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JUSTICE at SF concourse

Master of Puppets

Last night I went to Justice show at the concourse with Kimmie and Beau. Their performance was so awesome and hardcore. The floor was full of crowd and the sound was beating the whole building. They played Metallica's Master of Puppets at the encore and it was funny.

Apparently they're going to play in Japan for the Summer Sonic event, with Prodigy, Fatboy Slim etc. I feel a bit old for that kind of 2-day festival, but that line up seems really good.

Books

Googleを支える技術 ~巨大システムの内側の世界 [WEB+DB PRESS plusシリーズ]

西田 圭介

BEST SOFTWARE WRITING

最近献本いただいた２冊。どちらもさらっと読めますが、面白いです。

testing

本日は快晴なり

I CAN HAS JAPANESE

Testing 日本語 from Safari 3. Sorry it's been taking so long. Now working good.

We're releasing this code to the public tomorrow.

capsule x Daft Punk x Beastie Boys

Capsule x Daftpunk x Beastieboys - StarrySky YEAH! Remix

Capsule "Starry Sky" mashed up with Beastie's "Ch-Check it out" and Daftpunk "Technologic". So awesome.

Perfume-Rhyme the Macaroni Well-今夜はマカロニ

Another one from the same guy, Perfume "Makaroni" (produced by Yasutaka Nakata) with Beasties "Rhyme the Rhyme well".

So good.

The best Daft Punk show

【LIVE】Daft Punk - Robot Rock / Around The World

From their show in Japan 2006, every time I see this I feel like screaming because it's too good! This is a re-post because the one on YouTube was deleted. This time with Nico Nico floating comments! You might not grok Japanese but you actually don't need to, to enjoy this video.

All you probably need to know are:

• あああああああああああ → Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
• いいいいいいいいいいい → Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooood
• きたーーーーーーーーー → OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG
• wwwwwwww → LOLLOLLOLLOL

Strange things

So this is the real story that happened to me today. Not a big deal, but combining all of these happening in one day in just a few hours, it's just a little weird.

• I was in a bathroom at the Adaptive Path birthday party (was so much fun!) and got a call from an unknown number to my cellphone. I got the call and the guy was talking to me in Japanese and I thought it's some Japanese guy visiting here, but he was actually calling to some girl Keiko that I don't know. So I just answered "No you're calling a wrong number", of couese in Japanese.
• We left the party and came into an Irish pub O'Brien and on the radio it was playing Dragon Ash, a Japanese hip-hop band that was hot like 5 years ago in Japan. I was like "OMG which channel is this? How could this happen?"
• I was looking at the log of my cellphone and the wrong number call that I received was made on 9:12pm. Hmm, 9/12 is my birthday.
• We left the pub, I came home and turned on my Mac to see some videocast shows. On diggnation Kevin Rose was talking about a Japanese tech blog site that I told him the other day at Six Apart holiday party.

It just sounds like some Japanese obsession now that I'm feeling I won't come back to Japan, which I talked to a couple of people today at Foo Bar at the office. Hmm.

If this is me in Haruki Murakami's story, I would probably get a hot shower, eat a sandwich, drink a glass of beer while being confused and say "whatever" (やれやれ).

I'm probably not muslim

Muslim

I've been seeing this ad on my Vox dashboard these couple of days. No thanks Google...

Vocaloid goodies

Now that we have Nico Nico Douga conduit on Vox, here is my favorite selection of Vocaloid songs on the site.

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」

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

初音ミクオリジナル曲 「ハジメテノオト（Fullバージョン）」

初音ミク　が　オリジナル曲を歌ってくれたよ「メルト」

【鏡音リン・レン】ジェミニ【オリジナル】

Vox <3 Nico Nico

ファミコン全ソフトカタログ　第6回

As promised, Vox integration with Nico Nico Douga is now live. Install Vox This and enjoy adding Nico Nico video to your Vox video library along with your own uploaded video and YouTube!

Note that The embed player shows up when the enclosure size is larger than L size. Otherwise the thumbnails will appear.

fall of the USD

1 Dollar vs 100 yen

Which is stronger, that is now an obvious question.

How awesome is that?

Different ways to say "awesome"

So Randy was on Japanese TV show "English master" and I taped it on my DVR. The content is fucking DRMed and couldn't export it to DVD (I heard I can with an DVD-RW media with CPRM copy control supported though)  but I can stream the content with my Mac or PSP anywhere remotely with my DVR in Japan.

Today during Foo Bar we watched the show and this is the highlight of the program. This lady tries to explain how to say "great" in English, according to Randy. So yeah, there are many ways to say that and they're all Randy-ish.

Becca also counted how many times he says "like" and there was a record of saying that three times in one sentence. It was an hilarious time!

Teaser: new features for my friends in Japan

Vox <3 Nico Nico on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

We'll launch this Nico Nico Douga integration soon on Vox, hopefully early next week. What's nice about this integration is not only that you can embed the video, but also that the video is actually added to your vox Video library along with YouTube.

 

Because Nico Nico Douga doesn't provide a search interface for logged-out users, the only way you can do this would be to use our VoxThis bookmarklet. Install it now to your browser so you can start blogging Nico Nico video as soon as we launch the feature. Stay tuned!

"Consumer Generated" Ace Attorney

つくろう！　逆転裁判

http://editor.pc-...

Capcom launched the site "Let's make your own Ace Attorney", which allows you to create your scenario with Ace Attorney characters, playable on the web using Flash (and yes it's embeddable!)

This is a�brillant idea. All game companies should do this.

abusing iTunes

For this couple of weeks I've been trying to get the best out of my iTunes library with as many devices as possible. So far I ended up installing and having things like these:

• Mac mini
• iTunes 
• JewelCase
• iScrobbler
• Simplify Media
• Remote buddy (with Ajax Remote)
• PSP
• coverBuddy (unregistered yet)
• chumby
• SqueezeCenter (formerly known as Slim Server)
• iTunes-LAME
• iPod nano (want to upgrade to iPhone or Touch)
• Airport Express

I guess I want to draw a picture diagram of how these work together, but basically I can do things like:

• Turn my TV and home audio into a complete jukebox, displaying the cover art full-screen (Remote Buddy, JewelCase)
• ... and skip, rate and control that jukebox with Apple Remote (Remote Budy), iPhone (Remote Buddy Ajax ... yet to come) or PSP (coverBuddy)
• Listen to my home library from work (SimplifyMedia or SqueezeCenter)
• Listen to my iTunes library from my bedroom or bathroom (chumby + squeezeCenter)
• ... and control the playlist with PSP (squeezeCenter Handheld skin + PSP)
• Scrobble all of these play history to Last.fm (iScrobbler and SqueezeCenter Scrobble plugin)

Some of these "I can do this!" are just plain useless beside it's a nice hack. But having an unified library on my home computer and being able to listen to all of them everywhere and control via any tools is, AWESOME.

Japanese officials say "TV stations should suspend TV programs during midnight to prevent CO2 emission"

Link: asahi.com：テレビの深夜放送自粛しては？　自民、環境対策で検討へ - 政治.

会合では、森山真弓元法相が「オイルショック時のように、テレビを自粛するぐらいのことはやるべきだ」と提案。加藤紘一元幹事長も「京都議定書を国民に理解してもらうためにも検討すべきだ」と同調。中には「深夜までテレビを放送する必要性があるのか」との意見も出た。

(Translation): In the meeting, Mayumi Moriyama, ex Minister of Justice, said "Like when there was an Oil Shock, we should do as much as we can do, like suspending TV broadcasting." Koichi Kato agreed by saying "We should consider that suggestion in order to let Japanese citizens understand the Kyoto agreement as well." There were some officials even asking "Is there any reason TV shows are broardcasted in midnights?"

Looks like they think people don't sleep until very late in the midnight because there are so many TV shows airing until late.

Huh?

Do you SERIOUSLY think that's the reason and people go to bed early if we suspend the program?

The fact is this (and yes, everyone knows this):

1. Employees are forced to work until very late, like 11pm or 12am.
2. They usually live apart from central Tokyo where their offices are, because of the high rent fee in those areas. It typically takes 45-60 minutes to get from the office to their home using subway and trains.
3. They probably get by a convenience-store to get their food and it is 24 hours open.
4. They have the food and while watching some TV shows live or probably recorded on their DVR. And probably do things like netsurfing, youtubing and niconico etc.
5. They take a bath or shower.
6. Now it's easily 2 or 3AM.

I believe this is the typical end of day of office workers in Tokyo. There are lots of things to be improved in the bullet lists, and suspending TV programming in midnight doesn't help, at all.

I'd love to see the discussion of applying Daylight Saving Time in Japan. I know there are lots of pros and cons (probably more cons) for DST but discussing about the possiblity would be definitely more useful, than just saying "People did this at the time of Oil Shock, blah blah blah".