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Suicidal Tendencies

Suicidal Tendencies at Slim's (Sunday, December 2, 2007) - Upcoming

http://upcoming.y...

Suicidal Tendencies is playing at Slim's, San Francisco early December. Pretty long time, maybe like 5 or 6 years since the last time I saw them in Shinjuku, Tokyo. It was a secret show while they visited Japan as Infectious Grooves. I checked out their site and there's been no records out since 2001. Are they gonna just play old school S.T. songs? 'I'd be delighted to go :)

Need a mile-earning flight

My current ANA annual flight miles is 45,385. Because it's actually 70% of the most flights, I flew like 70k miles this year. Good number so far.

My next flight back to Japan is around Christmas and SFO-NRT gives me 3,591 flight miles (again, 70% of the actual flight). 45,385 + 3,591 = 48,976.

I need to make this to 50K to upgrade my status to ANA platinum, with Star Alliance Gold lifetime by upgrading my ANA credit card to ANA Superflyer's card. So I want a flight that gives me 1,024 miles as a roundtrip.

Wondering where I should go... Anywhere east coast is good, like Boston or New York. Portland (770 miles) and Seattle (950 miles) are not enough but could be ok by combining. Or just one-day flight to Okinawa would do it. I know some people called "マイル修行僧 (=Miles trainee monk)" fly from Tokyo to Okinawa in the morning and then straight back to the security gate when they have a lunch at the airport :)

Spoiler microformats?

Spoiler is a hateful activity on the internet. Someone who intentionally wants to spoil your movie/tv show/sports expectation by revealing the result deserves the hate. But what about the unintentional one?

Every weekend I watch European football games, and once in a couple I watch Formula 1 GP races. And every monday, shows like Heroes, Chuck and Prison Break. What I usually do, after the live show ended and before I actually watch it, is to shutdown my RSS feed reader and twitter app so as I won't be spoiled by Sports news RSS feed or my friends' twittering "OMG congrats to Raikkonen for the win!"

But I sometimes forget about it, or accidentally clicked the link, and see the results, that really spoils my watching experience. It's something fundamentally hard to avoid, since we have timezone differences, and we love to discuss about TV or cinema movies on blogs. There's nothing wrong about it.

What we usually do is to add a big "SPOILER" warning in the title or beginning of the post. Some neat people like to mark up the spoilers so as the text won't appear until you drag your mouse to select it. I believe some movie review sites like IMDB allows users to check the box "this is a spoiler" and provide some javascript so it won't be displayed until the user agrees to see. Is there a possibility to do this with microformats?

I saw a mention of microformat about NSFW (not safe for work) links. I haven't followed the discussion in details and am not sure if there's a concensus about it, but adding a markup to the links that are not safe for people in the office seems like a good idea to agree on.

Can we do this for spoilers as well? Something like:

<span class="spoiler" title="Spoiler about F1 Brazil GP" spoiler:about="http://www.formula1.com/">OMG Raikonen won the F1 Brazil GP race! The race was so exciting.</span>

That way you can add user-defined CSS stylesheet to turn the text into the same color as background, or can easily build a browser extension to give you a dialog saying "This page has a spoiler about http://www.formula1.com/. Do you want to see it?" Of course you can add the class tag to elements like div or p, or even A tag links, where you won't have any spoiler in the current page but the links might contain the spoilers. Very close to that NSFW microformats isn't it?

We obviously will have a namespace problem with spoiler:about's URI value, since there are lots of ways to refernece the same event, probably using URLs like Upcoming, Wikipedia or Google search results. But I think it should be just optional anyway, since you can just specify the content using title attribute for that.

Thoughts? Is it a good idea, or something doable with existent POSH standards etc.? Just looked at hReview, but couldn't find any mention of spoilers. xFolk might be good for tagging outgoing urls, but wonder how we can do that to markup the part of the page.

初音ミク (Hatsune Miku): The Ultimate User Generated Content

This phenomenon is kind of really hard to explain to most non-Japanese readers I guess, but check these videos out. Among lots of songs, these two are my favorite.

初音ミクがオリジナル曲を歌ってくれました「Packaged」 Full Ver. (STEREO)

初音ミク ハジメテノオト Full.Ver

The vocalist (Hatsune Miku) doesn't really exist. It's a software (a.k.a Vocaloid) that you can program to let her sing whatever song you want. Lots of users (I guess mostly not professional) use their Desktop Music composing software to let Hatsune Miku sing their original songs and they are uploaded to Nico Nico Douga (Great video sharing site in Japan. Basically like YouTube with time-sync floating comments, but more features and culture there, enough to make me addicted... maybe another time to explain) and YouTube. Actually most songs come with an original Japanese lyrics that describes and represents the characterics of Hatsune Miku, which is so awesome and touching as well.

It really is revolutionary I think...

Learn more about Hatsune Miku on the following links, if you're interested:

• Metafilter
• Wiifanboy
• Omonomono

Football + Music = Win

Today I started a new habit of watching football (soccer) games on TV. Just play the football game in its 2x speed (using VLC's fast forward playback) and play music on iTunes, just randomly. I can't hear the commentary but who cares? Much better than being annoyed by Roy Hudson's freaking commentaries.

Watching a couple of games in its full length is kind of boring, and always makes me sleepy during the game, unless it's really an exciting game or a live broadcasting. This way I don't get too bored but still can enjoy the game.

Confusing keyboard mappings

Yesterday I watched some quick tutorials for Quicksilver on YouTube and was impressed. It's basically an application launcher but it has tons of sweet things like Actions and Triggers, kind of like an universal UNIX shell for Mac OS X. I tried to install it and how it's quick to control via keyboard.

It might look sort of funny that I'm controlling my Mac mini, the media center PC with keyboard over Synergy2, but it's much quicker than mouse anyway. I'm using RemoteBuddy for quick pause/stop/rewind stuff for viewing and listening to video and audio, but for more complex operation keyboard is much suitable) Now I can type Ctrl+Space "fav" to go to my favorite page on Nico Nico Douga, for instance :)

So, QuickSilver default Hotkey was Ctrl+Space. I just left it as a default, but it was actually taken by Spotlight. So I changed Spotlight Hotkey to Ctrl+Cmd+Space.

Today I found a Windows alternative Launchy, which basically gives you a text-based launcher with lots of shortcuts and search functionalities. Looks very good. And the default keymap was Ctrl-SPC, again. Because I use XKeymacs, the software to emulate emacs-like keybindings for all Windows software, it conflicts with its Ctrl-SPC mapping, which does "start-select-region".

So now I have:

• Ctrl-SPC: Quicksilver on Mac, start select region on Window
• Ctrl-Alt(Cmd)-SPC: Spotlight on Mac, nothing on Windows
• Alt(Cmd)-SPC: Toggle IME (Japanese input method) on Mac, Launchy on Windows

This is way confusing. I should rethink about the hotkey mappings, at least unify Launchy and qs shortcut.

Possible new iPods

Recently the battery life of my iPod nano (first generation, black, 2GB of storage) is pretty low. It goes to zero like in 2 or 3 hours. Also I started buying songs on AmazonMP3 which is 256Kbps MP3 bitrate, which makes me want more storage.

What should I buy next? I'm thinking of iPod nano 3G 8GB (the fat one) or iPod Classic 80G. Who's got a new nano? How is that working for you? I'm not a huge fan of coverflow, but the new UI seems kinda slick and the capability to see the videos is good, even though I have other gadgets to do that already, like PSP.

TV shows that I'm watching

Here are the TV shows I'm watching currently. This list also includes the old shows that I'm way behind.

Japan:

• ガキの使い
• くりぃむナントカ
• モヤモヤさまぁ～ず２
• 内村さまぁ～ず（ミランカ）
• さまぁ～ず・さまぁ～ず
• アメトーーク
• 怒りオヤジ３
• タモリ倶楽部
• ゲームセンターCX
• 電脳コイル
• 仮面ライダー電王
• コードギアス

Japan (New for this fall):

• 神さまぁ～ず
• カイジ
• ドラゴノーツ
• もやしもん
• ガリレオ
• 働きマン
• 医龍2
• ハタチの恋人
• 相棒6

ドラマはまだ第１話見てないのも多いのでなんとも。働きマンとガリレオは見るとおもう。

US/UK:

• CSI S08
• CSI Miami S06
• Heroes S02
• Prison Break S03
• Chuck S01
• BBC Match of the Day
• The IT Crowd S02
• The Boondocks S02

Way too much shows to keep up.

Puffy Amiyumi at The Fillmore SF 11/15

Puffy AmiYumi Concert Tickets - The Fillmore San Francisco, CA | A Live Nation Event

http://www.livena...

Puffy Amiyumi is coming to San Francisco for their show in The Fillmore, November 15th. I got a ticket for the show ... Wondering anyone else is going!

PLAYSTATION Store for PC: iTunes for PSone games

Psstore

A few weeks ago Sony Computer Entertainment launched PLAYSTATION store for PC, which is a market place to sell their downloadable PSone (and PSP/PS3 free trial) games using your computer, not PS3. The store has been there for a while and usable if you have a PS3, but opening it for a normal PC user is a huge win for them.

I purchased a new PSP slim and registered an account on the site. For some regional reason, it requires you to set your browser's language preference to Japanese, and you probably need a credit card with billing address set to Japan. Yes, now you are jealous for me having both Japanese and USA billing credit cards, just like every Japanese have been for buying stuff on AmazonMP3 etc.

The way the downloading software works is very simple. You need to install "PSP downloader" software on your Windows machine (not sure if they have a Mac version. Probably not.) and when you purchase or select a free download of trial games, the downloader app launches and it automatically transfers the game data to your PSP via USB. It just works like iTunes and it's nicely done.

Most trial version are free and PSone games are available with 600 JPY (= $5). They recently released PoPoLoCrois and other great classic games from PS one. I'd love to download and play them either on my TV screen using the TV out, or in my bed when I can't sleep.

Good stuff.

Amazon MP3 wishlist

Amazon MP3 should really have a pre-order and wishlist functionality. Until they implement 'em, I'll post music I want on del.icio.us under the tag 'wishlist'.

Apps to publish RSS feed for your media files

Lazyweb,

(A bit of context: I have media files both on my Mac and Windows at home and want to subscribe to all of them using Videocast client like Miro. I always forget which episode I've watched and not.)

Know of any existent software that

• scans local filesystem for media files, mostly video files (like .mp4, .avi, .mkv)
• and publishes RSS feeds with enclosurs, suitable for videocast subscription?

It would be something similar to MyTunesRSS (reads iTunes media library and publishes RSS), iTunesRSSServer (the same, written by me) or mod_index_rss (Apache module to extend mod_auto_index). If you know one, let me know so i can avoid duplicated efforts.

I want something that runs either as a standalone HTTP server or CGI script, and I actually wrote one to subscribe to videos in my Windows external drive from Miro running on my Mac.

It works well but now that I have so many video files both on Windows and Mac, I'd like to rewrite it to:

• make it run on cross platform (Mac, Windows and Unix)
• support multiple channel per directory and OPML feeds
• smart folder function based on filenames and regexp match (e.g. {Program Name}.S01E01.HDTV.blahblah.avi)
• support .torrent feeds as well (optionally)
• publish raw files without an external web server if needed

In other words, it'll be something like tvRSS for your own files on your hard drive.

This app would be similar to Plagger but I'll probably use Catalyst as a framework so it can be either standalone, CGI script of FastCGI. Also I want a catchy and googlable name for the app. Currently I'm thinking of "Remedie" or "Remediess" which is a semi-anaram of Media RSS.

BTW I'll host the file and entire project on googlecode to avoid the potential risk being sued by Japanese "net police" since the app might be considered to help piracy *cough*.

beer is good

IMG_3223 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

As many of you have known, I love beer. I travel a lot and drink beer a lot as well. Today I reviewed some of Flickr photo sets and tagged all photos "beer" if they contain beer shot. It's enjoyable.

Dashboard Confessional at SF Warfield

Amazon.com: The Shade of Poison Trees: Music: Dashboard Confessional

Just ordered a ticket for Dashboard Confessional show in SF Warfield 10/19 Friday 7pm. It was $28 with $15 ticketmaster fee (Sigh). I guess there will be lots of young people in the show looking at their past shows at MTV etc. Who else gonna be there?

I downloaded their new stuff from Amazon this morning and it was good as always. It doesn't rock anymore and sounds a bit like folk songs, but the melody is catchy and easy to sing-along.

There will be shows by Yellowcard and Boys Like Girls in the Warfield this month as well. Wish they're in Slim's so the ticket is cheaper :/

new slim PSP hooked to the TV

IMG_3309 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I got my new slim PSP in Japan a few weeks ago and brought it back to USA. I purchased the TV out to component cable as well, so I tested the connection.

Here's the photo of how it looks like when I output the gaming screen. Looks great as 16:9, but the size of the output is not full-screen, and I configured the TV's zooming option to fit with the full-screen but it didn't work out very well. Samsung's zoom option only widens the height, not the width, so the aspect ratio is not preserved when being zoomed. It sucks.

I'll read the TV's owner manual and probably try 4:3 output option as well to see if there's something I can do.

The new PSP also can output the LocationFree to the TV screen as well. I have a Mac client and don't really need another client, but Mac version doesn't preserve the aspect ratio when being full-screened and PSP one does, which is cool. The quality of location free TV is great too.

PSP and DS: still ok to play in the air

GameDaily BIZ: Video games banned on Japanese planes

http://biz.gameda...

No more DS or PSP playing for Japanese gamers in the air

Wrong, wrong, wrong article. The new Japanese law of the air flights just bans the usage of wireless gaming feature of Nintendo DS and PSP games.

The usual standalone gaming of these devices are still allowed, just like it was on my today's flight from NRT to SFO.

Choppy AirTunes with high-bitrate mp3 (Amazon MP3)

Now I'm back home in USA and tested the Amazon MP3 256kbps VBR files over AirTunes.

It's choppy. Boo.

My understanding of the AirTunes protocol is that the iTunes decodes mp3 files to WAV (or whatever raw data) and encodes them to Apple Lossless and sends it over the wireless network to AirTunes in an encrypted format. Fix me if I'm wrong.

So the fact that it's choppy with 256kbps MP3 but not with 128kbps MP3 indicates that it's a client problem? I'm running iTunes 7.4.2.4 on Windows XP and stream the music over AirTunes. The wireless connection is 802.11g directly connected to the Airport express.

I'll shut down bunch of apps on Windows to see if it fixes the problem, if iTunes needs more CPU to decode the higher bitrate files. Otherwise I'll copy the mp3 files to Mac and plays locally (without AirTunes).