Twitter's approach

I have been using Twitter a while, and I really like the concept Twitter makes it easy for users to tweet. You can tweet anywhere with anything: through cellphone, smartphone, stand-alone application, web application. You don't need to sit down in front of the computer to spare you time to post things. You can just "tweet" instantly when somethings comes out of your mind through your iPhone, blackberry, or even QuickSilver in mac.

My new blogging direction

Admitting that I have been negligent and too lazy to update my blog regularly, I promised myself again that at this time I will be more diligent on keeping up with my blog. And today, I thought about what kind of topics I should post to my blog, and this question then derived to what I want to do, what are my interests, and what I want to write. So here are the products of today's contemplation.

My main interests are cultures and societies in multi-dimension. By "multi-dimension" I mean in terms of time, regions, and individual. Therefore, cultures in dimension of time would be history, societies in different regions are countries and nations, and individuals are people from different backgrounds. I am also interested in connections of cultures and societies: transportation, human languages, internet, social network, etc. I like to study them, and I like to look into how we can improve them. How we can help people communicate each other without language and cultural barriers, how we can enhance transportation overhead between regions, how we can keep in touch from different part of world, are all my interesting problems. In a short sentence, as a software engineer, my goal is to solve those problems by use of technology.

So, my blog is going to be about my interests mentioned above. In my blog I will talk about how I would like to address those issues. I will sometimes find existing solutions, discuss what other problems the solutions still cannot solve, or I will sometimes bring my own solutions to the problems. I will also talk about my trips, memories with my friends, and encounters with awesome people that have happened, or will happen in my life. Meanwhile I will post technology issues as well that might somehow be related into what I addressed above.

Alright, let's begin..!

Skype on iPhone

Alright, I've been waiting for that to come out. The skype has been the popular service for long-distance / international phone call through the internet, and I think it will be another trend to shift towards to using the VoIP rather than the landline phone.

Carew, Sinead. "Skype to come to iPhone, BlackBerry." Reuters, March 30, 2009, Available from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090330.wgtskype0330/BNStory/Technology

Progress on Japanese word memorizer

I decided to collaborate the work with Wendy, and made a start using Google App: http://langbook.appspot.com

New Year

It's been a long time since I blogged last time.. Yes, I don't deny the fact that I was abundantly lazy and still have a lot of posts waiting as drafts to be posted..

But I finished my one-year internship in Japan on last August, came back to school to finish my undergrad, and also got a job; I am joining Yahoo! on May, 2009. I will be working on Yahoo! Search Technologies (YST). Until that, I am enjoying 4-month break at home, helping parents' business, etc.

While enjoying my free-time, I decided to start a little project. I am going to make a web browser plugin that collects the Japanese words that I do not know the meaning, automatically retrieves meanings from the online dictionary, saves them, and later I can re-practice my memory through online quiz.

For the target browser, I think I will make it for Safari because that's my default web browser, but eventually Firefox, as Firefox is more cross-platform that can run in all major operating systems (Windows, Linux, and Mac). 

Also, even though it starts as a Japanese word memorizer, I will generalize it as a memorizer to anything, such as English word memorizer, jargon memorizer, etc.

I will post more about this as I have some progress on the development, and also I will try to post all my pending drafts as I promised myself to be less lazy than last year...

辞書で使ってるNintendo DS

今日からときどき日本語でもブログを書くことに決めた。そんなことでもしたら、いつかは日本語を自由自在で駆使するそんな日が来ないかたい。
NDSを買ってから僕の生活が便利になった。前は辞書がなかったから知らない言葉があるとパソコンがなければ意味を分からなくて過ぎて行く時が頻繁だった。なおパソコンでも漢字を捜すときに画を数えて捜すから不便で時間もかかった。でもNDSに筆記認識機能があるから、漢字を捜すことが便利になって、何よりもパソコンがなくてもどこでも日本語単語の意味を捜せるから良い。今日は”Financial Japan"という日本経済雑誌を買って読んで見た。まだ読みにくいけど、前より読解速度がすごく早くなった。今まで言語障壁があるからよく英語である雑誌や新聞を読んだけど、そのほうは大部分外国人の観点から見渡した日本の姿だった。でも僕は日本人の観点から見渡した日本がもっと知りたいので、その雑誌はとてもおもしろかった。雇用問題、経済、女性と外国人問題、教育などの時事問題についての記事を読みながら日本人が考える日本に対して習ったから良かった。

Marco's Birthday

A picture from Italian restaurant to celebrate birth of "Uncle Marco". Happy birthday Uncle Marco..!

Japanese exhibit

I saw this in Saty today.. This costs 99800 yen, which is almost $1000. But it looks cool.

Valentine's Day

Everyone Happy Valentine's Day..!

November 18, 2007, Marathon3: Nikko(日光)

After Shuzenji trip, I came back home, slept 5 hours, and went again to Nikko with Bert, Loic, and Junko.

A lot of temples, etc. But the best photo was this:

can't speak, can't listen, can't see three monkeys.

And there was a circle gate of fortune where people cross and walk around to pray for wishes and lucks.

I danced for wishes.

This was the finale of my three-day marathon for that weekend. After Nikko, I basically faded out on that night, and had to carry on my fatigue throughout the week.

November 17, 2007, Marathon2: Shuzenji(修善寺)

My marathon had not finished yet. We stayed at the club until 5am, and took a train back to HonAtsugi from Shinjuku. When I arrived at HonAtsugi it was already 7am, and it was 7:20am when I came back home. I changed my clothes, when Randy just knocked my door. It was 7:30am. Then I went on another journey to Izu(伊豆), Shuzenji(修善寺) with Randy and Wendy.

So, by reading this post you can tell that I had not slept a minute. I tried to sleep inside the train, but Wendy bothers me.

And Randy did nothing.

...So I was going to die.

But they did not care. So I decided to not give up on my life.

Seaside in Izu is famous for its beautiful scenes and sightseeing. But we did not go to the seaside. We stayed around Shuzenji. I should go to Izu again later probably in Spring for sightseeing.

The view of the temple with splendid maple colours was magnificent. Besides the temple was also a small hot spring for feet bath.

It was interesting, but I did not dip my feet into it; I was too lazy to take off my socks.

By that time I was really tired.

But it was good to see the maples, especially together with a tranquil view of the temple.

November 16, 2007, Marathon1: night in Shinjuku (新宿) and Roppongi (六本木)

I remember this as a starting day of my marathon for the weekend. I left work at around 5pm, went to Tokyo to watch a documentary film called "Darwin's Nightmare". The movie seems to show how the introduction of a new species into the local ecosystem can destroy the area biologically as well as economically. But I did not finish the movie till the end. I went out at around 9pm to meet up with other people in Shinjuku(新宿). From this moment start my marathon did; from now on I will explain how I managed a karaoke, clubbing, going to Izu, and going to Nikko during this weekend with only a sleep of 5 hours in total. First of all we went to izakaya(居酒屋) with a karaoke facility.

We really had a blast on that night. After the Karaoke we went to clubbing in Roppongi(六本木).

On our way we stopped by a club with the name "Holy bitch".. I don't know why, but we all had a snap shot in front of the name.

Wendy's birthday and welcome party for Juan and Marco

It has been more than a month but I finally managed to upload photos for the night of Wendy's birthday and Juan and Marco's welcome party.

This year was special to me because I have lived in three different countries and made good friends. Even in Japan, the last four months have been great time because of friends I made here. My friends, let's also fill the next year with a lot of unforgettable and joyful memory.

Tomorrow, I will be gone on a 9-nights-10-days trip to Kansai and Chugoku region of Japan. Everyone, happy new year..!