I was just wondering how long it had been since I reset my computer (which I tend to do rarely if I can possibly avoid it) and remembered that at some point I had a simple command line utility that would tell you exactly that. After a quick search I found Uptime.exe over on the ancient Windows NT 4.0 server page.
\\MUTANTFROG has been up for: 8 day(s), 11 hour(s), 57 minute(s), 6 second(s)
When I came back from the Philippines it was already cold enough in Taiwan that I needed something to make sitting at the computer a little more palatable. My superthick blanket is enough for sleep, but I decided to pick up an electric heater. Now, I had just read this article on Yahoo Japan, which says that an 82 year old man in Yamagata City has been hospitalized in serious condition to to carbon monoxide poisoning resulting from a loose rubber hose on a Matsushita (aka Panasonic aka National) oil heat-fan. Despite the fact that I was shopping for an electric and not oil heater, I avoided Panasonic products like the plague.
Earlier today, I glanced at Kushibo’s blog and saw this post about fan death, which I’d never heard of before. Fan death is apparently a very silly Korean urban myth that an electric fan can create “a vortex, which sucks the oxygen from the enclosed and sealed room and creates a partial vacuum inside” or possibly “suck all the air away, preventing one from breathing.”
It’s claimed that this legend has spread to surrounding Asian countries, but the closest thing I’ve heard in Japan is that having an electric fan on you at night can make you catch cold, which is the kind of thing that a grandmother in any country might say without sounding like a vortex-phobe. The fact that the Wikipedia page exists only in English and Korean also seems to indicate that it may not have much of a presence in other countries, although I am at least a little surprised that no enterprising Japanese wikinerd has translated the article as fodder for making fun of Koreans.
Somebody made a Japanese version of this American stock market visual graph. It’s pretty cool.
With this, which requires nothing but a Pringles can, some black cloth, and some other, even cheaper, materials…
You can take photos like this.
Directions are here. Luckily, I already have the excellent (and super super cheap) Canon 50mm 1.8F lense that he uses as a base.
Conversation I had with MF a few weeks ago while we were taking a look at Japanese satellite TV operator SkyPerfecTV’s channel offerings:
MF: you should just quit your job and fly to japan next week
MF: screw the apartment
Adamu: dont tempt me
MF: you can get a job at nova
Adamu: haha
MF: and then go home to your sweet, sweet tv
Adamu: ok now that IS sad
MF: and a big can of kirin
MF: or asahi dry
Adamu: asahi
Adamu: id have to have a good tv
Adamu: maybe i could get those tv goggles
Continue reading My new life in Japan
That was the question asked by Curzon when he emailed us this article from the Asahi English edition.
Ritsumeikan Primary School, a new facility scheduled to be opened in Kyoto’s Kita Ward next spring, promises to offer a student commuting-route tracking system.
The system uses integrated circuit (IC) cards to register students as they pass certain checkpoints.
The smart card technology will not only register arrival at and departure from school, it will also issue e-mail messages to parents within 10 seconds of a child passing through the ticket gate at their train station.
It’s like what’s wrong with politics. Everything has to be one side or another. Let’s all just hold hands and agree: it’s helpful and creepy.
By the way, I would like to point out that Doshisha, Ritsumeikan’s rival, is also implementing a similar system, but their’s uses GPS. More helpful or creepier?
At least there’s one unequivacebly good piece of news in the article.
The PiTaPa card is a travel smart card promoted by the Surutto Kansai Association, a group of 43 private rail and subway companies and municipal transportation bureaus in the Kansai region.
Finally a unified payment system for Japanese public transportation! May it spread throughout the land, be fruitful and multiply!
After reading the terrifying news that riding a bicycle makes you impotent on October 4th, I was relieved to learn just the next day that a Japanese company is developing bicycle riding robots. Finally, the pressure is off. Perhaps this is an adaption of preexisting camel jockey robot technology?
(Seriously, the wrong kind of bicycle seat will make you impotent with too much use. Luckily, the article also says that buying a non-saddle seat will help you avoid those problems.)
While Japan has been making cute little sumo-bots,
Korea has been developing robot controlled tanks.
Come on Japan, get your act together! Where are the mechanized engines of death you’ve been promising me since childhood?
Oh, and DARPA is of course trying to automate the monster truck rally, or possibly NASCAR.
All are fangle and in high quality.
Battery operted.
Suitable for ages of over 3.
COMMANDER ROBOT A RUTHLESS KIDNAPPER
MANILA, December 9, 2003 (STAR) Abu Sayyaf kingpin Galib Andang, captured in Sulu late Sunday, is a ruthless leader and chief organizer of abductions for the feared kidnap gang.
Popularly known as Commander Robot, he was the architect of the much-publicized kidnapping of 21 hostages, including Europeans and other foreigners, in the neighboring Malaysian resort of Sipadan in April 2000.
Armed with machine guns, he and other Abu Sayyaf leaders brought the hostages by speed boat to his base in Jolo and held them there for about a year.
In the end, the hostages were released, reportedly in exchange for millions of dollars in ransom paid by Libya.
Andang is known to be ruthless with his hostages, one of whom — the son of a local doctor — was beheaded after delays in ransom payments.
He had often posed for journalists, spraying fire from his assault rifle in the air, warning the military of serious repercussions if they attacked the group’s hideouts.
Following the Sipadan spree, Andang, believed to be in his 40s, kidnapped a local teenage girl and forced her to marry him.
Commander Robot in action
I know he’s evil, but I just can’t help but giggle when I read that headline.
