Back to normal

We had a nice New Year's mid-day meal yesterday at home, cooked by Kasumi. Mio joined us.

Will post pics later... sorry I know I'm sounding like a broken record.

In the evening, the three of us went to Hie Jinja for hatsumode. We dropped by my office because I needed to pick up something. We then went to a Turkish restaurant right near my office called Anatolia. I love that place.

Noda-san party

Went to Noda-san and Tango-san's place last night for a shin-nen-kai.

Brought the obligatory wine and cheese.

Some interesting guests, including the woman who did the translation for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Sho-gatsu

Spent the shogatsu (New Years Day) celebration eating and imbibing at Kasumi's uncle and aunt's place in Shin-Yokohama.

Will post pics later.

A Happy New Year

A big countdown party at the home of my German friend, Roy (no relation, hehehe).

I took two bottles of Robert Mondavi, a Zinfandel and a Chardonnay (I think it was!). We bought them at the Bic Camera on Meiji dori for a freaking incredible 950 yen! I don't think it is that cheap in North America.

Will link to some pics after getting them up on Flickr.

Bicycling

I'm going to start keeping a more detailed account of my non-work activities from now... for my own record-keeping if nothing else. It may not always be interesting to others - you've been warned!

Today Kasumi and I went bicycling up to Nakamurabashi station, the next major station on the Seibu Ikebukuro Line. Not very far but it was a bit cold. We stopped in a little cafe, called Chez Gon, and had coffee and cake. I had a chocolate roll cake, she had an apple pie. The desserts were good, the coffee so-so.

VBA

I've started doing some VBA work, using Microsoft Access.

So far so good, except that I'm pretty unimpressed with some aspects of it, especially object-orientation.

I found that you can't pass a class instance as a parameter to a method of a different class. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I'll follow-up on this later. In the meantime it is pretty sucky. :(

Serial terminal on Linux

Here's another guy who's trying to overcome serial port issues on Linux, and provides some good information.

BI-BA-BO: ttyS0 - terminal on serial connection

Bluetooth helps Facebook friends

This looks interesting... there could be lots of potential here for taste-determination.

Bluetooth helps Facebook friends

A team of UK researchers is combining the power of social network Facebook with communications tool Bluetooth to learn more about human interactions.

Bath University scientists have created a tool which can use the unique ID of Bluetooth devices, like a mobile phone, to build new friendship networks.

Users register with the Facebook tool, called Cityware, that tracks encounters in the real world via Bluetooth.

It is part of a wider project backed by Nokia, HP Labs and Vodafone.

Dr Vassilis Kostakos, research associate at the University of Bath, said: "Networks are everywhere - social and digital.

"The really nice thing about Bluetooth is that when you are walking down the street, although you are not talking to anyone, your Bluetooth device can be talking to other devices.

"People with Bluetooth devices are actually creating an ad hoc communications infrastructure where information can flow through the city over time."

He said the project's motivation was in helping people find out more information about "familiar strangers".

'Publicly online'

He said: "Most people you bump into or see regularly have made information about themselves available publicly online.

"But the internet is such a big place that it's difficult to find contextual information about who someone is, where they are etc."

The tool lets users find out if any of the people they bump into regularly is a Cityware user and has a profile of Facebook. If so, they can then choose to add that person to their friends' list.

The tool works in four parts: Facebook account, Cityware application, Bluetooth device and Cityware node.

Users must have a Facebook account, install the Cityware application and register the Bluetooth ID of their mobile phone or laptop with the software.

The researchers have set up a series of nodes around the UK and at locations in the US.

These nodes are computers which constantly scan for Bluetooth-enabled devices in a given area, and send that information back to servers which compare the IDs of the gadgets with any enabled Facebook profiles.

Dr Kostakos said: "The node sits in the environment and records everyone's unique Bluetooth ID. Cityware itself doesn't know your name, or who you are."

Nodes have been set up in Bath, University College London, the University of California in San Diego, with more nodes going online in Sweden, Hong Kong and Sydney.

He added: "When you return to Facebook you will see a list of all the devices you were near and the link to profiles of people who have tagged themselves on Cityware."

The Facebook tool is part of a wider project looking at issues around pervasive computing - connected devices in the environment.

"We are interested in understanding how cities work, how people move around. More recently we have been looking at how viruses spread in cities - biological and digital viruses."

Reinforcing theories

He said analysis of encounters was reinforcing theories that viruses are spread through encounters that "last a long time and are frequent".

"It is also demonstrating that encounters that are short and infrequent help spread innovation and new ideas," he said.

The ambition for the Facebook tool is to have mobile phones alert each other when in the proximity of another Facebook user who shares common interests or common friends.

Dr Kostakos said: "This won't happen in the near future because it is very difficult to write an application that runs on a lot of phones. But it is possible."

The team is also working on an application for virtual world Second Life.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6949473.stm

Published: 2007/08/16 14:37:06 GMT

© BBC MMVII

DRM-free music?

Universal sells songs without DRM

Vivendi's Universal Music has said it is to test the digital sale of songs from artists without the customary copy-protection technology.

It will allow the sale of thousands of albums and tracks available in MP3-form without the protection, known as digital rights management (DRM).

Most major recording studios insist music sellers use DRM technology to curb online piracy.

Universal artists include 50 Cent, the Black Eyed Peas, and Amy Winehouse.

Universal said: "The experiment will run from August to January and analyze such factors as consumer demand, price sensitivity and piracy in regards to the availability of open MP3s."

Retailers including Google, Wal-Mart, and Amazon.com, will participate in the DRM-free trial, Universal said.

But participants do not include Apple iTunes online music store, the third largest music retailer in the US - although iTunes already offers a selection of music from EMI free of copy protection, albeit for a higher price.

I'm really curious to see how this is going to work out... is piracy going to run rampant? It is not clear to me why it won't.

Sending Japanese Mail from Perl

Watch this space...

Long time no see

For the past couple of years I have been posting a lot on various discussion forums, mostly of a politics / debate nature.

I have gotten pretty sick of it, and it is not contributing to my life or career in any way because it is all anonymous. I want to start posting here again more, since this blog is under my real name and viewed by people who know me in real life.

Hell, I even have a photo up, you lucky son-of-a-gun.

Information overload

What with my variety of projects going on at the moment, I find I am having to study some bizarrely disparate topics all at the same time.

Here is what I have on my reading list at the moment:

Web development

• Movable Type
• Web services / REST
• AJAX

Robotics

• MATLAB / Simulink / Real-Time Workshop
• Gentoo Linux (very bare-bones OS)
• Linux kernel / drivers
• Real-time OS concepts
• Serial port communications (yep... are we suddenly back in 1990 or what?)

... and not to mention, a heapload of proprietary technologies of my client(s).

I tell ya, I'm gonna deserve another degree for all this.

Google Mail Adwords

I was very highly impressed by Google Mail a moment ago.

A relative sent me a mail informing me of a FedEx package he delivered to my parents' house in Ottawa. In the mail he included the following line:

The FedEx tracking number is xxx and its details can be found on the net (http://www.fedex.com/Tracking)

Of course the real number was in place of the xxx. There was more to the mail, besides this line, both before and after it. It was all of a personal nature and didn't talk about the FedEx delivery.

However, Google's Adwords seemed to have parsed the text of the mail so well that it detected the tracking number and the fact that it was a FedEx tracking number. It then provided me with an unobtrusive ad message and link saying "Would you like to track FedEx package xxx". I clicked on the link and it took me to the relevant tracking page on the FedEx site, with all the tracking details.

I thought it was pretty amazing. At the same time, I'm not sure I am crazy about my mails being parsed and analyzed to that extent.