (perhaps for the last time, although hopefully not).
During the physics departmental tea party, in the first year lab. To think, only three years ago we were being greeted here.
And now, a short video segment of my time on stage...
That's it!
It was a rather uneventful (in a good way) day: I got up early, put on my suit, accompanied my father to a talk in Information Retrieval in the medical world, which was fairly interesting (since the publication process and information sharing infrastructure is similar in some ways to that present in philosophy, although far more formalised). After that, I went to get robed (well, essentially just get my hood and mortarboard, since I already had my gown), had a quick lunch, attended a short tea-party at the physics department (where the head of department repeated the same speech – nearly word-for-word – that he gave at the end-of-year tea party, with a bit added to congratulate the parents present for their support), and went on to the ceremony.
The graduation ceremony itself was quite agreeable. The hall was suitably air-conditioned (otherwise, it would have been simply unbearably for those of use wearing suits and gowns), and the event was very well organised and run (the marshals were especially efficient). It was amusing to see the bigwigs of the university dressed in colourful medieval wear, marching up the aisle to the tune of organ music. One by one, students were invited up to the platform, their name was read out, and they would cross shake the vice-chancellor's hand and collect their diploma/certificate. For those receiving awards and/or first-class degrees, the vice-chancellor would shake their hand a bit longer, and a few inaudible (from the audience's point of view) words would be exchanged. When my turn came, my name was called out, and I crossed the platform. The vice-chancellor shook my hand, and congratulated me for successfully achieving first-class honours on a bachelor of science in physics and philosophy, and asked me what I was going to do next. To this I replied that I was going to St Andrews to read towards a M.Litt in Philosophy, at which point he congratulated me once more, and wished me the best of luck. Following this, I collected my certificate, and enjoyed the rest of the ceremony. Horrendously exciting stuff, eh?
Anyway, it was quite the experience. The day was followed by an evening of poker, during which I managed to lose a measly five pounds. And the next day, it was off the Japan. Whew!
Below are a few photos of the day...
Here's me, looking suave in the gown (what a poser).
After being robed, outside the union.
Talking to Sarah and Will (perhaps for the last time, although hopefully not).
During the physics departmental tea party, in the first year lab. To think, only three years ago we were being greeted here.And now, a short video segment of my time on stage...
That's it!
Friday, July 13, 2007
On the road again...
... first, a (hopefully pleasant) drive up to Sheffield for graduation (woohoo?). Then the usual moderately hellish flight to Tokyo on Wednesday 18th. Indeed, for those of you who are reading this, and didn't know (most likely a group that == {Ø}), I'm going to be teaching in Tokyo for most of the summer again. It's at Eiken again (by the bye, can you spot me on that old picture, at the top of the website? It dates back to 2003... I think I still have the shirt I'm wearing on top of what seems like a cool t-shirt), but unlike the previous times, I'll be a teacher (rather than ye olde assistant teacher), and I'll be teaching junior-high instead of high-school level (more about how that goes in ten days or so). Also, the school hosting the program will be the International School of Sacred Heart, which in Roppongi. A bit of a bummer, since it means it's not a 5 minute walk from the apartment door to the classroom door – as was the case when the host school was St Mary's (currently being renovated) – but on the other hand, after-work drinks will be easily accessible (and that's what really matters, after all).
Anyway, like in 2005, I'll be posting regular updates on this site about my musings concerning teaching, Japanese society, and whatnot (probably just page after page of me whining about how bloody hot and humid it'll be), hopefully alongside a few photos. I hope it will be an entertaining read, should you choose to tag along.
FYI, I'll be reachable by email (as always), my usual UK mobile phone number (text before calling, as I'll most likely be teaching, sleeping, or busy), as well as AIM and MSN during the evenings. If, by chance, you're visiting the Big Mikan at all this summer, get in touch and we can hang out. I'll be there until the 23rd of August.
Anyway, like in 2005, I'll be posting regular updates on this site about my musings concerning teaching, Japanese society, and whatnot (probably just page after page of me whining about how bloody hot and humid it'll be), hopefully alongside a few photos. I hope it will be an entertaining read, should you choose to tag along.
FYI, I'll be reachable by email (as always), my usual UK mobile phone number (text before calling, as I'll most likely be teaching, sleeping, or busy), as well as AIM and MSN during the evenings. If, by chance, you're visiting the Big Mikan at all this summer, get in touch and we can hang out. I'll be there until the 23rd of August.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Snake on a... computer?
I'm afraid the following blog update is quite a sad one. Not 'sad' in the tragic sense, but rather 'sad' in the social sense, as an indication of eccentric and abnormally boring (to the lay public, at least) practises.
I have found the love of my (computer) life, and it's called Python. Every so often, you run into something that just clicks, in terms of the balance between usability and power. It's something I've experienced when learning to use bash (esp. the joys of SSH), or LaTeX (I wrote my last two papers and rewrote my CV with it), or when I finally go the knack for coding decent C; but when I say 'click', I think more of my discovery of object oriented scripting languages like Perl (which I had time to learn to basics of, but never to use) and Ruby (having shortly toyed with the syntax, but never used or learned in-depth). And it seems that until now, between Perl and Ruby, I had missed an important middle ground: Python. Actually, that's a lie... when I was 14 or so, I got my hands on a copy of O'Reilly's "Learning Python, Second Edition" (an edition with a cute little picture of a mouse on the cover, the macabre significance of which only strikes me now), but somehow did not get a chance (or the motivation) to peruse it fully.
However all is different now. Egged on by a recent conversation where I was weakly trying to defend the merit of learning C as a first language, I decided to give the legendary Python a try, and stumbled across this fantastic little guide (free, viewable online) by Mark Pilgrim, "Dive into Python" (which I heartily recommend to anyone with a minimal experience of some other programming language; it's exceptionally well designed, and concise). And Python did not disappoint me: it has the sort of 'message passing' syntax I liked in Ruby, the near-english aspect of which being similar to what I appreciated in Perl, and it has a fairly simple set of powerful built-in functions while remaining extremely extendable. In short, it's quite a pleasure to program with it, and I've been practising translating some of my C programs into it. The amount of code is significantly more minimal, and the data-sorting and string-filtering abilities save me many-a-headache.
Ironically arriving at a time where I have less need for a good programming language, it's quite a dream come true. I'm sure I'll find some use for it. In the meantime, if you're looking for a quick and easy to learn language, check Python out.
I have found the love of my (computer) life, and it's called Python. Every so often, you run into something that just clicks, in terms of the balance between usability and power. It's something I've experienced when learning to use bash (esp. the joys of SSH), or LaTeX (I wrote my last two papers and rewrote my CV with it), or when I finally go the knack for coding decent C; but when I say 'click', I think more of my discovery of object oriented scripting languages like Perl (which I had time to learn to basics of, but never to use) and Ruby (having shortly toyed with the syntax, but never used or learned in-depth). And it seems that until now, between Perl and Ruby, I had missed an important middle ground: Python. Actually, that's a lie... when I was 14 or so, I got my hands on a copy of O'Reilly's "Learning Python, Second Edition" (an edition with a cute little picture of a mouse on the cover, the macabre significance of which only strikes me now), but somehow did not get a chance (or the motivation) to peruse it fully.
However all is different now. Egged on by a recent conversation where I was weakly trying to defend the merit of learning C as a first language, I decided to give the legendary Python a try, and stumbled across this fantastic little guide (free, viewable online) by Mark Pilgrim, "Dive into Python" (which I heartily recommend to anyone with a minimal experience of some other programming language; it's exceptionally well designed, and concise). And Python did not disappoint me: it has the sort of 'message passing' syntax I liked in Ruby, the near-english aspect of which being similar to what I appreciated in Perl, and it has a fairly simple set of powerful built-in functions while remaining extremely extendable. In short, it's quite a pleasure to program with it, and I've been practising translating some of my C programs into it. The amount of code is significantly more minimal, and the data-sorting and string-filtering abilities save me many-a-headache.
Ironically arriving at a time where I have less need for a good programming language, it's quite a dream come true. I'm sure I'll find some use for it. In the meantime, if you're looking for a quick and easy to learn language, check Python out.
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