…And I think I made the right decision. This article by Robert Cringely hits home, though. My theoretical download speed is now 1/50 of what it was last year in Japan and the theoretical upload is 1/200. Actual speed ratios are about the same, however, downtime here is pretty awful as you can see by my sporadic blogging – sometimes lasting for almost a week. The whole censorship thing is pretty lame, too.
On the flip side, the mangosteens and monkeys sure are tasty!
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Let me tell you a secret about (relatively) insane connection speeds: When you are wired to the net through a $50/month hikari connection, your connection speed is a non-issue. You are waiting for the rest of the internet…
Category: Toys & Tech
Apple Form Factor Graphic
This chart is pretty cool because every model I’ve ever owned is on it (including the Apple //c our dad bought for us), except for my trusty old Powerbook 190. I gave up on Apple after the dot mac betrayal way back when, and haven’t looked back since. I was still in charge of all the mac boxes at work until last year, but Apple has pretty much zero presence here in Thailand.
odo trick – I [heart] OCD
One of my “borderline” traits is my fascination with numbers, especially numerical readouts (this also partially explains my fascination with pachinko and the like). Some numbers and patterns just mean a lot to me, although my commemoration of odometer milestones I know is at least shared by some of my friends. Some people just don’t get it though – I remember when I stopped my S-13 Silvia on a busy highway median to photograph reaching the 111,111 kilometer mark (sub trip odometer 1,111), the person I was with totally DID NOT understand why I thought it was so special, so I told him to get the fuck out of my car and he immediately got hit by a big truck and died. OK, maybe that last part was just wishful thinking, but what a fucking killjoy, you know?
So with that in mind, I present to you the first big milestone for my new (used) car:
Odometer otakus should note that I have synchronized the sub-trip recorder to within 0.3 meters of the main readout.
This is going to be something special.
/////////////////////////////////
I finally got around to taking a pic of my new audio setup, but I didn’t take it during the right time of day, unfortunately:
I was so happy with the work my guy did, I let him put a sticker on the box – it’s in Comic Sans!
The sub box is located in front of the amp, a simple vented design for a 12″ driver I bought cheaply in Japan and have used for over 5 years now. I can’t recommend the polymer/silicon/carbon substrate construction for speaker cones enough, and it’s a damn shame the only factory making them burned down last year. The speaker points forward, as I tried pointing both forward and back, but due to the dampened trunk lid, excess reverb prevented a rear-pointing layout. Speaking of dampening, the entire rear third of the car has been soundproofed with bitumen sheets. The rest will be done when I have the time.
All I have to say is, I’m lucky to be in Thailand because I could never afford to have all this stuff done in the states or Japan. I just happened to find, through a long string of coincidences, a local workshop whose owner speaks English really well and is more into car audio than I am, which is pretty rare. What’s even more rare is that his shop is A) fast B) cheap and C) extremely competent – it’s like being on a different plane of reality, where shit that isn’t supposed to exist does. I plan to take full advantage of this most advantageous situation.
TF-DVD7100 Region Free hack
The TF-DVD7100 (or TFDVD7100) was marketed under different brands in different countries, including the PRISM and COBY brands. Depending on the firmware, the following region hack can be performed by either remote or from the main unit’s controls.
- Press SETUP button
- Press FF button
- Press FR button
- Press NEXT CHAPTER button
- Press PREVIOUS CHAPTER button (a “Language Setting” or similarly labeled code will appear near the top of the screen.)
- Press the RIGHT ARROW button until code changes to 255
- Press ENTER button
- Press SETUP button to finish
//////////
Posted here for posterity.
Gmail for Domains – Small Bug
As I mentioned previously, I have my j(at)cosmicbuddha.com address set to forward all mail to my cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com address. Spam sent to the first address is not forwarded; I am OK with this. However, I have noticed that messages sent from cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com to j(at)cosmicbuddha.com are not getting forwarded to cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com. I do not understand why, because emails sent from cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com to cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com do appear; emails sent from j(at)cosmicbuddha.com to cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com do appear; emails sent from third parties to j(at)cosmicbuddha.com are forwarded to cosmicbuddha(at)gmail.com.
Is this because I’m fucking with the time-space continuum, or what?
UPDATE: My Account status on the Dashboard (Gmail for Domains control panel) is still updating. Maybe that has something to do with it.
All this forwarding business is tempting me to tempt fate with an infinite loop – to set both addresses in question to forward to each other. Should I do it?
ANOTHER UPDATE: Getting. Hard. To. Resist. What the hell? You only live once, right?
POSSIBLY FINAL UPDATE: Well, that was anticlimactic. I expected both mailboxes to instantly fill and throw the Google superkryptoniteleviathanserver cluster off just a bit, yet the net result of sending a test message to either e-mail address was one received message in each account (exactly as it should be). Props Google, you proactively foiled my plans for infinite loopty-looping.
Dyson
Although this will possibly incur the wrath of a million brand loyal housewives brandishing curtain brush attachments, I must speak my mind: “The vacuum cleaner that doesn’t lose suction” is the worst slogan of a successful company I have heard in recent memory.
- It is immediately apparent to all that see this tagline that what Dyson is actually trying to convey is that his products “suck harder than a $600 hooker” (which conveniently implies all the other cleaners in this price range are whores as well).
- By the same logic, Long Dong Silver was “the actor who never lost fuction.”
- A quick search online shows around a 70% approval rating from Dyson owners. Less than I would have thought from all the hype. Or maybe more, actually.
- One cool thing about Dyson – I saw on a TV show where he got the idea for a transparent dust reservoir. He was in a product planning meeting and saw one of his team members blow his nose, then look at what he had blown into the tissue before crumpling it up – “see,” he said, “everybody likes looking at what they cleaned up.” That fucking rocks.
- This middle-of-the-night rant was brought to you courtesy of Justin, “the guy who never scratches when playing pocket pool.”
Bloglines Tip
Are you using Bloglines to read this entry?
Hit the “M” key.
Cool, yes?
(via the Bloglines blog)
Random Keitai Thoughts
This is just wrong.
It was very refreshing to carry around a no-nonsense phone for a couple weeks. No camera, no egg-spaceship styling, no blinky blink LED distractions. I bought the cheapest Nokia with plan for unlimited usage from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and it worked just fine except for the interface, which was from like 1972 or something. It took like five presses of various buttons just to see numbers I received calls from!
The best thing about GSM phones, though, are the size. I remember when my Docomo phones were that small! I’m telling you, I’d choose a non-camera phone in a second if it were a viable option for AU…
In the red corner, the 600lb. gorilla known as Digital
So much for all the camera snobs saying digital cameras would never catch up to film. Nikon is throwing in the cellulose towel.
The title “Nikon prepares to strengthen digital line-up for 2006” is almost ironic. This is somehow sad news, even though I was the earliest convert to digital I knew. Even before then, my idea of a fun camera was a thirty year old Asahi Pentax. Spending money on developing black and white film in Japan has always sucked major balls. None of the preceding sentences were really linked, and yet this is a paragraph.
Goodbye, film.
Interesting fact: My company owns the term, “dejicame.” Pretty cool.
(via Jim O’Connell on the Japan Photography Mailing List)
Quick Reviews 2005/5/23
Monday, oh Monday, thou art an unwelcome punch in the face.
Some quick reviews just for the hell of it:
MUSIC:
– AUDIOSLAVE, Out of Exile: 7.98/10 stars || awesome guitar; chris cornell remains god.
– GORILLAZ, Demon Days : 7.14/10 stars || nice beats but lost some funky cheese?
MOVIES:
– REVENGE OF THE SITH: 5.95/10 stars || reaffirmed that papa vader is, indeed, a big raging asshole.
– HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE: 6.23/10 stars || bonus points for the “twinkie” reference (banana, anyone?) and cameo by the patron saint of bloggers, neil patrick harris
TV:
– THE WEST WING SEASON 4: 8.16/10 stars || even dems hate frogs
– THE SHIELD SEASON 4: 8.79/10 stars || not even halfway through the season but kicking serious ass
MY NEIGHBORS:
– CRAZY OLD LONELY LADY: 6.54/10 stars || makes like ZERO noise next door; makes me worry that she’s dead sometimes, but otherwise seems really nice
– LITTLE SHITS NEXT DOOR: 1.02/10 stars || learn how to say “konnichiwa” back to the nice gaijin already you spoiled little brats