(This post covers the move Sachi and I plan to make soon; if you know much about the location or anything else we’re considering here, advice, information, or other input in the comments would be greatly appreciated!)

At the beginning of this year, Sachi and I decided that it was time to move. For two and a half years we have been living in our apartment in Ikebukuro, and that’s much too long. Don’t get me wrong, we love it–but it’s way too pricey. When we moved in, we had two incomes and could easily afford it–it actually was less than our previous rents combined. But then Sachi stopped working, for a short time we thought, but then the short time got longer. We really should have moved to a new place a year ago, but I guess we just got complacent. As a result, we’ve been treading water financially–at least in terms of salary and the bank account, with the Apple stock taking over as the only factor increasing our assets.

So from the beginning of the year, we started looking into the idea of buying a home. We chose an initial direction–Musashi Kosugi, just on the other side of the Tama River from Tokyo on a good train line–and started to look around. We got a realtor we liked who started looking into properties for us, and began the process of applying for a bank loan.

As it turned out, the loan didn’t go through; what may eventually decide it for us is my obtaining permanent residency in Japan. That should not be a problem–after 12 straight years living here, with the career of college professor, and married to a Japanese national, I’m more or less a shoo-in. I applied a few weeks ago, but it could take 3-6 months, and even after that, the loan could take a bit more to clear, and then just finding a place we’d like to buy could take even longer–maybe even a year or more. Meanwhile, our money is going down the rent drain.

So we’ve decided to move to a new place in the meantime, and mid-April–when I have a break from school, and Sachi finishes getting her license in aromatherapy–seems like the perfect time. It’ll mean moving out of Ikebukuro, where we have enjoyed the benefits of living in central Tokyo, not to mention a nice apartment on the 21st floor with a great view–but you get what you pay for, and pay for what you get.

One of the nice things about the place we have is the landlord–or the lack of one. We live in a building run by “UR” (Urban Renaissance), a public agency which has the very attractive features of solid, modern units, relatively low rents, no usurious “gift money” for landlords or commission for real estate agents (which combined is usually equal to three months’ rent!), and absolutely no problems with being a foreigner. You do pay three months’ rent as a deposit, but they are very honest about refunding it–they gave me back nearly all my deposit when I left my place in Inagi, despite a lot of damage to the place over time. If we move out of this UR apartment and into another one, we’ll actually come out with more money, as the rent will be lower and the deposit difference will be well in our favor.

After checking around, we have found what looks to be a good candidate, in a place called Hibarigaoka. It’s on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line, the second express stop out, just 15 minutes from Ikebukuro. Even better, there seem to be four trains per hour that run through to the Fukutoshin Line, which goes more or less straight to my work–two of them express trains (at worst, the train ride would be 40 minutes–perfect for watching a TV episode on an iPad…). The station area is pretty nice, with a fair amount of shopping and resources. It is a bit far out, roughly as far as Tanashi, Koganei, and Chofu–even almost as far out as Inagi, where I used to live, but on a much more straight line in to central Tokyo. Ome Boulevard runs right past that area, and to test it out I rode my scooter from Hibarigaoka to my school, and it took only a bit longer than half an hour–as with Inagi, the scooter would be faster. Catch a few lights, and it’d be a bit under 30 minutes. As an added bonus, it might even get me back to birdwatching; the place we’re looking at seems to have good birds right where it is, but the location is also a very short scooter ride from Koganei Park and Tama Reien, two good birding spots.

The apartment we’re thinking of is part of a renovation project they’re undertaking in Hibarigaoka, and about time. There’s a very old housing project there consisting of almost 200 buildings, and they look horrifyingly bad–just completely rusted, stained, run-down–as close to “slum-like” as I’ve ever seen in Japan. These are being torn down and replaced with new buildings.

We were first drawn to a unit which looked great–93 square meters, 4LDK (four rooms in addition to the main “LDK,” the living-dining-kitchen). And it is a good unit–but there’s a reason it hasn’t been snapped up yet: noise. It is right on a well-traveled road with buses constantly running through, and there’s a huge construction project going up right across the street. The windows are all double-paned glass and it’s not that bad, but it’s too much of a risk to take on just a short inspection. Too bad–as the unit is also just a few feet away from the neighborhood supermarket. But if noise were not a problem, it would have been snapped up by someone in any case, and still not an option for us.

But when we came to check that one out, we also took a look at another unit which is now our prime candidate (pictured at right). It’s 85 square meters, 3LDK with a good-sized bedroom. Although the living-dining area is a tad smaller than our current place, it is bigger overall by about 12 square meters. We would use the extra room as an office or den, where my computer and other stuff would be set up; what I marked as “Sachi’s Room” is where she’d do her business with visiting clients. The rooms are all quite large–most places have rooms that max out at 6 tatami, whereas these rooms start at almost that size.

The unit is on the first floor, but it’s away from major traffic and has very nice landscaping all around (tons of cherry blossom and other nice trees). There’s a unit above us, but that’s it; the apartment is at one end of the building, and the other side is the entrance hall, so no neighbors to make noise there. Three sides of the apartment is windowed and it looks very nice. The terrace is wide enough to put a table and eat outside when it’s nice. They even have screen doors installed–something most apartments don’t have, and that costs you more. It’s a bit farther out from things–about 14 minutes’ walk from the station as opposed to the 10 minutes for the unit we originally were interested in, and it’s a 3-4 minute walk from the supermarket (a nice, large Seiyu open till 1 am), but that’s not a big problem. There will be construction one building over (the next stage of the renovation of the project), but it’s on the far side of the building and so shouldn’t be too bad. We probably won’t even have trouble with neighbors’ cigarette smoke drifting in (knock on wood).

There is one big down point: the toilet. Note from the map that it’s smack in the middle of the apartment, where the, um, toilet noises will be quite audible for most of the apartment. Worse, the toilet is plain-jane, no washlet with electric seat and bidet, something which Sachi and I now would have a very hard time doing without. But the noise issue is something we can live with I guess, and we can always buy a washlet–expensive, but not overly so.

One nice thing: the rent is $1000 per month lower than what we pay now. Not only will that save us a bundle in rent money on a monthly basis, helping to save up for the down payment on the house we’ll eventually buy, but it also means that when we move, if we get our full deposit back (which I suspect we will), we’ll have $3000 left over after paying up the new deposit. That’ll help pay for the washlet, the moving costs, and leave a nice chunk of change left over.

An interesting addendum: the unit I just described is in Higashi-Kurume City. Interestingly, the first unit we were interested in is in Nishi-Tokyo City–the city limit cuts through the development, with different city rules and regs–trash pickup is different, for instance, and we would get to use the local library almost across the street from us–only available for nice Higashi-Kurume folk, not those shifty Nishi-Tokyo riffraff.

If we move to this place, it’ll probably be around April 15~20, when I’m on break and after Sachi finishes her current training, so the timing would be good. We might even be greeted by the cherry blossoms, I’d have to check when they’re in bloom this year.

So, anyone have any input? Higashi-Kurume, Hibarigaoka Station on the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line, a UR apartment, 1st floor in a new building, etc. We haven’t committed yet, but will have to soon if we want it.

For Sachi’s birthday and our wedding anniversary, I thought that a night out would be fun–but the main attraction would be a rental Shiba. We’ve done the doggie rental thing before, but both times the Shibas available were more of the cream-colored variety; Sachi prefers the red Shibas, as do I. There’s a shop in the bayside entertainment area called Odaiba called “Puppy the World” which features rentals, and this time they had a very pretty pooch named Yuri which I asked them to hold for us. We picked Yuri up a 3pm and took her out for a stroll by the beach.

The Hero Shot

When you rent a dog, they give you a little pouch with plastic baggies and tissues; the dogs are not pre-walked and inevitably take the first opportunity to “take care of business.” What they should include in the pouch is ziplocks, as the smell is a bit much for the whole time you’re with the dog. But it’s fun anyway.

Okay, I’ll run a bit. Just a bit.

Y’har.

Oh yeah. Riiiight there!

Yuri was not a big activity fan; her preference was to stick to the side of the paths or go into the grassy areas and spend 95% of the time with her nose half an inch from the ground–standard doggy protocol, I guess.

Why aren’t you guys into this dirt and grass stuff? It’s great!

One thing that Sachi and I notice about the rental dogs, however, is eye contact–or lack of it. I think the dogs see people renting them as vehicles to get out and about more than anything else. Yuri, at least, was very patient with our petting and scratching and fussing, even when she wasn’t as into it as she was in the images above. But she rarely looked us in the eyes, keeping her gaze fixed primarily on other dogs in the area. (Which she usually regarded with suspicion and standoffishness.)

Sizing up the local Poodlery

But even when there were no other distractions, she didn’t respond to us directly, which made the experience feel a bit disconnected. That ended when we brought her back and the shop guy gave us a treat we could break into half a dozen small pieces and feed Yuri (feeding the rental dogs without permission is a strict no-no). When food was involved, Yuri suddenly seemed to recognize that were were there and she paid lots of attention to our signals at that point, and after. Tells you something.

Huh? Food? Oh, hey, you guys do exist!

Interestingly, she had very specific rules about where she would go. The sandy beach was a definite “no.” And when we tried to go beyond a certain point down the boardwalk, she dug her paws in and refused to go a step further. It was not a random stop, either; twice we went to the same area, and twice she stopped and refused to go beyond the same point. Bad memories from a different set of clients, perhaps. So it was mostly back and forth within a fairly small area.

End of the line guys. About, face!

It kind of reminded us, however, of the difference between renting a dog and having your own: the rental dog is just not that much into you. A lot of doggie joy involves your relationship with the pooch, something notably absent in the rental experience. So while we enjoyed ourselves and very much like the photos that came out of it, this will probably be our last rental before we eventually get geared up for actual Shiba ownership, maybe a year or so down the line.

From that perpetual font of balanced goodness, Fox News:

The 6-year-old son of a Colorado nursing student who ran off to Europe to join a terrorist murder cell was brainwashed into a hate-filled Islamic fundamentalist zombie…

Ever see Jesus Camp? Funny how if the parent is a Christian Fundamentalist, we don’t hear about their kids being “brainwashed” in mass media reports, not to mention turned into zombies. Not to mention the parent as well. This being in line with the paradigm which says that if they’re Christians, or right-wingers, then they’re not terrorists when they crash planes into buildings or shoot people to death as part of a larger campaign.

Last night, Amy Holmes, a conservative commentator, appeared on Bill Maher’s show, and did something I see a lot of conservative talking heads do. She came out with a number of “facts” that were dead wrong, but–and this is the key point–were obscure enough that no one on the panel knew about them in detail and so could not rebut. This seems to be a favorite technique with such guests, as you can come across as sounding factual and winning the argument, despite being full of crap.

The topic where she was worst on this was climate change. She started with a really weird attack which Maher and liberal guest Hill Harper should have jumped on but didn’t (italics in quotes reflects her spoken emphasis):

RFK Jr., he said, and you know he supports this global warming theory, he said that he would never see snowfalls like he did in his childhood because of global warming. And what do we get, we got three blizzards in a row this last Christmas. So, I don’t think that weather patterns tell us whether or not global warming is happening, but people who advocated for global warming, they told us weather patterns can tell you if it’s happening.

Really? A celebrity was wrong about snowfall, so that disproves climate change theory? I still can’t believe that no one took that on. If RFK were a climatologist, even that would be a single instance, but just because a famous person screws up the facts–if RFK Jr. did indeed even say that–it’s not even related to the science. At all. But then she got to the slip-in-the-bogus-fact part:

I don’t think the science is settled, and the scientists who are involved in it themselves… Phil Jones, who is the head of research in England, you know that Phil Jones also said … he also said that the Middle Ages may have been hotter than it is now. … One of the top climate researchers, he admitted now, that the Middle Ages may have been hotter than it is now, before there were cars, or CO2 emitting factories.

This is something that few people would be able to respond to without research. I hadn’t heard it, but after a few minutes online I was able to find out that it was a lie. Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (the place where the emails were hacked), had an interview with the BBC in which they tossed at him the junk-science assertion that because there was a warming trend in the middle ages, that means that what we are experiencing now is just part of a normal cycle caused by things like sunspots and ocean currents. Jones answered that we don’t have global data on what is called the “Medieval Warm Period” (MWP), and so we can’t know if it has any significance; all he allowed was that if we had the global data, and if that data showed warming in excess of what we have now, then “late-20th century warmth would not be unprecedented.” But he pointed out that we don’t have that data, and therefore we have no reason to believe that the MWP means anything.

In an article in the Daily Mail, Jones’ statements were wholly misrepresented. The article claimed that Jones “conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.” This is an incredibly misleading-trending-to-outright false statement. “Conceding” a possibility does not give it an ounce of credence–any scientist would have to “concede” that it’s possible that aliens are living on Pluto right now; that does not make it in the least bit true. To then jump to the statement that Jones’ “concession” suggested that global warming is not man-made is the “outright lie” part. He suggested the opposite, pointing out that we lack the data to make such a point.

But now that a news agency had said that a top climatologist had conceded that global warming is disproved, it was picked up by the right-wing blogosphere and, of course, Fox News, in this case, Sean Hannity:

Now keep in mind that Jones’ findings have been used for years to bolster the U.N.’s findings on climate change. Now, in an interview with the BBC over the weekend Jones admitted that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1995, that the world may have been warmer in Medieval Times, that is to say up until now, which would undermine the theory of this manmade global warming all together. And that warming in recent times mirrors warming patterns from pre-industrial periods.

The part that Hannity adds about “statistically significant warming” is just as much a lie; more on that here.

The point is, nobody on the panel had followed this story closely and so when Holmes brought it up, no one was able to shoot it down. There are now probably a lot of people who came away from that thinking that there was something to the statement, as few people actually check these things out. Such lies get released into the public consciousness all the time, are believed, and add to the general, unspecific idea that climate change is more and more “in question.”

Apart from the value of showing such claims about climate change to be false, what one should take from this is that when you hear such “facts” from talking heads on discussion panels–or anywhere else–check them out before you swallow them whole.

Sachi and I definitely felt a jolt just now, and in our building, something that sharp tends to be either powerful or close. According to my sources, it’s a 6.8 off the coast of Fukushima, roughly 275 km northeast of Tokyo, about 50 km off the Fukushima coast. They probably felt that but good in Fukushima and Sendai…

Update: Reports now put the quake at 5.7. I was wondering why it wasn’t getting more coverage.

Obama is doing the only really reasonable thing with the $1.4 million he’s getting in Nobel Prize winnings: he’s giving it to charities. The list:

— the Fisher House $250,000
— the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund $250,000
— the College Summit $125,000
— the Posse Foundation $125,000
— the United Negro College Fund $125,000
— the Hispanic Scholarship Fund $125,000
— the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation $125,000
— the American Indian College Fund $125,000
— AfriCare $100,000
— Central Asia Institute $100,000

As I thought about how it might have looked had he kept the money, what instantly came to mind was: Sarah Palin. Had she (so impossibly as to be hilarious) won the prize, she would have announced that she would give the money to charity, given no details about it, and then we would never hear about it again while she quietly pocketed the money. It’s gauche when a former politician whores around for any money they can get; for a hopeful politician to do so is pretty ugly.

Being a liberal has been somewhat disheartening lately. We expected that we would have a revolutionary progressive in the White House making our hopes comes true, but instead got a compromising technocrat even more willing to appease Republicans than Clinton ever was. We expected a supermajority, but got a Congress that couldn’t pass much of anything. We expected solid opposition, but thought they could be splintered just enough to make a difference. So, many of us came to the conclusion that the Democrats were not what we thought they were, that they failed. Seeing little hope, the progressives started losing interest in the elections coming this Fall.

Big mistake. If anything, we should be galvanized, ready to fight even harder than the last election–and with good cause, because this coming midterm election could mean a whole lot more.

First of all, our expectations were way too high. We should have known that Obama was no flaming liberal. Yes, the right-wingers painted him that way, but they would have claimed that Ronald Reagan himself was the most liberal commie socialist ever had he risen from the grave, switched parties, and ran as the Democratic candidate. The Democrat on the ticket could be espousing every right-wing goal imaginable, it wouldn’t make a difference. They claim any Democratic candidate, in every election, is “the most liberal ever.” Not only that, but one of Obama’s big selling points, if you recall, was that he liked finding middle ground, he wanted to compromise as a way of reaching consensus and getting things done. So expecting him to push the nation far to the left was unrealistic.

Then there was Congress. Once Specter had switched and Al Franken’s seat was finally confirmed, we thought we had a super-majority and could sweep in any law we wanted to. Well, that was a stupid assumption. One of those 60 votes was Lieberman, who campaigned for John McCain; to expect him to vote with the Democrats on anything the Republicans pushed hard against was folly indeed. And even not counting him, many of the new Democrats won precisely because they were conservative Democrats, winning conservative states where they would have to pander to conservative sensibilities. We never had 60% in the crucial bottleneck of the Senate; at best we had just over a simple majority, at least when it comes to the controversial stuff.

And then there was Republican opposition. We knew that they would push, but I don’t think that anyone foresaw just how fantastically monolithic and almost hysterically powerful that opposition would be. They pulled no punches and did not give a moment’s hesitation in fear that their total obstructionist frenzy could work against them. With the fanatical single-mindedness usually seen only in the most feverish of zealots, they not only obstructed but poured out a tidal wave of unprecedented, unadulterated hatred and invective, issuing against the president–at all levels low and high–every pejorative one could imagine being used publicly.

With a centrist president, much less than the needed supermajority in Congress, and fanatical obstructionist opposition from the right wing, there was never a chance for much to get done. We should have seen this from examples of the past. At FiveThityEight.com, we get this chart showing the majorities that FDR and LBJ had during formative years that trended to the liberal. Note that they usually had well over 60% majorities in the Senate, while the House was always above the 50% needed there.

In short, to get even part of a meaningful agenda done, we’re gong to need more than we got before. Becoming disheartened and turning away from the polls is nothing short of self-destructive, especially as the right-wingers, tasting Democratic defeat and still possessed of whipped-up, galvanized, angry mobs of tea-bagging fanaticism, are looking at strong showings at the polls this coming November.

We have little hope of gaining the seats we need to get the things we want done. But to give up and lose seats–maybe hand Republicans a simple majority in either house, all they would need to make their scorched-earth goals total and irrevocable–would be just plain dumb.

The Democrats, for all of their weak-kneed, wavering ineptitude, never really had a chance. There were too many Blue Dogs, too much solidarity and hysteria from the right, and not enough single-minded Bush-like drive or disregard for the risks from the White House for this to work.

Had FDR faced this, the New Deal would never have passed. Had LBJ been given these numbers, neither Medicare nor the Civil Rights legislation he got through would have stood a chance.

We fooled ourselves into thinking that we had the numbers to get things done. We were wrong. We weren’t even close. Not just one more vote, but probably five more votes in the Senate may have done the job. As weak-kneed as the Dems have been, that wasn’t what broke the deal. They could have been bolder and stronger and still failed. All that was needed was for Lieberman to vote “no,” and that would be that.

That’s what we have to keep in mind in upcoming elections: More. We need more. We need to galvanize, to get out the vote. Giving up is not an option. Even at my time of greatest disgust, when I couldn’t even bear to watch any more, I knew that I would still be voting strongly, as I always will. But many have simply turned away and don’t intend to vote. If you know someone like that, make sure you turn them around. Make sure you get them their voter registration materials and egg them on to the polls in November.

Even if we don’t succeed, not losing is far better than giving up and letting these frothing, fanatical fascists take back the country and send us right back down the shaft to national self-destruction they had us falling to for the first eight years of the century.

Computerworld, known for their occasional slanted reporting, does it again in style when reporting on the “Top 10 features that Apple stole from Windows.” In fact, they just reprinted the list from an InfoWorld article from last October–but what makes it pretty pathetic is that they didn’t bother to fact-check what was roundly criticized as a badly-written article. I swear, there seems to be hardly any more editorial filtering any more.

The list provides a few solid cases of Apple swiping ideas from Microsoft, but some charges are backwards and others so bizarre as to be staggering. A quick overview:

1. Apple’s Finder Sidebar is really the Windows Navigation pane. This is mostly true. Tree Directories are a pretty old concept, going back to UNIX days. What Apple stole was the idea of putting a jump-to navigation area in a sidebar on the left side of file management (“Finder”) windows.

2. The Mac Path bar is a copy of the Windows Address bar. This is at best a stretch. Paths predate Windows, and Apple’s path display is not that much like Windows’. You can only say that Apple “copied” it because it put the information in a file management window. But such a window is the only logical place for such a feature, and Apple varied from Windows about as much as one can imagine in what is essentially a classic OS element. It would be like saying that this year’s Toyotas stole from last year’s Hondas by putting handles on the car door.

3. Apple copied Windows’ Back and Forward navigation buttons in its folder windows. Um, no. Windows took that from its own Internet Explorer, which brazenly stole them from Netscape Navigator, which got the idea from the original hyperlink software. It’s an idea that goes way back. Microsoft put that feature into its OS as part of integrating the browser so deeply that it could not be separated, and in so doing killing off the competition in a rather illegal manner. Not to mention, back and forward buttons are a pretty dead-basic concept.

4. Apple minimizes a window to app icons. Actually, NeXT did this first, and NeXT is the precursor to OS X.

5. Apple has Screen Sharing, copying Window’s Remote Desktop Connection. Um, no, Timbuktu had screen sharing on Apple way before Windows got the same thing, and it was around on older OS software (e.g., Remote Login) before that.

6. Time Machine is really Backup and Restore. Backing up data? Really? Again, it’s like saying that Mazda stole brakes from Ford.

7. Apple’s System Preferences are a rip-off of Window’s Control Panel. This is a real “WTF?” moment. Apple’s original Mac OS had something actually called a “Control Panel” which Microsoft blatantly copied from Apple–in almost its exact form. Then again, older OS’s grouped preferences together, so the idea is not new–but Apple copied nothing from Microsoft here, while Microsoft clearly ripped off Apple’s presentation.

8. Apple has support for Microsoft’s ActiveSync and Exchange 2007. Again, WTF? These are licensed technologies. Apple no more “stole” them than Microsoft “stole” TrueType fonts or support for FireWire.

9. Apple’s Command-Tab rips off Windows’ Alt-Tab. FINALLY, here’s something that Apple blatantly stole from Windows. Probably the only clear-cut theft in the entire list.

10. Apple’s Terminal is Windows’ Command Prompt. Once again, WTF. Seriously. UNIX, anyone? Heck, I think Apple’s first computer, before Microsoft even had and OS, had a command prompt.

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In the world of computers, there is a lot of borrowing and stealing, but creating “top ten” lists equating Apple’s theft of OS ideas from Microsoft to Microsoft’s from Apple just smacks of false equivalencies–trying to be “fair and balanced” by saying “both sides are equally bad” when that is clearly not the case. Everyone ripped off ideas from everyone else, but there is no question that Microsoft is the champion of ripping things off.

Some claim that Apple ripped off Microsoft’s Task Bar with its Dock–but that’s kind of like saying that the Segway ripped off its idea from roller skates. Microsoft, however, did rip off Apple’s Dock in Windows 7’s Task Bar remake. Aero Peek and especially Flip 3D are blatant rip-offs of Apple’s Exposé, and much of Windows’ basic design is stolen from Apple’s original implementation of the GUI.

Some say Apple stole from third parties–most notably that they stole Dashboard and its widgets from Konfabulator. However, Apple didn’t steal it as much as it reclaimed it–Konfabulator “stole” the idea from Apple’s original Desktop Accessories feature. And I would not be at all surprised if that idea had been present in some form somewhere else.

Even some rip-offs are not as much a rip-off as one would imagine. Take the GUI, for example–many would say that Microsoft stole it from Apple, seeing it in the original 1983 Lisa and then rushing to put Windows 1.0 on the market. But then others will point out that Apple ripped off the GUI from Xerox. That’s not exactly true, however–Apple hired Jef Raskin, who pointed Apple to Xerox PARC, but Raskin had brought some of those ideas to Xerox in the first place–and those ideas stem from work done by Douglas Engelbart at SRI as far back as the late 60’s. Engelbart invented the mouse–not Xerox–and Apple paid SRI, Engelbart’s employer, for use of the patented device.

The idea of stealing in the OS world is a bit of a spectrum: on one side of the spectrum, you have features which are natural ideas which would be difficult to do any other way–like expressions of the directory path, for example. These are things that can’t be stolen any more than you can “steal” the idea of some kind of steering device on a vehicle. On the other end of the spectrum, you have either unique features or very specific implementations of basic features which can very much be ripped off. Microsoft happens to regularly inhabit that end of the spectrum, more than just about anyone else. Internet Explorer was nothing but a rip-off of Netscape Navigator. Apple steals, but it does so less. When it does, it is usually either a feature widely recognized as useful, or it is recreated with new functionality. The theft of Microsoft’s alt-tab window switcher is an excellent example of both: it was a feature that was a no-brainer to include, and Apple did a much better job of implementation, both graphically (admit it, Apple’s version looks ten times better) and functionally (e.g., Apple allows you to quit programs while going through the list). Not that they didn’t rip it off, of course–they very much did.

Good News: Apple will start selling the iPad from April 3.

Better News: You can pre-order from March 12, about a week from now.

Great News (for me): Apple’s stock shot up to an all-time high on the news of the iPad release date. It now stands at more than $219, 240% up from when I bought in. Seems like it’s finally popped past the $215 barrier.

Crappy News: Apple Japan’s web site is listing the iPad as going on sale in “Late April.” Argh. Well, on the other hand, I’ll be able to read about everyone’s experiences with the device before sinking my money into it. It’s be nice, for once, to get a new Apple product the same time everyone else does, however.

I went to Immigration yesterday and submitted my application. It consists of my tax records for the last three years and Sachi’s for the past one year; a letter proving employment from my work as well as the gensen-choshu-hyo (the Japanese version of the American W-2 form); a letter stating my reasons for getting permanent residency; a copy of our family registry; my passport and alien registration card; and a 2-page form similar to those you fill out for a work visa. There is also a guarantor form, which they gave me there but is not due until they call me back in.

The process was surprisingly similar to any other visa application–go to the immigration office, fill in the application, submit the forms at the same counter for temporary visas, and then they have you write your address on a postcard to notify you of when you have to come back in. It took about two and a half hours on a Wednesday afternoon, not counting travel time. It was remarkably pedestrian–I expected to meet with an official and to have them ask me questions or some such–I though the process would be much more personal.

As for my chances, I am more or less a shoo-in: a college professor, twelve straight years in Japan (ten is usually enough), and married to a Japanese national. I hear they’ll allow you to get residency after five years if you’re married. Some people say it takes just a few months; one person I spoke to said it took them one and a half years. Let’s see how I do.

A new Gizmodo article breaks it down exceedingly well. Despite a report in January that laughingly claimed that 75% of all paid apps were pirated and that developers had lost nearly half a billion dollars due to the scourge, the new report, with much more believable evidence, shows what we pretty much expected: piracy is rare, and developers aren’t much concerned about it.

Just got back from the doctors’ this morning. One is helping me with a back problem, the other is my GP who is currently helping me with ocular migraines. Both required an MRI, so I had two taken this morning–one of my back, and one of my head. After meeting with the back doctor (the other I consult in about a week), I picked up my prescription for the medicine helping with my herniated disc. Took all of two hours for the whole thing.

Total cost: about $135 for two MRI’s, a doctor’s consult, and a month’s worth of medication. The medication is working, BTW, just like it did last time–helps with the pain while I recover.

Socialist health care is actually quite good.

This time it involves Apple. The British publication Telegraph printed what appears to be a damning exposé on Apple’s bad business practices. From reading it, for the most part, it sounds like Apple was caught misbehaving, an impression bolstered by tangential reminders of past abuses.

Apple admits using child labour

At least eleven 15-year-old children were discovered to be working last year in three factories which supply Apple. … Apple has been repeatedly criticised for using factories that abuse workers and where conditions are poor. … Apple admitted that at least 55 of the 102 factories that produce its goods were ignoring Apple’s rule that staff cannot work more than 60 hours a week. … Apple has not stopped using the factories.

First off, to say that Apple “admitted” anything sounds like it confessed, that it was caught red-handed; that’s not the case, nor is it that Apple used child labor–its contractor did. Despite the article’s insinuation that Apple was being investigated by some outside source, this was a case of Apple investigating its contractors. Instead of turning a blind eye or even being complicit, Apple actually made rigorous checks of the business practices of the contractors, and instead of keeping any violations secret or covering up, it published its findings publicly, with assurances that it is taking steps to end these practices. What the Telegraph article also fails to state is that Apple is perhaps the only tech company which does these checks. Other companies simply ignore the abuses. Many in the comments section, despite the multiple criticisms of bias, state that they now see Apple in a bad light and will stop buying its products–something which might have been the reverse had the article reported the facts correctly and without the harsh anti-Apple slant. As for the past abuses: the workers exposed to the toxic gases, the worker who committed suicide, the reporter who was roughed up–none of these were Apple, they were all contractors, and Apple seems to be trying harder than anyone else in the industry to stop the abuses. Would I prefer that Apple changes suppliers? Sure, but then it’ll have to deal with the next supplier just the same. Maybe Apple could be doing more or better–but at least it’s doing something.

But I guess it makes better copy to falsely intimate that Apple is the bad guy here. Now, I have a pro-Apple bias–I’m a shareholder and fan–but at least I don’t hide it, and try to stick to the facts. Bad form, Telegraph.

Wow. This morning, a big quake–7.3 on the Richter scale–hit close to Okinawa, sending the people into a tsunami scare. This afternoon, an even bigger quake–this one an 8.8–hit between the Chilean cities of Santiago and Concepcion.

And on the premiere movie channel on cable TV in Japan, Movie Plus, two movies are being shown: “10.5” and “10.5: The Apocalypse,” two TV Movies about massive earthquakes striking the planet in close succession.

Spooky.

In what analysts are calling a breathtaking string of coincidences, every single email written by every single official and staffer in the Bush administration, from the very first day it began to Bush’s very last day in office, has been accidentally erased. In 7,538 separate cases of human and mechanical error, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of email messages were erased. Additionally, in each case, backups were also destroyed, and then, in thousands of completely unrelated mishaps, the hard disk drives which once contained the emails and their backups, located on hundreds of different servers at sites spanning the entire continental United States, were accidentally removed and magnetically wiped, and then physically destroyed. In what is being termed a statistical fluke, there were virtually no such errors before January 2001, and have been no such reported incidences since January of 2009; the outbreak of purely innocent accidental erasures is fully contained to a sharply defined eight-year period with no meaningful pattern that anyone has been able to discern.

When asked to comment on the phenomenon, former White House technical staffer Steven McDevitt replied, “Huh. How about that?” After hearing that a question concerning the matter was asked by a member of the media, Minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) immediately assailed what he termed “a Liberal-media witch-hunt instigated by known Socialist George Soros, with the clear intention of undermining American values and killing American soldiers.” Upon hearing the news, Congressional Democrats, distressed and fearing reprisal nine months prior to midterm elections, instantly withdrew a variety of bills related to health care, gun control, and education reform, and called instead for renewal of the Patriot Act, after passing a bill exonerating anyone who could have been involved in what were clearly unintended accidents regarding the Bush administration emails, promising to never, ever ask any questions about it, we promise and please don’t attack us.

</snark>

Okay, I exaggerate. But it wouldn’t be funny if there weren’t an element of truth involved.

In 2002, CEO’s from the leading technology companies in America called on the federal government to adopt a goal to give 100 Mbps Internet connections to 100 million homes and small businesses by 2010. This was hardly a pipe dream: Japan’s “e-Japan” policy called for 30 Mbps nationwide by 2005–and they achieved it a year early. 100 Mbps connections are now ubiquitous here, and 1Gbps connections have been available for more than a year now. Of course, this is easier to do in Japan, but hardly impossible to do in America.

Bush gabbed about such goals in 2004 and probably at other times, but never actually did anything. This was typical of Bush where high-minded tech and science goals were involved: taking credit for calling for stuff but then never funding it or moving forward in any meaningful way. For six years after the industry leaders called for a federal plan, Bush did jack about it–and so the U.S. now lags behind lots of other countries, when it should be in the vanguard.

In comes Obama, and a year after taking office, he is doing what Bush should have done eight years ago: actually moving forward with something. The FCC, which under Bush actually hindered progress, is moving forward to demand nation-wide 100 Mbps Internet access by 2020. Yeah, pretty late–but that’s what happens when the previous administration trashes the place: you have to start from scratch. The important thing is, the Obama administration realized that something had to be done, and it is doing it.

So I’m at work, making a phone call and referring to my Macbook Pro as I do. Just as the service rep comes on the line, my Mac crashes. I restart, but as the call goes on, the gray pre-startup screen (the one with the Apple logo) just grinds and grinds… and grinds. I give up and restart–same thing. 10 minutes later, after the call, the computer still won’t go beyond that very early startup screen. Something is wrong.

I take it home, hoping that I can revive it with the Snow Leopard install disk. Sure enough, it’ll start with that disk, but nothing beyond that–the Disk Utility tells me there’s an “invalid node structure,” and won’t repair it. A quick search of Apple’s forums tells me that such a disk error generally marks the demise of the HDD. An attempt to run a disk repair program on a bootable DVD is to no avail–it starts, sets up, but then immediately shuts down, as if it couldn’t latch on to anything. I try to use the Macbook Pro in Target Disk mode, connected to my 24“ iMac. The ”Macintosh HD“ shows up… and again… and again… until there are no fewer than nine apparent ”Macintosh HD“s sitting on the Desktop–and none work. Nor will the disk repair app do anything with them.

At this point, I was pretty bummed–I hadn’t backed up in more than a month, and most of the semester’s work from school was on that disk. Argh. All the email, my students’ papers and grades, everything.

But finally, late at night, I get a data recovery program on another bootable DVD to work, and the files begin to spill out. Not in the unnamed, fragmented mess you sometimes get, but in pristine form. It takes forever–well, overnight and then some, at least–but I am able to extract most of the hard disk onto an external drive with enough space. I can’t get everything, but hell, before that breakthrough, I swore that I’d be ecstatic just to get the right handful of files off the thing. Instead, I wind up getting most of the disk.

Late, late at night, as the files were decanting, I started looking at replacement drives–my Macbook Pro is 4 months out of its 1-year warranty. While Apple is often generous, it’s not 100% of the time. I find that Western Digital has a widely praised HDD, 500 GB (twice my current drive’s size), for about $90 at Amazon.co.jp.

But just to make sure, I made an appointment at the Genius Bar for this evening. I take the faulty Mac in with me to work (along with the HDD with the backed-up data), and spend much of the day teaching while I transfer the recovered data onto my old Powerbook G4 (coming in quite handy now), and right after work, I head out to Ginza’s Apple Store. I get there in time to wait maybe 5 minutes, and get served by a guy who speaks fluent English. I describe the situation to him, noting the expired warranty. He gets on his computer and confirms that it’s not covered any more, but spends a while trying to make something work–and sure enough, tells me they’ll replace the drive for free despite the lapsed warranty. I am actually almost disappointed–I was getting jazzed at the idea of a 500 GB HDD in my laptop–but I’ll take the free 250 GB replacement disk just fine, thank you.

Seriously, if you can tell me a maker in Japan who will (a) sell English-ready versions of Windows on their machine for the same price as Japanese-language versions (with an option for an English-language keyboard), (b) provide face-to-face tech support, in English, the day after something goes wrong, and (c) will almost as often as not give you free repairs months after the warranty expires, I’d love to hear about it. But outside of Apple, I don’t think anyone does that.

Christopher Hitchens does have a point. At the individual or small-group level, it is possible that sports can lead to greater mutual appreciation and understanding, boosting friendship and strengthening ties. Done the right way, for the right reasons, it can also build character and teach moral lessons.

However, at larger levels, sports rarely if ever does that. Instead, it divides, pitting populations, usually regional, against each other, to the point of starting fights and, as Hitchens shows, sometimes even localized conflicts. As a small example, I don’t recall any San Franciscan and Los Angeleno coming closer or forming any ties of friendship due to their sports teams; on the contrary, it has made casual enemies of two cities which otherwise would not have had much against each other. Same for the Olympics. Traditionally, it has been a showcase for rivalries, for demonstrating superiority, and not for building bridges. This is not to say that anyone who watches sports is aggressive or arrogant, or that one cannot watch sports purely for innocent personal enjoyment of the game–again, that’s an individual-level effect.

But sports at the general level is actually a form of nationalism when you think of it. It should be a civilizing influence, but it’s not.

Bill Maher often does half-assed research and presents a muddled case, but he made an incredibly sharp and cogent point in his “New Rules” segment last night:

Now here’s an amazing statistic. In a recent poll almost ninety percent of Tea Baggers said that they thought taxes had either gone up or stayed the same under Obama. Only two percent thought they went down. But the reality is, taxes have gone down. For ninety five percent of working families, taxes went down.

Think about that. Only two percent of the people in a “movement” about taxes, named after a tax revolt, have the slightest idea what’s going on…with taxes.

That point really does bring home one thing loud and clear: the Tea Baggers are not about taxes, just like the Tea Baggers who crashed town hall meetings last summer screaming against socialized medicine “but keep your government hands off my Medicare” weren’t about health care.

Whether these people are confused, racist, scared, or just downright stupid, they are not about what they claim to be about. They are about hysterical hate and anger and denial. In short, they are emblematic of the right wing of American politics today.

The FBI has officially closed the case on the Anthrax letter case. As you may recall, letters with anthrax were sent to news agencies and the offices of ranking Democratic senators beginning one week after 9/11, killing five people and exposing 17 more. The FBI eventually concluded that it was solely attributable to one scientist working at a military lab.

While I do not doubt that the lab was the source of the anthrax, I do have my doubts about whether it was the work of this individual. As you may recall, the day after the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration was focused on pinning the attacks on Iraq, despite knowing that al Qaeda was the responsible party and that they were neither working from Iraq, nor even on good terms with that country.

The chances are, it was the work of an individual, possibly but not certainly the accused researcher, who wanted to carry out the attacks for whatever reasons an individual can imagine. However, it is difficult to ignore the fact that the anthrax attacks played right into the hands of politicians, making the 9/11 attacks seem like part of a larger plot, and providing the grounds upon which to base an invasion of Iraq, something that the Bush administration wanted from day one. Now, the 9/11 attacks themselves did this as well, but that does not mean the Bush administration was behind them. But the timing, nature, and especially the source of the anthrax attacks makes it more difficult to completely count out the possibility that, soon after 9/11, someone high up concluded that it would help their cause to have something like this happen. It could be just coincidence that the timing was right, that the nature of the attack–biological weapons–was something Iraq was highly suspected of, and that a government facility was the source of the material. But when coincidences start piling up, so do suspicions.

Of course, the conspiracy-theory elements of this assure the fact that no one in power or in any position of influence in the media would even dream of forwarding this theory. But knowing what we do about what the government will do (torture at a black site at Guantanamo) and how convoluted such secret operations are (profits from illegal sales of weapons to Iran used to fund counterinsurgencies in Central America), to completely rule out this scenario would be stupid. Such things do happen.

Did they happen here? I would be stunned if we ever knew for sure. All we do know is that the answer that the FBI is “satisfied” with is far from air-tight.