I’m not such a telephone fan. I think I was one of the last one who got a mobile phone among my undergraduate fellows, and I never actually had a mobile phone when studying in Germany. Yes, I do have my iPhone currently, but 99% of its use is as an Internet terminal ; in fact, I even sometimes got surprised that you can make a call using iPhone (simply because I very seldom use it as a phone).
As knowledge, I knew that the latest (as of August 2010) version of Skype iPhone App. supports VoIP feature over 3G connection. I thought of Okinawa (where I was born in Japan) and my family out of blue while working in the office, so I decided to make a call to Japan shortly after my work. I took my iPhone and used the Skype App.. The rest was the same as normal Skype software on your computer.
But its impact as experience was enormous. You can now use your mobile phone, use VoIP, and make a World-wide calls whenever you want! Well, you probably still have to consider the local time of the other end..
The World is getting flatter. I agree (one prove is that I’m reading Japanese news almost everyday via RSS feeds, which was not an easy thing to imagine 10 years ago). Skype once said they’d have this VoIP feature over 3G only for limited period at first. Soon they announced this would be a permanent feature. I don’t think the trend would be reverted in near future.
It’s probably not the cost anymore you’d have to think, when making an international call (which was my headache seed when I was in the high school / early undergraduate). It’s rather other issues, such as the local time of the your company.
In the future, our World would be even flatter than how it already is now. But the shape of Earth should stay in global for relatively long time.
When I look back, it’s been already almost 10 years since I finished my high school. It was in Okinawa, and I was a teenager. In that time I had a friend in the same school; we’re both young and didn’t really know much about the World (although I’m not sure if I do it good enough now), but we’re good friends.
When I was in the final year of the school, I went to the States. One year later, I came back to Japan, and he was already graduated from the school. Unfortunately, we didn’t exchange the contact information, and we lost contact.
Recently, I was surfing on a Japanese SNS, and came across to a person who seemed to be that very same old friend of mine. The key was that he was doing a music and he seems to be still in this field.
The next thing I did was to write him a message, hoping he still remembers me. Next morning, I received an incoming message with a friend request.
It was Friday, and my work was finished. So I started chatting with him in a Twitter-like system in that SNS. Although the medium and technology were different, I could feel he didn’t change much — and I received the same from the other side. After almost ten years, I guess our cores haven’t really been much different.
Of course, there are both sides in the technology; in fact, I think there always is for everything. But it certainly was on positive side that I could contact to him again and he could do the same to me. The distance is quite huge : it used to be we’re 1km away, and now it’s more than 10,000km. But we’re already talking when to meet each other again (probably, and hopefully within this year, 2010).
Because I’ve lived in Japan for (overall) more than 20 years, eating rice is not something unusual at all. I used to cook rice in Germany, but only in a pot, which itself was quite troublesome in Europe. Here, people use electric oven, which takes some time to warm up and cool down. Boiling over was something I had to be careful about when cooking rice.
That was okay, to certain extend. I knew how long I would stay in Germany (around 2 years long, which was pretty accurate). Therefore cooking rice in (rather inconvenient) pot was acceptable. This time it’s probably not the case.
So I went to Amazon.at.
As I expected, this item really changed my eating habit. Of course, my rice consumption has been boosted, but I’m also eating at home more frequently than before. It turned out that minimum volume you could cook is 2 cups (which is about 2 meals). I first thought I should have read the description more carefully and should have gone for a smaller one. But now, I’m eating rice both night and morning (because that’s the only way left for me to completely eat up the rice I cook).
Besides rice, you can add vegetables and it’d be ready to eat when finished. Very easy way indeed, but this would add another item on your plate and more free space on oven. I think my dinner on the table has gotten a bit more complex than before (although I’m still trying out various combinations).
This cooker is a very primitive one. There is no timer feature, and I don’t have much faith in its keeping-warm function. But because of that, I’m forced to think “how much I should eat”. It’s not that bad to try to think what is the best way to cook and eat under given circumstances.
It costed me 39 Euro. But I think it’s already payed off.
Ein Grund warum ich Deutschlernen angefangen habe ist wegen der Frauen :-P Wenn ich in den USA war, hatte ich einige Chancen die Personen aus Deutschland kennenzulernen.
Jetzt bin ich sehr zufrieden und dankbar dafür, dass ich mehr als 2 Sprachen verstehen*. Natürlich ist mein Deutsch nicht so gut, im Vergleich zum Englisch. Aber damit kann man zumindest (und oft sehr wichtig) mehre Channel (oder Anschluss) haben.
*Also, das Wort “verstehen” könnte eine Übertreibung sein – ich verstehe noch etwas primitives auf Deutsch (ja ja, nach zwei Jahren in Deutschland..).
Wenn ich in Japan arbeitete, musste ich fast immer nur auf Japanisch sprechen – das war schon genug nicht nur für die Arbeit sondern das Leben in Japan (Japaner sprechen meinstens sowieso kein Englisch). Wenn ich daran dachte, wie mein Englisch- und Deutschfähigkeit wäre, wenn ich in Japan länger als 5 Jahren bleiben würde.
Es ist nicht nur die Sprachen. Wie irmand schon sagte, “Die Sprachen sind die Leben. Wer mehrere Sprachen handelt, könnte mehrere Leben genießen”. Damit hat man Multipel-Blickpunkt auf den Objekten der Welt, während die Chancen nicht besonders gut werden, wenn man nur ein (oder zwei) Sprache(n) handelt.
Es war ein Hauptgrund warum ich Japan verließ. Natürlich ist das Lebenniveau relativ gut (und ich noch das Akihabara vermisse ;-), konnte ich mir es nicht denken, diese besondere Blicke zu verlieren. Ich denke manchmal, wie glücklich ich bin, einen Platz im Ort gefunden zu haben, wo man auf Deutsch spricht. Natürlich ist die Fähigkeit des Englisch wichtig (und normalerweise auch notwendig). Aber wenn man mehr als zwei Sprachen verstehen kann, wird die Möglichkeit es zu verstehen größer, was die Idee ist, die wir in uns haben, und als Sprache lesen und hören.
My definition of the word “sexy” is a person who makes you (or me) wanting to know about him or her more. According to this definition, (logically speaking) even a male person can sometimes appears to be “sexy”. It doesn’t mean I’m homo- or bi-sexual; I very much prefer spending time with woman to man (at least in the bedroom).
As the word “sexy” suggests, it’s a person with whom you’d like to have sex. I think that’s the primary (if not only) meaning of the word. So the question is: what kind of person would you like to sleep with?
I’m a man, and I’m tempted to look at a woman if she’s beautiful (or pretty, attractive-looking, etc..). However, it doesn’t tell me anything about her life – what kind of person she is (although I could sometimes guess..). It usually takes some time (which means, after some communication) for me to feel (or start feeling) whether the person is attractive. It may be just because I’m still young, I may even have a prejudice that the person who wears lots of make-up (hence usually good-looking) implies that she cares how she looks rather than how / what she thinks; using her resources on outside, but what about the inside part? My experience is that it’s quite true (However – it’s not the case all the time).
I’m a (hu)man, and I’d like to have sex. If I’d see a young woman in a beautiful shape, I’d probably get excited. But part of me says : “if you ever go out with this person, most of the time you’d spend with her is by doing something different from having sex”. That would also be the case even with a one-night stand; you’d spend more time outside of bet than inside (going to dinner together, etc..).
Yes. I do have sexual desire, and I do (logically) understand that’s one of our biological reactions. As a man (if you’re a male and have some experience), you’d probably understand that your sexual desire rapidly drops right after having sex. Usually a pillow talk will follow (at least in my case). If I get more interested (through the conversation), I become biologically interested in her again. If that were not the case, I even think having sex with her isn’t all that necessary (although I know that’s extremely rude to her).
Having conversations together, going shopping together, laughing out loud together… For me, having sex is just another item on the list. In short, I’d like to get to know the person more, deeper.
If I spend time with someone, I like to enjoy that time. If I go out with someone, I like to have rather long-lasting relationship. From this standpoint, the above definition (or perception) of the word “sexy” is, at least to me, very much appropriate.
In the previous post, I wrote that the fly in ointment of my current living place is the Internet access, which is embedded in the room. The amount of up- and download datasize is limited up to 4 GB, which is, for me, next to nothing. After the limit of 4GB, the speed is decreased that you even hesitate to make a Skype (voice) call. So I knew I had to do something.
At first, I asked them if I could have a contract with a third-party ISP for DSL. The answer was negative (I don’t think that’s not possible even technically..). So the option I had (at least at that time, and now) was to have a private contract with a mobile phone company.
I went to the city, and had one contract signed. It was USB-type modem, of which I was told by the clerk that I didn’t need to introduce any external software and it could run on MacOSX. Well both were incorrect ; you need to have a Windows operating system or MacOSX prior to Snow Leopard (which is exactly what I’m using now), and you had to install a software even on a Windows machine, which I absolutely hate (since it could be another headache seed of mine..). The result : I went back to the shop, and revoke the contract (nice thing was they only charged me for one day – not even the activation cost).
So the next place I went to was another mobile provider. They had an external hardware, which can be a wireless LAN access point and gateway to the Internet. I’ve tested in the shop that it works with my MacBook Pro (via wireless LAN interface) and the speed is okay (at least I could watch the YouTube video real-time).
The nicest of all was that the data plan was flat-rate, which wasn’t the case for the previous one (although this flat-rate means that I had to pay a bit extra). Given the amount of the data I’d like to consume, upload, and waste from / to the Internet, it seemed to be the best option I had (and I still think it is).
Of course, the connection isn’t all that stable, if you compare this with the DSL or FTTH. But it is at least much more satisfactory compared to what I had before. The last thing I did was to revoke the Internet access contract to my room and to remove my AirMac Express from the LAN outlet (I don’t know what I should do with it now..).
The contract of this mobile-WiFi is fixed to 2 years. I do not know what I would do after that. Hope is that there would be a better option available for me, or I decide to move to somewhere else, where I could have another type of (and hopefully faster and more stable) Internet access.
Currently, programming is not what I do for living. I personally do not feel so much into the programming, although that’s what I used to do in the past, and what a part of my degree says. Personally, I feel much more alive doing current job, which involves linguistic aspect in the software field. I should really consider myself as one of lucky people.
Nevertheless, I graduated from Information Engineering department, and I do not think of myself as a totally blind in programming; when there’s something I’d like to do and when it seems to be implemented rather simply, I start writing code by myself. In most of the cases, I complete the code and use it as a standalone program or as a service (and that’s one of the reason why I should keep using the remote web server, which can have a cron scheduled).
It was the same story this time. I got involved in a translation project called TED Open Translation Project. You first have to translate the transcripts of the talks available on the Internet. After the translation, reviewer must be assigned. Finally, after the discussion between them, the completed translation is published as subtitle. After a few talks, I felt it really frustrating and inefficient to communicate with my translator / reviewer, saying something like :
I think the following line,
3 0:00:05 0:00:07 this was a world unseen. それが目にされることのない世界だと気づき
should be modified to
3 0:00:05 0:00:07 this was a world unseen. 世界である事に気がつきました
Whole communication was done via email (or with Skype chat). After a while, I just couldn’t help myself this cannot be the optimal way of communication, because :
– Your changes to miss the segment is relatively high, which should actually be translated.
– You might misspell, when typing it into the subtitle system again (by the way, we use a service called dotSUB).
– You’re often confused which is the most recent version of the translation
– After exchanging several emails, you may lose track of the previous discussion, why we have the current translation.
– You might end up translating the same segment more than once.
The first thing I thought was using the Google Docs, which has a spreadsheet with sharing feature with others. The problem was that the subtitle format (called SubRip, or .srt) is not supported by Google Docs (I don’t even know how it’d look like on the Google Docs if it were supported). The Google Docs, however, can import / export the CSV (Comma-Separated Value) format, probably most primitive format for spreadsheet-like application. After that flash, it was rather simple; write codes to convert the SubRip file into CSV (and other way around).
My translation partner was first not convinced if it’s really a good way. After a couple of translations, he changed his mind. This method was introduced to the other Japanese translators. Gosh, I must say I felt good :-)
Soon enough (as expected), a person said it didn’t work as expected. It ended up that this person had not set up the environment properly. Sooner or later, I could see it would come; not all the people in the group are familiar with the names like “Perl” or “CPAN”. So I thought of making those scripts as a web service, taking away the necessary steps to create an environment on his/her local machine (although you still have to have a text editor). With some feedbacks, it seems most of the users are satisfied with this one (although I must admit I could already see potential improvement, which I’m too lazy to get down to implement).
A friend of mine, who actually introduced me this project, sent to California and held a talk on TEDActive. He said the reaction from other translators were enormous and the people from the dotSUB were also interested in this service. Gosh, I felt great!
A while later, another person asked me how exactly to use the service. In order to promote this service, I’d been thinking about making a tutorial of how to use it, even when I was setting up the service. So using 2 weekends, I started creating an easy (meaning not particularly fancy, but enough to get the bottom line) tutorial videos and posted on the YouTube.
How to import content into Google Docs :
How to work on Google Docs
How to import your translation into dotSUB
After creating those videos, I couldn’t help myself writing an email to TED Project, asking them to introduce this service with the above YouTube links to other TED translators / reviewers. The answer was to post the exact content on Facebook Discussion Board for TED Open Translation.
As I mentioned above, I’m not a professional programmer, and I do not consider myself as a brilliant engineer (I rather like something with natural language). But that flash, with a bit of ability to write some scripts obviously made others’ lives easier for translation, for which I think I should be proud of.
The place I currently stay is equipped with sauna. Not everyone can just go into the sauna and utilize it; you have to make a reservation at first (which is just a sheet of paper). There is also a man’s and woman’s time, which you could just go in without reservation, if you’re qualified.
You could take up to 2 hours in a raw. You could (probably) use it with your friend(s), but I still don’t have such friend (yet). Consequently, I end up staying in the sauna for 2 hours; given the size of the room, it should be capable of 4 to 5 people. What a luxury!
I normally take 2 hours in the Saturday morning, get up relatively early (well, which is around 8 AM) and start using sauna from 9 AM. Take the key at the counter and go into the room. As I’m the first person in the morning to use it, it takes a while to warm up; when I get out of the room, I’m completely dripping. Wipe my body quickly, get back to my room, and take a shower. When you shave after the sauna, I find it easier for some reason as well.
It’s actually all included in the price of my rent. In the winter, I sometimes even feel like rather staying at my flat (simply because it is (or it looks) too cold outside), but I could stay in that hot room for 40 minutes or so. Doing it once a week would be healthy (at least so I think).
All of those things just add up, and I’m becoming to like where I’m staying now. I at first thought of it as “just a temporal place”, but it’s not too expensive, and there’s a decent privacy (with one’s own kitchen and bathroom), and I don’t have to change trains to get to my office. A fly in ointment is probably the Internet access, which can be much better (I should ask them if I could have a personal contract with an outside provider..). At least my life at current place goes on..
Fortunately, I’ve been able to communicate in different languages (so far, in Japanese, English, and partly German). Twitter account is no exception; I’ve been tweeting in different languages.
When I look at the people I’m following (and people who follow me), tweeting in different languages wasn’t a trivial issue ; how do you feel to read the others tweets which is written in a way you never understand (or really hard to do so)? So I first made different accounts for English and Japanese.
Life wasn’t that easy after that. You always have to switch browsers to tweet from the right account. You could have a multiple accounts by using a service like Hootsuite, but it took me more courage to tweet, compared to the time with simple and single Twitter account.
I’ve been thinking, “since it’s quite obvious that the purpose of multiple Twitter account is to tweet in different languages, how about writing a script which does so automatically?”. I could tweet using one account, the script reads those posts, detect in which language each of them is written, and post the tweet using an appropriate account, according to the language detected.
So far, it’s been working well. And I’m hoping it will (since the code I wrote was somewhat ad-hoc; I’m not using Twitter API since there doesn’t seem to be such feature (if I’m not mistaken). Perhaps it’s the time to look at which Twitter (posting) client is the easiest to use ;-)
While I was being online in one evening (as usual), I got a chat message from an old friend of mine (looking back, it’s been almost 10 years!). There was someone who wanted to contact to me, but this person couldn’t reach me, for some reason.
After I got the Skype name of this person, I sent a contact request. The response was rather quick. The guy was in Vienna for a visit, but got kicked out of the place he was staying at, and was looking for a place to stay.
So the person was a friend of my good old friend. And yet, I never actually met this person. I must confess that I hesitated for a moment. But when I asked myself which choice would make me less regretful (or rather content), letting him stay at my place seemed to be rather a good choice.
So next evening, we met each other for the first time (at least in person). He seemed to be a nice person. I really enjoyed the jokes (of which the kind you probably do not talk at work)..
We had to organize what time to be in the flat. Next day, he already found another place to stay. We ended up discussing various issues in the World; the kind of the discussion which not many people would do (at least from my experience). The discussion felt as if it was helping out finding my own idea (which I believe is the original concept of discussion).
He came, and gone. It was really a short time, but I certainly enjoyed conversation with him. I try to think and do as, “if you wonder whether or not to take an action, it’s better to take that action for you to be content after all, on average”. I’m glad I did take that action, and hope I’d do the same next time.