さっちゃんのお気に入りフモフモさんだ。でも、ケローニョ以外そんなに可愛くないと思う。
フモフモさん同盟までもあるらしい。
2006-01-23
2006-01-22
OS X Wallpaper
While I was looking for an OS X Tiger image, I found Google's image gallery to be very useful. Unfortunately, quite a few pictures were non-existent by the time I hit the link. There's one with Hobbes from Calvin & Hobbes, but it seems to have disappeared. I'm trying to get it from the Internet Archive, but it's slow going.
There's a Japanese guy on .Mac who has a bunch of interesting pin ups involving Apple products (and like me uses Yahoo! BB). Some of it's really funny and imaginative, but the anime-style girls could be a bit cuter. If someone would translate these into Betty Page-type cheesecake, on the other hand....
I also found this interesting unrelated CG art print that is kinda cool.
There's a Japanese guy on .Mac who has a bunch of interesting pin ups involving Apple products (and like me uses Yahoo! BB). Some of it's really funny and imaginative, but the anime-style girls could be a bit cuter. If someone would translate these into Betty Page-type cheesecake, on the other hand....
I also found this interesting unrelated CG art print that is kinda cool.
2006-01-21
U.S. T-Shirts
Here's an interesting site that makes t-shirts in the U.S.: American Apparel (note the .net; there's a different company whose domain is .com). They sell wholesale. Hmm, just need to find a quality screen printer, or learn how to do it myself....
2006-01-20
Animate! Ohio State
Just so I don't forget the new URL.... http://www.animateosu.org/ is it, after the old server, soyokaze.biosci.ohio-state.edu, was retired from service.
It's amazing how much the old OSU anime club folks were involved in propagating interest in anime over the past 10-15 years. Too bad I wasn't more involved with the non-mundane stuff. I think I maybe timed an episode of something once, copied a few tapes, and hung thousands of flyers. I suppose fandom is not an industry of glory.
But that was many moons ago. Now I don't have time to watch video of any kind anymore, and even if I had the time, I'd spend it doing something else. Like going into business.
Oh yeah, the infamous fansubbing organization, Lost in Translation (whose punned moniker predates the movie of the same name, is also located on the new A!OS server and is apparently back in action. Their version of subs for Mononoke Hime is actually better than the one on the official DVD!
It's amazing how much the old OSU anime club folks were involved in propagating interest in anime over the past 10-15 years. Too bad I wasn't more involved with the non-mundane stuff. I think I maybe timed an episode of something once, copied a few tapes, and hung thousands of flyers. I suppose fandom is not an industry of glory.
But that was many moons ago. Now I don't have time to watch video of any kind anymore, and even if I had the time, I'd spend it doing something else. Like going into business.
Oh yeah, the infamous fansubbing organization, Lost in Translation (whose punned moniker predates the movie of the same name, is also located on the new A!OS server and is apparently back in action. Their version of subs for Mononoke Hime is actually better than the one on the official DVD!
Gold Is Up
Gold is up to over $550 an ounce. Nuts. Just when I was thinking about buying some more, the price spiked on me to $450, and it's been going up since. It's all this damned economic uncertainty that had me looking to buy more too. Silver is up considerably too. Looks like the stock market is too shaky for some investors. Almost all of my stocks are up, however....
Sobering commentary about the U.S. economy in an article on Kitco. On the other hand, there's bogus price target article there, too, so this must be taken with a grain of salt. (Takedown: First of all, the x-axis is inconsistent: there are multiple entries per year as well as omitted years. Second, there is no statistical support in that graph for a long upswing. From the bottom of the last cycle in 2001, gold prices were increasing at $25/yr. Lately it's been more, so the extrapolation is by no means linear. Even if it were linear, there's no guarantee how long the upswing would continue. The thing that bugs me about gold investment is that there's a lot of unreliable commentary made about it. That's not to say it doesn't happen on Wall Street, of course, but they tend to be more rigorous with their graphs.)
There's also an article on MarketWatch regarding the gold prices. One thing I never understood was why investors, both individual and institutional, insist on buying issues of things that were already well into their ascent upward. That just means they missed the boat, and may be buying at prices too high. Gold is different from typical paper securities, I suppose, in that it has the attractiveness of usefulness even in the face of economic collapse.
Well, with the volatility of the gold price lately, I'm sure there's money to be made in timing the short cycles.
Sobering commentary about the U.S. economy in an article on Kitco. On the other hand, there's bogus price target article there, too, so this must be taken with a grain of salt. (Takedown: First of all, the x-axis is inconsistent: there are multiple entries per year as well as omitted years. Second, there is no statistical support in that graph for a long upswing. From the bottom of the last cycle in 2001, gold prices were increasing at $25/yr. Lately it's been more, so the extrapolation is by no means linear. Even if it were linear, there's no guarantee how long the upswing would continue. The thing that bugs me about gold investment is that there's a lot of unreliable commentary made about it. That's not to say it doesn't happen on Wall Street, of course, but they tend to be more rigorous with their graphs.)
There's also an article on MarketWatch regarding the gold prices. One thing I never understood was why investors, both individual and institutional, insist on buying issues of things that were already well into their ascent upward. That just means they missed the boat, and may be buying at prices too high. Gold is different from typical paper securities, I suppose, in that it has the attractiveness of usefulness even in the face of economic collapse.
Well, with the volatility of the gold price lately, I'm sure there's money to be made in timing the short cycles.
2006-01-07
Dashboard Widgets
Make:Blog also has an entry about constructing an RSS widget. Funky how those things are internally. I didn't realize they were basically Dynamic HTML. No wonder Dashboard is so damn slow!! Anyway, there are useful links to Apple widget info: Dashboard Tutorial and Dashboard Reference.
MakeBot
Make magazine is cool. There was a post on the Weblog chief's blog, which also linked to coverage about CES, about MakeBot. MakeBot sends the latest links from Make via AIM at configurable intervals. Neat.
2006-01-01
東京トイレマップ
Many moons ago, I saw the funniest graffiti on a website documenting the locations, conditions, and artwork of public toilets around Tokyo. By complete coincidence, I ran across the site again, called Tokyo Toilet Map, again a couple days ago. The beautiful piece of graffiti is here (not suitable for work).
日本語版はメイン。英語版より地図が細かいし、日本語でのコメントのほうが面白い。
日本語版はメイン。英語版より地図が細かいし、日本語でのコメントのほうが面白い。
OS X for x86 Howto
To avoid being hitched to the TCM ball-and-chain, there's the warez'ed pre-release OS X for x86. I found this guide on how to install the hacked OS on Intel-based machines. There's a release of the howto for the 10.4.3 binaries as well. One just has to manage the 4GB download.... A Russian site has various patches and installations. There's also the OSx86 Project site that has news, forums, a wiki, and other such stuff for consumption.
Okaya Electronics and Ricoh's mini-ITX
I was looking for electronics parts stores in Japan, and ended up checking out Okaya Electronics's site. That wasn't what I was looking for, but they're apparently selling a mini-ITX alternative to Via's boards. The board is made by Ricoh, which I didn't know produced such items. Anyway, the board has GbE, SATA, and a LVDS port. Funky. Now I just need to find a place that sells cheap LVDS-compatible LCD screens....
GPG for OS X
So I started using PGP's commercial product, but then got to thinking, since this is closed source, I don't know if they've built in hooks for the government to decrypt one's messages. Actually, it'd be naive to think that the government didn't require that of PGP Corp. Therefore, I'm looking into open source options for my encryption, whereby I can compile the stuff myself. The point is to not let a government less and less interested with maintaining the rights of its citizens have access to my communications, for whatever reason.
The open source option is GNU Privacy Guard, abbreviated GPG. Another one of those great open source pun acronyms. There is a version of GPG for OS X, but it's command-line only. From there, one needs a front-end for the OS X mail application, Mail.app. There's a Mail.app plug-in called GPGMail that fills this gap.
There are expedient download links for these two applications, GPG for OS X and GPGMail, but unless one builds the apps oneself, that defeats the purpose of using this open source software.
The open source option is GNU Privacy Guard, abbreviated GPG. Another one of those great open source pun acronyms. There is a version of GPG for OS X, but it's command-line only. From there, one needs a front-end for the OS X mail application, Mail.app. There's a Mail.app plug-in called GPGMail that fills this gap.
There are expedient download links for these two applications, GPG for OS X and GPGMail, but unless one builds the apps oneself, that defeats the purpose of using this open source software.
2005-12-27
2005-12-26
Unicode BOM
The Unicode Consortium site has a FAQ regarding byte-order marks. I found out some very useful info, such as about surrogate pairs (D800-DBFF for prefix, DC00-DFFF for suffix), and the invalid values in UTF-16 (FDD0-FDEF, as well as unpaired surrogates).
2005-12-21
More Random News
Japan may create its own search engine - Cool! But I'd find it hard to believe that it would be able to compete with Google.
Linux screensaver for Windows - Why ask why?
The Internet Is Broken Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 - No kidding.
New Standard Keyboard - It's not just ugly, it's fugly! Apparently, this is old news. NSK website currently out of service.
The Men Who Came To Dinner, and What They Said About Email - Quirky. Is that anything like a Naked Lunch?
Linux screensaver for Windows - Why ask why?
The Internet Is Broken Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 - No kidding.
New Standard Keyboard - It's not just ugly, it's fugly! Apparently, this is old news. NSK website currently out of service.
The Men Who Came To Dinner, and What They Said About Email - Quirky. Is that anything like a Naked Lunch?
Seagate to buy Maxtor
Coverage from:
New York Times via c|net
Reuters via Yahoo!
Mercury News
With "Quaxtor" gone, the HDD industry is left with Seagate, HGST, WD, and Samsung in Desktop 3.5" and Seagate, HGST, Toshiba, Fujitsu, WD, and Samsung in Mobile 2.5".
New York Times via c|net
Reuters via Yahoo!
Mercury News
With "Quaxtor" gone, the HDD industry is left with Seagate, HGST, WD, and Samsung in Desktop 3.5" and Seagate, HGST, Toshiba, Fujitsu, WD, and Samsung in Mobile 2.5".
IP Prior Art
Lately at work I've been tangentially involved with a patent discussion. Apparently one of our competitors has a patent on something and our IP guys are trying to invalidate it. Unfortunately I know fairly little about understanding patents other than "said" means "the", "comprised of" means "including but not limited to", and "consisting of" means "limited to". So I started reading up on what constitutes "prior art".
When is something prior art against a patent?
Considering What Constitutes Prior Art in the United States
I/P Updates
Wikipedia - prior art
Fight the Patent
Of course, the USPTO's patent search is where the heavy junk is at.
When is something prior art against a patent?
Considering What Constitutes Prior Art in the United States
I/P Updates
Wikipedia - prior art
Fight the Patent
Of course, the USPTO's patent search is where the heavy junk is at.
2005-12-20
Japanese Business
Other than JETRO and ACCJ, a few sites scattered about have notes on how to start a company in Japan:
Japan Reference (good info)
CCCJ (albeit Canadian)
Japan Today (by the infamous Terrie Lloyd)
JETRO's info is the most reliable.
It looks like a yugen kaisha is the way to go. One executive must be a Japanese resident. Minimum paid-in capital 3 million yen, or 1 yen with a bunch of paperwork and the minimum within 5 years.
Japan Reference (good info)
CCCJ (albeit Canadian)
Japan Today (by the infamous Terrie Lloyd)
JETRO's info is the most reliable.
It looks like a yugen kaisha is the way to go. One executive must be a Japanese resident. Minimum paid-in capital 3 million yen, or 1 yen with a bunch of paperwork and the minimum within 5 years.
2005-12-16
MogileFS
Reading about the setup at the Internet Archive which uses petaboxes for storage, there was mention of MogileFS. I'm very interested in filesystems, so I had to investigate. This is kind of what I've been looking for; I thought about writing a similar client, but it figures that it already exists. Perhaps not all the features I want are there, yet it's easier to use existing software than to build from scratch.
petabox info: manufacturer, specs, and block diagram
petabox info: manufacturer, specs, and block diagram
2005-12-15
Taxes
Frequently Asked Tax Questions And Answers - U.S. tax FAQs from the IRS.
U.S.-Japan Income Tax Convention - Rules on treatment of income taxes between the U.S. and Japan.
Offshore Avoidance of U.S. Income Taxation - A dated (1996) but interesting background.
U.S.-Japan Income Tax Convention - Rules on treatment of income taxes between the U.S. and Japan.
Offshore Avoidance of U.S. Income Taxation - A dated (1996) but interesting background.
"Katamari Damacy" T-Shirts
Wired's Game|Life linked to Panic Goods', which feature t-shirts of the celebrated J-game, "Katamari Damacy" (in English). The shirts are cool. Moreover, the shopping cart interface is pretty fly....
2005-12-14
Serial ATA and Microsoft's OSes
Because it's relevant to me at the moment:
Serial ATA in the Microsoft Operating System Environment
Whew -- the HDD I thought I'd killed actually only had a mangled pin (caused by a connector with a blocked pin for the key pin, but no tab for the recepticle key). A bit of soldering and it's as good as new.
Serial ATA in the Microsoft Operating System Environment
Whew -- the HDD I thought I'd killed actually only had a mangled pin (caused by a connector with a blocked pin for the key pin, but no tab for the recepticle key). A bit of soldering and it's as good as new.
2005-12-12
石井とも杞のイラスト
When I got back from vacation, I found a business card on my desk. Apparently there was a supply of them in the cafeteria, and MRG had picked one up and left it.（俺のオフィスはゴミ箱じゃねー！）Anyway, there was a website link and I checked it out. Interesting style; might make good t-shirt prints. ちなみに、日立ＧＳＴのmentionはここ（２００５年１２月９日）。
New Hitachi Company Store
In case you really want to buy Hitachi goods, there's a new place to do it. Really, the only thing worth having is the "sumo stress man". I have one on my desk.
Buckeye Recipes
A couple recipes for those tasty little buckeye chocolates:
About.com
RecipeLand.com (also at RecipeSource.com
About.com
RecipeLand.com (also at RecipeSource.com
2005-12-08
Young's Jersey Dairy
Young's has a website. Talk about advanced farmers, hehe. Some of the best milkshakes around. Their BBQ sandwich and fish sandwich are excellent also. I haven't actually been to the separate sit-down restaurant yet.
PGP Desktop & Forum Support Rant
This past week I bought PGP Desktop Professional 9.0 for Macintosh. I had some problems, so I posted a note on the support forum.
I'm kinda pissed that I shelled out $150 for the software and have had problems with it. I've wasted at least a couple hours tinkering with the thing trying to get it to run as it should. Granted, my setup is more complicated than most end users'. Still, most people that use Macs probably have more money than time -- which is the main reason I use them, other than that Microsoft overcharges for their software -- which means that problems like this are especially bad for the user. Strange how many software companies think they can just charge more for the Mac version without added functionality or even the same stability as the Windows version (that comment wasn't directed at PGP specifically).
What really pisses me off about the software industry is that there's this trend toward forums rather than real support. I have to read a bunch of other people's issues first, and I don't have that kind of time to spend. Forum admins should be responsible for putting together FAQs of previously answered questions. And why should I have to pay more for support when I already shelled out several hours' wages for a product that's not working as it should?
I'm kinda pissed that I shelled out $150 for the software and have had problems with it. I've wasted at least a couple hours tinkering with the thing trying to get it to run as it should. Granted, my setup is more complicated than most end users'. Still, most people that use Macs probably have more money than time -- which is the main reason I use them, other than that Microsoft overcharges for their software -- which means that problems like this are especially bad for the user. Strange how many software companies think they can just charge more for the Mac version without added functionality or even the same stability as the Windows version (that comment wasn't directed at PGP specifically).
What really pisses me off about the software industry is that there's this trend toward forums rather than real support. I have to read a bunch of other people's issues first, and I don't have that kind of time to spend. Forum admins should be responsible for putting together FAQs of previously answered questions. And why should I have to pay more for support when I already shelled out several hours' wages for a product that's not working as it should?
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