I'm pretty sure I've worked with this guy...
Presenting: An interview with an average programmer
Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure that guy has been at more than one of my workplaces.
A little note to my place of work
The reason we have four-way redundancy on every-goddamn thing is so that if one of the servers happens to stop functioning for some reason, the entire system hasn’t gone belly-up.
Your failure to understand that less-than-100%-functionality still means that functionality exists, is your problem and not mine. I refuse to treat it as an emergency.
Round and around
This last weekend I spent five hours on the motorbikes. Egads.
Well, not counting time spend traveling to and from the course, of course. That adds at least another couple of hours, what with having moved a bit further away.
Saturday’s instructor was…not very good. This wasn’t a big deal for the first hour of instruction, which was on a motorcycle simulator, featuring the World’s Least-Attentive People. It was basically impossible to not crash your bike in this simulated town, what with everyone leaping out in front of you every chance they got. A good laugh was had by all.
He spent the first actual hour on the bikes doing this odd skill where the instructor waves colored flags, and depending on what color flag he’s waving, you’re supposed to swerve to the left or to the right, or keep going straight, while you’re doing an emergency stop. This is apparently to teach you how to decide which way to go in a real emergency-stop kind of situation, even though in such a situation, people are rarely going to be helpfully waving colored flags to tell you which way to go to not hit something.
His second hour, he was supposed to teach us how to do the odd ladder-thing, where you ride your bike along a succession of beams placed in the way. You’re supposed to stand on the pegs to give you a bit more of a cushion against the bouncing. He gave us a token bit of instruction on this, and then said “Follow me!” while he showed off doing trials-type things that he knew damn well nobody had the skill to even begin to attempt. Bad teacher, no donut.
On Sunday, though, I got my favorite instructor at the school—a guy named Noda, who is a complete motorcycle nerd, and wants everyone to be just as good with motorbikes as he was. He went through all of the difficult skills with me over and over until I could do them perfectly, and then went through both of the test courses with me until I could do them without any hesitation. And then he went over the skills with me again. I felt like I was twice as skilled after spending a couple of hours under his tutelage as I was before. It was quite a nice feeling.
The actual test was this morning at 9:30am. They had us show up at 8:30 to take care of paperwork—it turns out there were five of us taking the riding test.
I was first. I passed it effortlessly thanks in no small part to Mr. Noda’s teaching—which might have been a bad thing for the guys after me, because I think I made it look too easy. The guy right after me lost his balance on the riding-down-the-ladder skill, and the guy right after him went around really slowly and was lectured about it. We were the three large-motorcycle test takers.
There were also two younger guys who were going for their restricted license—the one I already have. The first one who went out actually fell over on the first left turn, and never quite recovered his composure after that. The second one, though, passed it without making much of an effort—I’d already advised him that he should trust his bike, and drive with self-confidence. If he’d had Mr. Noda as a teacher, though, he probably already understood that.
Unfortunately all the rest of the paperwork left me with not enough time to actually go to the license center and pick up the license—so I guess that’s an adventure for another day.
Homes and bikes
Not so much on the homes, really. It’s all very exciting and stuff to be setting up a new place, but it’s really not that interesting for anyone else to hear about it. At least, I don’t particularly find myself salivating over the details of other people buying exciting things like furniture, air conditioners, and TV sets.
Instead, I’ll bore people by talking more about bike school. Lately, I’ve been riding an impressive variety of motorcycles. This is deliberate on the school’s part, of course, in order to remind students that different motorcycles do indeed handle differently.
I got to ride on their scooter, for example: it’s a Yamaha Majesty 400. After riding around on the CB750 for a while, it definitely handles differently. I felt like I was sitting on the ground. I have a 400cc scooter myself, but that has proper-sized wheels and generally handles, well, more like a CB400 than like one of the big Japanese scooters.
The Majesty felt like I was sitting on a barrel. I certainly know what people are talking about when they talk about the handling problems that scooters have—its tiny wheels, low sitting position, and long wheelbase made for a bike that just isn’t very agile.
The Harleys also have a similarly-long wheelbase, which explains why I felt like they just didn’t know how to do go around corners. The Majesty was similarly-bad at cornering.
Also, I managed to fall off it on the balance beam. I didn’t fall off the balance beam on the bike—I fell off the bike on the balance beam. I managed to right the bike, noticed that the wheels were still actually on the balance beam, and finished it normally (even though were I being tested, I would have failed the test).
The next time across the balance beam on the scooter, the instructor got out his stopwatch and timed me going across it. You’re supposed to spend at least ten seconds crossing the blaance beam for the unlimited license test. When I arrived at the other end, the instructor was laughing and laughing—turns out I’d done it in just under 18 seconds.
Then I got back on the CB750 and wow, does that bike ever handle obediently after piloting the HMS Majesty around.
The next lesson, which just happened to be in the midst of a rainstorm that continued for several days afterwards, was all about emergency braking. Just to give the other student and me a feel for how different bikes behave under emergency-braking conditions, the instructor had us hop onto the little CB400s and do the emergency-brake exercise on those bikes too.
Let me tell you, hopping onto the CB400 felt like I was getting onto a bicycle. It also felt like I was getting onto an old friend—and I realized then that it is, indeed, true: my Scarabeo does indeed handle exactly like a CB400. The only thing different about the CB400 is that I had to change gears. Otherwise, I was entirely at home.
Next weekend I’m signed up for an astounding five hours of lessons, which seems to me to be the entirety of the rest of the instruction I’ll be receiving to get my unlimited motorcycle license. Then all I’ll have to do is pass the test and make a trip up to Konosu to change my license over, and then I’ll be able to ride any motorcycle I want to.
Oh, fer crying out loud
The driving instructor complained at me because I kept going through the slalom too slowly. Well, heck, it was wet, after all, and I didn’t want to go sliding through it sideways and all.
He complained four times that I was going too slowly. And then after that, he complained at me because I hit one of the pylons. Sheesh, there’s just no pleasing some people.
Two bikes
Well, I’ve finally gotten a chance to actually ride bikes as part of the unlimited-license course. The initial session was a sort of psychological evaluation, to see what sort of a driver you might turn out to be.
That was fun, actually. Nearly everyone else in the group was a young kid going for their car license, and so they were all very scared because they thought the test was relevant to anything. They were very carefully weighing their answers, the way I did the first time I took the test. This time, though, since I knew exactly how much weight it would hold as regards getting the license, I didn’t take it seriously at all—and answered honestly, instead of trying to answer correctly.
One of the questions was, “If there’s an empty road and it’s a nice day, what will you do?” It was multiple choice—the choices were, “slow down in case something unexpected happens,” “drive carefully at the speed limit,” and “open ’er up!” You can probably guess which answer I picked.
Anyway, when I got to the school this morning, they’d put the evaluation of how safe a driver I might be. It was ranked on an alphabetical scale, from A to E, with A being the safest. I scored a D. I showed this to the guys at the school, laughing, and saying, “I guess this means I’m a dangerous driver, doesn’t it?” They sort of protested, and then I pulled the Saitama-ken Safe Driver card out of my wallet—what you get awarded with after a solid year of no accidents and no tickets. “See, look, I’m dangerous!” Then they finally saw the humor in the situation and joined in the laughter.
Various instructors recognized me and greeted me with delighted hellos. More than one person said, “Hey, you said you wanted to get a big scooter—is that Aprilia yours?” One of them even said, “Wow, your bike is beautiful—that’s the first time I’ve ever seen an Aprilia.” I felt very welcome.
Paperwork out of the way, I finally put on the ridiculous profusion of equipment to protect me against both the elements and my own foolishness—warm jacket, rain gear on top of it, boots, knee and elbow guards, front and back armour plates, armoured gloves (those were my own—the school provides knitted gloves that are rudimentary at best) and helmet (also my own—mine’s a full-face, and the school helmets are open-face) and headed out to check out the bikes.
As it turned out, my instructor had never seen me before—I guess he must be a reasonably new hire. He saw my white face and, well, turned white himself. “This is a foreigner—how can I deal with him?” Another instructor who knew me said, “Oh, that’s Dave, we know him. He can speak Japanese perfectly well. Don’t worry, he’ll understand whatever you’re talking about.”
There were two bikes I had to choose from—the ubiquitous Honda CB750, the standard motorcycle used for unlimited license tests, and the Harley Davidson Sportster 883 that I mentioned previously. I sort of wanted to ride the Harley right off the bat, but the instructor pointed out that the Honda was actually quite a bit bigger than the Honda in stance (even if not so big otherwise), so that was his recommendation to me.
Before actually getting onto the bike, there was something of an extended briefing, during which the instructor explained to me that since the school started their large-bike program just a couple of months previously, they’d already had one rider killed on his brand new bike. Well, then. I promised to be careful.
Since Teacher Knows Best, I chose the Honda. Even though it’s been more than a year since I rode the CB400, it was like coming home. Even the sound of the engine was the same—sort of a nuclear-powered sewing-machine. It was, however, noticeably bigger and heavier than the CB400.
The instructor knew that I already had a normal restricted license, so he hopped onto a Harley and rode ahead of me. It seems that the school’s complement of large bikes is two Harleys and the CB750. It only took a moment for me to get used to the controls—everything was exactly where I expected it to be, after all. He took me around all the elements of the initial course one-by-one: the emergency stop (I stopped well in advance of where I was supposed to, and he gently chided me for that), the crank course featuring two very sharp turns in extremely narrow conditions, the hill start, the figure eight, and the dreaded ipponbashi—the narrow balance beam that you have to go across in at least ten seconds.
Oh, and the slalom. The first time I essayed the slalom on the CB750, I went into one of the turns too hot and, to avoid hitting the obstacle, I elected instead to bail. That was the first time I’ve ever fallen off a bike in driving school! It certainly did a nice job of readjusting my confidence level. But on the other hand, I like to think that by bailing instead of plowing through the obstacle, I had the right instincts. Also, I got to learn what it was like to right a dropped CB750. The instructor was more solicitous than I’d expected, helpfully putting out the side stand (I’d dropped the bike on the right) so that when I got it right, it would settle down properly. I fully expected him to merely tell me to put the side stand out when righting the bike.
The instructor was riding ahead of me throughout all of this, to show me where to go. At one point going into the figure-8, I went roaring in behind him—only to have to make an impromptu emergency stop, because he’d managed to stall the Harley he was riding on. We had a good laugh about that after that during the break, but that was foreshadowing for how the Harley would ride.
Basically, the problems I had with the CB750 were purely to do with my lack of skill at riding such a machine. So during the break (which seemed to come about ten minutes after I’d hopped onto the bike), I asked if, during the next hour, it might be possible for me to ride the Harley instead. Because, well, I wanted to at least say that I’ve ridden a Harley, and I wanted to make sure that the instructor’s choice was the correct one.
So I hopped onto the Harley. The Harley is considerably less powerful than the CB750—55hp compared to the CB750’s 75hp. I figured that maybe that would make it a more forgiving bike, in general. It has a much lower seating stance, which I figured would make it much more comfortable to ride.
The other thing it has is, which prompted the instructor to give me quite a long briefing beforehand, quite different controls for normal things. A normal bike has a turn indicator which is a switch next to your left thumb—push it to the left for a left turn, to the right for a right turn, and push it in to cancel the turn signal. The Harley, on the other hand, has the left turn signal where the horn button usually lives, the right turn signal where the starter button usually lives, and the horn and starter button in completely different places as a result. Okay then. Also, instead of pushing the turn signal button in to cancel the turn signal, it has a sensor to detect when you’ve made a turn.
As a bonus, the Harley has an exhaust pipe that goes right by the rider’s right leg, which means that you have to take extra care not to brush that exhaust pipe while you’re riding it. The instructor demonstrated by pointing out a bit of burned-on pant that some unfortunate rider had left behind as a sort of keepsake of his experience riding a Harley.
So all that having been explained to me, I pushed the Harley out to the start of the course. I couldn’t help noticing that it was significantly heavier than the CB750—and since I’d actually gone to the trouble of picking up a dropped CB750, I was acutely aware of the weight of the bikes. I eventually figured out where the starter button lived, and got the engine going. And then stalled trying to actually get going. It seems that Harley-Davidson’s first gear ratio is quite a lot higher than Honda’s. As it turns out, this holds true for second gear too.
I actually got going, and did a couple of runs around the outside ring of the course by way of warming up, and familiarizing myself with the bike. One of the things that I noticed about it was that my hands were really really far apart. The CB750’s handlebars are pretty minimal—they actually felt kind of uncomfortable on account of their minimalism. The Harley’s handlebars felt approximately twice as wide as the CB750’s.
Then I went to hit the elements of the course. The first element I hit was the balance beam. Apparently I went over it a little on the fast side—I don’t consider that a bad thing. One of the things I’ve learned taking riding school is to be forgiving of errors the first time I try something. That having been dealt with, I then had the ordeal of navigating the thing out of the balance-beam area back onto the main course.
One of the thing that became immediately apparent to me was that the Harley has a much bigger turning radius than the CB750. I nearly hit the curb exiting the balance beam area, and then stalled it going back onto the main course. How embarassing. Then I discovered that the turn signals’ auto-canceller don’t work nearly as well as advertised—turning left to head over to the traffic light, the turn signal failed to cancel, so I had to cancel it myself, only to turn it on again anyway.
When it came to the crank course, the bike stalled out. It seems that while Harleys are built to go slowly, the Harley definition of “slowly” involves considerably more speed than Japanese test courses are designed for. Also, since the thing has the turning radius of an oil tanker, I had to put my foot down while going through the crank course, otherwise I would have fallen over sideways.
Afterwards was the figure-8. It took me a few goes around that before I realized that the only way I could do it on the Harley—you have to go through it in second gear, after all—was with half clutch. Otherwise it would go through way too hot and end up riding on the grass.
When it came to the slalom, fortunately I didn’t fall off the bike. I did, however, manage to stall it—yet AGAIN—which prompted the instructor to ride up to me on the CB750 and ask if maybe I would prefer riding a proper bike instead. I offered that I would try hard to make it through the entire session.
Fortunately, the hill start and the emergency stop were both easy elements for the Harley to deal with. The hill start being just a bit of a dance on the controls, and the emergency stop easily dispatched by the twin disc brakes on the front wheel. (Actually, the really challenging part of the emergency-stop test is getting up to at least 40km/h before the cones delineating the emergency stop area. The Harley managed that in first.)
I’ll give the Harley this: the engine certainly has some power. When driving in a straight line, you can’t beat a Harley-Davidson. At one point, on a longish straightaway, I was enjoying riding it so much that when I hit the curve at the end of it, I was sufficiently-surprised that I shifted down from fourth directly to second to make it through. The instructor chided me for that, and, well, I did deserve the telling-off.
However, since the Harley couldn’t corner worth a damn, when I did the U-turn directly after the emergency-stop element, every time I had to do a giant bulbous turn which was, to be honest, quite embarassing.
All of which led me to conclude that all of the talk about “Hardly-Ablesons” is quite true—they really aren’t very good bikes. On the CB750, I never felt that the bike was hindering me: the biggest hindrance was my lack of skill on larger motorcycles. On the Harley, on the other hand, I felt that the bike itself was making things difficult for me.
All of which is leaving me kind of conflicted. On the one hand, riding the CB750 is entirely dependent on the skill of the rider, which means that anything that goes wrong is wholly the fault of the person working the machine. But on the other hand, the Harley fights me every step of the way. I can’t help thinking that I might end up being more skilled as a result of learning to ride a truculent, uncooperative, generally bad bike than by learning to ride a bike that is so cooperative that its only impression on me was that my skills are wanting.
Next time is another session on the CB750. There’s also a session on a scooter with an overpowered-engine—I fully expect that to be an absolute doddle. My everyday ride is an overpowered scooter, and the bike school folks know that.
Signs from God
I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in God. But sometimes certain things happen that require me to take a certain course of action. I call those signs from God. He doesn’t need me to believe in him for him to send me calls to action.
For instance, I’d always wanted an excuse to move to Japan. When I was working at a marketing company in Vancouver, I managed to acquire a Japanese girlfriend who wanted to move back home. And then I learned that I still qualified for a working-holiday visa. And then I was laid off from the job at the marketing company (mainly for political reasons). That amounted to a sign from God saying “Move to Japan already”.
On a more minor note, I really like Chucks because they’re the most comfortable shoes I own, but I’ve wanted a pair of basic black Chucks for a while, because while having them in lots of colors is cool and all, sometimes you just want a default pair of shoes. I strolled by ABC-Mart today, and discovered that they not only had basic black Chucks on sale for really cheap, but they also had my size (which is unusually large, and generally unavailable in Japan). God mandated that I buy a new pair of shoes, which is just what I did.
I’ve been sort of undecided about upgrading my restricted-to-400cc-motorbikes licence to an unrestricted license for a while. I sort of wanted an unrestricted license, but it’d always seemed like too much trouble to me to actually get one.
Then I received a note in the mail last week from the driving school that I got my restricted license at, proudly announcing that they were introducing their new unrestricted license lessons. This was God tapping me on the shoulder saying, “Hey! You should be getting on with this!”
So, just in the spirit of Checking Things Out, I hopped onto my bike and headed over to the school just to have a look at the bikes they were using for this, and to ask about what sort of discount they’d be offering for their unrestricted-motorcycle-license course.
The discount was significant. That made me more interested right off the bat. Then I wandered out to have a look at the larger bike they were using to teach the course.
They’d gotten a shipment in of Harley Davidson Sportster 883s.
Well, this was tantamount to God clapping me on the back and saying, “GO!” I’d fully expected them to have gotten a few Honda CB750s, which would have been a semi-incentive. But really, I couldn’t possibly give up the chance to ride such an impractical, overweight, sluggish bike for several hours, end up with an unrestricted license at the end of it, and, best of all, not have to keep the bike.
So now I’m enrolled in the Large Motorcycle Driver’s License course at the local driving school. I’ll be spending a couple of hours each week for the next few weekends riding around on a six-hundred-pound Harley. You bet I’m looking forward to it.
In which the gods contribute to my indecision
This morning, I woke up feeling cold and unmotivated, and not feeling like taking the train to work. So I decided that I would ride my bike instead, because that always cheers me up and stuff. You know that you’re sick of trains when the prospect of Tokyo traffic makes you feel better.
So I checked the weather forecast just to make sure it’d be safe, and that I wouldn’t freeze to death or anything. Gah! It said it would rain this afternoon! I switched back to taking the train.
I got to the station and discovered that the train that I could have taken to get to work quickly wasn’t running (due to a suicide somewhere between Ikebukuro and Akabane apparently). It goes to Shinjuku, though, which is the busiest train station in the entire world—everyone goes there. That means that it’s overcrowded all the time and I generally don’t ride it. Instead I duck around to Ueno and then take regular trains or subways from there, and generally have a nice comfy seat. Unfortunately, what with trains to Shinjuku not running, all of the Shinjuku-bound salarymen had gotten onto the Ueno-bound train, stuffing it to amazing levels. After two trains packed so full they were visibly bulging went past, both without me on them, I realized that my first instinct, after all else, was the correct one anyway. I went back home and grabbed my bike.
More pictures
The new camera is nice. Wow. Here, have a few more pictures I shot today wandering around Shibuya.
Crowds of people crossing at the famous scramble crossing in front of Shibuya Station.
A bank of vending machines. I actually think the colours in this came out a bit oversaturated.
This my place of work. Of course, this being Tokyo, there is construction nearby. See also, lens distortion.
I've always been a the-poor-workman-blames-his-tools kind of guy, but man, the pictures that this camera takes are seriously pretty.
dagbrown@lart.ca