BLOG2.RECKLESSPHILOSOPHERS.COM

Zero Calvin Now Available on Kindle!

2011-03-13T16:51:00Z

Good news everyone! My book, Zero Calvin, is now available in the Kindle Marketplace so those of you who are keen to save a tree, this is your chance. And the best part is: it's cheap - just $2.99! So now you can save some greenbacks as well.

The Kindle is a great e-reader, but even if you don't have one, there are apps for the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, PC, Mac, Blackberry, and Android-based devices.

Check it out here!

Reckless Philosophers Donate to Earthquake and Tsunami Relief

2011-03-12T15:12:00Z

When we Westerners think of Japan, vague visions of quality car building, over-worked salary men, Godzilla, crazy game shows, and strange cartoons often come to mind. But Japan and its people are much more than that. They are caring, kind, organized, and work hard to help each other out in times of need.

Dissident and I have had the pleasure of visiting Tokyo twice so far and we look forward to visiting again. We found the bulk of the people we met to be infinitely patient with us two chuckle-heads from America. On the whole, they are truly lovely people and kind of adorable too.

In fact, many Japanese idolize and romanticize America and Europe, and Japan used them as role models during its time of industrialization. However undeservedly, we are sort of role models to them.

Right now, our cute little friends in Japan are experiencing some really bad times. As most of you know, the biggest quake to ever hit Japan happened yesterday off of their North-East shore. The Earthquake caused severe damage to the North-East region, and the resulting Tsunami pummeled the entire coast. The quakes caused several nuclear power plants into emergency shutdown, and two of them have since had cooling problems as a result (one of which as of the morning of March 12th is still in danger of meltdown.)

Fortunately, Japan is a very organized and prepared nation and they are certainly no strangers to earthquakes. Tokyo survived just fine thanks to strict building codes, prepared citizens, and from luckily being a ways away from the epicenter of the quake.

Further north the situation is different. So far over 1700 are missing or dead and the number just keeps going up. Whole cities were washed away by the resulting tsunami. They are in really bad shape and I'm sure they could use a hand.

The Reckless Philosophers has donated $50 to the American Red Cross to forward to their Japanese counter-parts to supply food, water, blood, and medical supplies to the area. It would mean a lot to us, and to our Japanese friends, if you donated as well. Even the $10 minimum donation would be much appreciated. Here is the link to donate:

American Red Cross

Thanks again for your help!

My Favorite Apps- Wordfeud

2011-02-14T12:30:00Z

I love words and clever writing. I'm not however a huge fan of board games with only one notable exception. I've always been a fan of the board game scrabble.

That's not to say I'm any good at it per se but I do enjoy it. However living alone has its drawbacks in that I have no one to play with.

Until now. A good friend of mine has introduced me to Wordfeud. Wordfeud is essentially scrabble on a cell phone with remote opponents. Now I couldn't tell you if the board and values are the exactly the same since I never really paid close attention to the board and letter points but game play is the same.

Lay out words on the board using letter tiles and taking into account score modifier squares on the board.

You create a simple login and you can then play with people you know by inviting them to a game by username or you can choose a random opponent. It's only two player so far as I can tell and the relaxed online pace is nice. It include hooks into the notification system of android so you can place your word and go on with your life and receive a notification when its your turn again. Nice touch in my opinion.

Wordfeud is available as an ad supported free version or a paid version. The ad placement is a bit annoying, coming full screen after you place your tile, but is a simple price to pay for a full featured scrabble clone in my opinion.

There's even a chat option. In the game but I haven't seen that in action so I can't comment on how well it works. I've tried chatting to opponents but no one responded. I'm unsure if that's a limitation on the free version or a bug but it would be handy if I worked if only to tell people your going afk and will resume later. Overall though I'm unconcerned about that.

I give this app 2 thumbs up. I mean really, who doesn't like scrabble? If you want to play hit me there. My username is dissident75. Let's play guys!

DLNA vs Airplay.

2011-02-12T20:50:00Z

Apple has recently come out with an extension to aitunes called airplay. Airtunes was an interesting but limited system of beaming music around the house.It utilized itunes and your ipod/iphone to "beam" music to things like the apple tv, airport hotspots, and your pc. Airplay expands on this with the addition of video and photos. Sounds hot and new and wow wish I had that functionality doesn't it?

Chances are you do and don't even know it. Since I am not an apple user at all, I don't know all the deep intricasies of either airtunes or airplay but I know this. Its primarily limited your apple eosystem and currently only apple gear. How do you have this miraculous technology already? Simple.

Its called DLNA. And its been around since 2003.

If you have a networked media player or even a blueray player chances are its dlna compliant. TV's that have an ethernet port are usually DLNA compliant. Your android phone can become dlan compliant with an app or two.

DLNA is more complex and more robust than airplay. Where airplay has servers and players DLNA has renderers, controllers and servers.

"Whoa! Three parts?? That sounds complicated!"

Settle down. Its really kinda simple.

Servers store your media. A server can be as simple as your netwok attatched hard drive or a piece of server software on your pc like twonky, tversity, or playon. Servers are where your media is stored.

A controller can be your pc, or pda or cell phone. A controller controls what plays the media.

A renderer is a device like your tv, xbox 360, playstation 3, netwoked media player like a WD TV Live, or Netgear EVA2000. Renderers play the media.

See simple.

Here's the neat thing about DLNA. Each part can be multiple parts of the system. A pc can be both server and controller and renderer. Your android phone can be a server and a controller even a renderer.

Lets run through a few scenarios.

Scenario 1.

Friendly Photog.

Your friend has a smartphone and wants to show you his photos on your tv which has a wdtv live player attached. Now you might think you will have to connect the phone to your pc and move then to a usb stick and then plug it into the wdtv. Now technically you can do that but its going the really long way around.

The DLNA way. Install twonky media server on his phone. Install andromote if its an android phone. Connect to the wifi network and Run andromote. Select the local twonky server as the source and the the WDTv as the renderer. select your photos and hit play.

If you have a smartphone too you can do this silly nifty thing. Run andromote on your phone, select his phone as a server and the WDTV as the renderer. You will be streaming his photos to your phone and then to the tv.

Scenario 2.

You have network attached hard drive and want to watch them on your tv. Now in this case you can simply plug the HD directly into your WDTV and browse the files via usb.

The DLNA way #1

Your network attatched HD is also DLNA server. You can simply browse the server with the wdtv live remote and play the film. Or browse it with your DLNA TV and bammo its done.

The DLNA way #2 with style.

You can use your phone,ipod or pda as a controller. Connect to the server and set the rendered to the WDTV or DLNA TV. Now your phone acts as a really spiffy remote with a better interface.

Scenario 3.

You've downloaded a really nifty video to your laptop and want to watch it on your TV. The standard solution would be plug your laptop into your tv and play it that way. But thats cumbersome and requires you to be next to your

My Favorite Apps - SoundHound and Mp3 Music Searcher

2011-02-10T12:30:00Z

Listening to music on a cellphone used to be chore. Connect the cable, find your music and transfer each file manually. Then with the advent of sync software it became easier. Work with your library and sync at your convenience or stick your memory card into your laptop and move the files that way.

These methods were all well and good for your existing collection but you were kinda hosed when it came to getting music on the go. Amazon mp3 app to the rescue. Works great and allows you to buy tracks one at a time and download via 3g network. And the songs only cost a buck. Great!

Have you heard a song and wanted to know more about it? Back in the day you had to wait for the name to be announced on the radio. Then came Shazam. And like its namesake it hit the scene like a thunderbolt allowing you to find out the song info in a few seconds by simply holding your phone to the music source or so it could hear it. Shazam was free, unlimited and awesome, but they have since ditched that model for a premium subscription model. Still, it worked great and if you didn't tag more than five songs a week you would be fine without paying.

I have recently came across 2 apps that let me do more for free.

Soundhound is like Shazam but on steroids. The app is free and features unlimited tagging. Better yet, anecdotal evidence states it may in fact be better and faster than Shazam ever was. Win.

Mp3 Music Searcher by Eugene Lubcov is a slick little app that allows you to search the net for music and stream or download music tracks for free. No accounts to make. It just works and most music can be found. Its kinda like the glory days of napster, only in your pocket.

Now the legalities of using these apps I'll leave up to you. But all in all I give Soundhound 2 thumbs up and Mp3 Music Searcher 2 wary thumbs up.

"Really your honor, I only downloaded copies of tracks I already owned to see how well the service worked. And then I deleted them. Honest."

The Rise of Phones and the Inevitable Rise of Tablets.

2011-02-08T20:47:00Z

Phone Evolution through my experience.

Cellphones have undergone a radical evolution in my life. I had an old Motorola Microtac wedge shaped phone as my first phone. I was amazed that this thing could connect me to anyone and sat on my hip. I progressed through a few other Motorola's and even had pagers before becoming a Nokia fan.

I had a Nokia 5190 first then a 6185. These phones were notable for being small, good performing, and had interchangeable face plates and a ton of accessories. They had good reception could hold 100 numbers and even had a few games. They had a monochrome extremely low res screen and we thought that was great back then since it wasn't just text. They were the shit for a while. I still have an old Nokia as a backup to this day.

Then things started changing. Color screens, then cameras, and modern dumb phones were born. As recently as 5 years ago i was still rocking a dumb phone but it was a great one. The LG vx9800 or in Verizon parlance "The V" it was the precursor to the enV and it was great. I could surf the net, text message with the full keyboard, and even listen to my music on the thing like a mini boom box with its stereo speakers. I loved that phone immensely.

I soon switched away from Verizon for a small start up that had better rates called Helio. I was with Helio for 3 years. I first had the Helio Ocean. That was a spiffy phone with a dual sliding design with a great camera, unlimited texting and unlimited internet. It had no tethering though and it would never get it. I then made the switch to the updated Ocean 2. Everything about the ocean I loved and a slightly prettier interface and sleeker design. You could even install some apps.

The little company though ended up getting bought by Virgin and the writing was on the wall. Helio was going to go away and become a prepaid service. I quickly made a jump to T-Mobile and to the venerable Google G1. Though I had coveted the original windows smart phones they cost too much and the plan was way too expensive.

My G1 was the first android phone and it is single handedly responsible for the beginning of the juggernaut that is Android . The G1 opened my world up. the phone was no longer something to just talk and text and listen to music with. It had robust games, apps to radically change what I could accomplish with a phone. Like to geocache? There's an app for it. feel like drawing on that screen? There's an app for it. Want to watch video, there's an app for it. It was seemingly infinitely expandable and had a real web browser experience. It had the full complement of connectivity features, bluetooth, wifi, could tether, and it was great.

Then Google changed it all up with the Nexus One.

Until that phone most smart phones were stuck in the 500mhz range with low memory. Low resolution screens were the norm. The nexus had a larger screen, a 1ghz processor, 256mb of ram. It had a good camera, could take good DVD resolution video that actually looked decent. It was amazing.

It was also out of my reach by a lot.

Now my phone eclipses the Nexus specs and is closer to being a Nexus S, the new Google Android flagship phone.

Smart phones dropped in price. The processing abilities went up. the expandability of the devices with apps, expandable memory, and a touch based interface and long battery life compared to laptops they became real computing devices.

Tablets, iPads, Galaxy Tabs, etc..

Then came the tablet. I initially scoffed at them as little more than a toy. I am not so sure now. These devices have large screens, fast processors, good amounts of ram, cameras, multitasking, and good touch screens. But they run essentially phone operating systems.

But is that a bad thing? Sure they started as phone operating systems but they became really usable platforms with application expandability, support for high res screens, expandable memory, and they run on low power chips and can run for 8 hours on meager batteries.

So what started as a phone OS, has become a good low power, long run time platform. It makes sense for them to be shoehorned into tablet style devices. Sure they have no cellular connectivity and it doesn't work as a phone but they have big screens. I'm convinced that the rise of tablets is simply because the operating systems and and low power processors combined with long run time and decent software and real browsing experience have created a perfect storm for the creation and flourishing of tablets.

Now, in a sense, the modern tablet is a large screen rebirth of decades past PDA's. It just took a long way about getting here. In a sense this is their second coming since large screen tablets have existed before and I lusted after them. PC Tablets seem to have failed before because of the windows interface but really they haven't. They became niche products and exist mainly in the enterprise and never really went mainstream.

Will the new tablet devices displace the tablet pc? I don't think so. As nifty as they are, they are purpose built for consumption and not for work. A work device needs real horsepower and these up and commers simply don't have it in droves yet. Plus while the interface is great for surfing the net, watching videos, reading ebooks, etc, the input isn't great for actual work. Keyboards and mice ftw apparently. Plus there is the issue of storage space to take into account. until we can easily slap a TB of storage into it, these are going to be limited to consumption toys.

Not that that is a bad thing. The tablet style computer while great may kill the venerable netbook, but I do not see it killing the regular laptop or desktop pc. The netbook still has a place since it has greater storage, usable for work interface, runs real pc applications, and is cheaper.

So what are tablets? Overgrown PDA's? No they are simply a new class of computing device. One I think is here to stay. I'm even tempted to get one since I find the only thing lacking in my current phone is screen size and I have a nice four inch screen. The fact i wish my phone simply had a larger screen is the singular reason why these devices will flourish.

My favorite Apps. TuneIn Radio

2011-02-02T22:43:00Z

I've missed a few things from home in NJ since I've been here in Houston. I'm adapting to texas but somethings just don't compare. I haven't taken the time to bother listening to the radio here since I don't currently have a antenna attached to my receiver but I do have a few old favorites from back in good old Monmouth/Ocean county NJ. Stations like the Rat, B98.5, G106.3, 88.9 to name a few. I figured I'd lost it forever unless visiting.

I was wrong.

TuneIn Radio to the rescue. TuneIn radio accesses an online database of radio stations by location, genre, etc. These stations are streamed either by the station or by fans of the site setting up streams.TuneIn allows you to find these radio streams and tune in right on your handset. You can even save the different radio stations to presets just like on a regular radio. Browsing by location is easy, drilling down by continent, country, state, and region. You can even choose between streams of varying quality and types. Who woulda thought a 33k aac stream would sound so good?

This app, combined with my Motorola DC800, and unlimited data is pure win. I'm currently listening to my home town tunes (NJ) in Houston Texas. Thats a special type of feel good. Oh, and they sound better streamed than they ever did on a car radio. No static, bleed over, or anything. It's radio heaven.

That alone forces me to give this app 2 thumbs up.

Its interesting when you think of it. Something as old fashioned as fm radio in this age of Sirius, XM, Pandora and Last.fm can be so improved by technology. Local radio stations have a distinctive feel to them based on the locale and feels kinda homey compared to the newer "better" alternatives. For example I used to always listen to FM106.3 in High school. Then I added b98.5 and always popped onto the rat for a bit. Then I got annoyed by the commercials and switched to xm radio nearly exclusively. Then I stopped driving and my xm listening dropped off. So I switched to Last.fm. I loved the ability to listen to custom "radio stations" based on on initial seed idea. And the commercials are minimal and the service is free unlike xm. But there is something to hearing the extra stuff on the radio. Hearing the local contests, and weather for your hometown is kinda special. I never really realized how nice it was to hear all that crap that I hated so much I stopped listening to it.

Now, I can tune in to any radio source that makes me smile at a moments notice.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I love technology.

B's Easy Peasy Japanese Pronunciation Guide

2011-01-30T02:29:00Z

Foreign words can often be intimidating since we English speakers have no frame of reference when it comes to pronunciation. This guide is intended to alleviate the intimidation when it comes to Japanese words. After reading this guide, you will no longer feel self-conscience when ordering at a Japanese restaurant, pronouncing a Japanese person's name, or talking about your favorite anime.

Japanese pronunciations are actually a lot easier to deal with than English ones. Japanese sounds are far fewer and more pure than in English. English has some 8000+ sounds, in part because of all the glides from one sound to another. Japanese, on the other hand is much more strict about its language. The total number of discrete sounds in Japanese is.....110. Yep, just 110. Have you ever heard a Japanese song that had some English sprinkled in it and noticed that the Japanese part sounded nice but the English part sounded like it was from a deaf person? Well, now you know why. That's the sound of English getting reduced to 110 discrete sounds. This is both good and bad news for us. The good news is it's a tiny, tiny number of sounds to get right. The bad news is that your natural language instincts are going to want to throw in all sorts of extra sounds that just don't belong.

Before we delve into this guide, let me give you a quick overview of the Japanese writing system. Japan has two “alphabets”, which are more accurately called syllabaries since each character stands for a complete sound. This differs from the English alphabet where each letter makes up only part of a sound (try pronouncing “k” by itself) The first syllabary is called hiragana and is used for all Japanese-native words. The second one is called katakana and is used when writing loan words from other countries. Both syllabaries are character-for-character mirrors of each other, and many of the characters even look similar between the two syllabaries.

I sort of lied above when I said there was only two “alphabets” in Japanese. Japan also has Kanji, which are symbolic representations of words or ideas that the Japanese borrowed from the Chinese. Unlike hiragana and katakana, kanji do not represent discrete phonetic sounds. Most kanji have at least two pronunciations associated with them, on-yomi (the original Chinese reading, which has been forced into Japanese phonics) and kun-yomi (the Japanese reading). Kanji are the toughest part of learning Japanese for me because for every kanji you have to memorize not only the meanings but two or more pronunciations. And then it gets worse since most kanji are not strictly words by themselves, but general ideas. Many Japanese words consist of multiple kanji or, more frequently, a kanji with some hiragana tacked to the end. But let's not get too bogged down with worrying about kanji right now. Just know that even kanji-based words have a phonetic pronunciation that can be represented using hiragana. In fact, young kids in Japan start learning to read and write exclusively in hiragana and katakana. Only later do they tackle learning kanji.

The wonderful thing about Japanese is it is completely phonetic. Each character always has the same sound no matter what other characters it happens to be next to. This enables us to translate hiragana/katakana into our (Roman) alphabet quite easily. The Japanese call this romanji. Here is a hiragana chart with romanizations:

You'll notice that most of the characters consist of a consonant + vowel sound, for example KA, KI, KU, KE, KO. It's important to remember that even though they are represented in our alphabet as multiple characters, in Japanese they are single characters, each with a set sound. Remembering this will help tremendously with your Japanese pronunciations because it will allow you to split any Japanese word into easily pronounced bits.

OK, now let's get to the good stuff, the pronunciations. Let's start with the vowels:

The Vowels

A – as in father. When the doctor asks you to say “Ahh” when looking into your mouth, that's the sound we are looking for here.

I – as in machine. Yes, it's a long “e” sound like the words “speed” or “read”.

U – as in “Jupiter”. It's a double “o” kind of sound like “poo” or “you”.

E – as in “pen”. Enough said.

O – as in “hope”.

So our vowels sound something like ah, ee, oo, eh, oe. That's it, just five vowel sounds. Please drill them into your head, as they are the essence of the language. Notice there aren't different versions of each vowel like in English. “A” in Japanese is always pronounced like it is in “father” and never like “apple” or “cape”. The same is true for the other vowels.

One interesting point is a few additional “English” vowel sounds can be approximated by joining together two Japanese vowels. For instance, using the guide above, say the sound for “E” and then the sound for “I”. It should sound like eh-ee. When said fast, doesn't it sound like a long “a” as in “rain”? Ever hear of Seiko watches? We pronounce it “say-ko”, and this is pretty much bang-on. The only subtle difference is that in Japanese it is actually three syllables and not two. Now, using the guide above, say the sound for “A” followed by the sound for “I”. It should sound like ah-ee. When said fast, doesn't it sound like the long “I” sound as in “high”?

I just want to stress that this is a cheap parlor trick. No real magic happens like it does in English. When you put two vowels together in Japanese, a new sound IS NOT produced. All that is happening is that two discrete vowel sounds when said right after each other are forming a complex sound that approximates a different vowel sound. “sei” might sound like “say”, but it's actually two separate syllables “se” and ”i”. I know what you're thinking... So what they are two syllables?!?! When I say them together they sound like one so who cares?!?! Well, it turns out that the Japanese care. In Japanese, every syllable is given equal time when pronouncing a word. So we pronounce Seiko as say-ko, but the Japanese pronounce it seh-ee-ko. So in the true Japanese pronunciation it takes longer to spit out the “say” part. It may sound like splitting hairs, but it is an important distinction if you want to hone in your Japanese pronunciations.

OK, that horse has been thoroughly beaten. Let's look at the other sounds.

The KA Series

KA, KI, KU, KE, KO – “K” sound plus appropriate vowel sound.

GA, GI, GU, GE, GO – The “K” series is able to take ten-ten marks (looks like quotes) which changes the “K” to a hard “G” sound as in “garden”.

The SA Series

SA, SHI, SU, SE, SO – “S” plus vowel sound. Notice our first hiccup... there is no such sound as SI (sounds like “sea”) in Japanese. Instead we get SHI (sounds like “she”).

ZA, JI, ZU, ZE, ZO – The SA series can also take ten-ten marks which changes the S sound to a Z sound (except for our odd-ball friend SHI who changes to JI).

The TA series

TA, CHI, TSU, TE, TO - “T” sound plus vowel. A few more oddballs here. There is no TI or TU in Japanese, only CHI and TSU. You'll get used to it. To pronounce TSU (like the word tsunami) you hint at the T sound then go for the SU. Say “eat soup” fast and you'll get the gist.

DA, JI, ZU, DE, DO – The “T” series can play with the ten-ten marks too. There is no DI or DU in Japanese and we have our first WTF moment. JI and ZU, didn't we have them already? Yes, and they are pronounced the same. Occasionally, some Japanese words use the JI and ZU from the TA series instead of the SA series but it's nothing we need to worry about since they look the same in romanji and are pronounced the same too. If you're using a Japanese IME (Input Method), you can force it to make a JI from the TA series (CHI + ten-ten) by typing DI, and you can make a ZU from the TA series (TSU + ten-ten) by typing DU. If you have no idea what I just said, don't worry about it – it has nothing to do with pronunciation.

The NA Series

NA, NI, NU, NE, NO – finally we get back to normal ground. Nothing odd here, and the NA series does not take ten-ten marks.

The HA Series

HA, HI, FU, HE, HO - OK, what the FUck is going on here? There is no HU sound in Japanese BUT the F in FU a very windy sound. It's really a hybrid between an H sound and a F sound. When we say FU (foo) in English we put our bottom teeth against our upper lip and break them apart as we say it. When we say HU (who) we keep our lips and teeth apart and use a lot of lung-work to get the sound out. To say the Japanese FU, we need to put our teeth and lips together like we want to, but then back them off slightly and say HU (who). The end result, as I said, sounds like a windy FU or a HU with some lip turbulence. Guys tend to make the sound more towards the “foo” sounds, and ladies tend to make it more like the softer, windier ”who” sound. Your best bet if you have trouble is to just say FU (foo) and be done with it.

BA, BI, BU, BE, BO – The HA series gets ten-ten which turns the H sound to a B sound.

PA, PI, PU, PE, PO – The HA series can also take a maru (circle) mark which changes the H sound to a P sound. This is the only series that can take the maru mark.

The MA Series

MA, MI, MU, ME, MO – Nothing Crazy here, just an “M” sound plus a vowel.

The RA Series

RA, RI, RU, RE, RO – The “R” sound is a tricky one to explain and a little tricky to get correct even if you hear it. The “R” sound in Japanese doesn't really sound like an English “R” in that it isn't really formed in the throat. It is more sort of a trick of the tongue like creating a “D” or an “L”. In fact, the “R” sound usually comes out sounding more like a “D” or an “L” depending on where it is in the word. In the word “okaeri” (welcome home) the “RI” sounds almost like a soft “DI” sound or maybe even a light “TI” sound. The tongue only makes a quick, light touch on the roof of the mouth. Here is an example: Say the word “potter”. Now change the end of the word to “pottuh” like you have a Boston accent. This is almost identical to the Japanese word “para”. Most of the time, this is what an “R” should sound like. The only exception is when it begins a word, then it sounds a little more like an “L” sound as in the word “ringo” (apple). I can't even explain how to make that sound, sorry. Seriously, just use an “R”.

The YA Series

YA, YU, YO – This is a short series. There is no YI nor YE in Japanese.

The Miscellaneous Crap Series

WA, WO, N – WA is pronounced as expected. WO is a grammatical particle and is usually pronounced the same as O. In Japanese sentences that have been transliterated into romanji, the WO is usually but not always written simply as O. N is a normal “n” sound and gets the honor of being the only Japanese syllable without a vowel. Sometimes this character sounds more like an “m” in some words, such as the Japanese word ganbatte, which means “do your best” and “hang in there”. This word sounds like gahm-bah-teh. Strictly speaking it is the “n” sound, but you'll notice it's hard to say it that way so in speech it comes out more like an “m”. So if you see an “m” hanging out by itself with no vowel behind it, don't panic – it's just an “n” that someone thought looked nicer as a romanji “m” since it's pronounced more like one in that word. Just remember that if you are using a Japanese IME then you need to type it as an N and not an M.

Combinations

If you look at the hiragana chart, you'll notice that there are all these funky combos! Essentially, anything in the “I” column (KI, GI, SHI, JI, CHI, NI, HI, BI, PI, MI, RI) can glom itself onto anything from the YA series (YA, YU, YO) to make several new sounds. If you're interested in hiragana, notice that in the combos that the YA, YU, or YO is written half-height. Also note that these are single syllables. For instance, KYA is pronounced “kyah” not “kee-yah”. This makes sense when you see it in romanji, but looking only at the hiragana you might get fooled since it looks like two characters. That's why they made the YA, YU, and YO half-height I guess.

Double Vowels – Simply hold the vowel sound for twice as long. Sometimes in romanji this is written as a single vowel with a line over it. As stated before, every syllable in Japanese gets equal time. Holding double vowels actually makes a big difference. For instance, “shujin” means husband and “shuujin” means prisoner. Imagine asking a woman how her prisoner is doing – she might not like it, even if it might be accurate.

OU – This is one of those rare exceptions, OU is pronounced just like OO. In other words, an O held for two beats.

Double Consonants – Simply indicates a pause (equal to one beat). So the word I used before, “ganbatte”, sounds like “gahm-bah-PAUSE-teh”

When you have trouble with a word, break it into it's phonetic parts. Say them slowly one at a time in a uniform amount of time for each syllable, and then repeat them quicker and quicker until you are at full speed. This is THE KEY to pronouncing anything in Japanese. Simply pronounce the vowels the right way and give each syllable it's own time and Bob's your uncle. Also remember that you don't put an accent on any one syllable like you do in English – every syllable is pronounced with the same force and volume as it's brothers and sisters. That's all there is to it! If you think of Japanese as the language of an emotionless robot, it will help. Now, Native speakers do let some inflection/intonation come through from time to time, like raising the intonation at the end of a word to make it a question, just like we do in English, but mainly it's the language of robots.

Try this one:

Kaeru - Break it down: ka/e/ru. Say each one separately, in it's own time. Kah-eh-roo. Now say it faster and faster until it's one word. Congratulations, you can now tell your friends to go home in Japanese. Kaeru!

If you are wondering how fast to speak Japanese, well, that comes with listening experience. Watch a lot of anime if you want to get an ear for it. In my approximation, each Japanese syllable is pronounced in approximately ¾ the time of an English one. It's definitely slightly quicker. This means that double vowels are about 1 ½ the time of an English syllable. Many English loan words use double vowels because they would sound too sharp and quick without them, but the end result is often drawn out slightly longer than the English equivalent. For instance, the word for burger in Japanese is “baagaa”, which apart from sounding funny also takes longer to say. Since this is a loan word, it would be written in katakana, not hiragana by the way.

OK, let's try some more words:

Inu (dog) – i/nu pronounced ee-new

Neko (cat) – ne/ko pronounced neh-koe

Kuso (feces, shit) – ku/so pronounced koo-so

Great, let's try some harder ones:

Irasshaimase (Formal welcome often used in stores by the door greeter girls) – i/ra/(pause)/sha/i/ma/se pronounced ee-rah- -shah-ee-mah-seh. Note that the sha/i ends up sounding like “shy”. This might help with the pronunciation.

Benkyou (studies) – be/n/kyo/u pronounced ben-kyo with the “o” sound at the end lasting twice as long. Remember that ou is the same as oo, so you get the double vowel action.

The Exceptions

OK, now a few trick ones:

Desu (is) – de/su pronounced dess. Eh? Not deh-sue?

Ohayou gozaimasu (formal good morning) – o/ha/yo/u go/za/i/ma/su pronounced oe-hah-yoe goe-zah-ee-mah-ss. Where'd the -sue go again?

Suki (liking, fondness) - su/ki pronounced ss-kee. Huh? Wait, what? Shouldn't it be sue-key?

OK, now we need to sit down and have a little talk. You know how I said that all syllables of all words are always pronounced the same. Turns out I was lying. Just like in English, people get lazy. Sometimes in Japanese, vowels are whispered; In other words they are barely audible or not said at all. This frequently happens to words that end is “SU” like “desu” and “gozaimasu” and sometimes in the middle of words like “suki”. A special thing to note about the word “suki” is that there is a short pause between the the “S” sound and the “KI” sound. It's as if the “U” is still there but not really said aloud. That's why they call 'em whispered vowels I reckon.

Another wispered vowel that you will often hear (well, I guess I mean often not hear) is the "I" in "SHI". Take the ever popular Japanese phrase shikata nai (this basically means "Oh hell, this is going to suck really, really bad but I'm the only man for the job so I'm just going to have to roll up my sleeves and do what has to be done no matter how shitty it is, but often translated as "it can't be helped") for example. Since this breaks down as shi/ka/ta/na/i, one would expect it to sound like shee-kah-tah-nah-ee when in fact it is pronounced sh_ka-tah-na-ee (or if you blur the A and I at the end, sh_ka-tah-nie). Again, there is usually the tiniest of pauses where the whispered vowel should be, but not always.

So, the ten penny question is, how do you know when to whisper a vowel and when not to? And the answer is, I don't know. According to learnjapanesefree.com (I don't know anything about the site, it just came up in my Google search), "The vowels 'I' and 'U' come out as a whisper whenever they fall
between the consonant sounds ch, h, k, p, s, sh, t, and ts or whenever a
word ends in this consonant-vowel combination." If you look at the above examples, this explanation seems to fit the bill. Me personally, I just got an ear for it from listening to hours and hours of native speakers. It's also worth noting that you will sometimes hear people voicing those vowles, but it often sounds over-enunciated and snooty. The butlers and voice-over guys in all animes always voice every vowel - almost laughably so. The average Joe, however, normally whispers those vowels, even when speaking formally.

OK, while I'm messing with you, let's try a few more:

Honda (as in the car) – ho/n/da pronounced hone-dah. Yep, strictly speaking, we all say it wrong. It should be a long “O” sound.

Toukyou (Tokyo, Capital city of Japan) – to/u/kyo/u pronounced toe-kyo with each “O” sound lasting twice as long. Remember that OU = OO so these are double “O” sounds? Also remember that double vowels when written in romanji often get changed to a single vowel with a line over it? So Toukyou becomes Tookyoo becomes Tōkyō. And then out of laziness or the lack of special characters it becomes Tokyo. In terms of pronunciation, we say it wrong. We say “toe-key-yo”, but the Japanese pronunciation is “toe-kyo” with the “O” sounds drawn out. On a stupid side note, “Toukyou” literally means East Capital, which makes sense since the old capital was Kyoto, and Tokyo is East of it. Speaking of which, Kyoto is “Kyouto” in Japanese so it's kyo-toe with the first “O” sound doubled. It isn't key-yo-toe.

Whelp, you might not be supreme overlord of Japanese pronunciation now, but at least you should get the gist of it. So now when you see a company name like “Yamaichi” you won't freak out (like my boss did incidentally) and called it yama-goochi. I mean, there isn't even a “g” anywhere, right? You and I know that it is ya/ma/i/chi pronounced yah-mah-ee-chee. Simple as pie.

My favorite apps. Chrome to phone.

2011-01-23T22:08:00Z

Too often I find myself reading a site and thinking it would be great to be able to read on my phone or find myself reading something online and having to run out the door. Since a lot of my travel lately is by bus I find myself thinking as I run out the door I'll have to check that site on the bus but inevitably I don't remember by the time I'm on the bus or simply can't remember the address. Either way the potential to read that site has fallen to zero.

Chrome to phone seeks to alleviate that. Chrome to phone is a two part system that allows you to push websites directly to your phone. The first part is a browser extension you install in chrome and an app you install on your phone. The catch, you need Android 2.2 and must run the Chrome browser for it to work. There are other solutions for other browsers but they require accounts etc. You launch the app in the phone and simply select what account you want to use and and thats pretty much it. Set up the browser extension the same way and your done.

When you're on a site just hit the button on your browser and, nearly instantly, the website comes up on your phone. You can set up the app to automatically launch the site in your browser or not and then you can just launch the app and browse the history of sites pushed to your phone. Simple, slick and handy as hell. For example you can push map data from google, links, and pictures directly to your phone.

I recently did a manual update to Froyo on my Vibrant and and used this to quickly repopulate my bookmarks.

This is a great simple addition that has the power to slightly revolutionize browsing on the phone. I give it 2 reckless thumbs, big toes, and a questionable appendage up. Yup, its that handy.

Movie Mini reviews - Buried, Dead Snow, Let the Right One In, Bicentennial Man, Run Bitch Run

2011-01-04T22:59:00Z

Lately i have seen a bunch of interesting movies and though all are interesting I don't think I can bear to give them all good long reviews.Instead I'll do a bunch of mini reviews. This may be a weekly feature as long as I see interesting things. If I dont post one each week that simply shows the quality of what I've been watching.

Dead Snow.

This movie is awesome the same way Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, and Dead Alive are. Genre self referential humor, students on a camping ttrip, and Nazi Zombies. Yes, NAZI ZOMBIES. Even better, the zombies aren't motivated by hunger, they are motivated by greed. Lottsa gore, horror humor, and excellent looking smart zombies all add up for a bunch of fun that doesn't take itself too seriously. Oh yeah its a foreign film so you have to read it but its so worth it. Great flick.

Buried.

I expected not very much from this movie. I kinda expected it to be a slightly humorous monologue by the main/only actor Ryan Reynolds. I got something completely different. The movie takes place entirely in a casket. The main character wakes up there, freaks out, and finds he has a phone, lighter, and not much else. He then proceeds to to call everyone he can to get free. If it sounds boring it isn't. It's that well done. Its a movie that you imagine Hitchcock would have made right down to the ending. There's even an action scene. If you are claustrophobic, you will have difficulties. If your not, you may well be by the time its over. I was very impressed.

Let The Right One In.

Another foreign film, but this time about vampires. Well, a vampire. Well, a preteen boy and a preteen looking girl vampire. It's a pseudo romantic preteen love story about these two. It has a strange feel, and story line but it is also touching and brutal at the same time. Really hard to classify this one but I did enjoy it.

Biceentennial Man

Based on Isaac Asimovs "The Positronic Man" this one surprised me quite a lot. I'm a fan of Robin Williams and had wanted to see this when it came out but I never got to see it. It was marketed as a scifi comedy for kids and it most certainly isn't. This was perhaps the most mismarketed film I've ever seen. At its hear its a story about a robots journey with his adoptive human family over the course of 200 years to become human. There is plenty of humor, but its quirky and subtle not laugh out loud and fall over. Its not a kids movie, they simply won't get it. Its heartwarming and Williams brings the robot to life brilliantly. Though it got panned in theaters and by critics, its a great film that is under appreciated. Watch it with the family. It really is that good.

Run Bitch Run

Now this is an interesting movie. Its a homage to 70's rape revenge exploitation flicks and it takes itself seriously in that regard. Its the story of a Catholic school girl bible salesman who stumbles into something horrible, gets raped, beaten and left for dead and she takes bloody brutal revenge. It captures the essence of the exploitation flicks it pays homage to and its even treated to look like its from that period. The upside is it is a very good 70's rape revenge exploitation film. The downside, is you have to like that kind of film. I don't necessarily recommend it but it is noteworthy in what it is. I look forward to another film by the same studio "Freakshow Entertainment" Nude Nuns with Bug Guns. Just to see what its particular schtick is in the exploitation film genre.

Happy New Year, Slackers!

2010-12-31T21:59:00Z

Be sure to watch for signs of alcoholism tonight!

Dude, Where's My Car?

2010-12-27T18:24:00Z

This is what I woke up to this morning:

Merry Christmas from the Reckless Philosophers!

2010-12-25T10:32:00Z

And in case I forget..... Have a reckless new year too!

Bon Jovi Rocks out to Nissan Cup Noodles

2010-11-16T22:12:00Z

Nissan instant ramen noodles are a fabulous food placeholder as they fill you up until you can eat some "real" food" and they were my inspiration behind creating my carbon fiber chopsticks (so my nice wooden ones wouldn't get eaten away by the MSG and other toxic chemicals in the broth.) Now even Bon Jovi is singing its praises... in Japanese!

Pogoplug. Ugly but Awesome.

2010-11-11T01:02:00Z

As a geek I've spent a lot of time over the years messing with different setups trying to find a way to get all my files available over my network, and available online if need be.

This is a standard task for geeks everywhere. I started down this path because simply carrying external drives from machine to machine is, well, inefficient. It was handy when bringing files to a buddies house to share your files etc, but it was always a pain having to re-run the cables when you get home. So I went the standard route for a bunch of years. Setup a single machine to act as a file server.

I went through various iterations of file server. starting with Windows 95 then progressing to 98, 2k, and xp as my spare machines got better. I even like the process of administration of users etc in my network. Then it occurred to me that I was being needlessly complicated with the whole process and I never really had more than perhaps 2 users. I had settled on a external enclosure with NAS (or rather NDAS) capability. It worked ok but required a driver and a somewhat annoying setup on each pc. This was filled with a 400gb drive and lasted a while. But then I started running out of space.

My external hard drives started getting bigger and more numerous. 400gb, 1tb, 500gb, 160gb is my current lineup of drive sizes. I got to the point I just had them all plugged into hubs that were attatched to my eee pc running xp to share the files. This worked well but didn't allow access from outside the network and I could no longer enjoy my eee. So I found another cheap device to try and share the files that way and that was a miserable failure. B had even tried a few similar devices and those sucked rather badly. I was starting to think these kind of appliances were all a bust and I'd forever have to run a server.

I was wrong.

One morning I received an email from from Buy.com that showed the pogoplug for sale for less than $50 bucks. I remember having read some relatively favorable reviews of the unit and decided to look into it again. GReat reviews all around. Also noticed the price point for it was around a hundred bucks. So with the info behind me and the too good to pass up price, I placed my order.

The pogoplug company has created a compelling product, and questionable branding. The device itself is pleasant enough to look at but its bright pink faceplate and stand I kinda despise. They claim it can be setup in minutes and serve content not only on your network but online as well. They call it your own personal cloud.

Well after a quick unboxing, plugging in a few drives, powering it all on and a quick registration on the pogoplug site I was indeed able to access my files. The setup was probably less than five minutes.

Sharing files.

The files are available to you a number of ways. Through their website, over your network, and on your mobile device since there are pogoplug apps for both Android and IOS.

The website interface is simple and clean. It shows all your available drives and allows you to browse the files and folders and download single files or folders simply and easily. Sharing your folders, files and drives is just as easy. Just select the folder/drive/etc and select share. You then type the email addy of whomever your giving access to and thats it. You can set simple permissions like "read only" or "full permissions". They shortly receive an email with a link directly to the shared folder or they can create an account and log in when ever they want to. Dirt simple.

On the desktop side there is a small bit of software to download and install and it turns the drives connected to the pogoplug into virtual local drives. They don't appear to show as shared and mapped drives. You can access them just like any drive. The software even allows for setting up what they call "Active Copy"which is essentially a periodic backup of your files in folders local to drives on the pogoplug. While this seems interesting I don't use it since I am a bit of a control freak and wanna know where everything is and whats happening all the time. The only downside I see with the software is you access isn't as fast as a dedicated file server, but it is fast enough to stream video files and music and the copy process is longer but not necessarily painful.

THe last interface for your files is via app on a mobile phone. This is perhaps the niftiest feature of all. When you load the app it asks you to login. Once logged in it shows a listing of files types(Movies, Photos, Music), Then the connected drives, then a link to files you share and files shared with you, and finally a "saved files" link to access the files you have downloaded. The app will even allow you to stream videos and music and download any of your files. There is a caveat though with streaming though. Streaming will require a transcoding of the video file to a format your mobile can read, and transcoding takes a while. Up to 10 to 24 hours on the file size. Transcoding goes slowly on desktop computers and the pogoplug doesn't have nearly that kind of horsepower. For my uses I disable transcoding and do a simple download to my device and simply use the full sized file. The Samsung Vibrant is bad ass like that.

There's one feature that I have not as yet used extensively yet. The pogoplug is capable of streaming your videos over DLNA to network media players on your network. Though this is one of those features I had planned on using extensively I am a bit unimpressed with the tendency to lump every file in the root of the browsing directory completely eschewing my painstaking classification process. I have files broken up into categories like "TV Shows", "Movies", and "Music Videos". For example the TV shows are then broken down into series and then further broken up into seasons. Movies are broken down by genre, and the music videos are uncategorized. Every single file shows up in the root directory once the pogo plug is accessed. This is more than a little annoying for me so one of my favorite capabilities goes unused because of a mediocre interface. Though I have looked there is no immediate way to remedy this issue in settings but I am hopeful since even though the lumping of my files in one spot is irritating it does stream the video nicely with no painful transcoding involved. It will not however stream any files with DRM but if your device will play it it'll work just fine. As a matter of fact I'm watching "I hope they serve beer in hell" right now.

Now I did have issues with the install. One of my drive enclosures seemed to give the pogoplug no end of difficulties. If it wasn't plugged in the rest of the drives displayed fine. But if it was connected it would sometimes show just itself, the other drives and not it, or simply nothing at all as accessible. That was really annoying. But, simply putting that drive in a new enclosure and everything's happy. I've used the pogoplug to share video files with my muse, reckless philosopher files with B, (both of whom are in nj), and I've downloaded video files while remote to watch on my phone. I've streamed music from my vast collection directly to my phone, and even downloaded my resume and sent it out immediately from my phone to someone I was speaking with in person. The app and good 3G coverage or wifi access and my phone suddenly has nearly limitless storage.

Having access you your files from anywhere on any machine is just kinda amazing. Its so easy to use I can recommend this to everyone from 'puter noobs and apple users, to hard core geeks like myself. If that's not a glowing recommendation I don't know what is. Even though the standard pricing of $100 might be a bit high, it is worth it. The only issues I have with the device is speed of transfer and the lousy DLNA streaming interface, but the simple setup, simple sharing and essentially universal access to your files is worth the trade off.

Now I just need more storage space. I hear Tiger has 2tb drives for $99 bucks.......

1080p So Good That Movies Look Bad.

2010-11-04T21:06:00Z

I was recently walking around the local Best buy which is normally a bad thing for me to do since i find the idiocy in those places painful. In my stroll I happened near the TV section. I have a 46inch HD ready tv and it has served me faithfully for a lot of years. But it's aging and I think it may soon be time to retire the old girl. The picture that was once amazing isn't so much anymore. Its a crt rear projection unit that that gives a nice bright clear picture. But being crt it has multiple projection guns inside and one of them is tweaked from some rough handling during my moves. Since its rear projection its deep for its size. Its monstrously heavy, and after my most recent move I have discovered that during lots of motion on TV it shows a bizarre grid like pattern where the motion is heaviest.

My beloved TV is aging poorly.

So I had done some research and decided that to keep me at all happy with the size I need to get no smaller than a 46inch tv. It will be shorter but wider and I can live with that. I had planned on a 60-65 inch rear projection tv since the price difference on a projection tv versus a flat screen at that size is staggering. But having given it a good bit of thought I decided a flat screen would be better just from a logistic stand point and the size difference on the screen is negligable.

So I'm walking around best buy and come across a display. The display ad a 55inch 1080p Sony LCD screen being run with a blue ray player. The player was playing short clips and segments of movies to show off the clarity during special fx and various action sequences.

I stood there for about 10 minutes watching.

I was wholly unimpressed. Not because the tv was bad but because it was glorious. The actual tv was a $3000 dollar unit that had been marked off $900 bucks. Which in itself is absurd. It wasn't the quality of the clips because they were incredibly crisp and pretty.

Gorgeous video on a gorgeous screen, how could I be unimpressed you may ask. Its simple really. It was too good. Not in a so good its bad way. The incredible clarity and depth of the screen showed the movies for what they really were. Essentially our ability to display a movie has surpassed hollywoods ability to make them look good enough. Heres a few examples of what I mean.

Pirates of the caribean.

The clip showed the female lead running around on a pirate ship away from the undead pirates. Im sure you know the scene. In the moonlight the pirates are a cross between zombies, and beef jerky but in artificial light from a fire they look like normal. The pirates looked great, and the transitions to pirate jerky from fully fleshed looked amazingly real, like somehow they made puppets that were so advanced they could do what was shown. That in itself shows the strength of the cg. The heroine looked great like she was right there in person.

But everything else was bad. The set looked like a set. It looked like a set from a high school play. You could see the paint marks on the deck, everything was gloriously clean (on a dilapidated pirate ship, really). It looked less epic than a high school play or amusement ride. Now mind you I'd seen the movie before but then it was awesome, epic, it looked big and it looked legit. But in hd, it looked like a joke.

X-Men 3 United.

The clip shown was where Magneto and his merry band of bad asses decide to rip the Golden Gate bridge up from the moorings and take it and all the happless cars and their owners on a trip to get the mutant antidote. When Magneto lifted his arms and flung the cars to the side of the bridge to make a walking path, on the dvd it looked bad ass. His power was legit. On the amazing setup, it looked like an old man waving his arms around and cars being pulled sideways by cables. Magnetos helmet looked like the cheesey plastic armor it was. Unimpressive. The actual bridge being ripped up looked amazing and it looked legitimately like it was rising over the bay and depositing itself on the island. Juggernaut looked bad on DVD with the whole rubber muscle suit skin but in hd it was horrible. It looked one step up from from a halloween costume. You could see the stitching and the grain of the material on Magnetos outfit. The acting of the bystanders was passable on the dvd but the same acting in up close and personal HD looked like they just payed some overacting schmuck to ham it up for the camera. The asphalt was too clean.

I think the biggest flaw was how the cg and the real effects meshed. Both were hyper clean and clear, but to witness epic cg and so-perfect-its-fake-looking reality meshed it doesn't work. As with Magnetos suit I think there was just too much to see. The reality killed its sense of size, and epic feel. Instead it came across as a high school play with a big budget and awesome effects. Its was incongruous, it felt wrong. No, it felt cheesey.

Field of Dreams.

This clip was little more than an opening shot of corn from an elevated standpoint with Kevin Costner walking through it. There was dialog but the initial part was what I found distressing. The corn was incredibly clear. Costner was crisp and sharp on screen. But here's the thing. The corn looked fake. It looked like plastic. Costner who normally has a decent presence on screen looked like some short schmuck who needed a shower in a dirty shirt in a field. It not only had no movie sense of size, it looked very staged and fake. When I first saw it all those years ago it was fine. Now, it just looks bad.

Fast and furious Tokyo Drift.

The scene was, of course, a chase scene through Tokyo where the hero and the villain are racing and drifting around other moving cars with cuts to the interior and shots of the cars from various angles. In standard def it looks pretty good. In HD you see the cars for what they are. You can see the plastic on the kits shaking from the movements. The paint and parts looked like the plastic they were. The moving cars now looked like they were barely moving and the whole thing had the feel of a very pedestrian stunt show from Six Flags great adventure. I was amazed that the HD could even kill a car chase scene, on of my favorite action sequences.

King Kong

The only clip that was truly amazing was King Kong. Kong running around in the jungle fighting something (only caught the end of it and this was before I really started watching since i was interested in price). The whole thing looked amazing. Kong, the jungle, it looked and felt epic. But then every part of the scene was fake. Perhaps it looked good because there was no blending with live action.

Closing Thoughts

I think this is the prognosis. HD tv's are amazing in what they can show and they ability of blue ray can really push the limits of the screen technology. However, sadly, the movie industry seems to be unable to make films look good at such high resolution. Ok, thats not true. The cg effects are brilliant and look stunningly real. Its just the real stuff, the staged stuff, the sets and all, just seem to be second rate. I am a movie buff and I am a bit frugal. Though there are few things I would happily splurge on and a high quality screen and player are right up on that list. However I know that if i had that much money to splurge on a 3k screen and 5 bills more for a blue ray player and I watched a movie that Iloved on itand it looked like that, well, there'd be hell to pay. I'd be pissed.

The blue ray format and 1080p tvs are amazing. No if, ands, or buts about it. But the problem is the movies just don't look good on them any more. They looked so staged, and the epic size and feel has all but been killed. I think there is a limit to how good a movie should look and a limit to what we need to see. I never needed to see wat kind of material Magnetos cape was made of. I didn't need to see the actors acting lousy in HD.

Our ability to reproduce an image has gotten to the point where the movies look exactly like what they are, fake. Hollywood needs to step up there game in a big way. And maybe, just maybe I don't need a 1080p set. Or perhaps I'll get one and only stream 720p content to it, only ever utilizing the 1080p as a function for a computer monitor.

I must be fair and mention I was only a few feet from the TV and the display and perhaps by standing further back at the distance I would really watch it from it might look better. But here's the rub, if it looks better from further away because the detail starts to go away then truly, do we even need that kind of resolution anyway?

Necessity is the Mother of... Holy Crap it Works!

2010-10-24T20:46:00Z

Laziness is the mother of invention. Why spend all day making something when you can spend all day and $170 on a machine to make it for you?

From sketch to reality in one day.

As most of you probably know I make and sell carbon fiber chopsticks . My most popular style, the Shinki, have two aluminum accent bands at the back. Strictly speaking, they have one .15" aluminum band, one .15" carbon fiber band, and one .16" aluminum band (which later gets cut down after it is mounted to the stick in order for the end to be perfectly flush.

So each of those six rings has to be cut from tube stock and then sanded down to those exact dimensions while staying square and perfect. In the beginning I did the sanding by hand. I usually make ten pair at a time, which is 20 sticks, which is 60 rings! It would take me days (maybe an hour a day) to do the blasted rings. I always felt like I was in a forced labor camp. It was tedious, dirty, and nearly impossible to get the faces parallel.

So after a little thought I made this:

It's a teflon sanding puck. Simply load a ring in it and sand away until the teflon hits the sandpaper. This was a major step forward in that it kept the rings nice and parallel and insured that I didn't over sand them. The down side is that it still took a boatload of time and was still quite messy and tiring.

So, how to make a super-duper grind-o-matic machine? I originally pictured a rectangular plate the size of a piece of sandpaper with nubs on it, and another plate on top with sandpaper stuck to it. When I started to ponder how to power it with a motor, I came up with using my lathe, so the whole thing ended up round and turned on its side.

Here is a quick rundown of the build. All parts were purchased from McMaster-Carr for about $100.

Mark out and drill holes for the ring holders (P.S. I had to buy a cheapo $70 drill press to do this):

Countersink the holes for the screw heads:

Take 1/2" threaded aluminum rod and chop off the threads on one side:

Drill a big-ass hole in the center of the other aluminum disc (never, ever clamp a piece down like this, kids!):

Tap the hole:

Thread one into the other:

Add thread locker and tighten. Mount in lathe, cut off excess thread, and drill 1/4" hole down the middle:

Attach the 1/4" stainless posts to each side of the first disc using threaded rod and two stainless female standoffs:

Mount the 20 tiny standoffs (ring holders), make and add teflon spacer, and affix self-adhesive sanding disc:

That's it, we are done! Business side:

Back side:

In the lathe:

In the lathe with spacers mounted on the inner circle:

But, the million dollar question is.... Will it blend? I mean, will it grind?

Hell yes!

This was one of those rare times when something went from plan to actuality without any hiccups and it just f@#$%ing worked! I made this yesterday and today I whipped out over 100 rings in maybe an hour and a half. I would normally have drug this task out over several weeks and been miserable every day I worked on it. This tool makes it almost fun and much, much faster.

Now if I could just modify a pencil sharpener to make the pointy side of the chopsticks...

The Real Cost of Things

2010-10-21T22:27:56Z

More and more I'm amazed that people don't truly understand what things cost. Its amazing really if it weren't so sad. I'll give you a few examples. Television, cell phones, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet.

Television isn't free even if you don't pay to watch it.

Lets put it this way. You can not pay cable and hook up an antenna and watch tv for free. You pay nothing right? Wrong. You pay by watching the advertising. Perhaps on some level we know we're paying and thats part of why we hate it so much. For my own reasons, they take up too much time (during regular broadcast) shortening the show and more often than not the sound levels are radically higher than the program. If you watch your television on hulu its the same thing. Better even since the commercials are so short and your not limited to the air date to watch it.

Hulu goes a step further and offers even more content with Hulu Plus for a nominal $9 dollar fee, rumored to be dropping to $5. Hulu plus will even allow you to do things like stream to other platforms like your Android Phone, iphone, Tivo box, Roku box, etc. Something that is a big no no with regular hulu. But, they still have commercials. Why do we have a pay service that has commercials too? Because the commercials pay for the show. Duh. The fee you are getting charged by Hulu for their Plus service is I'm sure split between the additional licensing costs for the extra content and even the additional bandwidth that content takes.

But people still complain.

I don't think they realize that the very content they love is paid for by the commercials they hate. The two must go together. Sure you could download a torrent of the show with no commercials but if enough people do that then the creators of the show you love don't get paid. The network doesn't sell the commercial time and the show gets cancelled. Then the same people who pirate the show complain that the network sucks and cancels the programming they want. When in reality they had a much bigger hand in getting the show cancelled.

The bottom line is suck it up and watch the damn commercials if you want the show to stay around. Or purchase the episodes at 1-2 bucks apiece. Either way the creators get paid and the show can go on. If you wanna be a dick, pirate the show but don't come crying to your favorite message board that the show got cancelled when you had a hand in its demise.

Cellphones cost more than the price you pay.

The consumer market in the US has gotten very used to "free" phone deals and only having to pay $200 for a smart phone. I'm increasingly of the opinion that no one realizes the phones cost more than that. You simply need to look at the off contract pricing of the phone to get a truer sense of cost.

For example I am increasingly noticing people bitching and complaining that certain phones aren't worth the $200 they paid for it. And then people complain about the really high early termination fee for the service. Let me be the one to explain to you that just because you pay $200 up front for the phone, you do not own it. You do not own it until your contract is up.

"But why? The price is $200 and I paid it so its mine!"

No its not. That $200 device costs over $500. Where do you think the other $300 comes from? It is paid by you, every month of the 2 year contract. Generally speaking about $20-25 bucks of your bill every month goes toward the cost of the phone. The bill won't reflect that. The bill will be your inflated airtime fees, inflated texting fees, inflated internet fees, and taxes and what ever additional services you pay for. All the services on your phone cost you more than it really costs because the providers want the money for the phone. Early termination fees ensure you pay them for the phone in your posession if end your contract early. With contract termination fees being nearly $350 on some providers they get what you owe them for your phone, and nail you to the wall because you broke the contract. Remember I said the $200 phone cost over $500? $200 phone cost + $350 termination fee = $550. Phone cost covered. Or look at this, 24 month contract length x 20 bucks = $480. Again Phone cost covered. This is how they can afford the "Buy one, Get one free deals" that carriers often have. Trust me the math works out in their favor every time.

Surprise. Thats called subsidizing.

Carriers can get you again with pre-paid phones. They charge you less to get the phone but then turn around and way overcharge you for airtime minutes. Again, the increased per minute fee ensures that they'll get paid for the device thats in your grubby mitts now. Also since prepaid phones have no contract, and thus no credit check, they increase your per minute cost to cover their risk. They've been in the racket for a while and they know what they're doing.

As far as I know there's only one provider that is upfront about this and thats T-Mobile. Their prepaid plans cost less than the contract rates (which is backward in other three big four providers) but you have to pay full price for the phones. No haggling. Take it or leave it. Personally I am a big fan of this transparency, which is why I happily spent $500 plus tax for my phone.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab really is a better deal than the iPad.

Recently its come to light that the best competitor to the ipad, the Samsung Galaxy S Tab, is going to retail for $600. The shit hit the fans hard when that news came out. Somehow these knuckle heads thought it should be cheaper than the ipad's starting price of $500 because it has a smaller screen. These idiots are wrong.

The base model of the ipad is $500 but it isn't the competition for the $600 Galaxy Tab. The competition for the tab is the $630 ipad 3g. The $500 ipad is a wi-fi only device. The Tab isn't. The Tab is a 3G device. Right there you see the better cost. But I'll go a step further and explain that the people who are complaining about the $600 feel it should be at most $299-$399. I wonder how they came up with that price. The Tab is based on the Galaxy S line of phones from Samsung. Those phones retail unsubsidized for $500. For the extra hundred bucks you get a huge(by comparison) battery, a much bigger screen, and the tablet form factor. How else is the Tab A better deal than the ipad? Let me list them below.

More pocket friendly size.

Twice the RAM at 512 (ipad has 256)

Expandable memory. (ipad storage is fixed with level changing by a hundred dollars per size change)

2 Cameras. Front Facing web cam and Higher megapixel camera for shooting HD video on still photography (ipad has none)

Higher pixel density at 1024x600 on a 7" screen versus 1024x768 on a 10"inch screen. That means sharper display and lower likely hood of noticing pixels.

Yet these idiots want it to cost $200-300 dollars less. I guess these people failed in rudimentary math class.

Illuminated Elegance a new venture in the Reckless Family

2010-10-09T19:42:00Z

In my recent article "Adventures in Paper" I chronicled my first foray into making paper lanterns. I have had such positive responses from them that I have decided to expand and start selling them. A hobby becomes a business.

Illuminatedelegance.com is the new home of these lanterns. They are handmade, serialized, and signed works of art. Each piece is one of a kind and made when ordered. Each design is limited to only 250 pieces and then the design is retired. As new designs are perfected they will become live on the site as purchasable items. More complex designs may get a smaller run.

Each lantern will come with a 3 LED battery powered lighting source, for cool operation and safety. I may add wooden bases as an add on accessory later.

Each lantern is cut from a single sheet of paper, meticulously cut and folded by hand. Right now they come in 2 sizes, 3.5 x 3.5 x 11 and 2.5 x 2.5 x 8.5. Each comes with a certificate of authenticity thats numbered and signed by the artist. Each lantern is serialized also and signed by the artist. Lantern pricing is $25 dollars with a flat $6 shipping fee per lantern and each will come to you by USPS Priority mail. Since each lantern is made when ordered please allow a few days for them to be made before the shipping occurs.

Sex and Perversion – From Japanese to English to Japanese and Back Again

2010-09-30T00:05:00Z

Foreign words are great. Sometimes we use them to soften or obscure the meaning of a traditionally vulgar or taboo word or subject. Other times they are used to add a certain flare to a subject, or to form a slightly different connotation than that of its literal interpretation. It seems that both the Japanese and the Americans, or at least a small otaku (nerd / anime and manga super-enthusiast) subculture thereof, have been doing this with each others' words and in some cases the words get passed back and forth.

I recently ran into the word ecchi (pronounced like eh-chee with a slight pause in between) a few times on English-speaking sites, which I found really amusing because I know it's a word that's been tossed back and forth across the world a few times. Here is the gist of its lineage to the best of my knowledge:

It starts with the word hentai (pronounced like hen-tie) which is composed of two kanji characters, “hen” meaning change, strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric, etc. and “tai” meaning state or appearance. They come together to form the word hentai which means either (transformation / metamorphosis) or (abnormality / pervert). In the many Japanese movies, shows, and cartoons that I’ve seen, this word is always used the same way we would use pervert. It usually applies to someone that is overtly sexual or somewhat sexually deviant. In anime (Japanese cartoons and animated shows), there is inevitably a scene where a girl enters a boys room for the first time and accidentally discovers his porno collection. She will then flip out and call him a hentai. It is not a nice word to call someone, of course, but it is a lot nicer than chikan (pronounce like chee-kahn) which might also be translated as pervert but has more of the connotation of being a molester. If you have an odd porn collection or you like to sniff panties you would be called a hentai. If you are trying to “accidentally” grope girls on a crowded subway car you have crossed the line into chikan land.

Now we go back to The States where hentai takes on the meaning of x-rated. English speakers usually use it to refer to either pornographic Japanese manga (comics / graphic novels) or pornographic Japanese anime. As this genre progressed, hentai was shortened down to the prefix “H”, giving us H-manga, H-anime, and H-games (pornographic video games).

Somehow this “H” prefix made its way back to Japan where it was transliterated as ecchi, which is as close to “H” as their phonetic system can get. Here its meaning has softened to mean sexy, erotic, naughty, or simply to have sex or “mess around”. It is a playful word and I'm assuming it is used most often by children who would be embarrassed to use stronger language.

Now once again we come back to The States where ecchi gets used as a softer version of hentai and is applied once again to Japanese manga, anime, and video games to mean soft-core or slightly sexual. In other words, tits and ass only.

I wonder if this will ever end? I wonder if we will start to see the terms E-anime and E-games being thrown around? And if so, just how will the Japanese use “E”? Now that I think about it, I suspect that it will end at ecchi. I don't see “E” becoming popular because people are pervs and will always favor “H”. Even if “E” became a thing here, it would be transliterated in Japanese as “ii” which already means “good”.

I hope you've enjoyed this little cultural exchange lesson. I'll keep my eye out for any other bizarro cross-nation repetitive language mutations.

Cheers,

H-B