May 20, 2005
The Japanese NPO Debacle
This is an article I wanted to post up shortly after my blog went down. I found it again, and still feel it's important to mention.
Having worked for and with non profit groups in the states, it's pretty disheartening to hear how the Japanese government has blocked attempts by aid groups in Japan.
The government will be the first to point out how much it helps developing countries through aid and donations, the the frightening fact is that they pretty much ignore the needs of Japanese citizens who are in similar need. Homelessness in Japan is pretty much looked on as a voluntary condition. Well, with the economy shaping up the way it is now, this is a condition that's going to start getting a lot more popular.
In this Zeit Gist article, Melanie Burton writes about the plight of the Japanese NPO. There are some ridiculous statistics here. Here's a couple of scary numbers.
of over 16,000 non profit organization in Japan, only 23 have tax exempt statusonly 20 percent of NPOs have paid staff
While Japan spends billions each year feeding the poor in other countries (or more accurately bribing third world countries for consideration), food and shelter for the hungry is not only not provided, but aid from third parties is discouraged.
Social welfare programs in Tokyo are practically medieval, and with the newspapers filling more stories of robbery, murder, and violence, the "safe" Japan is a myth from another time.
I know I lock my door at night.
The Zeit Gist: Hurting Japan's hungry
Government greed, inaction hinders NPO efforts to help needy
Posted by Kakyou at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)
Kakaku goes down!
InformationWeek.com: Hacker Shuts Down Japanese Site For Over A Week
Looks like an unknown hacker has cracked one of the biggest Japanese websites and planted viruses that would install keyloggers on unsuspecting computers. Even worse, it will take all weekend for Kakaku to clean up the mess it's servers are so infected.
Posted by Kakyou at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2005
Dr. Lenz, Wacky nutjob of Freakin Genius?
Dr. Karl-Friedrich Lenz, a professor at Aoyama Gakuin University has started a bit of a campaign against Google focusing on the privacy issues associated with Google's new Beta Web Accelerator.
Personally I don't agree with him. I certainly understand why he doesn't like it, but from a practical level I feel that privacy and the internet are almost exclusive ideas. I still do not see the internet as some free, untainted country where enlightened folk can freely share ideas and stick it to the man. It's left over surplus from the cold war that has slowly evolved sending chain letters to your buddies across the country to a multi-billion dollar SPAM/anti-SPAM industry.
People will continue to sacrifice more and more privacy in the name of convenience. Homer (the yellow one, not the dude in a toga) says gimme my porn faster and I'll rummage through my neighbors garbage and tell you what I find.
I think Lenz does a much better job of defending his point of view here.
I agree with a lot here, but in the end I just don't buy it.
However,
In the process of his cause, Dr. Lenz has made a few modifications to his Blog.
The first was to ban Google bots.
His next step was just pretty darn neeto.
He modified his .htaccess file to reroute all traffic coming from a google reference to redirect to Yahoo.
RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$ RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://www.google.co.jp [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://www.google.com [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://www.google.de RewriteRule /* http://www.yahoo.com [R,L]
Here's the whole explination.
Lenz Blog: Rewriting requests from Google
So in a nutshell, if anyone sees a link in Google to his site, whenever they clock on it the go to Yahoo instead! That is freaking elegant!
He's already taken the script offline. But man, that's just neeto. I wonder if something like this could be used against comment spam.
Posted by Kakyou at 07:44 PM | Comments (1)
May 17, 2005
Sony screws Gizmodo. Film at 11.
So it appears there is a bit of chaos going on over at E3 right now.
It's still to early to say why this happened, but it looks like the door goons outside the presentation for Sony's next gen PS3 gaming console blocked the Gizmodo reporter from the event.
Smart move.
Sure it's hard to put Gizmodo in the same league as say The Wall Street Journal, but then again, how many college kids look to the WSJ for info on their next video crack fix? But then again, Gizmodo is only a Blog right?
Gizmodo: E3: Sony Gave Me Cancer
Funny thing is, that this is the most interesting story I have read about the PS3, or the Xbox 360, or the Nintendo Revolution. To be honest I am bored with the whole thing.
Electronics companies better get worried. As a certified gadget addict, launch day PSP owner, self proclaimed Sony whore, I find the news surrounding the next generation of gaming... boring.
Man, if they can't get me interested in their new toys something is definitely wrong.
Posted by Kakyou at 01:50 PM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2005
"Remember it's not the Machine. It's the pilot behind that machine that determines the victor"
Say you own a heavy farm equipment manufacturing company and
1) You have too much time
2) and money
3) you are a big anime fan
4) and a total freak
What would you do?
I know what I'd do. Something like this.
Yes. This is an actual functioning walking robot vehicle. It walks and turns with a decent radius as you can see from the video clips on the company's homepage.
Just to show that this is not just another scientific research platform however, the creator went ahead and added two nerf-ball shooting arm cannons complete with targeting system.
What a freak!
so how do you order one of these things anyway?
Posted by Kakyou at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)
May 14, 2005
Another one bites the dust
Curse you MPAA!!!
Btefnet is down. No idea when it will be back up again. Rumors are flying left and right about lawsuits, hackers, or unpaid registration fees, but the result is my favorite television station is off the air. This hurst as much as Supernova going dark and I have yet to find a good replacement.
And this would take place right as season finales are going on.
Grrrrrr
Here's some discussion on the crash.
digg.com: btefnet is down
Posted by Kakyou at 07:50 PM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2005
Tight systems: A Star is Born, then explodes in a million tiny bits
Tight Systems was supposed to make the Taz 1, the dreamed of Video iPod device that was going to be like, way cool.
Well, that didn't happen. Nearly three years after CG mock-up pictures of the Taz hit the web, lack of investors has left the dream of Tight Systems and the future of the Taz 1 a relic of the past.
From time to time over the last couple of years Tight has popped up to try to raise some cash and find backing (waaaaay to late for that if you ask me). They have even done reselling for iPods and the DvxPod Video player.
I got a kinda random mailing from the CEO today. Looks like he has hit some really bad times and is pleading for help from any mailing list he can find.
In a nutshell, Macromedia is suing Tight Systems for the licensing fee for using Macromedia code in the UI for the Taz 1. Sure this never actually took place, but indeed Tight did sign a contract when they actually hoped to sell the device.
It's all pretty tragic. It reminds me of the chaos days in Boston at the collapse of the bubble when all those MIT graduates were getting their BMW's repossessed. A sad story, and a warning to to the overly optimistic.
Posted by Kakyou at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2005
Drool, is this the Powerbook mini?
Yes, this is the on again off again rumors that refuses to die.
So rumors of an Apple slate have been around since the mid 90's. Is it the Newton 2, the Tablet Mac, or the Powerbook mini? From an patent filing, it looks like Apple might be getting ready to take the plunge into another slate style keyboardless device.
It sure looks like a like smooth tablet (pearl white I would assume), complete with a touchscreen that is finger friendly unlike Windows TabletPC OS.
Here's the story from the Mac Observer
I just picked up a mini loaded with Tiger so I can play around with it. I have to say that it's a very sweet little package. My animosity toward The Great White has certainly waned in recent months. Now if Apple would only bring something like this to market I might just...
Posted by Kakyou at 06:35 PM | Comments (0)
Napster to Go, Pretty cool.
I finally managed to get Napster to Go to work last night. Was a lot more complicated to set things up as I am outside of the US and this is currently a US only service. A friendly proxy server and my US credit card later and I was up and running.
After trying it out I am again convinced that this is the way media companies should be looking. The system is set up so that by paying a monthly fee ($15) I can download select tracks and albums to my computer, a compatible portable player (in my case a Samsung YP-999), and listen to them at my leisure. In order to continue listening to these tracks, I will of course have to keep ponying up the fee every month.
But to show you how it went, I started off by downloading about 10 albums. Over a hundred songs. None of them were my favorite artists, or albums I already own. Instead these were all groups and albums that I kinda like, or were somewhat interested in. I doubt I would have bought them, but now I get to listen to them on the train or wherever.
This morning I was listening to Gwen Stefani's new album. I was pretty impressed with the selection. Sure, not every album is available for Napster to go users, but there was definitely plenty of interesting things as I searched. I actually liked the songs, so now I am considering buying the album (not from Napster, I still like hard plastic).
Sure the service is not for everyone. It's pretty pricey too, but if you like listening to a lot of different music, this is the ultimate in on-demand high quality radio-sans annoying dj chatter.
Now if only iTunes would add this to their line I'd be in heaven!
Posted by Kakyou at 12:58 PM | Comments (1)
May 08, 2005
Return
So it's now been about five months since this blog went off the air.
A hosting provder knocked it out and various work and personal problems seemed to keep getting in the way of bringing things back up. I hope that most of that is cleared up, but that sounds a bit naive.
I'm running a default template and style sheet. I hope to get things somewhat shaped up in the weeks to come. At least the barebones are back in place so I can start posting again.
Due to poor planning the posts and comments of the past are pretty much gone. As painful as it is, I think I'll just let them go. I have no real plan to change the way I blog, but We'll be starting fresh from today. Sorry for anyone who has commented on my entries in the past. I gave valued your thoughts and input.
Once more into the breach...
Posted by Kakyou at 11:03 PM | Comments (1)