If you go to sleep on January 1st, take note if you dream of Mt. Fuji; it is considered to be an auspicious sign of good fortune for the new year to come. If not Fuji, then dreaming of a hawk is the next best thing. And if not a hawk, then… an eggplant.

This is called Hatsuyume in Japanese, or the first dream of the New Year. The belief has been around for the past four centuries, with people saying that it started with Tokugawa Ieyasu (or “Lord Toranaga” to all you Shogun fans), as all three things were favored by him.

I can only presume that if you dream of a hawk eating an eggplant atop Mt. Fuji, then it’s high time to buy that lottery ticket.

For some reason or another, a lot of people like hitting Apple. Maybe it has to do with the David-and-Goliath, support-the-underdog-hit-the-corporate-giant mentality (which, ironically, is why a lot of people like Apple or at least favor it over Microsoft). Or maybe it’s the hard-core Windows people who just love to take any jab they can against what they perceive as a cult-like following of the opposition. Whatever. But there was a big fuss recently when a reporter wrote that he spotted Obama using a Zune. Suddenly a lot of people were laughing derisively at Apple and the iPod.

Of course, it wasn’t what it looked like. Obama is known to be a Mac user, and using a Zune wouldn’t make much sense, because Microsoft never bothered to make the Zune work with Macs (the only workaround being to use Windows on a Mac). And that even assuming that Obama would want to use a Zune in the first place. And, natch, we wind up seeing images of Obama with an iPod strapped to his belt, which makes a lot more sense. Turns out that Microsoft gave a whole truckload full of Zune freebies at the Democratic convention, and the Obama-using-a-Zune report was most likely Obama using a loaner from a staffer.

Good thing for Obama, too–looks like the Zune is not as well programmed as people had thought, at least not the original version. It turns out that the original Zune 30 was set to self-destruct right about now. Zune users who have the original model are all reporting their Zunes being bricked as of tonight–If the date is December 31st and you boot your Zune 30, chances are it will die. It’ll reach about 90% in the boot-up process, and then become the brick that it so closely resembles in design.

If you ask me, that’s a pretty serious bug–I mean, I don’t recall anything like that hitting an entire class of player before. You get what you pay for, I guess….

Update: Microsoft says it’s because 2008 was a leap year, and the Zunes should arise from the dead after midnight tonight (scary image, that). If you ask me, making software that kills the device every leap year is a wee bit of an obvious oversight. Not to mention that the whole device locking up is a bit of a dramatic effect; if it just reported the time incorrectly, that would be easier to see, but the whole device locking up? Tsk, tsk. BTW, if you look at the “Q&A” posted at Microsoft’s ZuneInsider site, it’s kind of funny; all the answers are essentially “wait until tomorrow.”

It’s also entertaining reading the comments there as well; a few readers were ecstatic at Microsoft’s quick reply and said Apple would never work so fast. Aside from Apple not making such a bone-headed mistake in the programming, they are essentially happy that it took Microsoft support half a day to tell people the obvious–that it was due to the date–and to bring a “fix” that was essentially, “wait until tomorrow,” for which all they had to do was reset a clock on a Zune and see what happened. Wow, incredibly fast work there, Zune team!

Just when you thought Microsoft had already used up all the stupid ideas possible:

“The current business model for computer hardware and software relies on a user purchasing a computer with hardware and software that is suited to the most demanding applications that the user expects to encounter,” said Microsoft in the application. “Therefore, a user may buy a multi-core processor with a significant amount of memory and advanced video support for gaming applications that are only used on the weekend, while the user’s day-in, day-out activities may involve little more than word processing or web-browsing.”

Microsoft’s plan would instead monitor the machine to track things such as disk storage space, processor cores and memory used, then bill the user for what was consumed during a set period.

Yep, you read that right: you would buy a computer, but there would be a meter and a lock built into it, and Microsoft would monitor what you do and how much you do of it, and charge you for that–for example, gaming would rack up $1.25 per hour. In short, they are trying to do to you what the media companies are doing: maintain ownership and control not just of the copyrights to what you own, but to retain ownership and control of the machine itself and everything you have on it. Want to play a game? You might balk at how much it costs per minute. Want to edit that family movie? Whoa there, it’d use so many gigabytes that you’d see a jump in your monthly PC bill.

I mean, come on, metered computer usage? Who the hell wants to be thinking about how much rental fees they’re going to be racking up every time they want to check their email or surf the web? Talk about a way to kill the joy of using a computer. They might as well add a window to the top right corner of the screen telling you how much money you’re spending, and make it go “ka-ching!” every time you spent another dollar.

Not to mention privacy issues; despite all manner of reassurances, you can bet your last dollar that Microsoft will be collecting information on what you use and how you use it to figure out how to market stuff to you–the equivalent of the supermarket using those member cards to track your purchases.

Well, hey, at least this way could save you money, right?

But the company admitted that the overall cost to the user might be higher than for a standard PC purchase. “Although the cost of ownership over the life of the computer may be higher than that of a one-time purchase, the payments can be deferred and the user can extend the useful life of the computer beyond that of the one-time purchase machine,” Microsoft contended.

In other words, unless you’re the kind of person who buys a super-high-horsepwer machine and then uses it just for web browsing a few times a week, and then buys a newer model just a few years later, then this new system would definitely cost more. Microsoft isn’t looking to improve the computer experience, they’re just looking for new ways to apply the age-old bait-and-switch.

Think about it. They speculate that:

word processing and spreadsheet software that could access two of three processor cores and a medium level of graphics performance [would cost], say, $1 an hour.

Okay, so let’s say you use your computer for two hours a day, on average. At $1 per hour, that’s $730 a year, or $2190 over a 3-year period. If you own your computer for five years, it’s $3650. And that’s for medium usage, just word processing and spreadsheet stuff. Um, yeah, that cost “may be higher” than buying a $500 PC and using it as much as you damn well please.

Finally, we have the cherry on top:

The security module would also lock the PC to a specific supplier, perhaps an ISP, much as a subsidized cell phone is locked to a specific mobile carrier for the life of a contract.

Yes, in addition to not owning my own computer, having to pay for using what’s in my own house on an hourly basis, being monitored by the huge corporation, and being charged more money, I would also like to be locked into one service provider–which, of course, is the best feature of the cell phone experience, am I right?

In a way, I hope they implement this; it will drive up the value of my Apple stock immensely.

It’s early in the morning on a holiday, and someone decides to give you a phone call. Worse, they ring just long enough to drag you out of bed, but hang up (1) just as you pick up the receiver, and (2) just before the answering machine picks up, so you have no idea who it was trying to reach you at this time. It could have been urgent, or it could have been a wrong number or a salesperson. So now you’re tired but can’t go to sleep and are wondering what was so damned important.

One thing that has always puzzled, and often has frustrated me about Japan is that all medical facilities shut down over the weekend. Some have early Saturday services, but almost all of them are closed on Sundays, and most for the whole weekend. Of course, the hospital emergency room is open, but that’s for extreme cases (and you get charged a hefty premium for its services).

I’m sorry, but this strikes me as particularly stupid. Most people work during normal hospital and clinic hours, and many people have trouble getting away from such obligations except for the most severe illnesses. Not to mention that people don’t become ill on schedule; there is no magical physical law that prevents sickness from striking Friday evening or Saturday afternoon.

So, why do medical services all but cease on weekends? It’s not as if it’s impossible to get people to work then; all manner of businesses operate over the weekend. Just rotate schedules, or have clinics that have different days off.

It strikes me that if I wanted to open a medical clinic and really get customers, I’d start one which operated from 3pm to midnight, taking Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. The staff could sleep in and get a lot more personal business done on the days off, and streams of people needing medical attention in off hours would beat a path to the office.

Now that the holiday season is here, the clinics are mostly closed for the next week. Getting sick on the holidays in Japan can be either painful or very expensive.

Is it the same elsewhere?

On a related note, we’ve just been informed by our building that trash collection will be shut down for a whole week. During that time, we have to store all of our trash in the apartment. This, of course, makes little sense; trash usually sits in the trash area for 3 and 4 days at a time; just because the trash collectors take a week off doesn’t mean that we have to stop right after the last pickup and start only just before the next. Not to mention that such a long break is far worse in Japan than in places like the U.S., as there is no place to put it. You put it on the balcony, the crows get at it. You keep it indoors, it starts to stink up the place. Pretty much nobody has large cans which can keep trash contained for that period. So, yet another lovely service to put on hold.

All other businesses, such as shops, theaters, restaurants, and so forth, will continue on, business as usual. They somehow find a way to juggle schedules.

A news story you may or may not have heard about recently is that Chip Saltsman, former campaign manager for Mike Huckabee, is getting roundly criticized–by those in his own party, in fact–for distributing a CD with the infamous song popularized by Rush Limbaugh titled, “Barack the Magic Negro.” Saltsman, like Limbaugh, defends the song as satire.

A common right-wing argument is that critics do not actually pay attention to the actual song itself, they just react to the word “Negro.” Well, let’s look at the song, which is sung by an Al Sharpton impersonator:

Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C.
The L.A. Times, they called him that
‘Cause he’s not authentic like me.

Yeah, the guy from the L.A. paper
Said he makes guilty whites feel good
They’ll vote for him, and not for me
‘Cause he’s not from the hood.

See, real black men, like Snoop Dog,
Or me, or Farrakhan
Have talked the talk, and walked the walk.
Not come in late and won!

Refrain:
Oh, Barack the Magic Negro, lives in D.C.
The L.A. Times, they called him that
‘Cause he’s black, but not authentically.

(repeat Refrain)

Some say Barack’s “articulate”
And bright and new and “clean”
The media sure loves this guy,
A white interloper’s dream!

But, when you vote for president,
Watch out, and don’t be fooled!
Don’t vote the Magic Negro in
‘Cause… — ’cause I won’t have nothing after all these years of sacrifice And I won’t get justice. This is about justice. This isn’t about me, it’s about justice. It’s about buffet. I don’t have no buffet and there won’t be any church contributions, and there’ll be no cash in the collection plate. There ain’t gonna be no cash money, no walkin’ around money, no phoning money. Now, Barack going to come in here and —

(background vocalists repeat refrain & finish song)

Sure. Nothing wrong here, right?

There is the impression that anything goes with satire, that the simple fact that something is satire legitimizes or at least excuses any excess. But this is not exactly true; it all depends upon what is clearly intended as satire and what is perceived as the true intent. For example, if the leader of a Nazi skinhead group published a “satire” of Jews which, say, accused them of controlling the economy, and then suggested they be exterminated, I don’t think that anyone would really appreciate such as “satire.” An extreme example, but it clearly demonstrates that satire has its bounds. These bounds are broken when it is clear that the intent of the satire is to express something as fact which is not acceptable. Larry Flynt’s satire of Jerry Falwell having an incestuous encounter with his mother in an outhouse was offensive (to some), yes, but nobody believed that even Flynt felt that it was true. Had Flynt been waging a serious campaign that Falwell was a pedophile and ran a “satire” describing his “first time” with an altar boy, that would likely not have prevailed as satire in court.

Satire, as the dictionary definition goes, is supposed to criticize people’s stupidity or vices using humor, irony, or exaggeration. One can see how right-wingers might classify Rush’s song as “satire,” in that it uses humor to express what they see as a truth about liberals’ stupidity. The thing is, that view–the intent of the satire–is in itself racist, and is expressed in a racist way. In short, it falls under the category of using satire as a cover for expressing an otherwise offensive view.

The Limbaugh song steps over several lines for a variety of reasons. First of all, the caricature of Al Sharpton goes too far in the wrong directions, coming across as an audio version of a racist stereotype. Additionally, the song–identical to Limbaugh’s own views–attempts to trap blacks into one of two characterizations: either as radicals or fakes. It suggests that in order to be “authentically” black, you have to be a rapper, a reverse-racist, illiterate, etc.–or a combination of such qualities. And then there’s the fact that the song, through satire or otherwise, suggests that liberals are incapable of voting for a black candidate unless it is due to racial guilt. Were these to be aired by, say, Chris Rock, one would know they were satire. Coming from Rush Limbaugh, one knows they are heartfelt and assumed to be true.

Another indication that the song uses satire as cover comes from the repeated citation of the L.A. Times article that got Limbaugh going in the first place. The article suggested that Obama is or at least resembles a fictional archetype, a black character in a story who exists only to give credence to a white character. And indeed, this phenomenon exists, though more often as something the character does rather than the whole reason for the character themselves, and not just for black people, but for any racial divide. I have seen several such examples arise in Japan-Western fiction, with either a westerner giving respect to a Japanese character in a Japanese drama, or the other way around.

The problem, of course, is that Obama doesn’t fit this profile. The film archetype gave credence to the main character, not to the audience directly. The characterization is stretched by suggesting that the voters themselves are the main character being given credence by the black man. And so we come back to the idea that most, or at least a large number of white voters are attracted to Obama for this reason–to feel good about themselves, to prove they’re not racist.

When it comes to this, one might ask, how can you prove that’s not the real explanation for Obama’s popularity? How do you know that whites really aren’t enamored of Obama for exactly that reason? Well, aside from the limited scope of personal introspection, and aside from the long list of reasons to like Obama which have nothing to do with race, one is faced with being asked to prove a negative, which is usually very hard if not impossible to do. But in this case, there is a strong argument even for proving the negative. Were Obama some lackluster candidate, just a well-dressed guy with no clear reason to like him, and everyone went wild, then the assuaging-white-guilt explanation might fly. But when you have a candidate who has strong charisma, powerful oratory skills, a solid platform of pragmatic and sensible policies, an inclusive agenda, an above-board high-road style, a keen intelligence, strong strategic and tactical abilities, and so forth and so on–when a candidate has so many reasons to like him, it’s kind of hard to believe that white guilt is really the strongest thing driving his popularity. The fact is, there simply is no such feeling of assuaging white guilt that exists out there.

And, of course, the question of evidence is what kills the whole “Magic Negro” claim in the first place: there is no evidence, zero, zip, to suggest that this phenomenon does exist at all, even in the smallest way. It is simply assumed, with nothing to back it up.

Which brings us back to Limbaugh and the L.A. Times article. Limbaugh really had no evidence to back up his claims–until the L.A. Times article came out. Never mind that the L.A. Times article itself had no evidence to back it up–Rush now had a newspaper article to lean on. Which is why the article is repeatedly referred to rather than just the concept itself: it’s Rush’s thin veil of legitimacy. In a sense, the article was Rush’s very own “Magic Racism,” existing only to lend Rush himself some sort of credence to make him feel like he’s not a racist, despite clearly acting like one.

One also gets the very strong feeling that, for Limbaugh, it was more than just the idea of liberal white guilt being the sole cause for Obama’s popularity; it was the excuse to use the word “Negro” incessantly on the air. As if to say, “hey, it’s not me who used the word ‘Negro,’ it was that L.A. Times journalist who used it! Negro Negro Negro!!!”

It’s this breaking of racial taboos that tickles the hard-right’s sensibilities, the forbidden fruit of speaking their intolerance aloud in the age of political correctness and getting away with it. Which is probably why Saltsman included it on that CD, which was filled with such racist crap.

The funny thing here is that Saltsman is getting reamed for this not because he’s crossing a line, but because of Republican political infighting. Saltsman is in a heated race for the leadership of the Republican Party with Mike Duncan, the Current RNC Chairman–who is the one who is taking Saltsman to task for his insensitivity. One can rest assured that if Saltsman were not challenging anyone and just released the song on a CD for fun, neither Duncan nor anyone else in the GOP would have so much as blinked. If you think not, then reflect on the fact that neither Duncan nor the GOP so roundly criticized Limbaugh for releasing and repeatedly promoting the song and using the offending term.

Apparently, political correctness works just fine for Republicans when it serves them politically–but only then.

I remember, years ago, seeing a local KFC mobbed with people at Christmas. You could literally not get chicken without a three-hour wait, and most people had reservations. For some reason, I thought that would be December 25th, but I was off by a day–it was December 24th, and I missed the scene with the long lines and all. Still, even on December 25th, you could see that the KFC people were ready for a lot of special orders:

They had at least a few dozen advance-reservation orders ready and waiting, and obviously had a system for processing it all. Still, the regular lines were manageable, and Sachi and I were able to get a quick order of chicken to eat at the restaurant.

Just in case this makes no sense to you, in Japan, the only thing as popular as cake on Christmas is chicken. Couldn’t say why, maybe it’s the closest Japan could come to a turkey dinner, else (and more likely) it’s what the PR people told everyone was The Thing to Do and everyone simply obeyed. Since then (at least since the 80’s), KFC has been swamped at Christmas. Can’t blame them, they do a fair job–save for the fact that they don’t have popcorn chicken (which likely saves me from obesity), their chicken tends to be superior to the American counterparts, which, I suspect, serve only mutant chickens raised to midget proportions. Japanese KFC is decent.

Since I usually go back to the U.S. at Christmas, I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to catch the mob scene at KFC. Suffice it to say that Japan is kind of nuts on this kind of thing, which, of course, is par for the course on the world scene. I mean, you can be nuts about lots worse stuff than this, right?

This was no ordinary president. This was a president who was, by any measure, absolutely remarkable. Just not in a good way. This is a president who is now neglecting the worst economic crisis in generations so he can instead concentrate on using the presidential office to “secure his legacy”; while America plunges into crisis, this president is so busy trying to make people believe he did a good job that he’s not even doing his job any more.

But campaigning cannot a legacy make; this president’s actions have already defined that legacy.

This was a president who came to office by stealing an election. Who lost not only the popular vote, by a substantial margin, but who in truth lost the electoral vote: had it not been for an illicit purge of legitimate Democratic voters by an assistant of his brother, the 2000 election would have gone the other way.

This was a president who initially distinguished himself by violating significant international treaties, treaties meant to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. All so he could justify a trillion-dollar boondoggle to benefit corporate interests, a missile defense “shield” which could be easily, naturally, more anonymously, and even more cheaply circumvented by not using missiles to deliver nuclear weapons.

This was a president who, perhaps because of the terrorist angle to the missile defense argument, systematically ignored terrorist threats and allowed the most horrific and damaging terror attack in history to hit the United States. Despite repeated specific warnings about who, when, and how, this president ignored all warnings; despite the arrests of two terror suspects learning how to fly but not land commercial jets, no follow-up action was taken. And then, after the attack, this president shamelessly used the fear it generated to his own political advantage.

This was a president who drove the nation into a three-trillion-dollar war which killed more than four thousand of our troops and hundreds of thousands of civilians, a war which was not only unnecessary, but which even caused things to become worse. A war which was so badly mismanaged that it still boggles the mind. A war for control over the flow of oil. A war which claimed to fight terror but instead benefitted terrorists immensely.

This was a president who reversed our long-standing commitment to a policy of never being the first to begin a military strike.

This was a president who reversed our long-standing commitment to never torture.

This was a president who took a budget surplus, the strongest trend to fiscal solvency in generations, and turned it into the deepest deficit and debt in history, not just through massive spending on a destructive, unnecessary war, but through unchecked partisan pork-barrel spending unlike anything seen before.

This was a president who oversaw the deconstruction of countless jobs, the descent of the American wage-earner, the slow but persistent war against unions and worker’s rights, and the relentless expansion of the divide between rich and poor.

This was a president who consistently, even doggedly, acted against the American people at every turn, in favor of wealthy institutions. He gave tax breaks to the rich and tokens to the middle class and poor, tokens cancelled out by reductions in public services. He gave license to corporations to poison, pollute, pillage, and plunder so as to deprive the people of health, environment, and security. Whenever there was a conflict between citizen and corporation, this president always, without fail, sided against the citizen.

This was a president who effectively repealed the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, denying Americans the right to privacy.

This was a president who effectively violated, weakened, or obviated eight of the ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights.

This was a president who politicized the entire government, appointing people to lifetime positions based solely on their political affiliations and partisan loyalty.

This was a president who used the American soldier to legitimize his actions, but never missed an opportunity to short-change and abuse the soldiery.

This was a president who either ignored the intelligence machinery of the nation or else directed it to whitewash intelligence for political purposes, and then blamed his own failures on them.

This was a president who used fear against the American people, from false frightening threats of nuclear attacks so as to start a war to false frightening terror alerts to win an election.

This was a president who incessantly lied to the American people.

This was a president who let New Orleans drown while he ate cake and strummed a guitar, then halted life-saving emergency rescue operations so he could pose for some photo ops.

This was a president who took more time off on vacation than any president in history.

This was a president who took international goodwill and respect and turned it into contempt, anger, and suspicion.

This was a president who tried to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, and the educational system.

This was a president who left the nation in a state of utter disrepair: a crumbling infrastructure, bleeding manufacturing jobs, an economy devastated by deregulation and neglect, with a debt of literally unimaginable depth.

And this is not even a comprehensive list.

This president need not bother to waste time in his attempt to polish his legacy; his legacy is truly secure and undeniable. Since he seems uninterested in working hard to help fix the economic mess he has helped to create, he should simply be true to his legacy, and spend the remaining twenty-seven days on vacation. Goodness knows that having no president is a far better alternative than having this one.

So Sachi and I celebrated our first Christmas together. In the past, Sachi had to work past Christmas, which meant that she could not come back to the U.S. with me in time. But since we had our trip to the U.S. already this year, we’re staying in town this time.

The HDTV set and Blu-Ray/HDD set were our big Xmas presents to ourselves, but as you can see from the image below, I had a surprise for Sachi: we’ve been talking about getting the Wii Fit for quite some time, and I figured now was as good a time as any (watch them come out with the Wii HD next week).

We also redesigned the living room, and it works much better now.

Also, for Christmas Eve, we rented the Blu-Ray title Kung Fu Panda. Now, I am already impressed with regular HDTV; it’s pretty good, and very noticeable when you suddenly get regular TV signals. But Blu-Ray, especially with a computer animated feature that has great sharpness? Forget about it. It was impressive as hell. I mean, really impressive. The detail, especially the subtle textures, we astounding.

Old TVs (in the U.S. and Japan, NTSC is what it’s called) have up to 525 lines of resolution, though only 480 are used for the video portion of the broadcast (captions and other data occupy the remaining space). HDTVs have 720 and 1080 lines (depending on the signal), which as much as doubles the number of lines and (due to the widescreen) more than quadruples the information you see displayed.

But the difference is in more than just the resolution. There are types of image presentation called “interlaced” and “progressive.” Interlaced is the old technology, and is worse. With interlaced, every time the TV “scans,” or paints an image from top to bottom, only half the image gets painted–every other line–so it would like seeing a movie projected onto venetian blinds. The following scan fills in the blanks, so you need two scans to see a whole image. Even though old-style TVs scanned 60 times per second, they only showed 30 frames.

Progressive scan, on the other hand, paints the whole image with each scan, so you’re getting twice as much information, which translates to a better picture.

Old TV signals are designated 480i–480 lines of resolution with interlaced scan. Bad quality, but it served for half a century. HDTV broadcast comes in two flavors: 720p and 1080i. You can read what that means–720 lines progressive, and 1080 lines interlaced. 720p and 1080i are roughly the same quality, one doing it with more lines, the other with progressive scan.

Blu-Ray, on the other hand, gives you 1080p, which marries both the higher resolution of 1080 with the greater quality of progressive scan. And you can see it, it really makes a difference.

Most HDTV sets, by the way, can effortlessly switch between these different display settings, which is why we can see all of them. Very flexible.

Anyway, that was last night. We also had wagyu steaks, often referred to as “Kobe Beef,” but essentially was super-fatty-marbled sirloin steaks. Incredibly delicious, but more deadly than pastrami and Häagen Dazs combined.

Tonight, we had a more normal dinner, but enjoyed a very Japanese treat for dessert: Christmas Cake.

This one was special-ordered through the cake shop at the Sunshine Prince Hotel, and is a half-white, half-dark chocolate cake. I’m no big fan of Japanese cakes–they’re usually way too bland and light for my tastes–but this one was very good.

Quick note: in Japan, back in the 80’s, “Christmas Cake” was often used as a pejorative to describe unmarried women over the age of 25–the idea being that no one wants to buy a Christmas cake after the 25th of December. Interestingly, no one ever uses that expression any more. Not because the cake has fallen out of fashion, but because the social stigma on marriageability has changed.

Over the years, I can’t relate how many times I have given people technical support for computers via phone or chat, unable to see what they are seeing. One of the side effects of being into computers is that you become a resource people go to if they have trouble.

I don’t mind this kind of thing at all, honestly. But one of the problems with it that kind of gets to you sometimes is that human language usually assumes a common frame of reference. Even in ordinary circumstances, people speak from their own base of knowledge and at least in their speech automatically assume that you understand what they do. When you share a physical space, this is usually overcome by being able to see what they see, by interpreting body language or looking at the same thing they’re looking at. This is all lost when speaking over distances.

Add to that the context of tech support: the person you’re speaking to doesn’t know what they’re looking at themselves, or at least that knowledge is limited or hobbled somehow. Plus, computers use a system of visual and other metaphors which sometimes don’t work perfectly, further adding to the confusion. Imagine trying to guide a person, by telephone, through a maze in the dark, and you begin to get the idea. So to help out your poor, frazzled tech support people, remember these problems and try to account for them.

Here’s one thing you can do right off the bat: when you are experiencing your problem and a dialog box comes up telling you something is wrong, write down the message. You’d be surprised by how many people tell me that a dialog box keeps coming up and telling them there’s an error, but they can’t tell me what it said. That’s like asking for someone to help you read instructions, but you can’t tell them what the instructions are. Write this stuff down, in full. It may be tedious, but often those messages contain important information. Have that information available before you make the call.

So then you call the person you need help from. First off, start from the beginning. A lot of people don’t do this. They jump right in and say, “I can’t print! What do I do?” Well, first of all, what program are you using? What are you trying to print? What happens when you try to print? This is a key point in the “assuming the other person knows what you know” problem. Remember, this person has no idea what’s happening on your computer, so starting in the middle is not a good idea.

One good way to avoid this problem is to try starting from scratch. Before calling your tech support person, restart your computer. Then, when you call the person up, start by telling them what it is you intend to do. If the tech person doesn’t know anything about your computer, you have to tell them that information as well. (“I’m using a Sony Vaio laptop with Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2007.” If you know the Chip type, speed, and amount of RAM, include that as well–for example, a 1.8 gighertz Centrino with one gigabyte of RAM.)

State your objective and what software you intend to use to achieve it. (“I want to print a letter I’m writing using Microsoft Word.”) Then try to explain where the trouble occurs, but keep in mind that this may not get across. (“The box thingy tells me something is wrong, but I don’t understand.”) If there is any other context, let the person know. Tell it like a story. “I received an email from my friend last week pointing me to this cool web site. I visited the site, and nothing seemed wrong. But a few days later, my friend sent me an email telling me that they didn’t send the email, and I should not visit the site….” Setting up the situation is often crucial to understanding how to fix things. Don’t make it necessary to backtrack.

Once you’ve finished explaining the context, start going through the process, from start to finish, and describe what you’re doing. This is another thing that can be frustrating for the tech person: the person they’re helping is doing all kinds of stuff during the call but they don’t say what they’re doing. The tech person has to keep a mental image of your screen in their mind, so anything you do without expressly telling them will mess up that image and make things worse. State clearly everything that you do, even if it sounds too simplistic. “Okay, I am clicking on the Start menu, and going up to my PowerPoint icon. PowerPoint is opening. I’m going to that horizontal stripe near the top with all the buttons on it, and I am clicking on the tab marked ‘Insert.’ I am clicking on the button that is marked ‘Clip Art.’ A panel appears on the right….” And so on. This will make the tech person’s job MUCH easier. The only exception I can think of is if the process is tediously long before you get to the trouble point.

The impulse here is to get straight to the problem; starting from the beginning as I have described above feels like repetition and will take time to get to. But remember, what takes even more time is the confusion created by starting in the middle and leaving key details out. One way you can simplify the process is by leaving out anything that’s not relevant. If your problem is in printing, then don’t start with an empty page and tell the person how you wrote the document; instead, open the prepared document, ready to print. That kind of thing.

Next, follow the tech person’s instructions, continuing to explain what you are doing in detail. Don’t suddenly decide to go off on a tangent or push some button on your own. If you think there’s something you should do which the tech person isn’t telling you, then ask before doing it. But mostly, you should just be the hands, eyes, and ears of the tech person, letting them use you to operate your computer.

Follow the advice above and the whole process should go much more smoothly. It may seem like it’s prolonging things, but in most situation you’ll save loads of time, as well as frustration on both sides.

This was a mad, mad Autumn for Sachi and me, but particularly for me in terms of business and projects. First there were the two weddings, and if you have ever been through this before, then you know how hard just one wedding can be; two is impossible, or it would have been if my sister had not taken on the lion’s share of the burden for us for the U.S. wedding. But right after the wedding, my college had an accreditation review, which occupied me full-time and then some for the three to four weeks following the wedding. After that, I had to focus on the Arts Day Festival at my school, as I was in charge of leading the video presentation team, and had to edit the video. After that, we had course registration, which meant a lot of database entry, student counseling, schedule construction, and so forth for me. This was closely followed by a hiring process which has quite a bit of work to it, and after that came preparation for graduation, which coincided with giving and then grading final exams, after which I had to lead up the discipline meetings for students.

In short, it was only this week that I finally had some free time to myself. Part of that time I spent researching HDTV’s and deciding which one to buy. The other part, especially after the purchase was made, was dedicated to getting our wedding stuff made.

This is the kind of thing that most normal people get done soon after the wedding, but my schedule at work pretty much precluded that, especially since we wanted to do more than just send thank-you notes to everyone. First, I designed and printed out two versions of New Year’s cards (nengajo in Japanese) to send out to people in Japan who had been on the periphery of the wedding activity but had not attended; Sachi took care of note-writing and addressing. The same design we used for printing out about 50 or so photo versions which we used to add the thank-you note (written on the back), added to other photos we would send (printed with our nice new Pixus 360 mini photo printer). We also printed out some photos from the weddings, especially for those who were less able to use and print on their own from digital versions.

But the core of the preparation was a two-disc set that had taken most of the time preparing. The first is a video DVD with about a half-hour of material. Part was the two videos I prepared for the Japan wedding, one which was a video and photo montage of the U.S. wedding, prepared in the week between the two events; the other video was the photo slideshow/montage showing images of Sachi and myself from birth to the present day, a standard at Japanese weddings. It also contains a video version of the “Luis & Sachi Quiz” we had at the Tokyo reception. Added to that was video from the Japan wedding and another photo montage. Sachi and I added a brief intro video in English and Japanese. The other disc is a CD with the best images from the weddings, every one resized down to manageable resolution (some of the originals were huge). Hopefully, most people’s DVD players should be able to handle this disc also, and display the photos on TVs.

After preparing the discs, I had to burn them–a job still about 30% not done. We have 60 or so sets to make, 120 discs in all. Not an easy process. Then I have to print labels for every one of them, then write notes on all the cards we include, then pack them up with appropriate labeling and ship them off. The first set of 19 were shipped out last night, and Sachi and I spent all day, from about 9 am to 8 pm, getting this much done. The set we sent out last night was for overseas recipients, and that tab was the biggest–$45 to ship them all. Materials weren’t so bad–a DVD-R and CD-R cost about fifty cents, the labels added another few cents, and printed photos another few cents per image. So three bucks a pop isn’t killing us or anything. It’s just the work involved in the volume….

I already discovered my first flub in the project: I forgot to send one of my aunts and her son in Spain the PAL version of the DVD. They won’t be able to play the NTSC versions… so two more packages will have to be sent out! Hopefully that’ll be the worst of it.

Sachiko wanted to find a nice anagram for her new name, so we went to wordsmith.org to see what we could find. Nothing right away, but then we tried my full name. A lot of good stuff came up, like “Uh, Nasalize Porn,” “Zonal Hernia Pus,” and “Aloha, Prize Nuns!”

My personal favorite: “Anal Hero Unzips.” Priceless.

I didn’t think that LCD’s do this, but they do. I spent about six hours last night burning DVD-Rs on my iMac, and another six or seven hours this morning and afternoon. During that time, the monitor image was static, with the Disk Utility (Apple’s built-in disk repair and formatting app) window dominating the screen. I could swear that I’ve done stuff like that in the past, and never had an issue. I have come back from a day out to discover that the monitor was left on with a static image. And yet, never had burn-in–until today.

I was viewing an image afterwards, and noticed lines where there shouldn’t have been. Then I noticed more stuff, lines of text and so forth, and eventually saw that it was the image of the Disk Utility window. At first, it was hard to figure out: CRT phosphor burn-in is most visible on white, but LCD burn-in shows up not at all on white; you need some shading to see it. Figuring that inactivity would be, if not the best thing, then perhaps the least harmful, I turned the machine off for several hours.

For a while there, I was pretty upset; this is a 24-inch iMac, the screen is kind of hard to ignore. To have permanent burn-in would be a huge pain in the neck. Now, I do have Apple Care on this, but (a) I was concerned that Apple would see this as user-inflicted damage, and (2) it would mean the computer would probably be gone for quite some time whether or not it was covered under warranty. Plus, to have the screen burn an image like that with relatively little exposure was not a good sign for the future.

Fortunately, a bit of research revealed that this was not as bad as I had feared: while CRT phosphor burn-in is permanent (as evidenced by the volume indicator on the TV that’s getting replaced in a few days), LCD screen burn-in is temporary. My initial instinct of turning off the monitor was the correct one: letting the “tired” monitor rest for hours or days (depending on the extent of the damage) will allow the burn-in to dissipate. Apparently I can expect it to completely disappear in a short while. Whew.

Via Sullivan:

If they want to spread their gospel, then, one might half-seriously conclude that atheists and agnostics ought to focus on having more children, to help overcome their demographic disadvantage. Unfortunately for secularists, this may not work even as a joke. Nobody knows exactly why religion and fertility tend to go together. Conventional wisdom says that female education, urbanisation, falling infant mortality, and the switch from agriculture to industry and services all tend to cause declines in both religiosity and birth rates. In other words, secularisation and smaller families are caused by the same things. Also, many religions enjoin believers to marry early, abjure abortion and sometimes even contraception, all of which leads to larger families. But there may be a quite different factor at work as well. Having a large family might itself sometimes make people more religious, or make them less likely to lose their religion. Perhaps religion and fertility are linked in several ways at the same time.

Or it could be that religion promises those who have nothing a lot more in the afterlife. Many people believe in it for much the same reasons they do in their chances of winning the lottery. Just coincidence that poor families tend toward larger numbers of offspring. Not cause and effect.

Just saying.

Want some rather stronger relation between cause and effect? Try secularism and critical thinking. Again, just saying.

Have a conservative friend that you enjoy scaring with things that they will obviously interpret in the worst possible way based upon their prejudices and fears? Then show them this:

Especially good if they live in Arkansas, where all those dots seem to be going. The video plays erratically while loading, so play it through a second time for a smoother result, else stop it at first and set back to the start, waiting for it to finish before playing in full. Via Andrew Sullivan.

So, when do you open your presents?

As I recall, my family did it more on Christmas eve, though I recall a combination sometimes. I think the eve works out better for little kids–sure, you have an excuse for getting them to bed early on the 24th, but then they drag you out of bed at 5 am, right? Better to end the suspense early and the kids can occupy themselves playing with the toys (at least the ones they did not immediately toss aside and disregard) rather than rousing their reluctant parents.

I mention this simply because Sachi and I will be getting our presents on the 24th–that’s when the new TV will be delivered. I just got through the hard part–selecting and buying. What we’re getting: a 42“ Sharp Aquos LCD, the LC-42DS5-B (the final ”B“ designating the black color). I had been looking at Toshiba’s Regza Z- or ZH-7000 with the ability to use USB or LAN HDDs to record shows, but there were just too many problems caused by (DRM-equipped) HDMI input preventing recording. Sharp has a better reputation (not to mention it’s the only TV that had English menus), and quite frankly, I have come around to the idea that gadgety draws like the HDD option often cause more trouble than they’re worth.

For recording, I broke down and went with an alternative: the Sharp Aquos BD-HD22, a combination HDD and Blu-Ray recorder. First, it allows us to watch Blu-Ray titles, which are conveniently not region-disabled–Japan and America are in the same Blu-Ray region, conveniently. We can also rent stuff from the local video stores, which are just beginning to carry BD titles. It allows us to record on the new medium as well, a nice option, now that 50 GB discs are commonly found in Japan. But the recorder also plays and records standard DVDs as well, which is very nice. And, of course, there’s the HDD recorder, so we can record after watching, if we want. (You know, I just realized that I forgot to ask if I would be able to edit out commercials and stuff. Hmm.) Since the recorder and the TV are the same brand, they’ll work a little better together–at the very least, having better utility with the same remote.

Our content options are limited to a few: cable, satellite, or building satellite. Building satellite means that the building has an antenna on the roof which then feeds the signal to everyone; we just plug a co-ax into the wall and presto, we got satellite TV. We’re not going to do that, however: the service has no HDTV channels. Cable is the middle answer: easy because we already have it, and our cable box is even HDTV-ready. However, the HDTV channels are limited to about six or seven HDTV channels, none of them specializing in English-language TV shows. Satellite TV–specifically, SkyPerfect–is the best option, with 15 HDTV channels now and a full spread of 70 promised by next October. Currently, Movie Plus and Fox are two of those channels, with AXN, Super Drama, and a lot of others–including a newly-added SciFi Channel–coming soon. The down side: our building requires us to fill out a form and wait a week or two before they let us put up the antenna. (One reason why only 2 people in this 250-unit-plus building have such antennas up–or at least visibly, as some people may have skipped getting permission and found a way to mount the antennas from within the balcony instead of over the balcony edge.)

But I gotta tell you, getting all this information was not easy–and language was not the only factor involved in making things more difficult. For example, I only lucked into finding out that HDMI prevented recording, something that helped to torpedo the Regza. I had heard that HDMI was DRM’ed up, but I had not thought that HDMI was more or less required (or at least considered the best way) to get the signal from tuner box to TV. That’s what led me to find out about the building satellite, though that was like pulling teeth. I kept calling and calling the TV manufacturer and the SkyPerfect people, asking if there was a workaround that would make recording possible–and though the answer was right in front of them–the direct-to-TV solution (no tuner box), I had to discover that myself. Once I knew, I asked them and of course they were aware of it. They just wouldn’t mention it before then for some reason.

I tend to go through this every few years when I make a big purchase of some technology or other; I spend hours on the phone getting the runaround. I have come to the conclusion also that Japanese customer support representatives are congenitally incapable of speaking simple, easy-to-understand language. I ask them, for example, if the TV’s internal tuner can be used, and instead of a simple ”yes,“ ”no,“ or ”sometimes yes and sometimes no,“ I get a full thirty seconds of complex Japanese of which I understand squat. I then remind them that my Japanese isn’t as good as they think, and to please speak slowly and using simpler language, to which they agree, and then proceed to say the exact same words I just told them I could not understand at all. Maybe it’s this freak talent I have developed myself after teaching English to non-native speakers for the past 23 years and simply assume everybody can do it, but truly I don’t think it’s so hard. Instead of saying, ”the internal tuner accesses either of two available broadcast satellite services, bypassing the need for specialized external tuner equipment,“ just say ”yes, you can use the TV tuner.“ It’s not brain surgery–that is, it shouldn’t be brain surgery. I dunno, there must be some rule with customer service that if your language is not complex enough then you aren’t respecting the customer enough, or something like that. But it’s damned frustrating.

Anyway, the delivery is scheduled for the 24th. They wouldn’t specify a delivery time, but in Japan, they use a nice system: they call you the morning of or the night before and set a more specific time range. None of this wait-around-all-day-and-maybe-we’ll-show-up crap. For a $10 fee, the guy will set up the entire thing. I am pretty sure I could do it myself–it’s the same as the Internet and other setups you get charged for–you just plug in the LAN cable here, add the splitter there, simple as pie. But it’s cheap and what the heck, maybe there’s something I don’t know–I am completely new to HDMI and the whole HDTV thing. Better to see how it’s done first, just in case.

One of the things that we hated about Bush was his complete one-sidedness. Even in a purely symbolic way, he was unable to reach out to the other side. Even being in the same room with someone one the other side of the spectrum was not something you’d expect of him. His harsh partisanship was one of his worst points.

Now, with Obama choosing both Rick Warren and Joseph Lowery to give the invocation and the benediction at Obama’s inaugural, there is a huge uproar: liberals are livid that Obama invited Warren.

True: Warren’s views on homosexuality are galling. It is easy for one to think that Obama could have done better–and maybe he could have. But I think it is important to remember a few things, like the fact that choosing a religious figure from the other side of the social divide who hasn’t made some despicable remark about gays, Jews, women, Muslims, or whomever, would not be an easy task. You’d have to go to the B -list, or maybe even the C-list. Falwell is no longer with us, but he was the kind of person we’re talking about here. Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Rod Parsley, John Hagee… you get the idea.

Another thing to remember is that having Warren give the invocation is not anywhere near the same as agreeing with his policies. As Obama pointed out, Warren invited him to speak to his congregation despite Obama’s views; this did not signal Warren’s intent to change his views on abortion or homosexuality and more than Warren’s invitation signals a sea change for Obama. Though the Saddleback invitation is not the same as an inaugural role, it’s not like Obama’s inviting Warren to write his social policy.

This is what we knew Obama would do: reach out to the other side. It’s the kind of politics we used to see on Capitol Hill before the Republicans went rabid, where politicians from both sides were truly congenial and worked well together despite their differences. One thing to keep in mind was the strange relationship between Jerry Falwell and Larry Flynt. At Falwell’s death, Flynt said:

My mother always told me that no matter how much you dislike a person, when you meet them face to face you will find characteristics about them that you like. Jerry Falwell was a perfect example of that. I hated everything he stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends. He would visit me in California and we would debate together on college campuses. I always appreciated his sincerity even though I knew what he was selling and he knew what I was selling.

Don’t you think that says something?

Obama is trying to do this: recognize a human connection with people regardless of their views, and through that, building a bridge of understanding between them. You don’t change hearts and minds by shoving the opposition into a the corner, never showing them respect, never inviting them in.

Something that is going rather underreported is that Warren is not alone; Obama’s choice of Joseph Lowery is being almost completely ignored, as if he didn’t matter as much. Obama was expected to choose a liberal icon–just not a conservative icon as well. Wasn’t that the kind of one-sidedness we’ve been complaining about for the past eight years? Wouldn’t we have respected Bush a lot more had he done this kind of thing often? What if Jesse Jackson had been invited to give the invocation for Dubya, and not just for show? Would not that kind of behavior garnered Bush more respect, given that Jackson upsets many on the right as much as Warren upsets us on the left?

I think that what Obama did does not deserve the criticism that the left is heaping on him for it. Again, he could have chosen someone on the right with less controversy (though not without sacrificing cross-aisle cachet and credentials), but generally speaking, this is what Obama promised: to truly respect all sides as a means of winning hearts and minds, bringing them to a common ground that will have far more value, even though there will be far less visceral satisfaction than there would be if we just ran roughshod over the other side. Also remember that Obama’s skill is not in sacrificing his principles, but using this common-ground approach to being the other side over to ours.

If we want to make things like gay marriage a reality sooner rather than later, then you bring the opponents in from the cold and let them get used to sitting around the same fire.

Apple stock fell on the news that not only would Steve Jobs not be giving the January MacWorld San Francisco keynote speech, but that Apple will not participate in MacWorld after 2009. Probably the reaction was worry that Jobs’ health is the reason behind it all, and that if he goes, the company will disintegrate. Well, all history with Apple of the 1980’s and 1990’s aside, there’s little reason to believe this. Jobs is a visionary, but he’s not the only guy with ideas at Apple.

Some good points have been made that actually suggest that Apple’s new move makes more sense. First, that the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco is poorly timed–in January, people have spent their money already and will wait for a while to spend more. That makes sense–I’ve been in that situation more than once, visiting the U.S. where things are priced cheaper and returning to Japan before a nice new product is introduced. By avoiding the badly-timed MacWorld Expo, Apple can do a better job of utilizing the holiday sales season. It just makes sense.

It means that Apple will feel more free to announce product releases more freely. It means that Apple won’t fall prey to the frenzy of too-optimistic rumors that always precede these shows, raising expectations so ridiculously high that everyone is disappointed when the news is only great, and not miraculous. This is probably why there have commonly been massive stock selloffs after the Expos, and Apple probably got tired of being beaten half to death every time they showed people cool new gadgets and reported great performance.

When you think about it, doing away with the keynotes might be the best thing for Apple. Its success has always been with its products, not scheduled conventions. While the keynotes have been entertaining, they were never necessary.

It’ll be nice to have a president who values the people of the nation at least as much as he values its institutions. Over the past eight years, Bush has given far higher priority to energy companies, financial institutions, drug companies, media corporations, so forth and so on. Whenever there was a conflict of interest between the American people and these organizations, Bush always acted against the interests of the people.

In the last days of his administration, Bush is spending most of his time enacting all manner of new edicts which essentially do all the things he couldn’t even bring himself to do before, a massive free-for-all, a giveaway to the fat cats and a serious reaming for the American people. Among the slew of new scandalous decisions: allowing more farm manure runoff, more mining waste runoff, more pollution near national parks, uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, allowing concealed weapons in national parks, allowing religion to be used to deny women abortions, transporting toxic materials through populated areas, allowing truckers to drive longer hours without sleep, giving more freedom to fisheries to damage the environment, and more corporate activity that could kill off endangered species.

Fortunately, there is talk of Congress employing a loophole which could–hopefully–easily repeal all of Bush’s changes in the last two months of his presidency. If not, then this last-minute fire sale to corporate interests, this lame-duck assault on the safety and rights of the American people could prove to be a major distraction for the Obama administration.

At the very least, we won’t have a president who is actively out to harm the American people. As Keith Olbermann noted, it’s almost as if Bush decided, upon his election, to do the most damage to the country possible. Or as Aaron Sorkin put it about a fictional Republican, he’s someone who says he loves America but clearly can’t stand Americans.

It is interesting how the iPhone’s App Store psychology works. Developers are having trouble because people seem unwilling to shell out money for the apps–sometimes even when the app costs only a dollar or two. Free versions have their perils–make them too good, and people won’t pay for the full version; make them too annoying or limited, and people will be turned off. “Comet Cowboy” was a good example of balance–they made the free version fun and addictive, so you wanted to buy the paid version. (I did.) It would be nice to have Demo versions that would work for a limited time, especially for the more expensive apps. The problem is, if Apple did that, then free apps would likely dry up quite a bit.

I find myself reacting to prices unreasonably as well. Normally, I don’t even blink at dropping a few bucks here and there–taking a bus where I could walk, buying a snack or something, buying a song off of iTunes. But for some reason, I balk at paying even 99 cents for an app which I probably would enjoy a lot more than a bus ride or a quick snack. Strange how that works–context can make a big difference.

There’s a similar effect with currencies: many people find themselves unwilling to pay an amount in one currency which they would not think twice about spending if the price were expressed in a different currency.