SOFTWARE, JAPAN, SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND

Last week, I got my Roomba 770 - here it is:

It’s a box, with a robot inside!

Yes, I’ll let the robot do the work.

Here’s what it looks like all nicely packed into the box with that new robot smell.

Here is the Roomba out on the floor with all the included stuff. A couple brush cleaners […]

Join us for the COOKPAD on Rails meetup this Thursday night, our second monthly gathering.
http://www.meetup.com/COOKPAD-on-Rails/events/28350831/
RSVP and let us know you’ll be there!

A couple months ago, the Tokyo Rubyist Meetup was held at COOKPAD’s office. I, as is usual the case, attended the event to socialize with other engineers in the Tokyo area.
However, to my surprise, this event had a special guest whom I believe most other Ruby developers would recognize (especially if they are Ruby on […]

It’s getting close to Sakura season here in Japan. I expect the cherry blossoms will be blooming in the next few weeks.
cherry blossoms
However, Ayako and I might be in Italy when it happens. We’ll be there the week after next
On another note, I finally got around to watching the famous Japanese animated movie […]

I’m making plans to go to Italy this year. Any suggestions?
So far it looks like I’ll visit: Milan, Venice, Florence, & Rome

I attended the Tokyo Rubyist Meetup in Jimbocho. This was my second time attending, and I’ll be going again to the next one.
The venue was at a technology research campus, which was more or less a single office building with about 30 floors. The conference room was rather nice, and the presentation itself […]

This PDF by employees at Google is an interesting read. It discusses the importance of measuring additional metrics that gauge the user experience:
Measuring the User Experience on a Large Scale
On another note, this week is going to be a nice break from the recent pace. Looking forward to not having any evening plans

A great interview with Hashimoto-san, the CTO of COOKPAD, is now on CNET Japan. As you may have guessed, the interview was recorded and transcribed in Japanese - you can check it out here:
COOKPAD CTO interview Part 1
COOKPAD CTO interview Part 2
My favorite part of the interview is about the software engineer’s skill sets. Hashimoto-san […]

Since Monday I’ve been knee-deep in Ruby + Ruby on Rails development for COOKPAD (cookpad.com). Setting up a new Macbook Pro at work was an experience, one which I’ve never personally had the pleasure of doing before.
I currently own:
1 Mac mini
1 Macbook 1st generation Intel processor
1 Thinkpad X61s with Intel core duo + Gumblar virus […]

Today is Marine Day - a holiday in Japan. Many Japanese use this 3 day weekend to take family trips. This holiday is not set on a specific date, instead it always falls on the third Monday of July.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Day
So what did I do for this weekend? Ayako and I met a couple […]