yesterdayeternal

OK, this is what I got.

2006-11-11T01:41:00.000+09:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

70% General American English

15% Yankee

5% Midwestern

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Dixie

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I thought that I would get more of a midwestern accent
Apparently I have 15% Yankee accent hahaha..

How many books to record every single thing Jesus did?

2006-05-04T02:57:00.000+09:00

I read John 21:25 today; it said that the whole world wouldn't have room for the books that tells about every single thing Jesus did in this world.

OK, I guess if you count every single thing that he did since genesis, then I think it'll be difficult to put it into books.

But, if you only consider things while he was alive on earth,
then let's count.
It's all in approximation of course.
Jesus lived in the world about 33 years.
Let's consider a life recorder (camera) that recorded everything he did in 33 years. Let's assume that this camera records at 30 Frames/Second (which is normal).
Then, let's remember the saying that "A picture worth a thousand words"
OK, so now we have:

=33 years of life (convert it to seconds) x 30 (frames / second) x 1000 (words/frame)
=1.04137856 × 10⁹ seconds x 30000
=3.12413567 × 10¹³ words

btw, I did all this calculation with Google. Man! they rock!
So, by this calculation, if someone were to log everything Jesus did while he was on earth, then it'll result in that many words.
OK, let's see, how many words are in King's James Bible? Answer: 791,328 words. (hopefuly the website that I got it from is not wrong).
So, How many bibles do it take to record everything Jesus ever did while he was alive here?
Answer: 39,479,655 bibles
OK, let's say 40 millions bible.

It takes 40 millions bibles to record everything Jesus did.
WOW! That's massive!
How many books are there in the US library of congress?
Let's search again...... Answer: about 18 Million books! WOW!
So 40 millions bibles are like two US library of congress! That's certainly massive.

But that certainly doesn't fill the whole world....
Maybe it'll fit in 2 DVDs... (for the books.)

OK OK, this might be a dumb calculation. I was just curious.

Now, what if we were to present 33 years of Jesus life as movies?
how many DVDs would it take? hmmm.............

Kimono Lesson

2006-04-28T18:23:00.000+09:00

So I got lucky and got this kimono for really really cheap. cost me around 30 dollars total to get this set. It is used, in fact, when you buy a kimono in Japan at stores, usually they are used and sells about 50 bucks a piece (not the whole set).
A new and custom kimono will cost a fortune, similar when you buy a customized business suit.

A quick lesson on the kimono that I am wearing,
It is a kimono for cold weather, so it usually has three layers. The outermost one is called "haori", and the long one is the kimono, and there is another layer inside the kimono.
Then there is the "obi" or the belt. It is pretty complicated to tie that belt properly, but check out this guide http://www.menz-kimono.com/kiru.html (in Japanese, but with pictures).
Finally, there is the decorative string to tie your haori together.

For your shoes, usually you wear their ninja turtle socks (because it is designed to be worn with sandals) called "tabi" and the traditional sandals called "geta".

A class at The University of Tokyo

2006-04-27T22:05:00.000+09:00

The University of Tokyo, or Toudai is said to be the best university in Japan. Especially in engineering and science. In fact, in Japan, when people learn that you are a Toudai student, there are usually two responses.
A. "Wow, you must be really smart" <---This is what you hear.
B. "...... you must be weird... otaku? do you have any friends? " <--- this is what they think

Anyway,
if you are not a student at Toudai, and you ever wonder what a class is like here. Here is a picture. Thanks to camera cellphone.

This is a graduate level class, and there were tons of students. I think it is because the majority of Toudai's undergrad student (Japanese) will at least continue their study until MS level. While in US universities (at least at ISU), grad schools' classes are not too big, and many (maybe majority) of the students are foreign students (mostly Chinese or Indians).
Is that true? Is this just in ISU? Is this bad for the US?
Dr. Sannier, if you can comment, please?

Music: Mew

2006-04-20T02:38:00.000+09:00

I will start recommending music in my blog.

This week I am in love with this Danish band called Mew.
check out http://www.purevolume.com/mew

You know how much musicians hate being boxed in "genre", but I will still do it.
I would categorize this band in the "new wave" genre, similar to The Killers.
However, I like Mew's, girly-voiced vocalist better. Plus all the instrumental parts are excellent. They have weird chords, weird chord progressions, and "unique" rhythm. All the things that I look for in music.

Japanese Cellphone with Digital Television

2006-04-20T02:12:00.000+09:00

OK, this is one of the reason why I came to Japan. (I know I kept saying that for many things, I just like Japan in general anyway.)
Since December last year, AU, a Japanese cellphone carrier, released a cellphone that is capable of receiving digital television signals. Apparently now all Japanese TV stations are broadcasting their program in analog and digital. However, the analog broadcast will be totally gone in 2014 (plus/minus). In fact, if you are buying new analog television here, they have a warning that warns you that this analog tv will be completely obsolete in 2014 (I guess you can still use it to watch VHS, but...)

Finally, I got a chance to get this phone for 1 YEN!, so here you go! I must say that the quality of the TV broadcast received in the cellphone is almost perfect. Older Japanese cellphones can receive analog TV channels, and usually nobody ever watches that because the picture is always so grainy, so most people just use it to hear the soccer game/baseball game.
However, this digital TV on cellphone is perfect quality, SUPER SUGEE!
To see a video of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3plQNJrpOlo

Edo Tokyo Architecture Museum

2006-04-20T01:51:00.000+09:00

The best I did this month was visiting the Edo Tokyo Architecture Museum. I think this museum is the best hidden treasure in Tokyo. I mean, not many people know about it, it is not the usual tourist attraction, and it is not located directly by a train station.

In this outdoor museum, they have about 20+ buildings that are exact replicas of the houses of Japanese people from different era. You can enter these houses, and the insides are completely furnished with the furnitures from that era. 感動した！

The best thing is they have a mockup of a Japanese town in Showa era, complete with fake flowershop, fake tool/stationary shop, fake Japanese sake store, fake Japanese public bathroom, fake Japanese bar, and a REAL restaurant. hahaha... They also have a typical Japanese playground complete with the toys for Japanese kids before the videogame era. (Yes, Japanese kids used to go out and play in the playgrounds.)

This place is a must-go attraction for everyone that visit Tokyo, especially to those that like samurai (超典型的だな....),doraemon (haha..), and the movie Always (三丁目の夕日）.
Below is a picture of me in front of a pipe that Nobita and friends like to play around in.

Sakura Time in Japan ! 千本桜

2006-04-20T01:31:00.000+09:00

Well well, it's time to blog again. Been absent for some months now.

Spring is here, and that means Sakura time in Japan. Japanese people are very proud of their Sakura tree, or the cherry blossom. After I saw and experience it myself, now you can count me in the Sakura fan club membership.

See, This tree is green for the summer, then all the tree falls for the winter, and became bald for a while. THEN... comes winter the first thing it does is the Sakura flowers blooms. The whole tree became pink. That's it, no green, no yellow, nothing, all pink flowers all over the tree. And usually at this time, the temperature has warmed up, but not hot at all, creating this wonderful weather for spring romance.
But the most spectacular part is, this Sakura flower will only be there for maximum of two weeks, that's it!
After that, it will fall all over, creating this spring pink snow that is equally beautiful.
In front of my apartments is a river bank with Sakura trees. When the flower petals falls, the river turned pink, it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. (By the way, I just noticed today that there are tons of HUGE Koi Fish, golden ones, and black ones, in this river in front of my house, SUGEEEEEEE!!!)
I remember a certain Japanese poet said that the falling of the flower petals is what makes Sakura special.

Is PayPal the new antichrist?

2006-01-17T23:37:00.000+09:00

OK, so it's time to bitch about paypal again.

For no clear reason, both of my PayPal account are closed by PP, with no possibilites to resolve it.
Luckily I have no money in them.

PP customer service is absolutely terrible.
They keep sending you emails that remind you do something about your account, while if you login, there is nothing you can do. I sent emails using their webforms, and I always got a similar response, meaning that machine replied to my emails. Pisses me off!
When I call them, the resolution center guy was very very stupid. Although I said that PP doesn't tell me how to resolve the issues, he kept telling me to read my emails and resolve the issue. (turns out that PP hires their customer service by the dozen, that's why they're so stupid. more on this later)
I requested to talk to his supervisor; she was smarter, but not very nice, and she couldn't do anything about my account. WOW! My account is closed

so, further reading, leads me to http://www.paypalsucks.com, an anti PP website.
To the fact that such website exist, it tells me that PP really does SUCK!
So, why does PP suck?
According to the website, it is because they don't have an avenue to get out from the chargeback charges from the banks due to fraudulent accounts (this is the nature of virtual transactions, very easy to fraud).
So, to recoup their losses, they flag, and close good standing account, and pocket the money.

Furthermore, PP is not safe at all. Apparently internal PP employees have access to customer info, and there were many unauthorized and fraud charges done by internal PP employees.

Now, if you don't have paypal? What is your alternative? Can you live on the internet without paypal?
Apparently there is not much alternative.
Ebay, the parent company of PP, also already bought Verisign, while in the past, Verisign had already swallowed many companies like CyberCash, etc.
So, virtually there is no online alternatives for PP. Even if there is, I don't know if I want to trust them.

Does future economy depend on online payment? if it does, then I am screwed, because unless a class action suit is filed against PP, there is no way PP is going down soon. I am not going to use PP anytime soon because they rip you off, rude, and insecure.
Another alternative is to wait for Google Wallet, but I don't know when they'll start.
I guess for now, old school money order will have to work.

Looking at the new Ebay/PP/Verisign combined power, I am afraid that currently they hold the key to internet economy.
Meg Whitman is the new antichrist!

BTW, these are the companies that are owned by Ebay now.
Verisign ($370million) (which also owns Weblogs.com)
Paypal ($1.5billion)
Skype ($2.6billion)
Craigslist (25%, ? amount)
Rent.com ($415million)
Half.com (?$)
FairMarket ($4.5million)
Eachnet ($180million)
Shopping.com ($620million)
Mobile.de (German auto classifieds site $149 million)
Prostores (Not entirely sure on this... I'm trying to find the details.)
Korean Internet Auction Co. (IAC) ($325million)
Baazee.com ($50million, India auction site)
Carad.com (?$)
Kijiji.com.cn (?$)
Butterfield & Butterfield (and then later tossed it) $235 or $260million
Kruse (and then later tossed it) ($150million)

Digital Art Festival Tokyo 2005

2005-12-12T19:01:00.000+09:00

One of the reason I came to Japan is because I like their media art projects, and now that I am here I got to see many projects first hand sometimes before they go out to siggraph or ars electronica.

I went to Digital Art Festival 2005 yesterday at Odaiba. This exhibition is supported by a cool television program called NHK's Digital Stadium.
Here are some interesting stuff:
This is called Khronos Projector (previously shown at Siggraph 2005). By pressing on the screen, the user can see a time-lapsed photographs.
A Straw Interface for Suck Sensation Simulator developed by Inami Lab. Finally you can experience what is it like to virtually suck weird stuff like popcorn, curry, natto, egg hahahaha...

This is Iwai sensei's artwork.
The house model is rotated at a really high speed, then a patterned strobe light blink at a rate, creating illusion that the house is crooked, divided, etc, depending on the pattern on the strobe light.
By the way, Iwai sensei's lab is just on the first floor, while mine is on the fifth floor. He has a really cool exhibition space there too.

This is a drumming machine using conductivity. The idea is, the main person wear the red cabled ring, and everybody else wears the black cabled ring. (one person can only wear one ring).
Then, the red ring becamse the musician, he/she can trigger various drum sounds by touching the skin of the people that wear black ring. Very fun, you can slap your friend and have art as an excuse.
Just a mannequin head and projected face. Simple, but I think it's very interesting.

I have a bank account

2005-11-30T20:31:00.000+09:00

yay!
I just opened a bank account with the post office of Japan today.
They don't require a foreigner to have stayed for more than 6 months, and no hanko (personal stamp) is needed, a regular signature is enough.

Isn't it weird? Usually dealing with a government entity is the most pain in the butt. Especially in that one paranoid country that I know.........
But in Japan (from getting visa and this one), it has been pretty pleasant.
However, dealing with commercial entity in Japan is more pain in the butt.
I don't know. Maybe I will have different experience later.

BTW, Is Japan Post still government-owned or a public entity? not sure...
I think I remembered something about privatization of Japan Post sometime ago...

Toudai's Komaba Festival

2005-11-30T20:15:00.000+09:00

Last weekend was Toudai's Festival at Komaba. Now, Toudai (Tokyo University) is divided into three separate campus. Hongo, Komaba and Kashiwa (this one is super far away).
Anyway, the Komaba campus is where all the freshman and sophomore take classes, so, they could come up with a super fun festival! yay!
I mean, the older you get, the lamer you become, that's what I think.
You're not driven by as much testoterone anymore haha..

Anyway, Let me present to you,
MISS TOOOKYOOO UNIVERSITY 2006
(clap clap clap clap)

OK, she's actually just the runner up.
The real winner is below (with the banner on her)
I think the runner up should have won, oh well...

Q:So, what the heck is this one?
A:Well, this one is a ritual for Toudai's dorks to carry their god of sup3r D0rK and parade them around campus during the festival.
A:But why are they wearing a karate uniform?
Q:That is to prevent them from being harassed
A:.... oh.....

not funny, OK.
So, this is the Shaolin Karate Club at Toudai parading around some geeky object. I don't actually know what it is.

Anime Cosplay

2005-11-24T14:52:00.000+09:00

On Sunday I went to the theme park and shopping area around the Tokyo dome area (suidobashi).
Lucky me! I found the cosplay event going on there. (for anime cosplay go to cosplay.com)
I saw many characters from anime that I really like. I need to get a costume. What will be good on me? should I pretend to be a dork? oh wait... then I won't have to do anything.
DekaRanger Blue, Justice!

KAMEHAMEHA!!!

With Shiba Kaien and Kuchiki Byakuya (BANKAI!)

Under Star....

2005-11-17T00:29:00.000+09:00

I went to Shinjuku Loft today to see Shocking Lemon live concert.
They're so good. The bad thing was that they only played one song of the first album (the only album that I have), and they didn't even play the songs from Hajime No Ippo anime.
DANGGGGGG!!
But I did enjoy the rest of the songs even though I have never heard of them before.
I guess if a band is good, I'll be able to enjoy new songs right away.
The bands before them weren't good. Me no like crappy bands.

I met the band members after the show. They're very friendly.
They promised me to play Ippo's songs for their next show if I come.
How nice is that, huh??

BTW, the audience in the show today were mostly girls.
In fact, during Shocking Lemon, all the people that are around the stage were girls. I was the only guy. Surrounded by 50+ girls. It was pretty scarry.
I don't know what's up with Japanese guys.

JR Station Shinjuku

2005-11-16T01:56:00.000+09:00

I love trains, for me, they are efficient method for public transport.
For a metropolis, it'll be better if the majority of population uses public trains/bus instead of driving to prevent crazy traffic jams.

I go through this station everyday. Yamanote line's Shinjuku Station is one of the biggest station in Tokyo. It can be super crowded especially during late hours on weekends.

BTW, there is a PSP game that simulate JR Yamanote Line.
You are the train driver for the Yamanote train. isn't it fun?
The challange is to be on time, and to break and stop on exact position.

Japan Travel + Tokyo Miniature Model

2005-11-16T01:41:00.000+09:00

I promised myself that I would blog about Tokyo and Japan travel when I finally live there.
Now that I am here, I haven't really blogged about travel here.
Ideally I would like to blog about food, museums, train stations, weird people, food.
Maybe I'll start now, and hopefuly it'll continue.

So,
I went to Roppongi Hills on Sunday.
(Tokyo veterans, please bear with me)
Roppongi is an area in Tokyo stereotypically for expats (read: westerners)
It has many clubs (dance clubs and naughty ones too), American restaurants (Hard Rock Cafe, TGI Fridays, etc), and it is also close to the Tokyo Tower.

Roppongi Hills is a name of a building complex where they have restaurants, museums, auditorium, shops, and other expensive things for foreigners. (well, Japan is already expensive)

I went to see the Miniature model of Tokyo, NYC, and Shanghai.
They model the whole Tokyo, NYC's Manhattan, Shanghai's business district.
Except for Shanghai's miniature, all the miniature models are textured. Very very impressive.
The picture on the left is not the real Tokyo, but the miniature, and you're currently looking at Shinjuku's JR station.

Augmented Reality + some Physics

2005-11-15T01:21:00.000+09:00

There has been several research that uses virtual objects to affect real world object.
The latest one at Siggraph 2005 was Kobito, which means small people in Japanese.
Kobito is about virtual fairies that can push a real tin sugar box (because there is magnetic SPIDAR system underneath the sugarbox).
However, because SPIDAR system is a string-based haptics, it'll be hard for them to put many controllable magnets underneath the table.
Of course you won't be able to see the Kobito if you don't use any display system. So, in this project looks like they use a tablet PC type display.
http://rogiken.org/vr/english.html

A magnetic table has been developed previously by Ishii sensei's Tangible Media Lab (MIT).
This one actually uses array of magnets underneath the table, so it can move many objects and any 2D direction on the table.

Also, related to how virtual object interacting with real object,
another cool one that I saw is Inami sensei's AR Collisseum, this is to be demoed at TableTop 2006 Australia
http://www.hi.mce.uec.ac.jp/inami-lab/en/projects/AugmentedColiseum/
Cool tank war game with laser guns. Seems like Inami sensei like Star Wars a lot.

Tangible Interface In Commercial Space (Japanese Arcade)

2005-11-15T00:50:00.000+09:00

Lately the trend in Japanese Arcades is to use collectible cards to
play. (plot: to maximize their revenue, great Idea!)
In the past, the data of the character are printed on the card
(barcode usually), and using scanner, the player can use the card to power
the character in the game.

But now, they use RFID , so the card can be used to control the game
(instead of just powering the game characters)

that screenshot is from a war strategy game based on the Chinese
legend "Romance of Three Kingdom"
You put the cards on the table, move them around (position only, no orientation) to attack
and stuff, so the table actually knows the card's position. The card
is a representation of a battle commander or magicians, etc....
http://www.sangokushi-taisen.com/game_main.html (it's all in japanese,
but you can see more screenshot)

They also have similar setup, but for playing soccer. The cards have
soccer player data in it, and you can position them on the special
table.

These games are also always connected on the internet, so they can do
battle online at the arcade.
Most arcade games here also use RFID card so player can save their
progress on their card, so next time they come, they don't have to
play from the beginning / have super power already for
player.vs.player battles.

BTW, the players of these games are adults . Japanese adults now have
to collect collectible cards again, trading them, ..., practicaly back to
being a 13 years old.
Japanese companies are very good are these.

Augmented Reality / Hologram

2005-10-24T14:18:00.000+09:00

Last week I developed an idea of using Augmented Reality techniques to create holography illusion.
I found several related research and some materials that might be useful for this AR Hologram research.

The first things that I was interested in was a transparent screen that enables projection onto a transparent glass.
Check these out
http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~item16/e-catch/holo/holo.htm (for back projection)

(and these ones are for front projection)
http://www.dnp.co.jp/jis/news/2005/050712.html
http://www.dnp.co.jp/cio/solutions/news/up_file/73/

I found an interesting company that prints digital 3D objects into hologram. They are colored too!
http://www.zebraimaging.com/html/products.html
They use special technology that allows 3D objects to pop up without using tracker nor stereo glasses. However, because they are printed images, it is static.
How cool would it be to be able to view digital 3D objects in stereo without glasses nor tracker?
Oh wait! I guess 3D monitor for regular PCs already exist.
e.g.: http://store.sharpsystems.com/product.asp?sku=2555920
http://www.sharp3d.com/
There are many ways to generate no-glasses-stereo-view in monitor. I think Sharp uses the 2 LCD layers technology.
http://www.sharp3d.com/technology/howsharp3dworks/

anyway,
about the holograms, check out these interesting stuffs/research
- http://www.holophile.com/index.htm
holophile uses old-school slanted mirror and a horizontal video panel to create the hologram illusion of virtual transparent things to co-exist with real things.
Maybe these are the first Augmented Reality??
- and of course, a more serious AR research from Weimar Univ. in Germany:
http://www.uni-weimar.de/~bimber/Pub/VR%20News/Invited%20article%20series.htm

Bank In Japan

2005-10-15T17:57:00.000+09:00

Yesterday I tried to open a regular saving account in a bank.
I went to two different banks and both banks (UFJ and Mizuho) have the same silly requirements:
1. A Foreign National must already been in Japan for 6 months or so.
2. An Hanko is required to open an account.

(A Hanko is a personal seal stamp. See, in Japan, most people don't use hand signature to sign their documents. Instead, they have this small stamp that they use to seal / authorize their document. The hanko contains the person's last name in Kanji.
People with common names can buy this hanko in usual stationary store, and they only cost $1.
So, it is very easy to pretend to be somebody else.
Hand signature would be harder to forge.)

So, Why the heck do I have to have a hanko anyway?
Why 6 months?

See, this is what I meant by internal struggle.
While Japanese public likes a lot of things foreign (ex: in Japanese public TV, they have all kinds of language lessons from English to Swahili), internally I think they still don't trust a lot of foreigners. (Maybe it's also the fault of foreigners here)

Oh well, it's not like I'll be collecting a lot of interest by putting my money in the bank anyway.

yesterdayeternal

2005-10-15T17:53:00.000+09:00

What is yesterday eternal, you might ask....
Well, initially it is a cool phrase that I came up for a band name. However, I am too busy right now to create a new band.
(Please don't steal this name...)

It also has some deep meaning, I think.
The only thing eternal that won't change is the past, and I treasure them.
However, future is onward, and nothing will be eternal.
So, let's go!

Ganbare!!

"Inner Struggle"

2005-10-12T20:20:00.000+09:00

Hajimemashite,
My name is Ronald.
I graduated MS from Iowa State University.
In October 2005, I moved to Tokyo, Japan to attend The University of Tokyo.

Japan, as it turns out, is a land of "inner struggle", as I call it.
Some ways are very modern, but still a big part of the way of life here is traditional.
However, there is a struggle to modernize, to change the traditional thinking/method.
At least that's the aspiration in the movies and books. (Isn't it the role of movies and books to reflect the utopian way?)

So, what am I going to blog about?
I like high-tech (thus I am a Phd student), food, and music (discovering awesome underground band is like discovering a hidden treasure).
I will try my best to write often about those subjects + about Japan of course.
There are plenty of things to discover in Japan.
From tech, music, to feed, I should be able to write some.