Small business info & Merchant accounts

Found some useful info on merchant accounts at About.com. There's other useful-looking stuff on there too.

Another site has more detailed information. Looks like charging for others is a no-no. Unfortunate.

Why I quit the company

Yoshi has a link to this interesting article from his blog. It's about how being a salaryman sucks circa 1992. I don't think too much has changed since then, except that there are a lot more "freeters" running around.

Well, being a salaryman does suck.

Fortune: New ways to get ahead

It's easier to move up by moving sideways? That might be true for women, hee hee. Ok, that was infantile. Believe me, I've been worse.

But the fact remains that if one's current field isn't something they can enjoy, moving to a field that one can get into and therefore excel is the smart thing to do. Perhaps I need to get back into software.

Airsoft Guns Again

I wrote a post about airsoft gun sales sites in the U.S., but neglected to post the manufacturer's pages.

東京マルイ
KSC
SIIS

There's a long article on Wikipedia Japan also.

A company called Sanken does import/export of toy guns. Cool!

White Rabbit Express

Noel tipped me to this service. Competitive analysis can be depressing at times.

"White Rabbit" reminds me of this candy that I used to like as a kid. Most people probably think The Matrix movie instead.

Random Anime and Fansub Related

The Fansub FAQ - From way back in '99.
Animania - Some guy's paper on anime. He interviewed Will Ray.

I guess I was looking for references to soyokaze.biosci.ohio-state.edu, that's what brought up the spate of hits.

UMD Movies Going Bye-Bye

(Reuters) Apparently UMD as a movie format is dying. Good riddance! Sony's business decisions lately are really stupid. Why did they think consumers would pay more for a format that has inferior quality, can't be copied, and can only be played on the PSP?

This is like they are killing their music player sales by mandating that SonicStage be used. Music check-in, no re-burning—the software sucks! I probably would've gotten a Sony player rather than an iPod if they only would ditch the software. iTunes or SonicStage is no-contest from the users' perspective.

Also, it's too bad that they didn't use Hi-MD for the PSP. However, since MDs have no copy protection and are slightly larger in size, I suppose that wasn't possible. Still, the gaping hole in the UMD cassette is another blemish on the format's resume.

Sony's technology is amazing, but the people making the business decisions are idiots. If they didn't act like they think they can dictate to consumers, then they might actually take over some market share.

Microsoft Product Lifecycle

Turns out that MS is eliminating support for Win 98/ME at the end of June this year. No big loss, but I had to check up on Win 2k. It's ok until 2010, it seems. See their Product Lifecycle page for details.

Airsoft Sites

SoftAirPro - FAQ
IceFire - FAQ
Pyramid Air

Net Machine Shop

I finally found the Net machine shop featured in Wired that I couldn't find the URL to: http://www.emachineshop.com/. Cool. Now I can proceed with my plans for world domination. They also have a sister company, Pad2Pad, that does circuit board etching. Build it!!

山本遊子のブログ

ここだったけど、ここに移った。以前名前をどっかで見たかな。今別の検索でサイトに巡り合った。

向こう側のアパート

隣のビルのアパートの賃貸情報を見つけた。実は、この部屋が良かったけど、引っ越した時に空いていなかった。ちょっと残念だったけど、結局あまり家にいないんで（いつも会社にいる気がする）別にいいか。

The Lie Behind the Lie Detector

Gotta learn how to pass a polygraph.

Fujitsu's 200GB 2.5"er

Turns out Fujitsu's 200GB Mobile drive is a 3-disk longitudinal product. It's interesting that they could get three platters to fit into the standard height. Fujitsu's product page contains limited specs.

A Margarita Recipe

Intriguing.

Japanese Post Office

This is extremely useful info for me! The Japanese Post Office has a nice online reference site for EMS now. Further, they have details on shipping food items to the U.S. There's a link to the U.S. FDA page on Prior Notice of incoming food items, as well as an online manual.

Watson's Weapons & Raufoss

For biiiiig guns, check out Watson's Weapons. Mostly .50BMG stuff. You can get armor-piercing incendiaries! Now only if one could get Raufoss Multi-Purpose rounds, some Norwegian AP ammo that apparently the Navy uses. The stuff uses RDX high-explosive, and detonates within the target after penetration. Ouch. I hear it's $30/rd. Now that'd be worth buying a 50-cal for!

Snopes, the Plague, and Ben Stein

This came up recently after talking to Katy about her dissertation on infectious (typically fatal) diseases. We'd discussed the merits of quarantining HIV/AIDS when it was in its infancy, and she convinced me that it wouldn't have been a good idea after all. The comparison was to the Black Plague, and the differences were that the Plague was visually recognizable and was fatal in a short timespan. HIV/AIDS is not outwardly visible and takes sometimes many years to kill, so quarantine is not feasible: There's no easy way to recognize the victims, and people don't want to go into quarantine so they wouldn't come out and say it. Anyway, I read up on the Black Plague on Wikipedia, and found out some stuff I didn't know, like there were three "varieties". The salient point was that the "Ring Around the Rosies" children's rhyme doesn't refer to the Plague, or so says Snopes, one of those myth debunker sites.

Another fun entry they had was a quote from Ben Stein regarding the state of America today where stupid celebreties are all-important and freedom of religion has gone out the window. There's one other one on the nature of stardom and role models that's worth reading. Ben Stein is cool.