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Pondering new MacBook

I started using the standard MacBook at work and I quite like it, besides some annoyances I'm trying to solve now (most of them are hardware related, like Apple Keyboard and/or Emacs-like keybindings conflicts etc.)

I am still using my ThinkPad X40 at home, and while I am absolutely in need of Windows apps and love ThinkPad's trackball better than MacBook's (how painful it is to use different keyboards at work and home, especially English vs Japanese), it feels like I should switch to Mac, and the fact is that I own my Mac mini already.

Should I buy a new MacBook (no Air, thanks), or use my work MacBook at home (hmm it's heavy to carry around for 15 minutes every day and night) or keep using ThinkPad and use Mac mini over synergy ... or something else, like eeePC?

The biggest concern about buying new MacBook is that I'll need to sync some desktop data, like that of TaskPaper, Camino Bookmarks and iTunes Library. I guess FolderShare can help on that ...

10-finger FP scan to enter USA

Ten-finger Fingerprint Scan To Enter U.S.A. : Homeland Security National Terror Alert - Homeland Sec

http://www.nation...

So what benefit or better security do we get by doing this? Is there any number or proof that 2-finger was not enough?

Apparently this device is coming to SFO soon this year, and will apply to all foreigners. WTF.

Net Neutrality is dying in Japanese cellphone ISPs

Link: 「あまりに急」「検閲では」――携帯フィルタリングに事業者から不満続出 (1/2) - ITmedia News.

未成年者は携帯フィルタリングに原則加入――昨年末、総務省の突然の要請が、携帯コンテンツ業界に波紋を広げている。未成年者は市場のけん引役。「一律フィルタリングでは健全なサイトも見られなくなる」「検閲に近い」などと、事業者側は不満を募らせる。

Net Neutrality is one of the hottest topic here in the States, and there's a strong reaction against the ISPs shutting down p2p traffic etc. and FCC started an investigation on these ISPs like Comcast.

In Japan ... Net Neutrality already is about to die in just a month, at least if you surf the net with cellphones. In the last December, Ministry of Internal Communications (総務省) "requested" Japanese major cellphone ISPs (NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and SoftBank, which makes 99.9% share of the market) to "force" URL blocking if the subscribers are minors, i.e. under 18 years old. The subscriber can opt-out the filtering if they and their parents agree to, but it's on by default.

The list of blocked sites are maintained by the company called Net Star and those three ISPs all use the same blacklist. Net Star is just a private company and the goverment is trying to filter the internet for underage users based on this list. WTF?

These days it seems Japan is trying to become China in terms of internet control.

Cornelius at The Fillmore

IMG_0294.JPG on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

IMG_0306.JPG on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

IMG_0334.JPG on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Just back from the show. The show starter 9pm with an opening act, ended 11:50. It was an awesome performance!

Japan: Running Dating websites would require certificates? WTF?

Link: 出会い系事業者に対して届け出を義務付けへ、警察庁の研究会が提言.

National Police Agency of Japan is considering to submit a law to require precertification to run "Online dating sites". The reason behind this is that it's currently hard to figure out the organization behind the sites when the criminal activities occur (like prostitution of the minors), especially when the servers are placed in foreign countries.

This approach is ALL WRONG.

One, Even if you require precertification to run this in Japan, it'll still be unnecessary if you have servers outside Japan and this law wouldn't give any benefit. Two, the organization to give certificates will be a private sector, and who can trust these organizations? Three, the definition of "online dating sites" is so vague that any sites that has a social networking aspect or web-messaging functionality would need to do this.

By doing this, all internet community sites would require bullshit process to keep the site up, or just simply move their servers outside Japan, which is a loss to the nation itself.

Stop making an effort to control internet. It's useless.

Yahoo! Japan wants to hire ...

Yahoo! Japan recruit page on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Yahoo! JAPAN wants to hire engineers familiar with web application framework such as Catalyst, Rails or Struts (what?). But besides them, what's listed first as an option is Sledge! You know, it's basically a famework that I built with my co-workers when I worked for Livedoor, like 5 years ago (and yes it's open source). 

Thanks Yahoo!. I'm a bit flattered. I know you guys want to hire and head-hunt engineers from Livedoor...

livetune - Re:package

初音ミクがオリジナル曲を歌ってくれました「ファインダー」

Once I talked about 初音ミク before, and now we've got a great compilation album for this "artist": livetune's Re:package. Their sound is electronic and they use vocorder (autotune) to give more techno flavor to this vocaloid's voice. Melodies are so catchie and pop.

The result sound is somewhat close to what Yasutaka Nakata usually produces, so if you like Perfume, capsule or MEG I'd highly recommend this album for you. I'm listening to their complication all day long and it's yet never tiring me. You can find more videos by searching for livetune on YouTube.

Unfortunately their album was sold only at the Japanese biggest Otaku market Comiket and now at the Japanese small online store, but if you don't mind pirating there is a couple of ways to get them. Wish they release the album on iTunes store!

Perfume - Baby cruising Love

Baby cruising Love / マカロニ: 音楽: Perfume,中田ヤスタカ

Perfume

Baby cruising Love とマカロニの両A面。マカロニいい曲だね！

Faith

YouTube - Faith (Live Woodstock '99) - Limp Bizkit

For .tiff, Lisa and others who were in Mint tonight...

The only correction: It was not "shut the fuck up" but "get the fuck up" :)

From CES: mini Bluetooth keyboard and clickpad for HTPC

Amazon.com: Logitech diNovo Mini: Electronics

http://www.amazon...

You're connecting your PC to your TV. You're downloading movies and watching them on your big screen. Take control of your PC entertainment with the only palm-sized, cordless mini-keyboard optimized for the way you get your entertainment.

This is brilliant.

I use my ThinkPad X40 on a coffee table in front of the sofa to control my Mac mini over Synergy. It works really well when I browse the website like Nico Nico Douga or YouTube on my Mac mini connected to my HDTV. However, when I switch to "watching TV" mode, I usually sit in another chair which is more comfortable and can be straight in front of the TV, so I need to move to the sofa to control my Mac (the app is usually VLC/Miro) which is quite annoying.

I also make use of RemoteBuddy which is an awesome app to assign lots of useful functionality to Apple Remote, so the very basic functionalities of the app (Volume up/down, pause/resume, fullscreen etc.) are done with the remote which is great, but Miro doesn't offer an fullscreen friendly UI nor AppleScript scripting capability, so I still need to use Synergy (X40 keyboard) to pick which video to see, for instance.

This logitech palm-size keyboard with clickpad seems to solve this issue. Brilliant. The only problem is that it costs $150 which is a bit too expensive. I'd buy if it's like $50. Hmm.

Wisdom Teeth = 親知らず

Today I went to see my new dentist Kuniko Saeki who is a native Japanese. I'll recommend her if you look for a great dentist who's able to speak Japanese fluently (her English is not that great btw). I got a cleanup and also did an X-ray to check my teeth bones (some of them were destroyed but she said it'll be better) and besides that we ended up finding my wisdom teeth which I was supposed to extract 10 years ago but forgot to do.

It's interesting that it's called "wisdom teeth" in English while it's called 親知らず in Japanese which means "teeth your parents may not know" because they appear when you're apart from your parents. I guess wisdom teeth comes from the age when you get more wisdom than the other teeth?

Which USA are you going?

IMG_0279.JPG on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I found a shuttle bus going from USA to New USA (and then, the other way round). There seem to be two USAs in Narita Airport.

In NRT

Holy fuck. The flight is overbooked and I'm upgraded to business ... for FREE! Thank you.

P506iC0027066865.jpg