Tokyo and tech through the eyes of a split pea

Who’s Inconvenient Truth?

My buddy Jun shared a link via email earlier today:
Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use Is His Own “Inconvenient Truth”
What’s really annoying about these sensationalized news bites is that they’re just that – sensationalized.  It talks about energy totals, but there’s no mention about the more important factor – energy source. If even 10kWh is from [...]

My incident goes global

Well okay, my experiences last week weren’t nearly as bad as the following, but it seems the xenophobic trouble that’s brewin’ isn’t just localized to Japan: Martin Varsavsky of Fon reports two American students were attacked by skinheads in Madrid.  Could this have anything to do with Bush’s international politics and “leadership”?

PopChop back in action

I finally got around to porting over most of the media files from the ol’ server, and had almost forgotten one of the best mash-up albums of all time – PopChop! My PopChop page (link also in the sidebar) now includes a flash-player for you lazy bums so you can listen to each tune [...]

A taste of culture on American TV?

Two years ago ABC’s Lost made a significant bet by introducing subtitles for an extended period throughout its episodes. For a good part of the beginning of the season, two Korean characters communicated only in Korean, and God forbid if couch-potatoe viewers couldn’t keep up with reading the English – here was a chance [...]

Sony, Get a Hint

(The following is a reaction I wrote down after disagreeing with a decision made from upper management. Basically, a cost-free license for an ATRAC SDK was being developed, but you could only get it in exchange for your soul. I caught wind of the news too late, so I placed this in my drafts [...]

samuraiPod

Woot, woot! Check it – our very own dashboard widget!

Bob Moog passes on

A moment of silence for Dr. Moog. He created an industry, and changed many lives (… and some might say he created many lives as well). Moog passes on.

3D pavement drawings

This guy does some amazing pavement drawings, bar none.

iTunes Music Store Japan

So iTunes Music Store finally hits Japan, and already in 4 days burps out 1 millions tunes. 4 days. And it’s a burp, given the over 500 million songs iTMS has sold globally. 1 millions tunes in 4 days, and that’s without one of the largest record labels’ library – Sony Music [...]

Talk about low barriers to entry!

Whoa, I feel like a guineapig testbed experimenting with just how easy it is to setup a personal server with the Mac Mini. Everything is so easy, literally clicking buttons, and now I officially have my own internet radio station courtesy of Rogue Amoeba’s Nicecast player. This thing rocks! Here’s my setup:

A network [...]